Before I get into my analysis of Genesis 17, I’d like to talk about my feelings about covenant. One helpful way I find to understand covenant is to understand the marital covenant. Before I was married, I had connections – to my family and friends. I was trying to lift off into life. I had moved out of my parents home, I went on a mission and to college. I had friends and roommates, but my most direct responsibility was to myself. I had support and I tried to be supportive of others, but I was mostly on my own. Eventually, I met Sara, we fell in love and got married. At that point, I was no longer really alone. Essentially, I took on her name, I’m not just Scott, I’m also Sara’s husband. She’s not just Sara, she’s my wife. Nearly everything in my life is ours. We are in covenant to each other, with all of the repsonsbiliies and blessings that brings.

Now with that as a lens, let’s dive into Genesis 17. In verse 1, Abram is told to walk before God and be perfect – an impossible standard, but essentially it’s a call for Abram to walk with God. And in that covenant, Abram is promised that he would be a father to many nations and through his generations all the world will be blessed. Abram’s name is changed to Abraham. Sarai’s , who is also part of this covenant, has her name changed to Sarah. In verse 8, God promises that he will be the God of Abraham, the God of Sarah and the God of their offspring. God also mentions Isaac, the soon to be conceived son of Sarah who is impossibly old, has struggled with lifelong infertility. Isaac is also part of this covenant.

So, what does this mean? God speaks to Abraham and Sarah directly. But Isaac learns of the covenant through Abraham. So, the covenant can only be fulfilled based on whether Abraham and Sarah can successfully transmit this covenant to their son. Isaac comes to these parents and is born into the covenant, circumcised, is cared for and ultimately has to endure an unfathomable almost sacrifice by Abraham on Mount Mariah. The very next chapter, Sarah dies. Abraham spends time burying Sarah properly and then realizes Isaac needs a wife, and findsfor him, Rebekah. At that point in time, Isaac takes over the story, accepts the covenant and begins the process of transmission all over again, tryiing to raise Jacob within it. And then Jacob needs to do the same thing all over again with his twelve sons, at which time Israel, the covenant people, spring up.

A lot of details are missing in this story, we don’t know how much Isaac wrestled with his call. We don’t know what the sacrifice on Mount Moriah did to him. The process he went through. What we do know is that the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon, in particular, two books of scriptures that span hundreds and hundreds of years of familial and national history is filled with stories where children reject the legacy of the gospel their parents try to pass down to them. Genesis begins with Adam and Eve leading directly to Cain and Abel. The book of Mormon begins with Lehi, with sons are Nephi, Sam, Laman and Lamuel, who struggle with violence and discord. These books are filled with difficulties.

The story of the Abrahamic covenant is the story of the difficult and important work to transmit our sacred covenants to the next generation. The  stories in the scriptures show how difficult this work of transmission can be.

In many ways, like many of you here, my life echo’s Isaac’s. I was born into the church, baptized when I was eight years old. My parents faithfully took me to church each week. My mom, dragged me out of bed for early morning seminary classes. I remember very reluctantly, sitting with my dad for home-teaching visits, going with him to priesthood meetings, sleeping with him on Father’s and Son’s outings. I eventually went on a mission, met and married my own Sara and had my own kids. Like Isaac, I accepted my covenants and then like Isaac I am in the process of trying to transmit them to my own children, but like so many other parents, I recognize the struggle to do so successfully.

It’s hard. I know. But we don’t have to do it alone. My parents didn’t do it alone. I benefited greatly from dedicated bishops, youth leaders, seminary teachers, and other’s examples who showed me how making good choices can lead to good outcomes and seeing and feeling the love they had for me. Parents need the support of the ward.

To this end, we are establishing a program suggested in last fall’s general conference. In October 2023 general conference Brother Newman, the second counselor in the Sunday School general presidency said:

“One of our most sacred responsibilities is to help our children come to know deeply and specifically that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, their personal Savior and Redeemer, who stands at the head of His Church! We cannot allow our covenant voice to become muted or silent when it comes to Him.

You may feel a bit inadequate in this role, but you should never feel alone. For example, ward councils are authorized to organize teacher council meetings for parents. In these quarterly meetings, parents can gather to learn from each other’s experiences, discuss how they are strengthening their families, and learn key principles of Christlike teaching. This meeting should be held in the second hour of church.¹⁴ It is led by a ward member selected by the bishop and follows the format of regular teacher council meetings, using Teaching in the Savior’s Way as the primary resource.¹⁵ Bishops, if your ward is not currently holding teacher council meetings for parents, work with your Sunday School president and ward council to organize yourselves.”

The Grandview ward is organizing ourselves. We will be kicking off regular parent teacher council meetings beginning on May 19th. The goal of these councils is for parents in the Grandview Ward gather, to share ideas, to provide support, so that we can help each other help each other in the difficult work of raising the next generation.

