Photo: seer stone and Book of Mormon. I’m going to talk about religious technology and religious gadgets, but first I’m going to talk about military gadgets and technology. That may not be your favorite topic, but since it can spell the difference between your city being bombed into rubble and your country being occupied, as opposed to an enemy country being bombed and occupied, it’s a subject you ought to at least give some consideration to. And it will lead me back to religious gadgets and technology.
Last week I came across Victor Davis Hanson’s The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won (Basic Books, 2017). Of course I checked it out and am about halfway through. This is not a chronological battle-by-battle narrative of the war, like say Andrew Roberts’ The Storm of War (HarperCollins, 2011) but more of an examination of the tactics, strategies, and technologies employed by the Allies to win the war, and the associated failings of the Axis powers to do those things well. Reflect a bit on what you have no doubt watched or read about the current Russia-Ukraine war. Initially, informed observers didn’t think Ukraine would last two weeks. Surprise! They have lasted two years, they are holding their own, and they seem to be doing a lot of military things much better than the Russians. What gives?
Gadgets. One side of technology is about machines and gadgets. So the British developed an effective radar technology. They also developed ASDIC (for Anti-Submarine Detection Investigation Committee), what we Americans call sonar (short for Sound Navigation and Ranging). Later in the war, the Germans developed jet engines and jet-powered aircraft, as well as ballistic missiles like the V-2. The Americans, of course, invented the ultimate gadget, the atomic bomb. In war, it helps to have better gadgets, but that’s only part of the story.
Institutions. The other side of military technology is being able to truly develop, manufacture, and productively deploy the gadgets. You have to make a fixed design of an actual product, make it reliable, manufacture it in quantity, install it in a ship or airplane or land-based weapon, train soldiers/sailors/airmen how to use the new gadget, and train senior officers how to incorporate the new gadget into their battle plans and fighting. The British were able to win the Battle of Britain not just because they had radar systems, but because they established radar posts all around the coastline of Britain, were able to quickly relay collected radar info to a central location, and developed trained personnel and officers to quickly process that information and issue orders to fighter squadrons to launch and intercept incoming German bombers and their fighter escorts. It takes more than gadgets. It takes an institutional system.
Another example (because I’m sure some of you are WW2 buffs like me). The Germans built some very fine warships. In the early phases of the war, some of them sortied out into the Atlantic to prowl on Allied shipping, most famously the Graf Spee and the Bismarck. But they lagged far behind the British in developing a full-fledged navy (an institution) that could coordinate several or many ships in task forces and fleet actions. The Germans lacked the tradition and training of captains and admirals who could do all the planning and coordination to allow a lot of ships to work together to achieve strategic goals. So the British and the Americans were able to win the Battle of the Atlantic by quickly adopting the convoy system, providing destroyer escorts for convoys, upgrading sonar systems to detect approaching German submarines, and so forth. While the Germans did eventually adopt wolf pack tactics, it was too little and too late. On the strategic level, had the Germans directed all the money and manpower used to build large warships that accomplished very little (like the Bismarck and the Tirpitz) instead into building more and better submarines — if the Germans had a couple of hundred more submarines at the beginning of the war — they might very well have sunk a lot more shipping, won the Battle of the Atlantic, and starved Britain into accepting a negotiated peace. History might have been much different if the Germans had a better plan for how to use their excellent gadgets to accomplish strategic goals. That was just one of many strategic failures of Hitler’s management of the war.
Religious Gadgets. First, let’s look at the gadget side of religious technology. (Forgive me if the term “gadgets” sounds dismissive or impious in the religious context, but it’s the best term I could find.) While ancient religions provide many examples for us to discuss (like the Urim and Thummim in Israelite religion), most Christian denominations don’t have any religious gadgets. If you stretch it a little, the transformation of simple bread and wine into the emblems of the Catholic Eucharist, held to be the blood and body of Christ, might play that role. It certainly occupied a supernatural fascination for Catholic clergy and laity alike in prior centuries, perhaps less so today. More directly, the Church of Scientology uses “e-meters” (which Wikipedia tells me are also called electropsychometers), which “auditors” (senior members, sort of like bishops) use to give intense interviews to Scientology members (kind of like an LDS worthiness interview). The e-meter is, I think, the paradigmatic example of a religious gadget.
LDS Religious Gadgets. But no denomination embraces religious gadgets quite like the LDS Church. At the top of the list are Nephite “interpreters” in the Book of Mormon, which reappeared in early LDS history as “the Urim and Thummim.” That’s confusing terminology, because early LDS adopted the name of an early Israelite religious gadget, but LDS interpreters don’t work at all like that Israelite gadget, which was something like dice that a priest would throw to get a “yes” or “no” answer to a question. (The secret, of course, was to ask the right question, and maybe to throw the dice again if the answer wasn’t what was hoped for.) The LDS religious gadget used by Joseph Smith (the one he claims to have dug up along with the golden plates that were the basis for the Book of Mormon text) owed a lot more to seer stones that Joseph used earlier than to any Israelite connection from the Bible.
With all religious gadgets, a modern believer has to ask themself: Does it really to anything? Does the e-meter really permit a Scientologist auditor to somehow divine the thoughts or the prior actions of an auditee? Did the Urim and Thummim really provide divine answers to the Israelite priest using it? Did LDS seer stones really allow Joseph Smith to see things that were lost or translate foreign languages or receive divine revelations? No later LDS president has, to my knowledge, used the seer stones still possessed by the LDS Church to do these things. Although it is likely, given human curiosity, that some LDS presidents, possibly in private all by themselves, have given it a shot. I wonder if they shared details of their attempts with family members, with other apostles, or even written an account in their journal? I am 110% confident that any such entry in a journal would be redacted before the journal was published, or more likely the journal would be locked away in a vault (or simply destroyed), never to see the light of day again.
