Praying for Haiti

Haiti is one of the poorest, most unstable countries in the world, and the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Its problems often seem to get less notice than other troubled places, maybe because it's somewhat of an anomaly of extreme poverty in an otherwise affluent part of the globe.

Here is another prayer request I received today from a lady I know in Haiti who works at a Christian school there:

"Thank you for your prayers. Here are some requests for this week.

Thank you especially for praying about our electricity - it was all fixed on Thursday, which was way faster than I had faith for!

Please pray for safety for our school families. We are starting to hear about kidnappings again and it's easy to let these stories get to you and make you fearful and distrustful of those around. I am getting prayer requests in homeroom for people my seventh graders know who have been kidnapped.

Please pray for discernment for us as we are faced with requests for money from people nearly every day. It is hard to know how to help and whom to help. It's easy to get cynical about it all and not want to help anyone."

2 Poems

Here are two I wrote a while ago:

Sudden Salvation In A Soup Kitchen Pantry
(after praying with a guy after dinner in a soup kitchen)

Right between the ketchup and the flour
I saw a man come clean.
He ran back to the Father
With that contrite prodigal gleam.

He gives in.
God takes him.
And I just stand there
With the mouth of my heart open dumb,
Feeling that same new,
Super sublime,
Sight of salvation numb.

Angels rejoice simultaneously.
A brother is coming Home,
Trembling, fear-longing,
His humble, hungry heart
Well shown.



Scents of Home
(by flashlight in the lean-to at the top of
Mt. LaConte, North Carolina)

Mountain sunsets
And starry-cold skies
Are a bath for my soul,
Making my heart hearken
To obvious secrets
Yet untold.


MM

Capitol Reef National Park !!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Priesthood Authority in Mormonism

This is the first entry I've made about Mormonism. Many Evangelicals living in Utah are vulnerable to bending every conversation to focus on the differences between Mormonism and traditional Christianity. I want to make a point not to do this on the Thinking Allowed blog, but some Mormon friends of mind have started a blog--http://thummimurim.blogspot.com/--and as part of my response to a recent entry of theirs, I want to to post the following excerpt from a manuscript I've been working on explaining what it's like to be an Evangelical contemplating the LDS Church.

Here it is:

An Important Note on the Defense of LDS Authorities

Before citing some of the discrepancies in the teachings of LDS leaders, it is important to address one very common defense of those leaders when it is recognized they have made an obvious mistake in their theological teaching. One of the most common responses to an undeniable error in an official statement made by an LDS prophet or other general authority is that they’re only human. “Though they are called to serve in a high office,” it is often said “they are still human beings like all of us, and like all of us are susceptible to mistakes.” In my experience it has also been common for LDS people to buttress their point on this by comparison to biblical leaders like Moses and David who, though God’s chosen leaders, showed themselves to be just as vulnerable as anyone else to the moral pitfalls that threaten all of us.

Another very common response to Evangelical criticism of LDS leaders is that those making the accusations are not honest because they refuse to apply the same standard to their own leaders. As I have explained in chapter 2, this is a very important point, and I admit, a charge many traditional Christians are guilty of. However each of these arguments is very hard to accept when applied to the LDS priesthood. It is our understanding that the very essence of the restored priesthood is that it makes for a body of religious leaders who, because of the authority of the restored priesthood vested in them, will never lead anyone astray (and will always be in harmony with each other) on theological issues. I have never met anyone familiar with Mormonism who takes this to mean LDS authorities are supermen who are completely infallible in all aspects of life. In the mind of one who accepts the Mormon priesthood as legitimate, I assume it is understood that the Church authority who holds it is still susceptible to a spurt of bad temper or an un-Christ-like thought toward someone. But if the LDS general authorities have truly been endowed with an authority from God to lead his Church, and if the effect of the restoration of that authority was to remedy the apostate teachers who had, for so long, contradicted each other and sowed confusion among their listeners, it seems unacceptable that those holding the restored priesthood could contradict each other or teach a false point on any issue of theological or moral significance.

