In past columns I have added my voice to that of many others who are anxious for a return to a politics in America where civil discourse is commonplace rather than rare. One of those voices is from the Mormon Church website: “The Church views with concern the politics of fear and rhetorical extremism that render civil discussion impossible. . . . The Church hopes that our democratic system will facilitate kinder and more reasoned exchanges among fellow Americans than we are now seeing.”
At the church’s most recent General Conference, Mormon Apostle Quentin L. Cook said: “Many in the world are afraid and angry with one another. While we understand these feelings, we need to be civil in our discourse and respectful in our interactions. This is especially true when we disagree.  The Savior taught us to love even our enemies. The vast majority of our members heed this counsel. Yet there are some who feel that venting their personal anger or deeply held opinions is more important than conducting themselves as Jesus Christ lived and taught.”
It seems fairly clear to me that one person – and probably the main person — these communications were aimed at is Glenn Beck, himself an adult convert to Mormonism. A former alcoholic and cocaine addict, I think Beck’s conversion to the LDS Church made a lot of sense. The church’s strict teachings on alcohol and other drugs has probably helped Beck recover from these addictions.
A Mormon friend from California, Bob Rees, suggests in an article in the current issue of Sunstone magazine that Beck “has a propensity to polarize rather than unify, demonize rather than humanize, and sow discord rather than promote dialogue. . . President Obama is routinely described as a socialist, a fascist, a Maoist and a communist and his administration as something dark and seductively satanic.” Beck is perhaps the most divisive force in America today. I think only Rush Limbaugh could contend for that “honor.” In his television and radio shows, Beck continually expresses an irrational hostility toward President Obama and all other progressives in the political arena. Referring to the President, he has said “the enemy is in the house!” We have all seen signs at Tea Party events identifying Obama with Hitler, Marx, Lenin, Saddam Hussein, etc. These can be found on Beck’s blackboard.
Incredibly, Beck has said that the President “has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture.” You wonder if Beck has even bothered to look at the skin color of the Obama’s inner circle in the campaign and at the White House. I think his inner circle is too Caucasian.
When Beck is criticized he does not respond like an adult; rather he launches into scurrilous counter attacks, making up things that aren’t true.  But they serve his cause. This nice Christian man calls his critics “idiots,” “bastards,” “dirtbags,” “thugs,” and “pinheads,” making civil discourse impossible. He even said: “I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it.”
“Instead of reflecting the message of the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the more enlightened teachings of the Restoration, Beck has latched on to some of the worst ideas from the Mormon fringe to shape his political and social persona,” according to Bob Rees, a former bishop. The long-held Latter-day Saint principles of respect for civil authorities are not to be found in Beck’s discourse.
Beck claims that Obama and the progressives are destroying America and destroying our Constitution.  But if President Obama invited him to a “beer summit” (with Mormon punch, of course) like he did Professor Gates and the Boston police officer, Beck wouldn’t have the courage to discuss the Constitution with a former professor of Constitutional law at one of our top-half dozen law schools.  He doesn’t engage in dialogue, especially with someone who disagrees with him and is a whole lot smarter.
As I pointed out in my September 22, 2009 column, Beck has resurrected Cleon Skousen, a radical right wing Mormon who the church finally denounced more than thirty years ago for his irresponsible charges. Local church leaders were told not to use any of Skousen’s writings. They were an embarrassment. With Skousen as mentor, it is not surprising that Beck identifies with the John Birch Society, and his pronouncements have been a key to its recent resurgence. The John Birch Society is a group that claimed that President Eisenhower was a communist, along with almost anyone to the left of Barry Goldwater, it seemed.
Rees sees close parallels between Beck and Senator Joseph McCarthy, who carried out witch hunts in the 1950s until finally the Senate censured him for his irresponsible behavior.  But, as Rees says it, Beck has a “much more powerful media megaphone with which to sound his alarm.”
In McCarthy’s day, two Republican Senators took leading roles in censuring their fellow Republican colleague: Margaret Chase Smith of Maine and Arthur Watkins of Utah. But Watkins paid a price. McCarthy was popular in Utah and Watkins, a Mormon, was defeated in his next attempt to be re-elected.  Similarly, Bob Bennett, a solid conservative Senator from Utah, now completing his third term, was trounced in the recent Republican caucuses and was not even be on the ballot in the Republican primary. Beck beat the drums to defeat Bennett. His sin? Bennett worked with Democrats to hammer out compromises so the public’s business could be done.  He was also condemned as a “moderate” (which used to be a good word) but Bennett clearly is about as conservative as a Senator can get.  But for Beck’s kind of conservative, Bennett is a RINO (Republican in Name Only). Beck said, “I may vote for a mouse over Bob Bennett.”
Many older Mormons remember all too well embarrassing bits of the Mormon past.  Nineteenth century polygamy, twentieth century racism, and the close association some in the church had with Cleon Skousen and the John Birch Society come quickly to mind. They have hoped that these embarrassing segments of their history are a thing of the past, but Beck’s rhetoric has the danger of resurrecting the dark side. About one-tenth of American whites still believe in the doctrine of white supremacy, which most Americans believed fifty or sixty years ago.
Beck constantly condemns socialism and claims that Obama is trying to lead our nation into socialism.  You wonder if he realizes that hundreds of thousands of Mormons live in socialist countries, are doing just fine, and are as free as Americans, if not more so. 
Beck really lost it the day he told his readers, with swastika in one hand and a hammer and sickle in the other, “I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice,’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church website. If you find it, run as fast as you can.” This offended virtually every Christian denomination in America, and it deeply offended many Mormons.  Economic and social justice are at the core of much of the biblical message and certainly the teachings of Jesus.
Bob Rees would like to see Glenn Beck conform more to the norms of Christianity, the Mormon Church, and civilized, democratic societies, but he isn’t hopeful.  When a person is making more than thirty million a year with his vitriol, if the church leaders told him he needed to be a better Christian, and made Beck chose between his church and his fantastic profits, I don’t think he would chose the church.
Rees believes that “Beck needs to be held accountable for the increasing racist rhetoric expressed by those on the far right.  As with McCarthy. . . , Beck’s incendiary campaign against the government will eventually implode, but before it does, a number of good people will be adversely affected, as will the LDS Church itself.”

