When Rhetoric Overpowers Revelation: Moroni 8 and Mormon's Comments on Infant Baptism:

 Last year, BYU's Maxwell Institute published an incredible new book entitled Ancient Christians: An Introduction for Latter-day Saints. I'm still working through it (and through the complimentary and highly recommended podcast Meet the Early-day Saints, presented by Wayfare and hosted by Blair Hodges), but this book seeks to overturn a massive amount of presumptions, assumptions and mistaken ideas and negative stereotypes about the earliest Christian Church (and I'd also say practices by current practitioners of other Christian traditions) that had been promulgated and believed by Latter-day Saints for generations. It's a massive undertaking, and anyone who has seen takes published by Church-owned entities in the past that engages with the Church Fathers and past Christian beliefs and practices likely has a reason to be skeptical. That said, nothing like this has been published before.

I'll likely talk more about this book in more detail at another time, but I wanted to lay out some thoughts I had after reading one of the sidebars in Mark D. Ellison's excellent chapter, "Connecting with Christ: Rituals and Worship". The sidebar is on the topic of Infant Baptism.

After giving 4 paragraphs to an explanation of the origins of Infant Baptism along with generous and sympathetic expressions of why devoted disciples of Christ would be motivated to have their young children baptized, he ends with this paragraph, addressing and confronting how Latter-day Saints approach and think of this practice. I quote:

Though we Latter-day Saints have a different position on this issue (because of Restoration scripture that early Christians did not have, such as Moroni 8 and Doctrine and Covenants 68:27), the idea of accommodations in the performances of ordinances is not foreign to Latter-day Saint thought or practice.  Doctrine and Covenants 137:9-10 assures us that children who die before the age of accountability will inherit the celestial kingdom -- and also that the Lord "will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts." Surely this includes the heartfelt concerns of parents for the eternal well-being of their little children.  The argument against infant baptism in Moroni 8 is important, but it is not directed against ancient Christians in the Old World, nor modern Christians, but against Nephites who Mormon thought should have known better." 

That last phrase "Nephites who Mormon thought should have known better", sparked an interest in me to revisit Moroni 8, because I recalled it quoting a revelation from Christ on the topic along with incredibly harsh condemnation for the participants in such a practice.

I'm so glad I revisited it. With the hermeneutic of generosity in mind inspired by the selection in Ancient Christians, I noticed something I never had before: There are two parts to this passage, which is presented by Moroni as part of a letter he had received from his father, Mormon. Following an introduction to the question at hand (whether young children should be baptized),  Mormon declares he received a revelation from Jesus Christ, and gives a quotation of what he declared are the words of Christ as an answer to his question.

The second part is Mormon taking a verbal step back, and then giving his personal commentary on his understanding and application of it.

First, here's the words Mormon attributes to Christ (Moroni 8:8):

Listen to the words of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold, I came into the world not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them; and the law of circumcision is done away in me.

Take note of what this passage does, and does not do. * The words do answer the question with a gentle top-level doctrinal framework for why a practice understood as for the remission of sins should not be understood as a requirement for children. What they do not do is condemn the practice of baptizing children, or pass a moral judgment in any way on those who have or do participate in or teach the practice. 

This is in sharp contrast to what Mormon the Church leader does next. First, he explicitly ends the quotation, ("And after this manner did the Holy Ghost manifest the word of God unto me;") and then gives his interpretation of it. ("Wherefore  ... I know that...). Mormon then goes on to impute wicked motivation and condemnation for the practice and the practitioners - right before declaring himself to be "filled with charity" (8:17)!

This is what Mormon says about those who believe in baptizing their children:

• "he that supposeth that little children need baptism is in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; for he hath neither faith, hope, nor charity; wherefore, should he be cut off while in the thought, he must go down to hell." (8:14)

Compare that again to what he reports as Christ's actual response on the topic.**

We have seen in the modern Church many examples of  Church leaders taking a teaching of Christ, and then going beyond it to paint with a broad brush imputed motivations and condemnation for anyone who disagrees. I don't feel the need to present examples. If you're reading this, I'm sure you can think  of them.

While it may be at times easy to sympathize with the perspective and reason for such rhetoric from the point of view of the one giving it, it must also be appreciated how that rhetoric is received, and often becomes conflated with the original teaching of Christ, and how that can lead to undeserved pain, hurt, and condemnation not condoned by the words of Christ.

