Loving to Death

With the April General Conference fast approaching, the Mormons are in a fervor. The prophet announced in October that this would be a special General Conference, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith Jr's First Vision. He said this upcoming conference would be "different from any previous conference." It won't even be at the Conference Center. In a recent email to leaders, the prophet explained, "This is a hinge point in the history of the Church, and your part is vital."

What is up with all of the climactic expressions? The speculations are killing some of us. And not in a good way.

I'm super grumpy about all of it. I'm grumpy about all the hype. There's nothing wrong with being excited about General Conference. Truly, being excited to learn more about Jesus is a great thing. But I don't believe this hype is exclusively about Jesus. This hype doesn't feel like it's about God.

This hype feels like it's about Joseph Smith Jr and his personal First Vision experience. This hype is Church-focused - a hype exclusively to our "religion." It's excitement, bearing testimony about a man and his journey. It's hype about history, instead of the present. I still hold out hope that they might be able to redeem this - that they might be able to turn this around and focus on personal revelation, but with the setting, timing, and previous statements, there's gonna be a lot of hype about Joseph Smith Jr before we get to the more pertinent message of personal revelation, and personal communication with God, for ourselves.

Why does this offend? Why does this make me grumpy? Because I don't worship men.

Now, this isn't a feminist, gendered statement. It's a statement about mortality versus immortality, and I think that I'm in good company with my concern. The Church website, itself, has a section of scriptural references on the subject of "Trust Not in the Arm of Flesh."

"Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils."

"Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm"

"have no confidence in the flesh,"

"I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh"

"Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man,"

Et cetera. 

I love the Bible. I love scriptures. So you can see why I have a hard time with prophet worship. Because that's what this is. All the hype about the Sacred Grove, Joseph Smith Jr, even the Church's purchasing and offering tours of the original Smith farm as they do, that is what this is. It's prophet worship. Joseph was a man, like you or me. (Well, not me. I am, in fact, a lady.) 

Joseph Smith Jr was a human. He was a deeply flawed human being, and my recognition, understanding, and forgiveness of that very mortality is one of the key reasons I am able to remain an active member of this Church. Because if Joseph Smith Jr truly is someone we worship, while at the same time not worshiping ALL of God's children for their divine potentials, we have a serious problem. We have raised Joseph Smith, a man, to the level of being, somehow, divine. 

I know. He said he'd done more for mankind than anyone other than Jesus. He said a lot of things. He said a lot of "never to be humble" things. And frankly, he was wrong about a lot of them. It's history. Study it. It's a novel concept, I know. Joseph Smith Jr had his own personality, weaknesses, and not everything he said or did was perfect. (Don't let that destroy your faith now.)

I was recently listening to the First Vision podcast put out by the Church. (I appreciate the frankness that this podcast has shown, and their willingness to look at the different accounts of the vision.) One thing, in the 6th part of the podcast, stuck out to me. They were talking about how the Sacred Grove came to be a tourist attraction, frankly. They talked about how they nourished that grove. If limbs fell from the trees, they cleaned them up. They kept things tidy, manicured and cared for as well as any park. However, in the 1990's they had to hire a forester for advice on how to help the struggling vegetation. 

The forester's report was simple. "You are loving this place to death."

The podcast continued: "Let nature take its course in the grove. All those dead limbs, and all those leaves remain in place where they fall. They will, in turn, return nutrients to the ground, which will then support the trees in their growth."

The concept of loving the Sacred Grove to death whispered some truth to me. To me, it summed up perfectly what I see happening in the Church's worship of their history. The Church holds up its past like a holy relic - all of it divine, pure, and inspired. Their white-washed teachings and worship of their history and historical leaders will, inevitably, be proven wrong. (Because people, even prophets, will never be perfect.) 

That sort of worship becomes quite rigid, quite black and white. It is truth or it is false. You see this in the culture of the Church today. Disagreements will damn you with the harshest of judgments. History books are literally labeled as "anti-Mormon literature." So when these historical oppositions come, rigid things break. Your prophet made mistakes you didn't know about? NOTHING you thought can be true. Joseph Smith Jr was not actually 100% divine? Then everything he touched becomes tainted by his mortality, and all of it is false. 

This is often why people leave the Church. Seriously. This is it. People discover some true aspect of history about a prophet or an event. It's usually something that was never talked about, which may have even been labeled as "anti-Mormon." When they discover these ugly, mortal parts of our history, it shatters their perfect illusions of every aspect of the Restoration, ESPECIALLY when the Church or its leaders turns around and pretends that they'd been teaching these things all along, or continues to teach these mortal errors as divine or inspired, the imperfect implications about eternity and God be damned. 

Time and time again, in my faith journey, God has whispered to me that, "The truth is in the middle." Not everything about the Church and its narrative is good. But not everything is bad, either. God may be black and white, but mortals are not. Mortals are very very grey - both good and evil in one. Because our past, because our Church, because our lives are made up of mortals, all of it will be grey. The truth of our history is grey. It is in the middle. Joseph Smith Jr was not perfect, because he was human. But that doesn't mean he was evil, either. He was as human as you or me - as prone to sin and mistakes, and as prone to desires to do good as us. He was a generous disciple who helped people, and wanted to know God. He was also a little conceited and full of himself, God bless him. 

Because Joseph was a mortal and because we have different First Vision accounts, my feelings about the First Vision are mixed. I believe many of the things that Joseph Smith taught. I truly do believe that Joseph had some kind of experience with divinity in that grove. I do. But I also understand why that might be hard for others to believe, again, because Joseph was mortal and prone to exaggeration at times in his life. 

The current Church narrative about the First Vision comes from his third telling of his vision, which Joseph gave at a very frustrating, angry time in his history. (You can hear this in the podcast I mentioned earlier. You don't have to dig into the "anti-Mormon" history books. Church approved!) The intro to this third telling describes that Joseph was giving this particular account because he had something to prove. Not exactly my preferred telling. I prefer his first account of the vision, written very introspectively, in his own hand, in his own diary, with a lot of thought. It is the most personal account, and the account that I find myself believing in the most. You can argue all of them are true. Certainly you can. But you can also argue the opposite, that none of them were. This is, what we call, a grey area. Because Joseph was only human.

But does the fact that I believe in the first First Vision account, and you believe in the third First Vision account mean that we are irreparably different? Not at all. You will find that we both believe in Christ. We both believe in the Plan of Salvation. We both believe in the GOSPEL.

Which is why the Church's decision to focus on the First Vision, with its traditional, unchanging, always inspired and authoritative narrative this upcoming Conference is, by its very nature, so dividing. A friend put it very well:

"Is there room for those of us who aren't overwhelmed by this story? Is there any level of acceptance for even a bit of skepticism? Honestly, do you really want ME? Not just my butt in a pew on Sunday and a vacuum in my hand on Saturday, but do you want me, my skepticism, my hope, my doubts, and my convictions?"

Hype about the First Vision naturally excludes those who doubt, are skeptical, or have questions. I'm grumpy about the hype for this upcoming General Conference because I see it as creating further unnecessary rifts and divides between those who question - who have beliefs and unbeliefs - and those who happily embrace the Church's narrative.

Recognizing that Joseph Smith was human and may have made mistakes requires some religious humility. But humility makes you flexible. It might not look as pretty or authoritative as a black and white picture, or a manicured grove, but the humility required to be honest and vulnerable, the willingness to humbly see the uncertainties, with all their fallen branches and leaves, will help foster true, honest growth. In trees and people.