I voted today

I voted today. I always find it such an odd experience. You go, you stand in line, you get your ballot, you take the time to fill it out, you stick it in the machine, you get your "I voted" sticker so you can trumpet your civic virtue in the streets. And I always feel like—what possible difference can my one vote make? Is it worth my going through this bother? But of course that's the strange thing about the system: my one vote does become part of these numbers we'll be tracking on election night.

I don't know how to articulate the thought that's vaguely pulsating in my mind. I want to wax almost mystical about this—about the importance of the one; that this vast multitude of voters is made up of individual voters like me who each take the time to do something that in and of itself doesn't seem like it could actually make the slightest difference in affecting the multitude but all together become the multitude. "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass." It's a cliché, but it fits.

************

God of the nations—

I feel an urge to pray, but I don't know what to say.
"Let Obama win" or "Let the Democrats win" sounds... I dunno... tacky. Partisan. Beneath your dignity somehow.
But you tell us to lay the desires of our hearts before you. So there you have mine.

Anyway, what I want in the big scheme isn't an Obama victory, per se, or a farther-reaching Democratic victory.

What I want is a government that will make peace, that will care for the poor and the needy, that will do justice, that will practice wise stewardship of the environment, that will create sound policies for the ordering of our common life in this country and for the ordering of our relations with a larger global community.

I voted today for a slate of candidates who I hope will work for those things.
If they win, then I pray that they'll actually govern well.
And if they lose, then I pray that the winners will be moved to govern well.

In Christ's name, amen.

4 Nephi: Visions for an ideal world

My reading this week—3 Nephi 27 through 4 Nephi—is rich, and there's a lot I could focus on. I feel moved, though, to follow a line of thought that connects with my post last week on the millennial vision of Mormonism inspiring me to hope for a world where liberal religion triumphs over fundamentalism and liberal conceptions of human rights prevail over abominations like anti-gay violence.

So to follow through on that, I'm going to focus on 4 Nephi, which tries to imagine what an ideal society would look like, how to get there, and what can keep it from happening or enduring. Let me say up front that I don't entirely agree with this chapter's vision—or, to be more precise, I feel the Spirit cautioning me that aspects of this chapter's vision are limited and misguided and pointed in an ultimately unfruitful direction. But I'm in dialogue with the chapter, trusting that the Spirit wants to use my reflection on these words to lead me into a greater understanding of truth.

Writing those words makes me realize that I forgot to pray at the beginning of this scripture study session. So let me pause to do that—to pray for my mind and soul to be enlightened, to pray for the Spirit to teach me, to give me in the very hour what to say that may be edifying for people who might read this reflection.

Done.

4 Nephi tries to answer the question: How does an ideal world come into being? What does an ideal world look like? The answer is that it's a world where everyone owns everything in common so there's no such thing as rich and poor. There's also no such thing as bond or free, which is a part I tend to gloss over because slavery feels past to me (though there are activists who would warn me that it's not), but that's an important part of the vision, too. Everyone is free, whatever that means exactly. Everyone is dealt with justly. There's universal peace. There's no contention, no strife, no violence. There are no ethnic divisions, no meaningful tribal/racial identities, no partisan identities. Desolation produced by natural disaster is rebuilt, to the extent it can be. The society is prosperous—there's abundance. And there's healing—that's important for this author, too. Miracles are performed through the exercise of Christ's power that improve people's lives in physical ways.

Okay, so there's our vision of the ideal world. So far, I can sign onto this. Amen! May it be! Thy kingdom come!

Now: how does this come about?

For the author of 4 Nephi, it comes about because everyone is converted—truly converted, transformed, sanctified—to the gospel of Christ. Everyone becomes part of the church of Christ, which is therefore the only church in existence. And it is one. There's no multiple denominations recognizing one another as brothers and sisters in Christ in some invisible ecumenical sense. There's one organization, led by the twelve disciples chosen by Jesus and their successors.

So, two things going on here. One: Everyone is converted to the same religion; everyone belongs to the same church, which means in practical terms that everyone submits to the same religious authorities. That's a big part of what it means to say that there are no contentions and disputations (think back to 3 Nephi 11, where Jesus ends contention and disputation by laying down the law for once and for all and threatening damnation to everyone who doesn't obey). Two: The love of God dwells in the hearts of the people, as a consequence of their having been truly converted.

You can probably tell which part of this I'm going to resist and which part of this I like—which, to be precise again, really means which part of this I sense the Spirit telling me represents the word and will of God. To borrow words of Joseph Smith: Which part of this tastes good?

