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RiseUp Podcast – Having conversations about the history of Blacks and the LDS Church

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Race issues in the LDS Church can be difficult to understand and even more difficult to talk about. The church released an official statement regarding some history on this subject, but there are those who still have questions. Russell Stevenson has dedicated a good portion of his adult life to studying this history, and has written on this subject. He offers three suggestions on how to approach and discuss this controversial subject—namely the history of Black’s in the Mormon Church.

To purchase a copy of Russell Stevenson’s latest book: For the Cause of Righteousness — click here.

To purchase a copy of Russell Stevenson’s previous book, Black Mormon: The Story of Elijah Ables — click here.

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Fair Issues 77: What is the correct geography for the Book of Mormon?

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MAIn this podcast Michael Ash relates the possible models for the Book of Mormon geography.  The strongest models are those which 1) are supported by the strongest evidences, 2) do the best accounting for all the data and 3) have the fewest anomalies.  Some people might be tempted to think that a good model shouldn’t have any anomalies, but the philosophy of science has shown that no paradigm is completely free of anomalies.

The full text of this article can be found at Deseret News online.

Brother Ash is author of the book Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt, as well as the book, of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith. Both books are available for purchase online through the FairMormon Bookstore. Tell your friends about the Mormon Fair-Cast. Share a link on your Facebook page and help increase the popularity of the Mormon Fair-Cast by subscribing to this podcast in iTunes, and by rating it and writing a review.

The views and opinions expressed in the podcast may not reflect those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or that of FairMormon

 

Why Do They Leave? III

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[This entry originally appeared at Forn Spǫll Fira and is reposted here with the author’s permission.]

Thus far, in my examination of the data from the NSYR I have looked at some of the scattered clues in the NSYR analysis. (The first post is here, the second post ishere.) The NSYR actually devoted an entire book to the subject of youth losing their religion and their way, called Lost in Transition. I have already noted that intellectual reasons play a smaller role in youth losing their faith than behaviors or events. I am here interested in only those intellectual reasons that the NSYR found for people losing their faith. This post will look at reasons assembled in the first chapter of Lost in Transition for why youth of all religions become secular. [Read more…] about Why Do They Leave? III

Faith and Reason 33: Ancient Shipbuilding

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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supportingthe Prophet Joseph Smith

by Michael R. Ash

As the Lehites travelled to southern Arabia they would have passed several seaports where ships could be observed. Only recently have historians become aware that centuries before Lehi’s day, Oman [on Arabia’s southern coast] was the forefront of Arab sea exploration and trade, building ships that operated to Africa, India and China.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt.  He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.

RiseUp Podcast: What’s Wrong with Masturbation

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Youth, or Young Adults in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have had questions about various aspects and applications of the Law of Chastity. One such question surrounds quotes and commentary on masturbation. This response is read by Steve Densley, Executive Vice-President of FairMormon in a podcast he published in Jan 2013.

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Question Submitted to FairMormon:

I’ve been reading a lot lately on the internet and listening to podcasts about the church’s stance on masturbation and the current science on the subject. I have understood that masturbation is considered to be addictive and that Jesus taught that we should not think lustfully about members of the opposite gender. But some people are saying that the Church’s approach to this issue has changed lately, and that masturbation is no longer considered a serious sin. I’m also hearing that if a man does not ejaculate regularly, that it could be harmful and even lead to death. I know that looking at pornography is wrong. It is misleading, degrading and lusting after any person who is already married is a sin. However, I wonder now if masturbation without lusting after someone to whom you are not married might be acceptable.

And now for the answer:
In responding to this question, there are two main points that should be considered: 1) Sexuality is sacred, and its enjoyment is given strict bounds by scripture and modern revelation; and 2) Sexual acts, including masturbation, generate profound and powerful neurochemical reactions.

These two principles are, it seems, related–the physical and mental consequences of sexuality are so important and powerful that God has good reason to give us commandments that help us enjoy the best of those consequences and avoid the worst.

Now, you distinguish pornography use from masturbation, and in a way that’s valid. For instance, part of the sin of pornography use is lustfully, selfishly using images of another’s sacred body, and supporting an industry that exploits those sacred bodies for profit. Masturbation without pornography at least avoids that.

