Baptism

One of the primary reasons given for the Restoration is the necessity of ordinances performed under the proper authority. This earth is a probationary time (so we are told), and one of its main functions is to give us an opportunity to receive the ordinances of the gospel. These ordinances set us on the path to exaltation, and baptism is the gate.

I feel a deep ambivalence about ordinances (an ambivalence that is probably responsible — at least in part — for the long gap between my last post and this one). On the one hand, the idea that there is something essential about performing certain rites and rituals during our brief time on earth is strange. Although Mormons get around some of the more problematic logical issues with requiring ordinances for salvation by allowing for vicarious work for the dead, this solution comes with its own problems that I’ll talk about in a future post.

There is still something deeply strange about the gospel plan as its been described to us. Speaking of the temple endowment, Brigham Young said:

“Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1941], p. 416).

I can’t imagine any contemporary member of the Church defending this quote in it’s most literal sense. I don’t think that most members of the Church actually believe that there will be angels guarding the door and checking to make sure you have some arcane knowledge of the ‘key words, the signs and tokens’ necessary to enter the Celestial Kingdom, but this doesn’t seem to prevent us from thinking that the other ordinances of the gospel work in an analogous way.

Is there something supernatural about the fact of being baptized that is so crucial it must be performed vicariously for every person that hopes to receive exaltation? I do find some beauty in the notion that we turn our hearts to our ancestors and bring them one by one through the stepping stones of the gospel path, but at a certain point the logistics get so overwhelming that one begins to wonder.

On the other hand, there is something beautiful about a community of believers coming together to welcome a new soul into their fellowship. The old spiritual says it best: “Shall we gather at the river?/… /Gather with the saints at the river/ That flows by the throne of God.” (see this beautiful rendition).

My favorite scripture about baptism is in Mosiah 18:

[N]ow, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;

Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—

Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?

The idea that ordinances are ‘outward signs of inward commitment’ is a little cliche, but I think there is real power in it. Being able to point to a particular moment in time when something momentous happened is a powerful motivator (this makes child baptism a little problematic, but that might be a topic for another post).

At its best, baptism represents a turning point in a life, and an initiation into a new community.

Repentance

Sin: The ‘laundry list’ approach

For most of my life, I have approached sin as primarily behavioral. Sin was breaking the commandments. I felt I could enumerate my sins (and indeed, I thought it was my duty to do so at the end of each day). The scriptures were basically compilations of rules that I needed to take care not to break. I went to church so that I could learn the many and various ways in which I might be breaking said rules, and there I could also learn the ‘Rs’ of Repentance.

I don’t think that approach worked for me very well.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression, I feel grateful for the scores of teachers that worked hard (for the most part) to train me up in the way I should go. And perhaps it is even helpful for a child and young adult to have the kinds of strictures that I lived my life under.

Sin as Symptom

I am told that the Hebrew and Greek words that were translated into ‘repentance’ in the KJV and other English translations of the bible might be more appropriately rendered as “turning away” or “reorienting.”

This seems to suggest a much more holistic approach. It isn’t enough to identify an individual behavior that is ‘out of harmony with the teachings of Jesus.’ What we need is a fundamental reorienting of our lives.

From this perspective, it seems more appropriate to think of individual ‘sinful behaviors’ as symptomatic of some deeper problem. Repentance that focuses on the changing individual behaviors is like putting a bandaid over a runny nose. The symptom might disappear temporarily, but if we don’t do anything to address the underlying problem, our efforts will be in vain.

Where the theory meets the road

A few weeks ago, I put up a post where I briefly covered some of the different theories of the atonement. When we think about sin and repentance, our working theory of the atonement becomes important. For example if we believe that the atonement was Christ’s way of paying the price for each of our sins individually (as in the ‘penal substitution’ models of the atonement), we are implicitly saying that individual behaviors carry with them some quantifiable punishment price tag. Some eternal scales of justice need to be weighed out and brought back into alignment. This is reflected in a popular song in Mormon circles which contains the line “How many drops of blood were shed for me?”

