MY LAST TALK: I gave this in Sacrament after my wife's talk a few months ago. The themes are largely passe', but I am just getting around the posting it. This may be the last ME posting... Maybe we'll rise like the Phoenix someday!

Reflections on the ward…




In the past year, two major items of popular culture have brought the world of early Christianity to the watercoolers of the nation. We were shocked by both of these works at how wildly successful they were. I speak of Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ and Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. No one quite expected that the nation would be fixated on religious figures and theological debates. Both of these works were wildly successful and sparked a fair amount of commentary. Months before anyone had seen the film the Passion, liberal reviewers vilified the movie as anti-Semitic and historically inaccurate. A few years ago, I remember hearing rumors that Gibson was thinking of making this movie, using the "original" languages. About 9 months before its release I read that the actor playing Jesus, Jim Caravezael had been struck by lightning, not once, but twice during the filming. The combination of the liberal reviews and God's disapproval made it difficult for Mel Gibson to find a distributor, a search which ultimately failed. He ended up producing and distributing the movie himself, and many theaters still wouldn't carry the film. Within days after its release, it was clear that the movie had not only broken nearly every financial record, buy that it would continue to do so. Church congregations rented out entire theaters. Adults brought their young children, despite the R rating.

When I attended the movie on opening-weekend with a group of young Bible scholars, the theater was packed. A priest sat next to us who had not been to the cinema in many years. The custom of not watching R rated films in Mormonism is actually quite tame compared to many evangelical homes, who abstain from radio, television and movies all-together. But these people went in droves to see the Passion, feeling like finally Hollywood had responded to their desire for uplifting entertainment. This massive support for the Passion quite frankly took Hollywood and the media by surprise. The attacks grew more vicious, and increasingly ridiculous. The same people who supported the distributors' decision not to carry the film now criticized Gibson for making money on the film!

Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code has received nearly as much attention as any book I can remember. It topped the NYT bestseller list for months. Every airport I've been for months, I have seen numerous people reading the book. The average time to complete the 450 pages for most readers is about 72 hours. My professor, who recently completed a book on the Gospel of Mary Magdelene, has been interviewed by CNN, NYT, Time Magazine, Newsweek, NPR, and countless other news outlets. The book's cliffhanger format and provocative thesis combine to make a truly exciting reading experience. The book reinterprets several familiar symbols, revealing their "true" meaning, unknown to the uninitiated.

Though the book is labeled, "A Novel" on the front cover, it is in the smallest font. Immediately after the title page, the reader encounters a bold statement of "FACT"- including the following: "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate." The ultimate secret of the book, that the Holy Grail is actually Mary Magdelene, wife of Jesus and mother to his children, who together stand at the head of a royal bloodline that survives clandestinely, has been quite attractive to readers everywhere. No doubt some of its appeal lies in the shock-value of the secret, but there is also a subtle critique of religion in the book itself, especially in the rather anti-climactic conclusion when we get a glimpse behind the wizard's curtain. Conservative evangelicals and some Catholics have objected strongly to many of the implications of the book, including its depiction of Jesus and the politics of theology and Christology attributed to Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor.

Both the Passion and the DaVinci code have elicited responses from Mormons as well. A conference was recently held at BYU to discuss the book. Many Mormons have very much liked the central theses of the DaVinci Code, namely that apostate leaders in early Christianity occluded the truth about Jesus. Additionally, the apocryphal Mormon belief that Jesus was married to Mary Magdelene found a voice in Dan Brown's book, and also an explanation for why this truth was suppressed.

Regarding the Passion, Dean of Religion at BYU Robert Millet came out in strong support for the film, encouraging all LDS to see it despite the R rating, calling it a "betrayal of the rating system."

Because I have been studying the NT and early Christianity, I often get asked about these two works by members of the church and by non-members as well. Sometimes they ask for the "Mormon response." I have thought that today, since this is our last week and most people have already left for the summer, to give my response, reserving the right to modify said response upon further reflection.

Of the many things that could be said, I wanted to emphasize two particular critiques of both of these works. The first is their depiction of history and historical reality as based in what they both call "fact", and the second is in their depiction of Jesus and the theological, or more precisely, Christological message in each of them.

