Was Joseph Smith a "religious genius"?

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In his highly interesting book The American Religion (1993), Harold Bloom (himself perhaps the most famous US literary critic of the past several decades) famously described Joseph Smith (1805-1844; 'the Mormon Prophet') as an authentic religious genius.

But, although this comment showed that Bloom had understood the magnitude of Smith's achievement, this was something of a back-handed compliment!

Because Bloom did not, of course, believe that Joseph Smith was an authentically-inspired prophet - and therefore (given the scope of JS's achievement) Bloom was stating what must therefore be the case: that Joseph Smith was a genius in having himself created a remarkable new religion.

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(In passing, it is worth noting that Bloom, a Jew, clearly found the earlier and more Hebraic, Old Testament, millennial, Zion-building style of theocratic Mormonism more remarkable - and, one senses, more congenial - than what Mormonism became after polygamy was abolished and Deseret/ Utah joined the United States and was fully subjected to Federal government and laws.)

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So what was Joseph Smith's achievement such that Bloom (something of an expert on geniuses) called him an authentic genius?

1. Writing The Book of Mormon in a few months (plus associated scriptures and revelations).

2. Creating an entirely new Christian theology (what he termed the 'restored' Gospel).

3. Founding an extremely successful church - its distinctive priesthood, offices, rituals, and organization.

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In fact Smith's achievement was made even more extraordinary by his further innovation -

4. An explicit acknowledgement of his own fallibility and limitations; such that the church incorporated the expectation of continuous revelation and revision of the scriptures, theology and church organization.

This meant, in effect, that JS trusted his created forms actually to improve on what he had done.

And such was a pretty unusual, perhaps unique, trait among the founders of major religions.

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So, if Joseph Smith is not regarded as an inspired Prophet, then he must indeed have been a genius; someone combining scripture-writing abilities approximately equal to an author of one of the minor books of the Old Testament, with something close to the theological creativity and comprehensiveness of St Paul, and the church-organizing abilities of St Peter...

On the other hand, a close examination of the life and character of Joseph Smith does not seem to reveal the personality or abilities of that kind of genius...

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Most people who are not themselves Mormons do not recognize the scope and magnitude of Joseph Smith achievement, simply because they do not know enough about the subject.

For them there is 'nothing to explain'; and (like most of JS's contemporaries - and Mormonism was born and grew under the intense skeptical, mocking and aggressive scrutiny from the mass media and existing churches) Smith can be written off as merely a 'lucky' fool (lucky, that is, apart from being tortured, imprisoned and murdered) and/ or a cunning fraud (perhaps covertly motivated by seeking a harem).

But, if one is knowledgeable and honest enough to admit the astonishing achievement of Mormonism, then the more that can be said against Joseph Smith, the less likely it is that he really was 'a genius'; and therefore the more likely it is that he was just what he said he was: an inspired, but fallible, prophet.

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The evidential basis of the Book of Mormon, Mormonism and Mainstream Christianity

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In a nutshell, I regard the matter of the evidential nature of the Book of Mormon (BoM) as a microcosm of the nature of Mormonism, which is itself a microcosm of Christianity.

That is to say there is evidence on both sides - evidence that the Book of Mormon is true - in the sense of being what it says it is; and other evidence that it is not true.

So that there are grounds for belief and also grounds to reject belief - and ultimately there is a choice to be made.

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As Terryl Givens has said, the whole way that the production, the existence, of the Book of Mormon explains itself, and the way the BoM was explained-by Joseph Smith - with such concrete exactness and wealth of specific detail (the size, weight, location of the gold plates, the instruments of translation, the convoluted history of the visitations and manuscript etc.) presents a stark dichotomy: either such an elaborate and concrete story is basically true (with some inevitable human errors and distortions), or it is an elaborate and deliberate fraud (a fiction grossly elaborated from a mere handful of unremarkable facts).

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And - because the BoM is the root and basis of the LDS church, the same argument applies to Mormonism - it is either essentially what it says it is, or else an elaborate and deliberate fraud.

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The evidence is not all on one side, there is a significant balance of evidence; not equal balance - whatever that would mean - but the mass of unbelievers cannot accurately or honestly say there is nothing (or nothing significant) to be said in favour of the reality of the BoM and Mormonism itself; nor can Mormons accurately or honestly state that the evidence for the book and the faith is overwhelming and could only be rejected irrationally or maliciously.

Even those who conclude that the BoM is a fraud cannot legitimately claim it is an obvious fraud; even those who claim the BoM is the most important book in the world cannot legitimately claim that its production and nature are transparently and compellingly consistent with that status.

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Furthermore, I feel that - at this point in history and in The West - the situation for Christianity is closely analogous to Mormonism.

CS Lewis put this crisply (although I would qualify his statement a little) when he said that Jesus Christ can only be regarded as either what he said he was; or else a deliberate fraud or insane.

My qualification is that the idea of Christ being insane is not much more plausible than that Joseph Smith was insane: considered as men (because those who deny the divinity of Christ regard him as a man) both functioned at far too high a level to be truly insane.

Those who regard Jesus as insane are required to believe that Christianity was fabricated by the Apostles - who would have had to be men of genius (and John and Paul certainly were); those who regard Joseph Smith as insane would be required to believe something similar - that Joseph Smith was surrounded by geniuses who did the real work of writing the BoM, devising a radically new theology, devising and organizing a new kind of church and so on - attributing the heavy lifting to the likes of Sidney Rigdon, Brigham Young and perhaps Parley Pratt and with Joseph Smith as a charismatic, inspired but unwitting and crazed 'front' for these covert operations.

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So, in both instances it comes down to elaborate and deliberate fraud versus truth.

And neither mainstream Christians nor Mormons should be offended by hypothetical fraudulent explanations of their churches - since fraud is the only intellectually rigorous explanation for not believing.

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Now, of course, there is no reason why a Christian who has faith in the self-claimed divinity of Christ and is certain that Jesus was not a fraud; there is no reason why such a person is in any way compelled by consistency (or the similarity of the cases) to believe that 'therefore' the self-claim of Joseph Smith that he was a prophet was genuine.

It is logically possible that Jesus was genuine and Joseph Smith was a fraud. (Which is, of course, the mainstream Christian view.) And the opposite (i.e. JS genuine and JC a fraud) is not possible - because the fraudulence of Christ would invalidate all of Joseph Smith's visionary and prophetic claims.

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BUT the evidential position for Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith is similar to the modern mind, using evidence we have today and with that evidence regarded as we regard it today: which is to say there is reasonable and plausible evidence on both sides of the question, and that the ultimate decision of truth or fraud must be a choice and a matter of faith, intuition, inspiration, personal conviction.

The evidence does not decide the question for us - we must necessarily choose and we must know that we are doing the choosing; and yet we will (like it or like it not) believe and live by our choice; because upon our choice hinges the basic frame and understanding of our future life - our basic motivation and sense of purpose.

(Or, alternatively, our state of essential nihilism - characterized by underlying alienation, incomprehension and demotivation.) 

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I think Mormons are considerably more aware of this reality of modern existence as both consciously chosen and yet believed with certainty than are Mainstream Christians - and that this is one of the strengths of Mormonism.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson and Joseph Smith compared

Separated at birth? Perhaps not; but a certain nasal similarity evident...

*Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882 - Born in Boston and lived in Concord Massachusetts.

*Joseph Smith Jr. 1805-1844 - Born in Vermont, raised in upstate New York.

It is an interesting fact that author Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith were almost exactly the same age, and lived in the same region of Greater New England. Despite this, in most senses the two men were about as different as could be, and inhabited extremely different worlds.

Emerson was upper class, highly educated and widely read, literate and an extraordinarily powerful preacher/ lecturer; while JS was none of these.

RWE's world was intensely cultivated and inhabited by famous intellectuals and artists; JS's world was raw, violent, in near turmoil - I was particularly struck by the continual, daily - almost hourly - possibility and actuality of unrestrained 'vigilante' mob violence.

For instance, shortly after he founded the Mormon Church, JS was severely beaten, tarred and feathered by a mob; and his castration was planned, he was stripped and tied to a board but at the last moment the doctor brought along for the purpose could not bring himself to do it. Emerson only encountered any such things in the pre-Civil War heights of anti-abolitionism.

Even in economic terms there was a stark contrast - Emerson's world was one of considerable security (by world historical standards) and for his early decades there was near zero poverty in Concord (Emerson was astonished by the poverty and depravity he saw in the much richer and more powerful cities of England); while Smith was himself poor, often hungry and lacking basic necessities; surrounded by poverty - families were continually uprooting and seeking subsistence, 'borrowing, begging etc.