This is a powerful sentiment, but I don’t think I can fully subscribe to what it is trying to say about the atonement. It seems to point us toward the unhelpful view of sin that I began the post with. If my sinful act causes (caused?) Christ some incremental measure of suffering that (for some reason) the universe requires payment… it seems absurd.

Repentance as changing course

One of the most powerful metaphors in Mormon thought is Lehi’s dream. Lehi’s dream imagines us separated from God’s love by physical space which needs to be traversed. In the journey toward the tree that represent’s God’s love, many lose their way and are lost in ‘strange paths’ and ‘mists of darkness.’ This spatial metaphor is helpful for me.

As I said earlier, sin is symptomatic of a deviation from the correct path. Repentance is the word we use for the reorienting that points us in the right direction. Of course we will never be headed on a perfectly straight course, and we should be continually getting our bearings and adjusting direction as we travel.

Faith

Doubt as an enemy of faith

I searched for “doubt is” in the BYU General Conference Corpus, and this is what I came up with:

Doubt is:

• a negative emotion related to fear (2009)
• not a principle of the gospel (2009)
• perhaps the beginning of his apostacy [sic] from the Church (1876)
• removed by obedience to the doctrines of the Church (1943)
• set at rest by the revelations (1953)
• sometimes the very opposite of faith (1925)
• spiritual poison that stunts eternal growth (1979)
• swallowed up in knowledge and certainty (1924)
• the spirit of the evil one (1873)
• where doubt is, there faith has no power (1995)

Across the General Conference pulpit, for more than 100 years, doubt has been marginalized. As John Dehlin reminded us recently, doubt has often been connected with personal unrighteousness or some kind of desire to sin on the part of the doubter. As the snippets from conference talks above make clear, doubt and faith are often pitted against each other. We have to overcome our doubts (ideally, supplanting them with a ‘sure knowledge’ or even ‘certainty’) in order to truly exercise faith.

That is all pretty discouraging… I’ve written a lot about doubt, and I feel like my doubts are sincere–the product of honest searching and trying to reconcile my own limited experience with the things that I am taught and have learned at Church.

Problems with vilifying doubt and doubters

The overwhelmingly negative messages we receive about doubt from the institution had the effect of exacerbating the ‘crisis’ part of my faith transition. At first, I was afraid to entertain any doubt, so I ‘shelved’ a lot of issues. This probably had the effect of making the inevitable confrontation with doubt much more difficult and frightening than it might have been otherwise.

Further, the compartmentalizing of religious propositions that didn’t fit the world as I experienced it bifurcated my life into religious and secular spheres. There was the fantasy world of religion where miracles happen and divine manifestations are commonplace (which seemed entirely foreign to me), and the ‘real world’ where the normal laws of nature apply and doing ‘church stuff’ was a chore. I felt alienated and alone among a people that professed to live in a different world that seemed inaccessible to me.

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but so much institutional vilification of doubt has the effect of silencing any dissenting voices (the spiral of silence). Mormons are given models of testimony (“I know X, Y, and Z”), and while it is a powerful glue for those for whom it works, it also builds tall walls against those for whom it doesn’t.

All of this is not to say that doubt is an unalloyed good. We can become consumed by doubt. T.S. Eliot says it best in his masterful reflection on doubt, Ash Wednesday:

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us (emphasis mine)

To the extent that doubt paralyzes us — locks us into ‘too much’ internal discussion and explanation — and prevents us from rebuilding ‘something upon which to rejoice,’ it is a negative force. But it is not necessarily so.

Doubt is what led Joseph to the grove. Doubt motivated the rescinding of the temple/priesthood ban. The Gospels tell us that Jesus doubted: All things are possible to thee — remove this cup — why hast thou forsaken me? Doubt leads us to reevaluate and grow.

Certainty as an enemy of faith

As I’ve reflected on this topic, I’ve come to feel that certainty is at least as big a threat to faith as doubt might be.

Dieter Uchtdorf put this well when he said,

How often has the Holy Spirit tried to tell us something we needed to know but couldn’t get past the massive iron gate of what we thought we already knew?

To the extent that certainty closes off questioning, it should be abandoned.