Both works advertised themselves as based in "fact." Dan Brown asserts that his interpretation of art, history, and literature are factually correct. The Passion was marketed to conservative Christians by Gibson as "historically accurate" in every respect. The problem with this claim is two-fold. The first is that it is quite easy to demonstrate that many of the historical claims are verifiably false. To pick on the obvious examples, there is no historical evidence to suggest Mary and Jesus were married, or that they had children, there are no gospels in the DSS, nor do they talk about Jesus at all. They were written 150 years before he was born. Contrary to his claims, most of his descriptions of "artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals" are inaccurate.

For the Passion, the most notable historical falsehoods include the fact that Roman officials would have spoken Greek, not Latin while in the East. Additionally, many of the traditions depicted in the film were based on apocryphal literature that dates well after any of the events, including the compassion of Pilate's wife, the 12 Stations of the Cross as the plot-line, the names of the two thieves, etc. Let me be clear: I do not have anything against artistic license when it comes to writing novels or movies. In fact, I like it. I think it makes them more interesting. The problem is not that Brown and Gibson take artistic license; it is that they deny that they do so. They depict their work as "historically accurate" and "factual", thus shielding their interpretations from plain view. Every reproduction is always an interpretation- as musicians and actors will attest. Instead, Gibson and Brown portray truth as given, not made. They pretend to be subject to the historical record, rather than the other way around. They create it on every page and in every scene. They are making history, not representing it.

Their positivistic view of history is especially problematic for LDS given our belief in the revealed nature of truth, which we see as always subject to the historical conditions of those who receive the revelations. The LDS view of truth does not slide into complete relativism, but rather is eternally suspended to further "light and knowledge" which could reveal something entirely different from what we currently believe. If we follow Brown and Gibson in the belief that truth is represented outside of ourselves, we cut ourselves off from the divine, who can only reveal to us when we are open and accept our place in cooperative chain of making and revealing knowledge from on high.

My second concern with these two works is in their depiction of Jesus. In many ways these two works present radically opposed teachings about Jesus, neither of which can be ultimately accepted in LDS theology. They each represent extremes in a debate about the nature of Jesus that has existed since the first decades after his death. In my view, the DaVinci Code's discussion about godhood is utterly confused. It exalts Mary Magdelene to the status of a goddess, which for LDS theology is perfectly acceptable in some sense. However, in doing so, it almost goes unnoticed that Jesus is depicted as undivine, as simply a regular old Yeshua. Part of the secret story of Dan Brown that the ancient Church has suppressed is the teaching that "thousands of pages of unaltered, pre-Constantine documents, written by early followers of Jesus, revere[] Him as a wholly human teacher and prophet" (page 256). While Mary is a goddess, for no good reason Jesus is considered simply a human. The explanation is that Jesus was voted to be made divine in the Nicene creed, in part to suppress the fact that he had children. How Mary can be considered divine even though she had children is not explained. In any case, while exalting Mary to her status as a goddess, a perfectly acceptable theological move in Mormonism, Brown demotes Jesus.

On the opposite extreme, the Passion depicts Jesus as wholly other and unique. He avoids the heresy of docetism, which denied that Jesus suffered, but in doing so, he depicts Jesus' suffering on the cross and at the hands of the Romans as something entirely special, as if he were the first and last to suffer crucifixion and scourging at the hands of the Romans. The fact is, that Jesus died not in an extraordinary manner, but as a common criminal, in the same way that people all over the Roman empire were being killed. As LDS, we know that Jesus' sufferings were greatest in the Garden as acknowledged by Jesus himself in D&C 19. The sufferings on the cross were his solidarity with our sufferings. He suffered as humans suffer, we are taught by Alma 7, not in a way beyond humans. Gibson's film acts as if this suffering were qualitatively different from the suffering of humans, which obscures the humanity of Jesus. It makes him our god on earth, not our comrade in affliction.

Additionally, the depiction of Jesus in the Passion is only as "sufferer". It practically ignores Jesus as "teacher", or "miracle worker", and most importantly the exalted, resurrected Jesus. The Passion concludes with a 30 second resurrection scene of a militant Jesus, rising to deep drum beats. It is essentially an afterthought. Mormonism, on the other hand, focuses on the resurrected Jesus. The BoM story is about the resurrection, the Jesus who returns, as teacher and miracle worker, not as consummate sufferer. I object to Gibsons theological emphasis on the suffering of Jesus because it distorts the message into a theology of atonement as sadism and guilt, not of hope.


