Author: Walter van Beek

America, election and the International Church

Over a month ago, I was asked by the Salt Lake Tribune what a reelection of Donald Trump would imply for the International Church. The reasoning of the journalist was that Trump’s performance as President of the United States, especially his handling of the covid-19 pandemic, was severely damaging not only his status in the world but also of the USA as a nation and world leader. Consequently, was the reasoning, conversion to a church that is primarily seen as a USA church, would be hampered. The Utrecht Ward in 2000 My reaction at the time—when reelection was still possible—was that 1. The moral status of the USA has already been suffering over a long time; 2. Indeed Trump’s administration had done great harm to it; 3. In our eyes the notions of ‘manifest destiny’ and ‘American exceptionalism’ have little meaning other than a self-congratulatory discourse. The fact that the Book of Mormon situates itself in the Americas is important, but that seems to be mainly in Mexico and Guatemala, countries on which I hear little in terms of ‘destiny’, manifest or other. But it is hard to see how the Church could have be established as it is anywhere else but in the US of A. The association between the USA and the Church is still strong, and the attraction of the Church in many countries in the world, does rely for a considerable part on the appeal of…

Covid-19 and religious freedom?

This is a comment and reflection on David Bednar’s speech on corona and religious freedom, to be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGU7GG5t6Ek Of course religious freedom is an important value in human civilization, and, yes, of course it has to be defended, David Bednar, of the Twelve, was completely right in taking up that issue, especially in the week devoted to that principle. The United States were founded on it, and the first colonists—after the Amerindians and some loads of ‘boat refugees’ from the Middle East—fled Europe just because the lack of it. Bednar’s recent discourse on TV was a warm-but-stern plea for keeping a watchful eye on anything that would impinge on that freedom. No problem. My issue here is the link with covid-19. Bednar was, seemingly, shocked by the pervasive effects of the government measures against the virus, i.e. the lockdown. With just a few executive governmental measures he saw all church meetings disappear, the April General Conference trim down to a video-happening and thought the Church under attack, at least its basic freedom severely curtailed. His reasoning is that we are a church of gathering, and that is what is no longer possible, so our rights to worship according to our faith seem to be very fragile. Well, the nation of gathering has long disappeared from our discourse, and at the time—about a century ago—it meant something quite different from having umpteen ward meetings; if so, all churches would…

Whispering from the dust

As comments go this is a rather belated one, but PA decisions are not up to warp speed either; anyway, the decision is there, timely and adequate. The issue? Some years ago I wrote about the absences in Mormon weddings, zooming in on the visual image of weeping moms at the temple steps. Just picture being the parent of a youngster who just joined the Mormon church and now is married in that large and alluring building, the temple, while you yourself cannot enter and have to miss out on the ‘most beautiful day’ in your daughter’s life. We, in Europe, did not have this problem, since we have a mandatory civil wedding, which has all the trappings of a proper wedding ceremony, and for us the temple sealing is an almost private, in-house ritual that caps the wedding day, or a spiritual high point some days later. Of course, also in the International Church non-member parents of a bridal couple cannot enter the temple, but it is simply not a problem: all concerned are part of the civil ceremony and very present in the reception or dinner afterwards, so they do not have the impression that they miss out on something. The problem lied with the Domestic Church, which laboured under the official rule that a couple had to wait for a year between any civil marriage and the temple sealing. The rationale was that if a temple is…

Revelation by the rooster

It is a week after Easter now, and surely Petrus (Peter, the English call him, but I prefer his more apostolic sounding Latin name) has come back from his great shock, delivered by the rooster; that early morning crowing did put him back with his feet on the ground: he had showed weak when confronted with reality. Of course, he had regretted it deeply, but in the last week he has seen his risen Lord and things were turning out gloriously. Pentecost is still six weeks into the future, with its redemption by the Holy Spirit and we all know that from that moment onwards Petrus would never falter in his faith. I think he has never forgotten that particular rooster, which revealed that even the ones closest to the Lord could and did make mistakes. That animal cry embodied a reality check, a revelation from below, a call for correction of a mistake. And it worked, in Petrus’ life. Petrus’ real example is that he learned from being corrected and grew: he learned from the rooster. Well, the analogy is clear, we may get messages from above, but we are corrected from below, even sometimes doing the correcting. The last General Conference did not bring a large harvest of changes, but it did provide one major correction, in the treatment of the children of gay couples. This policy, called the PoX in the blogosphere, has been corrected now, in…

