BCC’s weekly romp through the best of the Bloggernacle, hosted this week by Steve, Ronan, Amri, and sisterblah2. Featured posts/sites:

Lots of Scandinavian names we didn’t dare try to pronounce

The FPR crew bear their testimonies

Bruce Willis loves it when a plan comes together

The Final Cylon is Joseph Smith

Cynthia’s talk:

My husband and I struggled some to get pregnant. During those struggles–how to say this politely–I didn’t much enjoy Mother’s Day. Now the mother of two, I still struggle with Mother’s Day–the sense of inadequacy as people wax poetic about their Supermoms, the echoes of painful Mother’s Days past. While (barely) enduring a Mother’s Day sacrament meeting during the infertile period, I composed this talk in my head. With my fellow Mother’s Day unenthusiasts in mind, I’d like now to share my antidote to the typical Mother’s Day talk.

As someone who was facing at least the possibility of not ever having children in this life, I found it really annoying that people frequently go on about how parenthood has been the best preparation for godhood, or parenthood does more than anything else to build those traits, or give one a sense of what it must be like to be God. I found this kind of talk frustrating, for obvious reasons.

So I tried to think about what lessons I was learning about what it must be like to be God, by not having kids. And the main one I came up with is that, in the position I was in, it was very helpless, just waiting for children to come, with not a lot of control over the situation. At the same time, I was wanting to do more than just sit around waiting, so I was preparing to be the best parent I could. I was making elaborate plans for all the great things I would do. I think at one point I may have even made my own architectural plans for
a backyard playhouse. And I began being very frustrated, thinking, “Come on, kids! I have so many things waiting for you, so much I want to do for you. And yet, you’re not coming!”

I think that frustration, that feeling of wanting to embrace and wanting to love, but having the child not approach you, which is ultimately not in your hands, is the exact feeling that God must have all the time. Because we have to want to return to Him, and that is our agency. So that love, and that longing, and in some ways a feeling of helplessness, I think must be His primary emotion.

The short version: 1 Samuel 5-6 recounts how the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites in battle. They took it back to Ashdod and put it in front of a statue of Dagon. The next day they found Dagon toppled. They propped it back up, but this kept happening. The hand of the LORD was heavy on the Ashdodites, and he afflicted them with [or in their] ‘opalim.

The meaning of ‘opalim is uncertain. It has traditionally been taken as hemorrhoids. The KJV renders emerods; most modern translations are squeamish about this and euphemize this as tumors or sores. The root ‘ophel is used for the upper city of ancient Jerusalem, and conveys the sense of a hill, a height or a rise, and thus a swelling. It’s kind of hard to imagine what the five golden hemorrhoids would have looked like.

But there is a theory that the ‘opalim were not hemorrhoids, but rather penises. This is driven by archaeological discovery of cultic situlae in the shape of penises, which were actually a common cultic representation in Philistia. (The print version of the article has lots of pictures.) The sense of something that rises would fit.

Either way, the word is meant to be scatalogical and an insult to the Philistines.

So, what do you think of this theory?

The three hour hike centers around a number of stone formations that may have been in use by the native Celts around 450–350 BCE, with at least one of them (see below) in use until the late 19th century by the native farmers. The formations are known by names like “Sitting Dog” and “Sphinx,” bestowed upon them by a local priest, Hans Wick (1904–1988), a hobbyist who spent years exploring and researching the mysterious rock piles. 

Walking along the top of the Kaltenberg to the south, one first reaches the “Phallus with Vulva.” The phallus, a vertical band of rocks, is only obvious from the valley below, but when one approaches from the high side the vulva becomes apparent.

Passing through the hole in the rock apparently cleansed the worshipper of evil in preparation to take part in blood sacrifices on the other side, where the sacrificial basin is visible as the dark depression on the right. There is documented evidence that this was in use by one of the farmers in the valley below (where sheep are raised to this day) until the end of the 19th century. 

