When I started A Mormon in the Cheap Seats, I decided I’d write fifty posts. Here are my last three posts-48, 49 and 50.
Part I: What’s Real?
I used to be one of those black-and-white guys. I sometimes wonder, if given the opportunity, whether my 40-year-old self could talk any sense into my 19-year-old self. I don’t know the answer to that.
I empathize with folks that can confidently draw two boxes on the chalk board and tell a Sunday School class that it’s either one or the other. . . either yes or no, the church is “true” or it’s a fraud. Mormons aren’t the only ones that buy into these kinds of false dilemmas. C. S. Lewis’s Trilemma-Jesus is Lunatic, Liar, or Lord-is another well-known example. Notwithstanding, there are times when these kinds of logical errors drive me crazy, mostly because I don’t what to do with the well-intentioned folks who perpetuate them (ignore them? pat them on the head and wish them luck? argue with them?).
More than a year ago, in one of my first posts, I wrote about testimony Sunday. I described the process of assigning meaning to spiritual experiences. For Mormons, this process has been reduced to a formula. If you want spiritual experiences, then select an activity from this list: pray, study, ponder, sing, do good deeds, fast, participate in religious ritual, listen to church leaders, etc. Wondering what qualifies as a spiritual experience? We’ve got another list: feelings of enlightenment, peace, compassion, love, physical sensations, such as a burning in the chest, tingling sensations and tremors, and more subtle experiences, such as peace of mind, or a sense of “rightness” or “correctness. For those that have grown up in the church, we’re conditioned from birth, in ways both explicit and subtle, to interpret these experiences in specific ways. We’re told what these experiences mean, and most of us stick to the script we’re given.
I’m fascinated by how invisible the process is to most of us. We’re like fish who can’t conceptualize the water we swim in. It’s surprisingly hard for us to get outside of it so that we can see it. It’s our Mormon epistemology. Few of us seem to care that Moroni’s promise is part of the book to which it is intended to be applied. Few of us ever ask how we test the test?
Although it should be obvious that we shouldn’t treat spiritual experiences like a trail of breadcrumbs that leads to universal truth, that is exactly what our epistemology teaches us to do. For those who choose to take a step back and examine our epistemology objectively, its flaws become apparent. Its decision logic is circular (see this post for a flow diagram). Its universality is undermined by the fact that millions of people in thousands of different religions have similar spiritual experiences that bind them in intimate ways to their own faith communities. Its reliability is rebutted by the fact many Mormons, if they’re sufficiently open and receptive, discover the same spiritual experiences-experiences that they may have previously interpreted as evidence of the church’s “truthfulness”-in other practices and religious contexts, such as meditation, yoga, charity work, and other faith communities. Several of my early posts deal with this process, including this one questioning the wisdom of using spiritual experiences to build “towers of religious certainty,” this one on the underlying assumption of spiritual coherence and universality, and this one defending Mormon heterodoxy.
When hauled out into the light, our epistemology doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But here’s the catch. For most Mormons, the means aren’t as important as the ends, and for those of us in the cheap seats trying to figure things out, debating the validity of the process used by others to test the truth claims of the church misses the point. Asking whether or not the church is true-or asking how others answer that question, doesn’t get us anywhere. What we should be asking, I think, is this: What is it about the church that’s real?
On any given Sunday, the smiles, the handshakes, and the hugs are real. So are the feelings of fellowship and community. On fast and testimony Sundays, the professions of certainty are real. So is the sense of connection and shared purpose. This is what keeps church members coming back. When someone says “I know that the church is true,” what they often mean is that they know the church is “real.” It’s real because they can feel it. In a good fast and testimony meeting, the sense of spiritual communion is tangible. This shared experience is often what we acknowledge when we offer public thanks for “the Spirit that has been here with us today.” If it’s been a while, experiencing it can feel like coming home.
“True” and “real” are two different things. They operate on two different axes. Imagine a guy at a ballpark. It’s a beautiful day, and he’s enjoying a hot dog and a coke. Now imagine that there’s a guy next to him that wants to talk about how his hotdog was made. He wants to discuss the steps involved in processing the meat and debate whether plant workers are paid enough. He’s concerned about product quality, overtime pay, worker safety issues, and environmental impact, among other things. Although his concerns may be valid, the first guy may not be interested. His hot dog tastes good. Not only are these other issues unnecessary, but being aware of them may make his hot dog less enjoyable. And besides, he just wants to be left alone to watch the game.
