Keeping “our radar focused” on the membership

Pity the poor singles who live in the Salt Lake City area of Utah.

According to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune (“Loss of young adult members spurred changes to LDS wards,” 4/27/11, p. B1), 5,000 single Latter-day Saints between the ages of 18 to 30 who gathered at the LDS Church’s Conference Center were told by Apostle M. Russell Ballard that 147 student and Young Single Adult wards between North Salt Lake and 4500 South in Taylorsville are being dissolved.

In its place will be 121 new Young Single Adult wards. 

The reason for the change: too many Latter-day Saints in this age range are abandoning the faith.  Redrawing the boundaries has been tried in other parts of Utah and, according to the article, helped retain the singles membership. In fact, Ballard begged those in attendance to use this new system to bring at least one other person back to the fold.

According to the article, “Ballard repeated LDS President Thomas S. Monson’s recent admonitions to young single Mormon men to stop ‘hanging out’ and start dating with an eye toward marriage.”

Listen carefully to the next paragraph: “’We hope you’ve got the message: You have no option to bounce around,’ he said, referring to a common practice dubbed ward-hopping in which young Mormons shop around for congregations they like. ‘We know where you are. We’ve got our radar focused on you.’”

“We’ve got our radar focused on you”? Seriously? Certainly this admonishment cannot come from a general authority representing a church claiming to be Christian, could it? 

Correct me if I’m wrong—the followers of this blog are very perceptive—but this is nothing more than membership control. The goal: Push marriage on the young people (hardly a new tactic with the LDS leadership) so that they will settle down and become faithful little ward members, possibly evolving into future bishops and, according to Ballard, even apostles. Yet this control directive sounds like something out of Orwell’s 1984 than anything else. Can anyone say “cult”?

Criticizing these young people for “ward-hopping” and reestablishing the boundaries of the Young Single Adult wards sounds absolutely desperate. After all, could it be that single members were doing their best to find mates by looking outside of their own restricted boundaries? Is there anything wrong with this? I’m surprised Ballard didn’t suggest that the Church would now be setting up marriages as well. Of course, such a practice could take place only if the couple belonged to the same ward! Interward marriages are bad, bad, bad. How dare a member desire to draw outside the lines!

Of course, Ballard’s charge drew praise from the faithful. General LDS Relief Society President Julie Beck said,” These are wise, inspired decisions. This is the Lord’s way to bless you in your lives!”

Somehow, I imagine that not all 5,000 members at this meeting walked out whistling “We thank thee O God for a prophet.” If I were them, I’d start asking more questions and consider why this religion is having such a hard time keeping its young people engaged. Peel back the layers and see what stinketh.

A legend in my life passes on

Death is always difficult. Yet I'm one of those weird people who likes to read the obits in the daily paper. Now, mind you, in the past year, I haven't yet read the obit of anyone I know because I just moved to Utah ten months ago and haven't had the time to get to know very many people. Each day it seems that there are one or two obits published in the Salt Lake Tribune that stand out, so I read them in an attempt to get some answers. How did the person die? Who is he/she leaving behind? What accomplishments were there? Was their life well lived? Does it look like this person had any regrets? In other words, what was their story?

So just an hour ago I found out that a good man recently died on April Fools Day. Dr. Gordon Johnson was my favorite professor in seminary. I found this out minutes ago when I called his home phone number, as I occasionally did, to chat with my old professor. It was obvious something was up when I discovered his line had been disconnected. I wrote the forwarded number down, tentatively dialed, and then waited as Dr. Johnson's daughter-in-law answered. After stumbling around, she told me that, at age 91, he passed away peacefully a week ago Friday.

I guess this jolt didn't really surprise me--I had prepared myself when I dialed the new number. I always knew that, one day, my friend would no longer be able to give me advice, listen to me tell him about the latest sermon I preached, or give me updates about the two book projects he was working on, including an autobiography. The last time I talked to him, I encouraged him: "Dr. Johnson, you've got to finish writing those books." He said he was trying but added that maybe he tried to bite off too much. When I asked about the books, his daughter-in-law informed me that neither was finished. In his autobiography, he only got to age 25. Too bad because that's when the good part started!. I was looking forward to purchasing the first copy, which he promised me in our last conversation that I could do.

This was a special man who took an interest in me back in 1989 when I took him for "preaching" classes. You ought to know that I almost didn't get an M.Div. in 1991, as I was willing to settle for a lesser degree that didn't require three quarters of Greek and three quarters of preaching. These courses terrified me. The Greek professor was a translator of the NIV who was brutal in his old-fashioned teaching style! As for preaching, my first quarter of "Introduction to Preaching" was taught by a particular professor who, frankly, sliced, diced, and served back to us the gnarly mess we had dished out. It was intimidating and could not be considered a great start. I decided that I just didn't like to preach.

