Latter-day Saint FAIR-Cast

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference. If you would like to watch all the presentations from that conference, you can still purchase the video streaming. Kirk Magleby, Unforgettable Hugh Nibley Hugh Nibley Observed is available from the FAIR Bookstore. Kirk Alder Magleby is the Executive Director of Book of Mormon Central. Kirk was born in Salzburg, Austria, and raised in Utah and Arizona. He served a mission for the Church in Peru. Kirk has a degree in economics from BYU and has spent his life in entrepreneurial as well as religious and humanitarian pursuits. Kirk is currently the Executive Director of Book of Mormon Central. He and his wife, Shannon, have 4 children and 10 grandchildren. The post FAIR Conference Podcast #78 – Kirk Magleby, “Unforgettable Hugh Nibley” appeared first on FAIR.

Worldview Apologetics: Revealing the Waters in Which We Swim by Jeffrey Thayne (This is from a presentation given at the 2021 FAIR Conference) Introduction Let’s imagine two roommates, James and Greg, who both attend BYU. They live under the same roof, they are both practicing Latter-day Saints, and they both claim to believe in the doctrines taught by the Proclamation on the Family about sexuality and gender. However, despite these shared beliefs, the way they experience Church culture, policies, practices, and traditions couldn’t be more different. For James, BYU’s honor code seems like a natural expression of those doctrines, an institutional scaffold that helps reinforce our moral intuitions. For him, discipleship involves participating in a community that encourages and reinforces our shared values and priorities, and helps us maintain our ideals and live out our convictions. For Greg, the community norms those doctrines give rise to are disclosed to him, experienced by him as stifling and burdensome for LGBT students. He concludes that his faith requires him to engage in political and social advocacy on behalf of his LGBT friends, to make the university and the church more hospitable for those who live LGBT lifestyles. How can two people who share the same doctrinal beliefs arrive at such wildly different conclusions? This question is relevant to those of us who want to help members maintain faith and conviction. The Gregs of this story do not always experience a crisis of faith and leave the Church, but Greg’s approach may prime him towards distrust of the Church’s policies and traditions, and sow the seeds of continued disappointment and future disaffection when the Church doesn’t change in the ways he prefers. I believe the answer to this question is that doctrinal propositions are not always the primary source of our most central convictions. More often than not, our convictions form as a result of our worldviews.  Worldviews What is a worldview? A worldview is a set of values and assumptions about the world, through which we interpret our experiences. More specifically, worldviews shape our understanding of what human flourishing and the good life look like. Steve Wilkens and Mark Sanford explain that worldviews “tell us what we should love or despise, what is valuable or unimportant, and what is good or evil.” Like a pair of colored lenses, our worldviews shape and inform where we look and what we see when we look there. This picture, as a metaphor for worldviews, is misleading because it implies that we could take our worldviews off and see the world as it really is. However, we can only ever trade one for another. There is no way to look at the world except through the lens of a worldview. Wilkens and Sanford have written a fantastic book called Hidden Worldviews: Eight Cultural Stories that Shape Our Lives. Written from a broadly Christian perspective, they identify a series of non-Christian worldviews that sometimes shape Christian thinking, worldviews such as consumerism, nationalism, or naturalism. They argue that worldviews are more than lists of propositions. Worldviews, at their core, are rooted in stories. Worldview stories Stories give us characters, and in every story, the characters have goals, desires, or aspirations — the things that the characters are striving for. By setting forth the goals and aspirations of the characters, stories also describe the conflict that drives the story, or the problem that stands between the characters and their aspirations. Worldview stories also set forth the expected, anticipated, or hoped-for resolution to the conflict. In all of these, they shape our understanding of human flourishing and the good life. These stories also define the villains or antagonists of the story. So what is the Gospel worldview, or the Gospel story? Well, as characters of this story, we are sons and daughters of God with a divine destiny. Our goal is salvation and exaltation — to return to live with God again to lay hold upon all the blessings of eternity. What stands between us and our desires? That is, what’s the conflict that drives this story? We (the protagonists) have been alienated from God through sin. What is the anticipated, expected, hoped for resolution? We find redemption through Christ by making and keeping covenants and participating in sacred ordinances, and by so doing lays hold upon the fruits of the Spirit in our day-to-day life. We become reconciled with God and commune with Him in holy temples. When we embrace and internalize this worldview and its story, we see human flourishing and the good life as bound up in the fruits and gifts of the Spirit, and in temple worship — regardless of our life circumstances, or the trials we face. The villain of the story are sin, vice, and the Adversary who entices us towards sin and rebellion. Confessional vs. convictional beliefs It is in the translation of these stories into our lives that we form our convictions. To be clear, convictions here are more than mere stated beliefs. Wilkins and Sanford argue that our stated beliefs — that is, our confessional beliefs — can be at odds with our convictional beliefs. Confessional beliefs are those doctrinal commitments that we profess to hold to. Convictional beliefs are those values that are reflected in how we live. In their book, Sanford and Wilkens explore consumerism as an example of a worldview that competes with the Gospel story. Consumerism is a worldview that depicts us as consumers, built to enjoy — and our aspirations are a life of material comfort. What stands in the way? Scarcity or lack of money. The hoped for resolution is improved employment and income, the accumulation of wealth, and increased material comforts and enjoyment. In this worldview, human flourishing is found in material consumption. The villain of this story is anything that gets in the way of material comfort and prosperity, be it income inequality, unemployment, underemployment, etc. It is possible for a Christian to openly confess that their aspirations are discipleship, sacrifice, and service, and yet live as if their highest priority is material comfort instead. Their confessional beliefs (the doctrines they claim to believe in) may diverge from their convictional beliefs, which are handed to them by an undetected consumeristic worldview. In the same way, in the example above, both James and Greg share a confessional belief in the Church’s doctrines on the family, but Greg’s convictional beliefs may be informed by something else. We will get to what that “something else” is in a moment. Hidden Worldviews Sanford and Wilkens explain that our questions and discourse can often be informed by “hidden worldviews” that sneak into our thinking and shape our convictions: It is not the worldviews that begin as theories or intellectual systems that mold the lives and beliefs of most people. Instead, the most powerful influences come from worldviews that emerge from culture. They are all around us, but are so deeply embedded in culture that we don’t see them. In other words, these worldviews are hidden in plain sight. [W]e are more likely to absorb them from cultural contact than adopt them through a rational evaluation of competing theories. … Because of their stealthy nature, these worldviews find their way behind the church doors, mixed in with Christian ideas and sometimes identified as Christian positions. In a similar way, I believe that many Latter-day Saints today struggle with their faith not because they’ve learned about something Brigham Young said or did, or because they’ve discovered some nasty facts surrounding polygamy, or some of the eccentricities of Book of Mormon translation. Many think that their trials of faith center on these questions, and some of them may be right. But it seems to me that many of those who struggle with these historical questions do so because they’ve first embraced unquestioningly, and often wittingly, other worldviews with stories that tilt them towards doubt. Having done so, the historical questions provide a pretext for a faith crisis that has been in the works long before they ever realized it. And the true reasons for the crisis are often beyond their ability to articulate — they are merely living out the story handed to them by their worldview. The Joshua Tree Principle We often don’t always have a shared language for talking about these competing worldviews. Let me share a story that is told by a graphic designer named Robin Williams: Many years ago I received a tree identification book for Christmas. I was at my parents’ home, and after all the gifts had been opened I decided to go out and identify the trees in the neighborhood. Before I went out, I read through part of the book. The first tree in the book was the Joshua tree because it took only two clues to identify it. Now, the Joshua tree is a really weird-looking tree and I looked at that picture and said to myself, ‘Oh, we don’t have that kind of tree in northern California. That is a weird looking tree. I would know if I saw that tree, and I’ve never seen one before.’ So I took my book and went outside. My parents lived in a cul-de-sac of six homes. Four of those homes had Joshua trees in the front yard. I had lived in that house for 13 years, and I had never seen a Joshua tree. … Once I was conscious of the tree, once I could name it, I saw it everywhere. This is what I sometimes call the Joshua tree principle. If we cannot name something, it is often invisible to us. And our own worldviews are often invisible to us precisely because we don’t have names for them. And so by giving names to these worldviews, and showcasing them with examples, we’ve done perhaps a third of the necessary work. We will have revealed to many who are struggling something about their own thinking that they, before, did not fully notice or realize. For some, this unveiling and revealing might even be enough to show them the source of their difficulties and the path back into faith and conviction. For others, it might at least be a start on that journey. Expressive individualism Let’s look at a worldview in depth. Expressive individualism is a worldview that gives self-expression a privileged place among human goods, and treats the social freedom to engage in self-expression as a paramount virtue. Like all worldviews, it hands us a story. In this story, we aspire to become who we truly are. The conflict of this story is aptly illustrated in the writings of humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers, who argued that the threat of judgment from others creates a split between our private and public selves. Because of cultural norms, family expectations, or religious conventions, we hide our “true selves” from the world. Therapeutic healing, in Rogers’ view, requires us to break free from the shackles of ‘oughts’ and ‘thou shalts,’ and embrace what we have hidden from others. The expected, hoped for resolution to this conflict is that we step into and assert our true selves. Carl Rogers explained: “Over against these pressures for conformity, we find that when clients are free to be any way they wish, they tend to resent and to question the tendency of the organization, the college or the culture to mould them to any given form.” Human flourishing, then, is defined as living in a community that celebrates our uniquenesses and differences — a community that doesn’t evaluate our choices or have an agenda for our lives. The villain of the story is anyone who makes us feel self-conscious or evaluated for our self-expression. In this way, expressive individualism leads us to be suspicious of any religious mores, cultural norms, or societal institutions that discourage self-expression. In its most extreme forms, expressive individualism presumes that there is no greater moral authority than the self, to decide what the “good life” or human flourishing looks like for us. Expressive individualism makes an idol of personal autonomy and free choice, unfettered by stifling religious conventions. From this view, community norms and religious precepts that lead people to evaluate our choices — especially choices that we see as the outgrowth of our natural selves, our true selves — hinder personal development. Let’s put the expressive individualist story and the Gospel story side-by-side. The expressive individualist story takes place in three stages: First, the protagonist finds herself in a community of oppressive norms and expectations. This could be a community culture that discourages rocket building in favor of coal mining. This could be a religious community that discourages embracing LGBT lifestyles. Whatever the case may be, the community does not celebrate their unique preferences, desires, or aspirations. Next, the protagonist breaks free of the constraints of her family, community, or faith, embraces authenticity and self-expression, and becomes the person she wants to be, to be true to her heart. She embraces whatever parts of themselves they were formerly hiding from the world, be that rocketry or an LGBT lifestyle. Finally, the protagonist returns, revisits, or reinvests in his community, for the purpose of remaking the community’s norms to accommodate the new version of themselves. They seek reconciliation by re-inventing the community in their image. For example, they might engage in social advocacy to dismantle norms that discourage LGBT lifestyles. Or they might start a rocket science club in their school. The Gospel narrative can also be expressed in three stages: The protagonist comes to acknowledge the ways in which she has alienated herself from God through sin. The protagonist seeks redemption and reconciliation with God through Christ, by making and keeping sacred covenants. She ends up becoming a disciple, and serving Christ, and enjoying the fruits and gifts of the Spirit. This isn’t to say that all examples of expressive individualism are bad. Individualism is a wonderful thing if you are a bookworm or theater nerd in a high school that prioritizes athleticism. Or an aspiring rocket scientist in a community that expects you to become a coal miner (if you have read that book or seen that movie). Sometimes we need to re-evaluate community norms that stifle legitimate self-expression, and be more deliberate in valuing and celebrating individual differences. However, as a worldview, these stories set forth different values and priorities for us. Where expressive individualism makes community norms the central hurdle of the story, the Gospel makes sin the central hurdle of the story. Worldviews affect our vocabulary Worldviews, and their stories, not only shape our values and assumptions, they can also shape our vocabulary and how we experience the world. And here’s where we circle back to James and Greg, from earlier. The reason why James and Greg have such different experiences in the Church — despite superficially similar doctrinal beliefs — is because Greg has embraced expressive individualism as his core worldview. Expressive individualism can influence how we define and experience love. Expressive individualism defines love as the absence of judgment, and also as an affirmation and celebration of whatever ways you differ from the community. Carl Rogers argued that human flourishing requires spaces of unconditional positive regard, therapeutic contexts in which individuals feel no hint or threat of evaluation or judgment. Only in such no-judgment zones can individuals freely experiment with and step into their “truest” selves and become who they were built to be. As useful as this might be in a therapeutic context, as these ideas found expression in popular culture, the term “unconditional positive regard” was unwieldy and a bit niche. So it was shortened to “unconditional love.” This term “unconditional love” was rarely used prior to the advent of humanistic psychology. It began to be used in the 1960s, and exploded in the 1990s and 1990s as humanistic psychology became popular. And because of this, the term has some undeclared baggage and smuggles into our discourse some unwitting assumptions about the nature of love. Basically, many people, including many Latter-day Saints, have come to see love and discernment as opposites. Just as a therapist who evaluates his client’s decisions is not providing “unconditional positive regard” (according to Rogers), so it is that when parents, friends, teachers, or Church leaders evaluate someone’s choices in light of the Restored Gospel and the covenants they have made, they are not providing “unconditional love” (according to an expressive individualist worldview). As a consequence, any attempt to