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1 In the vegan-ning, God created the heaven and the earth, and so on.

Telos indicates the essential aim of purpose of a thing as it comes to fulfillment in a process of growth and change. It points to the deep, even divine, purpose that is unfolding and fulfilled in the outcome of its evolution. Considering something’s telos is a way to grasp or understand how the change at work in something works itself out and is fulfilled in its life.  This telos connects a thing to its true being, its fulfillment, and origins.

Even amidst tremendous, disruptive, and disorienting changes – changes in which the very nature of a thing changes and its former appearance becomes completely indiscernible – considering or identifying the telos at work amidst the change illuminates what is essential, divine, and mysteriously at work within it. Perhaps this is why the butterfly has been an important symbol in the Community of Christ in the last decade. If we consider the telos of a crawling green worm – a caterpillar – which gorges on leaves and seemingly dies in a hanging tomb of its own making, we see that worm eats, breathes, and seemingly dies in order to become a beautiful flying creature, a butterfly. In the butterfly, we can see how something completely different and unpredictable lies deep within the green worm’s life that could not be seen or known without witnessing or seeing the change. Telos is a word we can use to describe the aim or purpose of the caterpillar being worked out in its life as a green worm and its seeming death in its cocoon. Telos refers precisely to the aim or purpose being fulfilled, or coming to fruition, in the life of the caterpillar. The green worm is born to fly.