Other LDS religious gadgets? In the Book of Mormon text, the sword of Laban and the various plates used for record keeping qualify, given the supernatural status accorded them in the narrative such that they would never be dimmed by time. That was necessary, I think, for a set of plates buried in the ground for over a millennium to emerge shiny and new and legible as opposed to degraded and legible only after professional restoration.
Consecrated oil fits the description. On the one hand, only *consecrated* oil is allowable for a priesthood blessing. Just using some olive oil from the kitchen cupboard is not appropriate. Plainly, there is something efficacious about using consecrated oil. It’s a religious gadget, albeit one that is created by a consecration prayer as opposed to digging it up from the ground. On the other hand, if a person is in dire need of a priesthood blessing but a priesthood holder who is present doesn’t have any consecrated oil … then just a hands-on-head priesthood prayer/blessing without any oil is performed. It is hard to think that God would look down on that situation and say, “Sister X really deserves to be healed or strengthened and Brother Y is doing his best to use his priesthood to do so in difficult circumstances … but rules are rules, no oil, no healing.” So, rather strangely, the general LDS belief is that the consecrated oil is a necessary part of a priesthood blessing and does carry some sort of spiritual power, but at the same time if there isn’t any oil it doesn’t really matter, God will still honor a no-oil blessing if it was warranted under the circumstances. So consecrated oil is, at the same time, both really necessary and entirely superfluous. Which makes you think really hard about the in-the-pews view of religious gadgets. See the bolded question in the prior paragraph. You could write an entire book on LDS religious gadgets and associated LDS beliefs. Do modern LDS, in their heart of hearts, actually believe that LDS religious gadgets do anything? Fascinating question, but I have to move on.
Here’s a final thought on this subtopic. Is the LDS priesthood itself a religious gadget? Are LDS temples a religious gadget? They are not just buildings, like chapels or even like impressive Christian cathedrals. LDS temples are consecrated (dedicated), only “worthy” LDS people can enter, and temple attenders are often held to be granted some sort of personal inspiration or revelation as answers to pressing questions. It’s almost like LDS temples function like huge seer stones, ones you can enter in order to get the supernatural insights associated with Joseph Smith’s seer stones. This sounds really interesting, but I need to move on to the final part of the discussion. [And I’m tempted to think that loss of faith in LDS religious gadgets as somehow efficacious or operative is highly correlated with going fully inactive or deciding to formally exit from the LDS Church. Another topic for another day.]
LDS Institutional Technology. So let’s look at the broader area of LDS religious technology, how the gadgets are incorporated into LDS religious practice and the broader institution. Like radar, a gadget that needs to be produced and deployed, and the gathered information transmitted to generals and acted upon in real time. And it is this institutional technology that the LDS Church really excels at. This institutional technology angle was originally going to be the focus of this post, until I started writing and found LDS religious gadgets themselves to be so interesting.
First, seer stones. Looked at narrowly, the stones themselves (or interpreters or LDS Urim and Thummim) are not really emphasized. A picture of an actual seer stone used by Joseph Smith and owned by the LDS Church was put on the cover of the Ensign just a few years ago. It was no big deal. But seer stones are a key part of the orthodox narrative of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Mormon is a key part of the LDS Church narrative. Joseph Smith’s use of the spectacles (the interpreters he dug up with the plates, fitted in a bow-like device) to translate the text is always a part of the narrative, although the details of that portion of the story have changed significantly in recent years. Here’s the point: the LDS orthodox narrative has very creatively used the seer stone part of the story to give credibility to the Book of Mormon and to Joseph Smith himself as a seer and prophet. Frodo wouldn’t be the Frodo we know without the Ring. Joseph wouldn’t be the Joseph we know without his seer stones.
Patriarchal blessings. No gadget here (other than the LDS priesthood) on the production side, but the resulting document does function as a religious gadget. It is held to have supernatural significance, giving personalized divine direction to the young recipient which, if followed, will produce success in life or good results. LDS kids look forward to getting it. Young LDS who receive one do read it and their faith is strengthened by the promises therein. I have one. I’ll bet a lot of readers do, too. I think it is valued by LDS teens and young adults. My impression is that mature LDS adults don’t refer to it much. As a religious gadget, it is effective for maybe ten years. It seems like as a believing LDS young adult becomes a believing LDS full adult (job, spouse, kids), the temple kind of moves into the mental space previously occupied by a patriarchal blessing. Patriarchal blessings, as described and used in LDS practice, are very effective. They reinforce everything an LDS kid is taught in Primary and Seminary, but in a personally tailored package. Brilliant.
I ought to spend a couple of paragraphs on LDS temples, but I touched on them earlier. The extent to which LDS temples have been incorporated (in a positive way) into the lives of average LDS is really impressive. The current LDS temple building initiative, which has been underway for a few decades now, is part of this institutional technology, both the building of hundreds of new temples and the expanding institutional role they are being given. Once upon a time holding an LDS temple recommend was significant for the individual but not required to be an active and respected member of an LDS congregation. Now, if you don’t hold an LDS recommend, there is a problem. You are likely a project in the eyes of local leadership. And now that I mention it, the LDS temple recommend and the associated worthiness interview is another terribly effective piece of institutional technology.