reinforce a community’s distinctive norms is taken to be unloving. In this view, love means celebrating uniquenesses and differences, encouraging others to live out their differences, and facilitating that in whatever ways we can. The purest expression of love, in this view, looks a lot like social advocacy. And because worldviews shape how we experience the world, when expressive individualism is absorbed as our guiding worldview, anything short of affirmation doesn’t “feel” like love to us. I want to be crystal clear here. We should be patient with others, refrain from needless criticism, and help those who wander feel wanted and valued within our congregations. God is patient with us, and so we should be patient with others. We should create a community where God’s abiding love is unmistakable — a bonfire of redeeming love that warms those who have felt alienated from God. Those who sin should feel welcomed, loved, and wanted in our congregations and communities. And any time we falter in this regard, we should take corrective action. However, this open-hearted Christian humility, compassion, and charity is fundamentally different from the expressive individualist notion of affirmation and celebration. In a Christian worldview, love is all about genuine concern, with an aim towards the salvation and exaltation of souls, through repentance, forgiveness, and transformation through Christ. In a Christian worldview, love is not indifference, and indifference is not love. Self-righteous judgment, self-serving condemnation, prideful nitpicking, moral grandstanding, etc., are all lapses in love. But so is apathy towards, or even celebration of, choices that contradict divine teaching. So it is that while James experiences a community of loving concern at Church, Greg experiences a community of unloving judgment. Their experiences are the same but are experienced differently by each because of the worldview lenses through which they are seeing the world. Similarly, when James and Greg hear President Nelson encouraging members to stay on the covenant path, James hears this as love, and Greg hears this as a lapse in love, as a threat of judgment should he or others deviate from the covenant path. The “Rogerian” baggage of the term “unconditional love,” and the subsequent linguistic drift in our definition of love, can go a long way towards explaining why President Nelson, in 2003, and Elder Christofferson, in 2016, both warned against the term, with a preference towards divine love, abiding love, infinite love, or love unfeigned. Unlike a Rogerian therapist who imposes no expectations on the client, our God — a being of infinite, pure, abiding love — has tremendous expectations of us and an agenda for our lives and eternity. Expressive individualism can influence how we define terms like Zion. Latter-day Saints who embrace expressive individualism often define Zion as a place where no one feels self-conscious for being who they are, where their differences are celebrated by everyone in the community. I would submit that, from a scriptural perspective, Zion is a place where God’s laws and teachings are no longer merely aspirational ideals, but have become shared commitments and community norms. The consequences of these vocabulary shifts are tremendous — they effect how we perceive and experience efforts to reinforce the distinctive norms of the Latter-day Saint community, and to what extent we believe those norms should reflect our teachings about chastity, marriage, and gender. For example, while James sees robust norms that encourage chastity as part and parcel with the “Zion experience,” Greg begins to believe that we cannot achieve Zion until same-sex couples can freely express their sexual preferences — their true selves — in Church or at BYU without ever fearing judgment from those around them. Understanding discipleship Let’s flesh out the Gospel alternative to expressive individualism a little bit more. Whereas expressive individualism assumes that we flourish most in a context where no one else has an agenda for us, we belong to a religious community that does have an agenda for us. We call it the covenant path. And the guide-rails and signposts on that covenant path may not always dovetail our personal inclinations. I like to refer to the alternative to expressive individualism as Christian discipleship, which I see as a willingness to be disciplined by Christ — and also by institutions that bear His divine authority and name. As Latter-day Saints, we strive embrace a Gospel worldview in which commitments to community can transcend personal aspirations, where higher duties such as parenthood, priesthood service, and personal covenants take precedence over personal preferences. From the view of expressive individualism, individuals are the sole experts on what the good life looks like for them. But from a Christian perspective, we are not always the expert on what human flourishing looks like for us. There is a higher power, a divine moral sovereign, who we trust more than the self to know what our eternal destiny looks like. C.S. Lewis expressed this well when he wrote, The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. … Our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and natural desires. … It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own. Here, C.S. Lewis depicts us as subject to a divine sovereign who has an agenda for us — an agenda that we do not necessarily, right now, have for ourselves. Human flourishing is not centered primarily on self-expression, but just as much on submission, and sacrifice, and living beyond ourselves in pursuit of commitments, duties, and covenants. It can involve a very different future for ourselves than we currently imagine or wish for — and, in fact, when Christ is done with us, we might wish or want very different things for ourselves. As Alma the Younger put it immediately after his conversion: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; And thus they become new creatures. In short, Christ can change the desires of our hearts — the things we value, prize, prioritize, and most earnestly seek after (and at times wait for) in our various life circumstances. Genuine, lasting conversion involves something more than asserting our uniqueness in the world, which is the rubric of expressive individualism. It involves a change in our values and priorities, so that they more closely resemble God’s values and priorities. To be crystal clear, I am not saying that discipleship means that community norms are exempt from scrutiny, or that discipleship involves blithely complying with all existing community norms. That’s traditionalism, not discipleship. Traditionalism can be a counterfeit of discipleship. The expressive individualist says, “Follow your heart.” Salvation is found in being true to ourselves. The traditionalist says, “Follow the rules.” Salvation is found in following the rules. In contrast to both, the Savior said, “Follow thou me.” Salvation is found in Him. And as we follow Him, we allow him to change our hearts, and we also at times set forth to change our communities for the better. But what that looks like will be different, depending on the worldview we embrace. How we absorb worldviews Worldviews are a funny thing — we rarely step into them knowingly. We passively absorb them as part of the zeitgeist of our times. If you want to change a person’s worldviews, you don’t necessarily write books. Creating a “worldview identification book,” like the tree identification book earlier, can help us learn to see the invisible — and that’s great. But we absorb these invisible worldviews in the first place most often through our entertainment. It’s in the music we listen to, the movies we watch, the novels we read. Like the air we breathe, if movie after movie, show after show, book after book, song after song, tells us stories that follow the expressive individualist template above, we can internalize that story as a default without ever realizing we are doing it. And the way our own faith traditions appear to us can be changed by that story, as well as our priorities and values. Most who embrace expressive individualism have never heard of Carl Rogers, and have merely imbibed on our cultural assumption — handed to us from Disney and other Hollywood studios — that human flourishing involves being true to ourselves, true to our hearts, or asserting our uniquenesses against a world that would suppress them. A fun exercise is to ask: What sorts of plots and stories would populate our movies if self-discipline, moral-centeredness, and personal sacrifice were treated at least as important as self-expression? If, in addition to stories of protagonists learning to assert their own preferences and to be themselves, we also had more stories of protagonists who relinquish some of their personal, self-centered aspirations for the sake of their family and community, and find meaning and purpose in committing themselves to a cause that is greater than themselves? Stories where community norms are not the villain, but play an essential role? Today, I extend an invitation to fellow writers and artists throughout the Church to explore these questions. Additional worldviews Alright, so here, I’ve touched on expressive individualism, and contrasted it with Christian discipleship. Expressive individualism is one of many such worldviews that can be explored. Another related worldview is therapeutic deism, a worldview which presumes that purpose of religion is to help us be fulfilled, happy, and healthy. It offers us a central story where our lives were full of pain and hardship until we embraced religion. Because of our religious commitments, we are now content and happy. This can lead us to prioritize low-demand, high warmth religious traditions and to see trial and struggle as signs of divine disfavor, or as a sign that our religion traditions are yet imperfect. We can contrast therapeutic deism with Christian theism, the belief that God is our divine moral sovereign, and that religion is more than about securing fulfillment and contentment in life — it is just as much about holiness, moral discipline, and becoming like God. In this view, we can recognize the necessity of pain and suffering as part of our sanctifying experiences, and see religion not as an escape from or cure for our trials but as a lens that provides meaning and purpose in our trials. Christian theism is, I believe, rightly consider a high warmth but also high demand faith tradition. Someday, if I’m ever invited back here, I’ll explore therapeutic deism in much greater detail, and why apologists should be aware of it. Another worldview is scientism, which gives us a central story where humankind progresses through history only by abandoning religious superstitions in light of scientific enlightenment. In this cultural story, societal progress is continually stymied throughout history by religious institutions and traditions. The dedicated efforts of scientists help move society forward in spite of these backwards influences. This worldview primes us to be suspicion of claims to revelation and to view empirical methods as the source of all reliable truth. Ben Spackman has spoken in this forum about the dangers of fundamentalism. He uses the term in a very specific way, with a very specific meaning. I’ll use the term in a different sense here, to refer more broadly to a worldview that assumes that divine instruction can never change. It hands us a story where direct revelation established divine teaching, and where communities subsequently depart from that original teaching and thus fall into apostasy. This story has kernels of truth — profound truth. It is, after all, a worldview narrative at the heart of our history as members of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ. But as the only story, it can prime us to reject ongoing revelation if it appears even slightly different from our past interpretations of historical revelation. This is how you get Denver Snuffer, Alan Rock Waterman, and their followers. We can also explore the ways in which nationalism and other political worldviews set forth stories that shape our convictions and priorities in ways that distort how we live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ — stories that center on the state as the primary authority in our lives, and the locus of our salvation from the ills that plague our society (or the world). There are others I could include here, such as hedonism, which treats pleasure, satisfaction, and personal fulfillment are life’s highest goods, and that pain and suffering are inherent evils to be avoided. Or secular humanism, which centers our attentions on human efforts and activity, as opposed to God’s activity in the world, as the source of progress and salvation. Conclusions I want to emphasize that even though these are all narratives that can compete with the Gospel narrative or the Gospel worldview, one can be a practicing, believing Latter-day Saint while embracing these various alternatives as their central worldview. And this is precisely, I believe, why many are having a faith crisis today — they have already been proselyted into competing worldviews, and just do not yet know it. As unwitting adherents to a foreign faith, but active participants of this one, they may start to find many of the things we do and teach to be strange and problematic. When a person embraces expressive individualism as their central story, they might find it unjust that the temple garment interferes with preferred styles of dress. An uncritical adoption of therapeutic deism might leave someone wary of temple worthiness requirements and the attendant social risks of failing to meet them. An uncritical embrace of hedonism might lead someone to feel like their religion is failing them when they experience episodes of depression. An uncritical embrace of scientism might lead someone to implicitly elevate social scientists over prophets and apostles as the primary authorities on the good life and human flourishing. And so on. Although ostensibly “inside” our faith, they view our practices and teachings through worldview lenses that predispose them to view our teachings and practices with some measure of suspicion. I’m not trying to universalize this interpretation to everyone. My case is simply that many are having a crisis of faith precisely because they are straddling two worlds and do not even realize they are doing so. Uncomfortable maintaining that posture, but not equipped with the language to articulate their predicament, they fixate on historical stuff that — for many of the rest of us — might pose few problems at all, but for someone who is already feeling out of place, might give them precisely the pretexts they need to leave. Our critics sometimes accuse us of being unwilling to question. I believe we should ask far more questions than we often do, and that real critical thinking involves asking questions about our questions. What cultural and worldview assumptions are baked in the questions themselves? How are the terms defined? Why these questions, and not others? How do our worldviews inform what we accept as admissible answers to our questions? I believe that when we learn to think critically about our questions, we can become more discerning and thoughtful Latter-day Saints. Today I extend an invitation: we need more people working on articulating these competing worldviews, providing labels for them, critically examining them by comparing and contrasting them with Gospel perspectives. We desperately need an improved vernacular and vocabulary on these matters, a “worldview identification book” — or many such books — to help make what is invisible to us visible. In other words, we need more people thoughtfully challenging the cultural presumptions of our day. And more especially, we need thoughtful writers and creators to explore how these worldviews find expression in our entertainment and media, and what it would look like if alternatives found similar expression along the way. I want to end today with a witness of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the powerful story it tells about who we are and where we are going. We lived with God before, we stepped into mortality for glorious purposes, and each and every one of us has been alienated from God to some degree through sin. Through Christ, we can find redemption and reconciliation. We travel that journey by making and keeping sacred covenants. And the end, the goal, the telos of all of this — at least in the here and now — is to enjoy the fruits and gifts of the Spirit in our day to day lives. I want to share my witness of the Savior and His role in this story. We like to think of ourselves as the protagonists of the Gospel story, but the hero of this story is and always will be Him. And I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. More Come, Follow Me resources here.   Dr. Jeffrey Thayne graduated from BYU with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in psychology. He completed his doctorate in Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences at Utah State University. He runs the popular Latter-day Saint Philosopher blog, and spends time engaging in worldview apologetics (articulating and exploring the worldview assumptions that inform our faith). He currently resides in Washington state with his wife and two children. The post Come, Follow Me Week 9 – Genesis 24–27 appeared first on FAIR.