Global Mormonism: decentered and decentering

One central question in Mormon Studies, from its inception, is in what measure preaching and practice in the Church is interwoven with American culture. Of course the American stamp on the Church is pervasive and evident, with its origin in upstate New York, its movement westwards with the 19th frontier, its establishment as the Deseret theocracy, all bolstered by an explicit theology of America as a new holy land. Plus, of course, the whole leadership structure. But religions do have their own geographic dynamic, especially a church that aims at expansion, and the LDS church is striving to become international, even global. What does that mean? Is expansion simply a spread around the world, a question of more-of-the-same, or does the encounter with different cultures entails dynamics that will change the face and form of the church and its message?

Challenges for the church in 2019. A view from across the pond

On its website lds.org the church has a nice item on how the church changed in 2018, mainly by streamlining its operation: by a massive fusion of branches and wards in many areas, a fusion of priesthood quorums and by limiting Sunday congregation time. Together with Clark Goble’s informative blog on happenings in 2018, this inspired me to think about the challenges facing the Church in 2019. At least as seen from overseas, from Europe. Internal challenges: 1. Balancing the weight between the Domestic Church (USA-Canada, but mainly Deseret) and the International Church (rest of the world, biased towards Europe). In membership the International Church leads by now in numbers, but neither in lesson materials, nor for that matter in public presentation, has this shift become visible. In administration, like in the Twelve, the shift is starting. In a Dialogue article I once compared the relationship between the two with colonization: a missionizing American church colonizing the rest of the world. The comparison raised some ecclesiastical eyebrows, but still holds, I am afraid. One administrative measure in line with the streamlining policy could be to define a clearer mandate for the Area Presidencies: all decisions on bishoprics, stake presidencies and realignment of stakes and wards. Also, Area Presidents might at last choose their own counselors. 2. Culture. Increasingly the church is confronted with cultural issues since converted Asians/Europeans do not become crypto-Americans; a conundrum for the church is that culture…

A homophobic church ?

LGTB issues continue to haunt our Church’s leaders, and for some time will continue to do so. Recently, The Advocate, a platform for gay expression, drew up a list of top ‘homo- and transphobics’ in the world, and here I was unpleasantly surprised to see listed among the three top homophobics, Dallin Oaks. He was rated on a par with Jair Bolsano, the recently elected strong-man-president of Brazil and Governor Paul Makonda of Dar es Salaam. The latter is tracking down homosexuals in order to arrest and execute them, the former has told reporters that he would rather see his son dead than gay. Whatever political leanings one might have, this is not the company in which I like to find any member of our church, let alone an apostle. Of course, ‘The Advocate’ is not exactly the voice of gospel authority, but their branding of Oaks as a top-homophobic does harm the church. So as member of the Public Affairs Committee in The Netherlands, I am a bit concerned, for three reasons. 1. The family orientation of the church, which I heartily endorse, is being drawn into a debate on LGTB acceptability, which is not at all the same. The present discussion sounds as if affirmation of family importance implies a denial for the right of existence of LGTB’s. Family should be primarily about raising and nurturing the next generation of incarnated spirits destined to inhabit the wonderful planet…

What if Harry and Meghan ….

As more or less self-appointed wedding-specialist I simply had to watch the “wedding of the year”, between the British prince Harry and the American actress Meghan Markle. And what a splendid event it was, a joy to watch, and a rich inspiration for ‘pondering’. So let us ponder. First, it was a “real wedding” indeed, with all symbolic acts in place: the presentation of the bride – a pity the father was absent – the inner circle of family and friends, and the outer circle of the general community. The rings, the vows, the call for dissenters, all under the authority of the officiant, plus the tying of hands, followed by the “I now declare you …”. The kiss came later, for the general public. The symbols were clear, shared and meaningful, while the sermon was a gem of black American preaching, a gush of fresh air in the rather stolid Anglican verbal tradition. For all who love church music, the cathedral choir with the young boys’ voices was a treat, as usual; one cannot beat the Anglican church in that respect. Still, the American gospel choir, with its intense rendition of “stand by me” was just such a glory. The Dutch morning papers today exult about the whole scene, the mix of the best in British and American cultures. Then there was the pause, when the couple was absent while the audience was regaled on a cello concerto by…

Bridewealth and gospel: an African quandary?