Nobody in the Grandview ward should feel alone in any of their efforts. We need to be there for each other. Youth, you are not alone. You are loved, cared for, prayed over. It is my prayer that we can organize our wards to provide the necessary support so that our youth and children feel God’s love and partake of Christ’s abundant grace in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

2023 has been a year where our family like most continues on. Lizzie is progressing her way toward her music degree at Snow College. She continues to write music and perform in choirs, but she’s also trying to learn how to produce. Maybe someday soon, her music will be out there for public consumption. Josh kicked off the year with a bang, performing as Uncle Fester in the Adam’s Family for his school musical then graduated from McClintock High. He’s now just begun his journey pursuing a degree at ASU in mechanical engineering. Hannah is now a freshman at Tempe Prep. She’s participating in her school’s soccer team, choir and performed as a police officer in her school plays rendition of Arsenic and Old Lace. She also continues with Rebecca in the Chandler Children’s Choir. Rebecca is now in the seventh grade and also doing school soccer, orchestra and choir. Do you know the real reason why Rebecca and Hannah are participating in school choir? Well, because Sara is now the Tempe Prep choir director for both high school and junior high and they participate now out of forced obligation. In addition to that, Sara continues as our church’s primary president running the program for all kids under 12. She also continues her piano studio, so she’s pretty busy. I’m still working at PayPal and enjoying it there. I was also recently asked to be the president of my church’s congregation’s Sunday School, a calling I’ve been enjoying. Overall, our family feels grateful for all of the opportunities and activities we enjoy together. Most of all, we wish for you much joy and happiness this holiday season.

Introduction – Another Session another four talks on love and service

Continuing my journey through the October session of general conference, a conference that happens every six months when our church gathers to share the topics top of mind for our leaders. From session to session, the underlying theme is pretty consistent, to encourage the membership to better consecrate our lives in love and service for others. My previous posts are on the Saturday morning session and the Saturday afternoon session.

Elder Gary B. Sabin kicks off his talk with an experience he had talking to a self proclaimed “professor of happiness” who happened to be sitting next to him on a plane flight. This exchange prompted him to think about specific ways we might find happiness. First, we need to build our lives on the foundation of Jesus Christ which simply entails we give our heart in love and service as best as we can. Second is to remember our divine identity which as we come to realize our self-worth sinks deep within our souls. Third, in similar vein is to see the divine worth in everyone we meet so that we can properly “love one another”. Finally, he advises that we maintain an eternal vision.

Elder Joni Koch reads from the Book of Mormon a verse that indicates that humility is a trait required to enter God’s presence. He describes a rather humiliating experience where we was hoping to flex his authority to show his importance to his family only to be rebuked by a security guard when he forgot his badge. Humility does not necessarily correlate with poverty or with someone who is shy or has low self-esteem. Humility is a willingness to submit to the will of God. As we do all we can, we humbly leave the rest in God’s hands.

Sister Tamara W. Runia wants us to zoom out from time to time and view our lives through an eternal lens, to see the world the way God sees the world. As we focus on the Savior, we can know that “because of Christ, it all works out.” This ability to zoom out will help us see our loved ones through a big picture lens which will help us not get so hung up on day to day difficulties. With this ability to see the long view, we can be more tolerant with mistakes. She counsels, “let’s choose hope – hope in our Creator and in one another, fueling our ability to be better than we are right now.” Our children need to know we believe in them. Our direction matters more than our speed. Mostly, she encourages us to hold fast and continue.

Elder Ulisses Soares pleads that we abandon all feelings of prejudice and view every single person for who they are – sons and daughters of God worthy of our love and respect. The story of Jesus at the well with a Samaritan woman is interesting. Jesus, a Jew asked a Samaritan for help fetching water even though there existed a long resistance to such cross-ethnic interactions. Jesus saw through these arbitrary ethnic divisions and saw her for who she was and told her who he was, someone who came to bless, heal and ultimately save everyone. Elder Soares offers that the temple is a place where we can learn to love across all divisions as we enter wearing the same clothes, making the same covenants, participating in the same ordinances, united in a single purpose no matter our race, economic status, or political affiliation.

I’m currently taking a journey through the last General Conference to show where the current church right now is publicly centering itself. The themes in the Saturday afternoon session continue where the Saturday morning session left off. The emphasis is to bind oneself into covenant with God through ordinances that will serve to strengthen the individual through their troubles into lives of greater love, service and generosity. There continues to be an implicit message that this church has the goods to do this but there really is no mention that this sort of thing isn’t also found in other places. We do feel like we have a unique mission and a unique authority but our church consistently recognizes the good happening throughout the world and recognizes that God is in every good thing.

Elder Neil L. Anderson centers his talk on an experience a Venezualan family had during political turbulance that caused a five day blackout and resulting riots and looting. The family owned a bakery whose owner had decided to give away their food to those in need and then ride out the riots. After the worst of the rioting was over, most food-owned businessed had been completely destroyed but this baker’s store was left untouched. The family attributed their good fortune to their willingness to pay tithing. Elder Anderson teaches that tithing is an act of faith whose funds go to helping the poor, sending and supporting all who are willing to serve missions, and to build and operate temples throughout the world. This message is a call toward generosity and support to the church whose mission is one of love and service.

Jan E. Newman talk focused on an experience described in the Book of Mormon where Jesus blesses the children, an experience Brother Newman attributes to subsequent peace, righteousness and prosperity that lasts for multiple generations thereafter. He suggests that each generation has to bind their heats to Christ through deep, sustained effort that will have the strength to endure obstacles. He cautions that we cannot expect the next generation to find Christ simply as a matter of inheritance, rather we need to do our best to ensure the next generation has every opportunity to have these same experiences these children had experiencing Christ first hand so that the connection to Christ endures.

