For a sneak peak, a photography experiment that yielded some decent photos like this one:
Friday, May 22, 2009
We've moved!
Recently, I've fallen in love with how Wordpress does its free blogging, and I've decided to move once again. Therefore, please head on over to www.cohabitationchronices.wordpress.com for continuing adventures.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Mormon pop culture - is it failing?
"I have a vision of artists putting into film, drama, literature, music, and paintings great themes and great characters from the Book of Mormon."
- President Benson, Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon
During my mission, I listened to a lot of Christ-themed music. A lot of it was Mormon, but when we could, we would try to listen to the more "mainstream" Christian music. Sadly, I found a lot of the LDS-made music lacking - and not just in quality of music (it felt like they never truly emerged out of the early 90s). Matthew West's song Happy changed my life when I heard it when I came to the sudden realization that hey, I actually should be happier more often because of who I am and what I believe as a Christian. A Church of Christ a capella group sang some beautiful songs about missionary work and, yes, fellowship. But all the EFY music's lyrics seemed too obtuse - more sermon than celebration, more forced than a more natural type of worship.
Now, that's one of the beauties of Mormon hymns. They are packed with doctrine - a whole lesson is lying in Redeemer of Israel, and even the stirring missionary work song Called to Serve has some wonderful doctrinal nuggets: God our strength will be! Say it out loud with confidence, and you can feel your heart swell.
But the problem is that most of us regular members can't handle just listening to the hymns over and over again. And that's where pop culture is supposed to come in. Pop culture has a negative connotation, a lowest common denominator type of entertainment; but that's not all it has. Pop culture is just that - culture shared by most of the population. It can create a type of shared experience. It has the ability to change societal values or to strengthen them. Pop culture is unavoidable; even without the more modern mediums of music, movies or television, we still share the same stories - how many Mormons haven't heard a hitchhiking story about the Three Nephites?
However, Mormon pop culture just doesn't seem to stick or be cohesive. Inside of Utah, you see billboards for such and such Mormon artist all the time, but outside of Utah, such things are rare. I had never heard of half the new artists whose CDs now lie in wait for a member to purchase inside of Deseret Book until I came to Utah. We have some consensus on pop culture, like the RM or Singles Ward, but it's more of, to borrow a phrase, a cringe-fest than a spiritual feast.
This thought culminated in Costco, as Dantzel and I walked by the book section. There was a book of international LDS cooking recipes. Jokingly, I turned to my wife and asked, "Don't you want this book?" She made a face and pulled away forcibly.
"No," she says resolutely, "I don't trust Mormon recipes."
Where did this distrust for Mormon anything come from? I know lots of members incredibly hesistant of watching any movie made by Mormons for Mormons nowadays. Twilight is the closest thing we have to Mormon pop literature, but Twilight hardly touches any subjects within the gospel. But we wish there were good Mormon movies we could be proud of. We wish we could have Mormon literature besides the Work and the Glory, we wish we could have Mormon television shows that aren't Big Love. There's obviously a market for it; why isn't anyone filling it?
I hypothesize loosely. We as Mormons don't know how to loosen up. Any Mormon movie either tries too hard at poking fun of Mormon culture (and ends up just poking hard enough to leave a bruise for many) or has to be didactic or instructive. It has to have a moral, it has to have a message; otherwise, it's worthless and the prophets wouldn't approve. Most of our pop culture is sterilized - there is no controversy, there is no dissent, there is only a perceived, but very fragile veneer of unity. Nobody dares be creative.
The vast majority of Christianity in America is protestant based, which fractured into a hundred thousand different autonomous variations and denominations - the entire tenant of protestantism rests upon the idea that a faithful member is able to discern all from the Bible. This causes problems when two faithful people will (unavoidably) disagree. But we as Church members have prophets, and what they say over the pulpit is modern scripture. This is an amazing blessing as members to have - I am able to easily distrust any Mormon myth that comes my way until I can cross examine it with the scriptures, the words of the prophets and the Spirit. This gives a pretty good idea of what we are to believe in the last days when there will be many deceivers, as the scriptures say.
However, this can become too restricting if abused. We have some people who refuse to take action until the prophet opens his mouth and addresses that very issue. I used to act like that on my mission until my mission president gave me some good advice - the prophet gives general instruction, and may from time to time give specific instruction, but for most of the time, the Spirit tells us how to be righteously creative and take advantage of the situation for the Lord. We, collectively as Mormons, are afraid to act, because we pride ourselves in coming out of those dark days coined with that scary phrase - The Great Apostasy. If we start to voice our individual opinions on doctrine, if we start to study it and bring up controversy or gray areas and debate them, won't we just splinter the Church apart? Well, first off, God won't let the Church splinter apart (it's prophecy) and also, the Church is resiliant enough to resist Brother So-and-so's crazy ideas of Kolob. Just make sure you are resiliant, and you'll be fine. But until we get over our fear to retroactively, accidently contradict the Brethren, we won't take risks in our art or our interpretations of Mormon life.
