Sunday, 9 July 2006
The Organic Restoration
by Christian Y. Cardall
It seems that, especially through the lens of authorized hindsight, the Restoration ends up conceptualized as a pristine system of doctrine and authority bestowed in almost prefab perfection through Joseph Smith. The immaculate textual recovery of lost “plain and precious things” suggested in 1 Nephi 13, for instance, seems to foster this paradigm. But I think Jacob 5 may be a more realistic touchstone, both in terms of how the Restoration proceeds and what exactly it is that is being restored. It also has implications for what the stance of a believer should be.
Rather than an instant, ‘just add water,’ fully-formed Restoration, Zenos’ allegory of the olive tree paints the more interesting and messy picture of an unfolding organic process in which the bad is only taken away gradually as the grafting-in of the natural branches begins to take effect. Recall, however, that at the time of the lord of the vineyard’s momentous last visit it is not only the main tree that is encumbered with all manner of evil fruit, but also the natural branches severed from the main tree and distantly planted throughout the vineyard in a prior visit.
The interesting thing to notice about this decayed pre-graft state of the natural branches is that, for those inclined to get agitated about such things, it provides a way to increase patience with certain features endemic to the Restoration that some find even worse than the surrounding worldly culture: folk magic, polygamy, patriarchy, the curse of Cain, and so on. The restored gospel is expected eventually to be the only cure for the fallen world’s ills, but because even these natural branches have gone wild before being grafted back into the trunk, they may at first contribute their own varieties of strange fruit before the good stuff begins to grow—perhaps even to the extent that, like the treatment of acne with Accutane, some things seem to get worse before they get better.
Another nice thing about thinking about the Restoration in terms of Jacob 5 is that it shifts focus away from the pursuit of correct but disembodied doctrine as the primary goal to the real prize, represented by the good and precious fruit—which, taking a cue from Lehi and Nephi’s vision of the tree of life, seems to represent a community of individuals with the love of God in their hearts. (’Having the love of God’ may of course be read in at least two ways—feeling love towards God, and exhibiting a love towards one’s fellows akin to what we imagine to be God’s self-sacrificing parental devotion to his children. It seems most fruitful to focus on the latter as a manifestation of the former, since the self-assured possession of the former with inadequate regard for the latter has led historically to much blood and horror on this earth.)
While a modicum of narrative and at least a skeletal doctrinal framework are necessary to the identity, coherence, and motivation of any group, I suspect the success of such a community depends less on getting the fine points of history, doctrine, and metaphysics right than is often supposed. There are all manner of irrelevant idiosyncrasies on display in (especially ancient) scripture, over whose emulation or explanation we obsess; there are also all manner of cosmic questions on which the scriptures are silent, which we itch to answer with our vain speculations. Perhaps such conceptual minutiae are too often mistaken for the substance of the Restoration, deflecting focus from what is really being restored: the ideal of a prophetically-led covenant community of loving individuals. The possibly varying specifics of implementation of such from age to age may simply not be worthy of sustained attention.
While ‘the facts’ may not matter as much as is sometimes supposed, authority may nevertheless matter a great deal, since the community is established and maintained through covenants that rely on authority for their administration. And this is at least partly why I can be sensitive about activist attitudes in the Church: I read our scripture and history as making a central claim that a top-down prophetic structure is essential to the establishment of a worldwide Zion. It is advertised, after all, as a kingdom of God, with the Savior as king and the Saints as subjects. The believing posture towards Mormon prophetic authority that would make sense to me is how Jim F. approaches the canon: asking questions of it not by way of confrontation or challenge, but as an occasion for its authority to speak to him, if it wishes.
To borrow a phrase from liberal Mormon hero Hugh B. Brown, it is God who is the gardener here. One can, I suspect, be a deep thinker with liberal thoughts and suspicions without feeling a need to force and fit and reconcile and be a public and active agent for change. There can be an awareness of one’s place in the top-down structure. To temporarily switch from a familiar horticultural allegory to an equally familiar agricultural parable, there can be a recognition that even if one is right and the authorities are temporarily wrong about something, pulling up the tares vigilante-style can harm a community more than it helps.
