The Art of Dissent Among the Mormons - Sunstone Magazine

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IS AVAILABLE AT: DESERET BOOK STORES Cache Valley Mall Community Shopping Center Cottonwood Mall Fashion Place Mall Layton Hills Mall Ogden City Mall South Towne Mall University Mall Valley Fair Mall ZCMl Mall SEAGULL BOOK & TAPE 1720 S. Redwood Road, Salt Lake City, UT 5730 S. Redwood Road Salt Lake City, UT 1629 W. 90 S., West Jordan, UT 2144 Washington Blvd. Ogden, UT 2146 N. Main #528 Layton, UT 2255 N. Universit Pkwy #2 Provo, U? 110 Mesa Drive Mesa, AZ 10714 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 427 Preston Valle Center Dallas, TI COLORADO SPRINGS, CO LDS Chapter & Verse 3560 Austine Bluffs Pkwy, Ste. 183 ALBUQUERQUE, NM Sunrise Bookstore 7200 Menaul N. E. JACKSON, WY The Valle Bookstore 125 N! Cache PARK CITY, UT Dolly's Bookstore 510 Main St. LOGAN The Book Table 29 N. Main USU Bookstore KAYSVILLE Kaysville Book Shop 141 N. Main LAYTON Layton Book Store 254 E. Gentile SALT LAKE CITY Benchmark Books 331 S. Rio Grande. Ste. 300 Frost's Books 1320 Foothill Dr. Hayat's Ma azine & Gifts 236 g. Main Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore 254 S. Main PROVO l OREM BYU Bookstore Cafe Haven 1605 S. State St., Orem Atticus Books 1132 S. State St, Orem Valley Book Center 52 W. Center, Provo Walt West Books 728 Columbta Lane, Pmvo ST. GEORGE Dixie College Bookstore LAS VEGAS Get Booked 4643 Parad~se Road A GRADUATE MUTUAL WHILE PHILOSOPHICALLY 1 couldn't agree more with Scott Abbott's concerns, I believe he writes from a somewhat self-serving perspective and is thus blinded to some of the real reasons for tensions at BYU ("One Lord, One Faith, Two Universities: Tensions between 'Religion' and 'Thought' at BYU," SUNSTONE, Sept. 1992). Let me share an insight I gained at a recent stake conference from the visiting general authority, Elder Cree-L Kofford of the Seventy. He was asked if the Church would consider establishing a university in the eastem United States (always a predictable question). Elder Kofford answered with the equally predictable, resounding "No." Then he volunteered information regarding the Brethren's real concem about fewer members sending their children to BYU or Ricks College. They are not terribly concerned as to whether Mormon youth get a good education, properly tempered with a spiritual overlay, but whether an environment can be created where Mormon youth can duplicate the match-making potential of BYU~C~S. Elder Kofford discussed a study c~nducted by Elders Dallin Oaks and Jeffrey Holland in which they had determined that LDS youth only require a circle of about 300 acquaintances in order to land a mate. Ideas are apparently in the works to create such settings at other universities and even at work sites for the benefit of non-student young adults. So in spite of the seriousness with which BYU academics, real or pseudo, take themselves, the evidence suggests that at least some members of the board of trustees see the BYU professoriate's mission as little more than that of providing a dating service. Why do 1 see Abbott's piece as somewhat self-serving? As a faculty member of a state university in Pennsylvania that is enduring fiscal famine, I read with considerable covetousness his descriptions of the academic bounty enjoyed by the BYU faculty: amply funded research and travel; "an aggressive acquisitions policy" by the library; gaggles of high profile, nationally famous (and expensive) scholars frequenting campus. Who wouldn't be concerned about a board of directors with such deep pockets displaying dissatisfaction? They could bring this gravy train to an end. Abbott's analysis of the board's motives charges them with assaulting the academic integrity of BYU, but ignores their primary concem: the general authorities are bean counters; they want bang for the buck. And the bang they want is indoctrinated kids marrying other indoctrinated kids. Anything else is largely secondary. This brings me to a point that every faculty member at ~~u/Ricks, as well as the general authorities, ought to consider: how long should the "widow's mite" from all around the world be used so lavishly to subsidize the faculty and staff at ri ricks for undertaking what Abbott tacitly admits (by his somewhat unctuous description of scholarly activity at BW, the religion department excepted) is a progressively pseudo-academic undertaking, and which benefits an increasingly smaller percentage of the total membership, consisting primarily of the sood Saints