A little while ago, JD participated in a walkathon at school to raise money for the PTA. He got various sponsors (mostly family members) who donated a certain amount of money for each lap that he did around the school. JD had so much fun doing the walkathon at school that he decided that he wanted to do a family walkathon for fun. So we did one on Thanksgiving before dinner. We setup some cones next to the football field of a local high school and kept track of laps on lap cards I made the day before. Each lap was 130 yards (a 60 yard by 5 yard rectangle) and the lap cards went up to 40 laps (just under 3 miles total). JD completed all of his laps first (since he ran some of them) and I also completed the full number. AJ also did a lot of laps (around 30). It was a fun little event.
More generally, I hope the kids can enjoy regular exercise in their lives. I've never really been into exercise. I force myself to do it periodically to lose weight or try to stay healthy. But I don't really enjoy it very much. Perhaps that will change in the future - especially if I can do more of it with the kids. Last night, JD decided he wanted to do this Physical Fitness Award Program and I'm going to try to do it too.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The AstroWizard!
Tonight was Science Night at JD's school. They had the AstroWizard come in to talk about the solar system and to conduct various experiments (including various explosions). JD was totally into it and I really enjoyed the event as well. Even though the guy was talking to a bunch of elementary school kids, he weaved in a bunch of additional information that was really interesting (and advanced) for the adults as well. What struck me the most was the AstroWizard's obvious passion about science and astronomy. He really brough the subject alive through his enthusiasm. He loved this subject so much that he couldn't resist sharing it with other people. Sometimes I wish I had a subject that I was equivalently passionate about that I could share with the world; my version of the AstroWizard solar system presentation or the Al Gore climate change presentation. Although it doesn't have a singular focus, I suppose this blog kind of falls into that category - but not really. At any rate, bravo AstroWizard on a great performance tonight!
Monday, November 12, 2007
Listen and obey
One of the more unique aspects of the LDS faith is the belief in "kingdoms of glory" - effectively levels within heaven that are varying distances from God. More on the different levels and why someone would end up at each level at the MormonWiki but the short version is that there are three levels: Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial. The highest level is the Celestial Kingdom where we are in the direct presence of our Heavenly Father. It is compared to the brightness of the sun. The next-highest level is the Terrestrial Kingdom and it is compared to the brightness of the moon. And the lowest level is the Telestial Kingdom and it is compared to the brightness of the stars in the sky. Regardless of levels, however, these kingdoms are all part of heaven and they are all more glorious than man can currently comprehend.
Yesterday, at my Gospel Essentials class, we were talking about the concept of eternal families and why families are a centerpiece of the Church. One aspect of that is that families provide a laboratory for understanding what our relationship to our Heavenly Father and our relationship to others in this world should look and feel like. During the class, I made the observation that people's view of their relationship with God (their Heavenly Father) is often heavily influenced by their relationship with their father on Earth. With my own children, I've tried to keep that in mind and serve as a role model of how their relationship with their Heavenly Father will be like. As an aside, I'm rarely successful in this regard but I'm trying to improve.
Tonight, at bedtime, my kids drove home for me in a very real and tangible way what the different kingdoms of glory are probably like. My younger son AJ is three and a half and at a particularly rebellious point at the moment. He often intentionally disobeys what my wife and I tell him to do and that's very frustrating to us. As part of our normal bedtime routine, the kids clean up, watch a short show, get into PJs, read books, and (if necessary) read on their own in bed with their light on. They particularly like the show and book part so we (unfortunately) often have to threaten to take those things away to incent the proper behavior at other points during the day. Today was no exception.
AJ wouldn't clean up or get into PJs and intentionally disobeyed multiple times. I tried to be patient. I gave him multiple chances to comply in different ways but he wouldn't do it. So I took away his nighttime book. Then I gave him some more chances and he still listen or obey so he lost the opportunity to listen to his brother's book (and would have to go directly to bed after he was in PJs). When book time came along, I took him into his room and told him that he wasn't allowed to come out. He got very upset and started crying a great deal. He also kept saying that he wanted to be with me in the other room. I eventually went to talk with him and explained that he had lost these privileges since he couldn't listen and obey. I also asked him what we say when we make someone sad or angry. He eventually said "sorry" and said that he would listen and obey moving forward. I let him come out to the couch to listen to his brother's book - but he had still lost his own book. As I began reading JD's book, AJ was still having trouble. I kept reminding him that if he wanted to stay with us he needed to show me that he could listen and obey. Eventually he sat next to me like I asked. He was calm and happier since he was in my presence but I was focusing all my attention on JD (who had done everything I'd ask tonight). I had my arm around JD. I was answering all his questions. We were bonding. AJ was simply sitting next to me but wasn't part of the action.
[Aside: to be clear, I'm not picking on AJ here. This is just one instance. There are plenty of other instances where he behaves like a little angel and JD is the one who has trouble listening or obeying. Also, when JD was younger, he went through a phase like this as well.]
So what does this have to do with kingdoms of glory? Let's think about AJ and JD's situations. When AJ was in his room, he was in the Telestial Kingdom. He was safe in our house and knew that I still loved him but he was also far away from me (and quite upset about it) since he "continued in his sins and did not repent" (Preach My Gospel, page 53). The action which unlocked the Terrestrial Kingdom (coming out to the couch) was repentence and a commitment to listen and obey. AJ was able to be closer to me (which made him more content) but he also didn't get my full and complete attention like JD (who was, metaphorically, in the Celestial Kingdom).
At the time (and now in hindsight), it's interesting to me how many times I used the words "listen and obey" with AJ. On some level, it's that easy - or, depending on your perspective, that hard. We need to listen to what our Heavenly Father asks of us and then obey. And, if we do that, we'll get his full and complete attention in the next life.
Yesterday, at my Gospel Essentials class, we were talking about the concept of eternal families and why families are a centerpiece of the Church. One aspect of that is that families provide a laboratory for understanding what our relationship to our Heavenly Father and our relationship to others in this world should look and feel like. During the class, I made the observation that people's view of their relationship with God (their Heavenly Father) is often heavily influenced by their relationship with their father on Earth. With my own children, I've tried to keep that in mind and serve as a role model of how their relationship with their Heavenly Father will be like. As an aside, I'm rarely successful in this regard but I'm trying to improve.
Tonight, at bedtime, my kids drove home for me in a very real and tangible way what the different kingdoms of glory are probably like. My younger son AJ is three and a half and at a particularly rebellious point at the moment. He often intentionally disobeys what my wife and I tell him to do and that's very frustrating to us. As part of our normal bedtime routine, the kids clean up, watch a short show, get into PJs, read books, and (if necessary) read on their own in bed with their light on. They particularly like the show and book part so we (unfortunately) often have to threaten to take those things away to incent the proper behavior at other points during the day. Today was no exception.
AJ wouldn't clean up or get into PJs and intentionally disobeyed multiple times. I tried to be patient. I gave him multiple chances to comply in different ways but he wouldn't do it. So I took away his nighttime book. Then I gave him some more chances and he still listen or obey so he lost the opportunity to listen to his brother's book (and would have to go directly to bed after he was in PJs). When book time came along, I took him into his room and told him that he wasn't allowed to come out. He got very upset and started crying a great deal. He also kept saying that he wanted to be with me in the other room. I eventually went to talk with him and explained that he had lost these privileges since he couldn't listen and obey. I also asked him what we say when we make someone sad or angry. He eventually said "sorry" and said that he would listen and obey moving forward. I let him come out to the couch to listen to his brother's book - but he had still lost his own book. As I began reading JD's book, AJ was still having trouble. I kept reminding him that if he wanted to stay with us he needed to show me that he could listen and obey. Eventually he sat next to me like I asked. He was calm and happier since he was in my presence but I was focusing all my attention on JD (who had done everything I'd ask tonight). I had my arm around JD. I was answering all his questions. We were bonding. AJ was simply sitting next to me but wasn't part of the action.
[Aside: to be clear, I'm not picking on AJ here. This is just one instance. There are plenty of other instances where he behaves like a little angel and JD is the one who has trouble listening or obeying. Also, when JD was younger, he went through a phase like this as well.]
So what does this have to do with kingdoms of glory? Let's think about AJ and JD's situations. When AJ was in his room, he was in the Telestial Kingdom. He was safe in our house and knew that I still loved him but he was also far away from me (and quite upset about it) since he "continued in his sins and did not repent" (Preach My Gospel, page 53). The action which unlocked the Terrestrial Kingdom (coming out to the couch) was repentence and a commitment to listen and obey. AJ was able to be closer to me (which made him more content) but he also didn't get my full and complete attention like JD (who was, metaphorically, in the Celestial Kingdom).
At the time (and now in hindsight), it's interesting to me how many times I used the words "listen and obey" with AJ. On some level, it's that easy - or, depending on your perspective, that hard. We need to listen to what our Heavenly Father asks of us and then obey. And, if we do that, we'll get his full and complete attention in the next life.
Mormon missions
Since I decided to join the LDS Church, a couple of people have asked me if that means I'll have to go on a two-year mission. My response has been: "No, going on a mission is completely optional - even for 19-year-old guys. But I will be required to meet an annual convert quota. Otherwise my membership in the Church will be revoked. I'm banking on converting you to meet my first-year quota. After that, though, I may have to go door-to-door." =)
Seriously, though, there are a lot of misconceptions out there about the LDS Church and I recognize that, for better or worse, I'm going to be a spokesperson or representative for the Church to people I know or meet (even if I'm not trying to convert them). All the more reason in my mind to (a) have a firm testimony, (b) continue to deepen my knowledge of the beliefs, scriptures, etc., and (c) be an exemplar of those beliefs.
