Institutional Change and Survival

Live from Salt Lake City, Utah This is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology., where Jesus comes first – (beat) – and everything else is open to discussion. I’m your host, Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion..

Show 40 466 October 6th 2015

Well we got through the month of September by God’s mercy just like we got through the past 100, 500, one thousand forty-five years since judgment fell on Jerusalem . . . AND like we will continue to live on by and through His mercy. We had a really nice time at our party last Friday night and the highlight was the three water baptisms we had the blessing of witnessing. Take a look-

(Show Video of Baptisms HERE).

We used to do something called, Heart in the Park here is Utah and baptized dozens of people who sought to publicly be identified with Him and Him alone. Last Friday it was toned down to a Heart in the Park–“ing lot.” And yet the Spirit of God was there in as much abundance. We thank all who attended and participated.

The Necessity of Adaptation in Organizations

You know as we continue to talk about elements of modern religion I was reminded of the unoriginal fact that when it comes to institutions, groups, business or even service groups all of them morph and change as time goes by and if they don’t adapt they die. It’s almost a law of institutional survival. The only exception to this seems to be private clubs like skull and bones and hopefully what would be true Christianity.

How many of you remember a chain of Do-it-Yourself stores called National Lumber? They aren’t around anymore because they did not adapt and this little company called Home Depot came in and swallowed them whole. Thom McAn shoes stores? Gone. Drug Emporeum, Rexall, The Warehouse, Linen and things – Gone baby Gone. Adaptation, improvement, material upgrades are all the name of the game in corporate and institutional survival.

A Changing Lifeguard Culture

When I was a teenager (into my early twenties) I lifeguarded at Huntington State Beach in California. Lifeguarding in California from the 1930’s up through the early 1980’s was, shall we say, a very unique environment and I was fortunate enough to enter into it on the last ten years or so of an era which could be described as “larger than life, wild, rustic, and filled with the most outrageous adventures imaginable.” We were corp of sun baked, salty brothers who had watch over the coast by day, who did insane things at night, then were up and ready for more when the sun came up.

I left ocean lifeguarding in the early 1980s to attend school and get married but in the summer of 1996 I returned for one season. When I did, the entire system had changed. What happened? Fifty years of old school lifeguarding had been replaced by a new regime of “professional lifesaving” enforced, managed and implemented by a new regime of individuals.

Bureaucratic Changes

I remember my first day back at a tower I was watching a potential rescue, fins and buoy in hand when the Jeep rushed up aside my tower and one of the new era managers leaped out, and shouted – palm to my person: “McCraney, hold!” Then from the passenger side of the Jeep another guy put binoculars to his eyes and the driver barked, “Visual?” “In sites,” came the reply, and then he said, “code 4” which means, everything’s okay. Inside I was laughing my head off at the spectacle. It was truly unnecessary and superfluous – men making a show of something that for fifty years was handled effectively and simply. Now it had become a bureaucratic production.

C. Northcoat Parkinson, a navel historian and author of Parkinson’s Law (or the Pursuit of Progress) gives stunning insight to this type of thing, saying things like: “The Man whose life is devoted to paperwork has lost the initiative. He is dealing with things that are brought to his notice, having ceased to notice anything for himself,” and “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

Apparently, in the lifeguarding world a group of like-minded guys looked around and saw that they could actually take a thriving avocation and enterprise and by incorporating a bunch of manuals, codes, and advanced and demanded training, turn lifeguarding into a profession of sorts. Listen closely – from my observations, having seen lifeguarding before and then what it became after – it was a certain “people-type” who took the job and reformed it into their image. By “raising the bar” as it were they were able to assume

Organized Religion and Bureaucracy

Control, ensure their own survival by strategically getting their ways accepted as policy – and thereby causing everyone who wanted to become ocean lifeguards to have to conform – or to be cast out.

What was the people type?

In the case of lifeguarding, they were men and women who had the image of passion but not passion itself. They preferred discipline, lines-of-authority, uniforms, and order. They were typically linear thinkers who were sticklers for uniformity and administration. Within a decade, ocean lifeguarding shifted from its former free-wheeling system of protecting beach visitors to a semi-militaristic enterprise, with titles, hair-cuts, heavy qualifications and worst of all, the demand to play by the new rules. I’m sure that as a result the ocean lifeguards today are better paid and receive benefits now. I’m sure they have now received enough training to negotiate the release and care of a hostage with arterial bleeding during a hurricane, but, but (how do I say this?) the love is gone, replaced by endless grappling for power as the “band of brothers” era has been destroyed by allegiance to the corporation, to job security, and to climbing the administrative ladder, to utter bureaucracy.

