The commercials were created by a team including Tom Cochran, Brady Cackler, and Bryce Veazey.  The commercial advertises a link that will help visitors find a Community of Christ congregation near them.  The site goes live Christmas eve.

I celebrate these commercials.

As I think of these commercials airing across Kansas City, it’s interesting to consider the mixed views surrounding the current relationship of church and culture.  The idea of Community of Christ commercials certainly takes a step toward our world of media dominated communication, multimedia experience, and its emotional power over us.  The long discussion of the relationship between church and culture is a centuries old theological one.  Listen to the variety of perspectives on issues like sexuality and mega-churches or contemporary worship, you will hear the legacy of perspectives and their imprint on the church today.

Consider, for instance, the many views among church-goers on mega-churches and contemporary worship.   Especially among members of small churches, you don’t have to go far to find those who lament how worship has become more and more like entertainment.   It’s more than a few.  I’ve heard liberal and conservative, young and old, express how mega-churches cheapen church membership and entertainment doesn’t belong in church.    Listen to the heated opinions around sexuality and orientation and you’ll also hear members policing the borders of church and culture even more.   Both sides lay claim.  On one side, accepting homosexuality just dilutes faith with more worldly attitudes.  Culture has gone morally adrift.  While the other side is adamant that discriminating against same-sex love is less-than-prophetic at best, and reflects the spiritual failure of popular Christianity.  Again, where the church marks off its separation from the world and culture is deeply important.

With commercials, Community of Christ again joins the fray.

Now that I live in Lamoni,I live among the Amish.  The Amish are an example of Christian community whose identity is deeply embedded with a sense of separation from surrounding society.  On one end of the spectrum, the Amish police the boundaries of their community and its practices to preserve a way of life  that sets it apart and keeps sacred a visible sense of community and culture.  The Amish do not have televisions or internet, let alone commercials inviting others to join them.

On the other end, the seemingly most culturally accommodating Christians – American evangelicals – do the same.   Driving minivans and crossovers to the mall and talking on iPhones, evangelical Christians permeate ever strata of our society.  Yet, they mark themselves off  with a strong sense of belief and religious identity.   The success of evangelicalism, however, rests not in their separation from our culture but in the success evangelicalism has in baptizing almost anything.   From raves to retro, fashion to finances, and dating services, evangelicalism is distinct in how it accommodates and transforms any cultural medium with its message.   Christianity crossed with mass production.

It’s interesting to consider how the RLDS/Community of Christ fits in this sort of continuum.  On the one hand, the church has been too small to have a television presence like the Mormons.  However, the church’s media presence, however small,  is not new .  In the 1920′s, the RLDS church owned a radio station (KFIX, later KLDS and KMBZ), which broadcast from the Auditorium.   Rummage around an old congregation and you will still find the broadcast sermons of Arthur Oakman or Evan Fry, either in print or on tape.  The church also ran TV ads sporadically in the Kansas City area in the 1980′s and 90′s.

While the relationship of church and culture is interesting, to some degree it doesn’t matter.  There is something powerful in watching the faces of friends on the screen in this new commercial.  I’m moved as I see the church where Margo and I were married (Stone Church), and the images of people projected upon it in a way that transforms the building.  I have emotions as the commercial ends with the name of my church in the center of the screen.

If God would stoop so low to be born human, any church that bears Jesus’ name should consider any means necessary to extend God’s invitation.   “A community for you,” that’s what the commercial advertises.   It is professionally done, moving, and creative.   While I’m sure the commercial took tremendous time, effort, and money, I think the challenge will not be getting it aired.  It’ll be delivering on what it promises:  a community for whomever’s watching.

Great job, brothers Tom, Brady, and Bryce.  May our congregations live up to their name and embrace whomever walks through their doors.

Over 250,000 may be watching.

I was at Duarte Square, Lower Manhattan, this afternoon as retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard, and several other clergy were arrested supporting Occupy Wall Street’s attempt to start a new occupation on land owned by Trinity Church Wall Street. For a video of him talking with protestors in the back of an NYPD paddywagon, click here.

“I am still baffled that the Episcopal Church of which I have been a member all my life could not–through Trinity–find some way to embrace these thousands of young people in our very diminishing ranks,” said Bishop Packard, the former bishop for the armed services, on his blog, Occupied Bishop.