I believe that bringing about an ideal world—or at least moving closer to that world—requires that the love of God dwell in people's hearts, and I believe that requires conversion, i.e., an abiding commitment to gospel principles. I testify that is true; the Spirit bears witness to my mind and heart that this is true; and to the extent that this is what 4 Nephi is trying to say, 4 Nephi communicates the mind and will of God.

I don't believe that everyone has to belong to the same church or the same religion in order for that conversion to occur. Believing that would require me to sign onto a dualistic worldview that says: only in this one religion, or this one church, can people experience bona fide regeneration through the Spirit. There are lots of people today who call themselves "orthodox Christians" who believe precisely this, though some have been sufficiently influenced by pluralist values that they want to nuance the claim somewhat. There are plenty of Mormons who believe a version of this: ask your Sunday School class what the difference is between people outside the Church feeling the Spirit on occasion and members of the Church having the gift of the Holy Ghost, and you'll quickly uncover the attitudes I'm talking about. And those attitudes are there in part because the Book of Mormon itself preaches this kind of dualistic worldview. Now, within just a few years of the publication of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith's preaching will begin to open up possibilities for a less dualistic worldview—to recognize God, the Spirit, revelation, etc., operating in people's lives outside this one church, even to grant certain possibilities for salvation outside this one church. But those possibilities are still constrained within an insistence that everyone ultimately ought to belong to our church.

I don't believe that. When I recognize the good in other people's lives, when I see the amazing commitments to service and sacrifice and justice and love lived out by people in a variety of religious traditions—or in non-religious traditions—then doctrines that insist that ultimately those people's goodness isn't the real thing, that it needs to jump through certain administrative hoops, needs to submit to the "proper authorities" and the "proper channels"—those kinds of doctrines look just niggardly. They strain at gnats and swallow camels. They're centrally preoccupied with questions of authority and a desire to draw exclusionary boundaries, and I fail to see how that is a manifestation of the love of God that overcomes disputations and makes us all one.

I know the comeback: Well, if everyone would just recognize that this is the one true church and join it and submit to God's appointed leaders, then that would put an end to disputations and would make us all one. But again, I have to say: What a niggardly vision. What an authoritarian vision. You can only be one with people who share your particular religious beliefs, or belong to the same church? That's... I'm spluttering here, groping for how to make you see what's wrong with that. Yes, I will grant you, unity means accepting shared beliefs, shared values, a shared identity. But a worldview that says, Everyone has to belong to my church before we can have an ideal world, or at least has to embrace Christianity broadly defined—that worldview has a far too narrow conception of what's necessary to unite us.

In fact, I'd say that vision of unity tries to evade the hard work of learning to love, learning to find ways to be one with, people who are different from us in dramatic respects. It's a vision that restricts the transforming power of God's love. The biggest miracle to me, the greatest accomplishment, would not be a world where everyone had joined the LDS Church, or where everyone had at least become Christian. It would be a world where Christians and Muslims and Buddhists and atheists came together to institute the regime—the "kingdom"—of justice and peace and unity and freedom and economic equality that 4 Nephi envisions. That would be a world where love abounded, because it would be a world where people were doing the harder work of loving and forging unity with people who don't already belong to your narrowly defined group: your tribe, your church, your religion.

I have no illusions about the fact that the vision I'm trying to articulate here is exclusionary in its way. I've said I want forms of liberal religion to triumph over the various fundamentalisms. Learning how to love fundamentalists would be a task even harder than the ecumenical project I'm envisioning here. It's a challenge I'm not sure I'm up to at the moment, though it's one I believe God will eventually require of me.

To Be Straight with You

Then you will return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not. (3 Nephi 24:18)

That may be as close as I get today to engaging directly with the week's reading. There were a number of things that stood out to me from these chapters (3 Nephi 22-26) that I thought I might share in this week's post. But last night I had an experience that I need to reflect on.

Last night I went with one of my professors and a couple of other graduate students from my department to a performance by a British dance troupe (if that's the right word) called DV8. The performance, titled "To Be Straight with You," was billed as "a poetic but unflinching exploration of tolerance, intolerance, religion and sexuality." I tend to approach the contemporary arts with low expectations, and I have virtually no exposure to contemporary dance; so I went expecting something that was conceptually provocative—probably verging on gimmicky—but not likely to move me aesthetically.

