Earth’s crammed with heaven,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
I spent time in Washington, D.C. recently. I soaked in the beautiful fall weather and changing leaves along the Potomac River and other natural wonders in the Museum of Natural History. I walked through magnificent art and architecture around the Capitol and National Mall. I teared up during inspiring stories of political and civil rights heroes in the American History and African-American History museums and of technological innovators in the Air and Space Museum. I left feeling refreshed, inspired, and awestruck by the amazing world we live in.
I found it jarring, then, when in Sacrament Meeting my first week back the speaker–quoting President Nelson’s most recent conference address—described “the world” as “sin-saturated, self-centered, and exhausting.” Is there bad stuff in the world? Absolutely. Are there selfish people in the world? Yes. Can life be exhausting? Sure. (For some, the most exhausting part of life might actually be Church …). But what a pity to focus on that, to see the world through such a pessimistic lens to characterize the entire world–which we claim God created and is deeply invested and involved in–as “sin-saturated.”
I couldn’t help but contrast this with another view of the world–the view that Father Richard Rohr describes when he characterizes the world as “Christ-soaked.” One of the core themes of Rohr’s writing in his book The Universal Christ and podcast Another Name for Every Thing is that historically Christians have focused on the crucifixion of Jesus to the exclusion of an equally-important component to the Jesus story: the incarnation of Christ in Jesus. “Incarnation,” Rohr writes, “is the oldest Christian story. Through Christ, God is pouring God’s self into all creation. To be Christian, then, is to see Christ in every thing.”
In The Universal Christ, Rohr expands on this in six themes (summarized here, but the book is worth a read), the first four of which are particularly relevant here:
- “Christ is not Jesus’ last name. Christ has existed from the beginning. Christ is not the same as Jesus.” Jesus is Christ revealing Christ-self in an embodied form, but Christ exists in many forms.
- “Accept being fully accepted. God’s infinite love has always included all that God created from the very beginning. The connection is inherent and absolute.” When God created the world, God called it “good.” It didn’t have to do anything to earn its goodness! It was good and loved because God created it.
- “See Christ in every thing. I have never been separate from God, nor can I be, except in my mind.”
- “Original goodness. The Christian story line must start with a positive and over-arching vision for humanity and for history, or it will never get beyond the primitive, exclusionary, and fear-based strategies of most early human development.” Again, God created everything and called it good. The world is good!
This seems to me a fundamentally different way of understanding God, Christ, and the world than the one posited by Nelson and other LDS leaders. To them, Jesus Christ is a person separate from the world that is judging the world, dividing the world up between the good people and the (ever-increasing) bad people. We are capable of separating ourselves from God through unworthy acts. The world is fallen and only getting worse. Etc.
Does this difference in the way we perceive the world matter? I’d love your thoughts on this, but three quick ones from me.
First, this is honestly just a downer. It’s a depressing way to experience the world. For me personally, the attitude of people like Rohr is a more uplifting and inspiring one. As Julian of Norwich wrote, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Second, the “world is getting worse and worse” orientation of the LDS Church is a large part of its tendency to label positive social change (like de-segregation, women’s rights, and gay marriage) as representing increasing evil in the world instead of representing the increased outpouring or revealing of God’s love in the world. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said (in a quote I was reminded of visiting his memorial last week) that “[t]he arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Many LDS leaders seem to think that the arc of the moral universe bends towards evil. If your default orientation is that the world is bad and getting worse, your instinctive response to change will be to characterize it as bad.
Third, labeling “the world” as “sin-saturated” places a barrier between us and people or things that are not “like us” because we worry they are “sinful.” This attitude of suspicion and skepticism about the goodness of other people and cultures gets in the way of our ability to connect with them–and to see God in them. Focusing on Jesus as having “overcome the world,” as Nelson emphasized in his most recent Conference talk, seems to put him at odds or in enmity with the world.