Discerning the telos of a living thing or historical event while it is being worked-out is a much more difficult than simply watching a caterpillar. Many people who grew up or were converted RLDS are experiencing this very thing in the life of Community of Christ. Discerning the telos at work in any living thing – whether a creature or historical event and movement – is a spiritual exercise and call of leadership that takes all our thinking beyond former conclusions and judging appearances. From an RLDS perspective, to join together in discerning the Spirit and divine telos at work in the history and changes of the RLDS church to Community of Christ, we should consider the telos or divine purpose at work in Restoration. Recent sections of the Doctrine and Covenants identify this telos working itself out in the movement and unfolding of Community of Christ. To join together in this discernment, here are some questions that RLDS, new and old, should ask:

What is the divine purpose unfolding in becoming Community of Christ? How is this divine purpose deeply seated in our history? Not just Palmyra, New York, but more deeply in the events of the Gospels and Acts? What is the divine purpose fulfilled in the work and person of Jesus Christ that is testified in the Restoration and current unfolding in Community of Christ? How is our testimony of this divine purpose join and diverge different from the testimonies of other Christians? How is it same and different from other Restoration movements?

These are not simple questions.

The idea of telos, of the divine aim or purpose unfolding and being fulfilled in us today, is important. The word telos does not indicate something peripheral, accidental, or unessential. The idea of telos grasps the essence or divine purpose at work in a thing and its creation, whether it is a creature, a people, a movement, or historical event. The idea of a thing’s telos, more important than just becoming familiar with telos as a $10 word, helps church members consider the Spirit or soul of the Restoration, the deeper spiritual life and movement within it, which has always been at work. The idea of telos helps us grasp and consider the divine aim and purpose working itself out in the Restoration and in all of human history, which is fulfilled in Christ’s life, death, and ministry. It is this same divine aim or purpose that, I believe, the prophetic Spirit testifies to and which we claim as a Restoration Christian church.

Discerning the telos at work in the church brings our spiritual attention beyond the hallmarks, litmus-tests, and formulas that once defined the church and its faith in the past. There is no simple fact-sheet or eternal check-list for classifying the “true” church. Scripture, both the bible and Restoration scriptures, clearly testify from Genesis to Revelation and Nephi to Section 164 that God is a living God. God sets that criterion. Our God is alive, not a distant standard or divine principle, who seeks our relationship. We live in scriptural times because God is alive.

Let’s consider the symbolism, again. Can you imagine the confusion and disorientation that would follow if we used the same criterion to define and classify the caterpillar as we did butterfly? How would be identify the green worm in its in-between stage in the cocoon? At what point is it a caterpillar or a butterfly? At what point does the caterpillar die and the butterfly become alive? Is the life of a caterpillar ever fulfilled unless the green worm flies?

The symbolism is more than a convenient metaphor or public relations ploy. I see God’s purposes at work and struggling for fruition in our history and call to become Community of Christ. I see such changes and challenges in almost every page and section of our scripture. There, we find signs that God was always present, even most intimately at work, in times of great challenge and transition. God was actually often the instigation of these irruptions. From deliverance out of Egypt to life in the wilderness, from God’s grace on Nephi to judgment upon the Nephites, from becoming descendents of Abraham to disciples of Jesus, our scriptures testify of God’s purposes at work in times of great revelation and change.

Jesus is the most central example. In Jesus, God’s commandments came to life and shattered all preconceived notions of the Law at the same moment he fulfilled them. Seeing this was not obvious. It was a matter of faith. Discerning the divine telos at work in the fulfillment of Restoration in becoming Community of Christ, we can get a glimpse of the same.

Early Mormons, the Community of Christ’s forebears, were urged to “Seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion,” described by Joseph Smith, Jr. as both a social condition and also a specific geographic place. In July 1831, Smith designated Independence, Missouri – the head of the Western trails – as the “Center Place,” a “land of promise, and the place for the city of Zion.” Other early Mormon communal experiments were built in Nauvoo, Illinois and Kirtland, Ohio.