Mormonism instead offers a theology of Jesus that avoids these extremes of Brown and Gibson. Dan Brown makes Jesus simply another human being, and Mel Gibson makes Jesus a characature, a version of a God whose experiences are so different from our own that we cannot relate to him and he cannot relate to us. In the grand council in heaven Jesus took the lead as our brother. He is one of us. This revolutionary teaching of the Gospel of the Restoration puts into focus the true nature of Jesus, and the true nature of our relationship with him. We are like him and he is like us. He is not the metaphysical exception to humanity, but the supreme example of a human being. The ancient witness in 1 John 3:1-2 reports:
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: (this was told to us at King Follet's funeral) but we know when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

Amen.

MY WIFE'S TALK: This was given a few weeks ago as we spoke for the last time in our ward, on our last Sunday there. (I will post my talk soon too.)

"As it is our last Sunday in the Cambridge First ward, I feel beholden to offer some reflection on what I have gained during my time here. I would like to frame musings in the context of womanhood in the global church.

My tenure in the Cambridge First ward has given me the opportunity to develop my relationships with other women on many levels. While most women’s sojourn in Cambridge brings with it an infant, my trespass has allowed me the opportunity to find common ground with the woman of our ward and to define my space is as a woman within the church as a whole.

When I entered this ward, a saw that the women here had many differences: age, marital status, stage of life, career progression, race and motherhood. At first I was overwhelmed: what is it that I could find in common with a mother of two? With a widow? With a refugee? I was lost for a solution and frustrated with my surroundings. What I needed was a paradigm shift: it was not our differences, but our similarity, that makes us sisters. What is consistent is the sacredness of what binds up together: womanhood.

The lexicon that the Church uses to describe this common bond begins with Young Women. For those of you of have had the opportunity to participate in the Yong Women’s program will be familiar with this theme:
We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him. We will “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9) as we strive to live the Young Women values, which are:

- Faith
- Divine Nature
- Individual Worth
- Knowledge
- Choice and Accountability
- Good Works and
- Integrity

We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values, we will be prepared to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.
It is at this pivotal time in a young woman’s life, the church begins introducing what is important for her to focus on. The church has defined common values that are applicable to all women globally:
- Faith
- Divine Nature
- Individual Worth
- Knowledge
- Choice and Accountability
- Good Works and
- Integrity
This is also the first time that the concept of a return on investment will occur (excuse the financial reference), which is that “if we come to accept and act upon these values” that the following items will occur:
• We will be prepared to:
o Strengthen home and family
o Make and keep sacred covenants
o Receive the ordnances of the temple
o Enjoy the blessings of exaltation.
This promise is repeated at the beginning of every young woman’s meeting. To this day, I am sure that the majority of the women here can say this theme by heart. My thought is how does this translate, literally, in a global context?
For me, Young Women’s had been a time of achievement. I meet each class with the goal to receive my medallions: Beehive, Miamaid and Laurel. Every “New Beginnings Meeting” was like heading the jewelry store. My senior year culminated with my Young Women’s Achievement medallion and my Seminary Diploma.

Ready to take on the world, I charged into Relief Society as a slightly naive, ambitious young woman in Upstate New York, I can remember wondering what this next phase would bring. I’ll never forget receiving my first Relief Society Manual, “Remember Me,” and reviewing the exhilarating topics, such as:
• Personal Grooming and Cleanliness
• Gardening in Small Spaces
• Preventing Accidents in the Home
• Mothers in Israel.
I promptly left for college.

I want to undergraduate school in Pennsylvania at a very large university with a very small Mormon population. This was nothing new to me as a native New Yorker, but what was new was the quality of my Institute. Our CES director was also our Bishop, so my ward customized lessons, took twists and turns and found it necessary (and ok) to “adapt” the manual to meet our demographic group.

Upon moving to Manhattan midst a career change, I was called to be in the Relief Society Presidency of our very large, very migratory singles ward. We had a number of outreach programs that we were managing as well as trying to maintain a semblance of order with the far reaching needs of our ward.