However, in a larger sense, pornography use and masturbation are not so distinguishable. Their main feature is the same: They change sexuality from the divinely-sanctioned sacrament of love for another, into a solely self-oriented activity.

Let’s talk more about what it means to say that sexuality is sacred. First, and most obviously, through the power of procreation, we share in the creative power of God by helping to bring His children into this world. But there are other ways in which proper use of the procreative power helps us to become more like God. Our ultimate goal in life is to become like Christ by overcoming selfishness and becoming a person who is perfectly able and willing to love and serve others. Because sexuality is so powerful, it can easily motivate selfishness–wanting to use others for one’s own sexual gratification. To prevent that, and to help us progress, God instead taught us how to express sexuality in a context, marriage, that encourages selflessness, kindness, and loyalty.

Therefore, a problem with masturbation is that it removes sexuality from that very important context of kindness in marriage. Even though masturbation doesn’t use others for gratification, it teaches an individual to regard sexuality as an individual event, free from the demands of a spouse.

This is where neurochemistry comes in, too. Sexual climax involves incredibly powerful chemical events that can even be analogized to the effect of powerful drugs. Both make the brain perceive incredible pleasure. Because of neuroplasticity (the brain’s tendency to rewire itself so that a stimulus and its response are closely associated with each other), sexual stimulus will be associated with its incredible neurochemical reward. Some of the chemicals that are released during sex are the same as those released after a woman gives birth. And just as these chemicals help a mother to bond with a newborn child, they also help sexual partners to feel bonded to one another.

But when sexual stimulus comes in the form of masturbation, completely devoid of the sharing and vulnerability and complementarity of marriage, then the brain can become wired so that it is primarily masturbation that produces the reward, and an individual can become increasingly unable to sexually respond to a spouse. Masturbation and intercourse are simply different. One who masturbates frequently has a very direct knowledge of what actions bring pleasure most effectively. It can be difficult or impossible for a spouse to reproduce the pleasure that a masturbator has learned how to produce on his or her own. Thus, sexuality, if not expressed in the context of a loving and devoted relationship, turns inward and becomes a focus on self. It is spiritually dangerous to use sexuality for self when God intends for it to be used to help us overcome our love of self.

Even if one were to masturbate while focusing one’s thoughts on one’s spouse, it’s still impossible to replicate the experience of being with another, actual person with flaws and fears and perhaps very different sexual needs. It doesn’t change the fact that one is providing one’s own sexual stimulus, instead of having to learn how to give and receive.

Any claims you have heard that you will be physically harmed unless you do masturbate are simply false, or greatly over-blown. There is a study that shows that older men have a lower risk of prostate cancer if they ejaculate more frequently. However, this same finding was not replicated in the case of young men. In fact,higher rates of masturbation raise the risk of prostate cancer in young men. Interestingly, more frequent intercourse did NOT raise the risk, but masturbation did.

In approaching issues of obedience, the correct approach is not to lay out the “risks and benefits” of obeying or not, and then trying to decide where the best “deal” lies. It seems instead, that our first question ought to be, is it true that God wants me to abstain from masturbation. If so, it doesn’t matter what it does to my physical health, or anything else. And, we must not over-look the possibility that men who are more healthy, more vigorous, etc. for a variety of reasons may be more sexually active or interested–thus, the finding may not be a matter of cause and effect, but more ejaculatory acts may reflect better over-all health. And, masturbation in young men might reflect higher hormone levels, which in the long run might lead to higher cancer risk–again, perhaps the link isn’t causative. Or, perhaps masturbation leads to higher hormone levels via positive feedback. No one knows yet.

The prophets have been clear that masturbation is not a practice that is approved by the Lord. While the current edition of For the Strength of Youth pamphlet does not use the term “masturbation,” it clearly refers to the act all the same. It reads: “Do not do anything else that arouses sexual feelings. Do not arouse those emotions in your own body.”

President Packer made it clear that it is not a grave, heinous sin on the order of (say) fornication or adultery, but it is still something we should avoid:

One of you, perhaps, has not fully understood until now. Perhaps your father did not talk to you. You may already have been guilty of tampering with these powers. You may even have developed a habit. What do you do then?