Elder Joaquin Costa centers his talk on the real suffering he sees in the lives of so many members of the church – a woman who lost her husband in Bolivia, a young woman who lost her leg in Argentina when a train severed it after falling because someone wanted to steal her cell phone, families who lost homes in fires in Chile and so many others. These people endure these terrific challenges because of the strength they receive from their faith in Jesus Christ. His message is a message to seek Christ through covenant, devoted study and prayer and that as we do that, we will find the strength to endure whatever challenges we face.

Elder Gary Stevenson compares the physical gifts we so readily admire on the soccer fields or the concert halls with spiritual gifts all of us should seek. Just as an athlete with physical gifts must work to harness those gifts into mastery, we all should take the effort to harness our own spiritual gifts for the benefit of those with whom we associate. He suggests we can develop these gifts by standing in holy, sacred places where the spirit can be more easily felt, by standing with holy people, that gathering with others also seeking the spirit will strengthen ourselves, and that we should take every oppotunity to testify and to share truth with others, that doing so will invite the spirit to enhance our words.

Elder Yoon Hwan Choi makes the case that a happy life can be found within the covenant path. For him the covenant path means taking covenants by being baptized and renewing these covenants each week on Sunday when we take the sacrament. It means living your life striving to be kind, being willing to serve both officially when asked to in assigned positions and unofficially. Being in covenant makes a person happy because its through covenants we are bound to Christ and its in that binding, we are strengthened and sustained.

Elder Alan T. Phillips grounds his talk in an experience he had when he left his five year old son at a service station only realizing it fifteen minutes later driving down the highway. Fortunately, all was well, but that experience of loss and restoration reminded him of the central role of Jesus Christ whose mission is to find, gather and restore each and every one of us. The key doctrine is our divine identity and worth and that the commandment to love God and to love each other is the foundation of every other commandment. Elder Phillips reminds us that its eas to find people who are struggling, they are all around us but also we can see “700 million people living in extreme poverty or the 100 million people who are forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, and identity-based violence.”

Elder Ronald Rasband starts his talk with a declaration that the greatest of all the works is to gather Israel which he describes as “the ultimate recognition that ‘the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.'” This talk centered on an encouragement for those in retirement to serve and support the church in foreign places where their talents are needed to build the church.

My Premise

A big thrust of church criticism often is to attempt to undermine the church’s utility by undermining its specific truth claims. If they can show the Book of Mormon is not historical, that the Bible is simply myth and that the miracles of Jesus are impossibilities, perhaps they can undermine the reason for church’s existence. I’m sure not all church critics are this cynical but many church critics focus much of their attention on these specific obsessions, issues I believe are actually a sideshow because they avoid the central premise of what most religions are actually about. Religions in fact who are not centrally concerned about these sorts of questions. I attend church Sunday after Sunday, and we spend no time trying to prove Book of Mormon’s historicity. Nobody ever tries to defend or explain Joseph Smith’s polygamy or Brigham Young’s racism. It’s just not part of the current church. So, what is? If you want to find out what the core message of the church through the minds of those who lead it, the talks of General Conference is where to find it.

My premise is that the church’s core message is to help lead its members find Christ through covenant and communal support and at the heart of these covenants is to engender a greater commitment to love and service. General Conference talks are nearly universally focused on love and service for others. In the following posts, I’ll show this through each session of general Conference. I admit that this call toward love often comes within the framework of the church’s belief in its exclusive ability to lead people back to God but at its core it’s message is that to find God, one does so through covenant to love and serve others and that the church’s purpose is to support members in this endeavor.

All of these talks from the last session can be found on the church’s website .

The Saturday Morning Session

Elder David Bednar delivered a talk in praise of those who “love and serve, listen and learn, care and console, and teach and testify by the power of the Holy Ghost.” Expressing specific gratitude for dedicated primary and nursery leaders and teachers, those who care for young children and aging parents, those who arrive early to set things up or stay late to clean up after an activity. This message does come that this service happens within the Gospel of Jesus Christ but it is fundamentally a message of love and service.

Sister Amy Wright strives to encourage each of us to prepare ourselves spiritually so that we can “abide the day” when troubles come drawing on the parable of the ten virgins for inspiration. For her, the importance of preparation came to her when she was diagnosed with cancer as a mother of a young family worried about what this might do to her children. Her faith gave her assurances that her children would be cared for because she had already spent the time nurturing this faith in her children. Being able to abide in faith during troubles is essential to living a life of service. People are often at their worst when times are the most difficult.

Elder Robert Daines used the analogy of being “face blind” to describe our inability to recognize God’s love in our lives, to see God’s love through our covenants and even through the commandments we are asked to live. His message is for each of us to find ways to help others see God’s love for all of us. A message purely about love and service.

Elder Carlos Godoy This talk was centered an encounter he had with someone who who was born into the church but whose parents stopped attending when he was ten and as a result his family did not have the church in their lives. His parents wandering had an effect on him and his family. His warning for those who think about leaving: “You know there is a plan for us in this life. You know that families can be eternal. Why put yours at risk? Don’t be the weak link in this beautiful chain of faith you started, or you received, as a legacy. Be the strong one. It is your turn to do it, and the Lord can help you.” Here, there is a message of boundaries – that only church membership can save souls within families. But it’s also a message that the church can save souls within families. The core premise of the church is to bind people together.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson This talk takes inspiration from the Abrahamic covenant and the gathering of Israel. Of course, the church’s definition of gathering is that it comes through bringing others into the church through baptismal ordinances, which is what we try to do both for the living and the dead. Again, there is an exclusiveness in this message, that gathering only happens by and through our church, but it is also a message of service, to gather, record, and remember our ancestry and bind ourselves to them through temple ordinances.