In his recent world tour President Russell Nelson visited Kenya and spoke about a specific cultural custom in Kenya, the bridewealth or bride price. President Nelson called it ‘dowry’, which is technically incorrect, but that is not the issue I want to raise here. Bridewealth consists of the valuables that are transferred from the family of the groom the father of the bride, as a compensation for the loss of a woman. Dowry are the valuables a bride takes with her into her married state, often part of her inheritance, to be used by her and/or her husband. African marriages, throughout, are bridewealth marriages: one ‘pays’ for a bride. While lauding the Africans for their family orientation, Nelson denounced the custom of bridewealth, arguing that it does not square with the practice of the gospel; in fact Dallin Oaks had done so before him in a talk about gospel culture. One major reason for raising the issue of bridewealth payments, is that it puts a heavy burden on the young men who need many years to get all the cows and money needed for such a transaction, before they can settle down with a family. That not only tends to postpone their marriage, but also precludes them from going on a mission, and one can understand why both church leaders frowned on the custom. So the advice to the Kenyan members was not to follow the custom and marry without…

Where is the wedding?

This post is about ritual, not doctrine, so it is about the form of worship, not its theology. I will use the word ‘ritual’ for all formalized forms of worship, Mormon and other, even if we use ‘ordinances’ in our own ‘Mormonese’, but ‘ritual’ is the generally accepted term. Rituals are important since as symbols in action they are ‘sticks to lean on in worship’. In the Mormon church we have quite some rituals, like the sacrament, prayers, testimony bearing, baptism, laying on of hands, administering, and of course the temple is a house full of rituals. My thesis in this first blog on wedding and marriage is that in our LDS ritual repertoire, large as it may be, we are missing one ritual, the wedding. Now, let me be clear: I use ‘wedding’ for the ritual (or ceremony, but that is the same category) by which a couple is married. Marriage is the institution, wedding the specific form this festive occasion takes, a form which depends on culture and tradition. And on the Church. All cultures know the institution of marriage, but not all cultures have weddings; sometimes the joining of a man and a woman occurs very gradually. But anyway, when a man and woman are married, they form a new group in society: they have gone from their ‘family of orientation (living with mon and dad) to their ‘family of procreation’, and henceforth the children of the…

Water under the bridge at Christmas

Of course we understand that singing at the inauguration of a president is a boon for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir; the choir’s president Ron Jarrett said that the choir would be “honored to be able to serve our country by providing music for the inauguration of our next president.” It is not the first president they ‘sing into office’, and probably not the last one either. Viewing the change of US president from across the ocean, we from the International Church are puzzled by many aspects. First, of course, the choice of Trump as president, but that is now definitely water under the bridge. Also, to our mild surprise, he was elected by our fellow Mormons in Utah and other areas of the Mormon Corridor, a vote he would never have gotten with the saints in the International Church, not with his track record of racist, sexist, and misogynous remarks, and surely not with his isolationist stand. Once again we realized that there really are two kinds of Mormon churches, the Domestic Church and the International Church, and that we live in different worlds, yet have to live together.

Forgiving our leaders

It is about ten months ago now, that Sad Sunday when the ‘Exclusion Policy’ was upon us, the one that created a lot of problems, while solving probably none. In our ward we lost our bishop through it, and he still has not returned. Also, some of the Primary kids still have not been baptized, as some still wait for the exclusion policy to be revoked. There is ample reason for such a repeal; after all, as I analysed last year, the policy of excluding children of same sex parents from a normal entrance into our community does not really address anyone in practice, whereas it does send a signal of exclusion into the world. And into the Church. It is the wrong arena, the wrong battle, the wrong fight. Yet, a retraction is unlikely to happen for several reasons. In any formal organization, not just the Church, reversing a decision is much harder than taking one, as it erodes the authority of the leadership and ultimately undermines the organization itself. When presiding over an international sport federation, I had exactly the same problem: how to come back on mistakes without creating a lot of confusion in the organization, or losing too much political clout? I did make mistakes, and most I had to ‘suffer out’, only a few I could correct. In our church this issue is compounded by the mist of infallibility that hovers around our leaders, the…

Abraham, a dilemma solved?

