Yes, I used that quote when outlining the potential for a mormon peacebuilding strategy, and according to my thinking we, as LDS/RLDS, tend to downplay our liberationist (structural change) and our spiritualist (attitudinal change) interpretations of the Restored Gospel quite a bit. Leonard Arrington once wrote: that [in Mormonism] ‘institutions are unworkable as reform instruments, if they are too far above the moral plane of the society to which they are given. Men must first organize their own lives; then they might be united into a more perfect social and economic order. Faith is the instrument of change – not institutions’. The emphasis is therefore on proclaiming the Gospel and on personal/individual change before we can talk about societal change. For more info on how a mormon peacebuilding strategy would look like, check out the following: http://mormongandhi.com/2009/05/16/mormon-peacebuilding/

‘The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.

“Human nature can be changed, here and now,” said President McKay, and then he quoted the following:

“You can change human nature. No man who has felt in him the Spirit of Christ even for half a minute can deny this truth. …

“You do change human nature, your own human nature, if you surrender it to Christ. Human nature has been changed in the past. Human nature must be changed on an enormous scale in the future, unless the world is to be drowned in its own blood. And only Christ can change it.

In my mind, it seems the LDS church incorporates all three ways…, but admittedly with more emphasis on 1 nad 3, and perhaps a little less on 2.

I tend to see more type two than type three in our theology — but that may be a bias that comes from living in a very liberal part of the US, and there may be more type 3 in the “heartland”.

That was really helpful. As a newcomer to CofC, you come to wonder what the differences are between the two Churches in the movement and over time I will probably come to appreciate the differences as well. The eternal covenant of baptism – I like that. It is interesting in fact to see the prominence of the issue of baptism in the new counsel given to the Community by Veazey. Coming to understand better the centrality of that covenant in the Community will probably be important for me and thank you for giving me a pointer in that direction. Do children get baptized at the age of 8? Is that common in CofC?

I think also that your assessment is fair, as to the the literal/physical vs. spiritual interpretations… And within a religious movement you are likely to find all types of combinations. But they apply as a general rule. From my studies, R. Scott Appleby taught, in the Ambivalence of the Sacred, that there are mainly three ways of interpreting God’s will in the world today:

1) Conversionist: I would say that the LDS church tends to be found in that category. It is a lot about proselytizing missions. It is the expression of an eternal battle between the children of light and the children of darkness, etc… Violence is inevitable in an imperfect world, when the world is the stage for the battle between two opposing forces. The focus is on changing behavior – get people on your side!

2) Liberationist: Liberation theology (from Latin America, from the Feminist and the Gay movement) is a good example of that. It means that justice is a primordial value and challenging injustice in the world becomes outmost important – the expression of your Christian faith. It is the meaning of our existence and God’s will for humankind to deliver the captive and to stand on the side of the oppressed. The focus is on changing conditions!

3) Spiritualist: These tend to be believers who are committed to nonviolence as a guiding principle. They are not literalists, they believe that the warrior imageries of the Bible for example or in any other religion are metaphors for the inner struggle of men and women in attaining perfection and communion with God. The focus is on changing attitudes through being attuned to the Spirit!

I would think that a Christ-centered peace and justice theology like the one the Community of Christ is developing/discovering is more in the lines of nr. 2 and 3.

The LDS Church, I have heard being said, might be caught up in the mathematics of morality – due to the strong focus on behavior (physical/literal, the visible world). While the CofC is more and more trying to understand how to change conditions and attitudes (a spiritual approach, changing the underlying conditions and assumptions that humans make for and about each other), a change that will ultimately lead to a change of behavior as well, but more importantly lead the way towards sacred community.

In a sense, I see all three as LDS/RLDS change theories: not necessarily mutually exclusive…

“And can you talk about making “binding covenants for time and eternity” in the same way in the Community of Christ both through the baptismal “covenant” as well as through “sacred temple covenants”? What I am asking is: is there a covenant spirituality within the Community of Christ as well, like the LDS link it to Moroni quoting Malachi’s words to Prophet Joseph about “the hearts of the children being turned to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers to their children”?

My chiropractor is an LDS bishop, and we have had wonderful conversations over the years. Some time ago, I asked him if I would be accurate in saying that when it comes to doctrine, that the LDS church would take a more physical or literal approach, whereas the CofC would take a more spiritual approach (without implying that one was better than the other), he thought that was a fair assessment.

CofC members make only one eternal covenant, and that is in the waters of baptism. We do nothing by proxy, and we do not hold that marriage or family are eternal. We have no sacrament performed in our temple that is not freely performed in a variety of other locations. We only “bind” ourselves to each other in the free bonds of love, and those bonds extend to all who will accept them with us.

Hope this addresses some of your question.

mg, in case you are not aware of it, the text of the LDS and CofChrist Books of Mormon are essentially identical, but the denominations do NOT remotely break up the chapters and verses with the same numbering. (We have many fewer, much longer chapters.) If the PDF version of ours is not searchable, you may find it easier to use the LDS version on-line and then hunt down the corresponding citation from the CofChrist version from story context.

Of course, the D&C’s have very different contents entirely, and the Sections we share are often ordered differently.

http://www.box.net/shared/x7067y9dqo

and

http://www.box.net/shared/4qqksyabqe