Packard is not the only high-ranking Episcopal leader who has supported the movement. In an open letter to Occupy Wall Street, anti-apartheid hero Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and former Deacon at Trinity Church, said:

“Injustice, unfairness, and the strangle hold of greed which has beset humanity in our times must be answered with a resounding, ‘No!’ You are that answer. I write this to you not many miles away from the houses of the poor in my country. It pains me despite all the progress we have made. You see, the heartbeat of what you are asking for–that those who have too much must wake up to the cries of their brothers and sisters who have so little–beats in me and all South Africans who believe in justice.”

To watch a video of interfaith leaders addressing the Occupiers at Duarte Square today, click here.

Do you think Community of Christ clergy should join the Occupy Movement? How should the church more generally interact with the Occupy Movement?

[Updated 19 December 2011]

During the last few months, we have been bombarded with images of fellow citizens camped out in public parks around the nation. Most of the attention has focused on a group in Manhattan which is called “Occupy Wall Street”. This group has taken their grievances to the people they feel are responsible for whatever ills society is suffering from today, Wall Street.

What I have noticed is that the message isn’t entirely clear. When the protests first started, I was listening to a broadcast from Dave Ramsey while driving back to my office from a rural courthouse. Mr. Ramsey was having audience members who identified with the Occupy movement call in and explain what and why they were protesting or considering themselves members of this group. There was absolutely no clear consensus among ANY of the callers why they were protesting, other than they were just “mad” about the way things were going for them. Almost none of them could explain the economic injustices they were protesting, or even what they were experiencing.

In America, for 99% of us, we are about two generations from having to struggle for survival every day. We have conquered the most dangerous communicable diseases in the world, have clean drinking water, relatively easy access to healthcare, although paying for that healthcare is an ongoing issue, and an abundance of opportunity to achieve more than what we’re born into. The problem is that we’ve grown into an entitlement society. We believe we are entitled to success and riches just because we’re born here, not because we have to work at it. We believe that it is someone else’s responsibility to make us happy and care for our every basic need. We believe that we are entitled to a job just because we earned a college degree, never mind the fact that we don’t have the talent or passion of our peers in the same position. We have grown dependent on our parents to provide food, shelter, and a phone call to the teacher, coach, or hiring manager to get those good grades, playing time, or that first job.
I have worked for corporations, and now I work as a public servant for a state agency. What disturbs me the most about the Occupy movement is the vilification of the corporation and the people who run those entities. Accusations of greed, robbery, and mistreatment abound at these rallies, and the constant drumbeat of “tax the rich” has grown louder and louder over the last few months. What I think the Occupy movement is missing is the fact that corporations are people too. Corporations are groups of shareholders, managers, and employees who work to maximize the value of that corporation to the shareholders. Most insurance, retirement, and employment income is derived from corporate profits. Most taxable income is derived from that income of employees, retirees, and other investment income. Community of Christ has significant holdings in many of these corporations that have been excoriated by the Occupy movement. Those investment pools help the church keep afloat during lean economic times when tithes are erratic, and they help members and church employees invest wisely for the future. Several thousand church members worldwide are employees of corporations, and they also provide funding for various church ministries, both locally and worldwide, with the fruits of their labor.

So do I think there is a need for an Occupy Community of Christ movement? Yes and no. I believe that we need to facilitate dialog in our community concerning the responsible use of resources, including natural and financial resources. We should also be concerned with the ethical use of corporate power and the consequences of concentrating power within groups that may not have the best interests of their shareholders, or the community as a whole in mind. However, I do believe that in this country and many others the church is organized within, we have been given the freedom and power to chart our own course. We should be equally concerned with personal responsibility for tithing and conservation. We should be concerned with being self-sufficient, debt-free, and willing to support those who need assistance to survive. Many of our members throughout the world are unable to worship or work according to their desires due to government or cultural intrusion. We should not punish success, but celebrate the blessings that can be shared with our community as a whole. We should be mindful of those groups that seek our involvement, and with due diligence lend our respect for the choice to protest an injustice. We should support those who struggle for conscience and understanding, but not those who lend themselves to sound bites and class warfare over dialog and consensus.

…it is incumbent upon the Saints … to be in the world but not of it, … using the things of this world in the manner designed of God, that the places where they occupy may shine as Zion, the redeemed of the Lord. Condensed from Community of Christ Doctrine and Covenants 128:8b, 8c.