This is a good example of how we can take what may be an essentially true uplifting Gospel principle, and then weaponize it in a way that goes devastatingly beyond its intentions. I do believe the words of Mormon as presented in this passage are (and have been) harmful and not representative of the beliefs or status of anyone I know (and the vast majority of those I do not know) of those who incorporate infant baptism as part of their Christian practice and devotion. 

That doesn't mean Restoration scripture affirms the practice or beliefs motivating the practice as being correct or necessary -  but not being correct or unnecessary doesn't require such motives and assumption of sin that Mormon the Church leader goes out of his way to present.

____

* While this is somewhat of a tangent topic, it's interesting to note that these words alone do not inherently disregard the notion of Original Sin at this time, but present the teaching using the framework that accountability for what is called "the curse of Adam" in children is removed by Christ without requirement of additional proactive sacramental action. It's also worth noting that the Book of Mormon presents a discussion of a sinless Jesus willingly subjecting himself to baptism, and presenting it as an act of obedience and as an example. (see 2 Nephi 31)

** Significantly, even in a Latter-day Saint scripture that would come later (a Revelation to Joseph Smith eventually canonized as Doctrine and Covenants 29:46) the voice of Christ is represented as repeating essentially the same answer Mormon reports Christ as giving - but also, once again,  free from the explicit condemnation of the practice of infant baptism or those who practice it. "But behold, I say unto you, that little children are redeemed from the foundation of the world through mine Only Begotten;" (D&C 29:46)

Getting Back To Business

 From around 2010 up to about 2016, I kept a blog filled with book reviews and musings in the realms of Mormon Studies and other Latter-day Saint themes. A couple years ago, I started reviewing and commenting again, but this time mainly on Twitter. I thought it was about time to bring back some of my old reviews, and gather some of my Twitter thoughts into a single 'clearing house' of sorts.

So ImprovementEra.com is back. Sort of. I'm in the process of re-posting old reviews from the Back Catalog. This'll take a little while, as I'm fixing any old or broken links along the way. I'm also re-posting them with their original post-dates. So while this iteration of ImprovementEra.com is new, I hope to add some continuity to its past.

Thanks for stopping by!
 

REVIEW - Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration

Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration

Cheryl L. Bruno, Joe Steve Swick III, Nicholas S. Literski

Greg Kofford Books, 2022

Amazon.com purchase link

There's a lot of books and articles that have attempted to make parallels with Mormonism and Masonry. This is the only one I've found that combines a deep and nuanced knowledge of the best current Mormon History/Mormon Studies Scholarship (including using the most recent Joseph Smith Papers documents), experience as a practicing Mason, deep understanding of relevant 19th Century historical/religious developments, and especially how specific aspects of 19th Century Masonry (practice, language, and perspective) was developing and interacting with multiple aspects of society.

This is an exploration of how deeply 19th Century Masonic ideas were interwoven and influential from the very beginning of Joseph Smith's life, and how they interacted, informed, and challenged his developing Church, Scripture, and world of religious ideas.

This isn't a book of surface Parallels, or a Latter-day Saint Temple exposé, or for that manner, a Masonic exposé. In fact, I was surprised at how well the book navigated respectfully (and usefully!) the exploration of key material considered sensitive from both Masonic and Latter-day Saint ritual.

I consider myself significantly well-read when it comes to scholarship and primary sources relating to Latter-day Saint/Mormon history. This book re-framed many of the events and episodes, statements and practices from history that I knew DID happen, and presented for the first time, a consistent and thorough explanation of WHY they happened the way they did. It really did feel like some missing puzzle pieces came into view that had been hiding in plain sight.

I don't see how any serious scholar working on the early development of Latter-day Saint writings, teachings, beliefs and practices can go forward without taking this book's arguments and evidence into consideration. The descriptor 'Game Changer' is often thrown around, but this one legitimately earns it.

REVIEW - 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction

1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction 

Joseph Spencer

Neal A. Maxwell Institute 2020

Amazon Purchase Link

 I've read 1 Nephi a lot. I've taught from 1 Nephi a lot. This book had me taking notes of key ideas and questions raised by the book that were always there, but I had just not yet had a reason to take notice of them.