Callings. Okay, last topic. Callings don’t seem like that big a deal. But for most believing LDS, a calling isn’t just a calling. It’s not just “the bishop wants you to teach the seven-year-olds in Primary.” It may be “the bishopric, after prayerful consideration, has been inspired to call you to teach the seven-year-olds in Primary and help them get ready for baptism.” It may even be phrased as (and believed as) “God is calling you to be the teacher of the seven-year-olds in Primary.” Think of the times you have heard a member get up in testimony meeting and say something like this: “When I was called to teach the seven-year-olds, I thought the bishop was crazy. I don’t like teaching and I didn’t want to be in Primary at all. But it has been wonderful, the best calling I ever had. The kids are great.” And so forth.
Of course, callings are a necessary part of staffing organizations and running a ward. But how callings function in the Church is a lot more important — carries a lot more meaning for members — than just being asked to do this or that. And most members really step up and give it their best when called. Look, as adults you are not often forced or cajoled or persuaded to do something you really don’t want to do. The fact that most LDS adults do this so willingly (even when they are, in some sense, unwilling) shows how effectively callings have been deployed in the Church. Think of how the calling process gets described and praised regularly at the pulpit and at General Conference. And take the special case of LDS mission calls. It’s not just “oh, they are sending me to Costa Rica.” The divine specialness of the mission call is very emphasized. Young missionaries strive to understand and accept the idea that God called them to serve where they are called. The way LDS members view mission calls typifies in a particularly potent way how LDS members view all callings. And how about bishops? I doubt any newly called bishop says to himself, “Oh, just another calling.” Getting called as a bishop is a big deal, a really big deal. It becomes a peak event, a five-year episode that defines them for the remainder of their lives. An Athenian hoplite who fought at Marathon earned lifelong respect. There was no greater honor. Likewise for an LDS bishop.
Okay, I have covered a lot of ground here. I milked sonar and radar for everything I could. Now you get to tell me what you think.
- Any LDS religious gadgets you can think of that I didn’t discuss?
- Any other institutional technology examples you can think of? The Church just seems to do a great job in this area.
- Come clean on religious gadgets. Do they or don’t they? There are LDS who are quite confident they are alive today because of being anointed with consecrated oil and given a priesthood blessing. There are LDS who are quite confident their life turned out well because they followed specific advice in a patriarchal blessing. If someone shares their story and you are a “no they don’t” person, you don’t have to criticize because your belief or experience is different.
- Any negative examples? Say LDS religious gadgets that have quietly gone away, like maybe private prayer circles from the late mid- to late-19th century? Or institutional failures or missteps, like the 18-month mission option for young men in the 1980s? The Church is really good at institutional technology, but it does strike out from time to time.
- Scouting. Success or failure? It was a key part of the LDS Young Mens program for about a century and a lot of LDS adult men look back on Scouts as a great experience. But a lot of LDS adults didn’t especially like it. Now that it’s gone, some LDS miss it more than they expected. Was the LDS use of scouting a hit or a miss?
Wheat & Tares 
Many gadgets in LDS history are just superstitious objects used to focus spiritual energy or to “worship” because of the proximity/context the object had in history. I think the ultimate gadget used that will change the church will be Artificial Intelligence, AI, in some form or another. The creation of AI has allowed for greater speed in depth in genealogical research. I’m sure it will also be used in the creation of art, curriculum, record keeping, and psychological and sociological constructs of membership to guide leadership decisions. Feed AI with knowledge from the past and present and it may be able to predict the future.
Not directly related to your points, but a friend pointed out to me that he was convinced one of the reasons people are so obsessed with their phones is because we probably used very similar technology with interpreters and/or Urim and Thummin for millennia in premortality, and will continue to do so after mortality—essentially an instinct that more or less squeaks past the veil. I think it’s an interesting thought.
I think Scouting was largely a success, but it was much more successful if leaders genuinely wanted to be there. We probably should have let volunteers come forward first and vetted them prior to moving to actual callings.
I don’t know that this would qualify, though you did mention scouting, but I’m barely old enough to remember road shows. By the time I was born, they were limited to the stake, but even as a five or six year old, I could see how working on those shows brought the ward together, even if it was a little stressful. On the other hand, I can see how it limited family time.
The one “gadget” that probably makes all these other gadgets both work or inserts the appropriate caveats where needed is probably the gift of the Holy Ghost. Frankly, I love stories as to how structured—even rigid at times—the Church is, but where situations come up where the Holy Ghost offers a perfectly reasonable solution to the satisfaction of all involved (or even those not involved for that matter). Things should be run by the Spirit after all. I’ll admit that isn’t always the case.
Based on conversations with a friend who is a software developer for the Church, I think the Church is poised to be one of the most AI savvy denominations here in a few years. They’re working as carefully but as quickly as they can to roll out some great things.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Eli, what an interesting thought. I’m sure it will quickly be discovered that AI can write a better Sunday talk than 99% of the membership. Then they will find that AI writes a better Conference talk than 80% of General Authorities. Then they will find that AI writes a better revelation than most of what is in the D&C. You’ve heard of President Newsroom? Meet President AI.
Taking off on your temple example, garments seem like they could be considered a religious gadget. It seems like the stories of how they provide physical protection have declined, but for sure they’re a great marker of institutional loyalty, since we so often wear clothing that shows whether we’re wearing them or not.