Nevertheless, there may be times when the powers that be have the facts so wrong, and the fruits are so bitter, that something must be done. In such circumstances some may be tempted to equate the pruning and digging and dunging spoken of in Jacob 5 with bottom-up grassroots reform. But that these activities are undertaken by the lord of the vineyard and those under his explicit instruction suggests instead that such husbandry is more properly identified with the ministering and course corrections performed by the legitimate authorities. No, when things are too far gone in a top-down organization, the answer suggested by Zenos’ allegory is not reform, but a new restoration, and the casting of the old into the fire. And we also see from the lord of the vineyard’s anguished deliberations that deciding between this, and sparing it a little longer, can be agonizing—for it is grievous indeed to lose a tree that represents a lifetime of investment.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
Exploratory deployment of two Mormon imperatives—“prove all things; hold fast that which is good,” and “awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words”—from perspectives unfamiliar: secular, scientific, humanistic, and cultural (high and low).
Whatever people have to keep telling themselves. However, I think the more germane question is not what the doubting Thomas’ of the Church find problematic, but rather what does the Lord find problematic. I suspect it is rather less than you suggest.
I didn’t say that I (much less the Lord) had ever felt particularly agitated about the listed things, but that some are inclined to get agitated about them. I left my own personal irritants unmentioned. ;->
But I don’t think the thrust of the post is inconsistent with your sentiment. I do think the only way prophetic religion makes sense is to recognize that in principle prophets can be most valuable precisely when they tell you what don’t know or don’t want to hear. Presumably the goal of the believer would be to try to endeavor “in a proper and affectionate manner” to reclaim the deluded doubting Thomases (see JS-H 1:28) rather than write them off or demonize them, so are arguments to persuade to patience with the community’s prophetic regime such a bad thing?
I agree with you there, Christian. However, the proper attitude of those with weak testimonies is the same as the father of the child possessed of an evil spirit: “Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief”. The purpose of Church is not to make unbelievers comfortable, let alone preach their own doctrines, but rather to persuade those that want to be persuaded, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Now as far as your post is concerned, it seemed like you were suggesting at best that the Lord planned to purify his Church of a litany of strange and unwarranted aspects of the Restoration, and that at worst he planned to uproot the Church hierarchy and cast them into the fire.
I find that attitude rather troubling to say the least. I believe D&C 1 verse 30 applies as much today as it ever did:
Christian, this is a view of Jacob 5 that seems to to me to be both a primary interpretation and doumbfoundingly overlooked…again, by me. Thanks for bringing it to my attention in this thoughtful way.
Mark, we’re dealing with terms here that are loosely defined…terms like commandments, foundation, only true and living, etc. In light of Jacob 5 I think it’s fair to see these terms as neither fully formed nor requisitely bearing nothing but good fruit as suggested by the caveat: “speaking unto the church collectively and not individually.”
And its really not hard to imagine that the restoration and its promise that the church would never again be removed from the earth…that this in no way requires that the cannot be torn-down and reconstituted elsewhere as grafts.
With Matt, I appreciate your insight into Jacob 5. Well done.
I am very comfortable with a view of incremental increases in knowledge and with the idea that the restoration is ongoing. Our doctrine of the work for the dead is still being developed, for instance. The recent sections that were added to the D&C were recorded by Joseph F. Smith decades after the death of Joseph Smith, and were added to the canon decades after that.
Christian, I understand that you strongly defend the top-down model of prophetic leadership. I’m wondering how you account for the real instances in our history where the changes started in the wards and stakes. The way our current welfare system developed is one example, and the way the central leadership gave in to the members demands to participate in the BSA after the leadership had already rejected the idea is another.
The last paragraph of the post does indeed take an idea from Jacob 5 and suggest potential applications, only one of which is suggested by Mark, beyond what restoration scriptures warrant. It was recently remarked to me, however, that progress has always come by misreading. (Though I would not expect the author of that remark to consider this particular misreading fruitful!)