This is one of the major strengths of the book, the first in the Maxwell Institute's Brief Theological Introductions to the Book of Mormon series. It gives example of some of the great questions we could be asking, shows productive ways one might approach answers to those questions (along with showing some ways others may have considered them), and guides us into ways of closely reading and paying attention to the text in a way that can lead to discovering one's own 'new' questions.

It's not a book designed to make 1 Nephi easier - it's a book designed to make our engagement with it more meaningful.

I appreciated Joseph Spencer's combination of candor and sensitivity. He asks the reader to be prepared for hard questions, and models ways we can productively think about them.

It's a small book, but some of the insights presented within it will be sitting with me for a long time. I very much look forward to what the other authors in this series bring to their forthcoming volumes in the series. I highly recommend it.

REVIEW - Re-reading Job: Understanding the Ancient World's Greatest Poem

 

Re-reading Job: Understanding the Ancient World's Greatest Poem

Michael Austin

Greg Kofford Books, 2014

Amazon Purchase Link

What matters more – understanding why people suffer, or knowing how we should respond when people are suffering?

I have always been fascinated by the Book of Job.  It’s a messy book, and a subversive book. The biggest take-away I’d always gotten from it was that I had the ability to use Job’s comforters as an illustration and example of how not to comfort who is suffering (IE, with theological platitudes that tend to serve more to comfort the worldview of the comforter than the person actually the suffering.)

A few weeks ago, a horrible car accident took the life of one the young Sister Missionaries serving in our ward, and sent the other into the hospital with severe head trauma. As I’m writing my thoughts now, we’re in the wake of the horrible Charleston murders. Suffering and tragedy are very much on my mind.

It was in the midst of all this that I sat down to read Michael Austin’s beautiful exploration of the Book of Job, Re-reading Job: Understanding the Ancient World’s Greatest Poem.

If you’re looking for a book to lay out for you in simple language the One True Meaning of the Book of Job, all the while unlocking for all time the Divinely Appointed Reason Bad Things Happen To Good People, you might come away disappointed – but only if you’re unwilling to budge on the idea of there being One True Divine Reason.

What Austin does, in my opinion, is even better – much like David Bokovoy did in the previous volume in Kofford’s Studies in Scripture Series (the excellent Authoring The Old Testament: Genesis – Deuteronomy), Austin guides the reader on a stunning scriptural study that introduces and approaches paradigm-shifting possibilities concerning key aspects of the very nature of scripture, revelation, and literature in a relatable way that, far from leaving a newly disoriented traditional believer in the dust, also offers sincere, practical, and faithful responses and reflections.

And by ‘responses’, I don’t mean he presents ways we can ignore what we just learned, or make it comfortably fit with old ways of thinking, or make it, well, comfortable. I mean that Austin illustrated ways to practically apply Job in ways that expand our own religious perspectives and behaviors.

Austin shows us how, by willing to approach the text in ways that may initially make us uncomfortable, we can find new profound questions and insights that make the text far more relevant and useful to us and our lived religion (and those we claim to serve with our religion) than a cursory or traditional reading of the text might present. It may make the reader come away more useful to the suffering.

So what is the meaning of the Book of Job?

“The Book of Job is a difficult text,” writes Austin. “Its multiple voices each present us with a piece of the truth.  But they never quite go together into a single, unified message.”

This insight alone – which is easily applicable to the entirety of the scriptural canon – can help the reader to see a consistent flaw in a traditional approach to scripture: the assumption that The Good Guys Are Correct About Everything They Affirm, And The Bad Guys Are Always Wrong, And This Being So Is The Only Way Scripture Would Have Any Value.

Austin shows how he has approached this in regards to his exploration of Job:  “Astute readers will have already noticed that my own interpretations of Job in this book are not all compatible with each other [. . . ] Sometimes, I am on Job’s side and sometimes I am on God’s side – and, in a few places, I have good things to say about both the Comforters and the Devil.  Even if I wanted to be completely consistent about these things, I could not, for Job is a poem about (among so many other things) the impossibility of finding the truth in a single perspective.”

This is a powerful, potentially paradigm-shifting insight in and of itself if one is not accustomed to approaching and studying scripture with this perspective. Scriptures aren’t books of answers – they are prompts to get us asking the right questions that will lead to inspiration, revelation, and repentance. But this broad idea is only one of many key insights offered by the book.