Scouting was a success. Some people hated it, but it did a lot of good for my sons and for a lot of other young men. I served a number of times and I know that some leaders were more serious and committed than others. Pres. Monson was sick when we killed scouting, and I think that he was told by the lawyers that we had to quit because of liability, but I also think that he was promised by the Q15 and general YM and YW presidencies that it would be replaced by something much better. If that happened, he was lied to. Remember what replaced it? Quad charts in the 4 domains that each youth would keep, and those charts would be used to develop a strong activity program that met the kids’ needs? Only a year or two later I, as HPGL or EQP, asked the bishop in a ward council what happened to that program, and his answer was that they’re not allowed to ask the youth to bring their quad charts to church, and they’re not allowed to use them to develop activities. I suspect that someone brought their quad chart to YM or YW for activity planning and some peers laughed that that person’s chart, embarrassing the youth, so the whole thing was killed. Scouting wasn’t perfect, but it is far, far better than what I am seeing now, which is almost nothing, except a big fancy FSY event every other year.
We like to claim that the Lord speaks to a prophet today (RMN) just like he has in the past (see Bible or BOM). Many members believe that. Fair enough. But when it comes to gadgets, even the most faithful TBM has to admit that we’ve basically set those aside. Why is the seer stone used by Joseph locked away in some safe? Why is there no other kind of gadget or tool currently being used? Seems like fair questions to ask. I guess we use consecrated oil so there is that.
I don’t know if this counts as a gadget or not, but I think the biggest gadget success in my youth and adolescence is the tried-and-true basketball hoop in the cultural hall. We played early-morning church ball during much of middle school with deacon, teacher, and priest quorum leaders. Larg chunks of my youth and even high school socialization took place playing bastketball/volleyball in the church (we had access to the keys- I think my best friend even made an unauthorized copy). I had pretty good experiences with scouting in the sense that I went camping, which I probably would never have done since our family wasn’t very rugged. But I also think I would have maybe preferred some sort of enrichment that was less militaristic in its origins (e.g., art, music, web design, etc.). We’re not active in our ward now and there are efforts to get our son to participate in activity days (recently we got a flyer that the kiddos in ward did a potato derby car, which is cool). What we do instead is make sure our son is involved in local community classes, like Lego club, robotics, coding, STEM clubs, etc.
Since my first degree is in the humanities (French/Spanish lit), I did a lot of studying on early European history. I remember reading a lot about the fascination and incorporation of magical amulets, talismans, and relics into early Christian life throughout the centuries. Your discussion reminds me a bit of reading how much weight the magical properties of these “gadgets” had for those believers. I see a lot of similarities.
DaveB – Your post reminded me of the character John in A Brave New World. In your discussion of military gadgets, you touch on drones, submarines, the atomic bomb, sonar, radar, and even shipbuilding/industrial capacity. But then you juxtapose that with religious technology which of course are mythical, spiritual, mystical, and superstitious in nature and aren’t understood or operated by an understanding of the laws of physics and science. The obvious difference between such gadgets are that military gadgets are scientific and reliably function by known laws whereas religious gadgets don’t have a clear understanding of how they work (if they work at all) and must be accepted by faith. Anyone can learn to operate sonar/radar, but it doesn’t appear that we have successfully mastered the art of using seer stones since Joseph used them.
If you recall from the text, John rejected the World State’s values of an engineered, techno dystopian society and sought meaning in the mystical and mythical. I think Huxley does a good job here describing the emptiness that excessive scientism might lead too. John found the World State’s superficial happiness and consumerism empty and yearned for a life that included suffering, passion, and spiritual fulfillment/meaning. In other words, he wanted and needed the religious gadgets and mysticism. I don’t think the religious gadgets do anything other than support a belief/faith system, but maybe that is essential for human thriving as a species. And if that belief system leads to moral and ethical behavior, I would deem those useful gadgets. If not, I see them as harmful.
Personally, I think temple attendance is mostly a colossal waste of time, other than perhaps the 1st time through the ordinances. I think it is harmful because it crowds out more useful pursuits. My mother-in-law has been a temple coordinator for years. This was akin to a part-time job for her and she spent every Saturday night in the temple for probably 5 years. During this time, all of her children’s marriages ended in divorce with the exception of my wife and I. It’s impossible to know what might have happened if she had volunteered to watch her grandchildren for the couples to go on a date night instead of spending hours in the temple, but I’m sure the service would have been more practically useful than spending hours watching the same movie over with mostly aging boomers. But in her mind, this service was accruing blessings for her children and those on the other side of the veil.
I am sure this will be offensive to many, but I view temple rituals on par with playing video games. It’s a relatively individualistic pursuit that maybe can be done with a core group of participants to create an insular community, but it doesn’t have a large impact on becoming a better person, nor does it help to lift those around us. Matthew 8:18, Christ says to “let the dead bury the dead.” I find it tragic that so much of the wisest and most capable members of our faith spend an inordinate amount of their time doing ordinances for the dead when we have huge numbers of the living whose temporal and spiritual needs are being unmet. If I were to reboot the temple as a gadget, I would swap out the masonic origins of the temple ceremony for those of Sikhism with the concept of Langar, or the community kitchen.
Wikipedia describes Langar like this:
Another innovation I would apply to temples is that I would open up a section of each temples to non-members as well and allow them to serve as a place for quiet meditation and prayer. I can’t claim that this idea originated from me. I borrowed this from Wilfried Decoo (one of my former professor) and he suggested as much when the Paris, France temple was being opened as a way to dispel the common notion that Mormons were members of a cult.
The Liahona, the Brother of Jared’s rocks and the Sword of Laban seem to qualify as LDS gadgets. None of them really seemed to have a purpose beyond their initial use, but the Nephites apparently kept the Liahona and sword for all those years. The Liahona in particular seems like it should be the most useful gadget of them all.