Seriously, though, there are a lot of misconceptions out there about the LDS Church and I recognize that, for better or worse, I'm going to be a spokesperson or representative for the Church to people I know or meet (even if I'm not trying to convert them). All the more reason in my mind to (a) have a firm testimony, (b) continue to deepen my knowledge of the beliefs, scriptures, etc., and (c) be an exemplar of those beliefs.
Off I go to Idaho
In an unexpected plot twist, I'll be visiting the Rexburg Idaho Temple open house on Saturday, January 12. A person in my ward (who I don't know but will be sure to meet) forwarded my blog to the President of BYU-Idaho (KC, who is also the former Dean at HBS from when I was a MBA student there in 1998-2000). KC invited me to visit the open house if I could. I have an immense amount of respect for the man so I booked a flight tonight to visit. With everything else going on right now, I find it very hard to believe this invitation is purely a coincidence so I feel compelled to go. Should be an interesting trip a week before my baptism date.
Update (11/13/07): My brother-in-law TR will be joining me for this trip to Rexburg. I'm totally excited to spend a dedicated block of time with him; in fact, it could very well be the main reason this trip came together.
Update (11/13/07): My brother-in-law TR will be joining me for this trip to Rexburg. I'm totally excited to spend a dedicated block of time with him; in fact, it could very well be the main reason this trip came together.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
I'm all in
Part one of the "temple tour" is complete. For those of you who like to cut to the chase, here are the key takeaways. I now know that I know. I will bear my testimony of that at the December 2 fast & testimony meeting (even though I won't be a member at that point). Future temple visits and discussions will focus on (a) how to maintain and deepen my testimony & commitment once I come out of the "honeymoon period" with the Church and (b) how to be ready for what will be asked of me. As an aside, if there was any doubt before, I have officially lost my mind - but it's a very good thing.
I'm guessing at least one of you is interested in the details so here you go. Today, I visited the Fresno temple with my wife's uncle (GH) - see previous post for rationale. I fasted for the visit - which was both easier and harder than I had predicted - although the level of difficulty is mostly irrelevant since fasting was asked of me so I didn't have any choice in the matter. During the visit, I met the President of the California Fresno Mission along with the First Counselor of the Fresno Temple (FCF, who also happened to have served as a Mission President in Australia and whose birthday is the day after I'm planning to be baptized). The Fresno Mission President (PB) was formerly the Stake President in Utah for my sister-in-law NR (the one who led to my first spiritual experience with the Church 14 years ago) and her husband. He also happened to know the California San Francisco Mission President (who I met with 8 days ago) and called him prior to my visit. GH's great-grandfather joined the Church in October 1830 - 6 months after it was established - and probably knew Joseph Smith personally. And, during the visit, I also happened to meet a couple who are friends of my mother-in-law and father-in-law from a number of years ago. All purely coincidence? I personally don't think so but others can make their own judgments.
In terms of the visit itself, GH and I met PB outside of the Temple at 11am. I asked GH to start us off with a prayer - which he graciously accommodated. We chatted for a little bit before entering the lobby of the Temple. PB introduced me to FCF and the three of us talked for about a half hour. During that conversation, PB and FCF talked about different aspects of temples along with various Church beliefs. After awhile, they asked me if there were any specific questions they could answer and I said "no". In fact, I said that, as they were talking, I felt that they were "preaching to the converted" and that perhaps that feeling was the point of my visit to this particular Temple. Making that statement was basically when I knew that I knew. [As an aside, if you haven't heard or read the "Knowing That We Know" talk from the last General Conference, definitely check it out if you're interested in building a personal testimony.]
After this discussion with FCF, PB and I took a short walk around the grounds. We talked about the "Knowing That We Know" talk. I also told him that I have a feeling that God will ask a great deal from me - especially given the stature of people he is sending to me now - and that thought was both humbling and scary. Specifically, I'm concerned that I won't have the right level of enthusiasm (or attitude) at the time (due to other considerations in my life like work or family) and/or that I won't have the ability to live up to the calling. PB had some very helpful and comforting insights in this regard. He shared that he has had callings of his own that he feared his wasn't qualified for or that there had been a mistake in the revelation that had been received - but in all of those instances, God had given him the strength and ability that he needed to fulfill his responsibilities.
I hate to make a gambling analogy is the context of religion but it's been in my head all day. Both during and after the visit, the phrase "I'm all in" kept going through my mind. I was taking all my chips and making this bet, this leap of faith, on the Church. There are still a number of things I don't know about the Church, the Book of Mormon, etc but I'm betting all my chips. I'm "all in" at this point.
That's everything for the Temple visit itself. During the 3-hour drive home, I had time to reflect on what had happened today. During that drive, I came to some additional conclusions (that I believe are at the prompting of the Spirit). First, I have three more temple visits before I get baptized (Sacramento, Oakland, and DC). Given the fact that I now have a testimony, what am I supposed to get out of those others visits? I don't know for sure but I believe one aspect of that is trying to answer two questions: (a) how to maintain and deepen my testimony & commitment once I come out of the "honeymoon period" with the Church and (b) how to be ready for what will be asked of me. In terms of the first question, I was talking to my brother-in-law JG last night and he compared a testimony to a marriage. In his case, he was comparing the question "when did you know that you know?" to "when did you know that you love your wife?" But that got me thinking more broadly about testimony and commitment building in the context of marriage. In particular, I was thinking about how many people have the misconception that if you find the right person to marry, everything else should come totally naturally and that you'll live "happily ever after". In reality, having a strong marriage takes a lot of work, particularly after you get past the excitement of the "honeymoon period" and settle into regular, day-to-day life. At that point, it becomes easy to take the marriage for granted and invest your energies in other areas of your life when in reality the marriage needs more (not less) attention at each subsequent stage.
And, second, I decided to bear my testimony at the next fast & testimony meeting on Sunday, December 2. That is coincidentally the day after I'm planning to visit the Sacramento and Oakland temples. While potentially odd (since I won't be a member at that point), the rationale is multi-fold: (a) serve as a forcing function and test of my testimony, (b) help reinforce or build the testimony of others, and (c) help ward off evil. This last element may not be immediately obvious. Multiple people have told me that Satan works hardest on people during the period in between when they decide to be baptized and when the baptism actually occurs. Given the long delay between now and January 19, I may be especially exposed in that regard. Which also means that I can most use the help and support of others - hence the public proclamation on December 2 (and a similar proclamation and request for help here in this blog).
One final thought. I would have never requested that GH have a stroke and almost die (multiple times). But I am personally grateful that happened in his life. Had it not, I would have never taken a personal interest in GH and his wife PH - and today's experience wouldn't have been possible. At some point in the future, it's possible that I still would have gained a testimony of the Church. It's possible that I would come to know that I know. But I personally believe that it was supposed to happen today in this way - that in the grand scheme of things all of these things (including GH's health struggles) have happened for a reason. And at least today, that reason was to help me build my testimony. So I am grateful for that and continue to be in awe of the interconnectedness of our lives.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
I'm guessing at least one of you is interested in the details so here you go. Today, I visited the Fresno temple with my wife's uncle (GH) - see previous post for rationale. I fasted for the visit - which was both easier and harder than I had predicted - although the level of difficulty is mostly irrelevant since fasting was asked of me so I didn't have any choice in the matter. During the visit, I met the President of the California Fresno Mission along with the First Counselor of the Fresno Temple (FCF, who also happened to have served as a Mission President in Australia and whose birthday is the day after I'm planning to be baptized). The Fresno Mission President (PB) was formerly the Stake President in Utah for my sister-in-law NR (the one who led to my first spiritual experience with the Church 14 years ago) and her husband. He also happened to know the California San Francisco Mission President (who I met with 8 days ago) and called him prior to my visit. GH's great-grandfather joined the Church in October 1830 - 6 months after it was established - and probably knew Joseph Smith personally. And, during the visit, I also happened to meet a couple who are friends of my mother-in-law and father-in-law from a number of years ago. All purely coincidence? I personally don't think so but others can make their own judgments.
In terms of the visit itself, GH and I met PB outside of the Temple at 11am. I asked GH to start us off with a prayer - which he graciously accommodated. We chatted for a little bit before entering the lobby of the Temple. PB introduced me to FCF and the three of us talked for about a half hour. During that conversation, PB and FCF talked about different aspects of temples along with various Church beliefs. After awhile, they asked me if there were any specific questions they could answer and I said "no". In fact, I said that, as they were talking, I felt that they were "preaching to the converted" and that perhaps that feeling was the point of my visit to this particular Temple. Making that statement was basically when I knew that I knew. [As an aside, if you haven't heard or read the "Knowing That We Know" talk from the last General Conference, definitely check it out if you're interested in building a personal testimony.]
After this discussion with FCF, PB and I took a short walk around the grounds. We talked about the "Knowing That We Know" talk. I also told him that I have a feeling that God will ask a great deal from me - especially given the stature of people he is sending to me now - and that thought was both humbling and scary. Specifically, I'm concerned that I won't have the right level of enthusiasm (or attitude) at the time (due to other considerations in my life like work or family) and/or that I won't have the ability to live up to the calling. PB had some very helpful and comforting insights in this regard. He shared that he has had callings of his own that he feared his wasn't qualified for or that there had been a mistake in the revelation that had been received - but in all of those instances, God had given him the strength and ability that he needed to fulfill his responsibilities.