of the Intermountain West and California? (Talk about Church welfare for the middle class!) My proposal will fall hard on most BYU ears. BYU tuition should be raised to something in the neighborhood of $20,000 per rear, which is the going rate for private universities. (Notre Dame is $16,000 for tuition and fees, plus $4,150 for room and board.) This would go a long way toward relieving the concerns that Abbott has about interference from general authorities in academic freedom, and would also begin to rectify other festering problems presented by this abundantly supported church school. First, were the amount of tithes involved at BW minimized, I'm convinced the general authorities, who necessarily feel a real stewardship about how the Lord's money is spent, PAGE 4 FEBRUARY 1994
could back off and be less concerned with the direction of research and writing. Second, with tuition at $20,000, Church members would become more discriminating about how to spend their higher education dollars. A few questions might be asked about what gets taught there, and BYU may not strike them as such a good deal, after all. Third, this higher tuition opens a way for the Church to do a wonderful thing for all young Mormons worldwide: establish a kind of "perpetual education fund" from which low interest, tithing-sensitive loans could be made to deserving Mormons to go to the school of their choice, for the right reasons; that is, to get the best possible education in their discipline. The Brethren often express concern about the lack of testimony exhibitec our youth Church-sponsored education loans would dramatically affect young people's attitudes about the Church. The youth would believe that the Church had a real interest in their welfare, as opposed to simply being objects of indoctrination. Finally, Abbott is concerned about the success of the Mormon university experiment. As long as the university depends on Church funding, the experiment will never have been tried. The experiment will prove valid only if the university can succeed, independent of massive Church funding, and still remain Mormon in spirit and reality MERLYN CLARKE E. Stroudsburg, PA SWITCHING CHANNELERS nineteenth-century frontier America; the Urantia Book is congruent with the evolutionary paradigm; and A Course in Miracles is congruent with the quantum paradigm. Yet each of these three fundamentally religious and Christian works is far more than what a single author is capable of producing, and each has given birth to some kind of religious order with devoted believers. The real question is with the process of channeling, or, for Mormons, revelation. Why are channelers' glimpses of the infinite so culturally defined? Does God just nudge us; does She operate through Jung's collective unconscious to open the deeper parts of our individual minds? There are more questions than answers. Questions, unfortunately, that don't attract much interest. LON JONES Plainview, TX FREE AGENCY Ai=TmmE SPlRlTUAL bruising of the last two months, I need to affirm the personal probings that have built my own spiritual values. I also need to find my own position in this sad, divisive situation that has set women and men of good will against each other. As I've struggled to clarify the fundamen- tals of my spiritual beliefs, the emerging pattern shows me a glorious, God-endowed mosaic that keeps me focused, nourishes my relationship with my Father in Heaven, and maintains my membership in the Church. Its centerpiece is my core belief: fi-ee agency Doctrine and Covenants 58:26 has been a touchstone for me: "For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things. . . ." I feel the acute discomfort of the double bind when I compare this with the repressive admonitions that refute independent thinking. Discounting individual inspiration contra- . dicts Brigham Young's declaration: "It is as much my right to differ from other men, as it is theirs to differ from me, in points of doctrine and principle, when our minds cannot at once arrive at the same conclusion." (Discourses of Brigham Young 5:54.) I applaud Elder Neal Maxwell's statement to a 1992 EA.R.M.5 banquet that 'Yoseph Smith will go on being vindicated in the essential things associated with his prophetic mission" (emphasis added). God not only allows but expects me to sift carefully and prayerfully through the counsel that is handed down and to keep the "essential things," things of great import, and to weigh what is left for its eternal or saving importance. Not everything is of equal