Elder Ian S. Ardern: This talk is centered on his experiences meeting with the Saints in desperately poor parts of Africa, where access to basic resources like water is precarious and difficult. The message here is for members of the church to give to those in need. “I assure you: it is sufficient to give or to do what you are able and then to allow Christ to magnify your effort.”

President Dallin Oaks: This talk is, at least on the surface the least applicable to love and service of all the talks in this session of conference, but the message is still in there. President Oaks focus for this talk is to distinguish the teachings of our church with other churches. He focuses on our teachings of the three degrees of glory and not “the inadequate idea of heaven for the righteous and the eternal sufferings of hell for the rest.” The kingdoms of glory are where each of us will one day abide only as we qualify through our choices for one or the other. We all want the best, so how do we get to the highest? The highest kingdom “can be attained only through faithfulness to the covenants of an eternal marriage between a man and a woman in the holy temple,⁹ which marriage will ultimately be available to all the faithful.” But of course, he expands on this requirement, we must become as Christ is, through covenant, become converted, living as Christ lives. Being a dedicated, devoted spouse in marriage, a committed parent to our children and ultimately like Jesus, loving and servicing others, this is a celestial life. So, in a round about way, this talk is also about love and service, albeit couched within the exclusivity of temple sealings.

Conclusion so Far

Not a single talk in this session mentions historical truth claims. It never came up. There was either direct or indirect references that the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness is found here and that through the church and its ordinances will individuals find Christ and achieve exaltation. For sure, this sort of exclusivity is within the church, but underlying it is a confidence and a faith that there isn’t anything magical about this. That people really do find the strength and support to become people of faith, love and service. In every talk this is either explicitly expressed or implied, that our role as covenant members of the church is to faithfully love and serve, to stay loyal and committed to our families and be generous to everyone. Love and service was the core message of the Saturday session and is the core message of our church.

I’ll continue with the rest of the sessions in subsequent posts.

Cancel Culture

There’s an interesting tendency right now in the public discourse. Rather than to engage and collaborate with those having differing point of views, we have a tendency to try to knock our ideological opponents out of the conversation altogether. “Cancel culture” has become an over-used term these days, but there are obvious attempts on both the right and the left to eliminate inconvenient ideas from acceptable discourse. The right has been trying to purge from public schools anything they feel belongs to the vaguely defined “Critical Race Theory”. By contrast, the left wants to purge our canon from anything racist, elitist, colonialist or too white. Much of this is political as both parties try to expand their foothold on power, scoring quick wins by trying to characterize your opponent as fundamentally unacceptable seems to be the way our politics is currently designed.

Sacred Text

Interestingly, religions hold a different perspective and practice, holding an enduringly loyal devotion to their foundational scriptures they draw on for guidance and worship no matter how problematic certain passages within those texts might be. My experience is both Christian and Mormon so I’ll limit my focus to the relevant scriptures in these traditions – the Old and New Testament and the Book of Mormon. Early in America’s founding, within the burned-over district in New York, Joseph Smith started a new religion by adding additional scripture to the scriptural cannon, connecting this new land and its people to the Jewish religious tradition. The Book of Mormon is a record of ancient American people who came to this land as refugees in three separate waves, linking them in all three cases to people talked about in the Old Testament. The first expedition happened shortly after the confounding of the languages after the Tower of Babel. The following two migrations link to the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem, the first right before when Lehi escaped and second when the people of Mulek left right after the invasion.

These particular religions don’t edit their scriptural text, removing or replacing problematic passages. They find a way to deal with them. Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son Isaac is probably the most famous example of this, a story where God commands Abraham to kill his only son. Out of unfailing obedience to his God, Abraham proceeds with the sacrifice only to have an angelic intervention at the very last minute. Over the thousands of years since, religious people have wrestled with this extremely difficult passage when it would have been easier to cut it right out of the scriptural text. The Old Testament is filled with these type of stories, prophets being commanded to commit genocide, a flood killing everybody except Noah’s family, Jacob deceiving Esau out of his birthright. The New Testament has its own problems saying that women should be kept quiet, that slaves should behave, and that the gospel is designed to split families apart. Joseph Smith took a crack at Biblical retranslations with the hope of fixing and resolving contradictions and problematic passages, but his corrections are either merely footnotes to the original texts or stand as separate scripture, supplements rather than replacements.

As a religious people, we honor the religious heritage given to us not by eliminating our history but by grappling with it. We have a long tradition of treating scriptures as inspired but not perfect, as worthy of our critique and wrestle, certainly but not just accepting their most straight forward and superficial interpretations as unerring God’s word.

Racism Must Not be a Cancellable Offense

With this as preface, I want to add one more additional point inspired by Ibram Kendi and his call for anti-racism. America has had racism stamped from the beginning. Of course, racism isn’t the only way to look at American history, but racism seems to be an ever-present part of humanity. We’re tribal, there are strong genetic reasons to prefer our tribe over another’s. Racial differences have also been a way to mark tribal boundaries. Chattel slavery and the profits extorted off the backs of black people was a core part of the American founding story. Additionally, European immigrants to America stole land, killing and displacing the indigenous population already weakened by the disease that swept through a population not as embedded with the animal populations as the Europeans had been.