I hate to make a gambling analogy is the context of religion but it's been in my head all day. Both during and after the visit, the phrase "I'm all in" kept going through my mind. I was taking all my chips and making this bet, this leap of faith, on the Church. There are still a number of things I don't know about the Church, the Book of Mormon, etc but I'm betting all my chips. I'm "all in" at this point.
That's everything for the Temple visit itself. During the 3-hour drive home, I had time to reflect on what had happened today. During that drive, I came to some additional conclusions (that I believe are at the prompting of the Spirit). First, I have three more temple visits before I get baptized (Sacramento, Oakland, and DC). Given the fact that I now have a testimony, what am I supposed to get out of those others visits? I don't know for sure but I believe one aspect of that is trying to answer two questions: (a) how to maintain and deepen my testimony & commitment once I come out of the "honeymoon period" with the Church and (b) how to be ready for what will be asked of me. In terms of the first question, I was talking to my brother-in-law JG last night and he compared a testimony to a marriage. In his case, he was comparing the question "when did you know that you know?" to "when did you know that you love your wife?" But that got me thinking more broadly about testimony and commitment building in the context of marriage. In particular, I was thinking about how many people have the misconception that if you find the right person to marry, everything else should come totally naturally and that you'll live "happily ever after". In reality, having a strong marriage takes a lot of work, particularly after you get past the excitement of the "honeymoon period" and settle into regular, day-to-day life. At that point, it becomes easy to take the marriage for granted and invest your energies in other areas of your life when in reality the marriage needs more (not less) attention at each subsequent stage.
And, second, I decided to bear my testimony at the next fast & testimony meeting on Sunday, December 2. That is coincidentally the day after I'm planning to visit the Sacramento and Oakland temples. While potentially odd (since I won't be a member at that point), the rationale is multi-fold: (a) serve as a forcing function and test of my testimony, (b) help reinforce or build the testimony of others, and (c) help ward off evil. This last element may not be immediately obvious. Multiple people have told me that Satan works hardest on people during the period in between when they decide to be baptized and when the baptism actually occurs. Given the long delay between now and January 19, I may be especially exposed in that regard. Which also means that I can most use the help and support of others - hence the public proclamation on December 2 (and a similar proclamation and request for help here in this blog).
One final thought. I would have never requested that GH have a stroke and almost die (multiple times). But I am personally grateful that happened in his life. Had it not, I would have never taken a personal interest in GH and his wife PH - and today's experience wouldn't have been possible. At some point in the future, it's possible that I still would have gained a testimony of the Church. It's possible that I would come to know that I know. But I personally believe that it was supposed to happen today in this way - that in the grand scheme of things all of these things (including GH's health struggles) have happened for a reason. And at least today, that reason was to help me build my testimony. So I am grateful for that and continue to be in awe of the interconnectedness of our lives.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
January 19, 2008
I'll warn you in advance that some of you will read this entry and think I've lost my mind. Others will read it and think it's cool. You're all right. I'll also warn you in advance that this entry will be pretty long. For those of you with short attention spans, here are the key takeaways. I've set Saturday, January 19, 2008 as my date to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Between now and then, I'm going to visit the Fresno, Sacramento, Oakland, and DC temples to help build my testimony.
Now, for those of you with a little time on your hands, let me give you all the gory details. As I discussed in a previous post, I've been officially investigating the LDS Church for the last month and a half based on a seemingly random chain of events that reminded me of an experience I had 14 years ago. During the last six weeks, I've had various meetings with the missionaries along with other ward members. I've been reading the Book of Mormon (BOM) for the last 10 days based on not wanting to be outdone by an 11-year old (see post). And I've been praying consistently while reading the BOM - mostly to get something out of the reading but also to find answers to my questions.
Going into this process, I wouldn't have guessed I'd end up at this point so quickly. There was even a point with the missionaries where I was planning to "take a break" from further discussions but changed my mind during the meeting in which I was going to deliver that message. I've had swings (sometimes within the same day) from thinking I was ready to be baptized right then to thinking it would never happen. So it hasn't been a perfectly smooth process but that's probably by design.
In terms of the tipping point, it was a rapid set of events over a 48 hour period. Last Friday, I had a meeting with the missionaries. I had taken the day off from work to catch up on personal matters - mostly this blog. As you may have noticed, I had a flurry of seven blog entries that day, including four about Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. As it turns out, the President of the San Francisco Mission joined the missionaries for this meeting. We ended up talking for 2 hours (a typical meeting is supposed to be 45 minutes) and I only ended the conversation because I was very late for some dinner guests at home. We covered a wide range of topics during that meeting, including PK giving me an overview of structure and chronology of the BOM. Given his obvious deep knowledge of the material, I posed all my "hard" questions to him and he had immediate responses. I got the distinct impression that there was no (doctrinal) question I could ask him that he wouldn't have a good answer for. In addition to his depth of knowledge, I was also impressed with PK's obvious depth of character. He seemed to have a genuine desire to find the truth wherever it may be - having read, for example, the Qur'an and scriptures of other faiths. He also had a genuine interest in serving others and spreading the Gospel.
During this meeting, the missionaries asked "you seem ready, what's holding you back from being baptized?" Based on the flow of the conversation, it was a fair and logical question. My response was that I'd like to believe that I'm the type of person who does what he says he's going to do. So if I make certain covenants with God, I'm going to keep them. But I wouldn't make that decision lightly. Also, I hadn't finished reading the BOM yet so I didn't see the harm in getting to the end of the process - even if it meant waiting to make the decision for another 30, 60, or 90 days (or more). Who knows, maybe I'd find something in the BOM that I wouldn't be able to get comfortable with - although I didn't think that was likely. The missionaries and the Mission President were very understanding and didn't apply any pressure. They just asked the question and left it at that.
On the way home and later that evening, I thought about the baptism discussion I'd had and what was holding me back. I read over the baptismal interview questions on page 206 of Preach My Gospel - also see here. After reading through these questions a couple of times and thinking about it, I sent the following email to JW:
Subject: Believe vs willing to believe
Hi JW,
I had another good meeting with the missionaries today. And PK was able to join us too. I'm reading through the baptismal interview questions on page 206 of Preach My Gospel - specifically the first two:
(1a) Do you believe that God is our Eternal Father?
(1b) Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world?
(2a) Do you believe the Church and gospel of Jesus Christ have been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith?
(2b) Do you believe that [current Church President] is a prophet of God?
For 1a, my answer would be yes. For 1b, 2a, and 2b, my answer would be that I'm willing to believe those things since I don't have a compelling reason not to believe them. Is that sufficient at this stage of the game? Or is "believe" the moral equivalent of "know with certainty" in this context ( e.g., do you know with certainty that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world?). Trying to understand the bar from the Church's perspective and independently reconcile that with my own bar for entering into covenants with God.
One of the questions the missionaries asked me was what's holding me back from being baptized. This difference between belief (and knowing with certainty) vs being willing to believe (but not knowing with certainty) is one of the main things holding me back so thought I'd solicit your opinion on the matter. To the extent it makes a difference, when I say "know with certainty", I implicitly mean "know in my heart" as opposed to purely "knowing in an intellectual way".
Thanks,
GNP
It was late at that point so I ended up leaving my stuff out and going to bed. The next morning, I went to put Preach My Gospel (still open to the baptismal interview questions) away in my backpack. As I did, page 4 of the October 2007 issue of Ensign stared back at me. Many weeks ago I had opened the magazine to the first article but hadn't had time to read it. So the magazine had been sitting in my backpack ever since, still open to that article. On the opposing page (and the side facing me as I opened my bag) was a picture of Christ being baptized by John the Baptist. Now, the magazine wasn't the only thing in my backpack. It was part of a big stack of papers and books but it just so happens that I went to insert Preach My Gospel into my bag at the place in the stack where this picture was staring back at me right in the face. You could certainly chock that up to random coincidence but I don't believe in random coincidences (see post). I took this as an unmistakable sign that, despite my reservations (that I had expressed the night before), I was supposed to be baptized. So I got the ball rolling in my mind regarding what date I should pick, etc.
But this still left me with an obvious problem. Even though I received this sign I was supposed to be baptized, it didn't magically change the fact that the strength of my testimony hadn't changed in 8 hours while I had been sleeping. The day unfolded without much more drama - just a variety of activities with the kids. That night, my wife and I went to an 80's party at a friend's house. As we were leaving the party, I saw on my Treo that I had received a reply from JW to my email. I was hoping he'd let me off the hook and say that being willing to believe was enough, but alas he's not that type of guy. He's one of those people who tells you what you don't want to hear but know is true. The gist of his response was that the interview questions are asking about your personal testimony and that I should continue to read the BOM and pray about it to build mine. For encouragement, he cited D&C 112:10: "Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers."