I also have to wonder *why* Church leaders tend to characterize the world in this negative way. Again, I’ll be asking for your takes, but I think it’s partially due to our millenarian orientation where we see the world getting worse and worse until Jesus comes back and burns the bad people and saves the good people. (I think this is extremely theologically, and practically, problematic.) I also have to wonder if, at least subconsciously, it’s because of the human tendency to unite against a common enemy. In this case, to create better social cohesion and loyalty among Mormons and to the institutional Church, we’ve got to unite against “the world” that only our Church leaders can guide us through and save us from.
Personally, I’d much rather live in a Christ or God-soaked world than a sin-saturated one. I’d rather sit in wonder at the good around me than whine and worry about the bad. That doesn’t mean I’m not aware of evil or injustice, although I define it quite differently than orthodox Mormonism. But makes me genuinely sad that Church leaders are peddling in fear and division, cutting us off from humanity and the world around us and thereby inadvertently cutting us off from God. Sad for them—that that’s how they experience this world. Sad for God–that they profane what God made sacred. And sad for my community–whose ability to experience joy is diminished by this mindset.
This section of a Mary Oliver poem I read this morning seemed particularly fitting, so I’ll end with it and then ask some questions below:
So it is not hard to understand
where God’s body is, it is
everywhere and everything; shore and the vast
fields of water, the accidental and the intended
over here, over there. And I bow down
participate and attentive…I would be good—oh, I would be upright and good.
To what purpose? To be shining not
sinful, not wringing out of the hours
petulance, heaviness, ashes. To what purpose?Hope of heaven? Not that. But to enter
Mary Oliver, On Thy Wondrous Works I Will Meditate
the other kingdom: grace, and imagination,
and the multiple sympathies: to be as a leaf, a rose,
a dolphin, a wave rising
slowly then briskly out of the darkness to touch
the limpid air, the be God’s mind’s
servant, loving with the body’s sweet mouth—its kisses, its words—
everything.
Questions:
- Would you characterize the world as “sin-saturated” or “Christ-soaked”? (Or, if “Christ-soaked” doesn’t do it for you, what terms would you use)?
- Do you think the world could be both or are they fundamentally different, mutually-exclusive orientations at viewing the world? Do you think the difference matters? How does it impact (for better or worse) how we related to other people or the natural world?
- Do you see more sin-saturated or Christ-soaked rhetoric at Church? What are so examples of either? Why do you think that is?
- If you think the world is terrible, then how do you explain this marvel?
Wheat & Tares 
I believe we live in a Christ filled world. To me that is the purpose of this life. In each moment we can pray and feel Christ’s spirit. We can choose to follow Him in each tiny, common action. We can be who He would be in our situations and to each person we encounter. To me that is the purpose of the gospel. He continues to inclusively gather us under His wings, while we are busy running around dividing people into us and them and saying the sky is falling when really the sky is beautiful and a message from God of their love.
I do hear the opposite message far to often at church. Whatever small opportunity I have to spread His light instead, I take it.
Thank you for your inspiring piece
Wonderful thoughts Elisa. I believe one reason we hear LDS leaders characterize the world as fundamentally evil is that they have a robust notion of Satan’s reality. I’m not sure they would identify it this way, but lurking in the Mormon subconscious and consciousness is the idea that now is the day of Satan’s power, that he rules from the seas to the ends of the earth. Whether symbolically or literally, if you view the world this way, you use phrases like “adversary” and “victory for Satan” frequently and naturally. I would be interested to see someone look at General Conference usage of the word “adversary.” I think I have a pretty good guess of who is using this word most frequently. I have found it interesting to notice that as I have all but lost belief in Satan, at least as traditionally presented in mormonism, I have come to feel more kinship with the world and more convinced of its upward moral trajectory. And maybe I can more easily see God in his works. Maybe we should dismiss Satan from our models and language.
Really, beautiful, Elisa. Thank you.