First, I want you to know this. If you are struggling with this temptation and perhaps you have not quite been able to resist, the Lord still loves you. It is not anything so wicked nor is it a transgression so great that the Lord would reject you because of it, but it can quickly lead to that kind of transgression. It is not pleasing to the Lord, nor is it pleasing to you. It does not make you feel worthy or clean.

(To Young Men Only, pamphlet, Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

President Kimball said something similar: “Masturbation, a rather common indiscretion, is not approved of the Lord nor of his church, regardless of what may have been said by others whose ‘norms’ are lower. Latter-day Saints are urged to avoid this practice. Anyone fettered by this weakness should abandon the habit before he goes on a mission or receives the holy priesthood or goes in the temple for his blessings.” (Spencer W. Kimball, “Love Versus Lust,” Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [Provo, 5 Jan. 1965], p. 22.)

Note that he calls it both “common” and an “indiscretion.” It is also termed a “weakness.” This isn’t something catastrophic, and it acknowledges that most of us have to learn how to moderate this part of our lives. But, the standards that the Lord teaches are clear. And, if we are not willing to obey him in the “little” things, when faced with a greater trial, we will not have developed either the strength or resolve to obey in the big things.

C.S. Lewis has a wonderful passage in which he describes what may be the root reason that God gives us this commandment:

For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back: sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect love: no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself….

Masturbation involves this abuse of imagination in erotic matters (which I think bad in itself) and thereby encourages a similar abuse of it in all spheres. After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little, dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.

(C.S. Lewis, letter to Keith Masson (3 June 1956); cited in Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis (HarperOne, 2008), 292-293.)

At the very least, it violates one of the commands of Jesus:

27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut if off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
(Matthew 5:26 – 30.)

Jesus here tells us to abstain from lust. And, frankly, masturbation without lust is pretty difficult, even in the manner you describe. Could this be difficult for us? Yes, many people find it so. But, Jesus makes it clear that to be his disciple, we must be prepared to sacrifice our comfort, and even things that we cherish deeply. Losing an eye or hand is a big deal: but, Jesus uses these symbolically as something which we must be willing to part with if it keeps us from obeying God.

This is the sort of case where theory and talking is not as good as practice. “If any man will do his will,” said Jesus, “he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” (John 7:17.)

There are many people who can verify that it is entirely possible to have a happy life and later rewarding marriage despite abstinence from masturbation. But, the only way, in some sense, to become convincedRise of that is to try the experiment. And, if one is not able to try the experiment, that suggests that this is more of a problem than one might suspect. If you find yourself in this situation, you will find strength and encouragement if you will read the recent counsel of the Church and if you will take up these matters with your bishop, and with the Lord.

If there is an issue that you have been wondering about, you can often find the latest answers at the FAIR wiki, found at fairmormon.org. If you can’t find your answer there, feel free to pose your question to the FAIR apologists by visiting the FAIR contact page. Occasionally, such a question will be featured on FAIR Questions. Before questions are used for this podcast, permission is obtained from the questioner.

Questions or comments about this episode can be sent to [email protected]. Or join the conversation at fairblog.org.

Tell your friends about us and help increase the popularity of this podcast by subscribing in iTunes and by writing a review.

Music for this episode was provided courtesy of Lawrence Green.

The opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily the views of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or of FAIR.

Working Together to Save Youth in a Secular Age

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[This post originally appeared at Difficult Run and is reposted here with permission from the author.]

The following trio of recent posts outline various perspectives on why Mormon youth and young adults leave the Church and what can be done about it.

The discussion has already become somewhat politicized, but I think that the similarities in Bokovoy’s and Wilson’s approach outweigh the differences. In this post I’ll talk about reconciling them, and also bring in Gee’s important, data-based perspective.

Bokovoy’s primary point is that the struggles young Mormons encounter with their faith are the result of encountering real, problematic facts from Mormon history. As a result, he asserts that:

We need to alter our approach and stop giving students the impression that there is never any good reason to doubt or question their faith. Instead, we need to help students incorporate questioning as a meaningful contribution to a spiritual journey.