Thus, we are reduced to the same, cookie cutter Mormon pop culture where everything is peachy. Nobody falls away for long - they always come back or get baptized eventually. Nobody has unanswered prayers for too long. In the end, everything works out. We're too afraid to question Mormon life - what if the pain never really does go away until the next life? What if people don't get baptized, no matter how hard we try? What if children leave and never come back? What if no matter how hard we pray, a parent is taken away by cancer?
I remember the first New Play Project play I went to - a group of Mormon playwrights and actors in Utah who try to ask meaningful questions about our religion - and wishing so fervantly that some of these plays could leave Utah, become our literature, our movies, our music. A play that seemingly sets up the overzealous missionary oriented Mormon mom as a strawman (or woman) to easily knock down - and then explains why she's so overzealous and that she might not be so far off after all. Or the play where two concordent people get up on their own Rameumptoms and call out rain and hellfire on the opposing sides of the political spectrum, each equally silly? Or the heart wrenching play about the loss of a child, and the guilt, pain, sorrow and subsequent, but never seemingly enough, healing that comes with it? Or the play about a son who joins the Church with an ex-member father, and the rift it creates in their once unshakable relationship with each other? Neither budges from their position, and only token reconciliation is given, but a catharsis - a real, emotional catharsis devoid of sentimentality - washes through the audience.
We have real art. We have real culture. We just need to get it out there. But have we already sunk the boat? Will President Benson's vision of Book of Mormon art - real art! - vanish like smoke from incense rising up to the sky to disappear? Have we already shot ourselves in the foot, distrustful of our own pop culture, doomed to a continual flood of mediocre art and entertainment? Could we be depriving ourselves and new members as we enter together in a community full of rich, supernal doctrine - and completely empty and calorie-free popular culture?
The optimist in me says no, but I feel we have an uphill battle before us. Much of the denomination seems turned off to the idea of Mormon pop culture - how many members' eyes rolled on my mission in Oklahoma whenever a Mormon movie was mentioned? - and now that we've tried it once, we don't seem to hasty to try it again. But it's a prophet's vision to bring real art to our pop culture, to depict the great Book of Mormon themes through our art. And what theme is any greater than Nephi's confession, "I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things"?
Moral of the Story: We need better Mormon pop culture. Reasons stated above. Any suggestions?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Free bird - is free agency really freedom?
Because people have been complaining about the length of my blog posts, I have decided to put "Moral of the Stor[ies]" at the end of my posts so you can get the general gist without having to read the whole thing. Hope it helps cut down on the complaining.
Disclaimer: I am not saying that the Church is wrong, or its stances are wrong, but simply commenting on the current Church culture and our knee jerk, overblown reactions about freedom within our doctrine of free agency.
One of the biggest things I hear from Mormons against President Obama is that he's a fetching socialist. And one of the biggest blows against socialism I hear is that it curtails free agency.
Now, socialism relating to the gospel is a sticky subject. It requires a lot of thought, dedication, definition and organization and a ton more words than I could write about the subject, and so I focus mostly on the idea of free agency and freedom.
We would think that free agency and freedom are one and the same. Free agency plays a huge part in our gospel doctrine. God tells us that the devil "rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency...And it must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could not be agents unto themselves; for if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet" (Doctrine and Covenants 29:36, 38). We believe Satan strives to destroy agency, that it was his plan in the beginning to force the children of God into exaltation without any choice of their own. We strive to protect our agency, and that agency is also our downfall - "Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light" (Doctrine and Covenants 93:31).
And so anything that restricts our freedom would automatically restrict our free agency, correct? Thus, the government should stay out of our affairs!
But such an argument does not follow. The Church has become involved in several political issues - namely, abortion and gay marriage. They have supported legislation curtailing these acts, and should that not curtail agency? Has the Church become like unto Satan?
Absolutely not.
The crux of agency, and where most of the confusion and misinterpretation comes from, is what free moral agency is for. This power to choose is not exercised when we decide to have cereal instead of toast for breakfast, or if we decide we like the Wii better than the Playstation 3. In fact, a man could be tied up and injected with a paralyzing agent, unable to move, to blink, to speak, to do any action, and he will retain his agency. The government could throw a man into the deepest, darkest dungeon with no chance of escape and even then, he retains his agency.
Free agency applies only to one specific decision - to choose God or to reject Him.
Free agency does not involve whether or not you can decide your own career. Free agency does not involve whether or not you can own a gun. Free agency does not involve whether or not you have to pay taxes. All such decisions are irrelevant in the eternal scope - the only decision worth making is whether or not you choose to worship God.