The top OT gadget would have to be the Ark of the Covenant. Always good if you need to melt some Nazis. Lesser gadgets include Samson’s hair, the cruse of oil, the trumpets at Jericho and Moses’ staff.
Catholics have tons of gadgets in the form of relics. The Shroud of Turin, pieces of the cross, bones of Saints, etc. There are many, many stories of miraculous events surrounding those relics.
Hank Green recently talked about a very similar thing recently on Vlogbrothers about social and cultural norms and structures as a technology. He and his brother have been talking about “beef days” which sounds silly but they are proposing cutting red meet except for four holidays where beef is part of the celebration. Check them out they are fascinating and interesting in many ways as authors and also founders of community and internet stuff including nerdfighteria, complexly, vidcon, good stuff, work with partners in health, a bunch of YouTube education content programs – like crash course, sci show, Eocene, the Anthropocene reviewed, the microcosm.
the LDS church is a very effective money making technology. What it is all for I am not sure in the end. What will the church become in the future as its assets grow and membership does not or shrinks? Is there a point where it is like the Amana colonies or shakers where the community dies off but assets and investments remain? What is it for I am less sure of now then I was as a member because then it seemed simple as a tool for making the kingdom of God. I no longer believe that it is. I am not sure it is now what it was 100 years ago or even 40 years ago. If it is a tool what is it trying to do or become?
I wanted to add one other comment with regards to consecrated oils. My brother worked for Young Living at a very high level. He often told me some pretty fantastical and quasi religious stories about Gary Young (the now deceased founder) and his wife that were lore at the company. One thing that he said about the rise of essential oil MLMs is that initially some of the biggest proponents were LDS women who viewed these oils not just as nice smelling products for your home or having some healing/health properties (dubious), but as almost synonymous with their own priesthood or consecrated oil akin to what male LDS priesthood holders would use to bless and heal. I found that deeply fascinating culturally and from an anthropological perspective.
There was a big schism between the LDS MLM oil-types and when a prominent “oiler” (Madison Vining) came out on Instagram and claimed that the essential oil MLM company had been taken over by Satan. No surprises that she had cut her own deal with a new start-up MLM company. But anyway, the tightness between Evangelicals and LDS has come in the fusion of LDS-founded MLMs and often intersects with MAGA political strains. I think oils are some sort of religious gadget, even if they are essential oils I think we could consider MLM products as religious gadgets in a way.
One huge advantage of the US military is the enormous emphasis they place on logistics and supply chains. Keeping a huge army fed and fueled may not win battles but it wins wars. Arguably they do it better than every other country. While not a gadget per se, it could be considered a technology or perhaps a strategy.
I’d argue that the LDS church has the same or similar strategy. Logistics and efficiency. It’s extraordinarily organized for a church, centralized, and well funded. Its hierarchy isn’t unlike that of a military- people know their place, they know who’s in charge, and it’s results oriented. Politicians have said it after natural disasters- if you need help ask the Mormons.
Just to say, Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics have holy oils, and holy water. Anglicans also use holy oil. So oil is definitely not just an LDS thing. We got it from elsewhere.
Thinking back to the coronation of Charles III, there was oil, and a great many other items on the altar with which he was presented by various clerics, not to mention being clothed in various garments, as a part of the religious ceremony.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Ziff, definitely.
Jacob L, “the fascination and incorporation of magical amulets, talismans, and relics into early Christian life throughout the centuries.” Maybe we moderns still think more like those Middle Age peasants than we generally admit. Notice how often magic rings and supernaturally powerful weapons and wizard powers show up in modern entertainment shows and video games.
Dave W, you, sir, know your scriptures well. How could I have missed the Liahona?
Brian G, that’s a great comment. Not-for-profit organizations have to have a mission statement that defines what the goals of the org are, what they will spend their money to achieve. That is for the benefit of donors, who will know what their donations are supporting. It is also for the employees and volunteers, who know what the organization is trying to do, the big picture. “Making the world a better place” is too general, you need a more focused statement.
Just like “building the kingdom of God” is too general. The Church and the leadership need to think harder about what the mission of the LDS Church is. So they know what to spend the money on instead of just building a huge investment portfolio. Right now, an accurate statement of the mission of the Church might be: “We strive to collect significant donations from faithful members in order to make our large and diversified investment portfolio even larger.” This is probably worth a separate post!
Hey—tangential question, but I’ve always found Alma 37:23 delightfully odd. I’ve heard that Gazelem was a person, maybe Enoch, but also that Gazelem was the name of the -stone-.
What do you all make of that verse? (Really love imagining a stone named Gazelem. But then I had a pet rock for a while. Not named Gazelem. Missed opportunity.)
Also what the stone did was really creepy and weird and totally not okay.
Not sure if Gazelem is the name of the servant or the stone in this context.
IMO, the church has two basic purposes:
To help as many of the children of Adam and Eve to get on the high road to eternal life. And!
To aid them in pressing forward on that road.
And that effort in includes making all of the necessary ordinances available to both the living and the dead–plus aiding the living in their efforts to press forward by providing means to help them secure both temporal and spiritual salvation.
With respect to how the church ought to utilize its resources to further those two basic purposes: The church has to be both as grounded and as flexible as a willow tree in order to carry off its purposes in an ever changing world. And so church leaders must be open to receiving inspired counsel in order to know how to best position the church’s resources for usage in the future.
