We sometimes hear criticism that the LDS Church is too “American” — that its culture is too informed by the cultural context of the United States.
I thought of that, when I read the following passage from Pope John Paul II’s 1998 encyclical Fides et ratio (“Faith and Reason”):
In preaching the Gospel, Christianity first encountered Greek philosophy; but this does not mean at all that other approaches are precluded. Today, as the Gospel gradually comes into contact with cultural worlds which once lay beyond Christian influence, there are new tasks of inculturation, which mean that our generation faces problems not unlike those faced by the Church in the first centuries.
My thoughts turn immediately to the lands of the East, so rich in religious and philosophical traditions of great antiquity. Among these lands, India has a special place. A great spiritual impulse leads Indian thought to seek an experience which would liberate the spirit from the shackles of time and space and would therefore acquire absolute value. The dynamic of this quest for liberation provides the context for great metaphysical systems.
In India particularly, it is the duty of Christians now to draw from this rich heritage the elements compatible with their faith, in order to enrich Christian thought. In this work of discernment, which finds its inspiration in the Council’s Declaration Nostra Aetate, certain criteria will have to be kept in mind. The first of these is the universality of the human spirit, whose basic needs are the same in the most disparate cultures. The second, which derives from the first, is this: in engaging great cultures for the first time, the Church cannot abandon what she has gained from her inculturation in the world of Greco-Latin thought. To reject this heritage would be to deny the providential plan of God who guides his Church down the paths of time and history….
What do you think of this? Is it a fair conclusion (from a Catholic perspective) that because Christianity was “incultured” in the world of classical thought, this was part of God’s plan?
Now of course Mormons might say that this “inculturation” was actually the unfolding of the Apostasy — the mingling of scripture with “the philosophies of men.” And yet much of even latter-day Scripture does seem to be addressed to peculiarly Western religious concerns, and couched in a Western idiom, informed in large part by the thinking of classical antiquity.
What of the underlying point — that the culture in which a universal religious system is revealed, is not a matter of chance, but rather of divine providence?
As someone who thinks the chant “USA! USA!” is one of the most inane noises ever invented (although I suppose it would be kinda hard to make one of the more profound expressions of good American patriotism, like Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, sound good at a hockey game), I can see how non-Americans could see the notion that God chose to restore the Church in America as coming across as a little America-centric, even boosterish. But could it be true, nevertheless?
Wheat & Tares 
I think there are 2 sets of problems with the “American Church” mentality – theological and cultural.
1) Theological: Zion is in the American continent. The Garden of Eden was in the American continent (ie. all humans had their start in the Americas and NOT Africa/Middle East). There are 2 Jerusalems. The Book of Mormon addresses 19th century American themes (among much, much else). Granted, all of these may be true, but it is difficult to separate the LDS Church from its roots as an American religion.
2) Cultural: As long as the Church cares about doctrinally irrelevant things like African members dressing up like 1960’s American IBM businessmen, whether in General Conference OR in their own country, it will be hard to be seen as anything besides an American Religion.
I see Peter’s revelation in Acts 7 as an idication that no one need give up his or her culture in order to have a right relationship with God. Further, God is active in more geographical locations than Jerusalem (in Peter’s day) or the US (in our day).
Enforcing Mountain West, stereotypical US Mormon culture is no different than the 1st century saints attempting to enforce Palestinian Judaism.
Mike S:
Zion is in the American continent.
Which extends from Canada to Chile — not quite the land of baseball and apple pie.
There’s a big difference between an American Church and a Utah-centric one. The ideals that informed the formation of the US (and other countries in the Americas) are ones that align well with the LDS gospel: independence with a nod to the past but still, focusing on creating something new and innovative. As Stephen Colbert put it, Mormonism had the good sense to originate in a place much less unsavory than the middle east. Personally, I think non-US converts frequently find American ideals and the American dream attractive. But the Utah culture as a subset of the American ideals does not translate super well outside the US, IME. At times, I don’t think it even translates that well within the US.
#3 – It doesn’t even translate past the point of the mountain.
I think God is very active in history, with all peoples having their part to play. As a Community of Christ guy, I obviously have an idea that a church can be TRUE without requiring that all other churches be FALSE, since God is very good at multi-tasking. There was a time when the fate of Christianity largely depended on Ireland, for crying out loud.
What I find amazing is that we now believe that the work of God is no larger than the work of religion.
Mike S:
The Mormon theology of Zion’s physical incarnation also involves the “ice flowing down from the North” as a result of prophetic judgement. Note that any ice age lowers sea level, and basically links the Americas with Eurasia as a single continent (through Alaska and Siberia), in which it is possible to walk from Jerusalem to Independence.
So JS had that covered, too. 😀
I have a friend (website at http://rileysfarm.com/index.html) who’s an interesting guy — formerly LDS, Stanford grade, now evangelical and basically trying to recreate the best aspects of the 1770s on a living-history farm and in the country generally.
He said something interesting in one of our conversations — that one of the LDS Church’s greatest strengths comes from its having essentially “preserved in amber” significant portions of the mentality of Puritan New England that the rest of the country has now abandoned.