This is one of the main things I can’t tolerate anymore: any kind of us and them narrative, no matter how subtle, which puts up boundaries whether mental, physical, social, etc, etc. One of the big changes I have noticed since taking a step back from the institutional church, is how much my worldview has changed. I have become far more outward looking, far more connected to those I encounter everyday (which generally speaking are the people I spend most of my time with, as opposed to other church members…so this connection makes perfect sense), and far more social. As I natural introvert I think I have perhaps used the church over the years as a retreat, an ‘excuse’ even not to make more of an effort in getting out there into the world and into life more fully. I’m not blaming the church; I put it more down to the combination of my personality and being in a high-demand institution and community with strong dividing lines. Of course you can have both, be fully participatory in both the church and society, without those metal barriers and dividing lines. I guess for me the mental barriers I created for myself were exacerbated by outside influences. But there you go…
Given that 99.99999999999999999999999% of all the good that is being done and has ever been done has happened outside the church, even the ‘Gospel’, it’s baffling that we continue to push these ideas. Well, actually completely understandable for the reasons Elisa outlines. The last time I went to church I heard a testimony along the lines of “It was so wonderful to see that there are good people outside the church.” The related framing of “Of course there are good people out there” which you still hear at GC is just as patronising. Well, duh. This is something GBH had right: his positivity toward the world.
What I see is this: most people are inherently good; most people are trying their best; and above all, everyone is just doing what they can to survive and thrive in this sin-saturated, self-centered, and exhausting….dammit.
Excellent post. The ideas in it remind me of a time I attended a Pentecostal church. The speaker brought in some plants in order to compare Faith to a seed. Of course, as a Mormon, I was very familiar with the comparison of Faith to a seed. We have to take care of it, and planted in good ground, and water it and prune it. The speaker took a whole different direction and talked about how the real miracle is the fact that a seed just needs water and sunlight which are provided by god. Nothing we can do for the seed is as important as what God provides to the seed. It really made me think about how different our emphasis on works is.
The church uses sin to frighten people into obedience. There is a lot of wickedness in the world, but I see it in the form of corporate greed and wasting resources. Rich and powerful people hurt the poor and disabled. That’s the wickedness that I see saturating the world nowadays. The church’s focus is on sexual sin while I believe economics in is what is crushing the hope out of people and the health of the entire planet. There are many working to reduce inequality and lessen the suffering of the poor. Scientists are working so hard to address environmental issues. People want to do so much good, and that’s where I see Christ’s influence.
I love your posts, Elisa. So, I’ve been seeing the same trend for years. High up church leaders seem to associate anything (or anyone) having to do with “the world” as sinful, vain, ambitious, egotistical, etc. I believe President Nelson recently said that the world is only about puffing yourself up, having pride, ego, etc. In my experience, the opposite is true. I’m lucky enough to know a lot of really talented people and, as far as I’ve been able to tell, none of them have an ego. In fact, if you want to really excel at something, you’ve got to have a pretty wide streak of humility, I think. Of course, I hope we all realize that the reason the church has to sell the world as an evil, fallen place is because it feels that it needs to present a stark choice to people/members: Either you join the church and overcome the world or you don’t join the church and sink into its sinful depths. This kind of thinking is patently absurd, but you can understand the reason behind it; if the church’s slogan was something like “Hey, we’re about five percent different from the world. Do you want to join our church?”, that’s not a great slogan. The false binary of good LDS Church and “evil” world is strictly for the purposes of salesmanship and fear mongering.
Re your other questions, I don’t think of the world in those binary terms. I don’t think it’s either “sin-soaked” or “Christ-saturated”; it’s just the world. In its complexity and variety, it’s stunningly beautiful. There is a lot of ugliness in the world, too, but a lot of that ugliness is caused by powerful, brutally efficient and amoral people. And some of it is random, like disease. Neither of those things, IMHO, make the world “sin-soaked”. So while I recognize that a lot of sh*tty things happen in the world, I also think that Mormonism gets this all wrong, even though some of its theology could allow Mormonism to transcend unhelpful binaries if it wished to. I’ve generally followed the thinking of Gerard Manley Hopkins on this matter when he says,
“Glory be to God for dappled things–
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.”
Hopkins, because he was both a Jesuit and kind of a hippie (a hippie influenced by a good deal of medieval philosophy), knew that the world was beautiful precisely because of its contraries; as a person with religious faith, he therefore saw God as the author of both light and dark and therefore, God’s fingerprints had left their traces on all things in the world, and therefore all things in the world were beautiful because they had been touched/created by God. Though Hopkins was mainly referring to the natural world, I still think that this theological framework has the potential to collapse the good/evil binary and render it as something else. Mormonism, too, believes in a world of contrasts and contraries, but too often these days our leaders seem to forget that because they’re too busy trying to make us afraid of everything.