If I were to die tomorrow and find myself in some kind of afterlife, I would be surprised. But I would be shocked to discover if any of it was even approximately close to what I believe about it now.

Scientists have an expression, “All models are wrong, but some are useful (and some are more useful than others).” This is surely true of our knowledge of the divine. We can do our best to formulate a mental model of divinity and the eternal realms, but it will always be only a model.

I love the way that Hafiz, a 14th century Sufi poet, says this (quoted in Phyllis Barber’s beautiful 2001 Sunstone article):

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are you?

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is God?

If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening
Called the mouth,

O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly Laughing–
Now!

The question, ‘how are you doing?’ — even when asked sincerely and not just out of habit or social obligation — can only be answered with a ‘brilliant lie.’ Given hours or days or weeks, we could not hope to really convey everything that is happening internally at any given moment. How much more so with something infinite and so far outside our experience?

Faith as something different altogether

I have come to a place where I am realizing that faith is something qualitatively different than intellectual assent to a set of particular propositions. Faith, as Joseph taught, is a principle of action. It is a confidence that helps us to move forward.

Perhaps I am alone in making the mistake of seeing faith as requiring cramming my model of the world into something that can conform to the Sunday School curriculum (any observations to the contrary be damned). One of the reasons that faith was so difficult for me was that I had my definitions all mixed up. As another blogger has helpfully pointed out, the secular and sacred meanings of terms like belief have become muddled in our post-enlightenment world.

With this new perspective, faith is on a separate plain from things like doubt, skepticism, certainty, and knowledge. Actually, the manual does a pretty good job in its discussion of faith. There is no mention of doubt, and it sticks to an action oriented definition.

An unrepentant doubter

And so I remain a doubter, but a doubter that is trying to exercise faith. Realizing that the two — faith and doubt — can (and must) coexist has made all the difference for me.

The Church of Jesus Christ in Former Times

I’m not sure why us Mormons insist that the Church is the same today as it existed anciently. For some reason organizational resemblance has become an evidence of the ‘truthfulness’ of the Church. This seemed to be of particular importance to truth-seekers in Joseph’s day, but I’m not sure why it should remain the hallmark of the ‘one true church.’

The manual lists several characteristics of the ancient church and our modern church. Let’s take them in turn:

Revelation

I’ve talked about revelation before, and despite my own difficulties in this area, it makes a lot of sense to me that God would be talking in some way to the people who are leading the church.

The manual draws a parallel between the way that Jesus led his ‘church’ while he was on the earth and how God continued to direct the affairs of the Church after Christ’s death. I don’t want to quibble too much with the idea that Jesus was actively creating some kind of institution during his brief ministry. Let me just say that I think it is a pretty big stretch to try to see in Jesus’ band of followers the same kind of organization that exists in the Church today.

Reading through the New Testament, it becomes clear that these people thought that Christ’s return was immanent. Although we like to try to interpret some of Paul’s letters (or those attributed to him) as foreseeing a ‘falling away’ that needed to come first, it is plain that this wasn’t a generally held belief among ancient Christians (and I would be a little surprised to learn that Paul — or whoever wrote the epistle — interpreted ‘falling away’ in the same way as the popular Mormon reading of 2 Thessalonians 2). So, if God was leading the primitive Church, he or she wasn’t very interested in imparting specifics.

Authority from God

My last two posts dealt with priesthood in greater detail. Any organization needs leadership, and as I said before, the ‘House of Order’ idea seems obviously true.

But the manual tells us,

That there might be order in His Church, Jesus gave the greatest responsibility and authority to the Twelve Apostles. He appointed Peter chief Apostle and gave him the keys to seal blessings both on earth and in heaven (see Matthew 16:19). Jesus also ordained other officers with specific duties to perform.

I’ve talked before about Paul. I am persuaded by the accounts of Paul as something of a renegade apostle. He wasn’t a part of the original Twelve, and he was proud of that fact. He seems to openly challenge Peter’s authority, and he is constantly warning the churches that he is said to have established as part of his extensive proselytizing efforts against ‘false brethren’ and ‘false prophets’ and people preaching ‘some other gospel.’ We like to fit these into our own apostasy narrative, but it seems at least plausible that Paul could have been referring to the church in Jerusalem.