The people of Alma, fleeing from the oppressive King Noah, jumps out of the frying pan and into the fire as they are captured by Lamanites and put under the rule of the very people they tried to escape. The chief bad guy is Amulon, and he attempts to suppress Alma's people politically - "he exercised authority over them, and put tasks upon them, and put task-masters over them. And it came to pass that so great were their afflictions that they began to cry mightily to God. And Amulon commanded them that they should stop their cries; and he put guards over them to watch them, that whosoever should be found calling upon God should be put to death" (Mosiah 24:9-11).
No matter how much conservative Mormons complain about the current administration, we can at least say no federal officer watches over us as we become the government's literal slaves and are put to death if we pray out loud. But even under such a totalitarian, seemingly freedom lacking environment, Alma and his people never lose their agency:
"And Alma and his people did not raise their voices to the Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him; and he did know the thoughts of their hearts" (Mosiah 24:12).
Perhaps the truly ironic part of free agency is that it never makes us truly free, in the worldly sense. In the end, we choose our master and give up our freedom to that master - either Satan or God. If we don't choose one, we automatically choose the other by default. If you rebel against Satan, you fall under the auspices of God; if you rebel against God, you give up control to Satan. There is no situation in this predicament of all of God's children where we have autonomy, any sense of traditional freedom. In essence, it is as the saying goes: "Pick your poison." Either way, our will is swallowed up by one entity or the other.
Of course, as latter-day saints, we understand this, or at least claim we do. Adherence to the commandments gives us true freedom - from guilt, from sorrow, from disappointment, from bitterness, from pain, from hurt, from spiritual death. But adherence to the commandments also deprives us of freedom - to seeking after base pleasures, to over-indulge, to temporary happiness, to instant gratification. When we choose Christ, we are still yoked; it's just His yoke is much more preferable to Satan's shackles.
When we claim that something is "bad" because it supposedly robs us of our free agency, stop and think. Is this argument, in fact, incredibly intellectually and spiritually lazy? Do we oversimplify a complex situation by using what we could call the free agency card? Perhaps the biggest violator of this sense of logic (aside from its association of socialism) is the BYU Honor Code. The BYU Honor Code is a grievous burden to be borne and more fascist than most socialists' dream regimes. Regulations on hair length? Curfew times more strict than ones I endured in high school? The inability to use the bathroom of an opposite gender's apartment except under dire circumstances and emergencies? Certainly these can be considered oppressive to the freedom loving American. However, it is important to note that under the same system, one person can still worship God, while the other rejects Him. The system does not squash one choice over the other; it still can be made. No agency has been curtailed.
As members of the Church, we are to love intelligence, for "the glory of God is intelligence" (Doctrine and Covenants 93:36). As Brigham Young put it, "If men would be great in goodness, they must be intelligent." As we consider the world, its history, its ideas and philosophies, let us not dismiss them with a derisive, overly casual tone by insisting it takes away our agency; very little can take away our agency completely, for if that were possible, it would be too easy to stifle the very existence of God; but let us consider them for what they are worth - fine, multi-faceted diamonds of which it will take time and effort for our minds to taste, chew and digest. The kingdom of God has no room or need for the intellectually and spiritually lazy.
Disclaimer: I am not saying that the Church is wrong, or its stances are wrong, but simply commenting on the current Church culture and our knee jerk, overblown reactions about freedom within our doctrine of free agency.
One of the biggest things I hear from Mormons against President Obama is that he's a fetching socialist. And one of the biggest blows against socialism I hear is that it curtails free agency.
Now, socialism relating to the gospel is a sticky subject. It requires a lot of thought, dedication, definition and organization and a ton more words than I could write about the subject, and so I focus mostly on the idea of free agency and freedom.
We would think that free agency and freedom are one and the same. Free agency plays a huge part in our gospel doctrine. God tells us that the devil "rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency...And it must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could not be agents unto themselves; for if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet" (Doctrine and Covenants 29:36, 38). We believe Satan strives to destroy agency, that it was his plan in the beginning to force the children of God into exaltation without any choice of their own. We strive to protect our agency, and that agency is also our downfall - "Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light" (Doctrine and Covenants 93:31).
And so anything that restricts our freedom would automatically restrict our free agency, correct? Thus, the government should stay out of our affairs!
But such an argument does not follow. The Church has become involved in several political issues - namely, abortion and gay marriage. They have supported legislation curtailing these acts, and should that not curtail agency? Has the Church become like unto Satan?
Absolutely not.
The crux of agency, and where most of the confusion and misinterpretation comes from, is what free moral agency is for. This power to choose is not exercised when we decide to have cereal instead of toast for breakfast, or if we decide we like the Wii better than the Playstation 3. In fact, a man could be tied up and injected with a paralyzing agent, unable to move, to blink, to speak, to do any action, and he will retain his agency. The government could throw a man into the deepest, darkest dungeon with no chance of escape and even then, he retains his agency.
Free agency applies only to one specific decision - to choose God or to reject Him.