We found that many of our sisters who moved to NY were there to escape the church. It was typical to have phone calls from family members asking us to find these sisters and to reach out to them. In such a large city, it is easy to be lost and hard to be found. For those who were attending, we had a number of challenges within our diverse population: single motherhood, same sex attraction, drug addition, depression, loneliness, work/life pressures, school demands, the list goes on.

One of the ways we met that challenge was to divide our RS into two lesson groups and offer a large variety of teachers, some were a little edgier than others, but this “choose your own adventure” allowed women to find guidance that met their needs.

When I began traveling internationally on business, I had the opportunity to see the gospel in action in multiple countries around the world. I remember the first time I heard a lesson in modest dressing, where the manual talked about prudently purchasing your clothing and not coveting the dress of others, in a third world nation, where clothes were donated from aid agencies and then sold on the street by industrious people.

I remember a lesson in young women’s about food storage, in Manhattan, where space is premium and our number one goal was to keep the young women off the streets, in school and chaste.

I attended church in Hong Kong where women from Taiwan, Korea and other employment challenged countries attend the English speaking ward since it offered “more opportunities” than the Mandarin speaking ward. The ward was filled with women, women who had left their homes because of their multi-lingual capabilities to work in Hong Kong to support their families back home.

This juxtaposition: womanhood and its divine role v. there daily adversities. As the role of women change within the church, we see that women are waiting longer to be married or not finding the opportunity to marry at all. They are completing their educations and exploring the opportunity of promising, fulfilling careers. Women are bearing children later in life than ever before.

But wait, this woman exists where? What about the women of genocide in Africa? What about the employment opportunities in South America? What about the living circumstances of South East Asia? Do these locations and cultures change our construct of womanhood? Of the life choices available to women? And their behavioral patterns?

Womanhood: its divinity cannot be denied. As the global church begins to develop its lexicon and pedagogy, I think we will begin to see a paradigm shift in the woman they are addressing. The woman of the global church has basic needs/wants/desires that can be translated into language in any country. Basic values of:
- Faith
- Divine Nature
- Individual Worth
- Knowledge
- Choice and Accountability
- Good Works and
- Integrity
can be addressed and understood in all circumstances of life. Regardless of where I attend church, the love in Relief Society for sisters is always present. Sisters, I encourage us all to reach out to all of the sisters of our ward. We have such a rich diversity here, find common ground in the church and ourselves. I foresee the Church modeling after this concept and shifting our paradigm back to its basic values and principles.

For me, coming back to basics occurred in my backyard. I truly love the women of this ward and I have been blessed with deep, life-long friendships. I have also placated my role as a woman in this expanding global Church and hope to provide support, as it continues to evolve. I have been grateful for the opportunity to serve, to live and to love with you in the Cambridge First ward.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

THE LORD OF SHABBAT- I must admit that I do not understand the fascination with the 10 Commandments as some sort of list of requirements for good living. I agree that some of them are a nice place to start for creating a civilized society: don't steal, don't lie, don't kill people, etc. However, the one that strikes me as the most strange and completely out of place as the basis of a social contract is observance of the sabbath. I was definitely amused by the Judge in Alabama who wanted to display this commandment, especially since it is not obeyed by Christians. As everyone knows, the sabbath is on Saturday, but it has been so assimilated into Christian discourse that we don't even realize it anymore. We do not follow the 10 commandments! I have no problem if we want to follow the 9 commandments, or edit them to include observance of the Lord's Day, but let's not delude ourselves. The two reasons given for sabbath observance in the OT are remembrance of the Exodus and remembrence of the last day of creation. The Exodus is only vaguely part of our spiritual mythos (and not in the way relevent to the Sabbath) and since Sunday is the first day of the week the whole creation thing sort of loses meaning.
In Christian history the idea of a Christian Sabbath (on Sunday, of course) is relatively new. As I understand it, it wasn't until the 16th century when this idea was discussed. As part of the expirementalism of the age of the Reformation, several groups began to revive the Mosaic Law in various degrees. One that stuck was the notion of a Christian sabbath, especially in America, perhaps as a result of the Puritan roots of the idea. Before that, Sunday wasn't a time of "rest" or exclusive worship. It was the day that you went to church, but after you got back there was no reason that you couldn't dig a ditch or fight a war or even watch football.
As a LDS, I observe the Sabbath because I am commanded to. I think that we have in many ways a religion that reaches back to OT archetypes of religiousity and devotion (prophecy, temple, diet, etc.) and I rejoice in this. I am not sure that the particular brand of LDS observance of a Christian sabbath has any precedent, especially not in the 10 commandments...