The performance was much, much more engaging than I'd expected, and I'm very grateful I had the chance to see it. Basically, the troupe conducted hours of interviews with people in England—from big-name gay activists to people on the street—regarding their views on homosexuality, which often ended up involving religion. Many of the people they interviewed were from non-white immigrant communities. The troupe then plays what I presume are recordings from the interview, or in some cases the performers recite sustained quotations as monologues—and they dance to them, sometimes accompanied by impressive computerized special effects.

I'm not explaining this well (and the show's online trailer doesn't give you a good sense either, unfortunately). But the point I'm trying to get to is that the show was very enjoyable as an aesthetic experience—I would jump at a chance to see it again—but also very frightening in terms of what it conveyed about religious hostility toward gay/lesbian/bisexual/queer people. There were stories about people being beaten, stabbed, murdered by mobs—and these stories were taking place in Britain or in former British colonies like Jamaica. Muslims and Christians were the principal sources of the hostility. The impression the show conveyed is that fundamentalist Muslims would like to eliminate homosexuals by killing them while fundamentalist Christians want to accomplish the same end through therapy or exorcism.

Now I could launch into an argument on behalf of a more nuanced representation of Christian and Islamic attitudes toward homosexuality. (They don't all hate gay people, etc.) But the performance gave voice to truths, and I want to let those truths have their say. By the end of the show, I was thinking about the writing I've done on gay Mormon issues, and how in scholarly contexts I've made a point of divorcing my work from activist agendas in the name of critical understanding. After watching "To Be Straight with You," that pose of detachment feels icky. It feels like a betrayal, like I'm refusing to use my gifts and my voice to do something on behalf of people who are suffering. I come away feeling like: If I want my scholarship to be consecrated, doesn't it have to be activist?

And the show left me feeling vulnerable—like all the gains that have been made toward gay/lesbian equality in the modern West could be undone. That within my lifetime I could end up living under the same threat of violence that gay/lesbian people are currently living in places like Iraq, or Nigeria, or evidently in certain neighborhoods of London. Maybe it's an exaggerated concern. God knows I hope it is. But in any case, it's a selfish concern. Whether I'm in danger of that kind of violence in my future or not, there are people who are living it now. And that's what matters at that moment. That violence has to end.

The world needs a revival of liberal religion. Liberals in religious traditions need to fight conservatism and fundamentalism within those traditions. The problem, of course, is that "fight" is not a preferred liberal metaphor. But when you're faced with something like anti-gay violence, I don't know how else to frame the necessary response. Fundamentalism has declared war, and now we have somehow to defend ourselves—or rather, we have to defend those whom fundamentalists want to victimize.

Or, okay, here's a different frame. Liberal religion needs to missionize more assertively. It needs to convert the world. It needs to win souls away from the false religion of fundamentalism. At one point in "To Be Straight with You," projected graphics are superimposed onto a performer so that it looks like he's standing inside a globe, which he then spins around to map gay violence worldwide. By the time he's done, Europe, North America, and Australia have been painted green because they grant relative degrees of legal protection and equality to gay/lesbian people, while vast swaths of the global South, especially the Islamic world, are in red. So now think Daniel's vision: the green needs to roll forth like a stone cut from the mountain without hands until it fills the earth.

Mormonism teaches me to trust in a millennial vision. For me, at this particular moment, that means: Liberal religion can flood the earth. Anti-gay violence can be abolished. God wills it. God calls us, with the sound of a trump, by the raising of an ensign, to join him in working to make it happen. Are we listening?

The Mormon millennial vision involves visions of judgment poured out on the wicked. That part usually makes my liberal sensitivities squirm. But then, confronted with violent fundamentalisms I would not hesitate to call false religions, I find that those visions of judgment speak to me after all. I'm a liberal, not a radical, so I feel guilty about the fact that those visions speak to me. But if there's a context in which words like the following become truth, this is one of them:

No weapon formed against you will prosper; every tongue that reviles against you in judgment, you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, says the Lord. (3 Nephi 22:17)

3 Nephi 16, 20-21: On gathering

The Sunday School curriculum treats the chapters I read for this week as a unit because they have to do with the gathering of Israel. The appearance of the Book of Mormon itself is presented here as the initiating event—the catalyst—for the gathering, which includes a scenario in which the gospel goes from the Gentiles to the Lamanites, who then rise up and overthrow their Gentile oppressors (all except those who have been numbered among the house of Israel) and build "a New Jerusalem," where Christ will be in the midst of his people (20:22).

