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2+2=4 nli
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Date: November 20, 2014 01:42PM
Some recent related threads here make me curious about this question.
I ran across this interesting older book (published in 1957), "The Mormons", an ambitious sociological study of the group by scholar Thomas O'Dea (who at the time was with the University of Utah, though IIRC, he ended up as a sort of religious specialist-sociologist at UC Santa Barbara). I haven't read the entire book yet but I was immediately drawn to the final section of the book, "Sources of Strain and Conflict", particularly the portion called "The Mormon Encounter with Modern Secular Thought". O'Dea's assertion is that the mormon organization, as a religion, has a unusually problematic task in untethering themselves from religious literalism and fundamentalism (and therefore, increasingly have a problem retaining educated/more intellectually inclined members....or vice versa, such members may stay, but struggle unhappily as members).
From "The Mormons":
"The church was based upon the idea of modern revelation, upon the belief in the restoration in our time of what had been lost through the sinfulness and apostasy of man. Arising at a time of great confusion, the new church offered to it's followers clarification on the basis of a new revelation, thereby resolving, on what seemed to be the highest authority, many of the important issues about which other denominations could only quote an ambiguous scripture. It was an age when most believing Christians in America still held to a literal acceptance of the Bible as the content and rule of faith. A new revelation that seemed consistent with older beliefs and arguments based thereon had great cogency and appeal to the early converts who came from such backgrounds. The explicitness of the new Mormon revelation addressed itself to the very points about which contemporary religious thinking puzzled without conclusion. From a new revelation so explicit; from a modern scripture so timely, whose translation was a divine work and therefore uncorrupted; from scriptures given by God himself to chosen people in the latter days, a literal reading of the word would certainly offer solution to any important religious problems."
"Therefore, despite Joseph Smith's recognition that the Bible need not necessarily be taken literally in all cases, the modern scriptures were certainly to be so understood. Literalism became and has largely remained characteristic of the Mormon approach to the text of modern revelation. The Bible, re copied for generations, translated over centuries into various languages, may be unclear, may even be seriously corrupted, but the scriptures presented to the world in our own time by a man who talked with God, translated by a modern prophet through divine inspiration and miraculous assistance-these scriptures must be literally true, or the very foundations of Mormon faith are threatened."
"Thus it was a very literalist kind of religion, on the whole, basing its claim to divinity and veracity upon the status of it's revelations and their literal meaning, that was placed in close relation to and communication with modern thought by the reincorporation of Mormondom into secular American life."
"Mormonism, as we have seen, was the child-the stepchild may be more accurate-of nineteenth century American Protestantism. It's early appeal lay in the fact that its restoration of divine revelation in the latter days answered the problems about which the older denominations could only quarrel. Thus the church must hold to its latter-day revelations literally or lose the theological and charismatic basis of it's legitimacy. Because of the great conviction on the part of Mormons that they are close to a generation especially chosen by God and that their immediate ancestors talked with God-a belief that is supplemented in our day by the supposed presence of miraculous works and prophecies-there has never arisen any distinction in Mormon thinking between the natural and the historical elements of it's beliefs, on the one hand, and the supernatural and transcendent elements, on the other. With any distinction between absolute or relative aspects ruled out, it has been impossible for a middle position to emerge between literalism and liberalism. There is actually no room in Mormonism for philosophy as distinct from theology."
"Furthermore, the immediacy and explicitness of Mormon revelation make that theology a very literalist one. This immediacy and explicitness and the doctrine that there is no fundamental difference between the spiritual and the material or between the temporal and the eternal leave little legitimate room in Mormon thinking for what some Mormon leaders call "the philosophies of men." These latter are seen as vain and invalid, presuming to answer problems for which official Mormonism has divinely inspired and explicit answers. The origin of the earth, the destiny of man here below as well as in eternity, the temporal significance of contemporary events, the basic attitudes towards governmental forms, even the origin of American Indians-all these are answered so explicitly in Mormon scripture and with such immediacy to a divine source that there is little place for a religiously oriented, though not divinely inspired, philosophy. Mormonism can have only a theology, for it's theology monopolizes the field that philosophy would seek to develop."
"As this theology is literal and fundamentalist, the liberal can choose only between submission and personal disquietude or apostasy and suffering the guilt of deserting the tradition in which he has been reared and to which he feels great attachment."
"If it were not for the fact that Mormonism arose in literal Protestantism and took this attitude into it's own outlook, we wonder if there would not be room for reinterpretation..."
"There has been no attempt by Mormon leaders to separate a central core of dogma from the latter day revelation, because of two factors. First, it has been held equally important because of its immediateness to a divine source and the explicitness of the statement of modern Mormon revelation and because the spirit of [nineteenth century] Protestant literalness has been carried over into Mormon thinking. Second, the basic organization of the church, involving as it does the principle of lay leadership, has not produced a specialized core of theologians who would be professionally prepared to grapple with the problems involved."
-Thomas O'Dea, The Mormons, 1957
Although this is an old book, isn't the issue raised here still relevant?
In contrast, normal world Christianity (excluding the irrational creationists and the fundamentalists, I know there are millions of them) has developed a religious philosophy as distinct from a literalist theology. In other words, if you regard the writing in the Bible as allegory, there is still a meaningful universalist philosophy there to be distilled from the pre-scientific writings/world view. Even note, you don't need to be a member of any specific group to be a X'tian---it's more an outlook, a collection of philosophy. Christians can argue (and anyone may disagree with this, but it is a least a rational argument) that the emergence of X'ity was a progressive movement towards intelligence in the context of contemporaneous religious systems which taught that purity and worthiness were contingent upon purchasing animals for sacrifice, ritual bathing, belonging to a certain group, or one's wealth/status within a hierarchical religious structure. Christianity taught that what was more meaningful was true personal transformation, ie., remorse for doing wrong, learning from mistakes, and an honest desire to do better. It could be seen as early psychology (in an era before psychology existed as a concept of course), personal autonomy winning out over superstition and hierarchical authority. There are other examples, there is more to Christian philosophy, but the point is, X'ty untethered from literalism can still be palatable as a cultural tradition to even a modern, educated, intellectual mind. Most take it non-literally as symbolism of universal moral/psychological concepts. Forgiveness, gratitude, equality, etc.
If you remove the superstition/literalism from Mormonism, though, what do you have? If you distill it to it's essence? And keeping in mind that it is supposed to be an improvement over the basic philosophy of Christianity, correct?
Polygamy is an improvement over monogamy, since plural marriage is the new and everlasting covenant? White men have supremacy over darker skinned men and women? A worship of capitalism/prosperity gospel? You can't use "families are forever", because that is not an improvement, most religions including X'ity already see that as obvious...we are all one, etc.
I mean, I am seriously asking. Is there a legitimate foundational concept or concepts that TSCC could legitimately reinvent themselves around as a religious philosophy?