Then I had the privilege of taking Dr. Johnson for my last two quarters. Dr. Johnson had the ability to tell a person that the delivery was horrendous, the sermon was a stinker, and a child could have done better, yet you would hardly know it because he was so gentle and kind. He taught his students how to tell stories that enraptured an audience, a tactic I try to use with every sermon. And lo and behold, my attitude began to change. I started to "get it, " even earning an A in my final quarter. I was given the tools in crafting an intelligent, structured homily that could be applied by the audience to which I was speaking.

The next year, Dr. Johnson became the interim pastor at the local church where my wife and I attended. During this time, Dr. Johnson (he told me to call him "Gordon" but I just could never do it) and his wife Alta invested t in Terri and me. They had us over to their home several times and always made us feel like we were special friends of theirs. We were quite honored. In fact, they served as mentors to us during that year. His one year in the pulpit  included better preaching than anything I had seen before. Since that time, I have watched hundreds of preachers, but Dr. Johnson's style had the most impact in my life, bar none. He told stories that had the audience enraptured; it was impossible to daydream with this man at the helm. During the year at Clairemont Emmanuel Baptist, I learned a lot about story-telling. Today I still use his expository method.  His example also helped me in the profession I later chose, teaching. I can still hear him saying, "Eric, preach it well and they'll listen." He taught by example.

When I look at the obits in the Tribune, it does not trouble me to close the paper and walk away. The lives I just read about really won't make any significant impact on my life as I'll forget these people in a day or two. This can't be said for the life of Dr. Gordon Johnson. I'll miss him, but I know he's in a much better place, dancing with Alta in heaven. "Well done, good and faithful servant," is what I know he heard on April Fools Day. I look forward to the day when we can meet again around God's heavenly throne. Maybe he'll have finished his autobiography by then.

Feelings surpass everything?

I’m headed to the Holy Land this week with 48 people—the majority are teens—as another apologist and I lead them on a trip they will never forget. This week I asked a Mormon friend about a particular site in Israel that some are touting as evidence for the Book of Mormon. With a wipe of his hand, he said that it didn’t matter, that one’s feelings should play the prominent role in determining the reality of a particular piece of evidence.

Having visited the Holy Land himself, he told me:

“How does one explain the feeling one gets in the Holy Land?  I submit to you that THAT (the feeling) is a stronger proof of the divinity of the Bible than Peter’s House, or the Herodium, or Hezekiah’s Tunnel.  To the skeptic they (your top 5) prove that there is a house and a tunnel and a stadium, but one cannot deny the feelings one gets as one tours the Holy Land.  THAT my friend is what I am talking about.   Thank you for providing me the opportunity to teach you before you go so you can pass that along to those on your tour.  Ask them to put themselves in touch with how they feel when they are there.  Teach them that that feeling overrides any lookee here’s you could provide them.  Those feelings is/are God revealing to them that he indeed did come to that land as the Bible teaches.  Not the Herodium, not the tunnel and not a house someone has called Peter’s.  You can feel it.  That is the only way I can explain it.  You pooh pooh it, but it is the only thing that is real.  Pass it along.  Your tour participants will bless you for your insights, you needn’t credit a Mormon for clueing you in.”

Did you catch what he’s saying? According to this logic, it doesn’t matter whether these sites that I will visit next week are real. Rather, what matters is that a person has a “feeling” it is true. I do agree with him that archaeology does not “prove” the Bible—I have never claimed it did. Yet the places we’re traveling to are, generally, authentic historic sites. For example, Jesus may have never risen from the dead even though we know where the tomb probably is. (Yes, there are two possibilities, and scholars generally believe that one of them is correct.) 

Yet twentieth century German theologian Rudolph Bultmann taught that the historical resurrection doesn’t matter as long as a person existentially believes the resurrection in his or her heart. I disagree. If the resurrection didn’t take place, then as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, this religion is worthless and Christians ought to be considered the most pitied of people. If it did take place, it ought to make every difference in the world.

By discounting the archaeological evidence that is used to support the Bible, my Mormon friend is trying to cover up the lack of historic sites that can be attributed to the Book of Mormon. Perhaps, deep down, he knows that the evidence to support the story as told in the Book of Mormon is just underwhelming. But if it’s true that one’s feelings take preeminence when it comes to determining the truthfulness of a biblical (or Book of Mormon) site, the religion becomes nothing more than a post-modern, esoteric anything-goes faith. 

That’s more faith than I think God intended for humans to have.

Trust me, I’ll be having many emotional feelings over the next couple of weeks as I take in the wonderful sites of Ephesus, Jerusalem, Caesarea, and Capernaum. But my feelings will be based on facts, a reality that will make it even that much more satisfying to my soul.