Now, I don't read the Book of Mormon as a literal preview of the future anymore than I read it as a literal record of the past. But the gathering—as theme, as dream, as icon—is fundamental to Mormonism, at least during the nineteenth century and even through the twentieth, albeit it gets somewhat metaphorized or postponed (becoming a prophecy for the future rather than, as it was for 19th-century Mormons, an ongoing reality). So I feel I need to sit under this word, as the Calvinists say. I need to listen. I need to figure out why this idea of the gathering was so important to my forebears in this tradition and what the Spirit wants me to learn from it—to do with it—today.

So, some thoughts:

First, the politics of these chapters regarding America's indigenous peoples are far from perfectly PC, but rather striking when you consider the historical context. The thrust of these prophesies is to assert indigenous peoples' rights to the land. Yes, the prophesies also legitimate European conquest (the natives needed to be punished for their sins)—but in the end, God helps the natives violently reclaim their land. The only Gentiles who continue to have a legitimate place in America are those who have been adopted into the indigenous peoples. Considering that the Book of Mormon was published around the same time that the Jackson administration was launching a policy of Indian removal that forcibly relocated most surviving Native Americans west of the Mississippi—in that context, these chapters offer a radical take on native rights. It's a take so radical, in fact, that I can't sign onto it. My politics aren't that leftist. Mormon philosopher Dennis Potter has recently asked whether the Book of Mormon can be used to promote Native American liberation: I assume he has these chapters in mind.

Second—and this will probably feel ludicrously "watered down" compared to what I was just talking about, but I'm just following the mainstream of 20th-century Mormon discourse on this one—the theme of the gathering is important because it's one of the main sources of the imagery or the language that Mormons use to describe their contribution to God's work. I may not be able to relate so much directly anymore to hymns like "Ye Elders of Israel" (about going out and bringing scattered Israel home); but I can certainly relate to the desire to be an instrument for carrying out God's purposes, building up God's kingdom, bringing to pass God's millennial dream, etc., which is what "Ye Elders of Israel" is about when you pull back a level or two of abstraction.

And in fact, borrowing from the work of Armand Mauss, I'm not so sure that orthodox Mormons relate so directly or literally anymore to imagery of the gathering. The emphasis certainly isn't on gathering to the Intermountain West anymore, as it was when "Ye Elders of Israel" was written. Instead the gathering has become metaphorized or spiritualized. Now people gather to Zion by building up the stakes of Zion throughout the world; and even more importantly, Church discourse now emphasizes gathering in the sense of gathering, or coming, to Christ. The equation "gathering of Israel = come to Christ" is at work in these chapters from 3 Nephi, though these chapters are primarily interested in painting for us a picture of the left side of the equation; contemporary Church discourse shifts the primary focus of our attention to the right side of the equation. And I have no problem with that.

Let me try to get more concrete here about the significance of "gathering" for me. This weekend, Latter-day Saints are gathering for General Conference. For some, that will mean a literal gathering in the Conference Center—and the huge investment the Church made in that building attests to how important physical gatherings remain for LDS religious experience. Others will gather to meetinghouses where satellite technology will make them an extension of the gathering in Salt Lake. Others will gather in an even more tenuous sense by watching Conference on TV in their homes.

I'm not part of that gathering. For one thing, I've been formally expelled from the gathering community (though they'd be happy to have me back on their terms). But I'm ambivalent about that kind of gathering in the first place. The sense of connection to a larger church—to home—was very important to me as a missionary when we would gather for General Conference. But looking now at the masses of people gathered to listen obediently to their adored (male, aging) leaders, I find the staging uncomfortably proto-fascist in overtones. In fairness, I should perhaps add that I find "uncomfortably proto-fascist overtones" in massive sporting events or in the huge rallies that accompanied the recent Democratic and Republican national conventions. Anything that smacks of herd mentality instinctively makes me want to pull back. Even when I was active in the Church, I don’t think I experienced, or placed much value on, the sense of belonging and . . . is it security? . . . that most Mormons seem to derive from their participation in the Church community. I’m stand-offish by temperament. It’s a vice, certainly—the vice of pride—though I also act on the faith that it can be a gift if it helps me reflect critically on the community in salutary ways.

In any case, this stand-offishness means that I’ve been comfortable with my status as “Mormon in exile,” as an Episcopal priest I used to work with once put it. I like being scattered in that sense. And so the scriptures’ promise of gathering is actually something of a challenge for me. God’s work, the scriptures tell me, is to bring people together. Christ becomes present—Christ’s power is made manifest—in the midst of a gathered people.