Jack – if this was Sunday school your answer would be the right one. It checks the Sunday school boxes: faithful ✔️, ordinances ✔️, follow the prophet, pray, go to church. But this isn’t Sunday school and so I can’t help but ask – if the church is really for:
Is it doing this job well or at all? The missionary work is largely left to 18-20 year olds using 1950s door to door sales tech. Ordinances are gate checked with temple recommend interviews and only available to a portion of the small percentage of people that are members. It has 55 billion in US stocks and another 60-70 billion in other financial investments, at least 100 billion in real estate. It has a welfare program but it doesn’t have homeless shelters or hospitals. It has an education arm with a couple of universities and a perpetual education fund that I haven’t heard anything about in a decade. That’s a lot of resources that aren’t doing anything for that mission statement. Membership isn’t growing. Lots of temples built but last time I went in 2019 it was the witness couple and ordinance workers and us. A lot of empty building with few ordinances happening for living or dead. More temples makes little sense except I guess it has the money.
Brian G:
“The missionary work is largely left to 18-20 year olds using 1950s door to door sales tech.”
The Lord uses “the weak things of the world” to do his work.
“Ordinances are gate checked with temple recommend interviews and only available to a portion of the small percentage of people that are members.”
The ordinances are received by covenant. They should be given only to those who have proven their willingness to live of to the terms of the covenant(s) to which they pertain.
“It has 55 billion in US stocks and another 60-70 billion in other financial investments, at least 100 billion in real estate.”
I rejoice in the church’s prosperity. It promotes a sense of security in the organization and opens the door to wondrous possibilities for the future.
“It has a welfare program but it doesn’t have homeless shelters or hospitals.”
The church may not own or run hospitals or shelters–but my understanding is that it donates a lot of money to such organizations.
“It has an education arm with a couple of universities and a perpetual education fund that I haven’t heard anything about in a decade.”
According to the church the PEF has helped 90,000+ individuals in varying degrees since its inception in 2001. And it’s my understanding that the church is expanding the program.
“That’s a lot of resources that aren’t doing anything for that mission statement. Membership isn’t growing.”
IMO, those resources insure stability in the temporal affairs of the church around the world. And temporal security helps to maintain the church’s position as a bastion of faith for the spiritual welfare of the saints as well as a storehouse for the poor among them.
“A lot of empty building with few ordinances happening for living or dead.”
Comparatively speaking–yes. But a case can be made against the downside of overcrowding temples. Even so, the church wishes to bring the temple closer to the members. And this has been a critically important move (IMO) in the less affluent areas of the church. And so, my hope is that, even though temples on an individual basis might see fewer patrons, the overall rate of temple attendance among the members increases throughout the church. And that’s what the church is hoping for. The temple has a profound sanctifying effect upon the saints–which is one of the primary purposes of the church.
“But a case can be made against […] overcrowding…”
A sentence like: “I rejoice in the church’s prosperity. It promotes a sense of security in the organization and opens the door to wondrous possibilities for the future,” is not rational talk. It is the talk of an ostrich with their head in the ground and happy to be doing so.
Nothing screams, “Indeed, I belong to a cult” or “I live in a bubble,” to me more than parroted, anachronistic, manufactured, in-group-signaling jargon. These people aren’t “living in the world, but not of the world.” They are somewhere else. In a lalaland. I get it, some people (like Jack, who have found everything they need in this bubble after so many trials) may not be able to function much without staying in a naive bubble and repeating mantras–which is actually a propos: Shibboleths are a religious gadget. Between “ponderizing” and “thinking celestial” and all this “I rejoice in” phrasing (as well as just about everything else Nelson says and does, as do his most ardent followers, as evidenced, of course, by the smashing of their water bottles in like manner) we’ve got this one covered.
Jack wrote:
The church has to be both as grounded and as flexible as a willow tree in order to carry off its purposes in an ever changing world.
I should really respond to the OP rather than responding to Jack’s comment with a drive-by comment of my own, but seeing this reminded me so strongly of an incident in my childhood that I had to respond.
The backyard of my childhood home had two willow trees. They were small young saplings when we moved in, but they were large mature trees by the time we moved out fifteen years later. I would not describe these trees as flexible. They would drop twigs and small branches in any wind or storm. In late summer and early autumn, the ground beneath would be littered with twigs and branches that had to be removed along with hundreds of pounds of leaves.
One night, we heard a crack after a large gust of wind. One of the willow trees had split right down the middle. An entire half of the tree had fallen on the back lawn. Luckily, it was the half that faced away from the other tree, and it fell on the lawn instead of on the house. The fallen tree blocked the entire backyard, from house to fence.
My dad used his chainsaw to cut up the fallen trunk, but me and my brother had the job of cutting up the branches and gathering the leaves and twigs. It took many weeks to get the fallen tree out of the yard, one green-waste binful every week.
The surviving half of the tree grew new bark over the gaping wound where the other half had been, and it never suffered another major split. But you could always tell that it was only half a tree.
I don’t know why our willow trees were so brittle and inflexible. Maybe we didn’t water them enough? My mom was always very diligent about watering the lawn, but maybe the roots of the willows didn’t get enough water.
Anyone who reads this comment may draw any analogies they desire regarding life or the Church or whatever. I’m not drawing any analogies here. I’m just describing my own experience with the willow trees in the backyard.
Pontius Python, that’s willow trees for you. They aren’t known as widowmakers for nothing. Don’t sit under a mature willow. They do drop branches, and they have killed. I’ve seen several news headlines to that effect.