weight. Elder Boyd K. Packer, in a talk delivered in the early 19705, declared that "the Church is not on casters. to be wheeled about whither we will." But he abrogates my agency when he counsels us to sing only LDS hymns in sacrament meetings and to ignore classical hymns that also praise God. He betrays my right to personal revelation when he counsels that our funerals are to be E D FIRMAGE JX. presents numerous reasons that support his conviction that the Book of Mormon is a nineteenth-century rather than an ancient document ("Historical Criticism and the Book of Mormon: A Personal Encounter," SUNSTONE, July 1993). But he is unclear as to an alternate source. Several years ago SUNSTONE printed an article showing parallels between the manner in which the Book of Mormon was dictated and the process commonly known as channeling ("Spirit Writing: Another Look at the Book of Mormon," SUNSTONE, June 1985). Firmage accepts channeling as an option. Classifying the Book of Mormon as a channeled work puts it in the same category as several other books that have a similar origin, including the Revelation of John, much of William Blake's writings, the Urantia Book, written in the 1930s, and A Course in Miracles, written in the late 1960s. Each of these works is best understood within the historical framework of its time. The Book of Mormon is congruent with the paradigm of "I hope you don't mind, Marti-I just can't talk without using one of these." FEBRUARY 1994
Page 1 and 2: . .. dberg: Mormonism and the Purit
Page 3 and 4: MORMON EXPERIENCE, SCHOLAEGHIK ISSU
Page 5: itself of something, no matter how
Page 9 and 10: struggled to understand the spirit,
Page 11 and 12: igorous editing. It would be unkind
Page 13 and 14: seem to be, between light and dark,
Page 15 and 16: IN MEMORIAM SYMBOL OF FREEDOM By St
Page 17 and 18: lations imposed by bureaucracy, the
Page 19 and 20: why would you hear it again? will y
Page 21 and 22: I N THE WINTER OF 1965, WHILE I WAS
Page 23 and 24: coming to political power in Englan
Page 25 and 26: S U N S T O N E Gentiles . . .". (A
Page 27 and 28: S U N S T O N E viser to those of h
Page 29 and 30: S U N S T O N E ural body, it is ra
Page 31 and 32: S U N S T O N E to use it without b
Page 33 and 34: We can, in short, raise the questio
Page 35 and 36: For many Latter-day Saints, dissent
Page 37 and 38: S U N S T O N E time, she divorced
Page 39 and 40: S U N S T O N E never through asser
Page 41 and 42: By all means, liberal Mormons shoul
Page 43 and 44: S U N S T O N E She thought about f
Page 45 and 46: S U N S T O N E "KIRo newstime, 830
Page 47 and 48: Positivism, objectivism, historicis
Page 49 and 50: lence can ever be fully superseded,
Page 51 and 52: S U N S T O N E terest is to examin
Page 53 and 54: Similarly, the very use of the word
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S U N S T O N E order to define the
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S U N S T O N E sarily engaged in a
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S U N S T O N E SUMMARY Naturalisti
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himselo, would soon be available. A
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S U N S T O N E advances arguments
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S U N S T O N E then on the Sabbath
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S U N S T O N E PREFACE FOR AN ALBU
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S U N S T O N E how to give good gi
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S U N S T O N E the platter nor how
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maxed by the martyrdom of the Proph
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my. life" (128). The admiration was
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' / "MOST WUTBD" 1 These are the LD
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BYU CHANGES HOUSING POLICY SEPARATE
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THE MORMON "BABYMAKER" AIRS DURING
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had found the twenty-nine-year-old
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BYU WORKS TO CREATE FOUR-YEAR BACHE
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SUNSPOTS OXYMORMON BECAUSE I HAVE A
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I THE GREAT APOSTASY I TVE d r SEER
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The Art of Dissent Among the Mormons - Sunstone Magazine

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