I think he may have a point. I also think that this mindset — “New England’s God,” as the old song went — is responsible for a lot of what is good in the modern world order. I’m not sure I necessarily believe this myself, but I’m throwing it out there: Could one of the reasons God might have launched the Restoration of his church within a particular folkway, be that he wanted aspects of that folkway to be spread along with his church?
I also wonder whether, if you believe God takes an active role in managing history, the fact that so many early Mormon converts were Scandinavian, could fairly be seen as providential. I remember a story about a Swedish technocratic type boasting to Milton Friedman about how there was so little poverty among Scandinavians. Friedman answered that’s funny; in America, there’s very little poverty among Scandinavians, either. Folkways matter, and the early Church sure got stocked up with healthy ones.
The Mormon church is very, very American and increasingly Salt Lake City-centric. The level of centralized control is astonishing.
(Even when I was extremely active, I saw the church’s mission as finding the elect of God, not baptizing every Tom, Dick and Harry.)
The church of Jesus Christ is a tribal church — not a state-based Church(TM).
Tribal affiliations naturally exist on the earth so long as states do not exist to break them up. These tribes and tribal affiliations are worldly, termed in the scriptures the tribes of the earth.
But the Lord, using the same natural order of tribes, chose for Himself an earthly family to represent the tribal affiliations of His people, even the house of Israel. As the tribes of the earth have their own laws, so the Lord’s tribes have their own laws — given to them by the Lord, their tribal Chief.
Any man or woman who accepts the gospel thru faith, repentance, baptism, and confirmation are automatically put into a tribe of Israel by the Lord, which tribe they ultimately find out when they receive a patriarchal blessing.
The scriptures taken as a whole, emphasize the tribal nature of the gospel. We, the people of the Lord, are not just numbered by the Lord among the house of Israel, we are numbered among one of the tribes of the house of Israel. All of this is in anticipation of the coming of “the kingdom of heaven”, meaning the system of government that exists in heaven, which is tribal anarchy.
My brother and sister-in-law live in Scotland.
Here’s why I think the church thinks in terms of American Culture. The scouting program is not even apart of the culture in Scotland. Howell, never wanted scouting to be associated with church activity the way the american lds church has made the program into.
There are two forces at work in the way the church is adapting to its encounter with everything outside the U.S. On one side, the leaders of the church are doing their best to teach things that are universally true and universally useful (see their recent statement about immigration in Utah). Stories in General Conference are stripped of local culture and location, for the most part. On the other side, they want the church to have the same physical environment everywhere (building style, temple style, dress code, meeting format, etc.). So you end up with doctrines and teachings that are carefully chosen to be as universal as possible, but also a material culture that is very American. The result is kind of strange to many non-US people, who will probably first notice the American material culture.
In my opinion, the rest of the US could do with being more Utah-centric, Utah have just made their position on immagration clear in the “Utah Compact” it is the complete opposite to Arazona’s zenofobic stance.
Im from the UK, I do believe that the church destroys some culture, at this point in time binge drinking is the cultural thing to do, every Friday Saturday night young adults drink till they nearly pass out. In the absence of alcohol a vacuum is created the the church is happy to fill.
I have never felt forced to do anything it is just the church creates vacuums.
I believe it is important to separate the Utah culture from the Gospel.
That culture manifests its self in many ways, not just the uniform.
The attitude to sex, to women to homosexuality to modesty, the idea that we are under attack if someone puts a different point of view (exclusive rather than inclusive), the idea that there is a wicked world out there waiting to get us, ie that the majority of others are wicked.
Our definition of morality (the republican one) that morality only relates to reproduction. The leaders speaking out on moral issues does not extend to poverty, greed, war, abuse etc which are also moral issues.
So I believe the culture of Utah is diverting the leaders from the Gospel, from accepting diversity, from the ability to question whether their Utah values are actually the Gospel of either Christ or even Joseph Smith.
For example does the culture of modesty taught by the church make for a more or less sexually dangerous environment? Is it Gospel or culture? If you measure, pornography use, unwanted pregnancies, rape in Utah and compare them to a less modest culture are they working or not. I believe not.
The conservative culture of the church is also responsible for the pharisaical view that Love your neighbour = home teaching, certainly not a concern for his health insurance etc.
I live in a ward where it is unacceptable for me to express my version of the Gospel because of the Conservative (Utah style views of my Bishop). He has told me it offends his wife for a start.
I believe the culture of Utah is a large part of the teachings of the church and is often counter the Gospel, (see above)
Geoff of A:
I think your differentiation of Utah culture and American culture is very valid. No one in my bluer-than-thou state would see Mormonism as essentially representative of America, or even right-wing American. Mormons, even if ALL were conservative, would make up a smaller percentage of self-identified conservatives in the US than Judism (the most liberal religious group in America according to Pew) makes up of self-identified liberals.
I think the rest of the world overestimates the strength of liberalism in this country because media tends to be urban-based (and particularly large city based) and those regions are far more liberal than most of the country.
Go to Realclearpolitics.com and look at the red and blue map of congressional districts.