That is not to say that I (and Hopkins) don’t believe in evil. It certainly exists. But I don’t think of the world itself as evil; that’s an overdetermined and too-simplistic response to human behavior. Murderers, despots, soulless corporate weasels, abusers of the vulnerable and helpless, etc., are all evil, I think, but that means that there are some people in the world who are evil; that doesn’t automatically make the entirety of the fallen world evil. No world in which Patsy Cline existed could ever truly be evil, I think. Or, expressed mathematically: Patsy Cline > Evil. There is so much beauty here. I think we need to be very clear-eyed about all of the horrific things that are happening and do everything we can to stop them, but I see so much beauty and good in this world, I refuse to buy the church’s party line. And don’t forget, a lot of what the church calls evil is, of course, not evil at all. Gay marriage isn’t evil. Women who work and are self-determining aren’t evil. Rock and roll isn’t evil. Neither are R movies. I’d be more inclined to buy what the church is selling if they loudly and often proclaimed that unfettered capitalism, criminalizing poverty, and believing that health care is a privilege and not a right, just to name a few things, were evil. Of course, I don’t expect that to ever happen, so I’ll just go on reading Hopkins and rolling my eyes at the church’s fearful rhetoric.
Thanks, Elisa. I’ve never heard of the term “Christ-soaked” before today, but the concept resonates with me. Finding Christ in everything and everyone. Especially because its the opposite of the tiresome “evil world” messages I hear in church, as recent as this past Sunday.
The Church seems to be stuck on that messaging, probably because the whole Mormon movement was built on a foundation of “us versus them”. We sure do love to feed our persecution complex, don’t we? It makes us feel superior. That, and the belief in a literal Satan having some degree of dominion over this world allows us to avoid owning our crap, to evade the responsibility we have as disciples of Christ to do whatever we can to make the world better. “Satan” gets too much credit for all the bad things that happen in the world; its people who chose to be cruel and selfish and destructive, not some mythical mincing supervillain.
I don’t think the world of today is any more or less evil that it was, say, 100 years ago (especially considering the rampant death and destruction of WWI). Evil just changes forms and adapts. So does good.
Patrick Mason’s book “Restoration” has a good discussion of this, contrasting the image of the church as a fortress that keeps out the world with the image of the church as a place in a garden that is the world.
Beautiful thoughts, couldn’t agree more, thanks for sharing.
I can’t really add anything more, so will just share a conversation with a very active, orthodox Mormon. She opined how sinful and disagreeable the world is these days and how it was truly the Last Days. I replied that I wasn’t too sure about it being the Last Days. In fact, religious people have been proclaiming the last days for quite some time, and calling successive generations the chosen ones, but somehow the days just keep going on. (I don’t think there is going to be any kind of Second Coming actually, but that is a different topic.)
Moreover, is not the world regularly getting more healthy, less poor, more just (I love the MLK quote about the arc of the moral universe), more fascinating? If you don’t like gay marriage, okay, maybe the world is getting more sinful to you, but what a narrow way to look at things.
She acknowledged my points and appreciated the optimism. But she still thinks the Last Days are nigh. Maybe she is right an I am wrong, but I don’t think so.
It is definitely God’s creation, this planet, and it shows. But it is clear that we live in a sin-filled environment. After all, God’s last seven plagues for all of humanity, in the end of time, is the proof that the Christ’s teachings have been completely ignored, for greed. Be blessed.
I also prefer to focus on the God of beautiful nature and love, who wants us to better love and cherish each other and all that he has made for us. I feel that this God isn’t focused on enough.
Two of my favorite hymns:
When thru the woods and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze,
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee,
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee,
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Whenever I hear the song of a bird
Or look at the blue, blue sky,
Whenever I feel the rain on my face
Or the wind as it rushes by,
Whenever I touch a velvet rose
Or walk by our lilac tree,
I’m glad that I live in this beautiful world
Heav’nly Father created for me.