The man who killed our former Secretary of Health, dr. Borst (see my last blog), will be institutionalized with mandatory psychiatric treatment, for a period as long as is deemed necessary by the experts, till they deem him no longer a threat to society. The judges opined that he was completely unaccountable, living in a totally parallel world. He had set out to kill his sister, and then ‘God told him’ on the spot to kill dr. Borst; he killed his sister later. The prosecution had demanded 8 years in prison first and then institutionalization, and considers to appeal the verdict. Anyway, in our day and age the ‘call of Abraham’ is judged as insanity, so let us return to the Genesis story, for a third angle on what I consider one of the most dangerous tales in the Script. In my first blog I treated the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac more or less in the way that the Bible presents it, as a test. I argued that the Scriptures may laud Abraham for his obedience (and not just in Genesis), yet on the other hand offer more than enough arguments for the opposite verdict: that Abraham in fact failed the test; viz. Abraham should have used all he knew about God to fight the command to sacrifice. The Book of Abraham does just the same: while hailing his obedience Joseph added reasons why God’s demand for Isaac’s…

Abraham, the legend

Right now in the Netherlands a man stands trial for the murder of former Health Secretary, Els Borst. The culprit has confessed, stating in his defence that God commanded him to kill dr. Borst as she was responsible for the new euthanasia laws. The immediate reaction of the Dutch public is that he is insane; also the court does not take his claim seriously. Now, such a claim in a murder case is rather new for the Netherlands, but in the USA this kind of delusion may sound familiar, like in attacks on abortion clinics. Claims on God’s command can be used for all purposes, also the most nefarious. The interpretation of a story’s message depends on who is telling it and what is the hidden agenda of the story teller. In my earlier blog we were wondering about Abraham’s intended sacrifice of his son, our basic conundrum, and now let us view Abraham not as a historical person but as a legendary figure about whom tales are told. Who tells the tale in Genesis 22 and to what end? According to the Documentary Hypotheses, Genesis stems from four sources: the Elohist (E), the Jahwist (J), the Deuteronomist (D), and the youngest one (P), the Priestly source, which is postexilic. The general notion of multiple authorship of the Torah is almost standard these days, and does throw new light upon our Abraham problem. Abraham’s life is a mix of J…

Abraham: the problem

At the moment I am teaching a course on ‘Religion and Violence’ for Leiden University in the Netherlands. The topic is all too obvious these days, especially after the last brutal terrorist attacks in Brussels. As a text we use Karen Armstrong’s Fields of Blood. Religion and the History of Violence, a book in which she in fact defends the right of existence of religion as such, a defence which is called for indeed. All through the western world, religion sits in the dock, accused of instigating violence, and by increasing popular consent is found guilty as charged. Would the world be better off without religion? The question was raised during Enlightenment and but now roams larger, wider and much louder. Increasingly the answer is a resounding ‘yes!’. Of course this is triggered by excesses, such as we just suffered in Brussels. Forgotten for the moment the manifold contributions to our society and to western civilization by Christianity; or by Islam to the Moslem as well as the Western world, for that matter. But all religions are under scrutiny, especially ‘strong religions’, as Scott and Appleby call them, high-investment religions with clear and strong claims. Such as ours. Here I do not want to delve into Mormon history – not without its violent episodes – but into a much more fundamental issue, one we share as Christians with Jews and Moslems: the legacy of Abraham. So let us have a…

A sad Sunday

It was a sad Sunday, this 15 November 2015. For two reasons; the major disaster of course was the murder spree in Paris, which has shocked Europe to the core. The Sabbath prayers in our Utrecht ward were for the many victims, and for the grieving host of their loved ones. Europe is united in grief, but also in anger. We consider ourselves at war, a word we do not use easily, not with Islam, but with IS. Even the problem of housing hundreds of thousands of refugees who voted with their feet not to stay in a completely radicalized country, pales in the face of this tragedy. But we will not be budged, we will not let our lives be dictated by thugs. On that, everybody agreed, and the grief binds us together. The other issue was totally unrelated, and very small in comparison with this, minute indeed, but the question kept our minds and tongues busy. We simply could not and still cannot understand that grief also could come from friends, from brothers in Christ. Of course I refer to the ruling on children of same sex marriages, who are now denied the normal pathway into the Church, administratively burdened not by their own faults but by the life style of their parents. We in the Netherlands used to be quite Calvinist, and our ancestors suffered under the weight of original sin, of inherited guilt. For us Mormonism…