Listen – I understand the need for these changes in the Ocean Lifesaving world. The free wheeling days of ore would have subjected the State to innumerable lawsuits and other troubles – so change, sad as it is, was necessary. But when such changes occur within the body of Christ, when bureaucracies overwhelm what ought to be gatherings of all people as they are, the faith I love gets ugly.

The Age of Administration

CS LEWIS, in one of my favorite quotes from him, described “the age of admin” in which he found himself living and spoke of it in his definition of hell, saying:

“I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the managerial age, in a world of “Admin.” The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see the final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well lighted offices by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern . . . it is an official society held together entirely by fear and greed. On the surface manners are normally suave. Rudeness to one’s superiors would obviously be suicidal; rudeness to ones equally might put them on their guard before you were ready to spring your mine. For of course “Dog eat Dog” is the principle of the whole organization. Everyone wishes for everyone else’s discrediting, demotion and ruin; everyone is an expert in the confidential report, in the pretended alliance, in the stab in the back. Over all this their good manners. Their expressions of grave respect, their “tributes” to one another’s invaluable services form a thin crust. Every now and then it gets punctured, and the scalding lava of their hatred spurts out.”

Bureaucracy in the Body of Christ

Why tell this story on Heart of the Matter? Because the metamorphosis of organized Christian religion has not been one bit different. Where such ugliness is expected and warranted in the corporate and even the world of civil services like ocean lifeguarding, in my estimation such bureaucracies no more belong in the body today than they belong in heaven tomorrow.

It used to be people who loved the Lord just got together out of love for Him and each other. Maybe they formed a church where uneducated lovers of the Word would teach by the Spirit. Love and patience was at work. Forgiveness at hand. Power struggles non-existent.

We called that time the Apostolic age but ever since there have been groups of similarly minded-men who have taken “church” into their own hands and have collectively said, “let’s make it our own.”

We need buildings! (Then . . .)
We need budgets! (Then . . .)
We need tithes! (Then . . .)
We need staff! (Then . . .)
We need rules. (Then . . .)
You need you to conform! (Then . . .)
We have authoritai! (Then . . .)
We invite YOU to leave!
And finally . . .
We

Subjective Christianity: Understanding Salvation and Doctrine

Wonder if you were ever saved, rebellious heretic!!!!!

This trend began when men of influence or education replaced men of social insignificance but devoted passion. It happened when “attorneys” and “CPA’s” and “technicians” replaced reading the Word, singing a Psalm, and praying to the living God, in Jesus name, by the Spirit. And people have become the prey with the present church culture as the predator. Revolution has to begin from the roots because the top ain’t gonna change on its own. May the Holy Spirit work on hearts to bring this about sooner than later and with that, how about a moment from the Word?

Only two passages to consider tonight relative to our topic of Subjective ChristianityA direct, personal relationship with God—free from institutional authority, guided by personal relationship, faith and agape love. – both from Titus. The first says:

The Role of Preaching

Titus 1:3 “But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Savior.”

I use this passage to reiterate the fact that the preaching of the Good News is how people come to salvation NOT the reading of the Word, which is for the most part reserved for those who have been regenerated and made capable of understanding it.

Secondly, Titus 3:9-11 reminds those who realize that we are not saved by doctrine but by faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ, that we are to . . .

“ . . . avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.”

This is an intriguing passage because in addition to its insights on not striving about the law, Paul writes:

Understanding Heresy

“A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.”

Listen closely. The word heretic is now commonly applied to one who holds some fundamental error of doctrine. Paul was called a heretic – I’m sure Jesus was too. However, the Greek word here used (haireticos) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. The corresponding noun (hairesis) occurs in five places where it is translated sect. Why? Because the best definition of the word is a person who PROMOTES a “sect or separate party! It’s a person who makes divisions in a church, instead of aiming to promote unity!

In other words, a person who takes some form of doctrine or custom or religious rite and forms a group on it is the truest definition of a heretic NOT someone who merely holds a different doctrinal point of view from orthodoxy. This is the meaning and spirit of Roman 16:17 which says

"Mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have received; and avoid them."

Today, especially by my accusers I am labeled a heretic. But in the classic biblical sense of the word, I am anything but as I refuse to cause division but believe all people have the right to approach God through Christ according to the dictates of their own conscience. And with that let have a word of prayer, tonight offered by ___________________.

PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER

Alright, here we go – Round Two in the Mormon Christian debate with round one being our programs produced from 2006 through 2012 (and all available at www.hotm.tv). Instead of repeatedly hitting on Mormonism, I am going to try and present a somewhat hierarchal order of topics (which hopefully will correlate to the establishment of Mormonism) that will include the views and history of Christian surrounding Joseph Smith, his earliest response to these views, and then the latest views he taught prior to his deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God..

So let me give you an example: Mormonism today paints a picture for people that everything began with Joseph Smith having a vision (what they call, the First Vision). We’ll take them at their word, assume everything did start with a First Vision, and then discuss the main topic of that vision – the ONTOLOGY or make-up of God and then the need for a restoration. In doing so, we will layout: What the Christian churches surrounding the young Joseph Smith were teaching, what Smith originally taught relative to these Christian standards, and then what he ultimately taught as he neared the end of his life.

The reason I want to approach Round Two this way is because I think we will all be able to see a

Examination of Christian Views on the Trinity

Few common threads.

First, we will see that Christianity, by the time it reached the feet of Smith, was not offering a consistent story that was agreed upon by all involved. Secondly, we will see that OFTEN Smith’s original responses to Christianity surrounding him were not so far off what Christians believe today. Finally, we will, in many cases, show how far off the biblical mark Smith did go in his later years.

In approaching things this way I am convinced that we can help provide Mormon people today a reasonable biblical way of accepting some of their faiths doctrines while showing them other points that are untenable to biblical truths. So, taking all of this in we have to begin our topical examination on the subject of God. It’s no small endeavor but we have to start somewhere.

At the time when the LDS claim Joseph Smith had his first vision, which can be summarized as an event where Smith claims he was visited by God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ in a grove of trees, Christians essentially understood the make-up of God in one of three main ways: They were either Trinitarian, or they were Unitarian, or they were some form of Modalist. Of course with over one thousand seven hundred years of Catholicism endorsing Trinitarianism and another three hundred years of the Protestants validating this position, Trinitarianism reigned supreme – despite the fact that very few laypeople could explain it – let alone the clergy. This failure was met with comments like, “If men could explain the eternal God he would not be any kind of God worthy of worshipping,” or as, ________________ one famously said “_____________________”

Understanding Trinitarianism and Modalism

Trinitarianism says that though there are three persons in the Godhead, these persons comprise one God or one divine substance. The Athanasius Creed puts it this way:

“We worship one God in trinity and trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For the person of the Father is one; of the Son, another; and of the Holy Spirit, another. For the person of the Father is one; of the Son, another; of the Holy Spirit, another. But the divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one.”

Desiring to maintain allegiance to this definition, Trinitarians are guilty of manically enforcing its creedal tenets blind to the fact that no matter how hard they try, the definitional presentation is impossible to understand. As Professor Harrell points out:

“Orthodox trinitarianism walks a fine line between modal trinitarianism (modalism) on the one side which is the belief in one God manifest in three modes or offices (not strictly persons) and tritheism on the other, which is the belief in three persons who are three Gods.” He adds: “According to trinitarians, modalism commits the error of “confounding the persons,” while tritheism errs by “dividing the substance.”

Modalism's Perspective

At this point, I will publicly admit that I am a committed modalist but refuse the Trinitarians pejorative that claims I err by “confounding the persons.” I would reply they err by creating “three persons deserving worship” rather than the one true and living God deserving it alone.

In Smith’s life, modalism was a popular alternative to trinitarianism but the differences are not easily observed by most Christians then or even today. I can’t tell you how many people who are devout followers of Christ cannot articulate the fundamentals of creedal trinitarianism and who typically, when asked to define their beliefs on the subject describe modalist thinking instead.

Anyway, the main difference between modalists and Trinitarians is Trinitarians label Father, Son, and Holy Spirit “persons” and modalists label them all expressions or manifestations of the One God. In reality, modalists do not deny three in one – they simply do not see the three as individual entities entirely separate from each other. Also, there are differences between sabellian modalism – which says that the Father became the Son and the Son became the Holy Spirit and plain modalism which asserts that God manifested Himself in and through the Son and in and through the Holy Spirit. I am certainly of the latter form.