The next stop is the “sitting dog,” regarded as a symbol of fertility and loyalty. 

Next is a sacrificial altar, apparently toppled when the countryside was christianized. 

Not far beyond is the main meeting place of the druids–two more or less concentric circles of stone (the inner shown here) surround the mushroom-shaped throne of the high priest (second picture). Incidentally, the “Beltene Fest” is observed on May 1st in honor of Belenus, and the charcoaled branches we found inside the circle suggest he still has a few 21st century adherents.

The next stop is a basin some 70cm in diameter and 35cm deep. According to legend, it never dries out, no matter how hot or dry the summer is.

With a little imagination, one can see why Brother Wick called this the “Sphinx.” It is located on a rise overlooking the rest of the mountain and was apparently considered a holy of holies–only the Celtic pontifices were allowed up here. You can see why in the next picture–the view is great but there’s not much room at the top (despite what Adam Ant says).

Once one descends from these heights, there’s not much left to see except for this cross–a subtle reminder that Christianity is never too far away, even on this pagan mountain. This doesn’t stop the local tourism board from telling all those who have experience to bring their pendants and divining rods. There are still many in this deeply Catholic country with a strong belief in crystals and other non-approved objects and supersitions run rampant (for example, an acquaintance will not tell anyone about a pending job interview for fear that it will jinx her). This mingling of magic and religion is probably not news to anyone here, but probably worth keeping in mind when sharing the gospel. Sometimes Europeans like to play the sophisticated child of the Enlightenment to the misguided American believer. But as strange as, for example, Joseph Smith Jr.’s seer stones and treasure seeking may seem to us now, it’s not just his American contemporaries that put a lot of stock in the supernatural–not by a long shot.

P.S.–Look forward to a post on the proliferation of crosses on Austria’s mountaintops in the coming days. 

Our objective has always been bridge building, but we do understand how nervous our subject makes people. I don’t know that we can change that. We do succeed in opening a space for civil conversation.

But here’s where I make a confession: Through our wonderful webmaster at the Genesis Group’s website, I have posted the BCC comments about the priesthood revelation. I chose NOT to put any up which had a negative cast. Though I told my husband about one of the posts, which recounted the poster’s experience of watching a newly ordained Black deacon pass the sacrament to white members who refused to accept it from him, I deleted that portion from the post. Call me a hypocrite, but readers of our newsletter know prejudice first hand and don’t need reminders. (Now, we wouldn’t mind a repudiation of past folklore…) I wanted the tone to be celebratory—especially for this issue of our Genesis newsletter.

Please don’t feel bad if we didn’t choose your post, BCCers. And now I feel free to tell a bit more about what will happen on June 8th, 2008. It’s all on the Genesis website. We know who is likely to preside, but will hold off on announcing that. Plans can change. Music will be provided by the Genesis choir, the Divine Heritage choir, the Respecting Our Culture choir, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Almost a quarter of the community became LDS in a small series of mass baptisms. In their new town of adobe houses, the Church built a building of white cinderblock with a brown metal fence and gate. But there has been little growth and many people have become inactive. Nevertheless, the branch continues, as does Valentin. He is proud to tell of how he and his wife made the trek from their rural community to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity.

Valentin, his family and community are unusual in Latin America. Almost all the members of the Church live in cities and speak Spanish. There are few cases where indigenous peoples, in their communities, have joined the Church. Yet, at the same time, rural, indigenous Latin America has developed strong Protestant congregations.

Among the Urus, the people of Apu Inti, where we were prior to going to Copacabana on the other side of the lake, the Adventists are strong; they claim perhaps a third of all Urus. Only a few individuals and families have become Latter-day Saints. While the Adventists have built schools and churches on the floating islands, the few Latter-day Saints take their boats to the mainland city of Puno to attend Church.