Polygamy as an Abrahamic Sacrifice by V.H. Cassler (From a presentation originally titled “A Reconciliation of Polygamy,” given at the 2011 FAIR Conference; edited here for clarity and length) Today we are going to talk about polygamy but probably in a different way than you have heard about it before. That is, we are going to talk about the doctrinal ins-and-outs of it rather than historical practices. During the period of time when the restored Church was commanded by the Lord to practice polygamy, some practiced it without any discernible hardship and still others with great pain. Contemporary Church members may look back upon that period with acceptance, or indifference, or discomfort, and I would like to say at the outset that I don’t see that diversity of feelings is harmful that people differ in their reactions to polygamy I don’t think is the issue. Rather, since the new and everlasting covenant of marriage is at the heart of the work of eternal life and godhood; confusion about the nature and form of lawful marriage ordained by God is harmful. Women and men may think that gender equality is compromised by the doctrine of polygamy. We need to know more, in other words. The overarching question we pose, therefore, is whether God has revealed his mind about these matters, and we believe that he has, specifically in Jacob 2 and in Doctrine & Covenants 132. Why should we rely on these particular scriptures in order to tease out Mormon doctrine about polygamy? Well, I would like to make reference to an extraordinary statement that the Church issued on the 4th of May 2007. The statement is actually rather long, but here is an excerpt from it. “Not every statement made by a church leader – past or present – necessarily constitutes doctrine. A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal though well-considered opinion but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole church. With divine inspiration, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publication. This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of scripture official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith. So I think if we want to address polygamy as a doctrine of the Church we must sort out what is Church doctrine, what we can enter in to the dialogue about polygamy and what we really can’t invite in as part of the dialogue about polygamy. So what is Church doctrine? It is what is currently taught; it is what is consistently taught; and it is to be found in a official church publication, specifically as we have just seen: the scriptures, the declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith. Now I point this out because what I have found is that among our faith community there are still a number of teachings that some subscribe to and believe are Mormon doctrine that in fact are not. Let me give you just three examples: the teaching of blood atonement for murder (the Church has come out with an official statement that this is not a doctrine of the LDS church; the teaching that Christ was married (the Church says we don’t know if Christ was married –we are not saying he is not, but we are not saying he was — that is not a doctrine of the Church; and third, the teaching that Heavenly Father had sexual relations with Mary (again, the Church has announced that this is not Church doctrine. What is binding upon the Church membership is Church doctrine. Various church teachings the Church does not accept as being Church doctrine. Let’s get back to the question in hand. Many, including, reportedly Emma Smith, have had difficulty reconciling Jacob 2 and D&C 132. In fact, I just saw in the Provo Daily Herald yesterday, a letter to the editor in which it was raised, “Aren’t these two scriptures in contradiction?” which I thought was interesting. We choose to operate from a different assumption. These scriptures, found in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, come to us without taint of mistranslation or interpretation over millennia, in contrast to the Bible. Therefore, we do not believe that Jacob 2 and D&C 132 could have been mistranslated. In that case, we must either conclude that God revealed something to Jacob contradictory to that which he revealed to Joseph Smith, or we must assume that these two scriptures do not contradict one another. I am going to assume the latter. I am going to assume that these two scriptures are not only not in contradiction but in fact reinforce, affirm, and parallel one another. To see how this is so, let us first ask about the principle and purpose of marriage in God’s work. We know quite a bit about marriages as an eternal principle. God commands his children to marry (D&C 49). God married our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden before the Fall (Moses 3). Scripture asserts that persons must be married to inherit the fullness of the Father in the celestial kingdom and that those who are not worthy of the celestial kingdom live as unmarried persons (D&C 132). Furthermore, not only are persons to be married, but they are to be married in the New and Everlasting Covenant. The Lord states that this type of marriage is “by my word, which is my law.” In LDS culture we colloquially refer to marriage in the New and Everlasting Covenant as “temple marriage.” From all of this we understand that marriage in the New and Everlasting Covenant, or temple marriage, is an eternal principle of the highest importance, and this is so because of the purpose of such marriage. The purpose of marriage in mortality and the purpose of marriage in the hereafter is to further the work of divine love. This work has a two-fold nature. The purpose of marriage in mortality is to raise up righteous seed to God, which accomplishment merits for the marriage partners a right to the “continuation of the seeds forever and ever.” This spiritual rationale which underpins the eternal principle of marriage in the new and everlasting covenant is God’s overarching work of love for his children to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. Given this eternal principle of marriage in the new and everlasting covenant, what is the law, the general rule or unrestricted form of marriage? Is there a lawful exception? What is the nature and status of that lawful exception? Let us first turn to Jacob’s sermon on this topic. What is the form of Jacob’s discussion of marriage? First, Jacob notes a social problem of great severity at his time. The men at his time are taking many wives and concubines and “seek to excuse themselves in committing these whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon, his son” (Jacob 2). The situation is that these great men of the scripture were doing one thing, but God is now saying that those who follow David and Solomon’s example are committing “iniquity.” How are we to understand this apparent contradiction? This is the question that prompts Jacob’s short but profound sermon on the law of marriage. In answer to that question, the Lord notes that these men “understand not the scriptures” and err when they “seek to excuse themselves” in emulating David and Solomon. The Lord continues, “David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me.” Immediately following this frank judgment, the Lord states, “Wherefore I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem,” — notice the term “wherefore,” meaning ‘because of this’ — “I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem by the power of mine arm that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Wherefore, I the Lord will not suffer that this people should do like unto them of old.”The use of the word “wherefore” in these two scriptures reveals that part of the purpose in separating the Nephites from the civilization of their origin and bringing them across the ocean to the Promised Land was to “raise up a righteous” people who would not succumb to the errors of David and Solomon. How would the children of Lehi act if this purpose had been fulfilled? In the very next verse we are given the answer to that question. In verse 27, Jacob expounds the law of marriage — the rule or unrestricted form of marriage, if you will: “Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none”. The general law or rule or unrestricted form of the eternal principle of marriage is monogamy. That monogamy is the law or rule of the principle of marriage is found several places throughout the scriptures. Here’s an example, Doctrine and Covenants 49 “Wherefore, it is lawful that he [man] should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation.” In the beginning, when the earth was empty and sorely needed replenishing, God gave Adam but one wife, Eve, that the pattern of his law of marriage might be set from the dawn of time in the very first human marriage on earth. Joseph Smith said, “I have constantly said no man shall have but one wife at a time, unless the Lord directs otherwise.” Bruce R. McConkie concurs: “According to the Lord’s law of marriage, it is lawful that a man have only one wife at a time, unless by revelation the Lord commands plurality of wives in the New and everlasting covenant.” Of course, taking a plurality of wives outside of the New and everlasting covenant, outside of being commanded to do so by the Lord, is always a grievous sin. Jacob teaches us that monogamy is the general law of marriage and polygamy is an exception to the general law, which exception must be commanded by the Lord before it can be practiced. Furthermore, Jacob reveals the reason the Lord will command the exception: “For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people to practice polygamy; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.” –that is to take but one wife and have no concubines. With this understanding of the purpose of marriage and the law and the lawful exception of marriage in mind, Jacob’s sermon is profound, despite its brevity. Rooted in divine love for his children, God commands men and women to marry. In general, he commands them to marry monogamously. Sometimes, he will command them to marry polygamously. Both the giving of the general law and the commandment to depart from the general law are motivated by God’s love for us. But one thing is also clear from Jacob’s sermon: God is not indifferent concerning how his children marry. He actively and severely restricts the practice of polygamy, while leaving monogamy unrestricted. One can be “destroyed” for practicing polygamy without God’s sanction, becoming “angels to the devil” and “bringing your children unto destruction, and their sins heaped upon your head at the last day,” but no such punishment attends the practice of monogamy. Our next question for whose answer we must turn to D&C 132 is simple. Why is God not indifferent concerning the practices of monogamy and polygamy, severely restricting as he does the second while leaving the first virtually unrestricted? For that we must turn to D&C 132. D&C 132, I think, is one of the deepest and most thought-provoking scriptures in our canon. And it is also one I think that many LDS wrestle with. So let’s wrestle with it. Shall we? D&C 132 concerns the New and everlasting covenant of marriage and its place at the heart of the plan of salvation and exaltation. Without its restoration, the fullness of eternal life would be unobtainable. Thankfully, as noted in D&C 132:40, the Lord gave Joseph Smith an “appointment” to “restore all things,” and therefore Joseph Smith restored the New and everlasting covenant of marriage. This much is indisputable. What is often in dispute in our culture is what exactly that means. Given the over 150 years that have passed since the receipt of the revelation known as D&C 132, we are in a better position to settle that dispute. Joseph Smith restored marriage for “time and all eternity,” which we now colloquially call “temple marriage.” In restoring the principle of temple marriage, Joseph Smith restored both the general law of marriage and the lawful exception as elucidated by Jacob centuries before. Put more precisely, Joseph Smith restored the general law of monogamous temple marriage and he restored the lawful exception of polygamous temple marriage. At the time of the revelation most scholars say prior to the date given for D&C 132, God commanded Joseph Smith to command the Church membership to practice polygamy. By so doing, God activated the lawful exception to the general law of marriage. Thus, polygamous marriages entered into in the temple after that commandment was given by the Lord were “without condemnation on earth and in heaven.” Putting Jacob’s teachings together with Joseph’s teachings, the commandment to practice polygamy was given by God at that time for the purpose of “raising up seed unto me God”. However, in 1890 God rescinded the commandment sanctioning the lawful exception to the general law of marriage. Polygamous marriages would no longer be recognized by the Lord and indeed would be grounds for excommunication from the Church. This rescinding did not unrestore the New and everlasting covenant of marriage, or temple marriage. Temple marriage is a mainstay of our religion and will never cease to be our ideal. The New and everlasting covenant of marriage is still among us, but the commandment to live the lawful exception to the general law of marriage in the New and everlasting covenant is no longer among us. Thus the restoration of all things does not demand that polygamy be actively practiced among the Saints; it merely demands that the possibility of God commanding polygamy, which possibility demands the restoration of temple marriage and sealing keys exists, and so it does to this day. As long as there are temples and sealing keys among our people, God can, whenever he chooses to do so, command his people to practice polygamy. But the presence of temples and sealing keys does not conversely demand or necessitate that God actually issue the command to practice polygamy. Our contemporary situation is perfectly described in this manner and explains how Bruce R. McConkie could conclude that polygamy cannot be a requirement for exaltation and why the Church does not preach that it is. So we conclude that in restoring all things, Joseph Smith restored temple marriage, complete with its general law, monogamous temple marriage and the possibility of God-commanded lawful exception, polygamous temple marriage. Thus we see that God’s lack of indifference concerning the manner of marriage among his children which we noted in Jacob 2 persists in D&C 132. Even with the restoration of temple marriage, God is still not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy. If