SODOM AND GOMORRAH: Some recent discussions about Same-Sex Marriage have emphasized an apocalyptic disaster as a result of social wickedness. Many point to the promises in the Book of Mormon of a blessed land as long as the inhabitants are righteous. Others point to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18. I do not think that S&G are useful for making sense out of our current situation. The reason is that this story has nothing to do with homosexuality. I do not intend to argue that the "biblical" view of sexuality allows for homosexual behavior or that church members cannot argue against SSM. I just don't think that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah are accurately understood as homosexual sins. A quick look at the text should demonstrate this: Two angels go to Lot's house. A crowd gathers and wants to have sex with them. Lot offers his virgin daughters, but they refuse. A couple of things should be noted. First, the visitors are angels, second, the visitors are strangers to the city, and third, the men intend to rape the visitors. Starting from the last point, it seems that the crime of S&G is rape, not homosexuality. Homosexuality is a behavior that is engaged in voluntarily, which is not the case here. The reason that S&G is destroyed in not because two consenting males are having sex. Which brings us to the second point. The visitors are strangers to the city. Lot offers his to allow his daughters to be raped. Why? This is a pretty disgusting gesture, but it can be understood in the context of ancient laws of hospitality. Lot knows that they men are going to rape someone, so he offers his daughters, not because they are homosexuals, but because they intend to violate the strangers to thier city. The sin of S&G is that they want to transgress the laws of hospitality to strangers. In fact, this is the only sin that S&G are accused of committing in the Bible. Ezekiel says, "'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy" (16:49). Finally, the visitors are not men, they are angels. Do you remember the last time that humans had sex with angels? God does. It was right before the flood (Gen 6:1-4). In fact, it was the reason for the flood. When humans and angels have sex, God destroys stuff. He destroyed the whole world with the flood, and he destroyed S&G for even thinking about it.
The lesson from S&G is: don't have sex with angels, don't break the laws of hospitality, and don't rape people. I don't see anything about consenting males having sex in this story.

ON COMING TO ZION: When I was in my early twenties, I never thought I would go back to Utah. I saw myself as a Mormon who was setting out on a reverse-pioneering mission. I was the only undergraduate at my college who was Mormon and I loved it. However, I was not alone as this NY Post article demonstrates. Perhaps we shouldn't be surpised at the surge in LDS populations in the East (mostly transplants from the Western states) since pioneering is so deeply ingrained in our mentality. However, I am noting a strange turn of events right now. It is nearing the 10 year mark from when I left Utah, and many of my friends from New York and Boston are now either returning to, or going to Utah. Two of the Metaphysical Elders will be there next year, and for the first time I am even thinking about returning, at least for a little while. Many diapora Mormons that I know see it as part of thier 5-10 year plan to return to Utah.
This is not just true of late-twenties/early thirties Mormons either. One of the problems in Boston is that the temple has too few patrons, depsite large stakes. I suspect that the problem is a lack of the right demographic (old people) to sustain hourly-sessions. My guess is that the NYC temple will have the exact same problem. The reason is that many of those who have spent thier adult lives here return to the West when they retire to be closer to family, to get more for their money, and to retire from demanding church callings.
Is this a new trend? Are the bold, community building Mormons from the ninetees going back home to Utah, or is it just a lot of my friends?

I am probably the last to read it, but I am working my way through The Metaphysical Club. I'm at the part contrasting William James and Henry James, his father. The elder James was a Swedenborg follower (more or less) and was vehemently against individualism. The younger James of pragmatism fame reacted against his father's views to adopt an individualism that even Peirce and his other friends felt excessive.

It raises an interesting question regarding Mormons and the individual versus the community. We believe that the members of the godhead are one, that we are commanded to be one, yet we simultaneously adopt a staunchly American view of individuality. (Perhaps one whose modern nature owes a great deal to James) Often it seems that we are so individualistic that the very aspects of our religion demanding unity are overlooked.