Very early, the Church attempted to proselyte Indian communities. President Reinholt Stoof , the first President of the South American mission, moved beyond the German immigrant communities that were the basis of the Church in Argentina and Brazil in the twenties to share Mormonism with the Lamanites. He sent missionaries to the northern Argentine province of Jujuy by Bolivia and personally visited Indian communities in the Chaco near Paraguay. Nevertheless the effort failed and President Stoof found himself frustrated by the cultural and social difference between the Indians and what he felt the Church required. As Frederick Williams noted in his important history of the South American Church, From Acorn to Oak Tree (p. 47) President Stoof “decided to have the missionaries devote all their efforts for the time being to the millions of cosmopolitan people of Argentina.”

Many later mission presidents have been similarly frustrated and made similar choices. At the same time, however, Protestants were laying early foundations of what became a massive growth of their religion among indigenous communities in the twentieth century. In relative terms, there is a higher percentage of Protestants in the countryside than in the cities. Mormons and Catholics are strong in Latin America’s cities.

Nevertheless, there are rural, Indigenous Latter-day Saints. Valentin and his family are examples as are the people of Apu Inti island.

When Valentin heard my students and I were in Copacabana he and one son walked for an hour and a half over the mountain to see us. The other son left La Paz before dawn to come to the Lakeside town to join us. And, as I always do, I invited them into my world. They let me, a stranger from halfway around the world, come and live in their community and they spent many days tutoring me in their ways and their thoughts. Valentin may well have been the most important of my graduate school professors, even though he has never been to college. So it is only fair I welcome them into my world.

We went to a restaurant that mostly caters to foreigners about half a block from the shore of Lake Titicaca. Valentin and his sons had ordered hamburgers, while the students were trying various cosmopolitan Bolivian dishes. I was teasing them about eating gringo mankha, gringo food, since they used to always ask me what gringos ate and I would try to make some in their community. After a bit I noticed Valentin and his sons were eating their fries and burgers with a toothpick. At the same time a student said in English “they did not get any silverware.”

I called the restauranteur and told him there was missing silverware. He brought it and Valentin and his sons switched from toothpicks to forks to eat. I apologized to them, but they had never said anything. They never complained.

Later I struggled with the missing knives and forks. The lack seemed deliberate and I remembered how many townsmen over how many years had told me that the people from Valentin’s community were savages. Could the restaurant owner just have assumed that since they were from the countryside they did not eat with silverware but only with their hands? Valentin and his sons were scattered among us. How was it possible otherwise that only they had been given no silverware?

I do not know the full answer. But unequal treatment and racism are very real forces in people’s lives here. It is not surprising they should also arise as themes driving politics. It is also not surprising that they should be part of the context for Church growth in Latin America.

I do not want to be seen as mocking the Lord’s anointed, but it strikes me that Elder Rasband gets an awful lot of traction in this talk out of one of the vaguest stock phrases in the patriarchal blessing playbook, as it were. He says:

My patriarchal blessing indicates that I would be given special experiences that would strengthen my own testimony.

In particular, Elder Rasband focuses on the word experiences, using it in the title of the talk and several times throughout. “Experience” in itself doesn’t really mean much, which allows Elder Rasband to use it to describe a wide range of situations, emotions, inspirations, and confirmations. I am reminded in this of Elder Holland’s recent parable of the dress pattern, that the generic exhortations of the Brethren will necessarily be adjusted to the individual lives of the Saints.

Elder Rasband isn’t universalizing experience entirely however. He wants us to examine our lives for those events that teach us about God:

As experiences accumulate in our lives, they add strength and support to each other. Just as the building blocks of our homes support the rest of the structure, so too do our personal life experiences become building blocks for our testimonies and add to our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ…
Brothers and sisters, think of the special experiences you have been blessed with in your life that have given you conviction and joy in your heart. Remember when you first knew that Joseph Smith was God’s prophet of the Restoration? Remember when you accepted Moroni’s challenge and knew that the Book of Mormon was indeed another testament of Jesus Christ? Remember when you received an answer to fervent prayer and realized that your Heavenly Father knows and loves you personally? As you contemplate such special experiences, don’t they give you a sense of gratitude and resolve to go forward with renewed faith and determination?