So much for the differences. Yet the similarities in terms of magnitude of international spiritual/ religious influence are striking. One was that both Emerson and Smith had more-famous disciples: Henry David Thoreau and Brigham Young - who both provided a form of influence that was clearer and simpler, and therefore more easily transmitted than the master's original doctrines.

Emerson came from a Ministerial Calvinist (Puritan) background which moves through Unitarianism into Deist transcendentalism, and then a non-supernaturalist spiritualism focused on subjective sensations.

Thus Emerson, and his 'disciple' Thoreau, are spiritual and indeed lineal fathers of that vast modern phenomenon of Liberal New Age spirituality which dominate modern 'religious' seeking and expression

Emerson's spiritual influence was extremely large in scale, but diffuse in effect and tailing-off into mere entertainment and distraction.

Joseph Smith has been hardly less successful in terms of influence, leaving the only Western form of Christianity that has retained its devoutness, grown rapidly in size by winning converts and above replacement fertility, and has thriven among the educated and successful.

However the nature of influence was very different in each instance.

Smith's influence was numerically much less than Emerson's; but was spiritually much more concentrated and powerful - objectively transforming the lives of his followers. 

The US has been, since the early 1800s, the creative centre for new movements in Western religion - and Emerson and Joseph Smith were perhaps the most important of enduring influences. The very difference between their legacies is remarkable: Emerson having been assimilated into the mainstream mass media expressions of 'mind, body and spirit', self-help and esteem boosting; while JS's remains focused, hard-edged, tough and private.

So, what would each think of the other, and who would me most pleased with how things had turned-out?

I think Joseph Smith would have been broadly satisfied with his legacy church, at least until recently when family size has dwindled towards replacement levels and conversions among Westerners have plateaued. But Emerson would have been utterly appalled at how transcendentalism had turned-out.

Transcendentalism turned-out exactly the way that Emerson's most vehement critics at Harvard and among the Calvinists and stricter Unitarians said that it would turn-out - except even worse: a chaos of irrationalist emotional subjectivity which justifies anything, or nothing.

Emerson's legacy includes not just the shallow, selfish and self-indulgent spiritual seekers of today, but Nietzsche and his various spawn.

I suspect that if Emerson could have foreseen how things would have turned-out; he would have recognized and repented his error, and returned to some orthodox form of Christianity (perhaps Roman Catholicism).

Or else, maybe RWE would have become a Romantic Christian. This was a brief phase he passed  through in early life, but maybe he would have stayed to work-on Christianity with the same genius that he applied to leaving Christianity. And maybe too, if Joseph Smith had not been prematurely killed, he might strengthened the radically different theology and the Romantic personal-experiential or 'mystical' aspects of his church.

Anyway; whatever is needful that Emerson and Smith did not do, we each may do for our-selves - if we give the matter our best attention.

Adapted and updated from a 2013 post.  

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Joseph Smith - the Greater New England origins of successful modern Western spirituality and religion

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Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882 - Born in Boston and lived in Concord Massachusetts.

Joseph Smith 1805-1844 - Born in Vermont, raised in upstate New York.

I haven't blogged much about him, but I am - or was - something of an expert on Ralph Waldo Emerson and his circle, especially Thoreau - having read... some hundreds of books? on the subject.

By contrast, I have only recently read about Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism); and it took me quite a while before I suddenly realized that they were almost exactly the same age and lived in the same region of Greater New England.

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Despite this, in most senses the two men were about as different as could be, and inhabited extremely different worlds.

Emerson was upper class, highly educated and widely read, literate and an extraordinarily powerful preacher/ lecturer; while JS was none of these.

Emerson's world was intensely cultivated and inhabited by famous intellectuals and artists; JS's world was raw, violent, in near turmoil - I was particularly struck by the continual, daily - almost hourly - possibility and actuality of unrestrained 'vigilante' mob violence.

(e.g. Shortly after he founded the Mormon Church, JS was severely beaten, tarred and feathered by a mob; and his castration was planned, he was stripped and tied to a board but at the last moment the doctor brought along for the purpose could not bring himself to do it. Emerson only encountered any such things in the pre-Civil War heights of anti-abolitionism.)

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Even in economic terms there was a stark contrast - Emerson's world was one of considerable security (by world historical standards) and for his early decades there was near zero poverty in Concord (Emerson was astonished by the poverty and depravity he saw in the much richer and more powerful cities of England); while Smith was himself poor, often hungry and lacking basic necessities; surrounded by poverty - families were continually uprooting and seeking subsistence, 'borrowing, begging etc.

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So much for the differences. Yet the similarities in terms of magnitude of international spiritual/ religious influence are striking.

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Emerson came from a Ministerial Calvinist (Puritan) background which moves through Unitarianism into Deist transcendentalism, and then a non-supernaturalist spiritualism focused on subjective sensations.

Thus Emerson, and his 'disciple' Thoreau, are spiritual and indeed lineal fathers of that vast modern phenomenon of Liberal New Age spirituality which dominate modern 'religious' seeking and expression

Emerson's spiritual influence was extremely large in scale, but diffuse in effect and tailing-off into mere entertainment and distraction.

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Joseph Smith has been hardly less successful in terms of influence, leaving the only Western form of Christianity that has retained its devoutness, grown rapidly in size by winning converts and above replacement fertility, and has thriven among the educated and successful.

However the nature of influence was very different in each instance.

Smith's influence was numerically much less than Emerson's; but was spiritually much more concentrated and powerful - objectively transforming the lives of his followers. 

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(As a side point, both Emerson and Smith had famous disciples: Henry David Thoreau and Brigham Young - who both provided a form of influence that was clearer and simpler and therefore more easily transmitted than the master's original doctrines.)

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The US has been, since the early 1800s, the creative centre for new movements in Western religion - and Emerson and Joseph Smith were perhaps the most important of enduring influences. The very difference between their legacies is remarkable: Emerson having been assimilated into the mainstream mass media expressions of 'mind, body and spirit', self-help and esteem boosting; while JS's remains focused, hard-edged, tough and private.

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So, what would each think of the other, and who would me most pleased with how things had turned-out?

I think Joseph Smith would have been satisfied, probably delighted, with his legacy church; while Emerson would have been utterly appalled at how transcendentalism had turned-out.

Transcendentalism turned-out exactly the way that Emerson's most vehement critics at Harvard and among the Calvinists and stricter Unitarians said that it would turn-out - except even worse: a chaos of irrationalist emotional subjectivity which justifies anything, or nothing.

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Emerson's legacy includes not just the shallow, selfish and self-indulgent spiritual seekers of today, but Nietzsche and his various spawn.

I suspect that if Emerson could have forseen how things would have turned-out; he would have recognized and repented his error, and returned to some orthodox form of Christianity (perhaps Roman Catholicism).

And what a difference that might have made - to have America's first and most influential literary-philosophical genius on the side of tradition instead of progressivism...

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On re-reading Ralph Waldo Emerson - two comments, and some remarks on Joseph Smith

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From the middle 1990s for a decade, I was reading and re-reading Emerson with tremendous avidity - not only in a literary way, but as a guide for life.

Having not looked at him for several years, and not since I became a Christian, I have returned to re-read some favorite bits and pieces in the past couple of weeks - and was struck by two things.

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1. Emerson is a really good writer; I mean really good. The quality of his prose is unique and unsurpassed (that is, other writers are equally good, but in different ways) - I find it elating, intoxicating, almost too powerful to bear for any length of time.

2. Emerson's anti-Christian agenda is now blazingly clear and obvious to me, from almost everything he ever wrote and said; as is his staggering egotism/ pride, and these are linked. Emerson's work is a vast and unbounded, extended assertion of himself, his potential and his adequacy against anyone or any thing (including God) that tries to constrain or direct it.

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(Emerson was raised as a Unitarian and became a prominent Unitarian minister - and Unitarianism is already anti-Christian in its profoundest implications - although the first generation of Unitarians refused to acknowledge this, and generational inertia meant that the fundamental anti-Christanity of Unitarianism took a while to emerge. So, Emerson was never a Christian, although perhaps he supposed he was - but nonetheless he found the rebel sect of Unitarianism to be already stultifying, empty and spiritually dead: which was a just criticism since it amounted to merely a system of secular ethics and an ungrounded and unjustifiably exclusive usage of Christian scriptures and form loosely associated with an impersonal theistic God. Naturally this rapidly slid into exactly the kind of eclectic 'spirituality' - that we now term New Age - which Emerson pioneered with such glorious eloquence.) 

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I conclude that Emerson is, exactly has his contemporaries saw him, a terribly perilous writer! - precisely because he is such a great writer, and has so many stunning insights - yet ultimately these are put to the service of a doctrine of such extreme, such total self-centredness that I struggle to comprehend it.