We exactly is the place of community in Mormon ethics, social structure and metaphysics? Where might a Mormon find fault with William James?

The Scientist and Clark Goble asked me to perhaps explain my apparently enigmatic comments of the previous week. Put succinctly the issue is that of information. Now we can view information statically, as the mere content of something's state. This might be for some particle its momentum, potential energy, spin, and so forth. For more complex entities we can have considerable more information. We might even say that the information about an entity is that entity's meaning.

Now information contains within it not just what the entity is but also by extension a lot of what the entity may become. For instance knowing the mass, size and momentum of a pool ball I can say what its future state will be. If I have several pool balls I can do the same.

DNA, so conceived, is information in the same fashion. It is quite complex, of course. Far more complex than simply knowing the types of sub-molecules in the DNA. Just like the pool balls I can describe the future of the DNA's effects only as I know the information of what else is around. Considered as a very complex molecule its information isn't simply the computer program like "code" that we hear about. It also is the information about its molecules and atoms and how they interact with other substances around it. The manifestation of that DNA molecule can, however, be perfectly described as information. Indeed we can think of it as pure information.

Now I recognize that is a rather unusual way to think about it these days. Well, perhaps not. After all the long printouts of A's, T's and so forth is information. We just assume that somehow those codes describe a person independent of the real information which is the molecule acting as a very, very complex set of pool balls indeed. So complex that we can on describe its possibilities in very vague terms. Those vague terms may sound very exciting and precise. But compared to the information we are talking about, it makes up only an extremely tiny fraction of the meaning of the DNA. When you consider all the things the DNA will encounter, both as one particular molecule or all the molecules like it, then things get inconceivably complex.

Now why do I suggest we think about it like information? Well think about these words coming to you right now. They contain information. You act on them. What I'm suggesting is that the way all these DNA molecules act is in a fashion much like this. There are differences, of course. But differences of degree, not kind. In the physics of the interactions the atoms in the DNA act far more precisely than the way we interpret words. But ultimately we can describe both as information. Just as reading these sentences produces an idea, so to do interactions in the DNA produce new states - new information.

Now once we start thinking of all this as interactions and modifications of information we can generalize. When I see an email message that says, "meet me at 9," some complex events take place and eventually we have all sorts of molecules moving throughout my body causing me to take up my coat and leave my office. Information of one sort - words - leads to an information change of an other sort - the signals causing my leg muscles to contract eventually moving me towards the door. But ultimately it is all information.

If the spirit can interact, we can thus describe that interaction as a kind of information that interacts with other information (whether that be ideas, words, or perhaps even DNA molecules). Now if we can consider a lead atom floating into a cell information then we can consider a spirit information. We can see how a spirit can interact in many fashions. Further we see that information of all sorts can interact. We are conditioned to think of the arena of words and the arena of chemistry as fundamentally different. But they really aren't. They are all information.

When I talk of an information function I mean nothing more than information that transforms itself in certain respects. For instance two pool balls colliding transform their information in accordance to the laws of Newton. (Or at least close enough for our discussion) Now that is clear enough for pool balls, and perhaps even molecules. (Although even a simple molecular interaction would require a supercomputer to work out) But consider words. When you read a particular word, say the word "blue," why do you react the way you do. Do you consciously think about what the letters b-l-u-e mean? No. There is an information-function that creates some chain of significations leading to your experience of reading that word. Consider that in that chain are many very complex molecular interactions. But fundamentally this is all information-functions. Put simply, it is a kind of code. But not a precise code, such as we have for pool balls. Rather a code that is somewhat ambiguous and certainly depends upon many factors. Perhaps when you read that you simultaneously think of the blue sky outside. Perhaps you think of how sad you are when you feel blue. Perhaps you think of B. B. King and the blues. All those are part of the information-function. Somewhere there are complex codes describing all this - in their way perhaps even more complex than what happens when a DNA molecule and and RNA molecule meet.

Why do I bring all this up? Am I simply being verbose for verbosity's sake? Perhaps Mr. Goble will accuse me of such. However I simply wish to point out that intelligence is a form of information. It is information with associated functions. A spirit consists of this information and these transforming functions. So does DNA. So does a lead atom. All these things are information and have associated functions. The universe is so filled. Not only is the universe filled with them but all of them transform your body. We can't limit our discussion of DNA to just the DNA and neglect the lead atoms. But we also can't neglect the words you hear. It is all one great continuum - each having an effect.