he were indifferent, his words to us might be, “As long as you marry in the temple, I am indifferent as to whether you marry monogamously or polygamously.” But such a conclusion cannot be reached, for he persists in actively and severely restricting polygamy despite the presence of temples in our midst. Absent a commandment from the Lord to practice polygamy given through his mouthpiece the prophet, a member of the Church would be excommunicated for attempting to practice it. Now some have suggested that it’s simply the illegality of polygamy in the U.S. that is the issue. Well, that actually is not the issue. I think you already know that. Such an excommunication would take place even if the Church member were living in a land where polygamy was legal. Even if polygamy were to be legalized in the United States itself, the Church would still excommunicate members in the U.S. who attempted to practice it, unless the Lord issued the required commandment through the prophet to practice it. Our missionaries are not allowed to baptize polygamists, even if they live in countries where polygamy is completely legal. There is no greater spiritual punishment the Church can mete out against an offender than excommunication. God persists in making a strong discrimination between monogamy and polygamy, even in the context of the restoration of all things. We now turn once again, I think to the crux of the matter. Why is God not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy? When we believe that in Doctrine and Covenants we will find the light that we need. We go so far as to say that in this scripture the Lord freely reveals his mind to his children concerning the reasons for his lack of indifference. I think one of the most one of the marvelous elements of the Lord’s discourse in Doctrine and Covenants 132 and in the Doctrine and Covenants more broadly, is the insight it gives us into how the Lord reasons. The argument the Lord puts forward is meant to be understood by his people. I must tell you as a convert to the Church and as a member of the Roman Catholic Church growing up, I will never forget in catechism school when something that didn’t quite add up would be raised by the nuns, I would raise my hand and I would say, “Sr. McElroy, I don’t understand.” and she would say to me, “That’s the beauty of it! That’s the mystery of the divinity of God!” and I would be like… And so I must admit being a rather concrete type of person it was such a relief, such a wonder, to hear by reading Doctrine and Covenants that God actually wants us to understand why he is thinking about things the way he is thinking about them. Now whether we mere mortals can fully understand is another question, but the desire on his part that we understand I think is really unique in the LDS Church. Alright, so back to this. Let’s make the reasonable assumption that God means what he says, and God wants us to understand what he means. So in Doctrine and Covenants 132, the Lord attempts to reason with Joseph Smith in order to help him understand the principles involved in marriage. In Doctrine and Covenants Section 50 we see here, “And now come…by the Spirit, unto the elders of [my] church, and let us reason together, that you may understand; Let us reason even as a man reasoneth one with another face to face. Now, when a man reasoneth he is understood of man, because he reasoneth as a man; even so will I, the Lord, reason with you that you may understand. Wherefore, I the Lord, will ask you this question…” So in D&C 132, we can assume the Lord will reason with us and present arguments that we may understand on the issue of polygamy, and the Lord will begin his chain of reasoning as he mentioned in D&C 50 with a question, which he will then proceed to answer. So the Lord states at the beginning of the revelation: “You [Joseph Smith] have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David, and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines — Behold and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching this matter.” What is the form of the argument concerning the law of marriage in this scripture? The form is virtually identical to Jacob 2, which demonstrates the consistency and unchanging nature of the Lord’s reasoning on this matter. D&C 132 parallels Jacob 2 and serves as a more detailed exposition and affirmation of Jacob 2. Let us see how this is so. The same historical question serves as the catalyst for [Section] 132 as it did for Jacob 2. What are we to make of the practice of David, Solomon, and other great patriarchs of old having many wives and concubines? This time the inquirer is Joseph Smith — he who had previously translated the Book of Mormon, including Jacob 2. This inquiry is again met by a setting forth of the general principles of marriage in the New and everlasting covenant, then followed by a more specific explanation of the lawful exception of polygamy. Hyrum M. Smith’s early commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants states, “The Revelation is divided into two parts. The first part, comprising verses 3 to 33, deals mainly with the principle of celestial marriage, or marriage for time and all eternity, and the second, comprising the remaining verses, deals with plural marriage.” Now, as to the first part of D&C 132, verses 3 to 33, we have a reiteration that you must marry, and you must marry in the temple in order for your marriage to be effective in the hereafter and in order for you to be exalted,. And we learned that those who reject temple marriage  cannot have eternal increase; they cannot be gods but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants. Now in the setting fourth in 3 to 33 of the general principle of eternal marriage, temple marriage, marriage in the New and everlasting covenant, there is no mention of polygamy; indeed, the whole issue of David and Solomon is not raised once in the verses where the Lord discusses in general what eternal marriage is, why he commands it, and why those who reject it are condemned. Additionally, this marriage covenant is described in terms that do not necessarily imply polygamy at all. I mean, it’s not there in verses 3 to 33. It is not until the second half of the revelation, starting with verse 34 forward, that polygamy is addressed. Before the Lord begins his discussion of polygamy, he introduces the case of Abraham. The Lord begins by explaining that because of Abraham’s righteousness in receiving “all things” by “revelation and commandment,” Abraham “hath entered into his exaltation and sitteth upon his throne. As a result, Abraham’s seed will ‘continue’ and will be “as innumerable as the stars”. A key element of Abraham’s righteousness was to enter into the law, which provides for “the continuation of the works of my Father, wherein he glorifieth himself”. The law referred to here is the law, or general principle, that the Lord has been expounding up to that point: marriage in the New and everlasting covenant, Abraham accepted marriage in the New and everlasting covenant. Again the Lord warns, as he does in verses 3, etcetera “[Except ye enter] into my law and be saved, ye cannot receive the promise of my Father…” Finally, starting with verse 34, the Lord turns to the topic of polygamy. He begins the discussion with a statement of fact: “God commanded Abraham, and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife.” In the verses that follow, the Lord will answer the question he then poses: “And why did she do it?” The Lord has apparently chosen to explain his reasoning and reveal his mind on polygamy in terms of a specific analogy between two situations that occurred to one man, Abraham. The Lord’s subsequent explanation of polygamy centers around an analogy the Lord himself posits between his commandment to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and his commandment to Abraham to marry Hagar polygamously. In verse 36 the Lord explains: “Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless it was written: Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness”. Now, given the importance of his children having a correct understanding of their Father’s mind on this topic, we cannot believe that this analogy was chosen capriciously. This is not an arbitrary analogy being made,. and since it is the only analogy being made, we must pay attention to it and try to understand why that analogy was chosen. God wants us to see how and why he views those two situations as analogous: sacrifice Isaac; take Hagar to wife. By choosing the story of Isaac to be the analog of the story of polygamy the Lord reveals his mind to us and constrains forever and irrevocably any discussion we, his children, might choose to have on the subject of polygamy. We must understand correctly why the Lord elects to use this particular analogy, or we are likely to seriously err in our understanding of the role and place of polygamy in God’s plan for his children. The first and most telling point to note about the analogy is that the story of Isaac is a story of sacrifice. The Lord is telling us that the term “Abrahamic sacrifice” refers not only to the story of Isaac but applies to the story of Hagar as well. Before the Lord even delves into the analogy, his very positing of an analogy between the Isaac situation and the Hagar situation is revealing. Of all the possible analogies of sacrifice that God has commanded in the history of the world (sacrifice of animals under the Mosaic law; sacrifice of possessions under the law of consecration; sacrifice of home and country as the early saints did in crossing the plains; sacrifice of your own life as Joseph Smith and others have done), God chooses the most wrenching sacrifice he has ever commanded to serve as the analogy wherewith to instruct us concerning polygamy — the sacrifice of one’s own innocent child by one’s own hand. This choice of analogy by the Lord is meant to reveal to us that in the Lord’s eyes the Hagar situation is no light matter or run-of-the-mill sacrifice but rather is like unto the heaviest and most heart-wrenching of all sacrifices God has ever required of man. In positing this analogy then we get a parallel, and that parallel is being commanded to kill your innocent son is analogist to being commanded to marry polygamously. Why, because murder is as grievous as sin as adultery and vice versa. Now, what is an Abrahamic Sacrifice? Let’s make sure that we understand that. Sacrifice is one of the first principles of a gospel — we know that, and we know that there are various forms of sacrifice. For example, we might say that we are sacrificing to send a child on a mission. That sacrifice is by our own choice, and we know that the goal is one that we desire. Another type of sacrifice might be to accept the consequences of doing the right thing. We might be ostracized or oppressed because our belief and behavior by those who believe otherwise towards us is unpleasant. I think we saw this in the Proposition 8 campaign, didn’t we? However, it’s our choice and we are very much desirous of that goal. A third type of sacrifice appears from our mortal perspective maybe not to involve agency, though I believe some agency was involved. These are sacrifices of adversity, for example, where an innocent child is born with an imperfect body, or accidents or illness take the health or life of persons. We don’t think of those as conscious mortal choices, but some of us believe that they were pre-mortal conscious choices about some of these things. But the heaviest sacrifice a person can ever be called upon to make — the Abrahamic sacrifice is slightly different from these other three. In the Abrahamic sacrifice, we are asked by God to make a conscious choice in a situation where what he requires of us cannot be regarded as a desired goal from all that we know about God’s laws. We can all understand how obedience to God’s laws, for example to the Ten Commandments, brings a happier, richer, and more peaceful life. But what if God were to command us to break the Ten Commandments? Reason alone would tell us we would lose the happiness and peace that would come from obedience to the law. But the test of the Abrahamic sacrifice is not a test of reason. It is a test of faith. It is the ultimate test of faith. Remember for a moment what an Abrahamic sacrifice represents. An Abrahamic sacrifice involves at least three elements that are to be found in the story of Abraham being commanded to sacrifice Isaac: 1. God makes plain to Abraham a law, “thou shalt not kill;” 2. God then requires Abraham, an innocent and righteous man, to depart from that law, sacrifice Isaac, an innocent child, and the choice to depart therefrom would seem to erase any joy in Abraham’s life, because the true happiness is to be found under the law — don’t kill Isaac; and 3. God provides a means of escape from the departure from the law — an angel is sent to stay the hand of Abraham, and the ram in the thicket is provided by the Lord, which allows renewed joy from being able to live under the law — don’t kill Isaac — once more. Let’s go ahead and talk about The Abrahamic Sacrifice Concerning Hagar. With that understanding in mind, let’s go back to D&C 132. Remember in verse 34 we finally begin a discussion of polygamy; we discover that God commanded Abraham to have children, in this case, one child, Ishmael, with Hagar, who was not his wife at the time of the commandment and who was handmaiden to his wife, Sarah. Abraham took Hagar to wife, thus entering into a God-commanded polygamous union. Fortunately, rather than just leaving us with this fact, the Lord helps us to greater understanding through his discussion of “Why?”, because this was the law, and from Hagar sprang many people. This, therefore was fulfilling, among other things, the promises. Does this mean that, in God’s eyes polygamy is the general law and that he is indifferent between monogamy and polygamy after all? We will see this isn’t what the Lord is saying, because the Lord’s exposition does not end with verse 34. To make sense of verse 34 we must look at it in conjunction with the rest of the verses that then follow. Immediately after verse 34 the Lord asks, “Was Abraham, therefore, under condemnation?” If we accept the position that the Lord is indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, this question is a non sequitur, it makes no sense. The very question itself would not be understandable. How can someone practicing a form of marriage about which the Lord is indifferent be perceived to be “under condemnation?” God cannot be referring to some type of cultural condemnation by Abraham’s peers. We are