I paused for a while after writing that sentence, deciding whether to pursue that thought. And I decided not to. The Spirit’s pushing me somewhere I want to reflect on more before I say anything more about it in the blogosphere. So I’m going to change the subject a bit. This coming week is my parents’ wedding anniversary. That date is also the anniversary of the first time I ever participated in organized gay life: a talent show held as part of the University of Utah’s GLBT Awareness Week during my first year as a graduate student there. I suspect that the coincidence with my parents’ wedding anniversary makes the talent show more of a dramatic threshold in my memory than it would be otherwise, but I take that date as the beginning of my coming out as a gay man.

There’s a kind of gathering in my life: coming out—or alternatively, coming in—from the exile of the closet, connecting with other gay/lesbian people, claiming membership in a community. In the end, I’m rather stand-offish in that community as well. For the fifth year in a row, I’ve not felt motivated to participate in our local Gay Pride events. Hugo and I have a handful of gay friends, but we’re not really plugged into the local gay community—wherever that is—and we don’t even go out of our way to socialize that much with other gay couples at the Episcopal church we attend. And we don’t emulate standard images of gay life or gay style—I often find myself in situations where I joke, “We’re not that kind of gay.” But we still claim membership in a thing called the gay community: we claim them as our people, and that’s crucial to our identity. In an analogous way, I claim membership in a broadly defined Mormon community: the Mormons are my people (whether they want me or not), and that’s crucial to my identity. For the moment, that’s as closely gathered as I want to be.

3 Nephi 17-19

At the beginning of chapter 17, Jesus tells the people that it's time for him to leave them: "my time is at hand" (17:1). But then he looks around, and he sees that "they were in tears, and did look steadfastly upon him as if they would ask him to tarry a little longer with them" (v.5). Then his own "bowels are filled with compassion" (v. 6)—which I take to mean that he was seized with a visceral love for them (a feeling I first experienced, apart from my childhood feelings for my parents, as a missionary). And so he changes his plans, postpones his departure, stays a while longer. He wants to be with them, just as they want to be with him. They desire each other's company. They like each other, which is actually a horribly understated way to put it but has the virtue of being very concrete. "Christ loves us" is a facile thing to say, and it's said so often that it can easily become bereft of any real emotional texture. It's quite a different matter to say: Christ likes being with us so much that when it was time for him to leave, he stopped at the door and turned around and said, "Oh what the hey, the Father and the lost tribes can wait! I'm staying a little longer!"

And then it turns out that the people Jesus is most interested in spending more time with are the sick, the disabled, and the children—which is to say, the people who are most likely to be on the margins. As I write that sentence, I suddenly have the uncomfortable awareness that one could this read as being like a politician's photo-op: okay, Senator, let's put in an appearance in the cancer ward; let's go kiss some babies. But of course, I assume that what I'm meant to take from this is that Jesus reaches out to the sick and the disabled and the children because he wants to be with them; he likes being with them; he enjoys their company as much as anyone else's. By contrast, I'm don't particularly look forward to being with sick or disabled people (it's awkward) nor with children (they're trying). I can do it—I've been a medical interpreter; I have disabled relatives; I've been told I'm actually pretty good with kids. But my bowels are not filled with the kind of compassion that would make me want to be in the company of a sick person, a disabled person, or a child so much that I would turn around at the door as I was about to leave and say, "Oh what the hey, I'm going to stay a little longer!" It hasn't happened yet, anyway.

Well... wait. I feel like I'm being too flippantly self-deprecating here. Okay. I feel moved to say the following. And let me preface it quickly by saying that this is not where I planned to go with today's reflection: I thought this post was going to be more theologically minded, a reflection on the sacrament and prayer as ways that Jesus manages to go on being with us and ways that we reach out to be with him. But let me follow instead where the Spirit seems to be wanting to take me.

It's not true that I haven't been in situations where I reached out in compassion to someone who was sick. Example: I was once on the phone with someone who had recently been diagnosed with cancer (I don't remember now if I knew that when I was talking with this person, or if I found that out later). And as we were talking about something else entirely—I did not really know this person, we had never met before this phone call, the call was workerly in nature—he suddenly started to cry. And my first impulse was to pull back from this unexpectedness rawness—not that I would have hung up the phone or anything, but I guess my first impulse would be to pretend that this wasn't happening, don't embarrass him, don't call attention to the fact he's crying, don't ask about it, don't pry, I'm not sure I really want to hear it anyway; let him pull himself together, and then move on with our conversation like it hadn't happened.