Kendi calls all of us into the work of anti-racism and a key part of his message is to remind us how deeply woven racism is in our systems, our culture, our ideology and our literature.

Unfortunately, given the highly charged nature racism has taken within American culture, conversations about race have been amplified upon the already polarized conversations embedded in society in unhelpful ways. The left uses charges of racism as reasons to push the accused out of the public sphere, directing these charges nearly universally toward conservative individuals, leaders and institutions, hoping they can score enough political victories to occupy positions of power for themselves. The right, feeling the heat of these attacks, react defensively, and then work in an equal but opposite direction, trying not only to deflect, but to engage in a counter-cancelling campaign against anyone promoting equity or pointing out racism in our history or literature as woke, dishonest, and ideologically driven.

This is not a helpful dynamic and is leading to some unfortunate outcomes.

In some ways, racism should be a cancellable offense, but not in the way Kendi defines it. There are explicit racists still living among us who actually believe in a race based caste system. However, most of the racism left in our society is not being propagated purposely, they are leftover vestiges of racist policies, ideas, cultures and heritages still lingering from our past. The racism we are still dealing with and the racism Kendi calls us to reverse is systemic.

The only way to move forward in an anti-racist way is to confront these ideas head-on, with care and compassion, in ways that move society forward. Anyone caught within a systemically racially society will inevitably and unknowably act in racist ways. The systems are the problem not the people. We must deal with the ideas, institutions, culture and systems while being compassionate to the people caught up within it. Pushing on people will not be just counter-productive, inspiring a defensive backlash, it’s fundamentally unjust.

But this sort of anti-racism work requires honesty and courage. We must be able to point out racism when we see it.

The Book of Mormon is Inspired But It’s Racist

The Book of Mormon is racist. It just is. Any faithful person who holds this book as sacred and inspired has to grapple with this reality. For far too long, we have tried to defend and explain the racism in this book and we should not do it anymore.

There are two ways to think about the Book of Mormon, but really only one way to read it. By most non-faithful people, the Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith born and raised in the very beginning of the United States founding, when western expansion was only just beginning. Before him was a vast, largely still to be explored land, filled with an indigenous population we still did not fully understand. Joseph saw in this land a way to view it through a Biblical lens and through perhaps a revelatory experience, produced a sacred text that connected America to the Bible. Through this lens, the Book of Mormon reflects the core racist attitudes of a Joseph Smith who embodied the racism of 1820’s white America. An empathetic and in my view accurate reading of this interpretation is that Joseph Smith had a rather progressive, for his time, view of America and its indigenous population, instilling in them a special, God ordained status, residing in a special, God-ordained land. Their heritage was rooted in Jerusalem and like the New Testament believers, they had their own interactions with the resurrected Christ who visited them, calling their own twelve disciples and establishing a Christian church. Even in this reading of the text, assuming that Joseph Smith made all of this up, it’s extremely possible to hold this book as sacred, inspired.

The second interpretation of the Book of Mormon is to view it in the precise way that Joseph Smith himself viewed it. Some believe Joseph Smith was a charlatan and a fraud. In my readings of his life, it’s hard to fathom it. Joseph Smith’s life and dedication to his cause indicates someone fully vested in his founding story. To accept Joseph Smith’s witness is to accept the reality of the Book of Mormon as an inspired, ancient historical text, delivered to him through angelic visitors by the person who was the last author of the book – Moroni. And that rather than being an inspired writing, the Book of Mormon is an inspired translation of a book written largely by Nephi, Mormon and Moroni.

Personally, I don’t believe holding one belief or the other has anything to do with one’s faithful testimony in the church. When a person investigates the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they are asked to read the Book of Mormon, prayerfully. If they accept the book as inspired, if they believe in the restoration mission of the church and if they feel called to partake of the baptismal covenants, then they join the church. Historicity is completely beside the point. It’s possible to believe in either alternatives and also believe the book is inspired.

But We Must Deal With The Racism

To accept the book is inspired doesn’t mean we have to accept the book as perfect. The book, over and over again, elevates white skin over dark skin. It simply does. It’s wrong. Now, while there are two ways to think of the Book of Mormon, there is only one way to read it. When I dive into the Lord of the Rings, I enter the world JR Tolkien created. It becomes real and I talk about it as if it were. In this sense, Nephi wrote his books decades after they occurred. His brothers never wanted to leave Jerusalem. They did not agree with Lehi’s visionary experiences. They tried to murder Nephi multiple times. There was real trauma. Nephi was not an unbiased recounter. If Laman and Lamuel had their own versions of these stories, it would read incredibly differently. Nephi describes Laman and Lamuel’s savage nature and as a result, racializies them. Their skins becomes darker as they separate and create their own separate societies. The Lamanites become a rival civilization to the Nephites, not just non-Christian but savage, more primitive, darker skin, less religious and more wicked. The Nephites continue to view the Lamanites in this way through the entirety of the Book of Mormon.

The temptation is to take the author’s side of this story and to believe in their racism, but they are not trustworthy narrators. They have a bias, and that is true whether the bias is Nephi, Mormon and Moroni or Joseph Smith.

