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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.

Why Do They Leave?

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

I have previously used statistics from the National Survey of Youth and Religion (NSYR) to highlight that: (1) we do a better job at keeping our youth than other religions, though we still lose just over a third; (2) we lose about three-quarters of the youth we lose to secularism though there are also some losses to various sects. A third key ingredient in understanding the situation is to know why youth are leaving. In this case raw statistics do not help answer the question. Simple surveys rarely help elucidate those sorts of issues.

Fortunately, not only did the NSYR track thousands of youth for a decade but they also engaged in in-depth interviews with a significant number of the youth at various stages. These interviews let the youth explain themselves and their reasoning behind the decisions they make and why they answered some of the questions the way they did. This provides richer data than otherwise might have been the case.

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. For the sake of discussion, we here assume that reasons why Latter-day Saint youth choose that path are similar to reasons that youth in general choose that path. The NSYR cataloged a number of different reasons why youth lose their religion. These are worth listing:

    1. Disruptions to routine

“Many life transitions and disturbances of diverse sorts–divorce, death of a family member, leaving home, job loss” make people “less likely to attend religious services” (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 75.)

    1. Distractions

Emerging adults engage in a number of other issues and activities that often distract them from possible religious and spiritual interests and involvements. To begin with, the central task of emerging adult life itself–learning to stand on one’s own two feet–is in some sense one big, macro distraction from religious devotion. . . . Outside of work and possibly school, emerging adults spend a good amount of time attending to various errands associated with living on their own. . . . Fun-related distractions in many emerging adults’ lives include . . . any other number of recreational and social activities that take time, energy, and sometimes money and planning. On top of all that is time spent on gadgets. . . . Social life can be distracting and draining in other ways as well. . . . More generally, there is simply too much else going on at the time to go to church, synagogue, temple, or mosque. (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 76-77.)

    1. Differentiation

Part of emerging adults’ central life task of standing on their own is establishing identity differentiation. . . . Religion, particularly public religious practice, is one arena that effectively offers emerging adults an opportunity to achieve clear identity differentiation. . . . Religion also seems to many to be of less consequence than matters of education, finances, love interests, childbearing, and other more pressing areas, as a possible place to slack off, drop out, or otherwise become quite different from one’s parents (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 78.)

    1. Postponed Family Formation and Childbearing

The postponement of “settling down” that is associated with emerging adulthood unintentionally produces, as a causal mechanism, the tendency for Americans to reduce religious involvements during this phase of life. (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 79.)

    1. Keeping Options Open

Emerging adults are generally loath to close doors or burn bridges. Instead, they want to keep as many options open as possible. . . . If religion means being sober, settled, and steadfast, and if emerging adulthood means postponing those things, then it means not being particularly concerned about religion. (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 80.)

      Some youth (about 30%) want to have more of a cafeteria approach to religion, picking and choosing the beliefs that they want. They are picky

about what they are willing to adopt of their religious tradition’s beliefs and practices, some of which they think are “outdated.” They often hold certain “different opinions” and desires from what their religion allows, so they pick and choose what they want to accept. [They] disagree, neglect, or ignore the official teachings of their faiths most often on the following religious issues: sex before marriage, the need for regular religious service attendance, belief in the existence of hell, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, and use of birth control. (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 167.)

    1. Honoring Diversity

For most of their lives, from preschool on, most emerging adults have been taught by multiple institutions to celebrate diversity, to be inclusive of difference, to overcome racial divides, to embrace multiculturalism, to avoid being narrowly judgmental towards others who are out of the ordinary. . . . Despite the value of such inclusiveness and acceptance generally . . . this general orientation when brought to questions of religious life tends to undermine the effectiveness of particularities of faith traditions and practices. . . . As a result, most emerging adults are happy with religion so long as it is general and accepting of diversity but are uncomfortable if it is anything else. (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 80-81.)

    1. Self-confident Self-Sufficiency

They were authorized as individuals to know and choose what is right, at least for themselves. It was difficult for them to imagine an objective reference point beyond their own individual selves by which to evaluate themselves, their lives, and those of others. They could decide what to believe about ultimate reality based on what feels right to them, whatever fits their personal experience. . . . Why would an emerging adult want or need religious faith? (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 82.)

    1. Self-evident Morality

“They believe . . . religion plays an optional role in morally good living. The single thing in which it specializes–helping people to be good–is actually not needed in order for people to achieve that outcome. Religion thus serves a nonobligatory, noncrucial function in life. It does not have a corner on anything unique. Nobody has to believe in or practice it to live morally. As a result, its status becomes that of a lifestyle accessory. (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition 83.)