Free agency does not involve whether or not you can decide your own career. Free agency does not involve whether or not you can own a gun. Free agency does not involve whether or not you have to pay taxes. All such decisions are irrelevant in the eternal scope - the only decision worth making is whether or not you choose to worship God.
The people of Alma, fleeing from the oppressive King Noah, jumps out of the frying pan and into the fire as they are captured by Lamanites and put under the rule of the very people they tried to escape. The chief bad guy is Amulon, and he attempts to suppress Alma's people politically - "he exercised authority over them, and put tasks upon them, and put task-masters over them. And it came to pass that so great were their afflictions that they began to cry mightily to God. And Amulon commanded them that they should stop their cries; and he put guards over them to watch them, that whosoever should be found calling upon God should be put to death" (Mosiah 24:9-11).
No matter how much conservative Mormons complain about the current administration, we can at least say no federal officer watches over us as we become the government's literal slaves and are put to death if we pray out loud. But even under such a totalitarian, seemingly freedom lacking environment, Alma and his people never lose their agency:
"And Alma and his people did not raise their voices to the Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him; and he did know the thoughts of their hearts" (Mosiah 24:12).
Perhaps the truly ironic part of free agency is that it never makes us truly free, in the worldly sense. In the end, we choose our master and give up our freedom to that master - either Satan or God. If we don't choose one, we automatically choose the other by default. If you rebel against Satan, you fall under the auspices of God; if you rebel against God, you give up control to Satan. There is no situation in this predicament of all of God's children where we have autonomy, any sense of traditional freedom. In essence, it is as the saying goes: "Pick your poison." Either way, our will is swallowed up by one entity or the other.
Of course, as latter-day saints, we understand this, or at least claim we do. Adherence to the commandments gives us true freedom - from guilt, from sorrow, from disappointment, from bitterness, from pain, from hurt, from spiritual death. But adherence to the commandments also deprives us of freedom - to seeking after base pleasures, to over-indulge, to temporary happiness, to instant gratification. When we choose Christ, we are still yoked; it's just His yoke is much more preferable to Satan's shackles.
When we claim that something is "bad" because it supposedly robs us of our free agency, stop and think. Is this argument, in fact, incredibly intellectually and spiritually lazy? Do we oversimplify a complex situation by using what we could call the free agency card? Perhaps the biggest violator of this sense of logic (aside from its association of socialism) is the BYU Honor Code. The BYU Honor Code is a grievous burden to be borne and more fascist than most socialists' dream regimes. Regulations on hair length? Curfew times more strict than ones I endured in high school? The inability to use the bathroom of an opposite gender's apartment except under dire circumstances and emergencies? Certainly these can be considered oppressive to the freedom loving American. However, it is important to note that under the same system, one person can still worship God, while the other rejects Him. The system does not squash one choice over the other; it still can be made. No agency has been curtailed.
As members of the Church, we are to love intelligence, for "the glory of God is intelligence" (Doctrine and Covenants 93:36). As Brigham Young put it, "If men would be great in goodness, they must be intelligent." As we consider the world, its history, its ideas and philosophies, let us not dismiss them with a derisive, overly casual tone by insisting it takes away our agency; very little can take away our agency completely, for if that were possible, it would be too easy to stifle the very existence of God; but let us consider them for what they are worth - fine, multi-faceted diamonds of which it will take time and effort for our minds to taste, chew and digest. The kingdom of God has no room or need for the intellectually and spiritually lazy.
Moral of the Story: If you think something is limiting your free agency and is of the devil, stop and think. Do you truly understand what free agency means, or are you simply being intellectually lazy so that you don't have to use your brain?
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
My (spiritual) beef with capitalism
Because people have been complaining about the length of my blog posts, I have decided to put "Moral of the Stor[ies]" at the end of my posts so you can get the general gist without having to read the whole thing. Hope it helps cut down on the complaining.
Disclaimer: I am not saying that the Church is wrong, or its stances on economical or political are wrong, but simply commenting on the current Church culture and our knee jerk, overblown reactions against the supposed dangers of socialism and the glories of capitalism.
Dantzel and I are fairly same when it comes to social issues. However, when it comes to economic issues, it's pretty obvious from the start that Dantzel is a capitalist, and I am a socialist. That doesn't mean we can't cross-pollinate. Dantzel wants universal health care, and I think the free market is a brilliant way of handling most situations in life. Many people assume the reason that I'm socialist about things is because I'm from Seattle. However, I ascribe most of my feelings about socialism to growing up Korean-American.
When I was but a wee lad, I remember distinctively the day I became angry at my father because he had helped a recently immigrated Korean family purchase a computer when I had been begging him to get us a new computer for the longest time. The computer we had was just fine - I played Castle of the Winds on it gleefully for hours - but it didn't run the latest game I wanted to play - Age of Empires. A new computer was pretty much always on the list of things I wish I had when I was kid, over Power Wheels and radio controlled cars. I was truly the geeky son of a computer programmer.