not talking about Joseph Smith’s time, when polygamy was culturally unacceptable; we are discussing Abraham, in whose culture polygamy was commonplace and accepted. No one in Abraham’s cultural setting would be condemning him for practicing polygamy, so why does the Lord ask about this? The Lord’s question raises a puzzle for us, and to understand it we must look to the scriptures that immediately follow. Verse 36 is the great key to this puzzle. In this verse, as noted, the Lord posits the direct analogy between his commandment to sacrifice Isaac and the commandment to marry Hagar. In that verse, the Lord said: “Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless, it was written: Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.” Let us be clear on what is happening here. The general law that God commands all to obey is “Thou shalt not kill.” Then, to one innocent and righteous man at one time, he gives a commandment to kill his own son — not a stranger, not a criminal, not an enemy soldier. There is no justification possible for killing one’s innocent young son. In fact, we know that God destroyed those at Jerusalem for the child sacrifices that they were making there. God has commanded something exceptional of this man — something that goes against all he knows of God’s law and for which he can find no possible justification. God is asking Abraham to depart from the law he himself gave Abraham. He requires of Abraham a sacrifice not demanded by justice and the law. In this sense, God asks Abraham to perform a Christ-like sacrifice in similitude of the sacrifice of God and his own perfectly innocent son in the atonement. Because Christ was perfectly innocent the law could not demand that he suffer and die for others. But Christ chose to suffer and die to fulfil the demands of justice and mercy for others. Abraham and Christ, both consciously chose to sacrifice the happiness that they were due under the law to bring about a greater good for others. We know from the account in Genesis that Abraham’s choice was felt by him as a sacrifice of happiness; Abraham was not happy to hear the commandment to sacrifice Isaac. Indeed, we believe he felt great sorrow, maybe even some confusion, but Abraham was determined to obey God, even if great sorrow and grief befell him as a result. Because Abraham obeyed an exceptional commandment of God and departed from the law, it was counted unto him for righteousness. But his obedience did not turn the departure from the law into the law. God has never since commanded any person to sacrifice their child. In fact, God provided Abraham an escape from killing his son, despite the original exceptional commandment to kill Isaac that God himself gave. In returning to the law “thou shalt not kill” after having to depart from it “sacrifice Isaac,” Abraham felt renewed joy and relief in regaining Isaac. Though he undoubtedly felt some paradoxical joy in submitting to God’s will in all things, Abraham’s joy was not full until the test was over and the escape made. So why is the Lord making the sacrifice of Isaac a direct analogy to his commanding Abraham to take Hagar to wife? We conclude in this situation, as in the situation concerning Isaac, God is commanding a departure from the law — something that is, as a general rule, a thing to be condemned by God. That is why the Lord asks, “Was Abraham, therefore, under condemnation?” According to the general law, or rule, of monogamous marriage in the New and everlasting covenant of marriage set forth by God himself and given that God is not indifferent between the two forms of marriage, Abraham is under condemnation — otherwise, the Lord’s question makes no sense. But the Lord answers his own question: “Nay, he was not under condemnation for I, the Lord, commanded it” verse 35, thus creating the supercessionary but still exceptional “law” of verse 34. There would be no puzzle and nothing to ask or answer if God was indifferent between monogamy and polygamy. But if God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, then a puzzle does arise — a puzzle that is answered by the Lord with reference to an obvious case of a commandment by God to depart from the general law and follow a lawful exception. This to me is the strongest possible scriptural evidence that D&C 132 is in complete harmony with Jacob 2, and that, therefore, the general law or rule of marriage is monogamy and the lawful exception is polygamy and God maintains as strong a discrimination between the two forms of marriage in this dispensation as he did in Jacob’s time. We can now say why it is that God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy. In the Lord’s eyes, monogamy is not a sacrifice, it’s a blessing, but polygamy is a sacrifice and not just any sacrifice. The Lord tells us it is an Abrahamic sacrifice. No matter what our human inventory of emotions toward polygamy — joy, sorrow, or some combination of the two — the most mature, the most knowledgeable perspective is that of the Lord, who is stating his mind that he views it as an Abrahamic sacrifice. The Lord himself reveals his mind on the matter through his analogy between Isaac and Hagar. All other things being equal, God is not indifferent towards the type of sacrifice Abraham was required to make, because it involves Christ-like suffering. However, as with Abraham’s sacrifice, which points to the sacrifice of the innocent son of God in the atonement, sometimes Christ-like suffering is the greater good and the most loving course of action. Thus, in a sense, despite the suffering involved in a Christ-like sacrifice or Abrahamic sacrifice there is a joy which comes from knowing that sacrifice is, in God’s eyes, the right and loving thing to do. There is a joy which comes from suffering in God’s cause, it deepens our hope and trust and faith in his goodness, but notice my dear, brothers and sisters, that the presence of joy in a sacrificial act does not remove that act from the category of “sacrifice” and put it in a new  category called “non-sacrifice”. We will explore this in just a moment. The Abrahamic sacrifice would mean very little to us if we did not discriminate between our desire for the happiness that God’s law gives us and our antipathy towards abandoning that happiness even if God commands it. If Abraham were indifferent as to whether Isaac lived or died, God’s commandment to sacrifice Isaac couldn’t have been a test of Abraham’s faith. Likewise, if God were indifferent as to whether Isaac lived or died, there would have been no angel and no ram in the thicket. But an Abrahamic sacrifice is no cold and passionless event; quite the contrary, it is the greatest passion that the human heart can feel. This is an innocent person consciously choosing to release what he knows to be true happiness under God’s loving laws, because he loves God more dearly than he loved his own true happiness. This is a sacrifice not justified under the law of God. Abraham and Isaac were innocent, and the joy is not complete until the escape is made. Once his test was passed, Abraham’s reward, among other things, was to not have to sacrifice Isaac. Indeed, in a sense Abraham’s reward for offering to sacrifice Isaac was to regain him forever. Though the test was given to Abraham because he was so righteous, his reward for passing the test could not have been perpetuation of the sacrifice. I am sorry to belabor this point, but I think it’s something that we get muddied when we think about polygamy. Abraham did not then have to wake up every morning and go to Mount Moriah. Passing the test meant that the sacrifice was not perpetuated. There was an escape. This combination of suffering and joy applies equally well to the Hagar situation. We know that Abraham was not happy at the prospect of killing Isaac, but he obeyed, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Since the Lord tells us the Hagar situation is analogous, none of the parties — Abraham, Hagar or Sarah or for that matter, Ishmael or Isaac — should have been exempt from suffering in this situation, even though they would have felt that paradoxical joy that comes from sacrificing to do the Lord’s will. Why? Because in the Lord’s eyes, all five persons were sacrificing. And what were they sacrificing? The natural joy that comes from the law of marriage — monogamy in the New and everlasting covenant. Genesis makes plain that that was in fact the case: no one was happy, and Hagar and Ishmael were forced to leave. In fact, God sanctioned their dismissal from the camp, miraculously saving Hagar in the desert. God didn’t seem to expect or require that they all be happy — he only expected that they trust and obey him. Furthermore, since Abraham offering to sacrifice Isaac was counted unto him for righteousness, the sacrifice of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar to depart from the law of marriage was also counted unto them for righteousness. Being happy about the commandment to practice an Abrahamic sacrifice does not seem to factor into the counting of one’s obedience as righteousness. After all, a sacrifice remains a sacrifice despite the paradoxical joy experienced. We know this principle from many situations. “Murmuring” against the law is not acceptable, but crying out to the Lord in innocent anguish — anguish felt as a result of obeying God’s commands — is not condemned. We know this because Christ himself cried out in pain and anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane. And he cried out in pain and anguish on the cross at Calvary. He initially felt to shrink from drinking the bitter cup. He even asked Heavenly Father why he had forsaken him. Christ was making a sacrifice not justified under the law. His death was a departure from the divine law. If Christ himself was not thought less of by God for expressing suffering caused by a departure from divine law, why would God require mere mortals to be stoic when suffering pain caused by righteous obedience to a commandment to depart from the law? The answer is that he does not. When Abraham was asked to make a sacrifice not justified under the law, his heart mourned and we do not think less of him for it. We know God loved Abraham with great intensity. In truth, if God wept with Christ in Gethsemane in Calvary, if he wept with Abraham on the road to Mount Moriah, did he not also weep when Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and other righteous polygamous wives and husbands wept? The Lord’s own analogy leads us to believe that he did. Christ, Abraham, and many righteous polygamous wives and husbands felt both suffering and paradoxical joy in their chosen sacrifices. I think it’s important to remember here that Sarah and Hagar were not changed into some sort of new being when God issued the exceptional commandment to depart from the law. They were normal women with normal passion and felt the loss of departing from the law of marriage. Likewise, the women of the early Church were not changed when God commanded polygamy to be practiced. Because they were not changed they made a righteous and exceptional sacrifice. Those who claim women will be changed in the hereafter to accept polygamy seem not to see the significance of this. The natural joy that would be brought by adherence to the law of God is lost even when it is God commanding the departure from the law. The final aspect of the Lord’s analogy between the Isaac situation and the Hagar situation must not be overlooked. Since, in a sense, the Lord is inviting us to reason about two Abrahamic sacrifices, we cannot fail to recognize the theme of eventual relief that pervades both. Remember that when Abraham raises his hand to slay his son Isaac, the Lord sends an angel to stop him and provides a ram in the thicket. The first Abrahamic sacrifice is brought to an end by the Lord, who relieves Abraham from the exceptional commandment which has caused him suffering. The paradoxical joy of submission to God in departing from the law is replaced by the fuller natural joy that comes from living under God’s law, “Thou shalt not kill.” By offering to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham regains Isaac forever. This is a very important element of any Abrahamic sacrifice: it is always eventually brought to an end by God. The lifting of the exceptional commandment comes as a tangible relief to Abraham. Why does the Lord bring this relief? We can only reiterate that it is because God is not indifferent between a state of sacrifice and a state of relief, and that all other things being equal, he actively prefers eventual relief to perpetual sacrifice for his innocent children. Lest we mistake this natural Fatherly preference, Christ asks rhetorically, “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” The great sacrifice to which Abraham’s sacrifice points, the atonement, was also brought to an end by God. His sacrifice ended. We sing of Christ: “Once rejected by his own now their King, he shall be known. Once forsaken, left alone, now exalted to a throne. Once he groaned in blood and tears, now in glory he appears. Once he suffered grief and pain, now he comes on earth to reign. Once upon the cross he bowed, now his chariot is the cloud. Once all things he meekly bore, but he now will bear no more.” This sacrificial assignment came to Christ because of his perfect righteousness, but we must understand that though Christ’s sacrifice merited him a reward, His sacrifice did not constitute His reward. If the Lord has chosen the Isaac-Hagar analogy with care, then we would expect to see an end to the exceptional commandment in this case as well, which end would bring relief. Obedience to God’s exceptional commandment to practice polygamy merited a reward for Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, but it did not constitute their reward. Implicit in God’s sanctioning of Sarah’s demand that Hagar and Ishmael be banished is God’s recognition of the sacrifice and suffering from the point of view of the two mothers involved and his desire to provide relief to them. Interestingly, God does not condemn either woman for feeling the way she does; he accepts the negative emotional situation as a natural consequence of the departure from the law he has commanded and agrees to a change in the situation to relieve the sorrow and the tension. The appearance of God’s angel to Hagar in two situations and God’s miraculous rescue of Hagar and Ishmael are very important components of this relief. Before turning to that, I would like to make mention of D&C 132, verse 50. In verse 50, I believe God is extending this analogy of sacrifice and sorrow and eventual relief in