We get home from the party and I decide to make some further progress on the BOM. I was in the middle of some challenging chapters in 2 Nephi by Isaiah and honestly not getting a lot out of it. Even though I had prayed before opening the BOM for assistance focusing on the material and assessing its truth, I couldn't help thinking about JW's response about building my testimony. For awhile, people had been suggesting varying forms of fasting and prayer to know what I should do (or know whether the BOM was true). I had this picture in my head of going off by myself at some point for some solitude and prayer to get me over the hump. Similar to Joseph Smith in the woods or Jesus in Gethsemane, I was going to go off into nature to pray and find answers to my questions. But, in my mind, I was going to go on the hike or was going to sit around some place scenic. In the midst of reading the BOM, I got an overwhelming feeling (message) that I was supposed to go to temples rather than nature to build my testimony. I stopped what I was doing and dwelled in the moment. What I specifically took away was that I was supposed to visit the Fresno temple with my wife's uncle this Saturday (during a previously scheduled visit), visit the DC temple while visiting my parents for Christmas and New Years, and visit the Sacramento and Oakland temples somewhere in between.
Now, let's be clear about a couple of things. At the time (and even now), it's not at all clear to me what I'm supposed to do or what I'm supposed to learn by going to these temples. Also, I feel totally ridiculous every time I tell anyone this part of the story because (a) it's not clear why God would instruct me to do this and (b) he instructed me to visit multiple buildings that I can't even enter. For those of you who are fans of the movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure, it feels like being told to pack my bags for San Antonio so I can find my bike in the basement of the Alamo when the Alamo doesn't have a basement to begin with. That said, I'm not questioning this instruction in any way and made plans to following morning to visit these four temples. When God tells you to do something (or at least you believe that to be true), you do it, no questions asked.
[Aside #1: I was also tempted to book a flight to visit the Salt Lake temple to see the statue of Christ in the visitor center there. It's one of my few childhood memories from an around-the-country trip we took one summer. But I don't believe it was part of the official guidance so I'll do it another time.]
[Aside #2: The purpose of visiting the Fresno temple may already have become clear. My wife's aunt and uncle are friends with the Fresno Mission President and he will be joining us for my visit to that temple. So I assume that could be the reason I was meant to go to that temple - but I could be wrong.]
[Aside #3: One hypothesis I had is that perhaps God is instructing me to go to these temples precisely because I can't go into them. Effectively, I'd go to these places and all I'd take away from them is a disappointment of not being able to go inside. And then have that motivate me to make changes in my life - including being baptized - so that I could enter the temple down the road.]
[Aside #4: My sister-in-law HG was joking the other night that I must be going for a world record in terms of how many missionaries (and Mission Presidents) I can have involved in my conversion. So far I've met with three missionaries in the ward and my wife's sister NR got me on this path in the first place 14 years ago during her mission in Chile. Then there's the San Francisco Mission President and soon to be the Fresno Mission President. And presumably I'll end up talking with one or more missionaries at each of the Sacramento, Oakland, and DC temples. Crazy.]
Ok, back to Saturday. I get this personal revelation and decide to go to bed. That night, I have a dream about a house burning down and being reduced to rubble. You could argue this doesn't mean anything (and you might be right) but I interpreted it as follows. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes the analogy of imagining yourself as a house that God will rebuild into a palace that He will live in personally (see post). People also refer to confirmation (following baptism with water) as "baptism with fire". So I interpreted this dream (the picture of which is still in my head even now) to mean that God is going to burn down my house (figuratively) and build me back up exactly how he wants me (and for his purpose). A couple of reactions that morning: (1) "enough already, I get it, I'm supposed to get baptized", (2) I'll personally end up in a better place in my life long-term but the burn-down and rebuild process is going to be really unpleasant and I hope God gives me the strength to get through it, and (3) God isn't messing around, he's got plans for me independent of what I might otherwise want or what would be personally easy for me; but I better accept God's plan and callings when the time comes regardless of what else I have going on.
So that's the scoop. Now, you may have one more question in your mind so let me answer it. Why January 19, 2008? Is there something special about that date? The short answer is no. I needed a date in the new year so I'd have time to visit the DC temple over the holidays. I also needed to build in time for the baptismal interview to occur once I got back. And I wanted my sister-in-law NR to be at the baptism (since she got me on the path 14 years ago) and that Saturday worked for her family. So I booked a flight out for her and locked in the date with the missionaries. But otherwise, there's nothing special about the date other than it being the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed (of Islam) in 570 AD (according to Today in History) - but that had absolutely nothing to do with it (although it is an intriguing "coincidence").
As I mentioned in the opening, some of you (if you got this far in the post) will think I've lost my mind and others will think this is all very cool. It's up to you to make that judgement for yourself. All I can say is that this sequence of events holds personal significance to me - so much so that I've decided to be baptized into a particular Church (on the assumption / faith that my testimony will grow sufficiently in the meantime) and also blindly do a "temple tour" without knowing in advance what I'm supposed to do at each location when I get there. What I do know, however, is that if I ever get asked to do a talk on "the Lord works in mysterious ways", I'll definitely have plenty of material. =)
PS - You're all invited to the baptism and/or confirmation if you want to attend. But certainly do not feel compelled to be there. I know you'll all be there in spirit.
Now, for those of you with a little time on your hands, let me give you all the gory details. As I discussed in a previous post, I've been officially investigating the LDS Church for the last month and a half based on a seemingly random chain of events that reminded me of an experience I had 14 years ago. During the last six weeks, I've had various meetings with the missionaries along with other ward members. I've been reading the Book of Mormon (BOM) for the last 10 days based on not wanting to be outdone by an 11-year old (see post). And I've been praying consistently while reading the BOM - mostly to get something out of the reading but also to find answers to my questions.
Going into this process, I wouldn't have guessed I'd end up at this point so quickly. There was even a point with the missionaries where I was planning to "take a break" from further discussions but changed my mind during the meeting in which I was going to deliver that message. I've had swings (sometimes within the same day) from thinking I was ready to be baptized right then to thinking it would never happen. So it hasn't been a perfectly smooth process but that's probably by design.
In terms of the tipping point, it was a rapid set of events over a 48 hour period. Last Friday, I had a meeting with the missionaries. I had taken the day off from work to catch up on personal matters - mostly this blog. As you may have noticed, I had a flurry of seven blog entries that day, including four about Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. As it turns out, the President of the San Francisco Mission joined the missionaries for this meeting. We ended up talking for 2 hours (a typical meeting is supposed to be 45 minutes) and I only ended the conversation because I was very late for some dinner guests at home. We covered a wide range of topics during that meeting, including PK giving me an overview of structure and chronology of the BOM. Given his obvious deep knowledge of the material, I posed all my "hard" questions to him and he had immediate responses. I got the distinct impression that there was no (doctrinal) question I could ask him that he wouldn't have a good answer for. In addition to his depth of knowledge, I was also impressed with PK's obvious depth of character. He seemed to have a genuine desire to find the truth wherever it may be - having read, for example, the Qur'an and scriptures of other faiths. He also had a genuine interest in serving others and spreading the Gospel.
During this meeting, the missionaries asked "you seem ready, what's holding you back from being baptized?" Based on the flow of the conversation, it was a fair and logical question. My response was that I'd like to believe that I'm the type of person who does what he says he's going to do. So if I make certain covenants with God, I'm going to keep them. But I wouldn't make that decision lightly. Also, I hadn't finished reading the BOM yet so I didn't see the harm in getting to the end of the process - even if it meant waiting to make the decision for another 30, 60, or 90 days (or more). Who knows, maybe I'd find something in the BOM that I wouldn't be able to get comfortable with - although I didn't think that was likely. The missionaries and the Mission President were very understanding and didn't apply any pressure. They just asked the question and left it at that.
On the way home and later that evening, I thought about the baptism discussion I'd had and what was holding me back. I read over the baptismal interview questions on page 206 of Preach My Gospel - also see here. After reading through these questions a couple of times and thinking about it, I sent the following email to JW:
Subject: Believe vs willing to believe
Hi JW,
I had another good meeting with the missionaries today. And PK was able to join us too. I'm reading through the baptismal interview questions on page 206 of Preach My Gospel - specifically the first two:
(1a) Do you believe that God is our Eternal Father?
(1b) Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world?
(2a) Do you believe the Church and gospel of Jesus Christ have been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith?
(2b) Do you believe that [current Church President] is a prophet of God?
For 1a, my answer would be yes. For 1b, 2a, and 2b, my answer would be that I'm willing to believe those things since I don't have a compelling reason not to believe them. Is that sufficient at this stage of the game? Or is "believe" the moral equivalent of "know with certainty" in this context ( e.g., do you know with certainty that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world?). Trying to understand the bar from the Church's perspective and independently reconcile that with my own bar for entering into covenants with God.
One of the questions the missionaries asked me was what's holding me back from being baptized. This difference between belief (and knowing with certainty) vs being willing to believe (but not knowing with certainty) is one of the main things holding me back so thought I'd solicit your opinion on the matter. To the extent it makes a difference, when I say "know with certainty", I implicitly mean "know in my heart" as opposed to purely "knowing in an intellectual way".
Thanks,
GNP
It was late at that point so I ended up leaving my stuff out and going to bed. The next morning, I went to put Preach My Gospel (still open to the baptismal interview questions) away in my backpack. As I did, page 4 of the October 2007 issue of Ensign stared back at me. Many weeks ago I had opened the magazine to the first article but hadn't had time to read it. So the magazine had been sitting in my backpack ever since, still open to that article. On the opposing page (and the side facing me as I opened my bag) was a picture of Christ being baptized by John the Baptist. Now, the magazine wasn't the only thing in my backpack. It was part of a big stack of papers and books but it just so happens that I went to insert Preach My Gospel into my bag at the place in the stack where this picture was staring back at me right in the face. You could certainly chock that up to random coincidence but I don't believe in random coincidences (see post). I took this as an unmistakable sign that, despite my reservations (that I had expressed the night before), I was supposed to be baptized. So I got the ball rolling in my mind regarding what date I should pick, etc.