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers den.” Matthew 21:12-16.

“It’s time to invite the Occupy Movement to church!” says Jim Wallis of Sojourners, who this week called for the creation of a “church sanctuary for the Occupy Movement.“

The Sojourners blog God’s Politics also recently published a “Confession“, in which the author Sheri Ellwood says she has “noticed many individual Christians expressing support, but little public support for the movement from the Christian community as a whole.” This is certainly true within the Community of Christ — a quick search of the church website, the Facebook discussion group, the church’s young adult blog and the church’s official blog reveals … absolutely no discussion of the Occupy Movement at all!

Now, despite the church having “Abolish Poverty, End Suffering” as one of its five key “Mission Initiatives”, I hadn’t expected much from the church. But nothing? Not even a dismissive — “that’s not the way to go about effecting change”? Not even a critique of the language of ‘occupying’ as opposed to ‘decolonizing’ or ‘liberating‘? How can the church be so incredibly out of touch with the economic and political reality in country in which they are headquartered? Indeed, there has been no lack of discussions among Christians about the movement, even some of the Community of Christ’s cousins out in Utah have been more proactive about discussing what the Occupy Movement means. There is even an Occupy Missouri contingent.

Am I the only one who thinks the desire of the Occupy Movement to establish communal encampments, sharing things in common, using consensus decisionmaking and considering how to discern paths to a more just and equitable society has interesting resonances with the Community of Christ’s historical theology of building Zion — building ‘kingdom of heaven’ in the here and now?

I think it might be worth republishing here a few “fundamentals and principles” someone back in the Community of Christ’s earlier history claimed would “foster and promote” a new “religious social order:”

Remembering the welfare of fellow-men, especially the unfortunate and poor.

The distribution of surplus wealth according to the law of need.

The determination of just wants.

The fair exchange of commodities.

Each to have his inheritance (private possessions).

Every man to have opportunity to make the contribution in consonance with his talents.

The condemnation of the rich who gather for personal gain, the exaltation of the poor and humble who with contrition refrain from exploitation of others’ goods and who labor with their own hands.

The equality which comes from the operation of the law of needs.

I wrote up a summary of my sermon for my column in The Examiner (Independence, MO). Click here to read it.

This week I had a rushed visit to the Community of Christ archives for a couple hours and tried to get a little more hard data. It is necessarily inadequate because I didn’t have a lot of time. Nonetheless I think it tells an interesting story of the way “Voice” is changing in the denomination. There is a slow, but definite trend, of World Conference becoming a venue of increasingly diverse voices, while the USA and Canada remain dominant.

I went through all the Bulletins for every World Conference since 1958, when the church expressed its desire to become a “world church”, and counted how many World Conference Resolutions proposed by field jurisdictions were from each area of the world. I did not count the resolutions that came from the headquarters leadership. A less rushed scholar would have looked at how many of these resolutions had ‘policy success’ by actually being passed by the chamber and avoiding amendments — maybe one of you Saints Herald readers can take up that challenge! (See the asterix at the bottom for some methodological notes).

Proportion of Proposed Resolutions from Field Jurisdictions, by Region

Looking at the data, it seems to divide into six fairly distinct eras:

1958-1964: In this era, unless I read the Bulletins incorrectly, it appears that all proposed legislation came from the church leadership  – Voice was very centralized in a few powerful men.

1966-1978: In 1966, the Council of Twelve presented the watershed “Statement on Objectives” to the church, calling for greater decentralization of power. This seems to have resulted in many more resolutions coming from around the church. The vast majority (84 proposed resolutions) were from the USA and Canada (6), with one from Australia in 1968.

1980s: In the 1980s one sees increased voice from outside the USA — with around 25% of proposed resolutions coming from the rest of the world. Seven of the 65 total proposed resolutions came from Europe and three from Australia and New Zealand which seem to have ‘punched above their weight’ in terms of their proportion of world membership. The 1980s see the first proposed resolutions coming from the South Pacific and Africa.

1990s: For reasons that are not clear to me, the proportion of resolutions coming from outside the USA decreases in the 1990s, though there is the first resolution from Latin America in 1998 and another from Africa in 1994.