relation to polygamy to Joseph Smith’s own personal situation in polygamy. Speaking to Joseph Smith, the Lord says, in that verse “I have seen your sacrifices in obedience to that which I have told you. Go, therefore, and I make a way for your escape, as I accepted the offering of Abraham of his son Isaac.” Now, Joseph Smith made many sacrifices in his lifetime. But these other sacrifices by Joseph Smith — deprivation of property, of liberty, and so forth are not in the same class as an Abrahamic sacrifice, because God did not command of Joseph a departure from the law. In our opinion, the only sacrifices required of Joseph that meet the characteristics present in the case of Abrahamic sacrifice were Joseph’s sacrifices in connection with polygamy. Furthermore, all of the surrounding verses to verse 50 are speaking of polygamy, and the only other mention of Isaac in the revelation is with reference to polygamy. The escape is not in reference to escape from enemies or poverty or other travails, because the last phrase about Isaac reiterates that it is an escape from the command of the Lord to depart from God’s law. The whole of which verse 50 is a part begins with verse 36, because they are like bookends: Isaac in verse 36, Isaac again in verse 50. It seems reasonable to conclude then, that God is speaking of polygamy in verse 50. God is expressing sympathy for the hardships and sorrow imposed on Joseph by the exceptional commandment to depart from the law of marriage. He is promising to count Joseph’s obedience for righteousness, as Abraham’s sacrifice was counted. And, very significantly, he is promising that at some future point Joseph will have an escape from the exceptional commandment to depart from the law of marriage and that his sacrifice and suffering that attended his obedience would come to an end. This exceptional commandment was given to Joseph because of his great righteousness. But we must not fail to remember that Joseph’s practice of the exceptional commandment of polygamy merited him a reward, but it could not conceivably constitute his reward under the conceptual framework that the Lord’s argument lays out for us. Christ chose to sacrifice his life, but regained it and felt the relief and joy that came from living once more. Abraham chose to sacrifice Isaac, but regained Isaac and felt the relief and natural joy that comes from obeying commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” If the Lord chose this Isaac-Hagar analogy with care, and we have every reason to believe that he did, then verse 50 is telling us that one day there would be a “ram in the thicket” for Joseph Smith concerning his Abrahamic sacrifices in polygamy, and that he would feel the relief and natural joy that attends such an escape. Let’s look at implications for Sundry LDS cultural assumptions about polygamy. If this interpretation of D&C 132 is correct, then some interesting things begin to happen to our casual acceptance of certain “folkways” accepted uncritically in LDS culture. A whole new vision begins to appear when we understand from God’s own reasoning that monogamy is the rule and a blessing and polygamy is the exception and an Abrahamic sacrifice, and that God is not indifferent between the two because God cares about the pain and suffering involved in an Abrahamic sacrifice. The first interesting thing that happens is that doubt is now cast on the uncritical assumption that polygamous marriage is ubiquitous or even a requirement in the celestial kingdom and that even if we are not commanded to practice polygamy here we may be required to practice it there. As God’s commandments are not temporal but spiritual in nature, God will continue to view polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice even in the context of the hereafter. A general law of God continues, but a departure from the law, involving as it does Christ-like sacrifice about which God is not indifferent, by its very nature is temporally bounded because of God’s love for his children and his desire to see such Christ-like sacrifices come to an eventual end, even if they have wrought great good in their time and place. It is unclear how God could be constrained for all eternity to command a departure from the law of marriage, which departure he himself would desire to bring to an end. To disallow individuals a choice in this important matter, given that God himself is not indifferent about the subject, would imply that heaven is not the best of all possible worlds from God’s own perspective and does not represent perfection. Some in LDS culture assume that polygamy is not merely a doctrinal necessity but a circumstantial and demographic necessity in the hereafter. Generally, this assumption takes one of two forms. In the first form of the assumption, some assert that there will be more women, many more women who inherit the celestial fullness than men, and since everyone in the highest level of the celestial kingdom is married, polygamy must then follow. There is simply no basis for assuming a celestial sex ratio highly skewed in favor of women. How could God be no respecter of persons and create a system where one spirit, because it is male has a much worst chance, a much poorer chance of reaching the celestial kingdom than the other sex? If God is the author of all fairness he could not have authored such a system. Even if this system were somehow fair, for such an outcome to ensue would mean that the male gender was disproportionately an attribute of the weakest spirits. My husband is sitting out there in the audience. I can you tell that that’s wrong. There is just no doctrinal basis for such a belief. Others who feel that polygamy is ubiquitous may not understand, in fact, there are some demographics working against that hypothesis. Some of you may know that I have authored books on the abnormal sex ratios of Asia – that they are branch hypotheses. There are some figures that you may want to know. Even in a normal population, 107 boy babies are born for every 100 girl babies, naturally. The sex ratio evens out at age five, because male babies suffer from disproportionately higher infant mortality than female babies, and we assume that all of those are saved in the celestial kingdom. Do you want to go back even further? Do you know what the conception sex ratio is? 160 male fetuses are conceived for every 100 female fetuses, naturally. So to somehow think there is a demographic necessity for women to greatly outnumber men in the kingdom — I just really don’t think that we can go with that, at least not with any sort of confidence as well. We also get some other ones. I will just mention this one. Some believe it’s circumstantial necessity, because one Heavenly Mother is incapable of producing and nurturing the vast numbers of spirit children that Heavenly Father appears to have fathered. I will just give you the Readers Digest version, which is, “Why don’t we ask that about a father?” How do we believe one heavenly father could do it? Alright, we will just leave it there, but it goes to the paper. Then there are still others, who say, look, human male sexual anatomy obviously holds that men are designed to be polygamous. And since male sexual anatomy is an image of our Heavenly Father then, yeah, bingo. Of course, what immediately comes to mind is that wonderful verse about how “the lion shall eat straw like the ox,” which is we know that the lion’s anatomy is perfected for being carnivorous, yet we do not doubt that in heaven the lion will not be acting upon its anatomy. It will be acting upon the piece of the Kingdom of God. So we do not believe that lions are going to be extremely unhappy in the kingdom of heaven because they have to eat straw like the ox. I will just leave that one there. We see other things as well. In mortality, when God does command polygamy, he understands it as an exceptional sacrifice by the innocent of the joy that would be theirs if they could obey the law instead. This departure from the law can cause pain and sorrow, though it may bring about a greater good. Nevertheless, if his righteous daughters and sons weep because of polygamy, even in the times when the Lord commands it, he is not upset with them. He weeps when they weep because, like Abraham, they are willing to sacrifice and suffer for a time that God’s work of love be accomplished. Since God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, then his love also dictates that at the earliest possible moment when the exceptional commandment to depart from the law can be lifted, he will do so. If no greater good can come from a Christ-like sacrifice it becomes meaningless and gratuitous suffering. Our understanding of God’s love for his children would appear to preclude that kind of cruelty on the part of our Father in Heaven. Indeed, the sacrifices of the Mosaic law had meaning up until the moment that Christ was resurrected and God’s scrupulously required adherence to know Mosaic law until that time. But after Christ’s victory, the sacrifices of the Mosaic law became meaningless, and God no longer required them to be performed. This not only applied to the sacrifice of innocent animals, but also to a human sacrifice, circumcision. The commandment to practice circumcision was lifted at the time of Christ’s resurrection (Moroni 8:8). Indeed, continuing Mosaic sacrifice was kind of tantamount to a rejection of Christ or at least a profound misunderstanding of the Atonement, (1:10:00.6)about which God was surely not indifferent. Indeed, those who desire to practice polygamy in times when God has not commanded it are in spiritual chaos. That desire would be analogous to Abraham, after hearing the voice of the angel and seeing the ram in the thicket, proceeding to kill Isaac anyway as a testimony of his faithfulness to God. We can only surmise that from God’s point of view, such an act would constitute anything but a testimony of faithfulness. Thus God, although initially commanding Abrahamic sacrifices, also strongly desires to provide the “ram in the thicket.” He is not indifferent about whether that ram is there or not. He isn’t sort of laying back watching heavenly TV or something. Looking at it and watching, going, “Was it time for that ram to appear? I will wait till this next commercial is over.” That’s not our God. He wants that ram to appear and he wants it to appear at the earliest moment that it can — it can be there. To think otherwise is incompatible with the idea of a loving God, who sees a distinction between pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow. There will always be a “ram in the thicket” for those who are faithful in an Abrahamic sacrifice. What will the “ram” be? In the eternities if the Isaac-Hagar analogy is what we are to be governed by in our understanding, then in the eternities those who sacrificed and suffered like Abraham will have the opportunity to live under the law, not under the departure from the law. Without this affecting either their exaltation or their right to associate with the persons they love. We are not saying that no will live polygamously in heaven. I am not a prophet, seer and revelator. We do claim, given the Lord’s analogy as discussed above, it is plain that no one can be commanded to do so in heaven, and that the choice to opt out of polygamy cannot and will not affect an individual’s exaltation or right to associate with those whom they love. Whatever escape the Lord has provided for those faithful souls, it will be consistent with the law of sealing and sealing transferability. Some may be unaware that there is an ordinance called the “sealing transfer.” And that in fact over 13,000 sealing transfers took place in the Church in late 1800s. Some people often point to D&C 139 verses 39, 44 and 55, but I think we can also reconcile those scriptures as well. But I would like to say this because I wish to be perfectly clear on this matter and that is may we pause to say that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff led the Church with courage, inspiration and nobility at the time when the Saints were commanded to make great sacrifices including the Abrahamic sacrifice of polygamy. They, and all who willingly made the sacrifices required of them by the Lord, are due all our honor. They placed devotion to God above all else, and placed on the altar their reputations and even their very lives and certainly their hearts. In addition, Wilford Woodruff led the Church with inspiration and skill during the period when the Lord rescinded the commandment to practice polygamy, which rescindment must have seemed to many at the time as a great sacrifice, as well. Our understanding of the commandment to practice polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice should cause us to deeply revere those early saints of whom that sacrifice was required. I want to be absolutely plain on that. This new vision of the compatibility of Jacob 2 and 132 is important for many reasons; however, the most comforting aspect is that those women and men who felt pain at the thought of polygamy are alright in God’s eyes. God would not think it odd if they did feel pain. God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy in the new and everlasting covenant because he, too, views polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice which will cause suffering, but also for the righteous, paradoxical joy and a closer relationship with him. We envision God weeping when righteous polygamous husbands and wives wept. Just think of what that means. For those who weep at the mistaken thought they may be commanded to practice polygamy in Heaven, God does not condemn your feelings. On the contrary, God will not command you to practice polygamy in the next life, and if he commands you to practice it in this life, you can rest assured of two things: number one, he will make it up to you – there will be a “ram in the thicket” for you, even if it be in the next life; and two, you can also count on the fact that God will lift the exceptional commandment of polygamy just as soon as his loving purposes in commanding it have been fulfilled. Why? Because he feels compassion for those who make an Abrahamic sacrifice in polygamy in similitude to the Atonement of his son. Though an exceptional commandment may come to one because of special righteousness, and though obedience to an exceptional commandment to practice polygamy may merit one a great reward, the sacrifice itself cannot constitute that reward, in light of what the Lord has revealed in Doctrine and Covenants 132 about his mind concerning these matters. The Lord desires that all his children have the natural joy that comes from the law of marriage, which law is monogamy in the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, and God views polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice, which is why he actively and severely restricts its practice even in this dispensation of the restoration of all things by Joseph Smith. If we as a culture have lost the capacity to see God-commanded polygamy as the Abrahamic sacrifice God tells us it is, if we have lost the capacity to see that God actively desires there be an escape for the righteous who have obeyed this exceptional commandment, then we have lost something profoundly precious. We have lost the vision of the greatness of God’s love for his children. To lose that vision brings “the gall of bitterness,” as Mormon remarked about others who placed similar constraints on God’s love of the innocent, for we “deny” the “mercies” of God. If cultural misinterpretations cause the women and men of the Church to mourn over polygamy, either because they mistakenly believe God is indifferent between sacrifice and non-sacrifice and so no escape from this sacrifice will be provided by God, or because they are led to feel that they are selfish and not righteous if they feel pain at the thought of polygamy, then these cultural misinterpretations are actively harming our people. We then have a duty to root out these cultural misinterpretations from our midst, lest they cause great spiritual mischief. I am reminded of a quote by C.S. Lewis: “Not that I am I think in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him. The conclusion I dread is not, ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’” There is something very profound about that. More Come, Follow Me resources here.   Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor and holds the George H.W. Bush Chair in the Department of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where she directs the Program on Women, Peace, and Security. Hudson was named to the list of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2009, and in 2015 was recognized as Distinguished Scholar of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA/ISA) and awarded an inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellowship as well as an inaugural Fulbright Distinguished Chair in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Australian National University (2017). Her scholarly books include Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population, Sex and World Peace, The Hillary Doctrine, and The first Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide, as well as a book on religious doctrine entitled Women in Eternity, Women of Zion. Hudson is a co-founder and editorial board member of the online journal of commentary from the Church of Jesus Christ faith community called SquareTwo, the president of the Utah Valley Institute of Cystic Fibrosis, served in the 11th Special Forces US Army Reserve as a wheeled vehicle and power generator mechanic, is a cofounder of the Latter-day Saint National Security Society, and has been a La Leche League Leader for over 30 years. She is married to David Cassler and is the mother of eight children. The post Come, Follow Me Week 8 – Genesis 18–23 appeared first on FAIR.

The Abrahamic Covenant, Its Influence on Scriptures, and What that Has to Do with Us by Kerry Muhlestein, author of God Will Prevail: Ancient Covenants, Modern Blessings, and the Gathering of Israel The Abrahamic covenant is a central theme of the Old Testament, and really of all scripture. Every prophetic writer, whether in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Pearl of Great Price, the Book of Mormon, or the Doctrine and Covenants, assumes that you know and understand the Abrahamic covenant, and writes based on that assumption. As a result, when we are not familiar with this covenant, there are a number of things in every book of scripture that we miss. We lose some of the message and the rich power in the scriptures without even realizing it. Studying the Old Testament is an excellent time to rectify this situation. This year we are afforded the opportunity to read about the establishment of the covenant and to study some of the places where it is most fully explained. This will allow us to start to understand the covenant the way President Nelson has been asking us to. President Nelson certainly realizes the significance of the covenant, and has been energetically teaching about it throughout his apostolic career, and has even asked us to study the blessings promised to Israel in the covenant.[1] There is no better time than this Come Follow Me year to come to more fully share President Nelson’s desires for us to better recognize, understand, and appreciate what it means to be heirs to the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant is also known as the New and Everlasting Covenant. Joseph Smith teaches that it was first established between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost before the world was created. It was then re-established with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It has been re-established in every dispensation, which is at least one reason it is called “new” in addition to being everlasting. Yet we often refer to it as the Abrahamic covenant because when it was re-established with Abraham he was promised that anyone who made the covenant would become part of his seed. Further, the scriptures are written by Abraham’s descendants, who refer to it frequently in connection with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In fact, mentioning those three great patriarchs together is a common way scriptural authors try to get us to think about the covenant. We enter into the covenant at baptism. We enter into it more fully in the temple, and even more fully when we are sealed to spouse and family in the temple. We renew it weekly when we partake of the sacrament. Hopefully we experience its blessings continually throughout life. Of course this is only true if we keep our covenantal obligations. But what are those obligations, and what blessings do they lead to? We can best answer those questions when we first understand something else. The central tenet of the covenant is our relationship with God. Everything else stems from God’s desire to have a closer relationship with us. Thus, all of the blessings that flow from keeping the covenant are connected to that core idea. A brief summary of the covenant with that core concept in mind would run something like this: God wants to have a closer relationship with his children, which would increase both his and our joy. The only way to have a closer relationship was for us to become more like him, for our ability to be close, or one, with someone is limited when we are not capable of understanding them because we are not like them or at their level. As a result, God created a plan where we could become like him and thus be capable of experiencing greater joy. The Savior and the Holy Ghost covenanted with God to do their part in making it possible for God to complete his plan, or fulfill the promises he was making to us. As part of that plan, we had to leave God’s presence and experience conditions that both allow us to grow and help us to learn to rely on him so that he and his son could help us grow in ways we were not capable of growing on our own. The only way for us to come to rely on them in such a manner was for us to redevelop the kind of relationship that would allow us to be close enough with them to experience their protective and developmental power. In order to create that kind of relationship, God invited us to enter into a formal and intimate relationship with him. Anytime we enter into an agreement with someone to work together towards a common goal, it creates a kind of bond and intimacy that is not possible outside of such a pact. We call that agreement a covenant. Entering into an agreement to work with God naturally creates a closer relationship with him. Scripturally this close bond is described in a number of ways, but the most common are that God will be Abraham’s (or Israel’s or our) God, and that we will be his people. As a people we are a peculiar treasure and a holy nation to God. The intimate connection with God is also described by God having an everlasting mercy or lovingkindness for us. This close bond between a covenant holder and God naturally yields a number of things. It allows us to have better and more frequent communication with God, so that he can direct us as is needed. A scriptural phrase describing this is when God tells Abraham “I will lead thee by my hand,” and “my power shall be over thee” (Abraham 1:18). This intimate bond allows us to experience God’s presence more fully, both in terms of having the Holy Ghost with us to both direct, comfort, and change us, and in terms of having ordinances which bring God into our lives, as well as into our chapels and temples which are dedicated to him which allows us to more fully experience communion and oneness with him. All of these things allow us to be spiritually begotten of God, which is part of the change we are hoping for. That spiritual begetting involves priesthood ordinances, taking his name upon us, being born again by the sanctifying power of the Spirit, and so much more. Of course, when two beings have a close relationship with greater union, communion, and ability to share power and direction, some other things will naturally flow. Just as spouses feel protective towards their covenant partner, and as parents feel protective towards their children, and just as being together so much allows them to better protect each other, so God can better protect his children who have entered into a covenant relationship with him. Some of that protection comes in the form of the higher communion covenant partners have with each other, for it is the communication and willingness to act on that communication that is often the form protection takes. But there are other ways that covenant children are protected by God as well. Scriptural phrases about this protective element are both plenteous and beautiful. Some examples are that God will be our shield (Genesis 15:1), or that no sword will go through our land (Leviticus 26:6), or that we will dwell safely (Leviticus 25:18). This promise of protection does not mean that no harm will ever come to those who are safely ensconced in the covenant, for that would contravene the conditions necessary for us to have a successful mortal probation. Some bad things will certainly happen to everyone, but it is so much less than it would be without the covenant, and all bad things will eventually end for covenant holders. They can be sure that ultimately everything that besets them, every kind of bedevilment, ailment and scourge, including death and hell itself, will be overcome as we find ourselves behind the protective shield of our mighty God. Covenant keepers will need this protection, for other blessings that flow from the covenant will make both men and Satan want to beset us. This is because another natural outgrowth of union and communion with God is prosperity. When we hear God more, when we are experiencing his power and trying to live as he asks and are being changed by him, prosperity naturally follows. It follows abundantly because of God’s powerful involvement in every aspect of our lives and his ability to magnify every good thing. This prosperity is scripturally often described in terms of abundant yields coming from our labors (see for example Leviticus 26:4-5 and Deuteronomy 28:3-6, 8, 11-12). Yet it also comes in terms of spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical prosperity. It is an oft repeated promise in both the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon. Again, this does not mean that covenant holders will never experience any forms of not prospering. Physical, financial, emotional and spiritual trials are bound to come, they are necessary parts of our mortal probation. Yet the promise of overall prosperity is sure, and full faith in that promise should help us get through the times when we are not experiencing it. The ultimate form of prosperity is to have bountiful and beautiful posterity. This can take many forms, and is fulfilled over a long time. One obvious form is to have children with whom we can develop close relationships. For some that will happen in this life, for all covenant keepers it will happen most fully in the next life. Abinadi tells us that one of the most important ways this is fulfilled is that all those whom we help come to Christ to receive the kind of covenantal life he can give them become our seed. Undoubtedly there are many ways this promise is fulfilled that we cannot foresee. The promise of numerous posterity is one of the most joyous and important aspects of the covenant. Of course prosperity and abundant posterity cannot happen if there is no place for covenant families to thrive. Therefore having a place, or a promised land, is an essential part of the covenant. There are several forms having a promised place can take. Often it means having a literal land on which covenant holders can live together, have place for their plenteous children to grow and then live, and land which can yield the food that is necessary for such abundant life. When anyone lives in a place that is yielding abundantly, then others will want to take that land and prosperity from them, so the promise of protection becomes even more important. We can see the need for a literal promised land in the history of ancient Israel, and also in the history of modern Israel in the early generations of the Restoration of the covenant. A literal promised land has often proved to be crucial for the spread of the covenant and for the prosperity of the posterity of Israel. Yet today we gather to different kinds of places. We gather to our temples and our church buildings and to our homes. These are also fulfillments of the promise. In many ways the promise of land is really a promise of having a place to belong. We are so blessed that we can travel anywhere in the world and find a group of Saints with whom we can immediately feel a bond, and thus we can have a “place” to belong. The covenant brings a promised place in many ways. The more of us who are trying to keep our covenants – or live celestially – the more ways we will find the promise of a “place” being fulfilled. The ultimate fulfillment of this is the true promised land, or the celestial kingdom. This highlights the greatest promise that flows from our covenantal relationship with God. Our union with him, our communion with him which yields knowledge of how to approach him, his power being manifested in our lives and our beings so that we prosper in becoming spiritually more like him, his protection from all that besets us including death and hell, all of this eventually brings us to the true promised land and state. It brings us to exaltation. If we are trying to keep our covenant, we are promised by God that we will be exalted. This can only happen because Christ kept his covenant, and went through his atoning sacrifice for us. Elsewhere I have written that “each covenantal promise is rich and overpowering. Taken together, they are staggering. This last promise, that of exaltation, is beyond our ability to comprehend. Truly we suffer from an embarrassment of promised riches.”