But this still left me with an obvious problem. Even though I received this sign I was supposed to be baptized, it didn't magically change the fact that the strength of my testimony hadn't changed in 8 hours while I had been sleeping. The day unfolded without much more drama - just a variety of activities with the kids. That night, my wife and I went to an 80's party at a friend's house. As we were leaving the party, I saw on my Treo that I had received a reply from JW to my email. I was hoping he'd let me off the hook and say that being willing to believe was enough, but alas he's not that type of guy. He's one of those people who tells you what you don't want to hear but know is true. The gist of his response was that the interview questions are asking about your personal testimony and that I should continue to read the BOM and pray about it to build mine. For encouragement, he cited D&C 112:10: "Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers."
We get home from the party and I decide to make some further progress on the BOM. I was in the middle of some challenging chapters in 2 Nephi by Isaiah and honestly not getting a lot out of it. Even though I had prayed before opening the BOM for assistance focusing on the material and assessing its truth, I couldn't help thinking about JW's response about building my testimony. For awhile, people had been suggesting varying forms of fasting and prayer to know what I should do (or know whether the BOM was true). I had this picture in my head of going off by myself at some point for some solitude and prayer to get me over the hump. Similar to Joseph Smith in the woods or Jesus in Gethsemane, I was going to go off into nature to pray and find answers to my questions. But, in my mind, I was going to go on the hike or was going to sit around some place scenic. In the midst of reading the BOM, I got an overwhelming feeling (message) that I was supposed to go to temples rather than nature to build my testimony. I stopped what I was doing and dwelled in the moment. What I specifically took away was that I was supposed to visit the Fresno temple with my wife's uncle this Saturday (during a previously scheduled visit), visit the DC temple while visiting my parents for Christmas and New Years, and visit the Sacramento and Oakland temples somewhere in between.
Now, let's be clear about a couple of things. At the time (and even now), it's not at all clear to me what I'm supposed to do or what I'm supposed to learn by going to these temples. Also, I feel totally ridiculous every time I tell anyone this part of the story because (a) it's not clear why God would instruct me to do this and (b) he instructed me to visit multiple buildings that I can't even enter. For those of you who are fans of the movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure, it feels like being told to pack my bags for San Antonio so I can find my bike in the basement of the Alamo when the Alamo doesn't have a basement to begin with. That said, I'm not questioning this instruction in any way and made plans to following morning to visit these four temples. When God tells you to do something (or at least you believe that to be true), you do it, no questions asked.
[Aside #1: I was also tempted to book a flight to visit the Salt Lake temple to see the statue of Christ in the visitor center there. It's one of my few childhood memories from an around-the-country trip we took one summer. But I don't believe it was part of the official guidance so I'll do it another time.]
[Aside #2: The purpose of visiting the Fresno temple may already have become clear. My wife's aunt and uncle are friends with the Fresno Mission President and he will be joining us for my visit to that temple. So I assume that could be the reason I was meant to go to that temple - but I could be wrong.]
[Aside #3: One hypothesis I had is that perhaps God is instructing me to go to these temples precisely because I can't go into them. Effectively, I'd go to these places and all I'd take away from them is a disappointment of not being able to go inside. And then have that motivate me to make changes in my life - including being baptized - so that I could enter the temple down the road.]
[Aside #4: My sister-in-law HG was joking the other night that I must be going for a world record in terms of how many missionaries (and Mission Presidents) I can have involved in my conversion. So far I've met with three missionaries in the ward and my wife's sister NR got me on this path in the first place 14 years ago during her mission in Chile. Then there's the San Francisco Mission President and soon to be the Fresno Mission President. And presumably I'll end up talking with one or more missionaries at each of the Sacramento, Oakland, and DC temples. Crazy.]
Ok, back to Saturday. I get this personal revelation and decide to go to bed. That night, I have a dream about a house burning down and being reduced to rubble. You could argue this doesn't mean anything (and you might be right) but I interpreted it as follows. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes the analogy of imagining yourself as a house that God will rebuild into a palace that He will live in personally (see post). People also refer to confirmation (following baptism with water) as "baptism with fire". So I interpreted this dream (the picture of which is still in my head even now) to mean that God is going to burn down my house (figuratively) and build me back up exactly how he wants me (and for his purpose). A couple of reactions that morning: (1) "enough already, I get it, I'm supposed to get baptized", (2) I'll personally end up in a better place in my life long-term but the burn-down and rebuild process is going to be really unpleasant and I hope God gives me the strength to get through it, and (3) God isn't messing around, he's got plans for me independent of what I might otherwise want or what would be personally easy for me; but I better accept God's plan and callings when the time comes regardless of what else I have going on.
So that's the scoop. Now, you may have one more question in your mind so let me answer it. Why January 19, 2008? Is there something special about that date? The short answer is no. I needed a date in the new year so I'd have time to visit the DC temple over the holidays. I also needed to build in time for the baptismal interview to occur once I got back. And I wanted my sister-in-law NR to be at the baptism (since she got me on the path 14 years ago) and that Saturday worked for her family. So I booked a flight out for her and locked in the date with the missionaries. But otherwise, there's nothing special about the date other than it being the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed (of Islam) in 570 AD (according to Today in History) - but that had absolutely nothing to do with it (although it is an intriguing "coincidence").
As I mentioned in the opening, some of you (if you got this far in the post) will think I've lost my mind and others will think this is all very cool. It's up to you to make that judgement for yourself. All I can say is that this sequence of events holds personal significance to me - so much so that I've decided to be baptized into a particular Church (on the assumption / faith that my testimony will grow sufficiently in the meantime) and also blindly do a "temple tour" without knowing in advance what I'm supposed to do at each location when I get there. What I do know, however, is that if I ever get asked to do a talk on "the Lord works in mysterious ways", I'll definitely have plenty of material. =)
PS - You're all invited to the baptism and/or confirmation if you want to attend. But certainly do not feel compelled to be there. I know you'll all be there in spirit.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Beyond Personality
The final section of Mere Christianity is called "Beyond Personality: or First Steps in the Doctrine of the Trinity". As with the last couple posts, here are the excerpts that I marked:
Theology means "the science of God"...
Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man. That is why men are not Sons of God in the sense that Christ is. They may be like God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God...
As long as we are thinking that way, one or other of two results is likely to follow. Either we give up trying to be good, or else we become very unhappy indeed. For, make no mistake: if you are really going to try to meet all the demand made on the natural self, it will not have enough left over to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier. In the end, you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, "live for others" but always in a discontented, grumbling way - always wondering why the others do not notice it more and always making a martyr of yourself. And once you have become that you will be a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish...
The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self - all your wishes and precautions - to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call "ourselves," to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be "good." We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way - centered on money or pleasure or ambition - and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do. As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown...
That is why He warned people to "count the cost" before becoming Christians. "Make no mistake," He says, "if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect - until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. Bit I will not do anything less"...
God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy...
He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection. On the other hand, you must realise from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal. That is what you are in for. And it is very important to realise that. If we do not, then we are very likely to start pulling back and resistign Him after a certain point...
But all the time He knew His plan for us and was determined to carry it out. Something the same is now happening at a higher level. We may be content to remain what we call "ordinary people": but He is determined to carry out a quite different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility; it is laziness and cowardice. To submit to it is not conceit or megalomania, it is obedience...
That is why we must not be surprised if we are in for a rough time. When a man turns to Christ and seems to be getting on pretty well (in the sense that some of his bad habits are now corrected), he oftens feels that it would now be natural if things went fairly smoothly. When troubles come along - illnesses, money troubles, new kinds of temptation - he is disappointed. These things, he feels, might have been necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days; but why now? Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us.
I find I must borrow yet another parable from George MacDonald. Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself...
The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said...
He meant what he said. Those who put themselves in His hands will become perfect, as He is perfect - perfect in love, wisdom, joy, beauty, and immortality. The change will not be completed in this life, for death is an important part of the treatment. How far the change will have gone before death in any particular Christian is uncertain...
Now quite plainly, natural gifts carry with them a similar danger. If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is. "Why drag God into it?" you may ask. A certain level of good conduct comes fairly easily to you. You are not one of those wretched creatures who are always being tripped up by sex, or dipsomania, or nervousness, or bad temper. Everyone says you are a nice chap and (between ourselves) you agree with them. You are quite likely to believe that all this niceness is your own doing: and you may easily not feel the need for any better kind of goodness. Often people who have all these natural kinds of goodness cannot be brought to recognise their need for Christ at all until, one day, the natural goodness lets them down and their self-satisfaction is shattered. In other words, it is hard for those who are "rich" in this sense to enter the Kingdom...
There is either a warning or an encouragement here for every one of us. If you are a nice person - if virtue comes easily to you - beware! Much is expected from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God's gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee...
But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away "blindly" so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and dealth of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
Many different things to think about here - mostly that none of this is easy and perhaps it's not supposed to be.
Theology means "the science of God"...
Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man. That is why men are not Sons of God in the sense that Christ is. They may be like God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God...
As long as we are thinking that way, one or other of two results is likely to follow. Either we give up trying to be good, or else we become very unhappy indeed. For, make no mistake: if you are really going to try to meet all the demand made on the natural self, it will not have enough left over to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier. In the end, you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, "live for others" but always in a discontented, grumbling way - always wondering why the others do not notice it more and always making a martyr of yourself. And once you have become that you will be a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish...