One lost “gadget” in the form of once established practice, which occurred to me, that hasn’t shown up in the comments is women giving healing blessings and teaching such as orthodox ways to the rising generation. The use of consecrated oil was common, and women who knew these skills often gathered around a pregnant sister in the early stages of labor and delivery for a washing and anointing that was esteemed similar to temple ceremonies.
It was organized and administered by the Relief Society, and was well supported by early church leaders, but later was discouraged, and then forbidden by new generations of male leaders, in the 1930s and 40s. One part of that effort was the midwife school in SLC, that trained sisters who lived in the rural communities of the church, to insure that mothers and babies had more reliable maternity care out in the field. I wonder how different the church might be for women and men, if leaders had been more positive about developing women’s authority over and input about their own work and skills. It’s regrettable what has been lost.
BrianG wrote:
The Perpetual Education Fund was folded into something called Self Reliance Services which, as I understand it, is basically small DIY groups that kind of meet go over church material with a stake/ward employment specialist. Here is a link to some of the online course work:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/self-reliance/manuals-and-videos
My running buddy who is several decades older than me retired as a comptroller from Ford Motor company. He ran the PEF in South Africa. We talked at length during our long runs about the PEF. He oversaw the program in a pretty hands-on way and even lived in South Africa for a time. He was very pessimistic and negative about the impact and efficacy of the program. He confided in me that he largely considered it a failure. He often mentioned that the loan repayment rates were abysmal and that that church members would stop giving if they realized how many people simply absconded with funds. I can’t verify that and I don’t think anyone really knows the details because there is no real transparency. But according to him, there was a lot of waste and abuse in the system and not a lot of actual learning in accredited education/vocational programs, which might be why it seems like it is not mentioned today and has mostly morphed into an online DIY pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps course. I’m sure there were some successes too. It turns out it’s a lot easier to publish some online PDFs and checklists about finding a better job or platitudes about the value of education and budgeting than it is to do the difficult work of training and educating someone in a skill, vocation, or trade that is locally relevant to their society and economic conditions.
Incidentally, I think the Pathways program is an enormous waste of resources as well. Not only that, the current head of the Pathways program broke California civil law in extorting and exploiting the poor, so an inauspicious data point:
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2024/02/29/extortion-byu-pathway-presidents/
Pathways is focused on delivery of content and digital learning. But there are already free (and much better, imo) resources out there like MOOCs with educational certificates and free learning platforms like Khan Academy. What is needed in my estimation is not digital but physical: homes, schools, hospitals, transportation, clinics, parks, infrastructure, water, etc. Spending so much on Pathways I think is a way to somehow justify the large transfer of tithing expenditures to the tuition and operation of elite church schools (BYU, BYU-H, BYU-I, Ensign College, etc), but I think it is a misallocation of church resources because it’s not effective and will never replace the benefit that can be derived by attending a physical LDS school.
I have a hard time equating religious artifacts to wartime technologies. The two ends are very different. For me, it’s better to think of these religious innovations as story telling devices or props. All of the “gadgets” I’ve heard mentioned above function as symbols or conduits to the supernatural. A stone (or all 16 if you’re the brother of Jared)? A stone wedged into a bow? A stick or staff (e.g., Moses’)? A sword? A vial of oil or a curious gold ball? By themselves these are all things Emile Durkeim would call “profane” or very ordinary. But put them into a story where the protagonist uses them to access godlike powers and they become what he’d call “sacred.” They turn mystical and help unify a community in the suspending of reality while listening to a story. A magicians wand serves much the same purpose on the stage.
Looks like perpetual education fund is not so perpetual. Thanks for the update.
I looked up what is left of the websites about it and I get why it has not been a success. No transparency. Amount of money available is low. You need to repay while you are studying and you have just a few years after to pay back the whole amount. Plus church controls who gets them with worthiness interviews and bishop recommendations. I had years to pay back my student loans and interest and payments weren’t required till I graduated from US fed loans.
I am sure Nelson hated the program since it was Hinckley’s idea.
if the church wanted to pay for education it has the money to do it. It doesn’t because it didn’t bring in the return of funds that 4 years at BYU does in tithing.
Honestly, I’m saddened by the negativity here sometimes. The Pathway program may not be the biggest and best online school–but it’s pretty-dang good for a program sponsored by a church. The church is a church first and everything else second. And so the fact that it has such a program is laudable–plus it is quite affordable comparatively speaking and there are lots of ways to reduce costs even further.
That said, in the grand scheme of the church’s educational goals–it’s not so much that the PEF is waning as it is that new paradigms and programs are altering the dynamics involved with carrying it off. The scope of Pathway is already much larger than the PEF ever was–and that’s something to be excited about.
Jack – I can see how you might characterize my comments as negative, but I see them as being realistic and honest. I think the church’s welfare square is an enormous success because it temporally blesses the lives of many (including non-LDS). I loved being able to give out food orders and work with the RS president and DI vouchers. It should be noted that the median home price in Utah is now over half a million dollars and is 6x the median household income (which is often multiple earners). This will absolutely decimate the prospects of younger LDS families trying to couple and have children. It’s quite tragic, actually.
I think the vocational and job training program like those administered by Deseret Industries are great. But I think we have to have an honest assessment of programs and whether they work or not. In this instance, I think PEF did not work and I think Pathways is not sufficiently addressing the temporal needs of the saints. The biggest challenge for the LDS in many parts of the world will be affordable housing, transportation, and medical care. We have a surfeit of online learning and so the Pathways is redundant, even if it does have merit. I would much rather see the church establish a Perpetual Housing Fund and call young men (and women) to construction missions and create low-cost, subsidized housing for young would-be families, widows, the poor, indigent. I am a big fan of using the collective action of the faith community to meet temporal needs. I simply assert that Pathways is the wrong program and is addressing the wrong issues. The lack of affordable/attainable housing is much more of a barrier to the ideals espoused in the Family Proclamation than the LGBTQ community, yet that community seems to be the target of attack by zealous members (and sometimes leaders).