[2] Of course, our reception of these covenant blessings is contingent upon our keeping our covenant obligations. These obligations also center around our relationship with God. The covenantal phrase about God being our God doesn’t just mean that He will take care of us in a bonded relationship, it also means that we love and worship him. In fact, our primary duty as covenant holders is to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our might (Deuteronomy 6:5). It is this love – the love God has for us and the love we have for God – that  makes every other element of the covenant possible. When we do not love God first and foremost, nothing else in the covenant can happen the way it should. As I have said elsewhere, “above all, both in terms of duty and how it defines them, covenant holders are to love God. This love is to be the primary feeling of their heart, the central emotion of their consciousness, the consuming core of who they are.”[3] It is only when we love God this much that he will prevail in our lives more than anything else, as President Nelson has taught us must happen.[4] “This kind of prevailing happens because we love, adore, and worship God. When this is the case, then God has truly become our God. Ultimately, loving God is the fullest realization of what it means for Abraham, Sarah, and their seed to have God as their God (Genesis 17:7).”[5] When we love God, we will naturally want to follow all the instructions he has given us (Abraham 1:2). We call this keeping the commandments, which Christ has said we will do if we love him (John 14:5). There is something else that is a natural result of loving God. When we love him, we will love that which what he most loves, which is his children. Thus, our close and loving relationship with God, which causes us to become more like him, leads us to love each other. That is why the second great commandment is to love our neighbor. Loving each other takes many forms. Caring for each other’s needs is one important form. Sharing the covenant, with its attendant news about Christ and the ordinances that link us to him and the father, is another. Really those are all our covenant obligations. It is a much shorter list than the blessings. In sum, our obligation is to increase our relationship with God by loving and remembering him, which will lead to our increasing our relationship with others by loving and helping them and bringing them to Christ so that they can create the same kind of relationship with God that we are experiencing. Now that we understand the covenant, and how we enter into it, we can ask how it should affect us. Clearly the largest affect should be that knowing this should help us focus on our relationship with God. It should also naturally help us be mindful of all that God has done for us and continues to do for us. Remembering that should increase our gratitude which in turn increases our love for God, which in turn should increase our love for each other. Being conscious of this will help us magnify this cycle and get more out of it. There is something else that comes when we better understand the covenant. It allows us to better understand the scriptures. We should recognize that any time scriptural authors mention any aspect of the covenant they are usually invoking the covenant as a whole. Thus, if we read something about loving God, about God being our God, about us being God’s people, or about God protecting us, or us having numerous posterity or experiencing prosperity, or having a promised land, then we should understand that we are reading about the covenant. As a result, when we read that if we honor our fathers and mothers we will live long in the land which God gives us, then we recognize that we are being taught that if we honor our parents we will receive covenantal blessings. When Isaiah tells us that Israel will have so many children that they will need to enlarge their tents, which will cause them to need to lengthen the tent cords and strengthen the tent stakes, he is telling us that covenant blessings are really starting to flow. Similarly, when he tells us that houses that were once occupied have become desolate, he is telling us that there is a lack of covenant blessings at that point. There are very few chapters in Isaiah that do not invoke some kind of covenant phrase. Coming to recognize them will really help us understand Isaiah. Recognizing when the scriptures are talking about the covenant, and remembering that we are members of that same covenant, allows us to realize another level of how the scriptures apply to us. When that happens, because covenant phrases are so prevalent in the scriptures, we start to gain added layers of meaning and applicability almost any time we read the scriptures. We start to identify with the covenant holders of the scriptures more personally, and thus we draw more power from them. Above all, we start to see how mercifully God continually works with his covenant people – how he always and unendingly gives them another chance after they have broken the covenant – and we recognize both that he is willing to do that for us, and that we have a role to play in his doing it with scattered Israel. In other words, becoming familiar with the covenant makes the scriptures come alive for us in a whole new way. Above all, it allows us to experience our relationship with God more deeply, which is what God desires most and is the purpose of the covenant. He sent his son to make that covenant promise possible. He asked his prophets to teach and write about it, from the days of Adam until the days of President Nelson, so that we can experience that bond. He promises that such a relationship is available, and God will always keep his promise. More Come, Follow Me resources here. [1] Russell M. Nelson, “Let God Prevail,” General Conference, October 2020. [2] Kerry Muhlestein, God Will Prevail: Ancient Covenants, Modern Blessings, and the Gathering of Israel (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2021), 59-60. [3] Kerry Muhlestein, God Will Prevail, 62. [4] Russell M. Nelson, “Let God Prevail,” October 2020 General Conference. [5] Kerry Muhlestein, God Will Prevail, 62. The post Come, Follow Me Thoughts to Keep in Mind – The Covenant appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference. If you would like to watch all the presentations from that conference, you can still purchase the video streaming. Jennifer Ann Mackley, Discovering Church History: The Wilford Woodruff Papers Project Jennifer’s book is available from the FAIR Bookstore. Jennifer Ann Mackley, JD, is the Executive Director of the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation, which she co-founded with Donald W. Parry in 2020. In addition to her legal practice as a partner in Mackley & Mackley, PLLC, Jennifer has authored or edited 21 books including Wilford Woodruff’s Witness: The Development of Temple Doctrine. She has been serving as a historian for the Wilford Woodruff Family Association since 2014 and has made numerous presentations and podcasts based on her research of Wilford Woodruff’s life and, through his records, the development of temple doctrine in the 19th century. Jennifer served in the Minnesota Minneapolis Mission and has been a temple worker in the Provo, Washington, D.C, Chicago, Salt Lake, and Seattle temples. She and her husband Carter are the parents of three adored children. The post FAIR Conference Podcast #77 – Jennifer Ann Mackley, “Discovering Church History: The Wilford Woodruff Papers Project” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming. Jeff Bradshaw, Since Hugh Nibley: Remarkable New Findings on Enoch and the Gathering of Zion Jeff’s books are for sale in the FAIR bookstore. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (PhD, Cognitive Science, University of Washington) is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola, Florida (www.ihmc.us/groups/jbradshaw; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_M._Bradshaw). His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence (www.jeffreymbradshaw.net). Jeff has been the recipient of several awards and patents and has been an adviser for initiatives in science, defense, space, industry, and academia worldwide. Jeff has written detailed commentaries on the Book of Moses and Genesis 1–11 and on temple themes in the scriptures. For Church-related publications, see www.TempleThemes.net. Jeff was a missionary in France and Belgium from 1975–1977, and his family has returned twice to live in France. He and his wife, Kathleen, are the parents of four children and fourteen grandchildren. From July 2016-September 2019, Jeff and Kathleen served missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo Kinshasa Mission office and the DR Congo Kinshasa Temple. They currently live in Nampa, Idaho. The post FAIR Conference Podcast #76 – Jeff Bradshaw, “Since Hugh Nibley: Remarkable New Findings on Enoch and the Gathering of Zion” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming. John Gee, Lessons on Doing Apologetics John Gee’s books are for sale in the FAIR bookstore. John Gee is the William (Bill) Gay Research Professor in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University. He has authored more than 150 publications on topics such as ancient scripture, Aramaic, archaeology, Coptic, Egyptian, history, linguistics, Luwian, rhetoric, Sumerian, textual criticism, and published in journals such as British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan, Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar, Enchoria, Ensign, FARMS Review, Göttinger Miszellen, Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy, Journal of Academic Perspecitves, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Journal of Egyptian History, Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, Lingua Aegyptia, Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur, and Interpreter, and by such presses as American University of Cairo Press, Archaeopress, Association Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth, E. J. Brill, Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies, Czech Institute of Egyptology, Deseret Book, de Gruyter, Harrassowitz, Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Peeters, Praeger, Religious Studies Center, and Society of Biblical Literature. He has published three books and has edited eight books and an international multilingual peer-reviewed professional journal. He served twice as a section chair for the Society of Biblical Literature. The post FAIR Conference Podcast #75 – John Gee, “Lessons on Doing Apologetics” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming. Jenny Reeder, First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith Jenny Reader’s books are for sale in the FAIR bookstore. Jenny Reeder is the nineteenth-century women’s history specialist at the Church History Department for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She has a PhD in American history from George Mason University, and an MA from New York University in history, archival management, and documentary editing. Jenny is on the Church Historian’s Press Editorial Board, the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts Advisory Board, the Mormon History Association’s book awards committee, and the editorial board of Mormon Historical Studies. She has taught at BYU Education Week and has been a featured speaker at BYU Women’s Conference, the BYU Easter Conference, and Time Out for Women. She recently published First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith with Deseret Book, and past publications include At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women and Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies of the Restoration. She leads the “Discourses of Eliza R. Snow” project, collecting and publishing all of Snow’s sermons on the Church Historian’s Press website and a selection of discourses in an upcoming print volume. The post FAIR Conference Podcast #74 – Jenny Reeder, “First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming. Ben Spackman, Through a Glass, Less Darkly: The 20th Century History of Genesis and Evolution Ben Spackman is a PhD candidate in American Religious History at Claremont. His dissertation examines the intellectual roots of LDS creationism and evolution in the 20th century. Prior to his work at Claremont, he received a master’s degree and did PhD work in Old Testament languages and literature at the University of Chicago. He is a guest editor of a special edition of BYU Studies dedicated to biological evolution and LDS faith, and writes at BenSpackman.com. The post FAIR Conference Podcast #73 – Ben Spackman, “Through a Glass, Less Darkly: The 20th Century History of Genesis and Evolution” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming. Dan Peterson, The Book of Mormon Witnesses: Sincerity and Reality The Witnesses film and books by Dan Peterson are available from the FAIR Bookstore. Daniel C. Peterson (PhD, UCLA) is a professor of Islamic studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University and founder of the university’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. He has published and spoken extensively on both Islamic and Mormon subjects. Formerly chairman of the board of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) and an officer, editor, and author for its successor organization, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, his professional work as an Arabist focuses on the Qur’an and on Islamic philosophical theology. He is the author, among other things, of a biography entitled Muhammad: Prophet of God (Eerdmans, 2007). Dan currently serves as the president of the Interpreter Foundation. The post FAIR Conference Podcast #72 – Dan Peterson, “The Book of Mormon Witnesses: Sincerity and Reality” appeared first on FAIR.