Fortunately—here's the intervention of grace—I didn't do that. Instead I waited—which I guess sounds like what I said had been my first impulse ("don't say anything"), except that I wasn't pulling back. Literally, the opposite: my mental disposition was that of leaning forward, being open to whatever he might want to say. And then I don't remember exactly what happened. He pulled himself together. I asked him if he was all right—trying to make it clear from my voice that I wasn't saying it in a "You're all right now? So we can move on then?" kind of way, but that I was open to listening to whatever he might want to say. Which turned out not to be much; he wasn't interested in pouring himself out. But that moment passed, and we finished our business, and that was that. Without embarrassment.

I've been in similar situations where someone did start pouring out in a way I hadn't really expected—or that I had expected might happen but knew I was going to find uncomfortable. And I'm grateful for the occasions when I've felt that I received the grace to be more open than is my nature. More present. Listening. Trying to share someone else's burden, I guess would be the "Mosiah 18" way to put it. Now that I've followed the Spirit this far and said all this, I'm feeling very embarrassed about what a ridiculously small grace this is. Ooh, I was able to be a listening ear for someone. Wow. What a burden I took on. I mean, it's not like I've ever taken on long-term responsibility for caring for someone who was sick or disabled. But for what it's worth, there's my little testimony of Christ working in me to reach out to people who are sick or grieving. Small and simple things, right? I'm going to have to trust the Spirit that my having written these words will do good for somebody.

************

Jesus—

I'm feeling a little humiliated right now, I have to tell you.
Perhaps that was what you had in mind. If so, that's fair.

I know I'm not a compassionate person.
In fact, let's be honest: as I was reading 3 Nephi 17-19 and thinking about how those chapters provide concrete images of your love, I was thinking about that basically in terms of your love for me. Which was a selfish way to read.
Not that that will come as any surprise to you, of course.

I'd like to be more compassionate.
I'd like to be more other-oriented, less stupidly self-absorbed.
I'd like to be more like the way you're described in the chapters I read for today.

That's what I'll be praying for when I take the sacrament today.

Amen.

Wrestling with the Book of Mormon

Today (September 21) is the anniversary of Joseph Smith's first visions of the angel Moroni, according to the dating given in JS-H 1:27. And as it happens, my reading for today was 3 Nephi 12-15, which consists chiefly of the Book of Mormon's version of the Sermon on the Mount. That coincidence prompts me to reflect on the centrality of the Sermon on the Mount to the Book of Mormon—i.e., the sermon is delivered as part of the christophany that, as I noted last week, constitutes the book's climax—which in turn has me thinking about the Book of Mormon as an "evangelical" document, i.e., as a text that aims to promote Christian revival and that invites us to understand Mormonism as an extended meditation on biblical teachings. So while I've filled the margins of 3 Nephi 12-15 with notes, let me pull back from all that, at least for a bit, and explore the preceding statement more, as a way of reflecting on the Book of Mormon's significance in my life on the occasion of its anniversary.

What does the Book of Mormon mean to me? My relationship with the book is complicated, like my relationship with the LDS tradition generally. I've noticed that the general trend of my reading this year (as reflected in my blogging) has been to read the book resistingly. ("Wrestling" with the text, according to one respondent's post.) Four years ago, the last time I was studying the Book of Mormon along with the Sunday School curriculum, my reading was more focused on reclaiming the book. In other words, four years ago, I tended to focus more on what comes after the "but" in the statement "The Book of Mormon conveys messages I definitely don't believe in, but I also definitely believe that the Spirit teaches me through this book." This year, probably because as I'm blogging I'm trying to offer decidedly liberal reflections on the scriptures and therefore want to make clear where I differ from more orthodox readings, I've found myself underscoring the part before the "but," though I always try to end on what I feel the Spirit is teaching me.

But I do need to make clear that for all my wrestling with the text, I do embrace this text as scripture. Four years ago, as I was reading 1 Nephi 11, I was struck with the idea that the Book of Mormon is a tangible sign of God's love, and for a while that sense prompted me to adopt the custom of kissing the book (a gesture of piety I borrowed from Jewish practice). Four years later, I found myself summing up my feelings about the Book of Mormon last month during a conversation at Sunstone by saying that my reading this year had left me vividly aware of how puerile the Book of Mormon can be, but the mystery of God's grace is that the book is nevertheless an important channel through which I communicate with the Spirit of truth, the Comforter, whom Christ sends to teach us all things.

