Religion Today

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Families and their Stories: Salman Rushdie and Ezra

Salman Rushdie visited Laramie last week. A highly acclaimed novelist originally from India, then England and now New York, Rushdie gained international notoriety when his book, "The Satanic Verses," was banned in Muslim countries and earned him a fatwa calling for his death.

Now that the fatwa has been lifted, Rushdie has emerged from hiding and resumed his life as a public author and speaker. In Laramie thanks to the efforts of UW's Department of English, Rushdie spent a day talking to people, in large groups and small.

Rushdie presented himself as a storyteller, and spoke a great deal about the importance of stories in our lives -- illustrating each of his observations by telling a couple of stories. One remark struck me at first as innocuous, and then as I considered it further I understood its power. The comment was this: stories are the glue that unifies families. Sure birth and blood create the family group, but that does not give them anything to talk about. It is the stories like those about "crazy uncle Willie," "young Sam's winning home run," or "the incident with the waitress caused when granddad's hearing aid went on the blink" that bind family members together. Every family has tales like these, which they tell and retell to each other.

Not only do families treasure these narratives, but their shared body of stories reinforces their identity and their unity as a family. They are the only group of people that share them.

Families are created as much by marriage as by birth, and marriage brings a person into a family from outside. While a wedding officially joins a person to the family, they become fully integrated when they learn the family's shared stories, and then pass on those stories themselves.

For an example, let's turn to Scripture and discuss the disturbing story of mass divorce engineered by Ezra. The Book of Ezra, chapters 9-10, is set a few decades after the Israelites return to Jerusalem from their exile in Babylonia. This was a powerful act of God done out of forgiveness, Ezra declares, but he believes that God is about to punish the returnees. Why? Because the young Israelite men married daughters from the "peoples of the land." That is, those who returned from exile intermarried with those who never left.

In sermons and other forms of interpretation, the problem Ezra saw is usually described in terms of blood. Ezra wanted to keep Israelite blood lines pure and not have them mixed with non-Israelite blood. But in his speeches Ezra never said anything about blood, instead he talked about worshiping other gods. He used strong language when he said, "The land which you are entering is a land unclean with the pollutions of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations." What pollutions and abominations? Those of worshiping gods who are not the Israelite God.

The danger here is that just as the Israelites have the story of how their God brought them back from exile, so the gods of "the peoples of the land" have their own stories. Gods like Baal, Asherah and Molech have their own tales which are shared by their followers. The families who worship these gods tell themselves these stories. These stories are not about coming back to the land, like Ezra's narrative of Israel's God, but stories about staying in the land. Such stories would imply that there had been no reason to leave and hence no need for God's miracle of bringing people back.

For Israelites to intermarry, then, was to join them to a family that would tell competing family stories. When those stories involved the god which the family worshiped, then the tales would compete against those told about Israel's God, and perhaps compete successfully by making them look unnecessary. Rather than bring the people closer to God, it would push them away, and eventually into the arms of the other gods.

So in the end, the central role of stories in the formation of families, as Salman Rushdie observes, has been long recognized, even if occasionally overlooked. It was a key motivating factor in causing Ezra to bring about the divorce of hundreds of Israelites who married outside the people more than 2,500 years ago.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Blacks and Mormonism

[This is a revised version of the previous post, in light of the comments.]

In 1969, during America’s Civil Rights protests, fourteen Black members of Wyoming’s football team decided to wear black arm bands during their game against Brigham Young University, protesting what they characterized as racist policies of Mormonism. Wyoming’s coach summarily dismissed them from the team.

In 2002, the BYU student body elected Robert Foster as its first black student association president.

What changed to bring about such a radical shift?

Nothing short of a divine revelation. In June of 1978, LDS President Spencer Kimball had a revelation that reversed a "prophetic" ruling by Brigham Young in 1852. The earlier policy held that Black men of African descent could be admitted to the church but should be not admitted to the Mormon priesthood, a position into which nearly all Mormon men enter during their teenage years.

The prophecies and their accompanying controversies are prime examples of how the word of a prophet operates in a social situation, both for those who believe and those who do not.

First, for those who believe, prophetic instructions delivered must be obeyed. They cannot go against them, even when the beliefs of the surrounding human society change. So when the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s dramatically altered the position of Blacks in American society as a whole, it did not affect the standing of Brigham Young’s prophetic statement.

Second, strongly held policy is not necessarily permanent, but lasts only until a revelation concerning the same matter. The biblical prophet Jonah provides a good example, for God sent him to Nineveh to prophesy the city’s destruction. When the Ninevites repented, God sent Jonah with a new revelation saying the city would be spared. President Kimball’s revelation functioned similarly; it revealed God’s new will.

Third, prophetic revelation comes not in calm times, but at periods of social conflict and unrest. The prophet Micaiah gave a revelation to the Kings of Judah and Israel at a time of war (1 Kings 22), for example, telling them not to fight or they would be defeated. They fought, and lost their lives.