He gave me my eyes that I might see
The color of butterfly wings.
He gave me my ears that I might hear
The magical sound of things.
He gave me my life, my mind, my heart:
I thank him rev’rently
For all his creations, of which I’m a part.
Yes, I know Heav’nly Father loves me.
I think the answer to your question is yes, we live in a sin-saturated and Christ-soaked world. They are not mutually exclusive. We live a beautiful world and see evidences of the great blessings Heavenly Father is pouring out on his children, while at the same time there is an ever increasing level of sin and depravity, of people calling good evil and evil good.
Personally I think we need to see both sides, if only because both exist.
BYU students might enjoy the “Christ-soaked” view, but enough fifth grade potty humor.
I agree with your food allergy. If Satan has dominion over the earth then of course it cannot be a good place. One important part of my faith journey that eventually led me to where I am today was that I shed the notion of Satan completely. Bad things happen because the universe is random, and some people are jerks.
Otherwise I do feel like I see our creator’s hand in the earth. Call me a mystic, but when I visit Arches NP, or the Hawaiian Islands, or Alaska, I’m left speechless. God truly created a playground for us.
I prefer not to discuss the church in terms of being a cult, but this insular view can make it hard for me not to view it as such.
Sometimes, I see the world in the same way the preacher did in the book of Ecclesiastes: endless vanity and vexation of spirit. Both righteous and wicked people suffer and prosper indiscriminately. Our efforts don’t always result in guaranteed success. We’re all subject to natural disasters, diseases, and gruesome crimes that are beyond our control. Overall, life sucks.
And yet, there are tender moments that help me see the beauty and potential of life. These tender moments include feeling the wind at the beach, being hugged by a friend, or tasting homemade cookies that my mom made. By the end of Ecclesiastes, even the preacher concludes that when the unfairness and cruelness of the world overwhelm our efforts to do good, God recognizes our efforts to make the world better. Part of the reason why we’re here is to be away from God’s presence, which entails living in a world where hardship and unfairness are rampant. But this gives us an opportunity to rediscover and support each other against wickedness.
That’s the critical component of turning this sin-saturated world into a Christ-soaked one: loving one another through compassion and empathy.
@lws – I love this thought: “while we are busy running around dividing people into us and them and saying the sky is falling when really the sky is beautiful and a message from God of their love.”
@your food allergy, agree 100%. I think it’s very problematic that we externalize both good (our good impulses come from the Holy Ghost) and evil (our bad impulses come from Satan). In reality, I think both are simply part of us.
@Simon, I put up those barriers too. When you stop thinking of yourself as part of this special select group with the Truth, you lose some part of identity and connection to a tight community (and I think it is a loss). But you gain a connection with the entirety of humanity.
@Janey, 100% on where the wickedness of “the world” is, and I think it’s definitely not what most GA’s are talking about in conference.
@Brother Sky, you’re absolutely right that it’s a false choice. It’s not either-or. I do, however, think that we come up at the world with an orientation that filters how we see it, and if we come at it from the “sin-saturated” orientation we see things one way and if we come at it with a “Christ-soaked” orientation it’s another.
@East Coast Guy, isn’t it a bummer finding out that we actually were NOT the chosen generation saved for the last days? Turns out the kids born now are! I’ve been hoodwinked.
@Chadwick, ugh, I know. I thought about God-saturated as the counterpoint to sin-saturated, but I love Rohr’s framing so I used his words. He doesn’t know about the BYU stuff :-).
@Southern Saints, I’m glad you mentioned Ecclesiastes. It is such an interesting little book! I do wonder about this sentence though: “Part of the reason why we’re here is to be away from God’s presence.” I don’t believe we’re away from God’s presence, but I don’t have a concept of a God in Heaven up is “up there.” God & heaven are right here if only (as Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it in my opening quote) we see it.
Elisa,
Just to clarify, what I meant to say was “part of the reason why we’re here is to be away from the premortal realm, which is a world of order, and be placed into this world, which is a world of disorder and chaos.” We still feel God’s presence through the Holy Ghost, but overall we are “looking through a glass darkly.” I hope that clears up any confusion from my last comment. 🙂
We live in a time of unparalleled opportunities. We can communicate with people around the entire world in real-time. We can drive anywhere in North America. And you can fly anywhere in the world. We have easy access to all type of information. What’s not to love. We need to get after the “love thy [global] neighbor commandment, and forget the glum and doom.
