Today’s guest post is from blogger ChurchIsTrue.
A paradigm is a way of looking at something. It’s a view or perspective. Marcus Borg in The Heart of Christianity talks about two paradigms of viewing religion. I will summarize his words here, which are applied to Christianity.
Earlier Paradigm (Literal Paradigm)
Scripture and religious doctrine are literally true. Historical references are factual and accurate. Faith is an expression of belief in the literal accuracy of scripture and teachings. Scriptures contain divine authority. Challenges to scriptural historical events would be damaging to faith. Very concerned with factual reality of the Bible. Believing scientists are involved with attempting to provide alternative science and historical explanations not accepted by mainstream scientists. Religion is a “top down” exercise, revealed from God to man. Jesus is divine, born of virgin Mary, performed miracles, and was resurrected. They have fear in not accepting a literal, inerrant view of scripture because it will allow Christians to become cafeteria Christians, picking and choosing which doctrines they like. Salvation is not universal and only for those who accept Christianity. Faith = belief. Modern science and historical understanding is viewed as a temptation, as worldly, as a choice man must make between God and Satan.
Emerging Paradigm (Metaphorical or Sacramental Paradigm)
Scripture is seen as metaphorical. Factual accuracy of scripture and doctrinal teachings are not critical. The importance and power of religion is in the concepts and lessons. Faith is an expression of loyalty and devotion but not necessarily a belief in the factual accuracy of scripture or historical religious origins. Challenges to scriptural historical events are not damaging to faith. Though divine inspiration is seen as possible, religion is seen as a “bottom up” thing, created by man as a way to seek God, worship, and show devotion. Scripture and religious doctrine are viewed as sacramental. A sacrament is something visible and physical whereby the Spirit can become present to us. Scripture is sacred in its status and function but not in its origin. Scripture is a human response to God. Christian life is about relationship with God and transformation of self. Human development in science and intellectualism is embraced. There could never be conflict with religion, because no past views within a religion can’t be modified as we understand more about our world.
Applying the Sacramental Paradigm to the LDS Church
This site’s purpose is to share the Metaphorical/Sacramental Paradigm as it relates to the LDS church, sometimes called “New Mormonism”.
When we attempt to apply this to the Mormon Church, we see how it can fit. We shouldn’t get trapped into a binary view of the two paradigms. There is crossover between the two paradigms. Traditionally the LDS church has heavily relied on the literal view, but we’re not unfamiliar with applying metaphorical view to scripture as it makes sense. Applying the emerging paradigm to LDS doctrine and beliefs would push that metaphorical view into all areas of scripture and understanding of historical origins, such as the restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith, the coming forth of Book of Mormon, view of the Bible, and for some even a view of the mortal life of Jesus Christ.
With this perspective, we can easily address all the difficult historical issues, such as the Book of Abraham, polygamy, Book of Mormon historicity, or other issues you might have heard listed in the CES Letter. It is quite a paradigm shift from a traditional LDS perspective, which opens up a lot of questions.
- How does the sacramental paradigm view priesthood authority and the prophet, apostles, and leadership of the church?
- Within this paradigm, how certain can we be of LDS doctrine and teachings?
- Do we lose too much of what’s unique about the LDS church?
- What is the point of obedience?
- Why take this paradigm view? Isn’t it easier to just take the literal paradigm, and if you can’t reconcile it with history, to just leave the church?
- What value does the LDS church provide in this paradigm?
- Joseph Smith and other past and current prophets have not interpreted things this way. Does this mean they are lying? Am I being dishonest engaging in the church with this perspective?
I embrace this paradigm, and I am a devoted member of the LDS church. Over time after grappling with all these questions, I have developed satisfactory answers to these questions for myself. On the pages and blog posts of this site, I share my views on these questions and share information that will help to formulate one’s own individual answers.
Wheat & Tares 
Here’s some personal context behind this. My faith crisis was between the years 2003ish to 2007ish. By the end of that time, I was certain the church was not True with capital T. But I loved the church and found so much positive value in it for me and my family. I spent about 4-5 years in a phase marked with a lot of anger and frustration, trying to figure out if I should leave. Or if I stay, how I could I do so in a way that wasn’t intellectually dishonest. I found some Terryl Givens and Adam Miller and other “Neo-Apologist” kind of logic during this phase, but it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It was vague. I felt like there was something important in there to understand, but I didn’t make the connection. Then I found Marcus Borg’s Heart of Christianity, and it all clicked. I started working on applying this to Mormonism and a couple years later is when I put up my site and started blogging. I now believe the church is true, lower case t. The logic here in this article is the core of it.