I only pay about 4% tithing on net income these days, so I rejoice in my newfound individual prosperity. It allows for daily trips to the 7-11 and ownership of more than one pair of crocs.
Jacob L,
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree with some of what you say–and I certainly agree that the market is getting pricey. Thankfully, my wife and I were able to build our home with Habitat for Humanity in 2005. What a blessing that has been for us! But here’s the thing: our home is only about 1200 square feet in size plus a large crawl space for storage–and that’s for a family of 8. We had to be willing to start really small–and perhaps stay relatively small. By the time we built our home we had lived in two different basement apartments, three other smaller apartments, and even with my wife’s parents for a time. It’s no shame to live in a basement or in a mobile home or out in the sticks–if one can work from home. And perhaps even more importantly, we had to be patient. It takes time to succeed. We in the West have got to get passed our notions of 1) what we can’t live without and 2) how quickly success should come.
Having said all of that, I wouldn’t be surprised if the church were to set up a super-low interest mortgage loan program at some point–I think that’d be great. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they were to get involved in helping along other already established programs like Habitat for Humanity. Even so, I can say from personal experience that the Bishops’ Storehouse alone was a huge help to us when times were tough–especially with a family of 8! The Bishop told us not to worry about food. He told us to leave that cost to the church and to focus on our other obligations. And over time, with the church’s help and the kind assistance of extended family, we we’re able to get on our feet.
Jacob L I really appreciate your sharing information about the PEF. Would it be alright if I were to suggest one word change? I am assuming the word abscond is the word of PEF administrators and that you are simply repeating a word that was used when your friend shared information with you. It seems like a harsh word to use in describing what happened when students from countries with struggling economies didn’t repay student loans. I’m assuming that these students did not go off to tropical islands to build vacation homes. The reality for many in the global south is that it is extremely difficult to rise above the economic pressures that keep so many down.
I wish the church operated with more financial transparency. We are left making guesses about what happened with limited information that trickles through. I would measure the success of the PEF in lives helped rather than fund repayment and would factor in the effects of difficult economies and time. Within my own US family it took several generations for education to have much of an economic effect and even then it has been limited but I am grateful my predecessors were able to obtain some education. It has lifted us in ways that transcend economics and has had real effects in helping us to maintain baseline levels of economic stability.
I also understand that the PEF did not operate the way most of us who were encouraged to donate assumed it would. My understanding is that all of the donated funds were placed into an investment fund and that the capital was never used, only the proceeds from investments. Please correct me if I am incorrect, but if this is the case then it really would hand been only relatively small amounts that even went toward these student loans.
In the global south education is one but only one part of the puzzle for helping people with economic empowerment. Still it is not nothing.
Jack – I agree with every word you said. I happen to work very closely with the director of Habitat for Humanity down in southern Utah on affordable housing solutions for struggling families in this area. They do great work. I personally think many in Utah and the expensive “Mormon corridor” are going to need to liken the scriptures unto themselves and take a little journey like Lehi and go to the promised land, which may be in another state with lower housing costs! But living with family is a good housing hack if it’s available; it can help facilitate savings for a downpayment.
anon – your point is well taken. I agree, wrong choice of words. He was relating his frustrations with the program, but I suspect that the money was not actually stolen. More than likely it was similar to student loan payments that couldn’t be paid back. Come to think of it, it seems like even here in the US we have a problem with burdensome student loans. Go figure.
When RMN stated that the vax was “safe and effective”, priesthood blessings for the healing of the sick and afflicted by the laying on of hands using consecrated oil was glaringly absent. It was never even mentioned as on option by him or any other church leader. But many of them were proud to bare their “arms of flesh” and show their willingness to get jabbed as an example to everyone else that worshipped them.
It can now only be presumed by their examples that healing blessings are ineffective, and will likely be removed from future editions of the priesthood manual.
A religious gadget that is lost is the CTR ring.
Back when I was a kid I was given one ring, either at the beginning of the year I turned eight or as part of the celebration when being baptized. It was done with pomp and drama. The kids in my class mostly wore them with pride Kids were devastated if they lost them. Teachers and leaders would draw attention to the kids who were wearing their ring at church, praising them for wearing their reminder to choose the right. We were taught this would help us choose the right and others would be curious about the rings and they would be a tool to share the gospel with others.
Then they started giving the rings to the entire primary, including barely 3 year old Sunbeams. And giving out new ones every single year. And the rings lost their shine a bit. Lots of kids wore the more expensive ones purchased through the bookstore instead of the very cheap one size adjusts to everyone. Lots of parents just took them away because honestly, choking hazard for three year olds plus the adjustable band pinched little fingers.
And then they just kind of disappeared.
Second comment on religious gadgets.
Personally, I consider Scouting a failure. But then, I’m female.
Growing up it was a stark constant reminder that I was worth less time and money and care and attention from the church. As an adult I led the Cub group for several years and after release from that calling I was asked what calling I might be interested in next. I said I wanted to bring the same activities to Activity Girls but was informed that there was no way the girls could be allowed to meet for activities once a week. Cubs, yes. We had leaders and training and budget and program support and weekly meetings. Girls, a pittance of a budget and half the time invested in the kids.
Teaching half the population that we are literally worth *less* seems a failure.