Church organization

The manual tries to tells us that Christ put together the church as a “a carefully organized unit.” However, as Elder Holland recently pointed out in General Conference, the first thing that Jesus’ inner circle did after the Resurrection was return to their former lives. This isn’t the behavior of people who have been installed in the leadership positions of a fitly formed together organization.

Indeed, it makes a lot more sense to me to interpret much of what the New Testament has to say about organizational structures in the Church as post hoc apologia to justify and give scriptural support for a hierarchical organization that was taking on the leadership of the Christ movement.

First principles and ordinances

I talked about covenants and ordinances last time… not much new to say here.

Ordinances performed for the dead

I remember as a missionary really loving 1 Corinthians 15. There it was staring anybody who was willing to look at it in the face. Proof positive that the ancient saints practiced baptism (and of course one can naturally assume other ordinances) for the dead.

I’ll talk more about this later in a dedicated post on temple work for the dead, but I really love the sentiment behind performing ordinances in behalf of those who cannot do them for themselves. However, this passing reference by Paul is pretty thin evidence, and it is not at all obvious that he is endorsing the practice. Apparently there is some more compelling evidence that ancient Christians practiced vicarious ordinances, but this scripture is rather controversial among biblical scholars.

Spiritual Gifts

This one is really interesting to me, and it perhaps highlights better than anything else the problems with too much yearning for the ancient order.

Reading accounts of the early days of the Church in Kirtland and Nauvoo, one gets a very different picture than our rather reserved, well-ordered Sunday meetings in the 21st century. Charismatic expressions of faith seemed to be commonplace (or at least not uncommon). People spoke in tongues (and not the ‘I-picked-up-Spanish-slightly-faster-than-I-might-have-otherwise’ kind of tongues, but the full-on ‘pure-Adamic-tongues-of-angels’ kind of tongues). Members of the congregation would prophesy. People would see angels and the heavens opened. It is really difficult for me to imagine any of this happening in my upper-middle class ward, and in those rare moments when someone goes ‘off-script,’ you can almost feel the waves of discomfiture sweep across the congregation.

So if the 21st century incarnation of the Only-True-And-Living-Church is so different from the ‘same’ church in the 19th century, why do we expect or even want there to be a high degree of similarity between the church in ancient times and the church today?

The Lord’s Covenant People

Covenants loom large in Mormon discourse.

The manual tells us,

Within the gospel, a covenant means a sacred agreement or mutual promise between God and a person or a group of people. In making a covenant, God promises a blessing for obedience to particular commandments. He sets the terms of His covenants, and He reveals these terms to His prophets. If we choose to obey the terms of the covenant, we receive promised blessings. If we choose not to obey, He withholds the blessings, and in some instances a penalty also is given.

If A, then B…

I’ve listened to a great number of talks in church and general conference over my years in the Church that seem to suggest that Mormons believe a wide range of complex gospel topics can be decomposed into a simple checklist. One example of this is the Mormon approach to prayer. From the traditional Mormon perspective, prayer is literal communication with a Supreme Being. We can petition God, and God will honor our requests. On my mission, I taught people the steps of prayer:

1. Address God
2. Express thanks
3. Ask for blessings
4. Close in the name of Jesus Christ

I don’t think these kinds of simplifications are all bad. Prayer, for example, might be intimidating for a person who didn’t grow up following that simple formula. The trouble, of course, comes if we allow our prayers to become too thoroughly routininzed.

I grew up learning about the five (or six or seven depending on whose mnemonic you prefer) “R’s” of repentance:

1. Recognition
2. Remorse
3. Restitution
4. Reformation
5. Resolution

Again, if we don’t know where to start, these kinds of memorization aids might help get us started down a road to real change, but I think it is a mistake to assume that if we have made our way to the final ‘R,’ all is well.