Why didn't he look out for his own family first? I fumed over this question for many a year. I would mutter under my breath at what felt like a scam about how such and such Korean family was leeching off of us or sucking us dry or why we had to help them get something that we ourselves didn't have? it didn't seem fair at all.
Then, I got married. And as we opened the gifts, we received what I can only call a tsunami of financial support from our Korean friends. I knew they could not afford to give us this much to help us out. I was deeply humbled and my heart still swells with gratitude a year later when I think of it.
As we opened the envelopes, my mom did a most curious thing. She pulled out a notebook and had us dutifully report who gave us the gift, what they gave, and if they gave money (they often did), how much they gave us. When I asked her why she took such impeccable records, she replied that when these parents' kids get married, they would give equal the amount for their wedding as well.
When we came home from our honeymoon, my mother-in-law mentioned how she was awed by how cooperative the local Korean branch of our Church was. They all helped bring food so that it ended up being a huge, festive potluck. Many brought decorations. Most families came early, helped set up chairs and tables, lay out the food, string up lights and put together a lattice for the background of the line. Nobody asked anything in return, or gave grudgingly. I let her know it was because they fully expected the same in return should a similar call of duty come in to our family, and this is what helped create stability. Though it was technically my wedding, the Korean branch cheerfully helped spread the cost around so that it was paltry compared to other receptions thrown.
It was then that I realized how much I missed my tightly knit, meddlesome Korean community. Suddenly, I missed the fact that everyone knew your business, that even though they didn't know you personally, because you were still a member of the community no matter how distant, they still wanted to help you. I missed that feeling of a secure safety net where people would catch you if you fell. It was never perfect, as most human institutions are wont to be, but it was secure. It wasn't capitalism - we took care of each other because we belonged in a community, not necessarily because we thought we would get something in return. We knew our mutual positions and duties and acted thusly.
Since then, I've become more enamored with the old traditions of community. Dantzel and I make plans to move in with my parents a little bit after we graduate and possibly help them look after the house - we enjoy the idea of three or even four generations of a family living in the same building. We look forward to someday moving to Seattle and participating in that Korean branch - even though at the time we only know barely any rudimentary Korean. We miss that kind of society.
However, the general Utah Mormon community loves capitalism and denounces socialism, and this is the situation we reside in today. The denouncement of socialism no doubt stems much from President Benson, in his famous talks about socialism. The biggest offender of socialism was the lack of agency within a socialist system. "It's Satan's plan!" I often heard from members. It seems we embrace capitalism for two main reasons: 1) The "other" alternative of a planned, socialist economy is obviously flawed and thus capitalism by default is the champion, and 2) it gets us money. We use reason number one to justify it intellectually, and number two has its obvious lure.
But capitalism isn't perfect either. Its biggest flaw lies within its biggest asset - self-interest. Capitalism requires the capitalist to ask, "What's in it for me?" However, the gospel economy runs on something entirely different - charity. Charity requires the saint to ask, "What would God have me do?" Capitalism, by its very nature, is at odds with God's plan. It requires one to think of the self, to think of incentives, to think of bettering the individual. But, as Brigham Young mentioned, "No one supposes for one moment that in heaven the angels are speculating, that they are building railroads and factories, taking advantage of one another, gathering up the substance there is in heaven to aggrandize themselves, and that they live on the same principle that we are in the habit of doing." We laugh out loud to ourselves as we imagine angels scurrying to the celestial stock exchange, but only moments later glance at the ticker on the bottom of the screen with furtive looks, and then announce next week in church that surely God intends us to live in His glory with His angels in the heavens.
Capitalism forces us to monetize, to assign value to everything. We gasp with horror at even the thought of assigning a monetary value to a human life and recoil even more at the thought that we would place less monetary value on a crippled old man than a young, 21 year old worker, but that we must do. Everything has a price. After all, the old sly devil says, you can buy anything in this world for money.
The economic principle of Zion and Christ works on a completely different level. "Hath he commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation?" the prophet Nephi asks. "Behold I say unto you, Nay; but he hath given it free for all men; and he hath commanded his people that they should persuade all men to repentance" (2 Nephi 26:27). The prophet then warns, "But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion; for if they labor for money, they shall perish" (2 Nephi 26:31).
We as Christians should ascribe price to very little, and when we do, it is infinite. The cost of the Atonement wrought by the blood of the Messiah was infinite - yet salvation to the sinful masses of Father's children is for free. The capitalist would charge for repentance (and some clergymen have tried in the past) but the love of God can never be sold, nor can it be bought. When the world tries to buy the authority of God through Simon Magus, it gives the universal temptation: "And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost" (Acts 8:18-19). But the answer from God, given through Peter, is just as universal: "Thy money perish with thee, because thou has thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Though has neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God" (Acts 8:20-21).