In the early 20th century, the RLDS church placed renewed emphasis on the idea of building Zion. Drawing on the social gospel and his training in sociology, church President-Prophet, Frederick M. Smith laid out a coherent vision of Zion as a “new social order,” a “New Jerusalem” to be established in Independence. While respecting the need for each person to have private property, he argued for the “communizing of surplus wealth” to be redistributed and administered “in the interest of the group,” “according to the law of need” and “public benefit.” He called for the establishment of public institutions such as schools, ‘storehouses’ and churches to “control economic and industrial conditions in consonance with religious ideals.” Prior to 1960 then, the Community of Christ mental map pivoted around Independence – the ‘Centerplace,’ ‘Zion.’ Congregations in other parts of the world were called ‘branches’ – they branched out from the trunk – rooted firmly in Jackson County, Missouri. Good members were expected to ‘gather’ from the peripheries into the center, to build heaven on earth in a specific, geographic place.

However, by the 21st Century, church leaders spoke of Zion as an abstract vision, to be implemented wherever members were living, in their neighborhoods and those of their congregations “throughout the world.” Gone was the emphasis on ‘gathering’ to Independence and leaders no longer called for a radical sharing of socio-economic resources.  The social gospel, in terms of the redistribution of wealth largely occurred in the geographic ‘peripheries’ of the developing world and was outsourced to quasi-affiliated organizations like Outreach International. Zion had been ‘hollowed out.’

I believe the explanation for this massive shift in organizational thought and practice lies in part in the internationalization of the church since the early 1960s. In this paper I presented last week at the Mormon History Association conference in Independence, I look at how globalization has impacted the Community of Christ’s understanding of Zion.

I would be interested in what you readers think about the relevance of the concept of Zion for our current times, and how it could be reinterpreted in our post-modern, globalized context.

For most Mormons, to be “Christian” means being a believer in Christ.  But orthodox Christianity has higher standards, not unlike the standard of “the one true church” of the Latter-day Saints: Christian churches are true expressions of salvation through Christ; and to admit a church into this elite category requires recognition that it falls within the doctrinal, spiritual, and sacramental traditions of the universal church, handed down and preserved from Christ to the apostles, the apostles to the bishops, and the bishops to the present-day.  Before being recognized as part of this “one true church,” Christians are as exclusionary as Mormons, for, for both groups, salvation is on the line.

Regarding the lineage and genealogy of the Christian tradition, Mormons reject most of it as apostate.  Most believing Mormons believe, however, that–in addition to believing in Christ–they ought to be recognized as Christian because they are true successors to the primitive, pristine first-century church.  They are not the first Primitivists to do so: many Baptists, the Stone Campbell movement (Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, etc.), and others made similar claims about being the New Testament church restored; yet, importantly, none fell outside of doctrinal, spiritual, and sacramental traditions of the universal church, though they didn’t always honor the creeds or lineage.

Mormons, however, didn’t seek to restore the church through reading Acts like other Primitivists: theirs was a revelatory restoration—a recovery that wasn’t afraid to go beyond the doctrinal, spiritual, and sacramental footprint of the Bible or Christian church.  As such, they not only eschewed the traditions as being apostate, but they recreated basic Christian tenets and practices, and added to them, until they were unrecognizable as expressions of salvation to the orthodox Christian body.  That is, unlike other Primitivists, they pushed Primitivism beyond traditional Christian boundaries.

To claim to be Christian, while simultaneously claiming the rest of Christianity is apostate, is not likely to succeed in being welcomed to the club.  The irony of all of this is like a city condemning a building while simultaneously planning on housing its offices therein–irony except for the planned and massive renovation that makes the building unrecognizable to its previous tenants.  Mormons do not concede that, should mainstream Christianity recognize Mormonism as a true expression of salvation through Christ, it would then seriously undermine the very things that define who they are and what Christianity is.

On one hand, Mormons are at a loss to understand why they are not accepted as Christians; on the other, and without seeing any hypocrisy, many Mormons deny that polygamists or fundamentalists should be called “Mormon.”  That is, the mainstream Mormon is unwilling to do for the heterodox Mormon what they demand mainstream Christianity should do for their heterodox form of Christianity.  In both instances, recognition would mean a pollution of what they hold as the “one true church” and confusion regarding the only way to Christ and salvation.