These are do not express the limits of what Elder Rasband asks us to search out, but rather these are offered as a starting point. He proceeds to tell the story of his visit with some Peruvian saints. It is a beautiful evocative story of faith in what are unusual circumstances. It also offers some insight into Elder Rasband’s feelings about being a General Authority of the Church. After extolling the faith and self-sufficiency of the Saints he met on Lake Titicaca, he states:

Before we were to leave, one of the mothers asked if we would kneel with them and have a family prayer. I remember well kneeling on the spongy reeds with these faithful Saints. As we knelt, she asked if I would say the prayer and, using the Melchizedek Priesthood, dedicate their new island and home.

I was deeply humbled that, there on the floating islands of Lake Titicaca, these faithful Latter-day Saint families would ask me to pray for the little island of Apu Inti and ask the Lord to bless the homes and families of the Lujanos and Jallahuis.

The kicker is that Elder Rasband knows that these families are perfectly able to bless the house themselves. They are sufficient, they have the Priesthood, they are worthy. However, they chose out of the goodness of their hearts and out of a demonstration of faith to allow him this opportunity. What they have done is not an act of entrenched colonialism, although it might be tempting to read it that way. How Elder Rasband experiences it is as an act of love, allowing and trusting him to be an intimate participant in their lives.

Elder Rasband’s talk, an example of General Conference generality, asks us to move away from the universal and to dive into the specifics of our own lives for such examples. As such, I find it inspirational.

While those are the biggies, there are other, more subtle differences that would mostly be lost on a journalist, yet will be meaningful to a person immersed in either tradition. This list derives from a friend who used to be involved in the Apostolic United Brethren and is now mainstream (some of this may be specific to the AUB and not necessarily applicable to the FLDS). The below is shared with permission.

* They seal men and women to their priesthood leaders under the “law of adoption”.

* They believe they are “the priesthood” and presided over by a council of seven “high priest apostles” that hold higher priesthood keys than members of the Q12.

* 70’s have higher authority than High Priests.

* They ordain some to be “70 Apostles” as members of the 70’s quorum.

* The officiator raises his right arm to the square to bless the sacrament and the other officiators kneel (but not the congregation).

* Only priests and elders administer the sacrament - which includes preparing & passing.

* They use multiple 8oz. glasses for the sacramental water so that the cups are shared and the cup is passed to each member individually without “passing it down the line”.

* Talks are many times given during the passing of the sacrament.

* They lead a person into the waters of baptism by the right hand.

* The long one-piece garment is worn at all times.

* Officiators in Melchizedek Priesthood ordinances raise both arms to the square.

* Persons who are called to positions (like Sunday School Teacher) or ordained to priesthood offices are not presented to the congregation for a “sustaining vote”.

* They do not have a “Fast Sunday”, their day of week to fast is Thursday.

* A member can receive a re-baptism for things such as health & re-commitment.

* A baptism and confirmation into “the Kingdom of God” is given to select members in preparation for the 2nd endowment.

* Women will give a “mothers blessing” as an ordinance prior to childbirth.

* Members are called out of the congregation to give “sacrament talks” without any preparation.

* Joseph Smith is seen as the Holy Ghost and revered as much as Jesus Christ

* Jesus Christ is not recognized as Jehovah or “The Creator”.

* Missionary work is left up to the Church, so they have no full time missionaries.

* Temple ordinances are like the pre-1930’s version and explanatory lectures are given during the Endowment.

Taken alone, many of these are not “fundamental doctrinal differences”, but taken together they do make members of the AUB (and other offshoots) feel different from “orthodox Mormons” and give them a closer fellowship with the early saints. Apart from these differences, they are very much like any ultra-conservative member of the LDS Church who has a literal interpretation of the scriptures and believes that the Church should not change its doctrines or ordinances and that everything Joseph and the other Prophets taught is true and accurate.