    1. Partying

One of the other reasons why many, though not all, emerging adults may want to distance themselves from religion is that religion in their minds conflicts with certain other lifestyle options that are higher priorities. Most of them want to party, to hook up, to have sex in relationships, and to cohabit; or if they do not do these things now, many at least want to keep them as options for the future. . . . Many want to have sex with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or to at least be free to do so if the occasion arises, and many want to be able to hook up with someone they meet to whom they may feel attracted. Many also want to cohabit with current or future serious partners or fiancés before getting married. And all of this, emerging adults are aware, contradicts the teachings of most religions. So they simply avoid religion and thereby resolve the conflict. . . . Framed as a social-psychological causal mechanism: most emerging adults reduce a certain cognitive dissonance they feel—arising from the conflict of religious teachings against partying and sex before marriage versus their wanting to engage in those behaviors—by mentally discounting the religious teachings and socially distancing themselves from the source of those teachings. In this simple way, the role of sex, drinking, and sometimes drugs is often important in forming emerging adults’ frequent lack of interest in religious faith and practice. (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 83-84.)

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.

Unfortunately, the NSYR gave no approximate weight to the frequency of the various reasons. One can hunt around the data and get some indications (and I provided one of these in point number 5 above). Among emerging adults (18- to 23-year-olds) in America, 84% have engaged in sexual relations and 66% have done so with more than one partner (Regnerus and Uecker,Premarital Sex in America, 25). Thus about five-sixths of emerging adults may potentially fall under those whose sex lives conflicts with their religion and, if they give it much thought, will fall under the temptation to make their beliefs conform to their practice. For teenagers we have better separated data published. Among Americans 37.2% or teenagers have been sexually active and another 24.5% wish they were. Among Latter-day Saints 12.6% of teenagers have been sexually active and another 14.9% wish they were. (Regnerus, Forbidden Fruit, 132-33.)

So the desire to sin in ways that fundamentally conflicts with their religion affects about 30% of LDS teenagers. We lose 13% of our teenagers to secularism. So the desire to sin does not automatically lead to an abandonment of religion, but the NSYR found a statistical correlation on keeping religion and obeying the law of chastity (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 218, 271-75). On the other hand, having doubts about religious beliefs was only weakly correlated with retaining or losing faith to the point that the NSYR deemed it not significant (Smith and Snell,Souls in Transition, 216). Doubts play a role in loss of belief and commitment but only in combination with other factors.  (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 229-31). For instance doubts play a role in the loss of faith of emerging adults only when faith did not play a big role in the teen’s parents’ lives, and the parents were lax in their church attendance, and faith already played less of a role in the teen’s life, and is usually accompanied by the youth’s less frequent religious devotion, i.e. prayer, church attendance and scripture reading (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 229-30). In other words, doubt usually needs to be combined with other factors to come into play.

The list of issues should not be thought of as necessarily mutually exclusive reasons for abandoning faith. If 84% of youth have potential issues with sex lives incompatible with their faith and 30% want to pick and choose their beliefs, there has to be some overlap. We are looking at a list of prominent factors not a list of separate causes.

Only three of the nine reasons deal with intellectual issues (6, 7, and 8). One of these (number 6) is an uncritical commitment to diversity. Diversity can be a good thing. Society needs a variety of occupations to function well: it needs farmers and pharmacists, engineers and educators. But that occupational diversity does not mean that criminals are either necessary or desirable. Diversity, in and of itself, is not an unalloyed good. A simplistic example is that diversity of answers to 2 + 2 is not a good thing. Answers of 3, 5, -87, and 2,000,003 are not equally valid answers to the question 2+2 (they are all invalid answers). Diversity can be a good thing or a bad thing and thus one needs to exercise discernment about whether diversity is desirable in any given instance. Diversity can be a cover term for disguising that “they seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:16).

Discernment requires some external criteria for deciding right and wrong. Latter-day Saints can become susceptible to point 7 if they confuse two points of view. The Latter-day Saint point of view is that each individual can know for him- or herself what is right; he or she is then a moral agent who can choose whether or not to do what is right; he or she is then accountable for his or her actions and must accept the consequences for choices made. This should not be confused (although it sometimes is) with the position that each individual can choose for him- or herself what is right and that God will automatically ratify that choice without accountability or consequences because God loves us or Jesus’s atonement somehow nullifies all the adverse consequences of our actions.

The best data available to me indicates that we are not primarily losing youth to doubts that spring up in their minds as a result of something that they read on the internet (which is not to say that such a thing does not ever occur). The losses seem to be the result of a combination of factors (in which doubt sometimes might play a role). Loss of faith seems to be a complex play of factors rather than some simplistic story. Other factors weigh more heavily including sin or the desire to sin. Far more detrimental to loss of faith than doubts are notions of relativism, or the uncritical commitment to politically correct notions of diversity, and misunderstandings of moral agency and accountability.

