Pitching Tents
And it came to pass that when they came up to the temple, they pitched their tents round about, every man according to his family… every family being separate one from another.
Mosiah 2:5
The image of the gathering to hear the words of King Benjamin is interesting – each family within a tent, separate and distinct from other families.
We talk about the tent of Mormonism – about its size, how inclusive it might be, if it is large enough to contain us (or them). It might be more helpful to envision our arrangement as individual tents, family tents, group tents, all arrayed in a grand circle and oriented to a focal point – or, perhaps, a grand ellipse around the foci.
Reading the scriptures it is easy to see things in a monoscopic way – families, gathered in tents, all there to listen to King Benjamin. The first semi-annual general conference in the new world. But if we look at it stereoscopically we might see that those families were not of one mind, not of one disposition, nor of one view. There were likely fairly conservative folks, a sprinkling of moderates, and off on the side those irreverent liberals.
What are the foci around which we array our tents today? Institutions? Ideas? Cultural trappings?
Don Bradley’s piece in the most recent magazine (“The Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism) caused me to think about our tent – and our tents. We talk of truth, we give lip service to the idea of embracing all truth, and yet we, as a people, tend to cast a suspicious eye at any idea or principle not originating within the confines of the institution. More specifically, we cast a suspicious eye at any idea not originating within our particular tent.
This is not the vision of our founding prophet. As Bradley writes:
Openness to truth from all sources was integral to the prophetic career of Joseph Smith from call to crescendo. Anticipating his later identification of truth as a “grand fundamental principle,” Joseph wrote in a March 1839 letter to Isaac Galland:
Mormonism is truth. . . . The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds, and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same.
I wonder, will ever the believing camps be able to exist and interact comfortably under the same grand tent? At the very least, might we look to our neighbor’s tent and appreciate the truth and insights that they might have to offer? Or have we lost the commitment to the principle of forever acquiring truth?
June 29th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
My cynical answer to your last three questions: No, No, and Yes.
Here’s why…
As long as we maintain our elitist truth/faith/religion worldview (i.e. “one true Church”; “only living prophet of God”, etc.), then the truth and insights of our neighbor’s tent will be nothing more than a distant afterthought.
Put it this way: If the Mormon Spiritual “To Do” list were a 10 page book with 20 items on each page, and the items were ranked in order of importance, you’d find Proclaiming the Gospel, Perfecting the Saints, Keeping the Commandments, Reading the Scriptures, somewhere on page 1, and FHE and Hometeaching somewhere on page 2 or 3, and Kimball Gardens and Years Supply of Food somewhere on page 4 or 5… eventually you might stumble upon “examining the truth and insights of our neighbor” on page 9 or 10.
What is the incentive? To the TBM, examining the truth in our neighbor’s tent is like working on a Commodore Vic-20 when you already have a Power Mac G5.
I may be too cynical, but even if Mormons show interest in our neighbor’s faith/truth, isn’t there always an underlying ulterior motive? Isn’t it just a placating move on our part until we can share our own deeper light and knowledge? Do we ever just listen “to what they might have to offer” just for the sake of our own enlightenment? Not if you believe–or “know”–you are already enlightened. We recognize of course that we need to work on obedience and faith… but truth? Hey, we already got that.
June 29th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Matt’s thoughts very much mirror my own. And he puts it so well.
Another approach might be the fundamental clash between a church’s two basic functions. The first, I think, is to maintain social order. To lay down the rules and create an atmosphere where disobeying the rules is uncomfortable. To do that, a church need a stable set of premises, if the premises change too often people get confused and order starts to break down. So the church has a stable set of premises right now, it doesn’t want to ruin a good thing by allowing any Tom Dick or Harry to drag a new truth through the door.
The second function is to provide a context for people to think about spiritual matters. This fuction is the one that upholds the idea of seeking truth everywhere. But I think, as far as time and resources go, it takes a firm second place. You can seek truth, as long as you keep it to yourself.
As for me, if I could find a group of people who sought truth whereever it could be found, I’d join up with them in a minute.