I fell in love with the Book of Mormon on my mission (as I was supposed to). There were occasions when I would come home after a particular trying incident and the mere act of opening the book would give me a sense of peace. I was frequently copying out verses that spoke to the situation I found myself in right then and taping them to my wall—verses that gave me ideas about how to help investigators, or that inspired me to stay motivated and optimistic and consecrated. I could talk about my love for each of the other standard works, too, but the mission was where the Book of Mormon really began to speak to me—more precisely, when the Spirit began to speak to me through the Book of Mormon—in a powerful way. My engagement with the book hasn't been so powerful since my mission. Partly, I suspect, that's because I'm no longer immersed in the spiritual intensity of mission life. Partly it's because my post-mission liberalization has made it harder work, frankly, to read the book in spiritually meaningful ways, since my reading is a constant act of wresting the book away from the orthodox, who have become adamant in the past few decades that they have sole proprietary rights. And it occurs to me that my relationship with the Book of Mormon may have lost its initial intensity in the same way that the initial excitement dies down as a romance settles into a marriage.

What about that idea I said I wanted to explore of the Book of Mormon as an "evangelical" document? The book is a product of the very early LDS tradition—the first stratum, we could say, in our faith's geologic or archaeological record. Mormonism was still very . . . Methodist, let's say. New Light revivalist. Puritan in certain key ways. Millennialist. Primitivist. The tradition hadn't yet developed in the more radical directions it would take in Nauvoo and pioneer Utah, though you can see the seeds of those developments here. What all this means, practically, is that when I read the Book of Mormon, I'm engaging with a text that's calling me to Christian essentials: conversion and a life of holiness. This is why the Book of Mormon became so important to LDS spirituality during the 1980s as part of the cultivation of an overtly Christ-centered Mormon ethos. Christlike living—that's what the Book of Mormon boils down to, and so it's a particularly effective instrument through which the Spirit calls me to take stock of my Christian discipleship.

At the same time, the Book of Mormon embodies the Mormon faith in continuing revelation, which is key to my spirituality as a liberal. And here's where I can orbit more tightly around the reading for today. The Book of Mormon is a reiteration of the gospel proclaimed in the Christian Bible, but it also seeks to provide new light, clarification, correction even, beyond the biblical text. 3 Nephi 12-15 illustrates that beautifully. These chapters revise the biblical text: some words or phrases are added, others are cut. The Book of Mormon updates the biblical text, as in 12:17-20, and it offers new interpretations of the text, as in 15:16-24. This is not a slavish reading of the Bible: the Book of Mormon is supposed to affirm biblical historicity, but it is at the same time far removed from the notions of biblical infallibility that would eventually become definitive for fundamentalist and evangelical Protestants. Joseph Smith is wrestling with the Bible—as I now wrestle with the Book of Mormon—and as time goes on, his wrestling leads him to new interpretations, new ideas, that take him farther afield from where he began, even as he retains important ties to where he started, until he's espousing religious beliefs and practices that evangelicals denounce as heresy.

I should perhaps clarify that I'm writing all this off the top of my head, as I go along. And I feel that as I've done so, the Spirit has guided me to a valuable insight. It's helped me connect with the book more deeply—to identify with the book more deeply. The Book of Mormon is an evangelical document that nevertheless wrestles with evangelicalism and thus represents the beginning of a process of continuing revelation that leads Mormonism to develop in decidedly un-evangelical directions. Plug in the word "orthodox" for "evangelical," and that statement works pretty well for describing my relationship with the Book of Mormon and LDS tradition more generally. I keep wrestling with this text, this keystone of Mormon orthodoxy, because it calls me to the fundamentals of Christian living that I and the orthodox ought to have in common while at the same time it serves as a sign and instrument of continuing revelation, creative re-interpretation, selective reading by the spirit of inspiration, progressive insight . . . all ultimately leading me away from orthodoxy.

************

God and Shepherd of all the earth—

I give you thanks for the gift of the Book of Mormon.
I give thanks for the many ways that your Spirit has comforted, guided, and inspired me through this book over the years.

I give thanks for continuing revelation as I have experienced it in my own life, my own spiritual journeying.
I give thanks for the openness to continuing revelation that has enabled Latter-day Saints to make healthy corrections and adaptations in the course of their history.
I pray that the Saints will not close themselves off to your voice when you try to reveal truths that are at odds with their current understanding.
I pray that for myself, too.