While I don’t think even the most enthusiastic proponents of these simplified approaches would insist that their caricature of the principle is the whole story, there is a danger in repeating these clever formulations too often. In another context and to illustrate a different point, I heard a story of a man who had lost his keys. The man spent all his time searching in the area of the alley illuminated by the streetlamp because that was what he could see. In my experience, the way we talk about gospel principles can sometimes be like shining light on a limited portion of the alley. Perhaps because it is easy to talk about some of the fundamental principles that lend themselves well to lists and mnemonics, we might forget that there is a larger picture.

So it is, I believe, with covenants. The manual’s definition of covenant works out to a kind of legal agreement between humans and God. We promise to do certain things, and God promises us blessings if we hold up our end of the bargain. However, I think it is a mistake to turn the covenant relationship into a simple transaction (trading obedience for rewards).

Legalism

Think of the covenant we are often reminded that we renew at the sacrament table each week. In the words of the prayer, we promise that we will ‘always remember him [Jesus]‘ and ‘keep his commandments.’ If we do so, we are told we will ‘always have his Spirit to be with [us].’

If this is some kind of legal arrangement, the terms don’t seem to be very clear. What does it mean to ‘always remember him’? If we take it at face value (the typical meaning of ‘always’), I think I’ve usually broken this promise before the prayer is even over. What does it mean to ‘keep his commandments’? All of them? All the time?

Wikipedia has a helpful(?) “Table of Covenants” (here) that lays out many of the covenants that members of the Church make and lists the promised actions on our part and the promised blessings on God’s end.

In the New Testament, Paul seems to take exception to an overly legalistic interpretation of the gospel. In several places, he contrasts the new law with the old law. The Law of Moses was a ‘schoolmaster.’ The Law can only show us our faults and convict us of our unworthiness, Christ’s better way gives life. In Hebrews (which, I am told, was probably not actually written by Paul, but it seems to reflect the thinking of a person who was influenced by Paul’s perspective), we read:

But now hath he [Christ] obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. … [T]his is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people (Hebrews 8: 6, 10).

In Paul’s (or perhaps Priscilla‘s?) mind the gospel of Christ was a fulfillment of the Mosaic law — away from ‘performances and ordinances’ and toward a new creature. Christ brought us something better — more lasting and transformative — than a list of rules to follow.

The Mediator

In Boyd Packer’s famous parable, he describes the covenant relationship as a way in which we can sign up for an alternative set of rules. We are not capable of abiding by the strict rules of the universe that say ‘no unclean thing can dwell with God.’ Even the best of us mortals will pick up a few smudges during our tenure on earth thereby disqualifying us from the divine presence. Heaven apparently forbids mercy to ‘rob’ justice and demands reparations for our sins. But since Christ paid for our sins, he can set the terms of a new agreement that we are capable of upholding. Justice is satisfied, and God and Christ are allowed to show us mercy.

In my post on some of the different atonement theories, I discussed why this kind of penal-substitution model doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It seems to assume that the ‘eternal law’ (that we believe even God is subject to) is so strict and unyielding that it only permits one definition of cleanliness. God would like to forgive us of our wrongdoing, but his hands are tied. To paraphrase Tolstoy, all perfect beings are the same, every imperfect creature is imperfect in its own way. Do we really believe that? Is there always a best choice? Is anything else a ‘sin’? Doesn’t this destroy agency? Why does justice demand a punishment? What exactly would be robbed by mercy?

Priesthood Offices

The next chapter in the manual is titled, ‘Priesthood Organization.’ It deals mainly with the governance side of the priesthood. In my last post, I talked about how this focus doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. So in lieu of rehashing a lot of that same argument here, I thought I would focus on examining the duties of the first office in the priesthood: the deacon.

Modern scripture actually doesn’t give a lot of guidance about the duties of a deacon. In section 2o, where the different offices of the priesthood are enumerated, we read:

57 And [the teacher] is to be assisted always, in all his duties in the church, by the ^adeacons, if occasion requires.

58 But neither teachers nor deacons have authority to baptize, administer the ^asacrament, or lay on ^bhands;

59 They are, however, to warn, expound, exhort, and teach, and invite all to come unto Christ.

The revelation seems to tell us more about what a Deacon is not to do than explain what it is they do. Since the mission of the modern church is ‘to invite all to come unto Christ,’ I don’t think we can lay that all at the feet of our 12 year olds. Interestingly, the one thing that we usually associate with Deacons (passing the sacrament) is not mentioned. In fact, verse 58 specifically prohibits deacons from ‘administering’ the sacrament.