June 30th, 2006 at 8:54 am
I think the metaphor of the tent is telling of those within the church; they are keeping themselves from others, whether it is the “family” tent, or the “ward” tent, or the “church” tent. It is by breaking out of the tent that you find the truth. I am in the midst of reading Bro. Bradley’s article about the “Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism.” It is a very interesting piece and something all members of the church should be willing to read and study.
It reminds me of something M. Scott Peck said about religion. There are 4 categories of people and how they view religion. 1-those who have no need for religion; 2-those that have to have the rigid structure of religion to survive; 3-those who question everything about religion, but believe; and 4-those who understand. I believe that to be a true principle and it is something many within the church might not be willing to explore.
I believe that is why Matt seems so cynical about the tent thesis; he has seen that there are so few in the church who are willing to go outside of their comfort zone and accept truth wherever it might be. Those are the people who are stuck in Mr. Peck’s #2 slot and who are afraid to venture into the #3 or #4 spots because they don’t really understand what the Lord has in store for them.
D & C 88 talks about those who have been warned should warn their neighbors. I think many don’t really understand the context of that statement. Verses 76 through 80 talk about learning and it is not specific to the gospel, it is all learning. It goes hand in hand with D&C 130 about level of intelligence. We should find joy in the discovery of knowledge and truth.
I have rambled on. I hope you have gotten my point. Those who seek all truth and embrace it, truely understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
June 30th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Thanks for the comments - I know it is easy to be cynical, but my post is directed as much at us, individually, as it is any group or institution. And no, Brian, you didn’t ramble - great thoughts!
The tent metaphor not only applies to LDS vs. others, but within and among ourselves. How many times will someone who subscribes to Sunstone venture into, say, FARMS territory? How many times will FARMS subscribers reciprocate? And in both cases not just to contend with, but to really understand? I know these are gross oversimplifications, but I hope you see my point.
More broadly, where do we, individually, find truth external to LDS? Are we content to look just for tidbits from other Christians? Or are we looking for insights from the Quran, the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, Sufi mystics, etc.? To extend beyond religion and philosophy; are we looking for truth and insights from biology, archeology, physics, anthropology, etc.?
It’s not easy. I know that my commitment tends to ebb and flow - the effort required to study, search, contemplate, and incorporate is significant. It isn’t something to undertake casually.
But aside from the effort required, I do think that we have lost (or, perhaps, never really incorporated) Joseph Smith’s vision of truth as a grand fundamental principle. We tend to cast a suspicious eye towards anything external to our own accepted view. As Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, observes, “The problem of the nature of faith plagues us all our lives. Is openness to other ideas infidelity or is it the beginning of spiritual maturity?”
Alas, Matt, you may be right - the idea that we have the truth makes it very difficult to appreciate other insights. If that is the case, then the grand fundamental principle of truth may be relegated to an individual and personal commitment.
June 30th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
Brian said:
1-those who have no need for religion; 2-those that have to have the rigid structure of religion to survive; 3-those who question everything about religion, but believe; and 4-those who understand.
I reply
Just to fine tune your potrayal above,
Peck’s 1st catagory is a state of moral chaos and egotism. The people in this stage do need a guiding principle in order to emerge from stage 1.
I think Peck’s 3rd catagory is radical doubt. The only belief in this stage is just hope that something can be found through doubt. That’s why stage 2 is so unwilling to go into stage 3, because it looks too much like stage 1. They think they’re retrogressing. The only way to emerge from stage 3 is to doubt so deeply that you finally doubt your own ability to perceive truth.
My life has been quite informed by Peck’s taxonomy here. I’m glad to find someone else who has looked into his work.
June 30th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
I just finished reading Don Bradley’s article, and I found it very interesting. I think the “tent” of the church right now is very rigid, and I’m not sure this isn’t a bad thing. I have learned through my 50 years how to negotiate the rigidity of the Church and my personal beliefs, that might not be quite a rigid.
I find it interesting that Joseph was able to walk the line between being “the one true church” and “embracing all good in all faiths”. There is an implied superiority there, but somehow his focus on love and acceptance evens it out.
I guess I’ve just learned how to pitch my own personal tent and decorate it just the way I like!