Wilson, as the title of his post indicates, begs to differ. His primary argument is that “It is not the facts themselves that challenge the youth, but the narratives through which the facts are presented and contextualized that challenge them.” Superficially at least, we have a contradiction between Bokovoy and Wilson.

According to Wilson there’s a deeper problem, however: “The more fundamental problem is that often our youth, not to mention many adults, lack the kind of nuanced approach to information that they require to be able to evaluate the facts in distinction to the narratives about the facts.” He later writes that “both apologetic and critical explanations… are merely provisional explanations.” It seems to me that the nuance Wilson is calling for, and the ability to separate facts from narratives, is primarily about being able to avoid taking academic or scientific claims as non-provisional and authoritative and instead “to incorporate questioning.” (Those are Bokovoy’s words.)

The chief difference, then, is that Wilson wants to prepare youth to question secular authority (“They [members] should feel free to take a cafeteria approach to the secular and scholarly information.”) and he blames Bokovoy for stating instead that they should question prophetic authority. But I’m not sure Bokovoy actually did suggest greater questioning of religious authority and, as Wilson admits, both apologetic and critical perspectives are provisional. The two views can, to a substantial degree, be reconciled.

First, however, let me point out that Wilson’s critique of the role academia and science play in society is absolutely correct. He writes that “’Science’ is functionally little more than an appeal to a culturally acceptable authority which they are expected to accept largely on blind faith.” This is true. Nibley’s words about “the black robes of a false priesthood” apply even more today1, and should be expanded to include the white lab coat along with the black graduation gown. This isn’t an attack on reason or the scientific method, but rather an observation that (not necessarily due to anyone’s intentions or desires) the combination of increasingly sophisticated and specialized scientific knowledge and increasing reliance of society on the results of that knowledge have conspired to create a situation where there is a serious risk that any sentiment packaged as scientific will be accepted as authoritative. To a lesser extent, this is true not just of science, but of academia in general.

This means that secularism now functions as a de facto religious outlook without being widely recognized as one. This allows narratives, philosophical claims, and normative judgments made under the banner of secularism to pass as objective and authoritative.2 This in turn means that secular critiques of religion have an unearned advantage (to Wilson’s point) and also that when religious people encounter troubling facts about their own history that don’t require any particular secular narrative to seem troubling (to Bokovoy’s point), secularism is always there on the fringes as the default fall-back position. In either case: the playing field is slanted towards secularism.3

Getting back to a partial reconciliation of Bokovoy and Wilson’s perspectives, Wilson’s central point is a general one about epistemology: “Few narratives can successfully assimilate all of the known data, which, as I have mentioned, is always only a subset of reality anyway.” Or, to use language I’m more comfortable with, we’re all busily engaged in the act of constructing models or narratives from the raw material of the facts and ideas we encounter in our lives. We never succeed in constructing models or narratives that successfully integrate all the facts and ideas that we’re aware of, and even if we could, we’re only personally aware of a very small number of the facts and ideas that are available to be known. Therefore, all our models and narratives are provisional.

Wilson directs this observation primarily at secularism and as a matter of practicality that makes sense. Secular authority is ascendant and its status as quasi-religious authority is largely unrecognized. It cries out for critique. But the observation that all models and narratives are provisional is not limited to secularism, and it includes not only auxiliary, apologetic arguments offered to bolster and positively contextualize prophetic and scriptural statements, but the religious conception of the prophetic and scriptural statements themselves.

Assume for a moment that prophets and scripture are infallible and sufficient. Even in that case, we would still have to go through the messy, error-prone, human process of interpreting and synthesizing their words to construct our own narrative or model. Which means that the resulting narrative or model—even in a world with prophetic and scriptural infallibility and sufficiency—would remain provisional. This means that one can affirm Wilson’s trenchant criticism of secular authority and still make room for Bokovoy’s argument that we ought to “incorporate questioning as a meaningful contribution to a spiritual journey.” Not because we ought to necessarily question prophetic or scriptural authority more than we do, but because we need to be prepared to question the provisional models and narratives we construct from those authoritative statements.