We quibble over semantics: After all, Paul warned Timothy that it was the love of money that was the root of all evil, not necessarily money itself. But we either ignore or flinch when we hear Christ declare that it is easier for a camel to travel through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter the kingdom of God (Matt 19:24). We fret over the radical ideas of the Christ - give everything to the poor? Forsake everything? Even "houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands" (Matt 19:29) for your sake? Are you sure, Christ?
And so we hesitate, and we lose out. "The Lord really means what he says when He commands us not to think about these things; and because we have chosen to find this advice hopelessly impractical 'for our times' (note that the rich young man found it just as impractical for his times!), the treasures of knowledge have been withheld from us: 'God has often sealed up the heavens,' said Joseph Smith, 'because of covetousness in the Church'" (Nibley, Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless, 292).
But the early Apostles did not hesitate, Elder Neal A. Maxwell pointed out, and had Peter lingered at his fishing nets rather than following right away, he could have owned a very lucrative fishing business - but instead, he was able to see the Transfiguration of the Christ. Which would capitalism value more? What about Zion?
Eschatologically, capitalism has no place in the kingdom of God, nor in His plan. Flawed from the beginning, the system serves only one purpose - the self. Free markets are ironically named when viewed in a spiritual sense, for they are rarely ever spiritually free. "We do not have time here to review Satan's brilliant career in business and law: how he taught Cain the 'great secret' of how to 'murder and get gain' while claiming the noblest notions, 'saying: I am free'" (Nibley, 314). We claim that wealth creates freedom to pursue options - but remain slaves to our jobs and professions, to our material wealth that constantly asks us to pay attention and ever increasingly demands for our time. Meanwhile, Christ continues to beckon, asking us to leave behind paltry material wealth, which rusts and corrodes, for eternal treasures on high, which aren't treasures in a worldly sense at all. What is the treasure? To know God and to live with Him again. Relationships have low monetary value, unless there is money to gain. Alas for the capitalist, there is no money to gain in a relationship with God at all - only eternal life!
So, what do we do with the system we live in now? Should not we thank the markets for the relative comforts and advances we have made as a society? Yet capitalism also shoulders much blame for excess, for want, for greed, for imbalances, for exploitation, for murder, genocide, war and on and on. Certainly, capitalism has its worldly merits, but the place of the saint is not in such a system. Our Church revolves around charity, with safeguards against excess wealth. We have our 10% tithing offerings, but we are also encouraged to donate to the Book of Mormon fund, missionaries, to feeding the poor, humanitarian aid, helping educate those trapped in the cycle of poverty. For the price of a recreational boat, you can easily choose to instead finance one or two missions - but how many rich people would choose the spiritual rather than the material? God has warned us time and time again against material wealth, and perhaps it is this commandment that is one of the hardest to heed.
Brigham Young warned that if we keep our riches, "with them I promise you leanness of soul, darkness of mind, narrow and contracted hearts, and the bowels of your compassion will be shut up." As Latter-Day Saints looking forward to the titular latter-days, we should act as the cast and stage crew of a theater, quietly building the new set while the old set is still up so that rotation of the two can follow immediately. "So it is with this world. It is not our business to tear down the old set - the agencies that do that are already hard at work and very efficient - the set is coming down all around us with spectacular effect. Our business is to see to it that the new set is well on the way for what is to come - and that means a different kind of politics, beyond the scope of the tragedy that is now playing its closing night. We are preparing for the establishment of Zion" (Nibley, 234-5).
Moral of the Story: Capitalism has no place in our gospel economy. We should take care of our attitude to money in comparison to our attitude to God, because it can cost us eternal life.
Disclaimer: I am not saying that the Church is wrong, or its stances on economical or political are wrong, but simply commenting on the current Church culture and our knee jerk, overblown reactions against the supposed dangers of socialism and the glories of capitalism.
Dantzel and I are fairly same when it comes to social issues. However, when it comes to economic issues, it's pretty obvious from the start that Dantzel is a capitalist, and I am a socialist. That doesn't mean we can't cross-pollinate. Dantzel wants universal health care, and I think the free market is a brilliant way of handling most situations in life. Many people assume the reason that I'm socialist about things is because I'm from Seattle. However, I ascribe most of my feelings about socialism to growing up Korean-American.
When I was but a wee lad, I remember distinctively the day I became angry at my father because he had helped a recently immigrated Korean family purchase a computer when I had been begging him to get us a new computer for the longest time. The computer we had was just fine - I played Castle of the Winds on it gleefully for hours - but it didn't run the latest game I wanted to play - Age of Empires. A new computer was pretty much always on the list of things I wish I had when I was kid, over Power Wheels and radio controlled cars. I was truly the geeky son of a computer programmer.