June 30th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Rory said:
How many times will someone who subscribes to Sunstone venture into, say, FARMS territory? How many times will FARMS subscribers reciprocate?
I reply:
I think one of the problems here is the level of discourse. Those guys at FARMS have very specific qualifications for membership in their discourse. You have to be highly educated, you have to be well read in particular branches of history, etc. It’s a level that only a few people have achieved, so the rank and file of the Church tend to treat FARMS people as demi-prophets, who are so informed about things the rabble know nothing about, that they cannot be questioned. It’s a very hierarchical discourse, much like the discourse in the institutional church.
I even feel like I’m in over my head a lot times while reading Dialogue. So I think one overridding question is: can you even gain access to the different discourses?
This is one reason why I like the Sunstone community. The people here are smart, but they can converse on a populist level, instead of insisting on an elite conversation.
And believe me, Rory, I’ve tried to integrate the “Sunstone” approach into the discourse of my own ward, but they don’t want it.
June 30th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
Rory said:
Are we content to look just for tidbits from other Christians? Or are we looking for insights from the Quran, the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, Sufi mystics, etc.?
I reply:
I’m at a point in my life right now where I find MUCH more spiritual sustenance from outside sources. I love the Tao Te Ching and the teachings of Chuang Tzu. Some of my spiritual mentors for the past year have been a pair of 28-year-old Lutheran pastors in an Alaskan village, a secular Jew here in Fairbanks, and a post-Mormon in Idaho.
I have the feeling that my particular tastes are just that, tastes. I don’t think my current tendencies have any reflection on the value of any spiritual paths.
June 30th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Let me say that I also enjoyed Bradley’s Sunstone article. I had not heard some of the Joseph Smith quotes he cites and found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with most of them. (BTW, since I seem to disagree more than agree with Joseph these days — being mired in Fowler Stage Four doubt and skepticism — its nice to stumble upon quotes I can wholeheartedly embrace… and use in Elder’s Quorum, of course.) I also enjoyed Rory’s elaboration of Bradley’s article in this blog post.
Like Stephen Carter (#2), I too am intrigued by the fundamental conflict between the Church’s counsel to: 1.) Seek out the good things in the world; and 2.) Avoid the bad things in the world. Think back at the tenor of Conference talks over the past 3-4 sessions, or the substance of your Sunday School or Priesthood/RS lessons over the past several months… Despite the occaisional “worldly” Shakespeare reference by Hinckley, or Dickens reference by Monson, the general tenor of conference talks and church lessons is to warn us against the evils of the world. Its all obedience, obedience, obedience. Its follow the prophet, follow your leaders, follow your husband/wife, but don’t follow “men” or “the world”. Church counsel to seek out the good things in the world is but a flickering candle compared to the 20,000 watt spotlight that blazes on avoiding the bad things in the world.
Brian (#3) and Stephen (#5) refer to an M. Scott Peck book. Which one? I recently bought (but have not yet read) Peck’s “The Different Drum”, based on a recommendation by Stephen, I think, in a previous blog post…
Speaking of which, I like Brian’s and Rory’s idea of breaking out of one’s tent to look for truth, that the onus to do so largely rests on the individual, not the Church. I have found Sunstone to be a valuable resource in terms of calling attention to new “tents” of truth. Sunstone acts both as a “Maven” and “Connector” (terms courtesy of Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point”) in this regard. For example, in the past year I have been edified by Fowler’s “Stages of Faith”, Newton’s “Journey of Souls”, and Wilber’s “A Brief History of Everything”. (And maybe soon Peck’s “Different Drum”.) All courtesy of Sunstone. I’ve found some good “truth” in all of them.
Like Stephen, I’m something of a “truth junkie”, or maybe “truth vagabond” is more descript, as anyone, even the most correlated LDS Iron Rodder, can be a truth junkie. What I mean to say is this: I’ll always love my Mormon Tent, but I’m more interested, at least currently, in experiencing truth in the countless other tents pitched around God’s campground. Extending the tent metaphor a bit… it will be interesting to see where the journey will end. Like Lianne (#6), the wanderlust may eventually subside and I might take souvenirs from these neighboring tents back to decorate and add color to my Mormon tent. Then again, I may decide to put my Mormon tent on the market, taking a few select pieces of furniture with me to a new tent. Or maybe I’ll just “drop trou” and go tentless the rest of my life.