This does not, of course, reconcile every difference between Bokovoy and Wilson. The greatest difference that remains is still the question of what is actually causing youth to leave. Is it, as Bokovoy asserts, the mere existence of troubling facts? Or is it, as Wilson argues, a nefarious suite of narratives which accompany those facts? The first response is that the common thread to Bokovoy’s and Wilon’s approach–espistemic humility and questioning–works in both cases. So there’s a sense in which it doesn’t matter, since the solution to both diagnoses is the same.

It’s still essential to ask the question of what is really going on, however. And what we find is that from a big picture perspective it might very well be that neither Bokovoy nor Wilson are right about the primary problem. This is where John Gee’s post comes in.  Gee’s post is based on analysis of data collected by the ongoing National Survey of Youth and Religion. The project involves tracking the religious lives of thousands of American youths and conducting in-depth interviews with them about their religious lives. As Gee notes:

Unfortunately, the data published by the NSYR does not directly address the issue of why some Latter-day Saint youth become atheist, agnostic, or apathetic. It does, however, delve into the reasons why youth in general choose that path.

Gee then outlines the main factors that (for youth as a whole) tend to lead out of religion and into secular life:

  1. Disruptions to routine
  2. Distractions
  3. Differentiation (e.g. attempt to create separate identity from parents)
  4. Postponed Family Formation and Childbearing
  5. Keeping Options Open
  6. Honoring Diversity
  7. Self-confident Self-sufficiency
  8. Self-evident morality (i.e. moral truths are so obvious that religion is superfluous)
  9. Partying

He concludes:

What is interesting about this list is that for the most part, intellectual reasons play a secondary role in conversion to secularism. This is not to say that intellectual reasons play no role, or that certain actions have no intellectual ramifications. The list is mainly behavioral or event driven rather than philosophically driven. Doubts in religiously held beliefs do not show up on the list.

It’s possible that Mormon youth are very different from the general trend, and that while youth of other traditions leave because of behavioral reasons, Mormons leave because of doubts. But that’s not a good starting point given the data, especially since advances in understanding of human behavior4 provide us with a model where intellectual deliberation serves as an after-the-fact rationalization of decisions made non-rationally on the basis of psychological, social, and emotional factors.

Luckily, as I’ve noted previously, Mormonism stands out as a group that is able to transmit behavior and information to rising generations better than other faith traditions. Based on our existing relative strength at transmitting theology, culture, and behavior, we are in a good position to pivot and meet this challenge. So let’s get to work on teaching epistemic humility and questioning now. Let’s take Bokovoy’s critique to heart, and prepare our youth to deal with uncomfortable facts. Let’s take Wilson’s critique to hear, and prepare our youth to view secular authority with due skepticism and discernment. And let’s also keep an eye open towards the data-based approaches like Gee’s to see what other changes, especially related to behavioral considerations, we can take to meet the challenge of keeping the flame of faith burning in a secular world.

1. Leaders and Managers

2. This goes a long way towards explaining Neil deGrasse Tyson’s popularity and the rise of the New Atheists generally.

3. I’ve written more on the relationship between Mormonism and secularism that you can read here, here, and here.

4. E.g. Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind

 

Getting It Wrong: How Not to Save LDS Youth in a Secular Age

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lehis-dream_1440x9601-vision-tree-of-life-lds[This entry originally appeared at Sixteen Small Stones and has been cross posted here with permission from the author.]

By J. Max Wilson

For those of you who may not already know, during the last few months there has been a bit of an intellectual brawl going on among a handful of influential Mormon academics. The most recent verbal scuffles have revolved around significant changes at BYU’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, formerly known as the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS).

I may make some observations about the Maxwell Institute controversies in a future post, but today I have some thoughts related to a specific essay by one of the contributors to the recent debates:

Brother David Bokovoy is a brilliant young professor of languages and literature with a speciality in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East. On December 26th, he published a blog post entitled “How to Save LDS Youth in a Secular Age“. [Read more…] about Getting It Wrong: How Not to Save LDS Youth in a Secular Age

Why Do They Leave? II

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[This post has been cross posted from Forn Spǫll Fira with the permission of the author.]