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Perhaps Emerson's greatest and most valuable (and most often repeated) insight is that each person must appropriate the world for himself and in his own terms; a living religion (that is to say any true religion) simply cannot be just a following of rules and rituals.

To put it as Emerson did in an early work, to be properly alive, each individual must experience (again and again, day by day, indeed hour by hour) their own personal revelation - they must experience direct and divine communications of reality.

For Emerson this imperative was pretty-much the entire aim of life - so that the ideal life became in one sense that moment of revelation timelessly filling all; in another sense (because, experience seemed to show that these moments did come to an end) an incessant search for the next moment of revelation - life as a sequence of such moments.

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But Emerson's error, which led him into paradox and the evil advocacy - if not practice - of Pride as a principle of life - as indeed the only principle of life; was to reject the past, to reject the unity of humanity, to perceive himself (his soul) as the only thing that was really real - to argue for a subjectivism so extreme as to amount almost to solipsism. 

In his burning desire to shed the constraints of history and society, which seemed to be shackling his imagination, and focus all meaning on his own individual moments of revelation (the total affirmation of Me! Here! Now!); Emerson destroyed the basis of humanity, of sharing, shape and purpose - and consequently his influence (among those who actually read what he wrote and try to live by it) has been substantially pernicious.

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What was needed and what was necessary was to accept Emerson's assertion of the absolute necessity of personal revelation, albeit perilous, as an addition (or restoration) to Christianity.

This absolute and inflexible demand for modern, personal revelation, I perceive as the point of unity between Emerson and the other great long-term spiritual influence born in the United States at almost exactly the same time: Joseph Smith, the Mormon 'living prophet' of modern, latter day revelation.

Joseph Smith could have endorsed Emerson's cry by which he opened his first great published work Nature -

Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories and criticism, The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we through their eyes. Why should we not also enjoy an original relation to the universe?

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The religious difference between Emerson and Smith is essentially that Emerson took this demand to behold God face to face, and enjoy an original relation to the universe as his sole aim and principle, while Smith added it (and its products, such as the Book of Mormon and his other collected revelations) to existing Christianity.

Smith thus achieved what Emerson, in his scandalous 1838 address to Harvard Divinity School, had declared was impossible:

I confess, all attempts to project and establish a Cultus with new rites and forms, seem to me vain. Faith makes us, and not we it, and faith makes its own forms. All attempts to contrive a system are as cold as the new worship introduced by the French to the goddess of Reason, — to-day, pasteboard and fillagree, and ending to-morrow in madness and murder.  

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Even as Emerson wrote his speech, Joseph Smith had already built a new city (the first of three) as headquarters for the saints in Kirtland, Ohio; and the years since the above words were spoken, Smith's 'Cultus' - with its 'new rites and forms' added-to, modifying, re-interpreting existing modes of Christianity - was (contrary to Emerson's characterization of it as 'vain') indeed 'established'; and has continued to grow into a major world religion - and has been neither a dead religion of pasteboard and fillagree (rather, a tremendously motivating religion which sustains great devoutness and other-worldliness), nor has it ended in madness and murder.

But, on the other hand, a stripped-down New Age version of Emerson's spirituality of individualism and subjectivism has merged with mainstream secular Leftism, and grown and grown to become the dominant mode of thought in the West almost entirely discarding Emerson in the process.

(And quite naturally so, since Emerson was not necessary to the development of New Age spirituality - rather he was a prophet, herald or advance guard of it.).

But what a fascinating divergence from such close roots and similar demands are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Joseph Smith - both emerging in the North Eastern corner of the USA in the 1830s!

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The Book of Mormon as literature: unexamined implications of its authorship

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Excerpted from Joseph Smith: Rough stone rolling, by Richard Lyman Bushman (Gouverneur Morris Professor of History Emeritus, Columbia University) - 2005: pages 84-88

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The Book of Mormon is a thousand-year history of the rise and fall of a religious civilization in the Western Hemisphere beginning about 600 BC... A briefer history of a second civilization, beginning at the time of the Tower of Babel and extending till a few hundred years before Christ, is summarized in thirty-five pages near the end...

Contemporaries thought of the book as a "bible," and that may be the best one-word description...

The table of contents has a biblical feel. It lists fifteen books with titles like "The Book of Jacob," "The Book of Mosiah," "The Book of Helaman," and so on through Nephi, Enos, Jarom, Alma, Mormon, Ether, and Moroni, just as the Bible names its divisions after Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and Micah. But unlike the Bible, these books are not divided into histories and prophetic books. History and prophecy are interwoven, sermons and visions mingling with narrative.

The Book of Mormon tells the story of a family founding a civilization. The main story opens in Jerusalem on the eve of the Babylonian captivity. 4 Lehi, one of many prophets foretelling the city's doom, is told to flee the city with his wife and children and one other family. Drawn by the lure of a promised land, they are led into the wilderness of the Arabian peninsula. Like Abraham leaving Ur and Moses departing Egypt, Lehi is told God has a place for them. Lehi's band wanders in the wilderness for eight years (not forty like the children of Israel), until somewhere along the seacoast (seemingly the Arabian Sea) they are told to construct a ship. After a protracted voyage, they reach their promised land. The name America is never used, but readers universally thought Lehi's company had arrived in the Western Hemisphere...

The book explains itself as largely the work of Mormon, a military figure who leads the Nephites, from about 327 to 385 CE, in the twilight of their existence as a nation. Mormon is one of more than a score of powerful personalities to emerge in history. Precociously eminent, he is appointed at fifteen to lead the Nephite armies. (He gives no reason for his elevation except that "notwithstanding I being young was large in stature.") In the same year, "being somewhat of a sober mind," he is "visited of the Lord," making him both prophet and general. From then until the Lamanites cut him down, still fighting in his seventies, Mormon and his people are swept this way and that by the tides of battle...

Mormon undertakes to compile a history... One gets a picture of Mormon surrounded by piles of [inscribed historical] plates, extracting a narrative from the collection, and not completely aware of all there is. At various points while hurrying through the records, he interjects a comment about how much he is leaving out, as if overwhelmed by his abundant sources. Mormon makes no effort to hide his part in constructing the book. The entire Book of Mormon is an elaborate framed tale of Mormon telling about a succession of prophets telling about their encounters with God. Read in the twenty-first century, the book seems almost postmodern in its self-conscious attention to the production of the text.

Mormon introduces a large number of characters and places into his saga. Nearly 350 names are listed in the pronunciation guide at the back of modern editions -- Paanchi, Pachus, Pacumeni, Pagag, Pahoran, Palestina, Pathros. Quite out of nowhere, Mormon describes a system of weights and measures in senines, seons, shums, and limnahs, following a numerical system based on eight rather than the conventional ten. He moves the armies, the prophets, and the people about on a landscape, taking time to sketch in the geography of the Nephite nation. Naturally, Mormon the general gives special attention to armaments, military tactics, and battles. Architecture, animals, and trade are dealt with. Although the book is above all a religious history of prophesying, preaching, faithfulness, and apostasy, Mormon evokes an entire world...

A writer in 1841 commented that "it is difficult to imagine a more difficult literary task than to write what may be termed a continuation of the Scriptures." Yet Joseph Smith dictated the bulk of the Book of Mormon from early April to late June 1829. When forays for food, travel from Harmony to Fayette, and applications to printers are deducted, the amount of time available for translating most of the book's 584 pages was less than three months.

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I have been interested in Mormonism for about six years, since before I converted to Christianity and rejoined my baptismal Church (of England). I have (co-) completed three small research projects on Mormon fertility http://mormonfertility.blogspot.co.uk/ with another ongoing and further planned.

Naturally, just about the first thing I did when I got interested in Mormonism was to try and read The Book of Mormon. It was not at all what I expected, and left me completely bewildered.

Since I knew that missionaries gave out this book to prospective converts, I expected that it would set out the Mormon religion, but it does not. It was mostly (so far as I could tell) what purported to be historical annals - and it was hard to see what this had to do with Mormonism as I understood it.

I put the book aside and looked instead at Doctrine and Covenants - which was much more the kind of thing I expected: a setting-out of the religion in terms of a series of revelations.

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But I have returned to the Book of Mormon from time to time, and now feel a bit clearer about it; or rather, I am now clear that it is qualitatively unlike any other book.

In terms of its literary quality, it is good. Not, of course, in the same league as the Authorized Version of The Bible - but then what is? Nothing approaches anywhere near the AV in terms of non-fiction English prose - but The Book of Mormon is vastly superior to most modern translations of the Bible.

Of course, it is hard to read, and I have not read it all - but then again the Old Testament is hard to read and I have not read it all.

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But The Book of Mormon is a remarkable book, qua book.