Early 2000s: I think the decision in 2000 to give proportional representation to jurisdictions that had difficulty sending their quota of delegates (for visa and cost issues) has made a significant impact. I probably should admit that though I critique the church heavily for its North American-centric attitude, things are improving. The 2010 conference was the first where a slim majority of proposed resolutions (19 out of 36) came from outside of the USA and Canada. Prior to 2000, many delegations that struggled to send sufficient delegates were filled with people from North America, giving North America disproportionate voice in the conference chamber. This can be illustrated with reference to the Haitian delegation:

Proportion of Haiti World Conference Delegation with Names that Appear to be Haitian

Surprising, however, in the entire period of 1958-2010, there have been no resolutions from several areas of the church where there are significant numbers of members, including Haiti and the entire continent of Asia. The following table shows the total number of proposed resolutions from each region from 1958-2010.

USA: 195

Canada: 16

Latin America and the Caribbean: 14

Australia & New Zealand: 10

Europe: 8

Africa: 5

South Pacific: 3

Asia: 0

To measure this a little more accurately, I compared the impact of each region compared to their proportion of church membership. Below I have calculated an ‘Influence Factor’ that looks at the proportion of proposed resolutions to the regions’ proportion of church membership.  One can see that there has been a significant increase in the influence of regions outside North America but Africa and Asia remain underrepresented, while Australia has disproportionate influence.

It would be interesting to hear from people what they think the impact will be of this slow, but important shift in ‘expressed voice’ from outside North America in church policymaking.

* Methodological Note: I did not include resolutions from  1970, which was missing from the shelf for the Archives. Detroit International Stake, which spanned both Canada and the USA, was counted as being in the USA, even though that was a somewhat arbitrary decision. For the Haiti delegate graph I counted names based on my judgement of whether they sounded Haitian to me. If it seemed difficult to tell, I counted it as Haitian.

The influence factor is calculated by dividing the number of proposed resolutions by the numbers of members in that region and then re-calibrating the scale so that the USA and Canada represent 1.0. USA and Canada were included together since there are so many mission centers that are cross-border. The cross-border USA/Mexico Mission Centers were included in Latin America.

I have posted my full dataset here if you wish to use the data, check my numbers, etc. Feel free to use is as you wish, but if you want to use it in publication, please cite me appropriately. Click here for the dataset.

In all this, the Community of Christ has been conspicuously absent from the discussion in the media. I am interested in what you all think. Is it better for the Community of Christ not to be associated with “The Mormon Moment” given their long attempt to distance themselves from their Utah cousins both doctrinally and in public perceptions? Is there a way for the Community of Christ to take advantage of the public interest in Mormonism to articulate the Community of Christ as a ‘liberal Mormon’ or ‘Protestant Latter Day Saints” alternative? Given that the American public’s perceptions are slowly becoming more tolerant of Mormons, does it make sense for the Community of Christ to continue to be sensitive about being mistaken for Mormons?

What do you all think?

Her website says Williams believes “environmental issues are social issues that ultimately become matters of justice” and asks the question, “what might a different kind of power look like, feel like, and can power be redistributed equitably even beyond our own species?”

Williams is currently Annie Clark Tanner Scholar in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah.

1) a “Latter Day Saint/Protestant Axis”, based on a person’s attachment to the RLDS tradition, scripture, doctrine and story as opposed to a more conventional Protestant theology.

2) a “Fideist/Rationalist Axis” based on a person’s trust in reason, science and scholarship versus a sense that faith must come before and above reason (a kind of scholasticism).

This is what I get:

The primary dispute in North America for the last 40-50 years has been between the Traditional RLDSers and Liberals. However, in the last 10-20 years, the other two groups have grown in power.

The people I call Post-Modern RLDSers are people who believe strongly in the value of the traditional texts, stories and culture but have adopted a rationalistic approach to them. For instance, they may accept the liberal critical scholarship of the traditional RLDS story and doctrine, but still believe it holds value as a ‘broken but useful myth.’ They would argue that the Community of Christ has as much right to a distinctive religio-cultural identity as any other religious movement. Many of these people are actually liberal converts from Mormonism. They are particularly influential in the younger generation of Community of Christ intellectuals.

The evangelical/pentecostal bloc is, I think, the ‘sleeping giant’. As scholars of global Christianity have shown, evangelicalism and pentecostalism have had a immense revival in the last 40 years, particularly in the developing world. Some believe this is because a strict, emotive and conservative faith offers ready answers to the large scale social, political and economic disruptions in people’s lives. I believe the Community of Christ has not yet fully come to terms with the reality that its growth is largely happening outside its traditional core, where most converts come from an evangelical and/or pentecostal background.