The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self - all your wishes and precautions - to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call "ourselves," to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be "good." We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way - centered on money or pleasure or ambition - and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do. As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown...
That is why He warned people to "count the cost" before becoming Christians. "Make no mistake," He says, "if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect - until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. Bit I will not do anything less"...
God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy...
He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection. On the other hand, you must realise from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal. That is what you are in for. And it is very important to realise that. If we do not, then we are very likely to start pulling back and resistign Him after a certain point...
But all the time He knew His plan for us and was determined to carry it out. Something the same is now happening at a higher level. We may be content to remain what we call "ordinary people": but He is determined to carry out a quite different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility; it is laziness and cowardice. To submit to it is not conceit or megalomania, it is obedience...
That is why we must not be surprised if we are in for a rough time. When a man turns to Christ and seems to be getting on pretty well (in the sense that some of his bad habits are now corrected), he oftens feels that it would now be natural if things went fairly smoothly. When troubles come along - illnesses, money troubles, new kinds of temptation - he is disappointed. These things, he feels, might have been necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days; but why now? Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us.
I find I must borrow yet another parable from George MacDonald. Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself...
The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said...
He meant what he said. Those who put themselves in His hands will become perfect, as He is perfect - perfect in love, wisdom, joy, beauty, and immortality. The change will not be completed in this life, for death is an important part of the treatment. How far the change will have gone before death in any particular Christian is uncertain...
Now quite plainly, natural gifts carry with them a similar danger. If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is. "Why drag God into it?" you may ask. A certain level of good conduct comes fairly easily to you. You are not one of those wretched creatures who are always being tripped up by sex, or dipsomania, or nervousness, or bad temper. Everyone says you are a nice chap and (between ourselves) you agree with them. You are quite likely to believe that all this niceness is your own doing: and you may easily not feel the need for any better kind of goodness. Often people who have all these natural kinds of goodness cannot be brought to recognise their need for Christ at all until, one day, the natural goodness lets them down and their self-satisfaction is shattered. In other words, it is hard for those who are "rich" in this sense to enter the Kingdom...
There is either a warning or an encouragement here for every one of us. If you are a nice person - if virtue comes easily to you - beware! Much is expected from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God's gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee...
But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away "blindly" so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and dealth of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
Many different things to think about here - mostly that none of this is easy and perhaps it's not supposed to be.
Christian Behavior
The third section of Mere Christianity is called "Christian Behavior". Here are the excerpts that I marked:
Does it not make a great difference whether I am, so to speak, the landlord of my own mind and body, or only a tenant, responsible to the real landlord? If somebody else made me, for his own purposes, then I shall have a lot of duties which I should not have if I simply belonged to myself...
He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert to its job, and in first class fighting trim...
One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting every one else to give it up...
We might think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort...
I may repeat "Do as you would be done by" till I am black in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him...
God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it...
People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, "If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing." I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness...
When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him...
It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection...
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us ... hate the sin but not the sinner ... That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not...
The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind...
Pride is essentially competitive...
In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison - you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshipping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men. I suppose it was of those people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preach about Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world that He had never known them. And any of us may at any moment be in this death-trap. Luckily, we have a test. Whenever we find that our religious life is better than someone else - I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether...
If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realise that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed...
Charity means "Love, in the Christian sense." But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.
I pointed out in the chapter on Forgiveness that our love for ourselves does not mean that we like ourselves. It means that we wish our own good. In the same way Christian Love (or Charity) for our neighbours is quite a different thing from liking or affection. We "like" or are "fond of" some people, and not of others. It is important to understand that this natural "liking" is neither a sin nor a virtue, any more than your likes and dislikes in food are a sin or a virtue. It is just a fact. But, of course, what we do about it is either sinful or virtuous...
Aim at Heaven and you will get earth "thrown in": aim at earth and you will get neither...
The Christian says, "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunder: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experiene in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same"...
Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods...
We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it; and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means - the only complete realist...
Whenever you find any statement in Christian writings which you can make nothing of, do not worry. Leave it alone. There will come a day, perhaps years later, when you suddenly see what it meant. If one could understand it now, it would only do one harm...
It is the change from being confident about our own efforts to the state in which we despair of doing anything for ourselves and leave it to God.
I know the words "leave it to God" can be misunderstood, but they must stay for the moment. The sense in which a Christian leaves it to God is that he puts all his trust in Christ; trusts that Christ will somehow share with him the perfect human obedience which He carried out from His birth to His cruxifixion; that Christ will make the man more like Himself and, in a sense, make good his deficiencies ... If you like to put it that way, Christ offers something for nothing: He even offers everything for nothing. In a sense, the whole Christian life consists in accepting that very remarkable offer. But the difficulty is to reach the point of recognising that all we have done and can do is nothing. What we should have like would be for God to count our good points and ignore our bad ones. Again, in a sense, you may say that no temptation is ever overcome until we stop trying to overcome it - throw up the sponge. But then you could not "stop trying" in the right way and for the right reason until you had tried your very hardest. And, in yet another sense, handing everything over to Christ does not, of course, mean that you stop trying. To trust Him means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it would follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you...
"For it is God who worketh in you" - which looks as if God did everything and we nothing.
Out of all of this, the most relevant portion pertains to pride. In a spiritual sense, that's what I struggle with the most (see this post).
Does it not make a great difference whether I am, so to speak, the landlord of my own mind and body, or only a tenant, responsible to the real landlord? If somebody else made me, for his own purposes, then I shall have a lot of duties which I should not have if I simply belonged to myself...
He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert to its job, and in first class fighting trim...
One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting every one else to give it up...
We might think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort...
I may repeat "Do as you would be done by" till I am black in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him...
God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it...
People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, "If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing." I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness...
When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him...
It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection...
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us ... hate the sin but not the sinner ... That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not...
The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind...
Pride is essentially competitive...
In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison - you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshipping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men. I suppose it was of those people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preach about Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world that He had never known them. And any of us may at any moment be in this death-trap. Luckily, we have a test. Whenever we find that our religious life is better than someone else - I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether...
If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realise that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed...
Charity means "Love, in the Christian sense." But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.
I pointed out in the chapter on Forgiveness that our love for ourselves does not mean that we like ourselves. It means that we wish our own good. In the same way Christian Love (or Charity) for our neighbours is quite a different thing from liking or affection. We "like" or are "fond of" some people, and not of others. It is important to understand that this natural "liking" is neither a sin nor a virtue, any more than your likes and dislikes in food are a sin or a virtue. It is just a fact. But, of course, what we do about it is either sinful or virtuous...
Aim at Heaven and you will get earth "thrown in": aim at earth and you will get neither...
The Christian says, "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunder: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experiene in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same"...
Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods...
We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it; and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means - the only complete realist...
Whenever you find any statement in Christian writings which you can make nothing of, do not worry. Leave it alone. There will come a day, perhaps years later, when you suddenly see what it meant. If one could understand it now, it would only do one harm...
It is the change from being confident about our own efforts to the state in which we despair of doing anything for ourselves and leave it to God.
I know the words "leave it to God" can be misunderstood, but they must stay for the moment. The sense in which a Christian leaves it to God is that he puts all his trust in Christ; trusts that Christ will somehow share with him the perfect human obedience which He carried out from His birth to His cruxifixion; that Christ will make the man more like Himself and, in a sense, make good his deficiencies ... If you like to put it that way, Christ offers something for nothing: He even offers everything for nothing. In a sense, the whole Christian life consists in accepting that very remarkable offer. But the difficulty is to reach the point of recognising that all we have done and can do is nothing. What we should have like would be for God to count our good points and ignore our bad ones. Again, in a sense, you may say that no temptation is ever overcome until we stop trying to overcome it - throw up the sponge. But then you could not "stop trying" in the right way and for the right reason until you had tried your very hardest. And, in yet another sense, handing everything over to Christ does not, of course, mean that you stop trying. To trust Him means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it would follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you...
"For it is God who worketh in you" - which looks as if God did everything and we nothing.
Out of all of this, the most relevant portion pertains to pride. In a spiritual sense, that's what I struggle with the most (see this post).
What Christians Believe
This is the second section of Mere Christianity. I've already posted one excerpt from this section (see post). Here are others that I marked:
If a good God made the world why has it gone wrong? And for many years I simply refused to listen to the Christian answers to this question, because I kept on feeling "whatever you say, and however clever your arguments are, isn't it much simpler and easier to say that the world was not made by any intelligent power? Aren't all your arguments simply a complicated attempt to avoid the obvious?" But then that threw me back into another difficulty.
My arugment against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too - for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning...
To be bad, [the Bad Power] must exist and have intelligence and will. But existence, intelligence and will are in themselves good. Therefore he must be getting them from the Good Power: even to be bad he must borrow or steal from his opponent. And do you now begin to see why Christianity has always said that the devil is a fallen angel? That is not a mere story for the children. It is a real recognition of the fact that evil is a parasite, not an original thing. The powers which enable evil to carry on are powers given it by goodness. All the things which enable a bad man to be effectively bad are in themselves good things - resolution, cleverness, good looks, existence itself. That is why Dualism, in a strict sense, will not work...
Enemy-occupied territory - that is what this world is...