What it most resembles in my experience is JRR/ Christopher Tolkien's 1977 The Silmarillion. The BoM presents an extremely intricate and self-consistent world across a large historical timescale presented as Annalistic history in an uncompromizing and unmediated fashion.

Another superficially plausible comparison would be Ossian (1760 onwards) compiled by James Macpherson (probably) from numerous oral sources of song and stories in the Scottish Highlands. This became a foundational text of romanticism and nationalism - with an influence stretching across Europe and the Atlantic, and lasting a couple of generations.

So, considered as a work of subcreative invention, as the depiction of 'a world' - and from an agnostic perspective as to its provenance - The Book of Mormon is of world historical stature - or, at least, it should be thus considered.

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Adding to this fascination is the circumstances of its production - given in great detail by Bushman. It seems clear that The Book of Mormon was produced by Joseph Smith, dictated by him, in a single and seemingly unrevised draft, in the space of just a few months and with no apparent sources.

Joseph Smith dictated the bulk of the Book of Mormon from early April to late June 1829... the amount of time available for translating most of the book's 584 pages was less than three months.

When it is taken into account that Joseph Smith was no Tolkien, nor even a Macpherson - being uneducated and uncultured, having a rather chaotic personality, and with no access to educated and cultured people, or to literary and scholarly resources - this was, to say the least of it, an absolutely amazing, unprecedented, and unrepeated feat.

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The usual ways of dismissing the significance of The Book of Mormon do not remotely hold water; or, at least, if the kind of explanations used to explain-away the Book of Mormon were accepted in mainstream literary history, then nothing would be left standing!

I personally am quite happy to accept that - in some way and at some level - Joseph Smith was genuinely divinely inspired (an inspiration not necessarily complete, and not necessarily without error) - and that of course explains the whole thing.

(I believe that the idea of the Book of Mormon as having been demonically-inspired, is decisively refuted by the subsequent history of the CJCLDS Church.)

But for those who do not acknowledge the reality of divine inspiration as a possibility; the 'case' of The Book of Mormon is, or ought to be, a matter of extreme interest - rather as if The Silmarillion had been serially dictated, off the top of his head, by a semi-literate rustic gardener such as Sam Gamgee.

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The Nature of God - Joseph Smith versus Charles Williams

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It seems (according to the King Follet discourse) that at the end of his short life Joseph Smith may have felt that the single most important element of his teaching - of the radical re-making of the what Christianity had become - was to restore the simple, concrete, literal, common sense and obvious understanding of God the Father - as He is revealed in the Bible.

Such things that God is a person, has a body (in whose image our own bodies are modelled), and more importantly has emotions - that God and Man are of the same basic kind or nature; and that despite that God and Man differ vastly (one might, using the word causally, say we differ 'infinitely') the difference between us is quantitative, and not a distinction of two utterly different orders of being.

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It is like blinkers being removed!

Suddenly, the Bible's great promise that we are children of God, that He is our Father, that we are offered the chance - by the work of Jesus Christ - to become Christ's co-heirs (hence divine)... suddenly all this makes common-sense!

Suddenly we can speak the Lord's Prayer with comprehension and conviction; instead of...

Well, instead of beginning the very basics of Christian instruction or explanation by erecting a philosophical filter between us and the plain words - so that almost everything is re-interpreted to mean something other-than the obvious sense.

*

As an example, take the opening of Charles Williams's 1938 book He came down from Heaven in which he sets-about explicating the first phrase of the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father which art in Heaven". 

One might have supposed that the prayer which Jesus taught us would be reasonably lucid; but immediately the philosophical abstractions are inserted between the words and our understanding (or perhaps I should say our 'understanding' - because to insist that abstract philosophical terms are the real  truth is effectively to block understanding permanently and ineradicably).

Williams opens the commentary on the Lord's Prayer as follows; his words are in italics, my comments are in square brackets:

Its opening words undoubtedly imply a place in which "Our Father" exists, [instantly the basic address to God as our Father is problematized by surrounding the phrase with scare quotes] a spatial locality inhabited by God.  

Against this continual suggestion so easily insinuated into minds already too much disposed to it, ['continual suggestion' implies that people are being misled, and 'insinuated' implies that this misleading is deliberately covert, and 'minds already disposed' implies that such minds are either tainted with evil or stupid in drawing such a conclusion.]

the great theological definitions of God [by contrast, to the wickedness, foolishness and dishonesty of simple understanding, the theological definitions are called 'great']

which forbid men to attribute to him any nature inhabiting place are less frequently found and less effectively imagined. They have to be remembered. [Here Williams starkly asserts that men are 'forbidden' to believe that God has a material body occupying a locality - it is therefore said to be compulsory for us to regard God as immaterial and unlocalized - despite the candid acknowledgment that these beliefs in the abstract properties of God are both unusual and in practice unimaginable - yet this unsuual and imaginable thing is what we 'have to' do!]

*

I could go on but it would be tedious and repetitive. Suffice to say that Williams is stating here something that over the centuries has been usual for intellectuals engaged in presenting Christianity in summary: which is to state Christianity through the lens of negative theology (the theology of denials, the listings of what God is not: such that He lacks body, parts or passions in the words of the Westminster Confession) and in terms of abstract terms such as: omnipresence (God being everywhere and unlocalizeds - as asserted above); omnipotence (God being able to accomplish anything and everything which can be accomplished); existing unchanging outside the universe, outside time; and God being divided into three persons yet also being one person - and all the rest of this complex, incomprehensible, abstract, intellectual stuff.

*

It was Joseph Smith's early and astonishing achievement to get past this vast and obstructive apparatus and remake theology on the basis of something close to a plain and commonsensical understanding of scripture.

Of course, he did a lot more than this, and Mormonism contains a lot more than this; but this was the most profound - and profoundly welcome - insight he provided: that Christianity remade on the basis of a commonsense understanding of God 1. is coherent; and 2. is still Christianity.

Joseph Smith rediscovered God as a person, as our Father; as someone sufficiently comprehensible thus knowable; and, even more, as someone with whom each of us could imaginably aspire to become a divine 'friend', a son or daughter (albeit at the end of a vastly prolonged incremental and accumulative process of spiritual progression, theosis, sanctification, divinization).
*

The marvellous originality and profundity of the Mormon theology of eternal marriage

I have given-up on trying to persuade others of the wonders of Mormon theology! Instead, I will here merely vent some of my enthusiasm. 

Even Mormons regard their theology as very-much subordinate to specifics of this world practice in the CJCLDS. 

And hardly anybody else outside the CJCLDS (although, a few!) is sufficiently interested even to engage with the subject - often because of ineradicable ignorant hostile prejudice. 

But for me, I don't know that I have come across any richer source of metaphysical originality and genius across the span of Christendom, as in Mormon theology*. 

One of the greatest insights of Mormon theology was that God (The Creator) is the eternal and loving marriage of Father in Heaven and Mother in Heaven; in other words God is a dyad, not one. 

Properly understood and explored; this can be an astonishingly rich insight into the fundamental nature of reality - transcending centuries, indeed millennia, of false antitheses between monotheism and polytheism. 

The Mormon concept of God can be the basis of a positive metaphysical concept in its own right (not some combination or compromise of pre-existing concepts); as such, it needs to be understood in its own right. 

The Mormon church (the CJCLDS) has confused and distorted matters - in this as in several other ways - by claiming that such eternal "sealed" marriage is possible among mortal men and women, here on earth; and restricted to the administration and approval of the CJCLDS. 

This is understandable, perhaps it is and was inevitable - yet we must distinguish the reality and truth of things, as separable from the compromises and practicalities of organizing and maintaining A Church, in this world. 

But this is not merely something that demonstrably fails in practice (since many sealed marriages have ended in divorce); but is clearly impossible in theory, due to the basic nature of human beings and our life in this entropic and evil world. 

The basic nature of this mortal life cannot be transcended by mortal Men - and the fact of Men organizing into churches. 

Making claims of the church's transcendent power, or that church rules for living are mapped onto post-mortal and heavenly realities, are simply false - because they contradict the nature of this-world; and contradict too the whole rationale of Christianity as entailing death and resurrection. 

We cannot make Heaven on earth - else there would be no need for Heaven.

(And Jesus Christ insisted that there was need for Heaven, and by his work showed why and how.) 

We cannot replicate the eternal realities of Heaven with our mortal minds and bodies - and claiming that we can, acts against the core realities of what Jesus did and why. 

Churches - and their rules and rituals - do not control our access to Heaven; and indeed, the behaviours of church members (since 2020, especially) demonstrates that nobody really believes that they do. 