Throughout the political life of the church these groups interact, conflict, compromise and make alliances. For many years, there was an alliance of sorts between the North American Liberals in the HQ leadership and the evangelical leaders in the developing world. This was because they both saw a benefit in deconstructing the traditional RLDS story and doctrine. However, there are substantive disagreements between the Liberals and Evangelicals (particularly over the issue of sexuality) that are beginning to create fissures in this alliance. Many evangelicals from the developing world are beginning to realize that they may hold certain doctrinal things in common with the traditional RLDSers, particularly about personal morality. We are also seeing a differentiation between the Liberals and Post-Modern RLDSers over the value of the RLDS ‘distinctives’, despite an affinity for rationalistic approaches to thinking about faith.

In short, I think it is important to talk of Community of Christ identities, rather than one monolithic Community of Christ identity. The future makeup of the church will depend on the shifting power, conflict and alliances between these four groups.

I started last week at the beginning by asking my class the question: “How does our history begin?” Now, I was prepared for people to take this as a trick question. I thought I might get answers like “actually, since Christ founded the church, our history begins with the ministry of Jesus in Palestine,” or I thought someone might want to push back further to Eden or even the Pre-Existence. Instead, I instantly got the answer I was fishing for, “with a young man praying in a grove,” one of the class members volunteered immediately.

Exactly. This is how we today always start our story. With the “First Vision.” I next asked “What is the story of the First Vision?” and I had one of the folks write each detail on the whiteboard. The class came up with these details, which I’ll put into order: 1820s, revival meetings, confusion of sects, James 1:5, grove, prayer, vision, personage, creeds an “abomination,” don’t join any sect, found the church. The only details I had on my list that didn’t get volunteered were: “confronted by dark powers” and “pillar of light.” The class clearly knew the story from memory.

We know this story well. I next asked: How do we know it? Where does this story come from? A different class member volunteered, “It was published in the church newspaper.” Bright class! Exactly the traditional account comes from the Times and Seasons in Nauvoo in 1842. (In the LDS Church, this article has been added to a canonized booklet called the “Pearl of Great Price,” a Utah compilation that isn’t part of the Community of Christ tradition.) I had the class read selections from the account to refresh everyone’s memory, which was already pretty good except “remembering” the additional detail of a commission to found the church.

This is the story we tell when we begin to tell our overall story. This is the story we traditionally tell when we’re doing missionary work. My next question to the class was: Why are we using a version from 1842? The church had missionaries from the beginning. It had a newspaper beginning in 1832 and it published tracts and broadsides from the start. Earlier accounts of stories, by and large, are more historically accurate than later retellings. Why are we using such a late version of this pivotal story?

This time I either stumped them or they weren’t as ready to speculate, so they waited for me to supply the answer. My answer is that the earliest missionaries did not tell this story. It was not published in the church’s first newspaper. The earliest members were totally unacquainted with the “First Vision,” and during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, the story did not occupy the critical foundational place that it now occupies. (An example of this unfamiliarity is William McLellin, one of the original apostles who left the church in 1837, had no knowledge of the “First Vision,” see Stan Larson and Samuel J. Passey, eds., The William McLellin Papers, 1854-1880, xxv-xxvi.)

I then explained that although the story wasn’t widely known among members in the 1830s, earlier accounts do exist. The earliest version is from the Kirtland Letter Book and is written in Joseph Smith’s handwriting in 1832. We then read this account and noted some of the differences from the details we’d already written on the whiteboard. The 1832 account is as follows:

At about the age of twelve years my mind became seriously imprest with regard to the all importent concerns for the wellfare of my immortal Soul which led me to searching the scriptures believing as I was taught, that they contained the word of God

thus applying myself to them and my intimate acquaintance with those of different denominations led me to marvel excedingly for I discovered that of adorn their profession by a holy walk and Godly conversation agreeable to what I found contained in that sacred depository this was a grief to my Soul

thus from the age of twelve years to fifteen I pondered many things in my heart concerning the situation of the world of mankind the contentions and div[is]ions the wicke[d]ness and abominations and the darkness which pervaded the minds of mankind

my mind become excedingly distressed for I became convicted of my sins, and by searching the scriptures I found that did not come unto the Lord but that they had apostatised from the true and liveing faith and there was no society or denomination that built upon the gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament

and I felt to mourn for my own sins and for the sins of the world for I learned in the scriptures that God was the same yesterday to day and forever that he was no respecter to persons for he was God

for I looked upon the sun the glorious luminary of the earth and also the moon rolling in their majesty through the heavens and also the stars shining in their courses and the earth also upon which I stood and the beast of the field and the fowls of heaven and the fish of the waters and also man walking forth upon the face of the earth in magesty and in the strength of beauty whose power and inteligence in governing the things which are so exceding great and marvilous even in the likeness of him who created

and when I considered upon these things my heart exclaimed well hath the wise man said fool saith in his heart there is no God

my heart exclaimed all these bear testimony and bespeak an omnipotant and omnipreasant power a being who makith laws and decreeeth and bindeth all things in their bounds who filleth Eternity who was and is and will be from all Eternity to Eternity

and when I considered all these things and that being seeketh such to worship him as worship him in spirit and in truth therefore I cried unto the Lord for mercy for there was none else to whom I could go and obtain mercy and the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and while in attitude of calling upon the Lord a piller of light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god

and the opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph thy sins are forgiven thee. go thy walk in my statures and keep my commandments

behold I am the Lord of glory I was crucifyed for the world that all those who believe on my name may have Eternal life

the world lieth in sin at this time and none doeth good no not one they have turned asside from the gospel and keep not commandments
they draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me and mine anger is kindling against the inhabitants of the earth to visit them according to th[e]ir ungodliness and to bring to pass that which been spoken by the mouth of the prophets and Ap[o]stles behold and lo I come quickly as it [is] written of me in the cloud in the glory of my Father

and my soul was filled with love and for many days I could rejoice with great Joy and the Lord was with me, but [I] could find none that would believe the hevnly vision nevertheless I pondered these things in my heart”

(From Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, 4-6.)

Obvious differences are the inclusion of young Joseph’s concern for over his own sins and salvation and his assurance that his sins were forgiven. Also, in the earlier account, his own scripture reading had convinced him that contemporary Christian sects had practices that were not in keeping with the precedents described in the New Testament. Although we hadn’t written “Two Personages,” another difference is that there is no indication of multiple personages in the earlier account. I then passed out a chart based on information compiled by Richard P. Howard from six versions of the First Vision story (published in Restoration Studies, vol. 1, 107-117; revised and made into a chart by Mark A. Scherer). The chart illustrates an evolution in the details concerning the way the story was remembered and told, from the unfamiliar 1832 account up to the familiar 1842 account.

My point in highlighting the evolution was not to discount or deconstruct the experience. I don’t believe that Joseph Smith told the story different ways because he was “just making it up.” Rather, we should understand that the story was told at different times, to different audiences, for different purposes. It’s clear that memory is also elastic. When our class “remembered” that Joseph had been charged to found the church, they weren’t “lying.” Despite the fact that everyone knew this story so well and none of the accounts includes this detail, our own memories supplied the detail because we know this story as the pivotal precursor to the foundation of the church. Our memories “fixed” the story we know so well by adding details that didn’t originally exist. Likewise, as the theological speculation in Nauvoo turned to the nature of God, Joseph’s later retellings of the story began to include the memory of multiple, distinct “personages.”

I then suggested to the class that we today in the church are also a very different audience than anyone in the 1830s and 1840s, and that the significance of this experience has presumably evolved for us as well. For example, our class balked at the detail that the creeds of fellow denominations are called “an abomination” in the traditional 1842 account. Class members had three or four ways they rationalized that term in order to soften or delete it because as a faith community, we no longer believe we have to call everyone else “false,” in order to claim to possess truth ourselves.

I had intended to ask the class for other enduring truths or elements of the First Vision story that still have meaning for our church, our congregation, and ourselves as individuals today. However, as you can imagine, the lesson had already run long, so I just supplied my own answers, which were: personal search for the divine in all things, continuing revelation, God’s love for all people, open faith without set creeds, hope for forgiveness/salvation.

I ended with the open-ended question that started the lesson. If early church members were unfamiliar with the First Vision story — if it did not originally hold the place in the narrative that it does now — “How does our history begin?”