Christianity is an Anti-Racist Religion

We need to treat the Book of Mormon as inspired by also as a cautionary tale. The civilization completely collapses at the end of it, caused as a first order consequence of racism. Christianity calls us into something better. We have to see the inherent worth of all people, recognize how facile and meaningless racial markers are. Differences of skin color are about as interesting as differences in hair color. We are more than what we look like and we share a common humanity. And in this case, all Christianity’s sacred texts, both the Old and New Testament and the Book of Mormon have within them a critique of their authors.

Right after Christ’s visit to America, the people in the Book of Mormon create a society where they eliminate poverty. To do this, they also eliminate, for a time, its racism:

There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in ^aone, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God.

4 Nephi 1:17

Similarly, Paul in his effort to carry the gospel message outside the Jewish community, wrote:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:28

The book of Job is a masterpiece of the wrestle in which Job spends 40 chapters wrestling with the justice of God only to, when an answer comes, God can only point to the vastness and complexity of God, but in the end between Job who actually express honest anger and wrestle and his friends who try to find simple answers to difficult answers, God chooses Job’s response:

And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.

Job 42:7

As a society, we have a choice. We can be like Job’s friends and try to flatten the world, eliminating what is inconvenient or defending what should never be defended, or we can deal with the world as it is, a world filled with inspired but flawed systems, institutions, religions, and prophets. Racism is systemic. It’s a fundamental part of who we are. We need to strive to do our best to make this a better world. We know we’re making progress as our congregations are filled with a population that demographically represents the makeup of our communities where nobody feels excluded and all are welcome who are committed to the call of Jesus who continually calls us to care for the sick and strengthen the feeble knees.

An Introduction

In a recent Saturday Night Live episode, Dave Chappelle joked “The Democrats were sore losers. I’m a Democrat and I’m telling you as soon as he (Trump) won, they started saying that he’s colluding with Russia, he’s colluding with Russia. It was very embarrassing as a Democrat. But as time went on, we all came to learn, he was probably colluding with Russia.” The point of this joke is that yes, at some level the obsession about Trump’s Russian collusion charges were false and born out of partisan bitterness from losing the election and that gave Republicans good reason to critique and jeer. With a deeper analysis, however, you find a deeper level of truth.

In a similar way, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) projects a restoration theology that inspires both reductive faithful expression and a resulting and very vocal reductive critique of that expression. The case I will try to make here, though, is that while I agree there are good reasons to object to some of these truth claims, and that Mormon critics often have a point, there is also, actually, a deeper truth found within the restoration church that came out of those early nineteenth century Joseph Smith revelations and that continue to inspire the church today. To hijack Chappelle’s joke in a different way, “I’m a Mormon and I’m telling you that I get very embarrassed by the overconfident and insistent expression of truth claims, but as time goes on, I believe it’s possible to both appreciate the utility of these claims as well as understand they point to deeper and beautiful truths” – doesn’t quite hit as well as Chappelle’s version, but oh well.

In a typical church meeting on a typical Sunday morning, it’s not uncommon for one to hear a member emphatically profess that the church is true. I’ve said it myself many times throughout my life, most notably, while serving a two year mission in Alabama. I remember believing in a certain magic behind a simple statement of faith that could, if properly delivered, shake the foundations of the church’s worst critics. If the phrase, “the church is true” could be declared with the proper amount of confidence, I felt, nobody would be able to deny it and after hearing this declaration the hearer would find themselves in new territory, either to affirm the truth claim or forever reject something they’ve felt and could not honestly deny.

Since, I’ve gone through a bit of a faith deconstruction. I’ve examined some of the words I’ve been taught to use in my testimony to see how they still align with an evolving inner conviction that drives my actual faith. In my religious tradition, we reserve the first Sunday of every month for testimony meetings, something I’ve dubbed “open mic”, allowing members of the congregation the opportunity to get up and share brief expressions of their faith. Not wanting to be misunderstood, I’ve tried to find language that reflects authentically my convictions, perhaps something less tied to any institutional church and more tied to general desires to feel love, connection and goodness. I desperately want to be a good person and I believe a “true” spiritual practice is designed to do that. Everything else is ancillary. My testimony then has become more expressions of that desire – more expressions of faith, goodness and gratitude and less concern for certainty in specific truth claims.

However, like Dave Chappelle making his journey through embarrassment for his fellow sore losing Democrats to a deeper appreciation that maybe they had a point, I’ve seen glimpses that perhaps the original statements of faith I declared in my youthful journey may have some deeper power and energy. Maybe there is a profound way in which the church is true that can navigate through the critiques of the church’s most sophisticated critics.

Adam Miller’s explanation of “I know” from Rube Goldberg Machine

A lot of my faith deconstruction came while trying to read everything Adam Miller wrote. Adam Miller is a faithful member and academic with a philosophy PhD. He has written books and articles that are often helpful for those who are struggling with their faith but still want to find ways to stay connected. He is such a beautiful writer, with ideas that resonate with me, I couldn’t help but step into them. I was particularly intrigued with his attempt to explain why we use the phrase “I know” in our testimonies, in his chapter on Atonement and Testimony in his book Rube Goldberg Machine.

A testimony involves the sincere clarity of an ‘I know’ because it is, in its naked purity, subtracted from every sign. It is subtracted from every objective sign because it declares the restoration of possibilities that the facts of the world exclude. A testimony is a bolt of lightning that splits the night in two. Testimonies contravene the stubborn inertia proper to this world. Here, the lost and impossible possibilities revealed by a testimony take hold of and recondition the world. This, though, is fundamentally different from the world taking hold of and conditioning a testimony. A testimony conditioned by the world is a sign. Testimonies are not essential because they reveal how things are in the world (this is the task of science). Testimonies are essential because they reveal, in light of the Atonement, how things can be.