For those of us in the cheap seats, the next time we feel the urge to bring up Fanny Alger, different versions of the First Vision, polyandry, the Kinderhook plates, the Book of Abraham, blacks and priesthood, women’s issues, DNA and the American Indians, logical errors, epistemological concerns, City Creek Mall, or other similar issues, we should think about the guy in the ballpark. Do we really want to be that annoying guy next to him that won’t let him eat his hot dog and enjoy the game in peace?
Stay tuned for Part II, Deconstructing John Dehlin, and Part III, My Thoughts on Religion.
Here’s Part II: Deconstructing John Dehlin
Here’s Part III: My Thoughts on Religion
[Prior MCS Post: A Faith Like Mine]
Brent, it is ugh an unusual thing to find myself disagreeing with you that I admit I am a little intimidated.
All analogies and metaphors break down, and so perhaps I am nit picking, but if the guy eating his hot dog would just sit and mind his own business, if he wasn’t just as busily trying to convince the world of his fallacious errors and divine immoral principles as you are trying to convince him, well then, I wouldn’t object so much.
But he is. He’s not minding his own business watching the game. Does his attempt to influence the world require counter action on my part? Perhaps not. Does it justify it? Yes, I think it does.
At the heart of it all, I refuse to buy into the very common notion that all of us annoying atheists need to stop persecuting the poor benighted Christians (or Mormons). It just doesn’t hold water. The events at the SCOTUS today ought to be enough to mind us of that.
I can totally see this as well, Greg. Brent’s heart is softening. He’s not as curmudgeonly these days. Ha ha. ;)
*such an unusual thing…
I agree on the analogy until it hurts people. If that guy was eating three hotdogs a day. I think he should not be left to think it is healthy.
I guess the hot dog thing breaks down, as well, because probably the hot-dog eating guy doesn’t live in a vacuum. So it’s never really JUST HIM eating his hot dog. It’s probably him and all his friends and relatives (which is the case with many Mormons). And typically, it’s him and all his friends and relatives looking down on the other guy, sometimes cutting him off, sometimes “just” marginalizing him, etc.
So it’s messier than what Brent suggests in his post.
Greg and Jessica, you both make good points. I think the analogy breaks down a bit when approached from an interpersonal angle (e.g. the guy with the hot dog is probably spending considerable time and energy worrying about whether or not you’re having a hot dog, or whether you’re “worthy” to have a hot dog, etc., and then there is the question of health. . .). I was coming at it more from the angle of “truth” vs. “what’s real” in an empirical sense. . . I try to tease this out a little more in Part II and Part III. Those parts will go up over the next couple days.
I find the what’s “true” and what’s “real” incredibly powerful. I believe in “real.” I have no idea about “true.” But believing in the “real” makes me a believer and i won’t have anyone tell me any differently. Thank you for this post!
Brent,
I look forward to the next two installments as you flesh out some of these ideas. I think you’re right about the perceptions and desires that give rise to the two stances you describe, but I don’t see the two stances themselves as equivalent at all. I think of “empirical” as “data-driven,” as opposed to theoretic or metaphysical. But I don’t read your post as emphasizing hard evidence. Did you mean phenomenological — relating to or depending on the actual first-person experience of those involved?
(should have added a paragraph break between first and second sentences, and should have begun second sentence with “Also…” They are two separate thoughts, not different articulations of the same thought.
Brent,
Don’t stop after number 50. You’re one of my favorite bloggers!
I know, right??? Finish schminish.
I agree! I might be satisfied with, oh, say seventy times seven Cheap Seats posts, but then again, I might still want more.
Weakness of the analogy notwithstanding, I appreciate the it and intend to remember this thought and consider my audience before opening my mouth. Thanks!