What reinforces this view the most in the minds of Evangelicals are public statements from LDS leaders themselves:

Always keep your eye on the President of the Church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, even if it is wrong, and you do it, the lord will bless you for it but you don't need to worry. The lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray." (LDS President Marion G. Romney of the first presidency, quoting LDS President—and prophet—Heber J. Grant Conference Report Oct. 1960 p. 78)

The Lord Almighty leads this Church, and he will never suffer you to be led astray if you are found doing your duty. You may go home and sleep as sweetly as a babe in its mother's arms, as to any danger of your leaders leading you astray, for if they should try to do so the Lord would quickly sweep them from the earth. (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 9, p. 289, 1862. )

I sat in this tabernacle some years ago as President Joseph Fielding Smith stood at this pulpit. It was the general priesthood meeting of April 1972, the last general conference before President Smith passed away. He said: 'There is one thing which we should have exceedingly clear in our minds. Neither the President of the Church, nor the First Presidency, or the united voice of the First Presidency and the Twelve will ever lead the Saints astray or send forth counsel to the world that is contrary to the mind and will of the lord. (L. Aldin Porter of the Presidency of the First Quorum of Seventies; Ensign, Nov. 1994, p. 63)

Follow your leaders who have been duly ordained and have been publicly sustained, and you will not be led astray. (Boyd K. Packer; General Conference, Oct. 1992; Ensign, Nov. 1992)

The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. (President Wilford Woodruff D&C; pg. 292, excerpts from three addresses by president Wilford Woodruff regarding The Manifesto)

In light of this, arguments, like the ones cited above, from Mormons about the fallibility of general authorities are not often received well. When a Mormon says, “It’s true that there have been some heavy-handed general authorities in the past…” or that “We only follow the living prophet” (implying that the ones in the past were sometimes wrong), to those outside the Church, this seems impossible to conceive because of what we understand the nature of the restored priesthood to be.

In contrast, if any of the Evangelical leaders (several of whom have been tremendously influential to me) listed in the introduction ever publicly pronounced false or immoral teachings on some important subject, Evangelicals would be disappointed and perhaps even discouraged, but this ultimately would not be a threatening issue; it would not threaten the essence of Christianity. But when we hear the LDS claims about the nature of the restored priesthood, and then perceive an LDS prophet giving false teaching, it seems to pull the rug out from under some of the most basic claims of the Church. In short, it is thought that the authority of the restored priesthood held by top LDS leaders is such that one who holds it will never give false moral or religious teaching, and will always be in harmony with others who have held and will hold that priesthood. Therefore, when a leader does give a false teaching or is in contradiction with another, it seems to the outside observer that either those people don’t hold that priesthood, or that the priesthood itself is not what it is thought to be.

Doubting Diversity

As most Americans in the early 21st century know, diversity is all the rage. It's the one quality that seems to give moral legitimacy to almost anything in secular culture. I understand where the concern for diversity comes from. To safeguard against the bigotry of civil rights abuse in the old South and other forms of stupidity, many have thought it best to pose diversity as the greatest good. I work at a secular school which even has a faculty member whose title is "Diversity Coordinator." But, all things considered, diversity doesn't deliver.

On one hand it's true that people should never frown on others simply out of a sense of unfamiliarity. And all sane people realize it's wrong to exclude someone from basic human rights or violate a person's dignity simply because the other holds a different belief. We should all be willing to listen to and thoroughly discern the cultures and beliefs of others--but not as an end in itself. We should be open to learn about the beliefs and behaviors of diverse cultures, to determine which elements in diverse cultures bring us closer to truth!

But acknowledging such a "hegemonic," bigoted idea as truth is blasphemous in the modern church of diversity. As soon as we make a judgment as to what's true, we automatically label all that's inconsistent with it as not true--and that's mean.

I once heard a Hopi Native American woman give a talk to a group of students on the Hopi religion. She said the sun was a god, and some other interesting things. Her ideas were definitely diverse from most others in the room, but what I most wanted to know was, "Is it true?" Of course if I were to suggest it was not--that the sun is really just a ball of gas--I would have been accused of being "exclusionary." Perhaps I would have been reminded that in order to be nice people we should "affirm all faith traditions."

But what could be the value of diversity for the sake of diversity? I would love to be able to ask an administrator or CEO of some institution who's made great efforts to create cultural diversity, "OK. Your institution is diverse. Now what? Diversity is great, but what is true? What is real?"

But again, all this makes sense when one realizes that truth is not typically a concern for those who place diversity as the greatest good. Diversity means harmony, and if one doesn't accept the idea of ultimate truth, I guess the next best thing to shoot for would be harmony.

Christians, however, don't have the luxury of putting harmony first. When we're tempted to take a dip in the warm-fuzzy, anesthetizing pool of philosophical and religious diversity, we should remember Jesus' words in Luke 12:

"Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother–in–law against her daughter–in–law and daughter–in–law against mother–in–law."

MM