What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could "be like gods" - could set up on their own as if they had created themselves - be their own masters - invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside of God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history - money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery - the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy...
The central Christian belief is that Christ's death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter...
Now repentence is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person - and he would not need it...
But though I cannot see why it should be so, I can tell you why I believe it is so. I have explained why I have to believe that Jesus was (and is) God. And it seems plain as a matter of history that He taught His followers that the new life was communicated in this way. In other words, I believe it on His authority. Do not be scared by the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine percent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of blood on authority - because the scientists say so. Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics. We believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them: in fact, on authority. A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.
This last point about authority is an important one. With many aspects of religion, I've historically taken the position that I won't believe them unless I can independently verify their truth. But I don't take that approach in so many aspects of my life. That's not to say that I don't ask questions or maintain a healthly level of skepticism, but I'm also willing to take a lot of information at face value based on other people's authority in the matter. Recently, I've tried to shift my headset from "I don't believe it until something causes me to believe" to "I believe it until something causes me not to believe". So there are many aspects of the LDS faith, for example, that I don't have a strong testimony of but I'm willing to believe the time-being (until and unless I find some reason not to believe).
If a good God made the world why has it gone wrong? And for many years I simply refused to listen to the Christian answers to this question, because I kept on feeling "whatever you say, and however clever your arguments are, isn't it much simpler and easier to say that the world was not made by any intelligent power? Aren't all your arguments simply a complicated attempt to avoid the obvious?" But then that threw me back into another difficulty.
My arugment against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too - for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning...
To be bad, [the Bad Power] must exist and have intelligence and will. But existence, intelligence and will are in themselves good. Therefore he must be getting them from the Good Power: even to be bad he must borrow or steal from his opponent. And do you now begin to see why Christianity has always said that the devil is a fallen angel? That is not a mere story for the children. It is a real recognition of the fact that evil is a parasite, not an original thing. The powers which enable evil to carry on are powers given it by goodness. All the things which enable a bad man to be effectively bad are in themselves good things - resolution, cleverness, good looks, existence itself. That is why Dualism, in a strict sense, will not work...
Enemy-occupied territory - that is what this world is...
What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could "be like gods" - could set up on their own as if they had created themselves - be their own masters - invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside of God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history - money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery - the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy...
The central Christian belief is that Christ's death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter...
Now repentence is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person - and he would not need it...
But though I cannot see why it should be so, I can tell you why I believe it is so. I have explained why I have to believe that Jesus was (and is) God. And it seems plain as a matter of history that He taught His followers that the new life was communicated in this way. In other words, I believe it on His authority. Do not be scared by the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine percent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the circulation of blood on authority - because the scientists say so. Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics. We believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them: in fact, on authority. A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.
This last point about authority is an important one. With many aspects of religion, I've historically taken the position that I won't believe them unless I can independently verify their truth. But I don't take that approach in so many aspects of my life. That's not to say that I don't ask questions or maintain a healthly level of skepticism, but I'm also willing to take a lot of information at face value based on other people's authority in the matter. Recently, I've tried to shift my headset from "I don't believe it until something causes me to believe" to "I believe it until something causes me not to believe". So there are many aspects of the LDS faith, for example, that I don't have a strong testimony of but I'm willing to believe the time-being (until and unless I find some reason not to believe).
Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe
During a trip to Brazil about a month ago, I had the opportunity to read Mere Christianity all the way through. As I mentioned in my previous post (and a couple others), C.S. Lewis is certainly a persuasive salesman for God and specifically Christianity. The first section of his book is entitled "Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe". Here are some excerpts that I marked while reading:
These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in...
Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them...
The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people's ideas get nearer to that real Right than others...
You have the facts (how men do behave) and you also have something else (how they ought to behave). In the rest of the universe there need not be anything but the facts...
Let us sum up what we have reached so far. In the case of stones or trees or things of that sort, what we call the Laws of Nature may not be anything except a way of speaking. When you say that nature is governed by certain laws, this may only mean that nature does, in fact, behave in a certain way. The so-called laws may not be anything real - anything above and beyond the actual facts which we observe. But in the case of Man, we saw that this will not do. The Law of Human Nature, or Right and Wrong, must be something above and beyond the actual facts of human behaviour. In this case, besides the actual facts, you have something else - a real law which we did not invent and which we know we ought to obey...
Anyone studying Man from the outside as we study electricity or cabbages, not knowing our language and consequently not able to get any inside knowledge from us, but merely observing what we did, would never get the slightest evidence that we had this moral law. How could he? For his observations would only show what we did, and the moral law is about what we ought to do. In this same way, if there were anything above or behind the observed facts in the case of stones or weather, we, by studying them from outside, could never hope to discover it...
If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe - no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves. Surely this ought to arouse our suspicions...
Do not think I am going faster than I really am. I am not yet within a hundred miles of the God of Christian theology. All I have got to is a Something which is directing the universe, and which appears in me as a law urging me to do right and making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when I do wrong...
When I chose to get to my real subject in this roundabout way, I was not trying to play any kind of trick on you. I had a different reason. My reason was that Christianity simply does not make sense until you have faced the sorts of facts I have been describing. Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realised that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind that law, and that you have broken the law and put yourself wrong with that Power - it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realised that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about. They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person. They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how God himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God. It is an old story and if you want to go into it you will not doubt consult people who have more authority to talk about it than I have. All I am doing is to ask people to face the facts - to understand the questions which Christianity claims to answer. And they are very terrifying facts. I wish it was possible to say something more agreeable. But I must say what I think is true. Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through the dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: If you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, dispair.
I found the discussion of Right and Wrong as an objective standard quite interesting and useful. Not sure if I'm really doing it justice here but would encourage anyone with some time on their hands to read the entire book - or at least the first 40 pages.
These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in...
Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them...
The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people's ideas get nearer to that real Right than others...
You have the facts (how men do behave) and you also have something else (how they ought to behave). In the rest of the universe there need not be anything but the facts...
Let us sum up what we have reached so far. In the case of stones or trees or things of that sort, what we call the Laws of Nature may not be anything except a way of speaking. When you say that nature is governed by certain laws, this may only mean that nature does, in fact, behave in a certain way. The so-called laws may not be anything real - anything above and beyond the actual facts which we observe. But in the case of Man, we saw that this will not do. The Law of Human Nature, or Right and Wrong, must be something above and beyond the actual facts of human behaviour. In this case, besides the actual facts, you have something else - a real law which we did not invent and which we know we ought to obey...
Anyone studying Man from the outside as we study electricity or cabbages, not knowing our language and consequently not able to get any inside knowledge from us, but merely observing what we did, would never get the slightest evidence that we had this moral law. How could he? For his observations would only show what we did, and the moral law is about what we ought to do. In this same way, if there were anything above or behind the observed facts in the case of stones or weather, we, by studying them from outside, could never hope to discover it...
If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe - no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves. Surely this ought to arouse our suspicions...
Do not think I am going faster than I really am. I am not yet within a hundred miles of the God of Christian theology. All I have got to is a Something which is directing the universe, and which appears in me as a law urging me to do right and making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when I do wrong...
When I chose to get to my real subject in this roundabout way, I was not trying to play any kind of trick on you. I had a different reason. My reason was that Christianity simply does not make sense until you have faced the sorts of facts I have been describing. Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realised that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind that law, and that you have broken the law and put yourself wrong with that Power - it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realised that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about. They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person. They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how God himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God. It is an old story and if you want to go into it you will not doubt consult people who have more authority to talk about it than I have. All I am doing is to ask people to face the facts - to understand the questions which Christianity claims to answer. And they are very terrifying facts. I wish it was possible to say something more agreeable. But I must say what I think is true. Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through the dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: If you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, dispair.
I found the discussion of Right and Wrong as an objective standard quite interesting and useful. Not sure if I'm really doing it justice here but would encourage anyone with some time on their hands to read the entire book - or at least the first 40 pages.
RFP for my soul
A couple of months ago, I was talking to a friend of mine and mentioned an analogy I had developed awhile ago regarding a "RFP for my soul". For those of you who haven't spent time in business and/or procurement, a RFP is a "request for proposal" and large organizations use them to solicit bids and proposals from multiple vendors when they are sourcing products and services. For example, my father works for a company that helps the government source billions of dollars of telecommunications services through this mechanism. In my case, I asked the question "what if I issued an RFP for my soul?" After all, my soul is worth billions of dollars too (at least to me). So why not go through a similar procurement process for an organized religion?
Now, for those of you who have had the pleasure of writing RFPs or responding to RFPs as I have, you know that they are typically these enormous documents that cover a lot of ground. Also, sometimes, rather than answer a question directly, the response is "see the attached whitepaper" or something like that. In the context of religion, I could envision a process where I drafted a set of questions like "does God exist?" or "what is the nature of God?" and all of the responses I would get would be "see the enclosed book(s)". Then I'd have to pour through the Bible or Qur'an or Gita or Book of Mormon to find the answers to my questions and enter into a contractual relationship with whatever vendor seemed to have the best product and most fit my set of requirements. The obvious issue here is that it would take a very long time to do an exhaustive examination of all of these books and all of these religions. I could devote my whole life to the task and potentially reach no definitive conclusions or reach a perfect truth of God.
In response to this, my friend reminded me that RFPs are very rarely won or loss on objective merit or examination of the RFP responses. Obviously the product or service has to meet some minimum set of requirements but, beyond that, salesmanship tends to predominate (for better or worse). So my friend suggested that I recruit good salesmen for each religion and approach it that way. C.S. Lewis is one good salesman for Christianity. Huston Smith is another who I have referenced in the past in the context of the world's religions.