The notion of ongoing revelation is also present in one of the Articles of Faith and D&C 128, and also invoked with some frequency in Church rhetoric; but I don’t think I’ve heard the potential for the importation of ancient error or at least imperfection as part of the Restoration mentioned before.
In addition to the gradualness of the Restoration, Jacob 5 seems also to describe the coming of the Millenium in gradual terms. There is a Millenium there, I think, the gathering up of the natural fruit for a long time, but I’ve never been able to see the sudden worldwide destruction extravaganza deluxe of the Second Coming preceding it in there anywhere.
“but I’ve never been able to see the sudden worldwide destruction extravaganza deluxe of the Second Coming preceding it in there anywhere.”
Nor anywhere in scripture for that matter…only in misreadings. Let’s hope this particular misreading is one of the vast majority that come to naught.
eeeghad…Watt still lives! Damn “remember my settings”!
Die, Watt! Die!
Matt (the blogger formerly known as Watt)
Mark IV, to be more precise, it is not exactly that I defend the top-down model of prophetic leadership, but that I have for the most part expressed the opinion that this is what Mormonism claims for itself.
But it is a very good question. If there are such instances of real grassroots influence, I tend to think the Church would be operating on the second horn of dilemma described here, that is, not living up to its scriptural mandate and being a merely human organization. (I don’t know the history of the BSA thing, but I do know the Church’s integrating it has always bothered me, even though I’m an eagle scout!) I don’t think the welfare example fits the pattern of grassroots activism, however: it was a stake president exercising his legitimate stewardship within its bounds, and the leaders of their own accord taking it as an example. This stake president (Harold B. Lee as I recall) didn’t publish it in Sunstone (so to speak) and say “This is what the Church should do everywhere!”
I do recognize there are some possible scriptural counterexamples, the servant pleading with the lord of the vineyard to spare it a little longer here in Jacob 5 being one such case. But I think most of these are direct to God, often by a prophet or the Savior—and hence to their line leader. There is the case of the multitude getting the Savior to stay longer in 3 Nephi, but they do not articulate it verbally; he perceives it himself and acts accordingly.
I don’t know, Matt, there seems to be plenty in e.g. Matthew 24, Revelation of John, and the D&C to indicate a cataclysmic Second Coming and prelude to it.
I was kind of sad to see Mormanarchy go, but if the death of Watt means Matt is happier, I’m all for it!
Signing off for the evening…
Never fear…Mormanarchy may be gone but its soul lives on!
Yes, there is some basis in scripture as usual. But of course, the images and broader scope of christian eschatology…what most often comes to mind among evangelicals, eg Time LeHaye, etc…are largely flourishes and perhaps unwarranted linking of the very few scriptures that are claimed to be the source.
I’m just thinking that the parable in Jacob 5 is perhaps a more accurate rendering of process without basically meaningless claims to specifics…I’m thinking that Zenos speaks in a truly prophetic/poetic manner, while the many advocates of end-time dogma and imagery are sensationalist.
The relative pros and cons of this change are debateable, but stakes are much more tightly regulated in some respects than they once were, and the operation of Church finances alone would probably preclude any stake from doing anything so radical on its own initative under the present scheme of things. It is against the rules for any US/CAN ward or stake to collect funds that are not immediately remitted to Salt Lake or used for rather limited purposes. That is not to say they couldn’t get get permission, but it might be rough going.
Joseph Smith, once upon a time, said I will give you a key that will never rust, always follow the majority of the Quorum of the Twelve. As long as the majority are in Salt Lake City, I don’t think we have to worry about Jacob 5 scenarios, especially in an era of world wide communications.
Christian,
Nice post. I think your idea of an organic restoration is very interesting. Off topic, did you give up on being a–gasp!–feminist?
Regarding taking feminism off my Spinozist agenda, see the first paragraph here. Ironically, immediately after that I wrote my two arguably most feminist-themed posts.