(They are merely too concerned at the implications of acknowledging they don't believe - which double-negative is not the same as - and much weaker than - positive belief. )

So, to understand the profound truth of the Mormon theology of God, requires that Mormons (as well as other Christians) set-aside the confusions related to how such spiritual realities are crystallized into material and mortal terms here in our lives on earth. 

Yet, our aspirations can and should be heavenly and spiritual - even as we acknowledge that their practice is mortal and corruptible (not just corruptible, but actually inevitably corrupt-ed - to some degree, sooner or later - by entropy and death - even when not by evil). 

(Thus the desire and aspiration towards eternal marriage in the Mormon sense is a new (as of 1830) beautiful and life-enhancing one - and a vital corrective to the destructive (indeed nihilistic) "mainstream" Christian doctrine that marriage is necessarily a temporary expedient that is dissolved by death, combined with the assertion that "there is no marrying in Heaven".) 

This aspiration is true and good; although eternal marriage cannot be actually attained until after we are resurrected and have become wholly and eternally committed to live by love. 

It requires resurrection to be able to make eternal commitments; for the reason that resurrection is itself the foundational eternal commitment - i.e. to live wholly by live (and leave-behind sin). 

Earthly marriage, and the innate desires and motivations we have in relation to it - even when we may be unable to find it during this mortal existence, provide the basis for understanding the reality of Heavenly marriage; and of the original, originative, creative nature of God (originating, that is, in love - with creation, including but not restricted to procreation, understood as a manifestation of love.)

When Joseph Smith had his vision of the dyadic nature of God, he was both a prophet and a philosopher of genius; but when he tried to make this vision a concrete reality among the members of the new Mormon church, he was merely a gifted and able leader, a kind of "king and judge" perhaps. 

Furthermore, the nature of God as from a Heavenly marriage need not be, and I think is not, a template for every man and woman - past, present and future. 

Christianity is for individual persons, and entails that each individual person affiliates to divine creation; I don't see that this entails that everybody ultimately wants the same thing - indeed that would seem vanishingly unlikely. Since each is unique - surely there will "always" be genuine exceptions? 

(As well as those making excuses to justify special treatment!) 

And what we be the point of a creation consisting of everybody doing the same thing! Multiplicity would then have no function or reason!

Another of Joseph Smith's great prophetic insights was that Heaven was A Family, in a literal as well as metaphorical sense. And a loving family - even here on earth - can and often does incorporate many kinds of life-motivations and self-chosen roles, among its loving members. 

Resurrected and eternal individual men and women will develop what is distinctive in their original and innate nature - and this may or may not lead them into eternal marriage of a kind analogous to that of God, our Heavenly Parents and the Primary Creators, and thence to procreating spiritual children - in the way that Joseph Smith seemed to regard as the proper goal of all people. 

I include this, not because I am necessarily correct in contradicting this particular aspect of Joseph Smith's revelations - but as example fo how we ought to engage with them, as realities.

Realities we may know-about now, and experience temporarily and partially in mortal life; but realities that are only do-able in resurrected post-mortal life    

 

*For all its essential insights (at least, they have been essential for me) there are significant deficiencies in Mormon theology. Two of the most important are an incoherent and double-negative understanding of Jesus's real vital importance and the true nature of his work, which error was (apparently) inherited from mainstream Protestant theology. Another mistake - I believe - is also inherited; which is to regard the Holy Ghost as a separate personage from Jesus Christ - which (as with mainstream Christianity) makes the HG into a nebulous abstract entity with no clear provenance or role. 

Understanding, and not understanding - Non sequiturs and the example of the Nicene Creed

*

Following the Savior’s death, the Church He had established drifted into apostasy. Fulfilled were the words of Isaiah, who said, “The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant”.

Realizing the importance of knowing the true nature of God, men had struggled to find a way to define Him. Learned clerics argued with one another. When Constantine became a Christian in the fourth century, he called together a great convocation of learned men with the hope that they could reach a conclusion of understanding concerning the true nature of Deity. All they reached was a compromise of various points of view.

The result was the Nicene Creed of A.D. 325. This and subsequent creeds have become the declaration of doctrine concerning the nature of Deity for most of Christianity ever since.

I have read them all a number of times. I cannot understand them. I think others cannot understand them. I am sure that the Lord also knew that many would not understand them.

And so in 1820, in that incomparable vision, the Father and the Son appeared to the boy Joseph. They spoke to him with words that were audible, and he spoke to Them. They could see. They could speak. They could hear. They were personal. They were of substance. They were not imaginary beings. They were beings tabernacled in flesh. And out of that experience has come our unique and true understanding of the nature of Deity.

President (1995-2008) Gordon B Hinckley CJCLDS

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/the-stone-cut-out-of-the-mountain?lang=eng&query=


*

Understanding is a subtle thing, or maybe it is a very simple thing!

At any rate, the world is full of people who say they understand, who believe they understand - but apparently don't.

The human grasp of reason is so shaky, and human pragmatism so strong, that by and large people say and believe what is practically-expedient - and there are very very few (and in some times and places zero) people who do otherwise. 

*

And some statements that claim to elucidate or explain are in reality un-understandable - and the people who understand most deeply know this.

(I am reminded of Einstein who knew that quantum theory was un-understandable, hence could not be regarded as a statement of reality. Many lesser minds, however, claim to understand it!)

I have often experienced the situation when I thought I understood something, but as learned and pondered more, I realized that I did not understand it and never had understood it - that I had been fooling myself (although I would have sworn in a court of law, or before God, that I did understand it - I had been mistaken).

This was the basis of most good science I have done - first the recognition that I did not understand what others claimed was clear and obvious and true; then finding an explanation that accounted for the primary observations and that I did understand.

*

What is the status of an un-understandable statement? Well, it can have many functions.

It may be the result of confusion, or an attempt to mislead.

In Christian history, an un-understandable statement may be a deliberately-crafted ambiguity whereby two or more intractably-warring factions read into the un-understandable statement what they seek, and each chooses to pretend they understand its meaning correctly.

*

More often the un-understandability is at the level of a non sequitur ("it does not follow") - several understandable statements placed side by side, but with no understandable link between them

Non sequitur is how the historical Christian church (more or less) 'solved' the vicious and intractable Christological ('nature of Christ') disputes of the early centuries - these disputes themselves being an artefact of the inflexible insistence of expressing Christian doctrine through philosophical spectacles manufactured to Classical Metaphysical specifications. 

This technique of dispute resolution resulted in the usual mainstream formulations about the Holy Trinity being both One AND Three; and Jesus Christ having been both God and Man at the same time, despite that God and Man are being conceptualized as utterly different kinds of entity.

*

These things are stated very firmly, very solemnly, they are absolutely insisted upon and often made definitional of being-a-Christian - but they are un-understandable; they are unconnected statements placed side by side and claiming to make an argument - which allows what people really believe inside their heads (i.e what they actually picture or comprehend) to range very widely.

*

On the other hand, such non sequiturs may kill understanding, and faith, by placing un-understandability at the very heart of what Christians (supposedly) must believe.

For some, this is intolerable - they need to understand the most important things; rather than having the most important things expressed in forms that are intrinsically un-understandable.  

*

In reality such 'understanding' as comes from the non sequitur is more of the nature of a truce, or an agreement to go no further along that line of argument.

That is understandable, and it may be expedient in situations of intractable conflict - but it is also hazardous, spiritually - and leads to those in authority solemnly insisting upon solemn non-sense (i.e. intrinsically un-understandable statements), and allowing a kind of dishonesty into the very heart of Christianity.

*

For me, one of the most wonderful aspects of Joseph Smith's Restoration of Christianity was his work in putting clear, comprehensible explanations back at the very heart of Christian doctrine - in clearing-out the major non sequiturs.

Of course, its honesty, clarity and understandability exposed Mormon doctrine to ridicule; but Christianity is indeed intrinsically absurd (or blasphemous) to those who do not believe it (hence the temptation to hide its absurdities by retreating into abstraction and un-understandable non sequitur - whether or not re-framed as 'mystery').

*

I believe that humans are incapable of a metaphysical system which is both sufficiently concrete and commonsensical to be understandable, and yet also comprehensive.

All comprehensible metaphysical systems therefore run into problems (e.g. infinities of regress, zeroes, stasis) when pushed further than explaining the appearances.

But I think it reasonable to prefer a system which solves the up-front and core problems of Christianity - and these are the Christology problems.

And they were solved by Joseph Smith - by means of chucking-out the philosophical (specifically metaphysical) presuppositions of Classical Theology. This 'move' would perhaps not have been acceptable in the early centuries of the Church, but it is acceptable now.

*

To solve the Christology problems, it is necessary to understand God the Father, Jesus Christ, and Man in a way which makes understandable that Christ could be both God and Man - this Joseph Smith achieved, by recognizing (taking literally the Biblical descriptions) that God, Christ and Man are qualitatively of the same kind, despite truly-vast quantitative disparities.