There is an irony, then, to the kind of certainty proper to the sincere clarity of testimony. The certainty of a testimony depends on purifying it of the actual in favor of the previously impossible. Against the tyranny of a world broken by sin and sorrow, a testimony must unwaveringly maintain the certainty of its own foundationless restoration of possibility. A testimony, in order to be true to its unmitigated reliance upon the Atonement of Jesus Christ, must accept the indefensible weakness imposed upon it by its own boundless certainty.”

Adam Miller, Rube Goldberg Machine, From Chapter 7 Atonement and Testimony

When most people hear the recitations of testimonies on the first Sunday of every month, they flow like a template, but often go in one of two directions. Those properly trained to not cause a stir will stand up with as much conviction as possible and recite a series of “I know statements”. I know the church is true. I know Jesus Christ is my Savior. I know that my Redeemer lives! (to quote Job). Those raised in the church, accept this tradition. Some, who leave it, look back on these experiences, wondering if this was a symptom of cultish mind-control, an attempt to convince ourselves of things we know in our hearts cannot be true. Others will use the time as a sort of therapy session, a chance to be seen and heard. Usually, motivations for getting up and expressing a testimony comes from a mixed set of motivations. I just know that for some, testimony meanings can impose a burden and a hurdle, coming off as boundary setting and tribal.

Adam Miller links testimonies to the atonement. You don’t recite a testimony, you bear it. Meaning testimonies impose a burden and a responsibility, forcing the person who holds it into a new life as a public witness and a Christian servant.

Do you see the theme here? Testimony meetings offer a challenge and an invitation. They offer hope and demand a wrestle. In an uncertain world, testimony meetings invite a pathway onto solid ground, an invitation into a theology and a community of support. Being able to express “I know God loves me” even when you’re not fully sure of it, being willing to step into the darkness by saying “I know” even if the certainty of something unprovable and unknowable seems unfathomable, can seem like a lifeline, bringing someone into a community of support and love. It’s a two-edge sword, in a sense. Building a community around a willingness to express overly certain faith can be both unifying and divisive.

For those willing and needing the community, those hurdles can be overcome and a step into an “I know” conviction of faith does bring the comfort of community and support. Others, confused by the so easy expressions of certainty, balk and many turn away from that invitation altogether. Many others, living within the certainty Mormon bubble for a time, eventually encounter and absorb the critical arguments that challenge their earlier convictions. Rationale argument used to disprove Book of Mormon historicity or the injustice inherent in a patriarchal church or questions of past racism and polygamy can pile up leading someone bound to the community to leave it altogether.

When someone says that they know The Book of Mormon is the word of God what often follows from that is an affirmation that Nephi, Lehi and the other characters in the book actually lived in America, and then everything hinges on archeological and DNA evidence of early Christianity in ancient American civilization, something not accepted outside of Mormon thought. Adam Miller addresses that impulse:

because a testimony is a testimony only to the degree that it is a direct response to a first-hand encounter with atonement, testimonies do not depend on the indirect mediation of second-hand signs. Where testimony-seeking exposes our vanity to the insistence of God’s grace, sign-seeking takes cover behind the ego-massaging facades of mediating figures….

To have a testimony of the Book of Mormon can only mean that through it one has experienced the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The same follows for Joseph Smith, President Monson, tithing, the word of wisdom, the Church as an institution, etc…. Who would be more horrified by the idea of people having a testimony of Joseph Smith than Joseph Smith? Who would be more horrified by the idea of people having a testimony of the Book of Mormon than Mormon? We may be justified in making certain inferences about Joseph Smith, President Monson, or the Book of Mormon based on our experience of God’s saving grace in connection with them, but this is not the same thing as having a testimony that refers directly to them.”

Adam Miller,Rube Goldberg Machine, From Chapter 7 Atonement and Testimony

I served a two year mission in Alabama. While there were times I tried to prove the truthfulness of the church through rationale argument, those attempts failed every time. There was a reason missionaries were taught not to interact in this way. When talking with prospective converts, we shared very basic principles from our core teachings, we described our standard living requirements necessary before we could permit baptisms and we invited them to accept a commitment to live within covenant and accept baptism. They had to have a “testimony” but the way we asked them to get that testimony was through reading the scriptures, through prayer, through coming to church and seeing if this is where God was calling them. They had to come to know the church is true, but true in the sense of atonement and not in rationale argument.

They didn’t have to accept prophetic infallibility. We never asked them if they thought Nephi was historical. They could join while still having reservations about historical polygamy, current patriarchy or racism. They didn’t have to be a Republican. They just needed to feel a conviction through prayerful revelation that this is what God wanted them to do.