The manual has this to say,

A young man who has been baptized and confirmed a member of the Church and is worthy may be ordained to the office of deacon when he is 12 years old. The deacons are usually assigned to pass the sacrament to members of the Church, keep Church buildings and grounds in good order, act as messengers for priesthood leaders, and fulfill special assignments such as collecting fast offerings.

The manual seems to make clear that these aren’t officially prescribed duties that may only be carried out by those ordained to the office of a deacon. Deacons are ‘assigned to pass the sacrament,’ and they may be asked to fill other ‘special assignments.’ However, in none of these assignments is the boy performing them actually exercising priesthood in the manner we usually think about it in the Church.

If passing the sacrament is not ‘administering’ it, is the passing of the sacrament trays a priesthood responsibility at all? In LDS worship services, we don’t require that the sacrament tray always be in control of priesthood hands. Women, girls, and boys who haven’t been ordained to some office of the priesthood pass the trays down their pews.

(Interestingly, this is not the case in certain conservative branches of the reorganized church. These restoration branch members stick to a more literal reading of the duties of the priesthood. Only ordained priests pass the sacrament trays and they take it to each member of the congregation from what I understand.)

It is interesting to consider the changes that have been made to priesthood organization. From what I understand, it wasn’t until 1908 that boys were regularly ordained to be deacons, and the idea that young men would ‘automatically’ progress through priesthood offices came around the same time. Again, the restoration branches handle this differently. Priesthood offices are not seen as a rigid hierarchy, and men are said to be called into different positions according to their different gifts and talents.

In living memory, men in stakes were called as ‘seventies,’ and stakes had quorums of seventy that served in a missionary outreach capacity.

In the last ten years or so, the Church created additional quorums of the seventy to preside over different regions of the church.

The revelations leave plenty of room for creative adaptation. It is interesting to consider how we might interpret them in the future.

The Priesthood

In my experience, priesthood — at least in the popular Mormon imagination — is ill-defined. There are a few phrases that will be thrown out in Sunday School or other settings (“power and authority of God,” “order of Heaven”, etc.), but I’m never sure what people are actually talking about when they talk about priesthood.

The manual is organized into five sections, so let’s just take them one at a time.

What is the priesthood?

This seems like a reasonable place to start. As the manual informs us,

The priesthood is the eternal power and authority of God. Through the priesthood He created and governs the heavens and the earth. By this power the universe is kept in perfect order.

That is heady stuff for anyone, but perhaps especially for a 12 year old boy. I’ve revealed a lot of my embarrassingly naive beliefs in these posts. Priesthood is no different. As a boy who had a great deal of enthusiasm for fantasy novels, priesthood was naturally associated in my mind with magic. When we talk about the ‘power of God,’ it conjured up in my mind images of Zeus hurling lightning bolts or Luke Skywalker levitating things with the Force.

The closest we get to this kind of magical power in the Church today is when we talk about the healing power of the priesthood. Faith healings in different traditions are a fascinating subject, and I’ve written a little already about some of the problems I see with petitionary prayer (and priesthood blessings, in my mind, feel like amped up petitionary prayers).

As I think about the ‘power and authority of God’ now, the only way I can make sense of it is by appealing to a concept like the Tao. If we must link the priesthood with the power that creates and sustains the universe, I think these lines from the Tao Te Ching do a better job of describing that power than the six days story (from this translation):

The gate of the Mystic Female
Is called the root of Heaven and Earth

It flows continuously, barely perceptible
Utilize it; it is never exhausted

And we have hints of something like this in Mormon scripture. Section 121 talks about the priesthood in terms that disappointed my youthful self who thought it would be awesome if I could summon down fire like Elijah or make the walls of Jericho tumble down. The priesthood, Joseph taught us, works by ‘persuasion,’ ‘long-suffering,’ ‘gentleness,’ ‘meekness.’ The power that it grants is not like earthly power; it flows ‘without compulsory means.’ A few more lines from the Taoist philosophers,

Yield and remain whole
Bend and remain straight
Be low and become filled
Be worn out and become renewed
Have little and receive
Have much and be confused
Therefore the sages hold to the one as an example for the world
Without flaunting themselves – and so are seen clearly
Without presuming themselves – and so are distinguished
Without praising themselves – and so have merit
Without boasting about themselves – and so are lasting

Why do we need the priesthood on earth?