And this was a great achievement, greatly valued by those who benefit from it.

*

But I expect that the whole thing started with Joseph Smith knowing that he did not understand the existing explanations of Christianity, and refusing to accept proffered explanations that he did not understand.


*

Old books about Mormons - more anti-Mormon than I could possibly have imagined...

*

I spent an interesting few hours looking through some old books about Mormons which were in the collection at The Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne - a prestigious provincial club and library dating founded in 1793.

What I found surprised me in several ways. There were plenty of books on "The Mormons" dating from about 100 years ago - which was the first surprise; the second surprise was how very, very strongly anti-Mormon they were; the third surprise was the utterly outrageous things they said.

The oldest account was of Lord Redesdale's visit of 1873 (published in his Memoirs of 1915):

Brigham Young was all-powerful, bearing a more undisputed mastery than king or tsar or kaiser. He was a law unto himself, and had his Vehmgericht, or rather was also a secret court unto himself. True, there was no Folterkammer, no eiserne Jungfrau, but those old methods were out of date ; the revolver and the bowie-knife were swifter and as sure ; Jordan was the oubliette. There has been some attempt to deny the existence of the Danites or Destroying Angels who were Brigham Young's executioners. That is futile, for the men, as I can testify, were as well known in Salt Lake City as the Prophet, and the Old Man of the Mountain himself was not more faithfully or more bloodily served by his hashishin than was the Lion of the Lord by his band of bravos. There were whole-sale murders like the Mountain Meadow Massacre, but there were also other crimes, secret murders actuated by private spite, jealousy or lust, the stories of which are well known to those behind the scenes in Zion. It was not healthy for a man to incur the wrath of the Prophet or of the leading Saints. It was not conducive to long life to love a maid or wed a wife upon whom the eyes of one of the holy ones might have fallen.

*

The Mystery of Mormonism by Stuart Martin (1920) presents itself as a balanced view - in between the official church history and the more sensational anti-Mormon books.

Its introduction ends like this:

Since Mormonism was born in that small wood its story has been mostly tragic, with here and there a gleam of heroism lighting up the dull, terrible sadness of pitiful, wasted effort and misguided action. The scars of its sufferings are plainly marked upon Mormonism ; and, if the creed is to live, its final adjustment to the demands of the civilisation of the twentieth century has yet to be made. The author has tried to indicate what that adjustment demands of Mormonism, and how the finer men and women of the Church shrink from the coming crisis. When the adjustment takes place — as it inevitably will, though most likely by slow degrees — the Mormonism of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young will be strangled in Utah, and the last vestige of its abominations will disappear.

The final word is as follows:

As for the religious part of Mormonism, its doom is clear. It is the author's belief that before long it will be attacked, and it will crumble before the attack. Its wave of fervour is nearly spent, and in the day when it is finally attacked by its opponents this organisation, which has been a thorn in the flesh of the great American Republic since it was founded in 1830, will vanish as a creed. In that day Mormonism — the Mormonism which has quarrelled with every neighbour it has had, the Mormonism the history of which is one black page in the story of the United States — will cease to exist. Rent by internal schisms, attacked by forces as relentless as Knowledge and as powerful as Time, it will ultimately totter to a gaping grave ; to a tomb dug by itself. When that day comes, the last vestige of the abominations of Mormonism, as its founders intended it to be, will disappear from the earth, and the name of Joseph Smith will be but the memory of a man who, in his delusion, founded a gigantic fraud.

*

That may sound pretty extreme - however Brigham Young and the Mormon Empire by Frank J Cannon and George L Knapp (1913) goes even further. This has Brigham Young engaged in wholesale castration and assassination related to his "modern gospel of human sacrifice".

That's correct: human sacrifice.

After that there isn't really any further to go.

*

Still, the other books had their moments.

I Woodbridge Riley's The founder of Mormonism: a psychological study of Joseph Smith Jr (1902) has the following heading for its final section: "Was He Demented or Merely Degenerate" (he seems to suggest both at once).

R Kauffman and RW Kauffman take a different angle in The Latter Day Saints: a study of the Mormons in the light of economic conditions (1912) - they see the Mormon phenomena from a socialistic perspective in terms of just another instance of capitalistic exploitation, on a gigantic scale. But for the Kauffman's that is all any religion ever is.

*

If the books written about the Mormons were indescribably hostile and foolish - books written by visitors to Salt Lake City tended to be very positive.

Charles B Spahr wrote an interesting account of America's Working People (1899,1900) in which he visited New England, Chicago, The South and various other places to report on conditions. He was very impressed, on the whole, by what he saw in Salt Lake City:

The general level of morality is unquestionably high. Inquiry at police headquarters confirmed the Mormon claim that the Mormon population hardly figured at all among those arrested for crime or disorder, or among those who ministered for gain to criminal and vicious tastes.

But the statistics were the least trustworthy signs of the high morality. The real evidence of it was in the care for the poor, the temperance, the thrift, and the public spirit, that were apparent.

There was, however, one point upon which the impression revived was distinctly unfavourable, and this was the supremely important matter of sexual morality. (...) But what I heard from frank and conscientious Mormons in deprecation of these charges, even more than what I heard from Gentiles in their support, convinced me that the sin of polygamy in the fathers was bearing its fitting fruit in an epidemic of sexual immorality among the children. (...)

Nevertheless the impressions I received in the streets and from the testimony of scandal-hating people, without regard to creed, convinced me that sexual morality in Utah was much lower than in any other American community I had visited, and but little higher than in Continental Europe.

*

That point point about sexual morality being a weak point (the one-and-only weak point) of Mormons a century ago, makes for an interesting contrast with modern times. And it is perhaps an encouragement to modern Mormons.

*

A Church of England Priest the Rev. HW Haweis published Travel Talk in 1896 in which he reported on a vist to Salt Lake City of 1893:

...what I saw and what everyone may see spoke for itself. I saw a happy and contented people, a clean and sanitary city (...) neat houses and prosperous farms, well-behaved children, venerable elders, agreeable and cultivated ladies... 

*

The fascinating thing is that we now know that the travellers' eye witness accounts were correct, and the surprising numbers of people who wrote specialist (referenced, supposedly scholarly) books about 'The Mormons' - several of which were distributed some 5000 miles way to Newcastle upon Tyne England - were wrong; very wrong, absurdly and wickedly wrong.

This strikes me as an early example of political correctness based on and in the mass media. 

*

One more matter. When I became interested in Mormonism a few years ago I got the impression that the Mountain Meadows Massacre was something which had been hidden and suppressed until recently; and it was an atrocity that modern Mormons were supposedly having to come to terms with.

Not so. It features in all these early anti-Mormon books and the Rev Haweis goes so far as to remark on the "everlastingly quoted Mountain Massacre".

So, not such new news, after all...

*

All in all - my morning in the library confirms CS Lewis's advice on the value of Reading Old Books.

*

Prophet versus Church-maker, versus Church administrator - Spirituality versus Psychology. Examples of Joseph Smith and Rudolf Steiner

I am very struck by the historically-recorded lives of people who were (to some genuine extent) Prophets, and who also went-on to found a church, or analogous spiritual organization. 

Two that I feel I know pretty well are Joseph Smith (1805-1844), the Mormon who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; and the spiritual philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) who founded the Anthroposophical Society. 

Although there are important differences between Smith and Steiner; in spiritual (and psychological) terms, both men made a transition from primarily functioning as inspired Prophets, to primarily functioning as institutional leaders. 

They both went from being Prophets expounding and teaching spiritual knowledge; to "CEOs" organizing and administering large new institutions - the CJCLDS church and the AS.  

Both organizations continued, and still exist; and in both cases their leadership became primarily bureaucratic in form and function; and primarily administrative in focus and methods - even within the lives of their founding Prophets...

("Primarily" - in both cases Smith and Steiner continued genuine and valuable Prophetic activity up to their deaths. But this was increasingly swamped and subordinated by an imperative  focus on sustaining and building-up the organizations they had founded.)

And (consequently, I would say) the CJCLDS and AS leadership soon became and have since remained; hardly (if at all) prophetic - and not-at-all creative. 

The organizational response, of both CJCLDS and AS, to the transformation from a Prophetically-inspired to administrative-in-nature; was to assert that organizational structures and standardized forms Just Do function spiritually. 

The assertion is that the bureaucracy, and the standardized teachings, and the officially approved rituals, activities, and texts - will (if properly done) link the properly-trained and duly-initiated institutional member, to that same spiritual reality as was Prophetically-contacted by the founder. 