This is the second in a series of blog posts covering the sociological data scattered through the publications of the National Survey of Youth and Religion (NSYR) about why youth leave their religion for secularism. (For the first post, see here. For Latter-day Saint retention rates, see here. For where those LDS who leave go, see here.) We should remember that the NSYR initially came into being to test ideas circulating in Evangelical scare literature that U.S. teenagers were leaving in droves to become pagans and Wiccans. So as a study it was actually designed to detect if youth are leaving and what might be the reasons for doing so. What they found was that “U.S. youth are not flocking in droves to ‘alternative’ religions and spiritualities such as paganism and Wicca” (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 32, 311-312 n. 1).

The last post focused on a list of factors for why youth become secular. I suspect that the list was not exhaustive, but all the factors were prominent. In this post I want to look at a specific set of intellectual ideas that were common among youth of all denominations. In the first wave, of the 3290 youth surveyed (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 292), 267 had in-depth interviews lasting from 1.5 to 3 hours (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 302); this included 21 Latter-day Saint youth (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 303). One general observation the NSYR made was that “the majority of U.S. teens would badly fail a hypothetical short-answer or essay test of the basic beliefs of their religion” but Mormon teens “seem somewhat better able to explain the basic outlook and beliefs of their traditions” (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 137). These in-depth interviews provided a window into the thinking of the youth studied and thus enable one to see some of the intellectual issues involved.

The NSYR found a common view of religion that cut across denominational lines (and I have heard it expressed by many Latter-day Saints).

We suggest that the de facto dominant religion among contemporary U.S. teenagers is what we might call “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” The creed of this religion, as codified from what emerged from our interviews, sounds something like this:

  1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
  2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and my most world religions.
  3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
  4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
  5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

Such a de facto creed is particularly evident among mainline Protestant and Catholic youth, but is also visible among black and conservative Protestants, Jewish teens, other religious types of teenagers, and even many non-religious teenagers in the United States.

(Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 162-63.)

One of the interviews that the NSYR cited as an example of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism was a “17-year old white Mormon boy from Utah” (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 163). So we know that this is a problem affecting Latter-day Saint youth.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is about a few things.

    1. First it “is about inculcating a moralistic approach to life. It teaches that central to living a good and happy life is being a good, moral person. That means being nice, kind, pleasant, respectful, responsible, at work on self-improvement, taking care of one’s health, and doing one’s best to be successful” (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 163).
    2. Second it is “about providing therapeutic benefits to its adherents. This is not a religion of repentance from sin, of keeping the Sabbath, of living as a servant of a sovereign divine, of steadfastly saying one’s prayers, . . . etcetera. Rather, what appears to be the actual dominant religion among U.S. teenagers is centrally about felling good, happy, secure, at peace. It is about attaining subjective well-being, being able to resolve problems, and getting along amiably with other people” (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 163-64).
    3. Finally, it “is about belief in a particular kind of God: one who exists, created the world, and defines our general moral order, but not one who is particularly personally involved in one’s affairs–especially affairs in which one would prefer not to have God involved. Most of the time, the God of this faith keeps a safe distance” (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 164). “God is something like a combination Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist: he is always on call, takes care of problems that arise, professionally helps his people to feel better about themselves, and does not become too personally involved in the process” (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 165).

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism often hides among religious people:

We are not suggesting the Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a religion that teenagers (and adults) either adopt and practice wholesale or not at all. Instead, the elements of its creed are normally assimilated by degrees, in parts, admixed with elements of more traditional religious faiths. Indeed, this religious creed appears to operate as a parasitic faith. It cannot sustain its own integral, independent life; rather it must attach itself like an incubus to established historical religious traditions, feeding on their doctrines and sensibilities, and expanding by mutating their theological substance to resemble its own distinctive image” (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 166).

Various measures of Moralistic Therepeutic Deism appeared in 42%, 37%, and 34% of the teenage population (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 168). By comparison, repentance was mentioned as a theme in only 4% of the teenage population, and obeying God in only 5% (Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, 167).