Church Critics

In this core sense, both a fundamentalist interpretation of testimony and a critique of that interpretation falls apart. This line of reasoning is completely beside the point. I’m a pretty consistent listener of John Dehlin’s Mormon Stories podcast and even made an appearance on it many years ago now and I hear him say pretty consistently, that the secret sauce of Mormonism is community. This is not unique to him. Many, many people pick up on this facet of Mormonism. It’s embedded in our culture and comes out of the way it’s organized. With some exceptions, the lion share of the work done running the church is voluntary. Most of the work is performed by the sacrifices made by members who are unpaid. The church runs from donations and members are encouraged to reserve ten percent of their income to the church. Still additional funds are donated to help the poor. We go to the congregations we are assigned based on where we live. We think of our congregation as an extension of our family, providing support, love and encouragement. Helping out with rent if we find ourselves in a bind, receiving regular visits from members who want to make sure we’re doing ok, and being asked to volunteer to teach, administer, and perform other activities that keep the lights on and the church operating.

This sort of service and sacrifice binds people to each other in community. It’s the heart and soul of the church. Everything else is ancillary. God’s love is felt through our relationships. The countless hours Mormon Stories spends on Book of Mormon or Biblical truth claims in actuality has little to do with why people join and remain in the church. The community in a very large sense is the most truthful part of the church. It’s not a side-benefit. It’s core.

What’s odd is that even church members forget what brought them into the church and then what keeps them coming week to week. We fall into the critic’s trap, exchanging our testimonies of faithful, covenant belonging, to a belief in the real life of Nephi. A testimony bound to the reality of golden plates found in the earth of upstate New York is a testimony based on signs, something Joseph Smith explicitly preached against.

What Critics get Right

Just because the church is true does not mean that it’s perfect, just as much as my relationships are true but not perfect. There’s a historical defensiveness in our church that we struggle to shed. We should shed it. We should own up to our mistakes while remaining true to both our convictions and our aspirations. The restoration project has never been a project where everything was revealed and resolved during Joseph Smith’s life and now we remain statically content. We’re still trying to establish Zion. We have not done so yet. Much, much, much more work remains.

In this sense, it’s trivially easy to find fault with the church and critics notice and aren’t shy about pointing it out. We should readily own up to it. Adam Miller calls this fearless Mormonism. Let me just say, its far easier to point out problems than it is to come up with solutions but it’s important to be honest about where our church community fails to live up to its potential and then we can collectively work toward solutions. The first step is admitting you have a problem. Here’s my list of the most important of them:

1) The church is too patriarchal. This shortcoming is something we inherited from the American and Christian culture Mormonism comes from. Women need to be a much bigger part of our core theology, our leadership and our decision making. I don’t accept the more extreme feminist views that deny gender differences, and I think there are good reasons to have some gender segregations in certain situations, but I don’t accept the patriarchal premises of our church.

2) The church has no adequate answers for LGBTQ. For our church to truly reach our aspirations for Zion, gay members of the church should be full participants in our community. The church will never reach this goal to the extent we exclude others based on who they are.

3) The church, at times, gets stuck in fundamentalist trappings, with un-Biblical ideas that the prophetic calling can only be held by the top leaders of the church, even though Moses, himself would that everyone was a prophet and a Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy and that the Biblical and even Book of Mormon prophets often came from outside of the institutional church, including Jesus himself. But still we get stuck in these kinds of ditches, here where Kevin Hamilton makes no distinction between a flawed church and its people and God. This sort of logic will never lead us to Zion. We will never get there with a few leaders at the top figuring everything out while the church members simply do what they are told.

The Church is Still True

I don’t have this all worked out yet, let me be clear. The essence of this post seems to be making the claim that the church is true because of its community, a claim that is certainly not original with me. Eugene England makes this argument much better than I do with his famous article, “Why the Church is as True as the Gospel“, but I don’t want to reduce the church’s truthfulness to its community. There is something more to it.

I felt this as I taught Sunday School the past four years culminating in the Old Testament and as I read various biographies on Joseph Smith. I felt the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith. I felt the authoritative, scriptural voice of the Book of Mormon and other restoration scriptures. I especially felt the grand vision embedded in the story of Israel in the Old Testament at the heart of many of our world religions including our own. I feel something at work driving the world toward something good, expansive and holistic.

The work is true but we need to think bigger. I don’t have my finger on all of this so I’ll keep reading and writing. But most of all, I’ll strive to live my very Christian covenants to be a good and kind person.

2022 has honestly been a challenging year. There’s been changes, some close calls on some big changes and plenty of continued uncertainty. Rebecca, our youngest, made a significant transition from a homeschooling do it all, to a full time student at Tempe Prep for her 6th grade year. She’s doing well academically but still struggling to find her place in a school full of people she doesn’t know. Luckily, her older sister still attends, starting her 8th grade year. Hannah is well-entrenched with really close friends and participating along with Rebecca in choir and soccer. She is also aiming for a part in her school play. Joshua started his senior year at McClintock High and found he had some room in his schedule to load up on music. He continues participation in his school orchestra but also joined two school choirs as well as a choir at Chandler-Gilbert Community College and continues to participate in the Phoenix Boys Choir. He’s also busy applying for colleges and will likely attend Arizona State next year but not to study music. He’s getting all of that out of his system now. Lizzie began her second year as a voice major at Snow College in Utah, continues to write her own music but still doesn’t really what she wants to do when she grows up. Sara, now she’s no longer homeschooling, was recruited to help out in various capacities at Tempe Prep, including directing the junior high choir. She’s also still our ward’s primary president and puts her heart and soul into everything she does. I’m still holding on at PayPal and praying for steadiness as we manage our way through a difficult macro-economic environment. Through it all, we are enjoying each other. Most of all we wish you all a Merry Christmas.