I have italicized that verb "assert" above - because that is what such institutions; and indeed the older Christian churches, actually do. 

But whether or not this assertion of spiritual access via institutional membership, structures, and forms is actually true - is a very different matter. 

Indeed, to me, it does not seem to be true.

I do not see that the CJCLDS or AS or indeed any of the other or older Christian churches - are providing spiritual access via their institutional nature.  

What is partially true, what they do provide - to varying degrees and in various ways -  are desired psychological benefits. 

There is usually, therefore, some kind of psychological effect from CJCLDS and AS (and other) institutional memberships - and some of these psychological effects are desired and experienced as positive. 

People may feel (and this seems to be strongest) a sense of communal belonging. 

They may feel (at least briefly) calmed, reassured, encouraged.

Membership and participation may make people happier than otherwise. 

BUT - what I am suggesting here, is that such positive psychological effects of institutional membership are not (it seems to this observer) leading their members onto experience of contact with any solid and motivating spiritual reality. 

Neither the CJCLDS nor the AS are primarily spiritual in their nature, and they have not been primarily spiritual for a very long time; and they may well be (in most instances) completely non-spiritual in their experiential actuality...

If indeed they ever were spiritual organizations. 

At any rate, and in both instances; it is striking how very few prophetically-spiritual (and therefore creative-natured) people existed in the organizations after the founders died.

In the case of the Anthroposophical Society; perhaps the only strikingly original and Prophetic member post-Steiner - Valentin Tomberg - was swiftly expelled, and eventually became an un-orthodox Roman Catholic!   

The reason for all this is that - as of here and now and for (probably) some centuries at least - Institutions Cannot Be Primarily Spiritual.    

The necessities of surviving as institutions exclude the possibility of a primary spiritual focus. They can assert spirituality, but they only ever actually achieve psychological benefit. 

And indeed, in response to their primary and ruling imperatives as institutions; any occurrence of genuinely Prophetic spirituality among the membership is more likely to be excluded, like Tomberg and the AS...

Or if not personally expelled, then substantively excluded; as with Owen Barfield -- Who served as a senior officer in the British AS bureaucracy, but whose major and original philosophical spiritual contributions were not allowed to affect the teaching of a closed-canon of Steiner texts, and their institutionally-expedient interpretations. 

(As far as I can tell; the AS core teaching has always been only-texts-by-Steiner, and non-creative commentaries-on-Steiner. Analogous to the teaching of a Protestant church in relation to the Bible.) 

Conclusion: Institutions cannot be spiritual in their nature in this modern era. 

Of course a church may sometimes and for some people mediate or trigger genuine spiritual experiences; so that as a generalization, churches do continue to be potentially spiritually valuable - in some situations and with particular individuals. 

But at the bottom-line: we are all confronted by the choice between primary affiliation to an essentially not-spiritual and core-bureaucratic institution; or else pursuing experience of spiritual reality primarily from our own resources and motivations, and in accordance with out own discernments.

Therefore, a Christian who acknowledges the vital importance of The Spiritual; and who is not willing to subordinate his spiritual life to an institution that is firstly organizationally-driven and secondarily only psychological in its benefits...

Such a Christian; will need to regard any church or organization as at best only a possible spiritual resource...

But never as his spiritual master. 

 

Miracles, history and religion

*

All religion, Western and Eastern, is founded upon miracle.

It makes little sense to present arguments against Joseph Smith and early Mormonism that would extend equally well to what we are told about the origins of what will eventually be Judaism, the origins of Christianity, the origins of Islam.

All religion depends upon revelation. All revelation is supernatural. If you wish to be a hard rock empiricist, then you should not entertain any religious doctrine whatsoever.

Harold Bloom

*

The kind of revelation that Joseph describes is the scandal of Mormonism, in the same way that the resurrection of Christ is the scandal of Christianity.

And what I mean by that is that on the face of it, that's an affront to sophisticated notions of how the Universe works.

God doesn't deliver gold plates to farm boys. It's a cause of embarrassment to many intellectuals in the church to continue to insist that Joseph had literal gold plates given to him by a real angel.

But I also mean that it's a scandal in the sense that it is inseparable from the heart and soul of Mormonism, that one could no sooner divorce the historical claims of the Book of Mormon from the church than one could divorce the story of Christ's resurrection from Christianity and survive with the religion intact.

*

I think there's no question that the [LDS] church rises or falls on the veracity of Joseph Smith's story.

History as theology is perilous. If it turns out that the whole story of Christ's resurrection was a fabrication, then Christianity collapses. 

That's the price we pay for believing in a God who intervenes in human history, who has real interactions with real human beings in real space and time. 

That makes it historical, and that's a reality that we just can't flee away from.

Terryl Givens

**


From the PBS documentary The Mormons, 2007

http://www.pbs.org/mormons/etc/script.html

Bold emphasis added.  

*

We cannot escape from incredible beliefs, twist and turn as we may

*
As I have written (see references below): Christianity is incredible, and Mormonism is incredible-squared. In that sense it is perfectly reasonable to reject either or both - because there is no requirement for us to assent to the incredible.

However, rejecting Christianity and Mormonism simply because they are incredible makes no sense either - because that rejection itself leads to incredible conclusions.

*

To focus on Mormonism - it really is incredible that Joseph Smith (of all people!) should be a prophet of God and that the provenance of the Book of Mormon was as described (gold plates, angels, translating devices etc), and that Joseph's BoM translation really derives from a lost ancient manuscript.

So it might, superficially, seem straightforward to disbelieve these things. Let's call this the skeptical alternative. But what then?

Of course, most people who reject Mormonism as incredible have a rooted negative prejudice against it, do not know the whole story, and/ or they have wildly false or distorted ideas about Mormonism.

But if you approach the subject of Mormonism with a benign and sympathetic attitude, are honest and informed; then we can see that the skeptical alternative is also clearly incredible; because it requires on the one hand that Joseph Smith was both a genius and also a calculated fraud, who led a water-tight conspiracy; and furthermore that the CJCLDS grew from a foundation of fraud and conspiracy to become the (overall) highly positive and wholesome influence it is today.

*

But yet again, the skeptical alternative - while incredible and unprecedented - is not impossible.

It is possible to imagine or suppose that a fraudulent genius and a watertight conspiracy did indeed, by chance and against the original intent, lead to great good - why, not?

This belief goes against common sense and reasonable expectation, but it could be true. 

*

But then, if we are honest and rigorous enough to apply this kind of negative, skeptical alternative reasoning to other domains of life - such as other religions, the history of politics, science etc.; then we will find that they also crumble away into what could be fiendish conspiracies.

In particular, we will be compelled to notice that Mormonism grew under the microscope of the mass media, and is vastly documented compared with other world religions and major Christian denominations.

We may reflect that absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence when it comes to these other religions, and that much of the 'evidence' about early Mormonism is both ignorant and dishonest - as well as rootedly hostile...

In the end, no matter where we turn, or how we twist and twist about - we cannot escape incredibilities: we really can't. Not if we are honest and rigorous. 

*

The above is not by any means a proof of the validity of Mormonism - it is not intended as such, and I do not believe that there can be any such proof even in principle.

And what applies to Mormonism in small, applies to Christianity in large - the Christian story is packed with incredibilities and inconsistencies; yet to reject Christianity as incredible entails believing in some combination of delusion and conspiracy of a kind that is itself incredible, because grossly contradictory to actual behaviour and historical consequences.

It is that same skeptic's dilemma - Christianity could be based on delusion and fraud- that is not-impossible - it is just highly incredible. That path offers no escape from incredibility.

*

My point is that the impulse to avoid believing incredible things is mistaken, a basic error; because it is impossible. The notion of an incredibility-free belief system is an illusion and a snare.

Indeed, the urge to avoid incredibilities leads to the deep-rooted dishonesty and wilful self-blindness typical of the person who prides and advertises himself on being A Skeptic that relies only on Evidence.

(I mean the kind of man [we all know them - you may be one of them!] who applies skepticism only where and when it suits him, and blandly denies the incredibility of his own favoured incredibilities.)

But neither the skeptic not the credulous ever can or will avoid believing not just one but many incredibilities.

Incredible beliefs are simply a fact of life. 

*

This can be taken in two ways - either as meaning that we cannot believe anything because we could believe anything; OR that this is the way things are meant to be - and that it is a necessary and desirable part of the human condition that foundational belief require an act of choice from each of us as individuals.

To believe that fundamental beliefs cannot and should not be wholly-dictated by objective public 'evidence' and 'reason' but necessarily require an act of personal choice is, of course standard mainstream Christianity - it is what is meant by Faith.

Skeptics assume that the only alternatives are either being convinced by conclusive and credible evidence to reach credible conclusions on rational grounds; or else just believing whatever incredibility you want and calling it 'faith'...

