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.