The NSYR found that teenagers learn Moralistic Therapeutic Deism not only from their peers but also their parents.

So what happens to teenagers who subscribe to Moralistic Therapeutic Deism? Later waves of the NSYR study looked into the issue:

What has become of the MTD five years later, now that those teens have become emerging adults?

The latest wave of research reveals that MTD is still alive and well among 18- to 23-year-old American youth. . . . The concentration of MTD talk among emerging adults has been somewhat diluted, but that is not to say that MTD has disintegrated as a de facto believed and practiced faith. It has not. . . .

Emerging adults have a lot more personal, real-life experience than teenagers do. And as the teenage faith of MTD has had to confront and address life’s realities during the transition to emerging adulthood–the five years studied here–MTD itself has been put to the test. For some, MTD seems to have sufficed for managing life. For others, it seems MTD has simply proved too thin or weak to deal with life’s challenges. Confronted with real existential or material difficulties, some emerging adults appear to have backed away from the simple verities of MTD or perhaps have moved forward into somewhat more complex, grounded, or traditional versions of religious faith. In short, there seem to be certain tests in life through which some youth find that MTD proves an unrealistic account or an unhelpful way to respond.

(Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 154-155.)

One of the first points to notice is the time lag between what is taught (and practiced) and the challenge to the faith. What the youth learned as children and teenagers was put to the test when they were emerging adults. What was reaped as a young adult was sown much earlier. I will illustrate this with an unscientific anecdote. A number of years ago I lived in a ward with a huge primary but not a single active teenager. The bishop studied the problem and found that all of the teenagers had gone inactive between the ages of 8 and 12. While there were a number of different causes for the inactivity, there was also a gap of a number of years between the cause and the effect. Longitudinal studies like the NSYR can help us see that relationship.

Youth who as children and teenagers learn Moralistic Therapeutic Deism as the content of their religious faith will not find it sufficient to sustain them through the challenges of life. Some of them, as noted by the NSYR leave their faith. So when it comes to the intellectual content of what we are teaching youth, we should be teaching the gospel rather than Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Of the five points of the de facto creed, the first two points and the last point would have to be nuanced and the other two rejected. The restored gospel of Jesus Christ is simply not compatible with Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

If we want to help the youth keep their faith, equipping them with the tools to combat Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is one place to start.

Fair Issues 76: How were the languages confounded at the tower of Babel?

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MAIn this episode Mike explores several possibilities that may have resulted in the confounding of languages as recorded in the Book of Ether and in the Old Testament of the Bible.

The full text of this article can be found at Deseret News online.

Brother Ash is author of the book Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt, as well as the book, of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith. Both books are available for purchase online through the FairMormon Bookstore. Tell your friends about the Mormon Fair-Cast. Share a link on your Facebook page and help increase the popularity of the Mormon Fair-Cast by subscribing to this podcast in iTunes, and by rating it and writing a review.

The views and opinions expressed in the podcast may not reflect those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or that of FairMormon

 

Faith and Reason 32: Bountiful

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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith

By Michael R. Ash

After a long journey that probably took several years, the Lehites finally came to Bountiful –a land of “much fruit and also wild honey” (1 Nephi 17:5) Here they camped and built a ship for the final leg of their journey to the Americas. According to the Book of Mormon, Bountiful was a fertile place with vegetation, shipbuilding timber, flint deposits for making tools, and a nearby mount where Nephi’s brothers nearly threw Nephi into the sea.

Located precisely where we would expect to find Bountiful is the Arabian site of Khor Kharfor –the most naturally fertile location on the Arabian coast. There are fresh water springs, timber trees up to forty feet in circumference, wild honey, and small game animals. Until recently there was a sheltered sea inlet from where one could launch a raft (it is now closed by a sand bar). Towering on the west side of the bay is a mount where Nephi could have prayed, and 120-foot cliffs where Nephi’s brothers could have threatened to throw off their younger brother.

Geologists have recently found nearby iron deposits and forms of flint from which Nephi could have fashioned tools. All the items necessary to meet the description of Bountiful is found on the Dohfar coast just as described in the Book of Mormon.

Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt.  He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.

Julianne Dehlin Hatton  is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.

Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.