If I were answering that based on my taoist perspective on priesthood above, I might say that we could all use a little more centeredness in our lives. The ‘Mystic Female’ could do a great deal to soothe and heal our broken world.

For the manual, the answer seems very different. It is all about authority and governance.

The argument that I’ve heard repeated a thousand times in Church goes something like this: God’s house is a house of order, and the priesthood ensures that there is a single line of authority so that no one gets confused. There is as Paul tells us (or rather, as he told the Ephesians), ‘One Lord, one faith, one baptism.’

So, if we accept the idea that ordinances are critical signposts on the journey to exaltation, this single authority argument makes some sense.

[That premise doesn't make a lot of sense to me (but that is probably a topic for another day).]

The anonymous authors of the manual also use this section to make the point that the priesthood facilitates revelation from God (perhaps that was the rationale behind the thankfully defunct prohibition against women praying in regular Church meetings [although, puzzlingly the ban still seems to exist in General Conference]), and consistent with the ‘minimize confusion’ argument from above, revelation that comes from proper priesthood channels ensures that God — when he speaks — will be speaking with a consistent (perhaps, correlated?) message.

On the surface, this argument seems pretty good. We don’t want too many metaphorical cooks in the kitchen. However if the scriptures are any guide, this orderly vision of an authorized servant who relays God’s will to the people has plenty of exceptions.

Ancient Israel seemed to be overflowing with prophets who had no connection to the priestly class. The Book of Mormon continues the tradition of prophets who come from nowhere (Abinadi, Samuel the Lamanite, etc.). The New Testament is no better. Paul — as I’ve mentioned before — comes out of a tradition that was persecuting the early Christians and seems to be proud of his extra-institutional authority.

I have a difficult time imagining the institutional church reacting kindly to a modern Samuel the Lamanite type figure.

Authority, Hierarchy, and Patriarchy

The final sections in this chapter (“How do Men Receive the Priesthood?”, “How do Men Properly Use the Priesthood?”, “What Blessings Come When We Use the Priesthood Properly?”). Might be summed up in the following excerpt:

sons … male … men … himself … he … his … Men … man … he … he … he … He … he … himself … he … man … himself … Men … man … man … he … his … He … He … He … his … He … Men … Men … man … he … his … his … his … his … he

In case there was any doubt, men act; families, women, and children are acted upon. This is a benevolent patriarchy for sure, but a patriarchy nonetheless. Men are to act in service of their families and their stewardships, but power and authority are only given to them.

There seems to be a lot of evidence that Joseph was moving toward a more inclusive role for women in the kingdom. Others have written about the Quorum of the Anointed which was composed of men and women–high priests and high priestesses. Women in the early church blessed and anointed one another by the power of the priesthood (and still do so today in the temple), and there are suggestions that the original intention of the Relief Society was to help prepare the women of the Church for their priesthood roles. Micheal Quinn quotes Joseph as saying he was “going to make of this [Relief] Society a kingdom of priests as in Enoch’s day—as in Paul’s day.”

And so, I’m at a little bit of a loss… I don’t know what to think about the manual’s insistence that priesthood is a power–granted to men–that seems to exist primarily to perform ordinances and govern the Church.

In my view, this gets it all backwards. Priesthood seems to be better described as a way of being that puts us in harmony with the Universe. It is the better way of living that Christ exemplified. It is accessible to all.

Surely, being in line with this power should be a requirement for any who would call themselves leaders in God’s church, but from where I’m standing, a lot of the ritual surrounding priesthood seems unnecessary and perhaps unhelpful.