I pray that the Book of Mormon will be an instrument for inspiring Christlike living in those who read it.
I pray that it will be, as it promises, an instrument for confounding falsehood, laying down contention, and establishing peace.
I pray the book will be a sign of gathering and of your love for all people.

In Christ's name, amen.

3 Nephi 8-11

I feel moved to focus my reflection this week on chapters 8-10, and to leave aside chapter 11 this time around, though 11 is arguably the climax of the entire Book of Mormon. Instead I want to focus on the story leading up to that: the cataclysmic destruction that comes as the sign of Christ's death, and the three days of darkness that follow.

If you've read my reflection on Helaman 13-16, then you can probably guess how I felt about 3 Nephi 8-10, with its representation of God as destroyer. But let me skirt that stumbling block and approach the reading in a more teachable frame of mind. What does the Spirit have to teach me here?

Probably a FARMS paper, maybe even an Ensign article, has already been written on this subject; but during my reading of these chapters this time around, I realized for the first time that the story in 3 Nephi 8-10 reproduces on a social scale a pattern for conversion we've already seen enacted in other stories in the Book of Mormon on a personal scale. Think back to the conversion of Alma the Younger and the conversion of Lamoni. In both those stories, a sinner is smitten so that he falls into a death-like trance, which for Alma is also a hell-like state. (Arguably we're supposed to imagine something similar for Lamoni.) They're in this state for two days and two nights, and then on the third day they rise again, declaring that they have been saved. This trance-and-rebirth is clearly a type of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

3 Nephi 8-10 involves a similar typology. Sinners are smitten—which in this case means cities are destroyed and multitudes are killed. All this is supposed to be happening as a sign of Jesus' death—more or less coinciding with his death—so here the type actually meets the reality to which it points. (I say "more or less" because if you think about the chronology carefully, the three days of darkness can't exactly coincide with the time between Jesus' death and resurrection as narrated in the Gospels unless the "three days" are really one full day plus the afternoon of the day before, ending on the morning of the day after.) The survivors are plunged into a hell-like state in which they howl and bewail the sins that have led them to this doom. Then Christ speaks to them, offering them hope if they repent. And though we're not actually told that the people accept that offer, on the morning after the three days of darkness, the light returns, mourning turns into joy, and the people give "praise and thanksgiving to the Lord Jesus Christ, their Redeemer."

It's a charismatic nineteenth-century revival-type crisis conversion, like those of Alma the Younger and Lamoni, magnified to a society-wide scale.

What does the Spirit want me to take from this?

The story in 3 Nephi 8-10, like the conversion stories of Alma and Lamoni, links conversion typologically to the death and resurrection of Jesus. Shifting toward a Pauline mode of language: we enter the Christian life by participating in Christ's death and resurrection. We die with Christ, and then God raises us to new life with Christ. That's what baptism by immersion symbolizes. Pushing the imagery farther, into an even more mystical direction, it's one of the things the sacrament symbolizes. When I eat the broken bread that is, to my soul, Christ's broken body, and when I drink the wine/water that is, to my soul, Christ's blood shed for me, I am assimilating into myself Christ's suffering and death—I am making myself one with his suffering and death—and by so doing, I am participating in (partaking in!) the new life that comes from always having Christ's Spirit with me, living in me, so that I become part of Christ's living body on earth, carrying out his ministry until the end of the world.

Okay. Yeah. What else?

Let's look back at the text. Coming to Christ, coming into Christ, becoming one with Christ, partaking of Christ's death and resurrection means repenting—adopting a new way of life, committing to standards that demand change in my daily living. It means being healed (9:13)—that is, I suppose, recognizing that I am spiritually unwell, unhealthy, that I'm not functioning at my soul's full capacities, my capacities for Christlikeness; that I'm wounded, that I've been hurt. And Christ wants to work in me to remedy all that. Coming to Christ means becoming one of the "sons of God" (9:17)—that is, I stand in the same intimate relationship with God that Christ does as Son of God, with God in me and me in God (9:15). Coming to Christ means having a broken heart and a contrite spirit (9:20)—which has various meanings, but the one that stands out to me at the moment is that of being vulnerable and sharing others' sorrows.

This is all rather abstract: I'm not applying it yet to my life in a concrete way. But unfortunately, I have to move on to other tasks. I pray that these reflections will continue to work in my mind and heart.