@Southern Saint, I understand that. I don’t share that vision of the cosmos–I don’t believe we feel God’s presence through a mediator like the Holy Ghost, I believe God’s presence is in every one and every thing and not sitting somewhere else, I explain this more in another post I’ll link below–but I get where you’re coming from & yours is certainly the view in line with LDS Church teachings (I don’t mean that as a criticism but an acknowledgement that I’m the heretic here ;-).
One of the aspects of love is appreciation. If we refuse to appreciate the good and beauty around us we refuse to love.
There is so much beauty and goodness in my world.
I lay in bed and look out at a rainforest with brightly coloured rosellas in the trees as the sun comes over the mountain. How can life not be wonderfull when I get up?
Lovely post. I personally believe that our planet has been improving by most measures for centuries: justice, human rights, equality, life expectancy, quality of life, etc. I really believe the world is becoming less wicked, not more wicked, on average–the exact opposite of what Church leaders constantly preach.
The Church’s solution to the wickedness of the world was summarized in Ballard’s “Old Ship Zion” talk (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2014/10/stay-in-the-boat-and-hold-on?lang=eng). Here’s one quote:
[Brigham Young] said on one occasion: “We are in the midst of the ocean. A storm comes on, and, as sailors say, she labors very hard. ‘I am not going to stay here,’ says one; ‘I don’t believe this is the “Ship Zion.”’ ‘But we are in the midst of the ocean.’ ‘I don’t care, I am not going to stay here.’ Off goes the coat, and he jumps overboard. Will he not be drowned? Yes. So with those who leave this Church. It is the ‘Old Ship Zion,’ let us stay in it.”
In other words, the Church’s solution is to:
1. Create fear. The world consists of a deep and scary ocean. There’s nothing else to it. You are going to drown!
2. Provide safety. It turns out that there is one other thing on this planet besides the ocean, The Old Ship Zion. You can either drown in the scary ocean or you can get on the Old Ship Zion. There is no other choice. This really creates an “us versus them” mentality since there are really just two places on the planet–the scary, deep ocean where everyone drowns and the Old Ship Zion where you don’t drown. We should all feel sorry for all those non-Mormons we encounter in the world. They are all drowning. It’s so tragic!
3. Conflate Christ with the Church and its leaders. Again, Ballard from the same talk, “Keep the eyes of the mission on the leaders of the Church. … We will not and … cannot lead [you] astray.” It would be nice if Christ was directing His Church, and I don’t doubt that the Q15 have good intentions, but Church history is full of mistakes made by leaders. Furthermore, my view of how to best live a Christlike life often doesn’t really align with what the Q15 is preaching. I feel inspired to leave the ship in order to be a better disciple of Christ.
Every allegory has its limitations, but Ballard’s Old Ship Zion seems to completely miss all the goodness in the world outside of the Church. That’s an enormous omission! There are so many good people doing good things. It doesn’t seem like they are drowning to me. If the Church wants to be a light to the world, its members should stop cloistering for safety on their little insignificant boat with its apocalyptic world view, unnecessary rules, and hurtful conservative social biases and start engaging and doing more good in the world.
There’s a lot of wickedness in the world, but there’s also a lot of goodness. I really think you get to choose the type of world you get to live in. You can choose to live in a sin-saturated world and live a life of fear, constantly trying to stay safe. Alternatively, you can choose to live in a Christ-soaked world where you are wise and mindful of the dangers and the world, but you tend to focus on all of the good and beauty here and strive to make it even better and more beautiful. Church leaders could give more GC talks that inspire members to work with people outside of our faith to do good, and occasionally they do. More often than not, though, they warn us of the dangers of associating with people outside the Church.