With regard to the priesthood ban, the links to social circumstances can be seen most clearly in Brigham Young’s 1852 ban on black eligibility for the priesthood. It came at a controversial time for the USA as well as for the Mormon Church, for the nation was embroiled in a heated political debate over slavery. In the early years of Mormonism, Joseph Smith had ignored this issue. He and his followers were undergoing almost constant persecution and had to flee first from upstate New York to Ohio, then to Missouri, to Illinois (where Smith was killed in 1844), and finally to Utah.

It was not until they reached Missouri, a “slave state,” that Mormonism confronted the abolition question. The Mormons attempted to maintain a neutral position, neither anti-slavery nor pro-slavery, which the Missourians found unacceptable. The free blacks living among the Mormons, Missourians thought, gave slaves ideas about liberty, while the Mormon proselytizing, they feared, would incite rebellion. The governor expelled the Mormons from the state in 1838.

The Missouri experience produced many reactions among the Mormons. When Joseph Smith ran for President of the USA in 1843, his platform had an anti-slavery plank. Other Mormons, like many Americans, held beliefs closer to those of the Missourians.

Brigham Young’s ruling in 1852 can be seen as providing a way for Mormons to remain neutral on the question of slavery; it permitted Utah territory to have both slave-holding converts from the South and free Black converts from the North. Even in 1863 during the height of the Civil War, Young stated that he was neither for nor against slavery. Like most whites he did not believe in inter-racial marriage, but he also thought that Congress should rule “that negroes should be used like human beings, and not worse than dumb brutes. For the abuse of that race, the whites will be cursed.” Although these words may have a dogmatic tone to modern ears, they were at the time rather progressive.

It was ongoing adherence to Young’s policy after the triumph of the civil rights movement that has caused the LDS Church much bad press. Their once-liberal position had become quite conservative. For the Church, it was up to the 1978 revelation to set Mormonism on a different track.

The complex issue of Blacks and Mormonism cannot be broadly addressed in a short column like this. UW’s Religious Studies Program is hosting two-part program on Friday, September 26th for further exploration. At 3:00 pm, the film, “Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons” will be shown. At 7:00, Professor Armand Mauss will speak on “From Galatia to Ghana: The Racial Dynamic in Mormon History” in UW’s Agriculture Auditorium. For more information, go to www.uwyo.edu/RelStds.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Revelation and Black Mormons

In 1969, during America’s Civil Rights protests, fourteen Black members of Wyoming’s football team decided to wear black arm bands during their game against Brigham Young University, protesting what they characterized as racist policies of Mormonism. Wyoming’s coach summarily dismissed them from the team.

In 2002, the BYU student body elected Robert Foster as its first black student association president.

What changed to bring about such a radical shift?

Nothing short of a divine revelation. In June of 1978, LDS President Spencer Kimball had a revelation that reversed a revelation by Brigham Young in 1848. The earlier revelation held that Black men of African descent could be admitted to the church should be not admitted to the Mormon priesthood, a position into which nearly all Mormon men enter during their teenage years.

The prophecies and their accompanying controversies are prime examples of how revelation operates in a social situation, both for those who believe and those who do not.

First, for those who believe, divine instructions delivered by prophecy must be obeyed. They cannot go against revelation, even when the beliefs of the surrounding human society change. So when the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s dramatically altered the position of Blacks in American society as a whole, it did not affect the standing of Brigham Young’s prophetic revelation.

Second, prophetic revelation is not necessarily permanent, but lasts only until another revelation concerning the same matter. The biblical prophet Jonah provides a good example, for God sent him to Nineveh to prophesy the city’s destruction. When the Ninevites repented, God sent Jonah with a new revelation saying the city would be spared. President Kimball’s revelation functioned similarly; it revealed God’s new will.

Third, prophetic revelation comes not in calm times, but at periods of social conflict and unrest. The prophet Micaiah gave a revelation to the Kings of Judah and Israel at a time of war (1 Kings 22), for example, telling them not to fight or they would be defeated. They fought, and lost their lives.

With regard to the priesthood ban, the links to social circumstances can be seen most clearly in Brigham Young’s 1848 revelation. It came at a controversial time for the USA as well as for the Mormon Church, for the nation was embroiled in a heated political debate over slavery. In the early years of Mormonism, Joseph Smith had ignored this issue. He and his followers were undergoing almost constant persecution and had to flee first from upstate New York to Ohio, then to Missouri, to Illinois (where Smith was killed in 1844), and finally to Utah.

It was not until they reached Missouri, a “slave state,” that Mormonism confronted the abolition question. The Mormons attempted to maintain a neutral position, neither anti-slavery nor pro-slavery, which the Missourians found unacceptable. The free blacks living among the Mormons, Missourians thought, gave slaves ideas about liberty, while the Mormon proselytizing, they feared, would incite rebellion. The governor expelled the Mormons from the state in 1838.