June 30th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Matt said:
Brian (#3) and Stephen (#5) refer to an M. Scott Peck book. Which one? I recently bought (but have not yet read) Peck’s “The Different Drum”,
I say:
That’s the one. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
June 30th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Stephen: Thank you for the clarification on Peck’s 4 states. I never read this in a book. I heard him speak one time and did not take notes! Silly me!
Thank you all for your dialog. This is how we find truth!!
July 1st, 2006 at 10:44 am
Rory, I certainly appreciate the values implicit in your post, but I read the first few chapters of Mosiah quite differently than you do. I don’t see where those chapters offer any scriptural grounds for believing that someday “the believing camps [will] be able to exist and interact comfortably under the same grand tent,” or that we might be able to “look to our neighbor’s tent and appreciate the truth and insights that they might have to offer.”
Think about it. In the Book of Mosiah, an absolute monarch commands his subjects to gather together so that he might unilaterally transmit to them the truth that has been revealed to him by God. I don’t see so much as a speck of a hint in these passages that the truth might be something discovered through respectful dialogue between differing viewpoints.
The problem is not that the church has “lost the commitment to the principle of forever acquiring truth.” The problem is that LDS theology never had such a commitment. It was committed from the very beginning to the principle that truth is divinely revealed to the divinely appointed authorities. Even when revisions to the truth clearly originate in dialogue with the surrounding culture (as in the extension of the Melchizedek priesthood to worthy black men), the church insists upon cloaking the change in the monologic mantle of divine authority. God forbid it should ever simply acknowledge that its opponents on the issue had strong arguments and persuaded the authorities to change their mind….
Anyway, in my reading, the Book of Mosiah has King Benjamin rejecting the idea of dialogue as a means of discovering truth. As he tells the assembly, “beware lest there shall arise contentions among you” (Mosiah 2:32). Benjamin characterizes dialogue as “contentions” that might lead the Nephites to become like the terrible Lamanites–not a very good way to encourage plurality of opinion.
The Book of Mormon as a whole rejects the dialogic model of the search for truth in more subtle ways. For one thing, it contains very little in the way of actual dialogue at all and generally depicts difference of opinion in black and white terms, as Good vs. Evil.
I would contrast the Book of Mormon in this respect to two aspects of the Bible.
First, the Bible is a redacted anthology, whereas the Book of Mormon is not. The side-by-side presence of the Bible’s different sources gives voice to conflicting viewpoints that require readers to think critically about its truth. Think of the substantial difference between the Priestly and Jahwist accounts of creation, and the way that those differences and others like them gave rise to source criticism and liberal forms of interpretation. Or think of how difficult it is to harmonize the viewpoints of Proverbs (with its banal conventional wisdom) and Ecclesiastes (with its pessimistic quasi-nihilism). The juxtaposition of these two very different viewpoints compel serious readers to think in terms of dialogue rather than the monologic transmission of revealed truth. I doubt that anything similar will happen with the Book of Mormon because, of course, it is the product of a single author.
Second, consider the many biblical texts that directly dramatize dialogue–for example, Abraham’s argument with God over the justice of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:17-33) or the lengthy debates over divine justice in the Book of Job. What these stories feature, and what the Book of Mormon sorely lacks, is genuine dialogue over serious issues–dialogue in which differing viewpoints are presented respectfully, in which even the “wrong” viewpoint is shown to have some merit, and in which received authority is legitimately challenged. In Abraham’s debate with God, Abraham not only challenges God but actually gets him to change his mind!
(I know that some readers are scandalized by this idea and argue that God never changed his mind at all but was merely “testing” Abraham. If so, however, what God must have been testing was Abraham’s willingness to stand up for his own moral sense by challenging the greatest authority of them all.)
These biblical stories, along with the dialogic nature of the Bible itself, provide models of respectful theological dialogue as a means of attaining truth. Unless I’m forgetting something, I would have to say that such models are absent from the Book of Mormon. Certainly no such model is provided by King Benjamin.