But Christians deny that these alternatives exhaust all possibilities, and also deny that the skeptical possibility is coherent (for the reasons given above).

*

So what should we do, each, as individuals? Does everyone have to believe in Mormonism because it is incredible, or because everything else is at least equally incredible? Obviously not!

The Mormon answer is that each interested person as an individual has the possibility of investigating the evidence - and each must (and inevitably will) then make a choice. But people should not believe in Mormonism unless that choice is validated-by, or indeed comes-from, divine revelation.

Evidence is relevant, but never conclusive. Each person who professes Mormonism needs to, and must have, faith.

And exactly the same ought to apply to any Christian denomination. To be any kind of Christian (rather than just doing things that Christians do) requires faith; and that faith is based on individual choice; and that choice - to be valid - is not arbitrary but divinely inspired.

*

Is this a process without any possibility of error? No.

Can we be sure and confident that divine validation has happened? Yes.

But might we then change our mind about things we used to be certain about, or doubt our own certainty? Yes.

Does this then mean that truth is relative and arbitrary and we can believe anything or nothing? No.

*

Truth is real, humans are fallible, certainty is possible, faith is necessary.

These just are the facts, and we must work with them - we have no alternative: we must choose, and we will choose and indeed we have already chosen (although not irrevocably).

* *

References

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/mormonism-poised-between-incredibilities.html

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mainstream-christianity-is-incredible.html

Should Christians hand-over their eternal salvation to... historians? Romantic Christianity at the cutting-edge

At the cutting-edge of experienced-life - 

The Church = What (some) Historians Say. 

All claims of knowledge reduce to intuition/s; but for traditionalist Christians, the baseline intuition is that The Truth is a matter of history; and history is known through the work of 'historians' - broadly conceived. 

Whenever a Christian makes a statement about the past, about what happened, and how things were (for example in the life of Jesus or The Church - whichever he adheres-to); in practice the implication is that 'history' defines truth. 

How can we know this history? 

Well, if we regard the church as primary, then in some sense we are saying that true knowledge of history lies outside our-selves. That we cannot be a Christian (or, at least, not properly) without this historical knowledge... 

Christianity is indeed an historical faith, intrinsically - based on Jesus making interventions in reality at some historical point. 

For the Christian this history is true. Yet true by what account, by what authority? 

Too often this is understood to mean that being a Christian means accepting the authority of (one or another bunch of) historians - as primary. 

Thus Christians put themselves in the position of being at the mercy of 'historians' (including scholars of many stripes - historical linguists, archaeologists, translators and editors, theological interpreters (the modern informing us about, and interpreting, the ancients) etc. 

According to church-primary Christianity; that which Christians are called upon to believe and the ways they are called upon to live, are rooted in historical work... yet are we really so confident about handing over our immortal souls to historians?

I Am Not! I am not at all confident about handing over my eternal salvation to the work of historians and other scholars. 

Why should I accept one selected and specifically interpreted set of historical statements, upon which to base my mortal life and resurrection - when there are so many and contradictory statements of history? 

To answer my own question: I would only accept a particular version of history when it has been validated at the deepest and most enduring level by what could be called intuition: when my deepest-possible, sustained reflection on the matter tells me that this particular history is true: even if not 100% true in every possible respect - that it is true in the ways that matter. 

What this means is that faith rests ultimately upon such intuitions - and therefore does Not rest upon any external source of knowledge. External knowledge must be checked against intuition. In different language: our faith needs to be confirmed by 'personal revelation' - as the Mormons term it. 

Such intuition is an ongoing process, which never ends in this mortal life; which is why our faith is a living and renewing thing - or else it dies. 

But having reached the insight that our faith rests upon this internal knowing - this personal revelation; then we may further recognize that this internal knowing is not restricted to confirming externally-derived information. 

When our personal revelations have confirmed that we are sons and daughters of God, and that the ascension of Jesus Christ made possible our communing and consultation of The Holy Ghost for knowledge and guidance...

Then we may realize that intuition (in this sense) may be a primary source of Christian knowledge and guidance - independent of external sources: independent of churches.  

And this insight and affirmation is (more-or-less) Romantic Christianity. It amounts to the personal revelation that we ought not to handover our external salvation to 'historians' and their like. 

To live (unconsciously, spontaneously) by external guidance was natural and necessary in the past, in many civilizations - but it is nowadays neither necessary: nor indeed possible.  

Modern Men cannot do what ancient Men universally did - and our choice is therefore between denial and acknowledgement of how we actually do live (when at our best): as autonomous agents, as choosing consciousnesses; guided by intuitions from our own divinity and the Holy Ghost...

We can only know such intuitions for our-selves - from our-selves - and in our actual circumstances; and these may guide us to a particular denomination and church; to particular persons and books and statements, and what we ought to think/say/do - Or Not, as the case may be. 

The aim being to bring us to affiliate with God and creation in the spiritual war; aiming after mortal death to follow Jesus Christ to resurrected life in Heaven. 

We can by such means - and at the cutting-edge of actually being-experienced life - learn those churches, teachings, 'histories' which are in-accord-with truth, and help these aims - and learn to detect and reject those which are not. 

Note added concerning Mormonism - a case study of personal revelation: 

The Book of Mormon was published in 1830. According to the scholarship of Terryl Givens; the BoM is broadly highly compatible with the Bible. Its production functioned mainly as a sign that new Christian revelations were being made by God, via a new prophet. But the BoM has one theological innovation, which is that individuals ought to seek personal revelations to confirm all significant and foundational Christian claims. 

For example the BoM itself served as an instrument of conversion. The missionary would ask an individual to read the book, then seek personal revelation as to its truth. If revelation confirmed the truth of the BoM, then this was (pretty much) sufficient for baptism - which might follow immediately or very soon. This process has striking similarities with the almost instant conversions described in the Gospels, and Acts of the Apostles - such as the Ethiopian Eunuch.     

But the explicit insistence on a need for personal revelation was new, and foundational of the new denomination.    

  

Yet, the scope of personal revelation was soon limited explicitly by top-down CJCLDS rulings; because low level church members were claiming major revelations about many and fundamental whole-church matters, and these were leading to schism and disruption. By revelation of the prophet Joseph Smith; the scope of revelation then became hierarchically limited, especially in relationship to church order, official theology, doctrine, practices etc. Only church officials were allowed valid revelations in accordance with the scope of their office; up to the church President (the prophet) who was the only person allowed fundamental and church-wide revelations. 

This meant that henceforth the Mormon church assumed primary authority over all fundamental matters, and that the church's teaching on all vital matters must be regarded as a unit; either to be accepted as a whole, or else rejected - but nobody had the right to pick and choose, modify, or add-to that unified body of mandatory beliefs. 

However necessary to the survival of the church were such hierarchical limitations on the scope of revelation; the validity of such limitation on the scope of personal revelation is itself subject to the need for confirmation by personal revelation. And that personal revelation may lead to the rejection of such limitations - and instead lead to the potential validity of personal revelations up-to and including fundamental matters of theology, doctrines, life-practices etc.

In a nutshell, if personal revelations of unlimited scope are allowed to all Mormon believers; this will lead to the destruction of top-down church authority. The Mormon Church (CJCLDS) would then become regarded in an expedient fashion, as being more or less helpful to theosis and salvation (in terms of its teachings and practices), and itself subject to the imperatives of personal revelation.  

This is my own attitude to Mormonism. I regard the BoM as true, and Joseph Smith as a real prophet, and Mormon theology and metaphysics as a major breakthrough (and revelation) in world historical terms. Yet I am not, and never have been, a CJCLDS member, nor have I ever attended services nor placed myself under church authority (indeed, I have attended selected Church of England services, and support some of these particular congregations). 

What I get from Mormonism is the ultimate validity and necessity of personal revelation - and I do not accept (for myself) the pragmatic necessity or primacy of 'official' revelations from the leadership. In other words, I see myself as having accepted, and benefitted from, Joseph Smith's original revelations concerning the primacy of personal revelations - without the later-added institutional restrictions. 

That this is a timely and correct course of action seems to be confirmed by the ongoing 'convergence' of the CJCLDS with several of the purposively-evil strategies of the global totalitarian establishment. In short, the Mormon church has already ceased to be a Christian church overall, and is engaged in its own further and further self-destruction by alliance with the demonic side in the spiritual war of this-world. 

If this is correct, then those who continue to maintain their own inability to have general, church-wide, unlimited personal revelations will be led into greater convergence, and more extreme and active alliance with Satan. 

This is one example of why the matter of personal revelation/ intuition/ direct-knowing/ heart-thinking - that is, of Romantic Christianity - is of such urgent importance.