The Missouri experience produced many reactions among the Mormons. When Joseph Smith ran for President of the USA in 1843, his platform had an anti-slavery plank. Other Mormons, like many Americans, held beliefs closer to those of the Missourians.

Brigham Young’s revelation in Utah in 1848 can be seen as providing a way for Mormons to remain neutral on the question of slavery; it permitted Utah territory to have both slave-holding converts from the South and free Black converts from the North. Even in 1863 during the height of the Civil War, Young stated that he was neither for nor against slavery. Like most whites he did not believe in inter-racial marriage, but he also thought that Congress should rule “that negroes should be used like human beings, and not worse than dumb brutes. For the abuse of that race, the whites will be cursed.” Although these words may have a dogmatic tone to modern ears, they were at the time rather progressive.

It was ongoing adherence to Young’s revelation as Mormon doctrine after the triumph of the civil rights movement that has caused the LDS Church much bad press. Their once-liberal position had become quite conservative. For the Church, it was up to the 1978 revelation to set Mormonism on a different track.

The complex issue of Blacks and Mormonism cannot be broadly addressed in a short column like this. UW’s Religious Studies Program is hosting two-part program on Friday, September 26th for further exploration. At 3:00 pm, the film, “Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons” will be shown. At 7:00, Professor Armand Mauss will speak on “From Galatia to Ghana: The Racial Dynamic in Mormon History” in UW’s Agriculture Auditorium. For more information, go to www.uwyo.edu/RelStds.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Religion and Politics: From Scripture to Real Life

The sacred texts of a religion are written at a specific time in a specific place. They become important to a religion's followers and are preserved by them because the messages they contain address their immediate political, social and economic circumstances.

But those circumstances do not always stay the same. Sacred texts written for desert dwellers can become holy to people living in mountains or jungles. Books written for agricultural communities can be carried into cities and become guides for urban residents. This kind of reversal took place for both Judaism and Christianity in the realm of governance and political organization.

Most books of Judaism's Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) were written at a time when its adherents -- called Israelites at first and later Jews -- were self-governing. For about 600 years, from the time Moses liberated the Israelites from Egyptian slavery to the fall of the last Judean king in 586 BC, from the books of Exodus to end of Second Kings and Second Chronicles, the Israelites ruled themselves. Prophets and "judges" comprised the first native rulers and then the Israelites were led by four centuries of kings. Even Deuteronomy's laws presume that kings are Israel's normal rulers.

The Babylonian invasion of 586 B.C. changed all that. Taken into exile by the Babylonians, the Israelites were allowed by the Persians to return to Judea, which had become a province of the Persian empire. This subordinate status continued for centuries, under the Persians, the Greeks, and then the Romans, with only 100 years of independence under the Maccabees in the second century B.C.

Then matters got worse. In 70 A.D., the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and banned Jews from living in Judea. Jews spread throughout the Mediterranean world, Europe and the Middle East. There they remained for almost two millennia, until they began to return in the 20th century. They were forced to live as foreigners and guests (often unwelcome) in countries they did not rule. They were subjects, with no rights of self governance or self control, and indeed often without any rights at all.

So Judaism, the religion of people whose sacred texts recorded their centuries of self-rule and which considered that the normal political situation of Jews, has spent nearly two-thirds of its existence without any political power whatsoever.

Christianity finds itself in the opposite position. Its founding document, the New Testament, presents earliest Christianity as a religion of the powerless, of those subject to rule by the Roman Empire. Jesus taught his followers to turn the other cheek when struck and to walk a second mile when forced to go one. He taught them to pay taxes to the government ("render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.") And when it came time to bless people, he blessed the meek, the poor in spirit, the merciful and the poor in heart. He did not bless the rulers, the army, or even the leaders of the city, or town, or village. He emphasized humbling oneself before others, not ruling over them.

Despite three centuries of being despised and frequently persecuted, Christianity found itself in the 4th century ruling the empire that had humbled them. Once Constantine ascended the throne and decided to make Christians his main body of allies, the die was caste. With only a few exceptions, Christianity ruled empires and countries from then on. The Christian Byzantine Empire lasted until the 15th century, during which time Christianity spread through Europe, forming Christian nations and empires. Starting in the 16th century, those empires spread Christianity around the world, from the New World to Africa and Asia.

So Christianity had to perform the opposite transformation from Judaism. Although its sacred New Testament envisioned a humble community subject to mighty powers and without self-rule, it became a governing religion. And for more than three-quarters of its existence, Christianity has been the dominant religion of major empires and nations, usually closely allied with their kings, emperors, presidents and other leaders.

Perhaps it is not a coincidence, then, that when Christianity chose the books of its Bible at the end of the fourth century, it included the Old Testament. It needed some guidance for how a religion handled political power.