Challenging our own Worldview

There are a number of people I read or admire for many reasons. I don’t always agree with what they say and that is a good thing. I like to read things to compare different points of view, to try and get a complete picture of things. In the light of a new experience, I may have to change my worldview – that mental platform that forms the scaffolding of my temporal personality. Moreover, not agreeing with someone doesn’t mean they are wrong. I always make up my own mind – there is a difference in believing that 2+2=4 than knowing that 2+2=4 and sometimes (!!) there are things that I just don’t know (actually, there are many things in that category!) but tentatively accept even if they appear to fit into my worldview.

I never hold my worldview that strongly – I am always open to being corrected, to changing what needs to be changed, and thereby grow as an individual, and – importantly – hopefully avoid being chained to something that pertains solely to my temporal nature.

It is also important to understand the purpose of a ‘worldview’, and that is why I referred to it above as “scaffolding of my temporal personality”. It allows us to orient our own-Self in this world. But what may be useful in this world, may be a hindrance in the next. A worldview is something we create throughout our life, it is not something that is part of our true-I nature (our Spiritual core), but it is something necessary for our temporal orientation. The point I want to make here is that often someone, or something, comes along and challenges our worldview in some way, not necessarily in an aggressive way, but in a way that makes us react. This reaction may be defensive (“I know the truth, and you are wrong”) or it may be sympathetic (“perhaps you have a point, and I’ll think about that”). I’ve noticed that most people react defensively to challenges, not really being willing to engage in conversation, and not really being open to what the world may be saying. This is unfortunate, because the Spirit is not limited by parochialism and goes where it wills.

When peoples firmly held worldviews are challenged, they often react in such a way that the message within the challenge (which is not necessarily vocalized) does not reach them. Their antipathy is like a closed door. We all exhibit this type of behavior, for it is a natural part of our temporal condition. The trick is to learn to overcome these (largely unconscious) reactions so that they do not control us, but help us to understand things better, thereby building our own character and perhaps learning a thing or two from the message as well.

Irrational stance against alternative views on marriage

The LDS continues its irrational stance against alternative views on marriage in a recent press release.

Why does the LDS Church think it has a monopoly on the meaning of marriage? Is it so naive to believe that other cultures do not have a marriage ceremony? Why has it conveniently forgotten its own history on the matter?

Let us not forget, that the Church had an official position on marriage as being between ‘one man and one women’ in its scriptures. This was removed by President Young – whom we are told was a prophet, and we are of course prophets can apparently never led us astray. This very same prophet then continued the practice of plural marriage, which was considered – by a prophet who can never lead people astray – as essential for your salvation/exaltation.

As we know, the LDS Church dropped plural marriage for purely political purposes. Don’t get me wrong, I disagree with it being ‘essential’. Yet the Church still perpetuates the myth (via Official Declaration 1 in its scriptures) that the doctrine was dropped in 1890), when it well knows – as does anyone who is capable of reading about its history – that the practice continued by the highest leadership in the Church (who, don't forget, can never lead us astray). George Albert Smith was the first President of the Church not to practice plural marriage (that wasn’t in last year’s lesson though, because (a) we don’t talk about plural marriage anymore, (b) we don’t want to point out that OD1 is not entirely factual, and (c) a true understanding of our history is apparently not ‘faith promoting’. Know the truth and the truth will set you free make you confused).

What the LDS Church should be stating is this: the State should keep its nose out of all cultural-spiritual matters, and that includes the institution of marriage. The Church should uphold all peoples religious right to marry, and not just pay lip service to endorsing religious rights while actively campaigning to take others away because it disagrees with them.

The State has no business at all defining what marriage is. Marriage is a spiritual matter, not a political one. It only becomes political when the State intrudes into matters it ought to keep out of. Hence, the existing 'political' problem of the unequal political treatment of different spiritual points of view on what marriage is. What should the state regulate next, the meaning of Christmas?

The Church ought to also explain to people why this sacred institution can only have meaning when it is between male and female, rather than just state ‘because God said so’. Because God said so doesn’t explain why it is so. People have a need to know, to understand, and with all the bureaucracy, revelatory gifts, and seership of the Q12+FP you’d think they would be able to meet this desire.