Going back to the first question I posed, Austin’s book not only proposes, but calls for actual compassion for our fellow humans, and not to let our perceptions of The Doctrines of Orthodox Religion get in the way of our foundational covenant commitment of  “mourning with those who mourn, and comforting those who stand in need of comfort”.

As Austin points out, “The more that Job presses his claim to human compassion, the more abstract [his ‘comforters’] arguments become until, in the end, Job ceases to be a human being who needs comfort and becomes simply a theological problem that needs a solution.”

“God can take care of Himself,”
Austin later asserts, “our responsibility is to take care of each other.”

Austin’s words and explorations of this book hope to shatter a usually uncontested belief that God would rather us take the time to defend Him in the place of serving and loving His children.  This book is filled with powerful, life-saving insights such as these, resulting from a deep and thoughtful encounter with the Book of Job, that should be pinned on every church bulletin board or placard in the land.

This continues on into one of the most potentially life-changing insights in the book: “To meet our obligations to our fellow human beings, we need not believe that God is lacking in either power or goodness.  We just need to understand that He does not require our assistance in dealing with challenges to His authority.  We do not have to protect God from criticisms, complaints, and petitions.  He is not some first-time godling out on a test drive.  He can take criticism.  He can handle complaints.  And He has no need tor when human beings ask Him to do things differently.  Too many people – often from positions of ecclesiastical authority – spend their time trying to make sure that God’s feelings do not get hurt.  This is how we become the Comforters when we should be listening – really listening with out hearts – to the suffering Job.”

There’s a lot more to Austin’s book that I’ve brought up here – as if these selections alone shouldn’t send you scrambling to get your own copy. It’s not big in page count, but it’s packed in wide-ranging thoughtful content.

As a bonus, Austin’s prose is so delightful that you are conflicted between wanting to fly through the pages as quick as you can to soak up the goodness of everything at once – and wanting to stop and ponder after each paragraph to let the ramifications of the proposed thoughts and presented facts sink in.

This book is educational, entertaining, uncomfortable, and inspiring. A quadruple threat if ever I’ve seen one. Pick it up today! Highly recommended.

REVIEW - Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis - Deuteronomy

 

Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis - Deuteronomy

David Bokovoy

Greg Kofford Books, 2014

Amazon Purchase Link

Can a faithful Latter-day Saint accept the possibility that what are commonly called the Books of Moses were not actually written by Moses? Why would we want to? Would this necessarily undermine scriptural authority, and go against what is seen as clear modern revelation?

These are important and relevant questions for Mormons! And now, for the first time, they are properly addressed in a faithful, and easy to understand manner.

In this book, Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis – Deuteronomy, the first of a Trilogy exploring the authorship of the Old Testament canon in general (and also the first in an exciting new series of ‘Contemporary Studies in Scripture’ by Kofford Books) David Bokovoy ( a PhD in Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East with an MA in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University) presents what I can unconditionally note is one of the most important books ever written for study and appreciation of the Old Testament for a faithful LDS Perspective.

Many LDS members, if they have been exposed to bits and pieces of secular biblical scholarship, including Higher Criticism and the Documentary Hypothesis, see such a departure from how they are used to experiencing the Old Testament that they either immediately discard the new knowledge, or allow it to create cracks in their faith.

David Bokovoy beautifully demonstrates how neither of these reactions are necessary, and that an accurate understanding of mainstream biblical scholarship, far from decreasing one’s faith, can add immeasurably to one’s appreciation of not only the formation and writings of the Old Testament, but also its relationship to scriptures of the Restoration, such as the Book of Moses and the rest of the Joseph Smith Translation, the Book of Abraham, and even the Book of Mormon itself.

You do not need to be a Biblical Scholar to appreciate or understand this book – to the contrary, it was designed for those who have no previous understanding of Biblical scholarship! It is very much an introduction. However, it can also serve a secondary purpose of helping those who are familiar with scholarship find helpful approaches and models for encountering Modern scriptural texts in that light.

This is a book that can undoubtedly change how you see the Old Testament, and will likely create a need to adjust  perspectives and paradigms. This is a good thing! It will also increase understanding and relevance of the modern scripture which has the voice of God explaining that scriptures “were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.” (D&C 1:24)

I HIGHLY recommend Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis – Deuteronomy.  I’ve found it a deeply satisfying, intellectually stimulating, and , believe it or not, a very, VERY faith promoting book. Really top notch stuff.