Fundamentalist Mormons aside, claiming to be Christian while simultaneously claiming Christianity fallen is a sort of necessary dissonance for the average Mormon.  And the resistance by many Christians to calling Mormons “Christian” is necessary to the corporate Mormon psyche and worldview.  In fact, should mainstream Christianity admit Mormons into their fold, something would need to be, or would soon become seriously wrong for both groups and their supposed amalgam, at least as presently constituted.

For the sake of space, I will allow those commenting to conjecture on where Community of Christ fits in all of this, especially in its evolving sense of identity and calling.  Your thoughts?

My, oh my! Glenn Beck wants his viewers on FoxNews to sign Martin Luther King’s pledge of nonviolence, which he posted on his website on April 28, 2010! Until now, 50’000 have already signed up! I know that Glenn Beck is not representative of all Utah Mormons out there, but his shows are at least influential among many Mormons I know.

Glenn Beck, an unusual and unexpected latter day satyagrahi!? Do Mormons support this? Not surprisingly, LDS discussion forums like LDS Freedom Forum have picked up on the pledge and have debated it. If a Mormon like Glenn Beck can commit to this (not entirely sure, of course, if his understanding of nonviolence is the same as mine), could the Community of Christ do the same?

Here is an excerpt of his reasoning below:

But we have to be people who are nonviolent. We have to be people because that’s who we are. But they are painting us into something that we’re not. So we need to go the extra step, and I don’t think the extra step is to convince anybody because the media is going to do whatever they want. This is for us. As I read what Martin Luther King had people take, the pledge of nonviolence and the five principles of nonviolence, what he was doing was not sending a statement to the press that we’re not violent. That wasn’t the only goal there.

The bigger goal, I believe, was to ingrain these thoughts and these principles into people because when it gets hard, you have to have rock solid, something that you really, truly understand in your gut. Something that you know. It’s like Ben Sherwood says, you know, those who survive are the ones who have looked out at the plane and said if this thing did catch on fire, how the heck would I get out of here? You’ve made a plan. You’ve already war gamed it in your head. That’s what I think the pledge of nonviolence and the five principles of nonviolence was. So I’ve put them up temporarily now on my website, but I want you to read them and I want you to ponder them. And I’m going to ask you to do what Martin Luther King did with his people and that was sign your name to it. Sign your name to it.

This is unexpected, but welcome support for nonviolence as an effective tool for social change from a “fellow mormon”. I am not sure what to think of it as yet, as I am not that familiar with Glenn Beck and his current worldview (I thought the guy was just weird and not in touch with reality – and as far as I know we do not see eye to eye on politics)  - and would therefore welcome your thoughts on the matter. Who is Glenn Beck and what does he want to achieve with this pledge? What’s the context here? Why does he perceive this move as necessary at this stage? Any US friends who can enlighten me?

The interesting part is his inevitable reference to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ in the pledge. This proves that our understanding of Jesus’ life and example ultimately leads us on the road to nonviolence. You will find the pledge below, in addition to the five principles of nonviolence that the pledge was based on, as posted on Glenn Beck’s website.

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Pledge of Nonviolence

1. As you prepare to march meditate on the life and teachings of Jesus

2. Remember the nonviolent movement seeks justice and reconciliation – not victory.

3. Walk and talk in the manner of love; for God is love.

4. Pray daily to be used by God that all men and women might be free.

5. Sacrifice personal wishes that all might be free.

6. Observe with friend and foes the ordinary rules of courtesy.

7. Perform regular service for others and the world.

8. Refrain from violence of fist, tongue and heart.

9. Strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health.

10. Follow the directions of the movement leaders and of the captains on demonstrations.

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The Five Principles of Nonviolence

1. Non-violent resistance is not a method for cowards. It does resist. The nonviolent resister is just as strongly opposed to the evil against which he protests, as is the person who uses violence. His method is passive or nonaggressive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent, but his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that he is mistaken. This method is passive physically but strongly active spiritually; it is nonaggressive physically but dynamically aggressive spiritually.

2. Nonviolent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding. The nonviolent resister must often express his protest through noncooperation but he realizes that noncooperation is not the ends itself; it is merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent.