In a subsequent post, I will give my own personal reflections on why, from one point of view, marriage can only have spiritual efficacy if it is between a man and women.

I Tweet, therefore I AM

I have a new twitter address @OutlierMormon in order to promote this blog and the alternative viewpoints that I wish to bring to members.

https://twitter.com/OutlierMormon

OM

An Update (of sorts)

I have slightly revised a few earlier posts for readability.  I intended that my comments on Personal Revelation would be in at least two posts.  After much consideration of my approach, I decided to change tact, and the result was the post called Spiritual Self-Reliance.  I will continue to cover this topic again from various points of view at a latter date.

Incidentally, it should be obvious that I post when I feel the need to.  Often, I have an idea on what I want to write but it takes time for the idea to mature into something that has value for you the reader.  Hence, posts will be sporadic, as and when the spirit decides to blow my way.

The Importance of the Law of Consecration

The Law of Consecration points to our future economic life, and a spiritual task of America. That the Law’s realization within 19th Century USA was a failure, should not mean that the law itself is not important. This community (the LDS Church) was the seed-bed, the planting box, for the seed to grow into a mature, healthy, impulse for the economic life. Its fruit would spread beyond its incubator, into the wider community, region, nation, and into the global economy. At least, that was the ideal, the potential. As we know, the LDS Church failed as an incubator, and it no longer considers the deeper spiritual meaning and potential of the Law to be relevant. Living the Law of Consecration today merely means gifting your ‘time, talents, money’ etc to the Church, in other words, it has become what we would otherwise call ‘charity’.

Regardless of what it has become, what it is in reality is a living, breathing, spiritual impulse. And it continues to seek out fertile soil to grow. The spiritual impulse of the Law of Consecration will not be cut off by the reigning forces of this world, regardless of how much the LDS Church have themselves succumbed to them. It is America’s destiny to work with economic forces in a spiritual way. Modern capitalism, which the Church has embraced, is a caricature of a truly sacramental approach to economics.

Modern capitalism is an entirely logical outcome of our historical spiritual development. It was/is our destiny to develop a strong I-consciousness, which gives rise to our ego-centric view. That capitalism is based upon the ‘virtue of egotism’ can thus be understood, when we place it in developmental context. Capitalism is all about ‘me’ and making profit often purely for for the sake of making profit (greed, i.e. feeding the ego). Profit is necessary, but when it becomes a goal in itself we succumb to it, we become captured by it. That ‘it’ is a real spiritual being, the bible calls Mammon. Mammon thrives in our modern economic life; he has captured many.

However, America’s spiritual heritage is rich with guidance on these matters. As one example, it was John F Kennedy who said “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”. In other words, what does my community really need? What is the real economic need that I can meet? How can I, in concert with others who also recognize this need, work together to address this? The other persons real need thus becomes the motive. I know that my own economic needs can only be met by others, so I too must meet there economic needs. Marketing of course distorts this, creates false markets, creates false needs. But we can rise above that, develop insight to the real economy, the living economic life.

The Law of Consecration (to be honest, an outdated term today) points to the spiritual destiny of America. As the Global Financial Crisis shows, these issues are pertinent. Do we have ears to hear?

Spiritual Self-Reliance

Those of us who are only able to rely upon the witness or teachings of people who have spiritual experiences face the problem of spiritual discernment. In his October 2010 conference talk, Elder Oaks states that while we ourselves can receive revelation, if we do receive revelation and it contradicts what the Brethren themselves have received, then we are told that we are wrong; that our revelation is of the devil!  Respectfully, I disagree with his position.  Firstly, the individuals who comprise the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency are not infallible. Ergo, they – like the rest of us – are not perfect, and can quite possibly be wrong!   And on this occasion Elder Oaks is in error, and a dangerous one at that too [1].