Why didn't he look out for his own family first? I fumed over this question for many a year. I would mutter under my breath at what felt like a scam about how such and such Korean family was leeching off of us or sucking us dry or why we had to help them get something that we ourselves didn't have? it didn't seem fair at all.
Then, I got married. And as we opened the gifts, we received what I can only call a tsunami of financial support from our Korean friends. I knew they could not afford to give us this much to help us out. I was deeply humbled and my heart still swells with gratitude a year later when I think of it.
As we opened the envelopes, my mom did a most curious thing. She pulled out a notebook and had us dutifully report who gave us the gift, what they gave, and if they gave money (they often did), how much they gave us. When I asked her why she took such impeccable records, she replied that when these parents' kids get married, they would give equal the amount for their wedding as well.
When we came home from our honeymoon, my mother-in-law mentioned how she was awed by how cooperative the local Korean branch of our Church was. They all helped bring food so that it ended up being a huge, festive potluck. Many brought decorations. Most families came early, helped set up chairs and tables, lay out the food, string up lights and put together a lattice for the background of the line. Nobody asked anything in return, or gave grudgingly. I let her know it was because they fully expected the same in return should a similar call of duty come in to our family, and this is what helped create stability. Though it was technically my wedding, the Korean branch cheerfully helped spread the cost around so that it was paltry compared to other receptions thrown.
It was then that I realized how much I missed my tightly knit, meddlesome Korean community. Suddenly, I missed the fact that everyone knew your business, that even though they didn't know you personally, because you were still a member of the community no matter how distant, they still wanted to help you. I missed that feeling of a secure safety net where people would catch you if you fell. It was never perfect, as most human institutions are wont to be, but it was secure. It wasn't capitalism - we took care of each other because we belonged in a community, not necessarily because we thought we would get something in return. We knew our mutual positions and duties and acted thusly.
Since then, I've become more enamored with the old traditions of community. Dantzel and I make plans to move in with my parents a little bit after we graduate and possibly help them look after the house - we enjoy the idea of three or even four generations of a family living in the same building. We look forward to someday moving to Seattle and participating in that Korean branch - even though at the time we only know barely any rudimentary Korean. We miss that kind of society.
However, the general Utah Mormon community loves capitalism and denounces socialism, and this is the situation we reside in today. The denouncement of socialism no doubt stems much from President Benson, in his famous talks about socialism. The biggest offender of socialism was the lack of agency within a socialist system. "It's Satan's plan!" I often heard from members. It seems we embrace capitalism for two main reasons: 1) The "other" alternative of a planned, socialist economy is obviously flawed and thus capitalism by default is the champion, and 2) it gets us money. We use reason number one to justify it intellectually, and number two has its obvious lure.
But capitalism isn't perfect either. Its biggest flaw lies within its biggest asset - self-interest. Capitalism requires the capitalist to ask, "What's in it for me?" However, the gospel economy runs on something entirely different - charity. Charity requires the saint to ask, "What would God have me do?" Capitalism, by its very nature, is at odds with God's plan. It requires one to think of the self, to think of incentives, to think of bettering the individual. But, as Brigham Young mentioned, "No one supposes for one moment that in heaven the angels are speculating, that they are building railroads and factories, taking advantage of one another, gathering up the substance there is in heaven to aggrandize themselves, and that they live on the same principle that we are in the habit of doing." We laugh out loud to ourselves as we imagine angels scurrying to the celestial stock exchange, but only moments later glance at the ticker on the bottom of the screen with furtive looks, and then announce next week in church that surely God intends us to live in His glory with His angels in the heavens.
Capitalism forces us to monetize, to assign value to everything. We gasp with horror at even the thought of assigning a monetary value to a human life and recoil even more at the thought that we would place less monetary value on a crippled old man than a young, 21 year old worker, but that we must do. Everything has a price. After all, the old sly devil says, you can buy anything in this world for money.
The economic principle of Zion and Christ works on a completely different level. "Hath he commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation?" the prophet Nephi asks. "Behold I say unto you, Nay; but he hath given it free for all men; and he hath commanded his people that they should persuade all men to repentance" (2 Nephi 26:27). The prophet then warns, "But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion; for if they labor for money, they shall perish" (2 Nephi 26:31).
We as Christians should ascribe price to very little, and when we do, it is infinite. The cost of the Atonement wrought by the blood of the Messiah was infinite - yet salvation to the sinful masses of Father's children is for free. The capitalist would charge for repentance (and some clergymen have tried in the past) but the love of God can never be sold, nor can it be bought. When the world tries to buy the authority of God through Simon Magus, it gives the universal temptation: "And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost" (Acts 8:18-19). But the answer from God, given through Peter, is just as universal: "Thy money perish with thee, because thou has thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Though has neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God" (Acts 8:20-21).