3. The attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces. It is a struggle between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.

4. Nonviolent resistance avoids not only external physical violence, but also internal violence of spirit. At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

5. Nonviolence is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice. It is the deep faith in the future that allows a nonviolent resister to accept suffering without retaliation. The nonviolent resister knows that in his struggle for justice, he has a cosmic companionship.

(c) 2010 www.outreach-international.org

Outreach International, a humanitarian and development charity affiliated with the Community of Christ, is seeking help with post-earthquake reconstruction efforts in Haiti. Outreach International supports a network of 90 schools in Haiti.  Some 30 of these schools were destroyed or sustained major damage from the earthquake.  The reconstruction process goes far beyond the normal scope of work of our local partner, Organisation pour le Développement Social des Masses (ODSM), which administers the network of schools. It will take time, strength, and expertise to assess the situation, evaluate needs, negotiate with potential funders, and handle the details of rebuilding facilities and lives.

Outreach International has three broad objectives in post-earthquake Haiti:

• Get kids back into school
• Help rebuild families and community
• Rebuild the schools program

To provide us with technical support in the reconstruction process, we have formed a strategic partnership with Article 25, a British charity that provides design, architectural and construction assistance in developing countries. To successfully manage this project and meet our objectives, Outreach International and Article 25 seek to establish a joint Administrative Support Center in Haiti staffed by a core staff team. The objectives of this are team are:

• To support the three broad objectives of Outreach International’s earthquake response in Haiti
• To increase likely success of grant requests
• To effectively manage rebuilding projects
• To support Outreach International’s communications and donor relations efforts

To submit an application for the Outreach International positions, please send a resume/curriculum vitae and contact details of three professional references to Matthew Bolton at m.bolton@outreachmail.org  To submit an application for the Article 25 positions, please send a resume/curriculum vitae to Alick Macleod at alick-macleod@article-25.org

Outreach International Networking and Liaison Volunteer

Networks and liaises with other humanitarian and development agencies in Haiti, including UN, NGOs and the Haitian government. Researches funding and partnership opportunities, develops concept papers and proposals. Attends cluster meetings for the education, shelter, early recovery, and logistics sectors. Registers Outreach International with appropriate agencies and bodies. Acts as Administrative Support Center team leader, under the supervision of Outreach International’s Haiti Emergency Coordinator. They will be paid a living stipend and be provided with accommodation. Commitment of 6-12 months required.

Qualifications:

• Excellent writer, experience in grantwriting
• Experience in humanitarian and development work
• 1 year relevant experience
• Experience working in multicultural environment
• Fluency in English necessary, French preferred, Creole helpful
• Experience in developing countries and unstable environments
• Must be comfortable working with non-proselytizing faith-based agency
• Masters in Development Studies, International Relations or related discipline preferred
• Female candidates are particularly invited to apply

Outreach International Field Research and Reporting Volunteer

Manages assessments of, gathers data from Outreach International sites and the communities surrounding them. Writes reports of findings. Monitors and reports on progress of the program. Provides multimedia communication on programs and beneficiary stories. They will be paid a living stipend and be provided with accommodation. Commitment of 6-12 months required.

Qualifications:

• Excellent writer, experience in social research and/or journalism
• Knowledge and/or experience of multimedia communication (text, photo, video, online media)
• Experience in humanitarian and development work
• 1 year relevant experience
• Experience working in multicultural environment
• Fluency in English and French necessary, Creole helpful
• Experience in developing countries and unstable environments
• Knowledge of education programming preferred
• Must be comfortable working with non-proselytizing faith-based agency
• Masters in Development Studies, Social Science, Social Research Methods, Journalism/Communications, Sociology, Anthropology, International Relations or related disciplines preferred
• Female and/or Afro-Caribbean candidates are particularly invited to apply

Two (2) Article 25 School Reconstruction Volunteers

Two technical advisors – engineers, surveyors or architects – to supervise Article 25’s technical assistance to Outreach’s reconstruction program and continue to assess school buildings. They will be paid a living stipend and be provided with accommodation. Commitment of 6-12 months required.