Use of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants and Pearl of Great Price is the same, but they will frequently use the Inspired Version of the Bible. They use Church manuals for primary classes and some Sunday School classes (with appropriate revisions if necessary). The basic “primary level” doctrines are all pretty much the same, so I would not see them having many differences with “Gospel Principles” or “True to the Faith” and they accept the Articles of Faith in the same way we do.

God bless you, Mom, for all that we are and clumsily strive to be. I am of all men most blessed.

As I work this weekend on a conference talk on devotional phenomenology[1], I have thought about uses of language within a sector of readerly Mormonism. Many of us, myself included, have used the term “agnostic” to refer to specific line-item doctrines, teachings, or proposed facts to which we are unable to witness reliably. We do not say, “I don’t have a testimony of that,” or “on that point I am uncertain,” or, in an older stock phrase, “I’m saving that one for the Millennium.” We tend to say “on that point I’m agnostic.”

At some level, these phrases all possess the same semantic kernel. They indicate that the speaker does not know a specific point to be true. For some speakers, though, “agnostic” adds the probability that no other speaker knows or could know that specific point to be true. For others it remains a personal rather than global declaration but is more directly a public act of identification. With the use of this term, the speaker invokes participation in a community of seekers after truth whose sources of understanding are diverse but tend to fall broadly within an “enlightenment” framework. Such a usage may create a rhetorical chasm between this speaker and another, similarly uncertain, speaking from within another sector of the Latter-day Saint faith community.[2]

My question is this. What would happen if we partial agnostics started pronouncing Sibboleth Shibboleth?[3] If those of us who navigate diverse currents of knowledge and meaning used the terms of religious tradition to describe our uncertainty? Could this strengthen bonds among sub-communities of the Saints? Would it, on the other hand, be disingenuous or subversive?

———————————————-
[1] I’m not entirely sure what this means; I think I just made it up. Religious scholars use phenomenology to describe academic research that is sympathetic to the subjects of observation. By devotional I think I intend an academic-sounding synonym for “faithful” or “inspirational.”
[2] I could also have just said “the Church.” See footnote 3.
[3] The bellicose Gileadites used differences in pronunciation of this agricultural term to ferret out Ephraimite refugees and then slaughter them (Judges 12: 5-6). Thank heavens for the Old Testament.
[4] This footnote is meant to pay homage to Ronan, the future Headmaster.

I know I have; certainly as a missionary and in just about every calling since then my attempts to serve others have backfired as often as not. Let me share a couple of examples.

My last transfer on the mission was to an Elder whose trainer had been a dynamic go-getter, always happy to take the lead and get things done. His trainee appeared to be a study in contrasts–quiet, reserved and content to follow. When I arrived, I felt that what this introverted missionary needed was a good stiff dose of motivation–after all, he had most of his mission still before him and needed to work on his German and break out of his shell to be able to talk to people.

I immediately began sharing responsibility by giving him an map and suggesting he lead the way to the next appointment appointment, taking him by the elbow and suggesting he make that dinner appointment after sacrament meeting, making deals where I would talk to ten passersby for every one he approached at the street display and so on. And it turned out he resented me for my efforts. At the time it was clear we were never going to hang out in real life, but it wasn’t until several years after the mission that I discovered I had been deemed his worst companion* on the website devoted to his mission experience.

Perhaps another example of good intentions yielding negative outcomes concerns the plan for welfare assistance the ward leadership worked out for a family of new members whose father/husband, Steve (names have been changed), was unemployed and unable to afford even the fare to come to church.

Keenly aware that the devil finds work for idle hands, the ward leadership hatched a plan that would solve Steve’s transportation problems, facilitate his job search, channel his enthusiasm for the gospel into a meaningful calling and provide him with something meaningful to do until more permanent employment could be found. First, Steve would be called as a ward missionary. Second, he would be given an assignment to assist with the bi-weekly cleaning of the church  building. For his labors, the ward would provide him with a public transportation pass, allowing him go about the Lord’s work without breaking the 12th Article of Faith and hopefully encouraging him to actively seek work without having to worry about or hide behind the fear of getting caught. And to top it off, assurances were made that, if needed, assistance for groceries and utilities could be made available.