I’m not saying that dialogue is impossible for the LDS Church itself–merely that the Book of Mormon is not a good place to go to justify such dialogue. Much more promising, I would suggest, would be the early history of the church itself. That history abundantly demonstrates Joseph Smith’s receptiveness to ideas from other people and from his culture as a whole.
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:48 am
Stephen:
I like your response on the FARMS/Sunstone comparison. I also received some good feedback in a conversation yesterday that pointed out a serious flaw in my comparison. I’m thinking on this more, but I do understand your point.
David:
Excellent thoughts – thank you for posting! One clarification:
I wasn’t using Mosiah to provide “scriptural grounds” or support for my post – rather, note the language I did use:
So, drawing upon the particular statement in verse five of “every family being separate one from another,” I used it as a jumping off point for my thoughts. I still think it is an excellent visual, though my use of it may have implied more, especially given my first sentence.
EDIT 03.Jul.06
The differences between the Book of Mormon and the Bible are, in some respects, significant. I would only argue that while the Book of Mormon is the basis for the creation of this movement, the Bible is also in our canon. That, along with the early history you cite, as well as the implicit instructions to search out other writings that Bradley points to in 2 Nephi, should be more than sufficient for us to be willing to seek truth.
Finally, I have been imprecise in my use of language. I should refer to us as a “people” rather than us as a “church” - I don’t think it is realistic to expect the institution to embrace this principle of dialog. It is, however, incumbent upon each of us, individually, to explore and search for truth.
July 4th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Rory, my apologies for responding to your discussion of an “image” as if you had been talking about “scriptural grounds.” One of the more interesting implications of that image, I think, is the way it groups and divides. On the one hand there is Benjamin, a king. Listening to him are the multitude, depicted neither as one great mass nor as discrete individuals, but as distinct families.
So the line of transmission of the message is not from the authority to the individual, nor from the authority to the mass, but from the authority to the family. Perhaps the most obvious way to read that might be in terms of Paul’s patriarchal model, in which the husband is to the wife and kids as God is to the husband. I suspect that the church authorities would approve such a reading.
But an alternative reading might point out that the family, with its small size and intimacy of members, provides an ideal venue for discussion. In this reading, the image suggests that what should happen is not that the individual should try to understand and evaluate Benjamin’s words by himself or herself, nor that the people as a whole should hash it out, but that people should do so in the context of their families.
Less literally, the image suggests the possibility of the sort of communities you suggest, communities within which issues can be discussed and debated independently of the church authorities.
All of these things (and from the perspective of the Sunstone “tent” they are obviously good things) might plausibly be suggested by the “tents” image. But the text of Mosiah itself, alas, undermines them. At the end of Benjamin’s speech we read that the assembled multitude “all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken to us” and that therefore “we have no more disposition to do evil.” Not only do the people decline to engage in true dialogue, but they implicitly accept Benmjamin’s characterization of dissent as “evil.”
So I think you’re right to distinguish between “people” (represented here by the families in their tents) and “church” (represented here by Benjamin) and to look for more ways to imagine some critical distance between them. (To put that difference succinctly: The Mormon “people” is what created Sunstone. The Mormon “church” is what dislikes Sunstone and sees is as a threat. It ought to see Sunstone as an ally. No doubt eventually it will.
Anyway, I would argue that when Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, or at least the Benjamin episode, he seemed unable to imagine a church whose members might be anything other than lock-step believers. But I agree with Bradley that Smith’s theological imagination grew over time as it engaged more and more of the world. I hope Bradley is right that this growth included the notion that the essence of Mormon belief was not theological conformity but broader principles that could be expressed in a variety of ways.
I’m wondering if perhaps the terms “LDS Church” and “LDS culture” would be a little better than “church” and “people,” since the term “people” for some might have connotations of ethnicity that would not really apply to Mormons in the way that it does to, say, Jews. But there’s definitely a distinctive LDS culture. (There might well be more continuity in LDS culture than there is in LDS theology.)
Of course, church and culture are not completely independent of one another. They’re related in complex ways that will be fascinating to observe as the church authorities find themselves encountering greater and greater levels of cultural, ethnic, and intellectual diversity.