Qualifications:

• Technical and professional qualifications required to assess the structural integrity of earthquake affected buildings
• Knowledge of AutoCAD
• Knowledge of earthquake and hurricane resistance, and sustainable, climate responsive and vernacular design
• 3+ years relevant experience
• Fluent in both French and English, Creole skills will make application more competitive
• Experience working in multicultural environment
• Experience working in Haiti advantageous
• Experience in construction in developing countries and unstable / post-disaster environments
• Excellent communication and personal skills
• Haitian or Afro-Caribbean background preferred

Because of its deliberate ambiguity, D&C 164, as written, could be open to all sorts of wide-ranging interpretations — and I agree that a reader will have few clues to favor the interpretation I’ve presented (in my own commentary that John-Charles cites) over and above many other, much less positive interpretations. I’m confident in my interpretation because I’m working from the context of the goals of the leadership and membership. The document was necessary for several reasons of process, but its text deliberately fails to speak to the underlying goals of that process. In regards to the explicit topic underlying the process it addresses, the text of the document is essentially marginal.

There’s fairly good precedent in the RLDS tradition for history-making revelations concerning inclusiveness to be doughty, unpoetic, administrative, and mixed in their tone. I had hoped last year for the twenty-fifth anniversary of Section 156 to quote language that might continue to inspire today. Instead, after a bunch of administrative actions, the section eventually says, “do not wonder that some women of the church are being called to priesthood responsibilities” — which reads almost like the idea is being snuck in. Likewise, as wonderful as it is that the revelation which confirmed priesthood ordination for blacks (Section 116) was received 113 years before LDS Official Declaration #2, its text today is horribly disappointing. While it affirms “it is expedient in me that you ordain priests unto me of every race,” it nevertheless cautions: “be not hasty in ordaining men of the negro race.” (Gee, thanks!) So, yes, I anticipate that in the year 2123 (113 years from today) when the LDS Church finally turns its back on discrimination against gay people, the text of Official Declaration #5 will be much more poetic than D&C 164 is today.

The ambiguity of the text allows for an interpretation of moral relativism that is not actually present in the intent behind the text. (Again, I agree that you can read it that way if you’re just looking at the text, but the actual thrust behind the text makes that reading completely unsupportable.) Yes, there are a list of practices in the preambles and elsewhere, but the only thing that these practices have in common is that they have all provoked “controversy” around the world. They are not listed because they are potentially morally neutral — either good or bad, based on our relative values. Rather, some of these practices are good and some of them are evil. Genital mutilation, child prides, and exploitation of widows are evil. Marriage equality is good and full inclusion of gay members in the life of the church is good. (Yes, the text doesn’t say what is good and what is evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that some things are good and some are evil.) The discernment process whereby God reveals truth in the heart of each member and then each congregation, mission center, nation, and ultimately the whole church, isn’t an exercise in moral relativism. It’s an understanding that people from different cultures, in different places, of different generations, with different backgrounds and education levels, need more or less time to discern that some things that are good are good and that some things that are evil are evil.

To address John-Charles’s “dramatic addendum” and overall concern: in no way whatsoever is there a pact that “if Africans won’t make a fuss about liberal Americans wanting to perform homosexual weddings, the liberal Americans won’t make a fuss about Africans wanting to cut their daughters’ genitals or marry them off as children.” The actual pact is that members in the developed world understand that it will take time for some members in certain places whose cultures have not yet prepared them to understand homosexuality to discern what is good in regards to the issue, i.e., that the full inclusion of gay people in the life of the church is good. Likewise, in societies where evil practices (female genital mutilation, underage marriages, exploitation of widows) are, in fact, fairly normative, members in those places need to begin now to discern these practices for what they are — which, is to say, they need to recognize that they these practices are evil and need to be abolished.