Well, you know what the poet Burns said about the best laid schemes of mice and men: They

Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Indeed, after the plan was announced the family’s church attendace became spotty. With no visits by the home teachers (one had moved out of the ward, the other was inactive himself and neither had been replaced) or anyone else, no one really knew why. After some follow up visits were finally conducted, the leadership discovered that Steve’s new-found mobility prompted him to make himself scarce until late at night. In addition, since Steve was releuctant to approach the bishop to let him know of any needs for groceries, no further assistance was forthcoming. Susie was frustrated by her husband’s absences, his reluctance to talk to the bishop and generally annoyed that the plan otherwise hadn’t amounted to much. And Steve was still morose because as it turned out the plan didn’t really address the root of his problems in the first place–his visa status. No amount of mobility or food was going to get around the legal barriers of the absent residence and work permits preventing employment, and the uncertainty of being able to secure the permits at any price took its toll on the family.

It’s not clear to me that either my companion would have better off it I had let him be or if the family would have been happier if the ward had totally ignored them, but I suspect both suffered to some extent as the targets of imperfectly executed do-gooding. Obviously one alternative would just be to do it right the first time, but it seems that when the rubber hits the road, negative outcomes–whether unforeseen, unintended or both–come all too easily despite the best intentions, like when an ambulance hits a couple of pedestrians on the way to an accident scene, injuring them and delaying care for the original patient.

And so I wonder–how is it that well-meaning people, motivated to some degree by gospel values to serve God and each other, make such a dog’s breakfast out of service sometimes?

While not concerned with negative outcomes per se, the sociologist Robert Merton explored some possibilities of “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action” in his 1936 paper where he discussed factors limiting the correct anticipation of the consequences of action:

• Lack of adequate knowledge: “The exigencies of practical life frequently compel us to act with some confidence even though it is manifest that the information on which we base our action is not complete.  We usually act … not on the basis of scientific knowledge, but opinion and estimate.” (I will expand on this idea in a future post)
• Error: “A common fallacy is frequently involved in the too-ready assumption that actions which have in the past led to the desired outcome will continue to do so…. Error may also be involved in instances where the actor attends to only one or some of the pertinent aspects of the situation which influence the outcome of the action.”
• The “imperious immediacy of interest”: “The actor’s paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes the consideration of further or other consequences of the same act.”
• Basic values: “There is no consideration of further consequences because of the felt necessity of certain action enjoined by certain fundamental values.”

It is this last point that I find particularly interesting from the standpoint of a member whose interactions with others are more or less conciously steered by the application of values in daily life. Merton continues: ”Here is the essential paradox of social action - the “realization” of values may lead to their renunciation. We may paraphrase Goethe and speak of “Die Kraft, die stets das Gute will, und stets das Böse schafft.”**

Mephistopheles, Faust’s devil, actually claimed to be a “part of that power which still produceth good, whilst ever scheming ill,” but Merton’s play on this famous line is a pithy reminder that even the noblest of intentions can result in unanticipated disaster. And why? “When a system of basic values enjoins certain specific actions, adherents are not concerned with the objective consequences of these actions but only with the subjective satisfaction of duty well performed.”

So what do you think–are there any implications here for would-be servants of the Lord? Is the command to magnify our callings–to take a holistic view of one’s duties–a response to this phenomena? Could this also be a factor in the Book of Mormon’s pride cycle, where thrift and industry lead to wealth and sloth? How does Zion fare when its builders, stung by negative outcomes in the past, play it conservative with their service? How about when they seek to expand it by leaps and bounds in a push of zeal? Is there a third way when it comes to unanticipated consequences of action? 

*Full disclosure: He wasn’t the only one; I received this title twice during my tenure as a missionary. Some readers will probably not be surprised.

**See title for translation