Sean, good question. For me the two stances are different in the sense that one is based on a logical understanding (or even a philosophical understanding) of epistemology (or epistemological concerns)–that’s the “truth” part. The other is phenomenological–the “real” part (as in, how is this experienced by participants). I’m not sure that one is more empirical than the other (have to think about that).
I actually think the hot dog analogy works pretty well, given the assumption that we all need to eat something. You might not think much of my hot dog, but I don’t like the looks of your liverwurst sandwich, either.
Brent and Mark,
Perhaps the difference I see can be captured by working the analogy a little further along my own vegan-thinking lines (always a precarious activity): I critique the hot-dog eater’s preference for his phenomenological preference for sausages and mustard not because I don’t understand it or share the gustatory desire, but because I see the flesh of my loved ones in the sausage he’s consuming.
His enjoyment of the hot dog is dependent upon him not expanding the circle of his identity widely enough to encompass the cows (or whatevers) that wound up as grist for the hot dog mill, as it were. That is a morality-laden choice he’s making, but the two stances are not (IMO) equi-val-ent preferences, but rather the result of the narrowness of his self-identification.
The metaphor works great when its confined to the ball game because we are know why we are there – to watch the game. Granted outside of the that specific arena then I can understand others concerns and critiques, but that actually is missing the whole point of it now isn’t it?
Oops – should be “all know why”
Sean,
OK, I can see your point, and it makes sense from that perspective, which I hadn’t considered.
I guess the approach I’m taking is that the assumptions we all make are often preferences we like to think are well-grounded, but often are not. Staying with the hot dog analogy (And why not? There’s no analogy in the world which cannot be stretched beyond recognition.), lets say that you convince me to give up the all-beef stadium dog and have a veggie Smart Dog instead. That might satisfy you, but a Jainist practitioner of ahimsa might still take exception. So we haven’t really dealt with the problem, only moved it back one level.
But I guess maybe that’s the point, right? The problems never go away, we just keep pushing back against them.
I also like the hot dog analogy (although I think Sean raises an important issue).
So I know I am late to the discussion, and while I enjoy the baseball analogy as reminder shut up and enjoy the “dog” (i.e. the church), the analogy fails (as all analogies do at some point) when it comes to the way in which the church accepts the facts/history of the hot dog.
In the hot dog example, the guy eats the dog (and so may you) EVEN AFTER you both agree with the facts (the origin of the dog). You enjoy the hot dog REGARDLESS of how it’s made, BUT you agree with how it’s made. Others might choose not to eat it after knowing the facts, and that’s okay too: besides who am I to say the only way to be happy is to have a hot dog? BUT…you BOTH agree with the facts: the tastiness of the hot dog is real and it’s history is too.
In regard to the Church: I agree that the feelings and the sense of community are real, even when I doubt. But many of us cannot enjoy the realness of those feelings because the guy eating the hot dog is always talking about how hot dogs aren’t made the way that facts tell us they are. If we then disagree, the guy eating the hot dog then says, if you really think hot dogs are made that way, then you are not allowed to eat the hot dog EVER. The guy eating the hot dog might also tell me that my nachos aren’t as ever going to be as tasty as his hot dog. And then I wonder, why am I trying to enjoy this baseball game with this d-bag anyway? Yeah, I was probably wrong to question the origin of his dog, but look who took it to another level. What’s “real” for me now?
That’s where I can feel frustrated with Mormonism. I want to embrace the realness of everything about Mormonism AND admit that we are evolving and all doing our best and that that our past has moments we are not proud of, just like every other organization ever to exist. But unfortunately the realness of the amazing feelings we can have at church and with our church community gets overshadowed by the realness of the denial of some of the history of the church and the realness of the nonacceptance of those who bring that history up.
Yeah. I really appreciate your last paragraph as well. For me as well, the potential “realness” of it is diminished by the not-realness/truthiness (non-words, I know) of it.
Blake, thanks for the great comment. You capture the problem better than I do (Note: I tried to get at this a bit in my last post, #50, with my list of why it is difficult for me to enjoy the “realness” of it. . . it’s because of basic differences in the way I perceive the world, or basic differences in the perception of what the “facts” are). It sounds like you might be part of the group for whom the church is neither “true” nor “real” (and that’s a tough spot to be in).