Instead of indiscriminately accepting diversity or declaring that all points of view are equally valid, we ought to be discussing when diversity is good and when is it bad, what sorts of diversity are beneficial and which types are not, and what are the long-term consequences of various points of view. We ought to be clarifying the consequences of moral agency and stressing accountability. We ought to be paying attention to the consequences of choices and teaching those consequences.

Now, I am willing to consider that there might exist better data for Latter-day Saints than the NSYR data. The NSYR has the advantage of being publicly available and addresses the issue being discussed. I am also open to the possibility that the NSYR data is focusing on the general picture of youth in the United States and that a different story might be playing out among Latter-day Saints (which is demonstrably the case on a number of issues that the NSYR looked at but not all of them). A better analysis of the data focusing on the particular problem could help but if such an analysis has been done it is not publicly available. Those interested in the problem really owe it to themselves to work through the seven books comprising nearly two-thousand pages of analysis that the NSYR has generated. The narrative that Latter-day Saint youth are leaving the Church in droves because of something they learned from the internet that raises doubts in their minds is not supported by the available data.

Articles of Faith Podcast #22 – Neal Rappleye – Making God in Our Own Image to Cast Aside His Prophets

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neal-rappleyeNeal Rappleye volunteers with FairMormon, The Interpreter Foundation, and writes on his own blog called Studio et Quoque Fide. He is currently attending Utah Valley University and working towards a degree in History, with a minor in Political Science. He served a mission for the LDS Church in the Virginia Richmond Mission from August 2006 to August 2008. He joins us today to talk about an article that he wrote on his blog, the entry is entitled, Making God in Our Own Image to Cast Aside His Prophets.

Questions addressed in this episode:

While a more direct rebuttal to an article featured on the Rational Faith’s blog by Lori Burkman, entitled Disgracing God to Save a Prophet. The themes in the article and the general principles are the points I wish to focus.

In that article on Rational Faiths, there is an assumption that the author makes, and frankly, others have made as well. That is that God would not have commanded polygamy. That conclusion is compounded by the idea that, consequently, Joseph Smith must have been a mistake of Joseph’s own making. How do you answer that concern?

Part of the arguments that are presented by both articles are a perceived allegiance to God or Prophet’s almost to the point that they are mutually exclusive choices, it is one or the other. In Lori’s article her assertion is in her title, defending Joseph is seen as disparaging God. Your counter argument seems to be that Lori, and perhaps others that share her conclusions, are creating a god that fits what they feel comfortable worshiping, they create a god they can agree with, rather than seeking to find a way to agree with God as he is, regardless of the comforts that are in jeopardy with such an assumption. In some ways it sounds like you are both making the same argument but in different directions. So what makes your way, more agreeable in your sight?

For those that engage in reading blogs and various material found online, even from those professing to be members of the church, is a troubling undercurrent, and this is brought up in your article that is, “that people seem know better what God’s will is than do his chosen prophets, past and present.” Perhaps you could elaborate on that point.

There is a point that I think is interesting to consider when looking at any critique of either the church or its teachings. In your article you project or even take the path of Lori’s rationale to its next logical step. You say, “She would replace a God who commands polygamy under some circumstances with one that is inept in actually guiding his Church, or alternatively chooses (for some reason) entirely inept leaders.” Is this the conundrum so to speak, when people open the door to eroding prophetic authority with church practices? Is this the conclusion that they must then face? Is this the kind of God I believe in?

I would love it if you could read your own words, the concluding paragraph of the article as I believe it puts a nice conclusion on both this interview and the article:

I don’t like polygamy any more than you do. Personal experience of my own makes it very hard for me to cope with the idea that God would command his prophet to do something that could so deeply hurt and seemingly betray his wife Emma. I very much feel for Emma and admire the courage she showed during such a trying part of her life. I am not saying God is to blame for every action (related to polygamy) of Joseph Smith, or Brigham Young or anyone else trying to live this difficult command from God. But faith requires that we come to terms with the things God does that we don’t really like—not pawn all the blame onto his prophets who are imperfectly but sincerely trying to follow his will.

Mormon Fair-cast 330: #9 Is the Bible an authentic source of truth?