Winning the peace

The supreme court has decided, so now in all of the USA same sex marriages are legal. With this landmark decision the USA has joined the many nations in the world where such a union has become official, and from the Netherlands, the first country where these marriages became official, we extend a warm welcome to America. Great that you joined the swelling crowd who thinks that LGTB should not be discriminated against, also not in marriage issues. You are becoming a ‘modern nation’ now (I hope you recognize a European ‘tongue-in-cheek’). In an earlier blog I explained how preciously little impact this SSM issue has had on the members, wards and stakes in the International Church. i.e. in the largest part of the LDS Church, a notion repeated by many bloggers and commentaries. That means that the recent church statement has very little bearing on the situation outside the USA and will raise questions and eyebrows when read in the International Church. As Wilfried Decoo showed in his blog, the official standpoint of the Church, when brought without adaptation, is awkward for us. Our experiences in Europe are clear: this is a marginal issue, so we are happy to see this US debate resolved in favor of gay marriage. The backlash of Proposition 8 has reverberated even across the Atlantic. Some battles are better lost – and LDS history has shown a few of these. The important thing is…

Pilate and Jesus, a colonial view

In studying the last days of Jesus, like in lesson 26 of Gospel Doctrine, we habitually view the complicated chain of events that led to Jesus’ death from the viewpoint of the victim, with the dominant party furnishing the bad guys, the culprits of the story. Evidently, the Jewish authorities are prime suspects, but throughout Christian history one specific player has had a very bad press, Pontius Pilate. Most Christians have at least partly blamed him for the crucifixion, pointing either at his ruthlessness or at his presumed lack of spine, or even both. That, however, is the view from below. Let us now have a look from ‘above’, and see the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate in action as a colonial administrator. For me as a Dutchman, living in a country which has a – both lamented and glorified – colonial past, such a view might be closer than for an American. After all, Indonesia and West Papua once were Dutch colonies. And the insights I cite here stem from an anthropologist, my teacher Jan van Baal, who had a glorious colonial career as the before-last governor of New Guinea. So here is the story of Pilate and Jesus from a colonial viewpoint. The gospels indicate that Pilate was not by chance in Jerusalem; based in Caesarea, for this particular Passover he had taken his wife to the capital, always a ruler’s sign of confidence and courtesy. It was the…

We are all Charlie

The horrendous attack on Charlie Hebdo last Wednesday has shocked the world. This is beyond humanity, and all reactions, also from the Muslim communities, is one of deep anger and clear condemnation. Everywhere this murderous spree is seen as an attack on a core value in modern free society, the freedom of the press. Whoever attacks the free press, attacks democracy and free society, so whoever attacks a free press in fact attacks us, all of us, none excluded. Throughout Europe, people flocked to the large squares, expressing their revulsion for this brutal massacre, voicing their conviction that this is not to be tolerated. Thus, the ever so divided Europe unites in one voice, that we are all Charlie. The target, Charlie Hebdo, is a satirical magazine which by definition is iconoclast. It choses provocation, not dialogue, trying to shock, not to gloss over. Their humor is not mine, and their policy is not the one I advocate to bridge the deep divisions in our society, but it is an option that is open in our society. And it should be open, in a free democracy. What you can do, does not necessarily dictate what you want to do or should do, but the principle of free expression has to stand inviolate. Any comparison of the massacre at Charlie Hebdo with other attempts to muzzle the press is slightly insulting, as this terrorist act is of an unheard-of brutality. But…

Who killed Goliath? CSI in Jerusalem

Who really killed Goliath? Of course, this is the most stupid question possible. After all, this is one of the most advertised killings in the history of the world, its record read by millions of admiring people, glorifying in the victory of the brave and smart reddish boy over the Big Ugly Brute. Add the pious invocation of Jahweh throughout the battle, and one has the making of an inspiring heroic story, and that is precisely how it functions in the Old Testament. All the kids in Primary know exactly who killed Goliath, and can explain in detail how he did it, with his sling and a few pebbles. Reading the story in I Samuel as a military history one can understand how David came to be a great army leader, for the chapter defines him as a smart soldier. Goliath is the quintessential massive warrior, “whose height was six cubits and a span” (1 Sam 17:4) (KJV); 6 cubits and a span would put him at 2.85 meter (yes, we all are metric by now). Well, most measures, figures and numbers in the Old Testament cannot be trusted, but Goliath surely was huge. The Dead Sea Scroll text, probably earlier than the Masoretic text, puts him at “4 cubit and a span,” just over 2 meter; more probable, yet still large at those times. So in the re-telling at the campfires he grew two cubits. And was he heavy.…