I’ve read similar posts on your blog before and I love what you’ve written. I consider myself very much a believer in New Mormonism and feel like it’s incredibly liberating and has allowed me to process every controversial thing I’ve read. For me, it made started to make sense when, like you, I looked at biblical scholarship and how Christians and Jews have dealt with similar historical and archeological problems while studying the Bible. We are in excellent company. Reading things written by Richard Rohr (Catholic) and Pete Enns (Liberal Evangelical) sound like they are for specifically addressing Mormons struggling who are struggling with their faith. Of course, the difficulty with this point of view is that most Church members think it is heretical and most exmos think it is delusional, it can be a tough middle way to navigate. I believe that the current faith crisis facing the Church is forcing us to gradually move this direction, or at least make room for people in this camp. I think a lot of the reluctance to adopt or tolerate this perspective is the threat it poses to obedience and devotion. When people take the “it’s true isn’t it, then what else matters?” approach, they are eager to do just about anything for the Church and accept norms without question. I think the paradigm shift gives us a much healthier approach to obedience and forces us to look at some of our norms that may just be cultural markers (i.e. our current WOW policy, white shirts, etc.).
In my opinion, there are two scriptures in the BoM that advocate for both.
3N8:1 Mormon declares all the records to be true (as opposed to Nephi who only speaks of his own). This argues that the record is and should be taken as historical.
The opposing is 3N9:18 where Christ uses a Greek title to non-Greek speakers who would have no idea what he was saying. You can argue away sheep (that they would have been taught them in the Brass Plates), horses (that they’re another animal that was called a horse), all that good stuff but Christ using this title argues that text is actually a dynamic translation, relative to our day and understanding. The terms and concepts used in the text have been adapted to our understanding and are NOT a 100% translation of what’s on the plates.
Can the Sacramental Paradigm be applied to historical propositions in scripture without damaging scripture’s prophetic certainty?
As an example, if the creation story is allegory and not fact, what reason do we have to believe that the resurrection is fact and not allegory? Both “stories” seem equally factually implausible from an evidentialist perspective.
The author’s penultimate bullet point is apt. If, to be principled, we must remain agnostic about scripture’s future truth claims as well as its past truth claims, what remains of value?
I find with the sacramental approach there is still so much of value. Instead of the Church and the scriptures being an “employee handbook” of policies on how to live every aspect of your life, they become tools to facilitate a personal journey to approach the divine. The employee handbook model is lousy anyway because it forces us to pick and choose which scriptural laws to follow (i.e. we’re big on emphasizing biblical bans on homosexuality, but ignore the bans on divorce). The Church provides an amazing community of flawed individuals doing their best to become better and providing us with opportunities to learn and grow by being placed in situations that stretch us. One can accept the beauty of the allegorical truths in the biblical stories and not worry about things like genocide and rape (which were likely written much later as nationalist propaganda). Check out Jack Naneek’s podcasts.
Gadflown, there is no way for us to know for certain if Jesus’ resurrection was an actual and not allegorical resurrection. I think it was real and accept the witness testimony of it; however, there is no way for me to prove it and I seriously doubt any definitive proof will ever be forthcoming. It might as well be allegorical to me because the power of the allegory is the same as the power of the literal in this case: I am going to live a life as a disciple of Jesus and see how things play out. Either way, I can’t know for sure, but the life of Jesus is inspiring to me and I find his example worthwhile to follow. If it means at some point I’ll literally be resurrected, that’s cool; if not, well, I’ve been made into a better person (hopefully) so the resurrection allegory also applies. I’m cool with that, too.
You can take that same concept and apply it to much of the scriptures. Does that help answer your question?
That’s a great point, Cody, and I agree with you that certainly is elusive. But I do believe it is possible to know things, and when it comes to fundamental beliefs, I think it is important not merely to withhold judgement regarding reality. It is, I think, important to choose our beliefs, even with incomplete and imperfect reasons for believing. And for my part, if I did believe that the resurrection was allegorical and not literal, I would live life very differently than I do. I wouldn’t county my fairly typical Mormon life as anything like adequate or valuable under those circumstances. My life, as it is now, would disappoint Nietzsche.
That’s not to say that everyone must choose right now – there is plenty of agnostic room for decision. But at some point, doesn’t authenticity demand a choice?
I’m not sure in answer to your question Gadfly, because I seem to hold all positions at once. I think this could all be literally true, even 7 day creation. Equally I find that preposterous as a human living in the 21st century. I find ‘sacramentalism’ works particularly well for me and enables me to be a much better person than the alternatives however. Even though there are others who would maintain that such an outcome is impossible.
I find this approach makes me more charitable and peacable. But glad I’m not Bishop.