Geoff of A:
I live in a ward where it is unacceptable for me to express my version of the Gospel because of the Conservative (Utah style views of my Bishop). He has told me it offends his wife for a start.
You have my attention. What is your version of the gospel that is so offensive to conservative women’s sensibilities? I must know.
Justin,
The Bishops wife until recently was the Adult sunday school teacher. (she was replaced by her daughter) My last Temple recommend interview took over an hour because the Bishop wanted to know why I was attacking his wife in ss. I didn’t know I was attacking her, all I was doing was asking questions. When I talked to her (at bishops request to explain) she told me that she was teaching what the Bishop, Prophet and Lord wanted so when I questioned her I could only be inspired by the devil.
Her view is that we are here to learn OBEDIENCE, total unquestioning obedience. I believe we are here to learn JOY. That obedience is a means to an end, not an end in it self. I agree with the view on Doves and Serpents “Ten principles of happines not taught at Church”
My wife was RS president and she was informed by bishop her first councilor was being replaced by his wife. She would come to pres meetings saying the Bishop has agreed we should do this… Mm wife said no and went to Stake RS to have her released, my wife was released within weeks and had no calling for 2 years. Even though we were a small ward I have not had a calling or given a talk for 4 years.
Most of my other views are fairly liberal.
Interestingly she has come to me for investing advice on a number of occasions, but church wise my views are unacceptable.
When someone believes that the church requires total unquestioning obedience there is no room for any other view. Everything else follows from there.
I recently questioned when the total obedience idea was asserted in ss class and the next sunday Bishop spoke for 40 minutes on total obedience to leaders, and rules.
Things have improved recently, boundaries were changed to give us some more members but no change of bishop.
Back to the culture thing. The last time I had a liberal Bishop was in the 80. We then had Area Presidencies introduced(usually from Utah), since then the leaders called are more conservative, more obedient, less questioning. So although we are on the other side of the world Utah culture is imposed on us too.
Geoff,
The problem that you are describing is what happens when a church begins to focus on an unwritten, oral law as the means to judge members — rather than the scriptural canon that the saints have collectively voted to sustain as binding.
From Geoff of A #12:
For example does the culture of modesty taught by the church make for a more or less sexually dangerous environment?
The current doctrine of body modesty is satanic in origin and thus is designed to lead to the breaking of the law of chastity, which is godly in origin.
“Our definition of morality (the republican one) that morality only relates to reproduction. The leaders speaking out on moral issues does not extend to poverty, greed, war, abuse etc which are also moral issues.”
“These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”
Of course poverty, greed, war, abuse all involve morality. But of course the morality is not necessarily all on the side of people with one particular set of ideas about how to deal with those issues.
For whatever reason, the present Church seems to think that “cleanse the inward vessel” is a better idea than “turn the Church into a PAC with steeples,” and run around trying to make sure it’s on the right side of whatever the conventional wisdom of the day confuses with the Right Side of History.
Yes, sexual morality is just one subset of morality, and too many Mormons may forget that — but neither is sexuality entirely without a moral component, and “consent” is not the only criteria by which sexual morality ought to be measured.
“Her view is that we are here to learn OBEDIENCE, total unquestioning obedience. I believe we are here to learn JOY. That obedience is a means to an end, not an end in it self.”
Amen and amen. I was gratified, amid my consternation at seeing “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet” quoted twice at last Conference, to see that address’s most erroneous passage — the bit about how if the prophet were to ask you to do something wrong, and you did it, you’d be blessed for it — quietly omitted from the quotations.
Obedience to truth is holy. Obedience just for obedience sake is a moral nullity. We ought to obey God rather than men.
This makes me question, could the Gospel could have been restored in any other part of the world? I doubt it. Heck, it barely made it here in the United States. It needed a land with freedom and the free expression of ideas. It needed the wealth brought about by the free market and free market principles to carry the message to the world. Along these lines, it needed the expansion of the automobile, TV, Radio and airplane to expand the message to the world. It needed the blanket of freedom provided by the US military. These things could have only happened in the land of Freedom. Most of all, it needed the conservative principles that made this nation great.
“could the Gospel could have been restored in any other part of the world?”
Could the Gospel have been restored in the 21st century?
This is a difficult question, the US certainly was fertile ground, but it was more about the timing than the location, The early 19th century was ideal for progressive thinking, it had a good level of opposition to strengthen the roots without destroying the vine.
The Mormon church has transformed dramatically since 1830, likewise Christianity has changed since the time of Christ. If the US is the most fertile place for Mormonism then, Rome is the most fertile place for Christianity.
More than anything else, it needed empty land where the early Saints could go live by themselves for a time. Could anyone imagine polygamy, Brigham Young’s theocratic rule, etc taking place in Europe or somewhere else? There needed to be an isolated place where the “peculiar people” could become that in large enough numbers so that when the inevitable integration with the outside world took place, they weren’t completely overwhelmed.
Agreed – Less about “the conservative principles that made this nation great.”
and more about places to run to!!
@22 & @23
Agreed. Remember, if you’re not annoying anyone, what’s the point in blogging.