I repeat: this is one of the most important books on Mormon scripture to be published recently. And there’s been a lot of groundbreaking works on LDS scripture coming out of late. If it seems like I’ve been praising every book I’ve reviewed lately, and proclaiming its importance, this is only because these last few years have been a really wonderful time for thoughtful, ground-breaking works on Mormon scripture, history, and culture. This book, like much of what has been pouring out of Kofford Books, is one of those, and has the potential to radically expand understanding and appreciation for not only the Old Testament, but scripture in general. It’s really that good. Read it. Share it with your friends. Discuss it.

REVIEW - Letters To A Young Mormon

 

Letters to a Young Mormon
Adam Miller
Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2014
Amazon Purchase Link (to revised 2018 edition)

The Neal A. Maxwell Institute has just released the first volume in their ‘Living Faith’ series. Letters to a Young Mormon, by Adam Miller, is a small, pocket-sized book with barely 70 full pages of text.
I’m finding it very hard to describe this book. Mainly because I’m trying to restrain my initial impressions to shout HALLELUJAH from the housetops at its very existence.

This book, if read and distributed, has the power to do extraordinary good. If you look at the table of contents, you might think these short chapters are simply a mirror of what you might see in For The Strength of Youth:

Agency, Work, Sin, Faith, Scripture, Prayer, History, Science, Hunger, Sex, Temples, Eternal Life.

I view this book, actually, as a perfect, beautiful and rich compliment, companion, and addendum to that institutional book of standards. The chapter on ‘History’, I think, contains within it a beautiful summary of what this book is – it is noted how the real life experiences of those who grappled with understanding and living Gospel principles can generally be realistically a bit more complicated than some of the simple illustrations and stories we tend to use to address them in Church meetings, and that the struggles and complexity of those in the past is actually a form of good news for us – because we are more like them than we often make clear. Miller writes:

“Our church manuals and histories are sometimes shy about this good news. With good intentions, they worry over your faith. Sometimes they seem too much like that friend of a friend who really just wants you to like them, so they pretend to only like the same vanilla things they think you do. But God is stronger stuff than this. And the scriptures certainly are as well.”  (p 47-48).

From my own personal experience writing this, coupled with the other reviews I’ve seen around, such an acknowledgement is empowering, affirming, and incredibly faith-promoting. I know that there are many in the Church who feel this way, but without having contact with someone else saying it, they may sadly feel alone, or like their life experience is out of place what is thought to be the ideal Church experience.

What Miller does is not to criticize the Church, nor to criticize your experience. It is very strongly to affirm and illustrate the essential and vital compatibility of two. In his introduction, he notes,

“I mean only to address the real beauty and costs of trying to live a Mormon life. And I hope to show something of what it means to live in a way that refuses to abandon life or Mormonism.” (p. 7)

Sometimes, the inspired models that have been used earnestly and effectively in the past to illustrate and attempt to explain who God is and how he works to a particular audience are unintentionally turned into a conceptual constraining box, rather than a stepladder to being able to accept greater knowledge and understanding. God is bigger than the story boxes used to illuminate who he is – and Miller claims that looking around us, we can see a downpour of revealed knowledge about the world, and how God works. The problem comes when we try to shove new knowledge into old story constructs. That can lead us to feeling stuck, frustrated, and confused. New wine in old wineskins, so to say. His response is liberating:

“The question isn’t: ‘can evolution be made to fit with the biblical idea of the world?’ The question is: ‘Can evolution be made to fit with the God who showed himself in that biblical world?’ I don’t have any revelatory answers about how they fit, but given that both God and evolution are real, I assume the answer is yes. They do fit.  Now it’s up to us to open our doors, zip up our slickers, and step out into the storm of revelations raining down upon us. It’s up to us to keep thinking and praying and testing from here.” (p. 55)

Amen, Amen, Amen!

I have far more I want to say about this book. But the more I write about it, the more it’s keeping you from reading this small wonder for itself.

Buy this book. Read this book. Share it with all of your Mormon friends, young and old. Read it with them. Discuss it with them.

At this moment, I can’t think of a more faith-affirming, testimony building, intellectually and emotionally stimulating LDS devotional publication that I have previously read. This book has the potential to help many see the love and works of God at work in their lives clearer than they may have been willing – or able – to acknowledge before. This book fills a need. I extend wholehearted gratitude to the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for the publication of this important volume. I truly believe their namesake would be pleased.