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i-believe-podcast-karen-239x300In the concluding podcast of this series Karen talks about the prophecies of Jesus. The scriptures consist of 66 books, with over 40 authors, [and] were recorded over a span of 1500 years; they contain heavy prophetic threads. If we just think about a few books—take Daniel, written 500 years before Christ, and the meticulous descriptions of the rise and fall of the empire of Alexander the Great. This just makes us marvel at the consistencies of those prophecies. How about Zachariah, who in advance truly describes the crucifixion of Christ; and Isaiah, of course, writes of how Christ would suffer. Through these miraculous and historical writings, we really come to see the perfect person of Jesus Christ. Dave, welcome. Let’s set the stage for reviewing and sorting through some of these prophecies.

You can find the complete transcript at ibelievepodcast.com.

This series of podcasts were produced by the “I Believe” podcast group. They are used by permission of Karen Trifiletti the author of this work.

As always the view and opinions expressed in this podcast may not represent those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint or that of FairMormon

 

RiseUp Podcast – Israel’s Faith Crisis

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From time to time we may hear the term Faith Crisis. Some may even talk about it as if it a new thing. But, there have been others, good men and women, even in ancient scriptures, who have experienced and made it through challenges to their faith. Some stories come from all the way back in the Old Testament.

Israel of the Old Testament, also known as Jacob, was one that was keenly aware of the value and implications of a birthright. Having traded his brother Esau for the birthright, Jacob or Israel, would have been well acquainted with the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant that were attached to the patriarchal order and birthright concept of the time.

Part of the promised blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant is that one would receive a promised land, a place that is set apart from the world by the divine hand of God to be a place of protection, both spiritually and temporally. One LDS Scholar, LeGrand L. Baker, talks about another aspect of the Abrahamic Covenant that articulates the blessing of invulnerability or protection as found in Abraham 2:11 which reads.

11 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal

There is a promise that one will be preserved, and that their righteous posterity will be preserved as well. From the time of Abrahamic, to Issac, down to Israel, this has been the case. Generations of righteous posterity had been preserved and protected. For Israel, circumstances were such, that he favored his 11th son, Joseph. Joseph was to inehrit the birthright after Ruben had forfeited it. Joseph was the first son of his second wife, and tradition called for him to be the heir of that birthright. Israel felt that perhaps that promised lineage of the protections and blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant would continue through Joseph.

In consideration of these factors, after Joseph’s brother’s sell him as a slave and bring a bloodied coat back to their father Israel implying that Joseph had been killed, we can see another layer to the suffering Israel must have faced.

It is a sad thing to experience the death of a child. The scripture in Genesis 37:34-35 states that Israel, upon the realization of his son Joseph’s death:

“rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.

And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.”

Not only had his son died, but it would appear that by all that was in front of Jacob, that the Lord’s promises of protection and for a righteous posterity were broken. This child of promise had died. How else could Israel see what had taken place. In his old age, a son that showed promise had been taken from him. Israel may have even felt some sense of guilt as it was he who sent Joseph out to his brothers, some 45 miles away.

Israel may have lost his son, but to a certain extent, he probably experienced a loss of faith as a result of what he felt took place.

As the story continued, we find that even years later after Joseph had been preserved multiple times by the hand of the Lord while living in Egypt, Israel was still hurting from the loss of his son Joseph. In fact, it was something like 20 years later before Israel was told that Joseph was alive and was then reunited with his father.

How that must have felt to Israel to see his initial faith in the Lord’s promise sustained after all those years. After years of pain from what he perceived as a great and terrible loss, the Lord was able to show his Hand in the keeping of his covenants. To Israel it would appear to be as if his son had been risen from the dead, a miracle explainable by either extreme coincidence or improbable odds, or the divine hand of the Lord.

How then can we see more from Israel’s story of redemption and salvation?

On the LDS Church’s website, LDS.org is found the statement under the topic of Abrahamic Covenant:

A person can receive all the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant—even if he or she is not a literal descendant of Abraham—by obeying the laws and ordinances of the gospel

As one completes the ordinances of the gospel, including and up to being sealed in the temple, families become under the abrahamic covenant. These are individuals taught by faithful leaders to come to love the Lord and his promises. While there is nothing in the covenant that says that trials and hard times will be kept at bay, some will see these hard times as a sign that God has forgotten them, or is punishing them, or is breaking his word.

Much like Israel, there might seem to be overwhelming evidence that God’s promise was of no value or was broken. But, like Israel, we can see that God’s hand is watching over all his Children. The ways in which God answers our prayers or keeps his promises may seem allusive, or impossible. Even if we see how God’s promises may be fulfilled, it may not be the way He has chosen to fulfill his promises. However, similar to Israel and his son Joseph, the Lord does keep his promises. Sometimes it may take 20 years, sometimes it may take a week; but the Lord will keep his promises.

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