We quibble over semantics: After all, Paul warned Timothy that it was the love of money that was the root of all evil, not necessarily money itself. But we either ignore or flinch when we hear Christ declare that it is easier for a camel to travel through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter the kingdom of God (Matt 19:24). We fret over the radical ideas of the Christ - give everything to the poor? Forsake everything? Even "houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands" (Matt 19:29) for your sake? Are you sure, Christ?
And so we hesitate, and we lose out. "The Lord really means what he says when He commands us not to think about these things; and because we have chosen to find this advice hopelessly impractical 'for our times' (note that the rich young man found it just as impractical for his times!), the treasures of knowledge have been withheld from us: 'God has often sealed up the heavens,' said Joseph Smith, 'because of covetousness in the Church'" (Nibley, Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless, 292).
But the early Apostles did not hesitate, Elder Neal A. Maxwell pointed out, and had Peter lingered at his fishing nets rather than following right away, he could have owned a very lucrative fishing business - but instead, he was able to see the Transfiguration of the Christ. Which would capitalism value more? What about Zion?
Eschatologically, capitalism has no place in the kingdom of God, nor in His plan. Flawed from the beginning, the system serves only one purpose - the self. Free markets are ironically named when viewed in a spiritual sense, for they are rarely ever spiritually free. "We do not have time here to review Satan's brilliant career in business and law: how he taught Cain the 'great secret' of how to 'murder and get gain' while claiming the noblest notions, 'saying: I am free'" (Nibley, 314). We claim that wealth creates freedom to pursue options - but remain slaves to our jobs and professions, to our material wealth that constantly asks us to pay attention and ever increasingly demands for our time. Meanwhile, Christ continues to beckon, asking us to leave behind paltry material wealth, which rusts and corrodes, for eternal treasures on high, which aren't treasures in a worldly sense at all. What is the treasure? To know God and to live with Him again. Relationships have low monetary value, unless there is money to gain. Alas for the capitalist, there is no money to gain in a relationship with God at all - only eternal life!
So, what do we do with the system we live in now? Should not we thank the markets for the relative comforts and advances we have made as a society? Yet capitalism also shoulders much blame for excess, for want, for greed, for imbalances, for exploitation, for murder, genocide, war and on and on. Certainly, capitalism has its worldly merits, but the place of the saint is not in such a system. Our Church revolves around charity, with safeguards against excess wealth. We have our 10% tithing offerings, but we are also encouraged to donate to the Book of Mormon fund, missionaries, to feeding the poor, humanitarian aid, helping educate those trapped in the cycle of poverty. For the price of a recreational boat, you can easily choose to instead finance one or two missions - but how many rich people would choose the spiritual rather than the material? God has warned us time and time again against material wealth, and perhaps it is this commandment that is one of the hardest to heed.
Brigham Young warned that if we keep our riches, "with them I promise you leanness of soul, darkness of mind, narrow and contracted hearts, and the bowels of your compassion will be shut up." As Latter-Day Saints looking forward to the titular latter-days, we should act as the cast and stage crew of a theater, quietly building the new set while the old set is still up so that rotation of the two can follow immediately. "So it is with this world. It is not our business to tear down the old set - the agencies that do that are already hard at work and very efficient - the set is coming down all around us with spectacular effect. Our business is to see to it that the new set is well on the way for what is to come - and that means a different kind of politics, beyond the scope of the tragedy that is now playing its closing night. We are preparing for the establishment of Zion" (Nibley, 234-5).
Moral of the Story: Capitalism has no place in our gospel economy. We should take care of our attitude to money in comparison to our attitude to God, because it can cost us eternal life.
Friday, May 8, 2009
New look, new colors, new subtitle, new volume, same terrible content!
I've recently changed the subtitle to this blog, as well as ticked up the volume to 2. Why? Because we recently celebrated our first anniversary, and doesn't that mean we should move onto the second volume of our miniseries?
Recently, this blog has remained silent, fallow and desolate (only slightly worse than when it is active), mostly because I picked up a full-time job and suddenly had roughly eight hours of my life five times a week eaten up by paperwork.
However, the mind remains busy, a constant humming of a busy hive full of drones busily exploring and harvesting the nectar of the world. Thus, look forward to -
- How I tried to break free of the internet, only to find myself getting sucked even further in. Best part is, it's good for my life!
- Various musings about religion, church life and theology; can temples ever become truly eco-friendly? What is the role of capitalism - if any - eschatologically? Jell-o was apparently invented fairly close to Palmyra, New York. Coincidence?!
- Life adventures, such as Dantzel making amazing stuffed tofu, planting gardens and going on biking trips around Lehi, pictures included!
- More haikus, departing wildly from the traditional stance of nature-based poetry adapted to a more contemporary, urban imagery.
- How it's really hard to be environmental when the weather in Utah is incredibly crappy, and how I've come to miss Seattle and attempt to reconnect with my anti-establishment, hipster roots.
Yep. Color change, new volume number, expanded subtitle. This blog is going places, people!
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