In the last few days of discussion over the words of counsel to the church, I’ve heard several views against the counsel that I believe are mistaken. There are many people seeking the floor at conference, so it is difficult to respond to 
individual statements or offer alternative perspectives. The restraint on debate to two minutes per person and slow speech required for translations within those two minutes also make it difficult to express or explain ideas. I understand why these constraints are in place and would not want to endure meetings in which these time limits were lifted or non-English speakers were excluded. So, perhaps blogging is a more removed but alternative way to speak on some of the issues expressed in quorum meetings and on the conference floor. Perhaps my thoughts can offer a broader or alternative understanding for church members to choose from or prayerfully consider with their own.
One thing I’d like to respond to is the way scripture is being used against the current counsel, particularly around the issue of baptism.
Some voices have expressed how previous scriptures on baptism, either D&C 20′s treatment of the question of rebaptism or general lack of scriptural support for any other authoritative form of baptism other than immersion, are reason to vote down or doubt the document’s divine counsel. In both cases, prescriptive scriptures about the practice of baptism are being used as if they are the proper or only scriptures to use for comparison or to test continuity. Some have also said that the current question being asked about rebaptism is the same one answered by D&C 20, as if the context is no different. While I think these are tenable comparisons to make and important for consideration, D&C 20 and other scriptural prescriptions for the mode or proper form of baptism are not the most important scriptures in which to look for precedents or comparative references. These kind of references are important only for a literalistic or legalistic view of scripture. Such an approach forgets or relegates other forms of scripture as less important or irrelevant for consideration. It is easy to forget scripture is much more than theologically prescriptive or ritual instruction (like Leviticus). Scripture also expresses divine revelation in the form of proverb, poem, narrative (like the Gospels), parable, and analogy – which are arguably more indirect forms of revelation that require nuanced and more responsible interpretation. The change in the practice of baptism prescribed by the inspired counsel provides just the opportunity to explore how there are previous precedents for just the kind of change in baptismal practice we are facing today.
A more appropriate comparison for the kind of change in the practice of baptism proposed in the inspired counsel is in the New Testament, specifically Paul’s struggle over circumcision with Jerusalem in Acts 15. Consider context. D&C 20 was given in a context in which there was not yet a people developed in a unique tradition. The church was new. There was no multi-national context cutting across the distance of difference in culture as Paul faced similarly in Acts 15 and we face today.
Like baptism in the early Restoration church, circumcision was a peculiar sign of select membership for Israel. It was a sign that conferred Israel’s special place with God. It signed Israel’s election. The sign of circumcision marked Jews as a peculiar people shaped in an exclusive covenant between God and them in the same way baptism in the early Restoration church marked a special and unique relationship between God and the Restoration. It was a sign of the return of the full Gospel and its authority in the world. When Paul crossed cultural boundaries and went forth among the Gentiles making disciples of Christ, he did not requiring this sign. This created a fundamental tension with the Jerusalem church, which was shaped by centuries of practicing circumcision. In the end, the Jerusalem church reasoned that it “seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose no further burden” (Acts 15:28). The exclusive sign of election gave way to a more relevant prescription for what it meant to be a disciple of Christ in other cultures. Viewing the inspired counsel this way, it does not come out of the blue but follows one of the most important and decisive scriptural precedents in the New Testament. It follows a period in the life of the earliest Christian church, which the Restoration looks to for its example and modern-day expression.
I lift this up simply to provide another foundational scriptural reference that supports rather than dissents from the inspired counsel given today. Of course, Acts 15 should not be considered an exact parallel to the situation of the current church. Rather, I offer what I believe to be a responsible interpretation and application of scripture that demonstrates the same kind of shift in tradition or former understanding of “Law” that Christ required as God’s people encountered the Gospel across cultures.
This reading of Acts and its application to our current situation also informs how latter parts of the inspired counsel also reflect the kind of shift from Law to Gospel and the meaning of the Gospel across cultures that Paul faced in his day. But, that’s another post.
There is nothing more rewarding and more fulfilling, in the long run, than serving God and seeing life from this perspective. To find it, you will need to have moments when you can be alone with God, in the silences, and take in the wonder and grandeur of seeing your own lives in this perspective of things. God knows each hair on your head, and God knows and lives throughout the waves of energy, light, and space that stretches out into eternity. And, in those moments, you will know and feel how God knows and always thinks of you. I know my love for you and my affection are both a sign and gift that God gives me because it is God’s own love and affection for you.