I’m not so sure we can square the apocalyptic thinking and rhetoric with traditional LDS thought. I doubt Joseph Smith and other LDS thinkers of the 19th century would embrace the apocalyptic perspective of today’s LDS. Joseph Smith faced mobs but had a positive view of human nature. We live in a world which is more miraculous than the traditional world of “creation ex nihilo”. LDS thought embraces the notion the God did not create matter or spirit. It emphasizes intelligence and free will. God exalts both matter and spirit by creating a permanent bond between the two. LDS thought avoids the problem of evil more adeptly than traditional Christianity. I am bewildered by the negative thinking in the LDS community currently. It is unjustifiable IMO.
I suspect much comes from our over reliance on conservative political thought which borrows some values and worldview from evangelical Christianity, which is permeated with apocalyptic/ doomsday thinking. That is why we have morphed food storage into extremist doomsday prepping. Spencer Kimball’s “year supply and plant gardens” is now “buy ammo and prepare for the zombies.”
The love and appreciation of Heavenly Parents can’t be fully valued when some members are storing weapons to blow half of Their children and a significant portion of animal life to smithereens.
A few years ago, I stumbled across an article that discussed a link between “the Protestant work ethic” and pre-Christian Norse beliefs about human good works that help to stave off the coming of Ragnarok just a little bit longer. I have no idea how real that link is, but, if at least somewhat true, then perhaps the entire idea of a Ragnarok that eventually and inevitably drowns the world may also suggests a partial source for the Protestant-inherited obsession Latter-day Saints (so many of whose Nordic Protestant ancestors joined the Church) seem to have with a world speeding its way to hell in a Louis Vuitton handbasket. Yeah, it’s a harebrained theory, but it’s kind of fun, and perhaps those of you on here better versed in Norse mythology might have something to say about it.
Great OP, Elisa, and timely. Has anyone researched whether there is any measurable uptick in this rhetoric coming from the GC pulpit right before U.S. elections? I just watched the leaked “church broke” video recording on YouTube again, this time from the viewpoint of special interests/political parties influencing the electorate through their religious affiliations. Thus, the church is “party broke”. Quid pro quo, don’t you know.
mountainclimber479,
I think I prefer to look at the Old Ship Zion as a cruise ship making it’s way around the world. Sure, its great on the cruise ship: there’s the buffet, the pool, the evening entertainment. But boy are there some great places to get off and spend time. To be honest a cruise ship has never really appealed to me. I’m more of a stay on the beach in my hammock kinda person, reading a book or having a nap 🙂
I like the way you framed the contrasting perspectives, it’s truly thought provoking, and the quality of the comments reflects that. I’m one who believes that the universe we live in is both good and evil, at the same time. I see it this way because, over several decades, it’s simply what I have observed. I’ve always held my own space to fully accept all angles of observable reality, even when I felt a subtle nudge to wear the rosy glasses, or fear the doom of any uncorrelated thing. I think God sees the world as it is, so why shouldn’t l? I also believe strongly that not only are those differences not exclusive to each other, but seeing all of it in context of the contrasts is crucial to being able to be fully alive, and more importantly, to choose good and eschew evil (aka repent.)
For me to really do this, I have had to disconnect from the rhetoric I received from church leaders. I would love to be as charitable as you were in describing the guidance we’re given, but I don’t cater to and indulge that mindset in cutting them a ton of slack anymore, in order to do the necessary mental gymnastics. I’m not going to deconstruct it much more here because my blunt take will read as negative, and I’ve no energy to spare for that. I will say that once I discerned patriarchy, I couldn’t deny the truth of that, and I mourned the loss, until that was over.
Now that I don’t wear the proverbial rose-tinted glasses, I see red flags better, and I also can better appreciate wisdom and goodness when they appear. There are prophets (the small-p kind) who share good wisdom for those who will hear, like Rev. Dr. King, and others. They tend to come up through deep suffering and profound struggle, and very little privileged catering. I find such people identifiable by a clear truth in what they choose to share.
And truth — the real deal — is elusive, but it’s my marker. Righteousness can look latent, and be so very quiet. Good and evil seem random, because they are, in truth, randomized to a great extent. The only way I’ve ever seen the scales tipped toward good and away from evil is when one of us does the work to do it. Holiness is certainly present here, and it glorifies the world, but I’ve never actually seen it grant favor to someone, except through another person who acts on their own good impulse. Perhaps this is by design.