Would be interested in others' opinions on this topic. How do you know when to pick a religion and just go with it? Or when does it make sense to do the exhaustive, RFP-like evaluation before making the selection? My opinion is that you just know when something is right for you even if you haven't done an exhaustive search of all the possibilities. For example, my wife and I met at the beginning of my freshman year of college and she was my first serious girlfriend. Even though I didn't do an exhaustive search of every possible spouse, I have no doubt in my mind that she's the one for me. I just know. So I would suspect you reach a similar point with religion even if you haven't investigated all the other options to a similar degree.
Now, for those of you who have had the pleasure of writing RFPs or responding to RFPs as I have, you know that they are typically these enormous documents that cover a lot of ground. Also, sometimes, rather than answer a question directly, the response is "see the attached whitepaper" or something like that. In the context of religion, I could envision a process where I drafted a set of questions like "does God exist?" or "what is the nature of God?" and all of the responses I would get would be "see the enclosed book(s)". Then I'd have to pour through the Bible or Qur'an or Gita or Book of Mormon to find the answers to my questions and enter into a contractual relationship with whatever vendor seemed to have the best product and most fit my set of requirements. The obvious issue here is that it would take a very long time to do an exhaustive examination of all of these books and all of these religions. I could devote my whole life to the task and potentially reach no definitive conclusions or reach a perfect truth of God.
In response to this, my friend reminded me that RFPs are very rarely won or loss on objective merit or examination of the RFP responses. Obviously the product or service has to meet some minimum set of requirements but, beyond that, salesmanship tends to predominate (for better or worse). So my friend suggested that I recruit good salesmen for each religion and approach it that way. C.S. Lewis is one good salesman for Christianity. Huston Smith is another who I have referenced in the past in the context of the world's religions.
Would be interested in others' opinions on this topic. How do you know when to pick a religion and just go with it? Or when does it make sense to do the exhaustive, RFP-like evaluation before making the selection? My opinion is that you just know when something is right for you even if you haven't done an exhaustive search of all the possibilities. For example, my wife and I met at the beginning of my freshman year of college and she was my first serious girlfriend. Even though I didn't do an exhaustive search of every possible spouse, I have no doubt in my mind that she's the one for me. I just know. So I would suspect you reach a similar point with religion even if you haven't investigated all the other options to a similar degree.
Important people
About a month ago, I picked up a copy of Rules for Renegades in the SFO airport. I had heard about the book and wasn't planning to read it but I happen to know the author and had a long flight ahead of me. On a whole, the book wasn't terribly useful. Then again, I've read more than my fair share of self-help and entrepreneurship books so I think the book would likely be very useful to many other people. One excerpt really resonated with me, though.
Some of my past fears included attending events where I felt inadequate (not important enough) and ignorant about socializing with superpowerful people ... I adopted an illusion that I too was a player, powerful and famous, and willed my palms to be dry and warm. I asked a lot of questions. I was confident. And the result was that now I can meet anyone, speak before any size crowd, and hold my own ...
You'll always resonate with someone. When you do, ask the two most important networking questions: How did you get started in your field? What's your ideal customer? We all love to talk about ourselves, and these questions will not only help you form a connection with this person but will also tell you how to help him or her.
I wouldn't say I'm that great in networking situations. To be honest, in a lot of situations, I'm not genuinely interested in getting to know the people there. With the superpowerful, I often don't think I have anything in common with them or that I'm not in their same league. But the more I've met these people, the more I've come to realize that they're mostly like the rest of us. They have personal problems like everyone else, have their own set of dreams and fears, and don't have enough time to do everything they want to do (like most people). These people certainly have more resources (money, power, etc) at their disposal but that too can be a mixed blessing.
At any rate, an area for improvement for me. I'll make it #534 on the list. =)
Some of my past fears included attending events where I felt inadequate (not important enough) and ignorant about socializing with superpowerful people ... I adopted an illusion that I too was a player, powerful and famous, and willed my palms to be dry and warm. I asked a lot of questions. I was confident. And the result was that now I can meet anyone, speak before any size crowd, and hold my own ...
You'll always resonate with someone. When you do, ask the two most important networking questions: How did you get started in your field? What's your ideal customer? We all love to talk about ourselves, and these questions will not only help you form a connection with this person but will also tell you how to help him or her.
I wouldn't say I'm that great in networking situations. To be honest, in a lot of situations, I'm not genuinely interested in getting to know the people there. With the superpowerful, I often don't think I have anything in common with them or that I'm not in their same league. But the more I've met these people, the more I've come to realize that they're mostly like the rest of us. They have personal problems like everyone else, have their own set of dreams and fears, and don't have enough time to do everything they want to do (like most people). These people certainly have more resources (money, power, etc) at their disposal but that too can be a mixed blessing.
At any rate, an area for improvement for me. I'll make it #534 on the list. =)
Skin color and Race
I'm currently in the middle of 2 Nephi in the Book of Mormon. In 2 Nephi 5:21, it says the following in regards to the Lamanites: "And [the Lord] had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people [the Nephites] the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them." When I first read this, the first question that came to mind was does this mean that people who are not "white and exceedingly fair and delightsome" are not favored by God and shouldn't interbreed with those who are? That would be one literal interpretation. The other question that came to mind is whether this is justification for the period in time up until Official Declaration 2 that withheld the priesthood based on race or color. Based on those conversations that I've had with my wife and her sister HG, it sounds like this passage and others like it have given others pause too.
Regarding question #1, some have said this passage is racist and proof that the Book of Mormon (BOM) is a work of man. I haven't gotten this far in the BOM yet but apparently the Lamanites become favored later on over the Nephites. Some (like my wife's uncle) say that disproves the argument that man (Joseph Smith) introduced this passage for cultural / racist reasons since it would be seem odd that "black" people would later be favored over the "white / fair" people if the whole book is being written by a racist. HG actually said that she looked into these passages extensively in college and never came to a completely satisfactory answer other than to say that the collective record is inconclusive and a mystery that will be explained more fully to her after this life.
Regarding question #2, HG said that this passage and the priesthood being withheld based on race or color are unrelated. One interesting point she made (which like the last one she hasn't fully reconciled) is that God has had different "favored peoples" at different points in time. For example, for a long time in Jewish tradition, the Levites were the only group that could hold the priesthood. My personal opinion is that the priesthood was withheld from certain groups for more worldly, practical reasons. The first edition of the BOM was published in 1830 - 31 years before the outbreak of the Amercian Civil War. Almost immediately, Mormons were persecuted by other groups for their religious beliefs (and the practice of polygamy, abandoned since 1890). If they then also extended the priesthood to people of color, the church likely would have come under attack from other groups as well. The LDS church was almost wiped out as it was. Layer another battle front onto it and the church may not have survived. So I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that President Kimball received the revelation he did until well after the civil rights movement.
Now, just to be absolutely clear, I'm not saying that these cultural, worldly considerations make any of this right. We also now the world isn't perfect and that improper, non-ideal things happen in it. In the grand scheme of things, I think that's by design to make us collectively strive for something better. Also, in the grand scheme of things, I personally believe that God makes these transient inequities right in the afterlife. So, even if certain people aren't treated fairly on Earth or are otherwise victimized, I think that serves some larger purpose we don't fully understand and that everything becomes "fair" later on.
Anyway, additional thoughts or perspectives on any or all of this very welcome.
Regarding question #1, some have said this passage is racist and proof that the Book of Mormon (BOM) is a work of man. I haven't gotten this far in the BOM yet but apparently the Lamanites become favored later on over the Nephites. Some (like my wife's uncle) say that disproves the argument that man (Joseph Smith) introduced this passage for cultural / racist reasons since it would be seem odd that "black" people would later be favored over the "white / fair" people if the whole book is being written by a racist. HG actually said that she looked into these passages extensively in college and never came to a completely satisfactory answer other than to say that the collective record is inconclusive and a mystery that will be explained more fully to her after this life.
Regarding question #2, HG said that this passage and the priesthood being withheld based on race or color are unrelated. One interesting point she made (which like the last one she hasn't fully reconciled) is that God has had different "favored peoples" at different points in time. For example, for a long time in Jewish tradition, the Levites were the only group that could hold the priesthood. My personal opinion is that the priesthood was withheld from certain groups for more worldly, practical reasons. The first edition of the BOM was published in 1830 - 31 years before the outbreak of the Amercian Civil War. Almost immediately, Mormons were persecuted by other groups for their religious beliefs (and the practice of polygamy, abandoned since 1890). If they then also extended the priesthood to people of color, the church likely would have come under attack from other groups as well. The LDS church was almost wiped out as it was. Layer another battle front onto it and the church may not have survived. So I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that President Kimball received the revelation he did until well after the civil rights movement.
Now, just to be absolutely clear, I'm not saying that these cultural, worldly considerations make any of this right. We also now the world isn't perfect and that improper, non-ideal things happen in it. In the grand scheme of things, I think that's by design to make us collectively strive for something better. Also, in the grand scheme of things, I personally believe that God makes these transient inequities right in the afterlife. So, even if certain people aren't treated fairly on Earth or are otherwise victimized, I think that serves some larger purpose we don't fully understand and that everything becomes "fair" later on.
Anyway, additional thoughts or perspectives on any or all of this very welcome.
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