Elder Christofferson in his April 2010 conference talk stated that the scriptures ought to be used as the standard for distinguishing truth from error.  In my last post I mentioned some of the considerations we ought to keep in mind in relying upon any revelation (in fact, even our own revelations will be colored in some way).  Therefore, we ought not use the scriptures as a ‘standard’ per se.  If  we have our own spiritual experiences, or gain an audience with Christ, then we no longer need the scriptures to validate what we experience as truth, we have received direct validation ourselves.

This leaves us then with one thing: our own self.  We can only ever rely upon our own self, or I.  Everything else either facilitates or hinders our relationship with the divine.  We have to remind ourselves: what is the purpose for taking part in a religious community? What am I aiming for? Some of us are trying to follow Christ, to enter into His presence, and through Him, to our Heavenly Father.  Therefore, anything that comes between you and the Lord is a hindrance or an obstacle to be overcome.

The Lord has asked us to take steps toward Him.  Entering His presence is an arduous task, and the spirits of hindrance do their best to divert us from this.

We need to discern these spirits, as they influence us via our own soul, and via others (no one is immune, but they thrive on not being noticed).  Despite my comments above, Elder Christofferson does have a good point: if we study the scriptures, we are given insight into how things unfold in our time.  If we take heed to the lessons, we are armed with knowledge about the tactics of the spirits of hindrance.

[1] Elder Oaks states that while we ourselves can receive revelation, if we do receive revelation and it contradicts what the Brethren themselves have received, then we are told that we are wrong; that our revelation is of the devil.  What this means is that the standard by which we assess the truthfulness of revelation is no longer the Holy Spirit, or the fact of Christ’s appearance to us and His words. No, it is the Brethren. It is a small group of men – fallen, fallible human beings who on the one hand deny their infallibility (via anonymous press release), while expecting us to take everything they say as the truth. What is wrong with this picture?

The challenge of the written word

There are several ways we can learn about matters of the spiritual life, such as the being of man, the Mystery of the Atonement, the creation of the world, or even mundane things such as the spiritual properties of plants.  We can develop the spiritual capacities to enter into spiritual realms and thereby uncover certain truths for oneself; secondly, we can receive revelations from spiritual beings as an act of Grace; thirdly, we can accept the witness or teachings of people belonging to either category above.  

We have to accept the possibility that the revelation, either in the way it was received or in the way it was understood by the receiver and then communicated, has come to us coloured by the disposition of the person who received it.  It may be coloured by that persons vocabulary, their temperament, their worldview, their thought system, their psychology.  There are many factors that influence how we view and understand the world that we live in, and the spiritual is no different. 

We therefore ought to view scripture for what it is: communications through revelators or seers, that are coloured by the person who received them.  Moreover, people of different times do not have the same soul-spiritual faculties.  Our relationship with the divine changes over time.  Just think how different we were as children, compared to adults. Similarly, humanity’s relationship with the divine changes through time. Revelations written down a thousand years ago were written by someone with a different relationship to the divine than what we have today.  In regard to the Old and New Testaments, we must also factor in the translators – for their translations too are coloured in one way or another by their own selves.  Even those in authoritative positions making interpretations that we are expected to take with some weight, are coloured by their own personality, schooling, environment etc.

This is not to down play the importance of scripture.  Far from it, scripture contains a wealth of wisdom that humanity has yet to uncover.  But we ought not confuse the spiritual experience, the spiritual process of being enlightened, the revelatory process with the fixed written words that we have. The written word is the result of the experience, but is not the experience itself.  The revelatory process is a living spiritual event; the written word is a fixed residue.  We should not idolise a book, but seek a living spiritual relationship as real as the ones we have in this world.

The written word challenges the reader to revitalise the fixed, dead word, and to lift their thinking up back into the spiritual realm – to behold the truth for themselves.  A seer is one who sees into the realm of the divine. We ought to seek to develop such capacities for ourselves, then we too can uncover the truths that the written revelations point too.  When we rely unduly upon the written word, we run the risk of distancing ourselves from the divine world, which is always living, fresh, vibrant.  The scriptures are a medium, and not the end.  We have to uncover the spiritual truths, we have to take the steps into the divine spiritual worlds.  We do this through developing our thinking; studying the results of spiritual research is the first step on this path.