Of course it would be nice to have a poetic statement taking a bold stance for good and a bold stance against evil. However, as you know, imposing a just law does not necessarily maximize or sustain actual justice. D&C 156 ended with a split in the Community of Christ which continues to this day. The people who left (now called “Restorationists”) clearly were not ready to accept what was right (full participation for women) back in 1984. How many of them might have been ready by 1990? How many by today? I’m not suggesting that there should have been more delay back then because I don’t have detailed enough information to second guess the process. However, the problem now is that having taken their stand on this issue, Restorationists are frozen. They can’t do what’s right today because their very identity is based on the fact that they chose what was wrong twenty-five years ago.

I put it to you that attitudes toward gay people around the world are in such rapid flux, and are trending so positively, that the last thing we need is to freeze an entire segment of people by creating a schism where their basic identity is formed around wanting to cling to discrimination against gay people.

In other words, unlike the previous revelation (D&C 163,) which was both inspiring and poetic, I agree that the text of D&C 164 is neither. Rather, it returns to the old RLDS practice of finding compromise through revelations that deal with the process. The two essential effects of the revelation are process effects: (1) a compromise which creates a multi-track system, that will effectively be two-tiered, which will allow full participation of gay members in some areas rapidly and others more slowly, while (2) attempting to win the hearts and minds of as many members as possible in the slow areas, and, in so doing preventing the church from splitting and consequently preventing people who are currently wrong from permanently hardening their hearts against that which is right.

John Hamer journals his positive impressions of his first conference here. Todd Elkins (here and here) offered concerns about the consolidation of power around the First Presidency, a theme that ‘Beware the Chicken’ seems particularly alarmed by (here and here). Matt Frizzell takes a more upbeat tone here, impressed by President Veazey’s sermon. Cross-posting some of his thoughts on this blog, Rich Brown has been doing some theological reflection on the issue of sexuality and the church. Lyle Anderson II has been offering a few initial impressions too.

As more people blog on World Conference, please post links to them in the comments section below.

At stake is whether I trust in God or the bomb. In nuclear war there are no winners. I therefore cannot agree that perfecting the bomb and developing the ability to use it first is a basis for my security and well being. It is certainly not an appropriate basis for my faith. … The fashioning of nuclear weapons and threatening to use them is a sin — a sin against God, against God’s likenesses (all humans), and against God’s creation. … Our security as a people of faith lies not in demonic weapons which threaten all life on earth. Our security is in a loving, caring God.

These prophetic words were delivered in a brave and remarkable sermon given by Charles D. Neff to the 1982 Community of Christ World Conference. Neff knew what he was talking about. He was in Hiroshima as a US Naval Officer just a few weeks after the city’s destruction by an atomic bomb. “What I saw there,” he told the conference attendees, “is indelibly etched into my  mind, my heart, my soul. The stark reality of death and despair everywhere in Hiroshima in 1945 was indescribable.”

Among the many contentious pieces of legislation that the Community of Christ faces at its upcoming 2010 World Conference is G-11, “Abolition of Nuclear Weapons” from the Central USA Mission Center. I believe this will be a key test of whether the church is moving toward becoming a peace church, something I have expressed doubts about on this blog.

The proposed legislation resolves “That Community of Christ calls for abolition of all nuclear weapons throughout Earth and space” and outlines a variety of ways the church can be involved in campaigning against nuclear weapons, particularly in the run-up to the upcoming Nuclear Non-Proliferation Conference in New York next month.

Whether you agree with banning nuclear weapons or not, one has to admit that a church that can’t take a stance against nuclear weapons can hardly call itself a peace church. Nuclear weapons fly in the face of Just War Doctrine, as they are the most indiscriminate and disproportionate weapon imaginable. There is no way they could possibly meet the Just War tradition’s requirement that military’s maintain ‘just conduct‘ in war. A church that cannot commit itself to a basic stance of Just War, nevermind pacifism and nonviolence, in my view, has no business pretending to be a peace church. Either drop the label of peace church or face the hard choices that implies — including giving up an attachment to nuclear weapons.

Throwing its lot in with the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons would speak loud and clear that the church truly has faith in the ‘peace of Jesus Christ’ rather than the bomb.