If someone finds this descriptive of their experience with church leaders, I am happy to see it, and support the places where they seek good things and sustenance to bring good things to others. I don’t demean those who find a working perspective of this at church. I learned much of what I know in the same place. I just find it elsewhere now, and it’s growth for me, the same or better than what I found before.
A few weeks ago, I was asked to give a Elders Quorum lesson around Elder Gong’s recent talk “We Each Have A Story.” I used that talk and it’s optimism about the progress of the human family to share some of my favorite data-driven narratives about human progress, mostly taken from OurWorldInData.com and Steven Pinker’s book “Enlightenment Now.” Most of the quorum seemed genuinely shocked to hear that the last few decades have yielded a huge improvement worldwide in life expectancy, child mortality, maternal mortality, death due to malnutrition, dealt due to infectious disease, death by human on human violence including murder, crime rates, slavery, voting rights, racism, extreme poverty, and many other topics.
We have a psychologically conservative culture in Mormonism and that seems to have many on constant alert for what is wrong with the world. So telling what’s right can be uplifting to all, as well as validating to the more progressive-minded people like me that otherwise sit feeling a bit lonely in the pews.
“Personally, I’d much rather live in a Christ or God-soaked world than a sin-saturated one.”
It’s true that the world in terms of God’s creation is good, but even Jesus said “And it came to pass that when they had knelt upon the ground, Jesus groaned within himself, and said: Father, I am troubled because of the wickedness of the people of the house of Israel.”
I think you’re picking a fight where none truly exists, at least on this specific point. Whilst the church’s messages could be more optimistic about things, their purpose is to call everyone to repentance. If you read through the Book f Mormon it’s full of the condemnation of sin, but I’d hardly call that “[profaning] what God made sacred”. These things are not mutually exclusive – the world is both good and also burdened by sin at the same time.
So the world isn’t sin-saturated? I beg to differ. How many people are drinking alcohol and then driving or other things they shouldn’t? How many are smoking or using drugs? How many are fornicating or committing adultery? How many are endlessly using the Lord’s name in vain and other vulgarities? How many of our shows have murder and bloodshed and everyone look’s the other way as if it’s normal? We live in a world filled with sin and it is our job to try and avoid it and live like Christians.
mountainclimber479- The Church doesn’t need to “create fear”. The world has created that. And yes, the Church does provide safety.
These comments are mind-boggling. Yes, we are living in a sin-saturated world. We need to rise above all of the sin, but yes there are many that sinning often.
So the world isn’t sin-saturated? I beg to differ. How many people are drinking alcohol and then driving or other things they shouldn’t? How many are smoking or using drugs? How many are fornicating or committing adultery? How many are endlessly using the Lord’s name in vain and other vulgarities? How many of our shows have murder and bloodshed and everyone look’s the other way as if it’s normal? We live in a world filled with sin and it is our job to try and avoid it and live like Christians.
Is the world sin-saturated or Christ-soaked? To me it is both. The wheat and tares grow together today as they always have. We believe in opposition in all things. If the world is growing darker through sin and evil, then the world is also growing at the same rate, kinder, more loving, and more Christ-influenced. Each of us gets to choose our focus, and we live with the consequences of that decision. “Many LDS leaders seem to think that the arc of the moral universe bends towards evil. If your default orientation is that the world is bad and getting worse, your instinctive response to change will be to characterize it as bad.” Why do our church leaders lean toward this focus? It is the typical default of most religions to put a heavy emphasis on sin and its effects. I do not consider that true religion, but fear-based capitulation to the wrong side of the argument (and opportunity). To me, that is why true religion is faith in Jesus the Christ and his atonement, and they are beautiful, wondeful things, which extend far beyond the errors of men made yesterday, today, or tomorrow. Belief in anything is a choice. We can choose to believe in a Christ-soaked world just as easily as a sin-saturated one, and if our leaders are a little off, well, that’s why we are told to prove all things ourselves, and to follow the inspiration God gives us individually. Maybe with our example, one day they will come around.