Besides the fact that trinitarianism has been endorsed by powerful institutions and their defenders throughout most of Christian history there are some another reasons why it reigns in the minds and hearts of most Catholics and evangelical Christians today:

• People echo what they are taught without challenging or thinking about it. This is possibly the greatest reason,
• The concept is so rarely understood that misinformation about it is allowed to thrive, and within it all manner

Theological Debates in Early Mormonism

of views are maintained, and third

• the relentless offensive some Trinitarians make on anyone who challenges the concept.

In any case, in Joseph Smith’s day, there were ardent Trinitarians, ardent modalists (most typically of the Sabellianist sort) and then there were what were called Unitarians. Like modalism, Unitarianism has a number of different flavors, the most common being a stance that says:

“There is One God who created Jesus and therefore Jesus is not God, has not eternally existed co-equal to God, is presently inferior to God and separate from God.”

From our ego-centric views of things and our tendency to believe the whole world should at least THINK like we do, it’s hard for us to imagine – if we are Trinitarians – how on earth ANYONE could be a Unitarian. And if we see through the eye of the modalist, it is very difficult for us to appreciate the Trinitarian.

Influence of Religious Divisions on Joseph Smith

And so we come to 1815. Why 1815? Because in 1810 Joseph Smith would have been a ten-year-old boy. All around him there was division over religion – including over our topic tonight. His family was divided over the topic – as well as over a number of different issues. It is no wonder that young Smith, inculcated by the traditions of the Christian faith of his day, would initially adopt some very traditional views of God or the Godhead.

The Book of Mormon, which perhaps reflects Smith’s earliest views, speaks very clearly in Trinitarian terms.

2nd Nephi 31:21

Mosiah 15:4-5

Mormon 7:7

The testimony of the Three Witnesses includes these words: “And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God.”

Doctrine and Covenants 20:28, composed very early in LDS history says: “Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one God.”

What is really intriguing – and also quite revealing about the uncommitted mind of Smith – is that the Book of Mormon ALSO contains Modalist language – Sabellianist Modalist Language at that! For example, the Book of Mormon character Abinidai calls the Son “the very Eternal Father” in Mosiah 16:15. Again in Mosiah 15:4, Smith has Abinidi say: “the father and son . . . are one God, yea, the VERY eternal Father of Heaven and of Earth.”

Confusion in the Book of Mormon's Theology

And in yet another BOM situation, found in Alma 38, the evil character Zeezrom asks the righteous Amulek: “Is the Son of God the very eternal Father?” and Amulek replies: “Yea, he is the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth and all things which in them are.” This is absolutely modalist verbiage, and what Trinitarians would consider “a confusion of persons.” I would simply suggest that it was a confusion of the author on the make-up of God.

What make the Book of Mormon passages – whether they are Trinitarian in nature or Modalist – really confusing is that according to LDS official history, as told by their missionaries today, all the confusion on the make-up of God was solved when Smith supposedly had a vision of them in 1820. The Book of Mormon would come out some ten years later and present it reader with images of God that did not reflect the official first vision account given today but instead reflected both Trinitarian and modalist views.

What gives? We have a couple of choices. Giving Smith and official LDS history the benefit of the doubt, we might say that Smith had his first vision in 1820, obtained the gold plate records some seven years later then merely translated what they said – without imputing his knowledge of God into the account which would suggest that maybe the Book of Mormon writers were unclear as to the nature of God but Smith was true to his translation duties and did not alter their errors despite his firsthand knowledge of the truth.

OR . . .

We might suggest that Smith had his vision in 1820, saw God the Father and Jesus Christ as separate and distinct physical flesh and bone beings, but forgot what he saw and translated the information from the plates as fact.

OR . . .

Maybe (and all the evidence toward a first vision happening when the official church history says it did supports that it did not) but MAYBE Smith first translated (or wrote) the Book of Mormon, and then, after the fact, created the story of a first vision and the contents thereof.

In light of all the evidence – the anachronistic history of the first vision, the contradictory first vision versions that were gradually given after the supposed fact, and the absolute

The First Vision and LDS History

Dearth of reports in any journals or newspapers reporting a first vision of any kind by Smith at that time, this last possibility seems to be the case. In other words, the very first event in LDS history to actually occur was the supposed revelation of the Golden Plates, the apparent translation of them, and the publication of the Book – and THEN a first vision retroactively created to support Smith’s changing views on the make-up of God.

We’ll continue from this point next week. Let’s open up the phone lines –

(801)

Awaiting Public Interaction

While the ops are clearing your calls – even to the point of suggesting some of you seek medical attention – let’s take a look at this:

Call and Email Interactions

(RUN NEWEST SPOT HERE)

Emails / Phoney calls