As I prepare for a sermon today, I know, somehow, God cares for me and the people I’m going to worship with today in the same way. Each worship service is a sacrament of our love for one another, shared in Jesus Christ. What makes Jesus special is that his life, death, and ministry is the promise that all that we sense, believe, hope for, and marvel of in ourselves and each other can become real. Jesus was the full bloom of God’s eternal love and purposes in one life. We learn who we are and can be through him. The love God had for Jesus came true in his life and purpose, even amidst confusion, misdirection, and tragedy. I, too, feel and hope that the love I feel for you can come in full bloom in you – that you will grab it, grasp it, and pay it forward because it is just a small piece of God’s love that lives in me and so want to give to you.
I have moments in my dissertation writing when I feel like I’m a horrible writer and I need to just to quit. I go down an emotional rabbit hole. Writing has never been my strong point. I’ve had moments in my academic career when professors have read my work and told me they had no idea what I was saying. Of course, I knew exactly what I was saying. I never really learned whether it was a problem of my choice of words, writing style, or that my flow of thought was just plain incoherent. Maybe it is a mix of these things. But, internally, the problem I feel is that I get lost amidst the trees. It’s not that I don’t understand what I’m saying or thinking. It’s that I see so many questions and connections at once, I get lost in perspective. And, as I get lost in the possibilities of one sentence or paragraph, I make the mistake of wanting to put too much in a sentence. That can make it difficult to cipher what I’m saying.
The dissertation process, however, requires me to do what I don’t feel good at doing: outlining a set of ideas in an argument that I can deconstruct by simply taking another angle on my own line of thinking. This is horribly frustrating for me because beneath all the critical thinking I am fearful of being discovered as an impostor, an idiot, simple-minded, or someone found impersonating someone worthy of a PhD.
If you feel lost in your church right now, you are not alone.
If you are in a bubble and don’t feel like you can actually reach out and feel someone near you, you are not alone.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been tackling problems that don’t revolve around ethereal stuff like “new ideas,” “vision” and other theological talk that can lack consequence. In fact, I’ve been so sucked into these challenges that I’ve begun to wonder whether discussing the church’s problems or their solutions really matters if the people in the discussion aren’t somehow personally and materially invested. They, somehow, need to be givers or prepared to become givers to what we share. A giver gives so much more than money. But, they give money, too. They give to something beyond themselves.
We struggle on both sides. In the church, we have many congregations that are deeply attached to their houses of worship. 75-90% of the time, those churches are paid for. These buildings are the ebenesers, the alters, of a previous generation. They are the hallmark of our denominationalism. We are no longer a frontier movement. We now have our church on the corner. This was the success of previous generations. Because of them, I would bet 75-90% of our congregations have no mortgage, only maintenance and monthly bills. Five to fifty gather in them once a week.
Outside the church, we also live in a day when the relationship between spirituality and economics is wholly out of whack. Unbriddled greed and a world sold out to the god of wealth and wealth-production, has horribly contorted the relationship of our economic and spiritual needs. All around, I see its effects in “liberal” and conservative forms. Many Christians have literally sold out the doctrine of economic wealth and prosperity: we can spend ourselves out of crises, whether spiritual or economic. This not only makes absolutely no sense, wealth and prosperity – no matter how American – are false gods. They are not the good news, but a completely alien form of religion and spirituality. Christian faith and the call to prophetic community operates on a different kind of sense. Christ’s community is not based on getting what you pay for. Nor, is its growth based on profits or consuming more. The salvation of the church, on earth as it is in heaven, is based on what is given and what is shared: the shared grace, disciplines, practices, vision, and shared convictions. The church is a witness to community.
become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?
Just because we know the end of the story, this does not mean we fully understand what Jesus was trying to say to the disciples and the crowd that day. Even if we feel like we understand the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, it doesn’t mean we fully know what Jesus was trying to say to us in those words today. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famous Christian theologian and resistor of Nazi Germany, stated it so dramatically clear: “When Jesus calls us, he bids us come and die.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship)
To be Jesus’ disciple, Jesus only asked that we leave what we know behind and offer our new lives to him. This doesn’t take certainty or self-assurance. It takes faith.