My point was not to disagree with the Scientist, but perhaps to radicalize what he said. You must excuse an old man rambling on somewhat. The danger in terseness is difficulty. Now I've pontificated far too much and will be thought the old man who talks far too much. My one defense is that I so responded only upon nudging. I hope the other elders here will forgive me. I do think that thinking reality as a collection of entities, information and functions is a rather helpful endeavor. Perhaps if someone asks kindly, I'll even mention briefly how this conception of reality and religion ties into our namesakes of the 19th century...

PHILO JUDAEUS AND ME- I have been rereading Armond Mauss' The Angel and the Behive. I am really quite enjoying it. The central sociological theory he employs is that religious groups oscillate between assimilation to the outside world and total rejection of it. At both ends of the spectrum the religious group in question risks annihilation, either by dissappearing into society or being crushed by it. Though Mauss' data is sometimes embarrisingly bad, for the most part he cannot be held to too high of a standard since the historical data just doesn't exist. Despite this shortcoming, the sociological theory's application to Mormonism is still quite interesting and cause for reflection. The argument is ultimately that some degree of assimilation is necessary for survival, but not too much. Finding this balance can be quite difficult, but it seems to me that Mormonism has successfuly done this, albeit differently at different times.

This reading has led me to reflect on my own degree of assimilation. In many ways I see myself as highly assimilated. Though I grew up in Utah, I never received any formal religious instruction (seminary drop-out...). I then attended college out of state where I was the only member. Now, I am at a prestigious university studying religion from non-Mormons. I see the boundaries between the world and the Gospel as pretty porous.

Judaism (Ancient and Modern) is an interesting point of comparison. Historically it has waxed and waned from exclusivity to assimilation. Groups such as Qumran were eventually wiped out while the disappearance of Diaspora Judaism is one of the greatest historical mysteries. Contemporary Judaism is literally fractured over this question. Philo and Josephus were two of the most enduring figures from antiquity, and both were highly assimilated, while remaining deeply committed to their Judaism. I have often looked to Philo as a sort of guide for how to balance one's peculiar religious identity with "outside" ideas. He did not shy away from them, but saw them through the lens of his religion (much like what Nibley has done with Mormonism). The problem with both Philo and Josephus is that they were preserved not by Jews, but by Christians. Perhaps this is no more than a historical accident that Judaism took one turn and Christianity took another, but it also may be instructive as to what levels of assimilation are viable in the long run. Even if Philo, or I, can master a certain level of assimilation, this does not demonstrate that such a level is desirable for the entire community. Later generations may judge me too close to the outside world for comfort and reject it. It seems that we are pretty solidly on an assimilation upswing these days, but no doubt this will begin to swing the other way. At the extreme ends, our exclusivism has breed fundamentalist offshoots, while at the other end we have bred apostate assimilationists. The swing back and forth is most likely necessary since the proper balance will constantly be in flux as the world around us changes. My self-indulgent reflections here are meant only to remind myself that I too must be flexible and not dogmatic about my level of assimilation.

GENEALOGY VS. HISTORY - I've noticed that people discussing scriptures often confuse what one might choose to call the genealogy of the text with the history of the text. By genealogy I mean those events that led to the text being produced. I've noticed a distinctive trend among both Mormons and "foes" alike that assumes that the text ought to be taken on its own terms. In one sense I obviously must agree with this. Its meaning is found within the text. Yet in an other important sense, it seems to ignore the role of context in interpreting any text. If we view the "point" of the production of the text as the place where history and genealogy meet, it seems odd to place one above the other.

Lest I be taken as advocating something too abstract and philosophical, let me provide a practical application of this principle. Consider the narrative of Noah as related in the scriptures. Some see this as problematic due to the evidence against a universal flood of the sort most imagine described within the text. Yet in making this judgment, they implicitly assume that the text must be taken as it is. They can't allow for say the position of William Hamblin who has argued for a more local flood. In this case there was a real figure who was Noah who was commanded to build a barge much like the Jaredite barge. Perhaps a hurricane, massive flood or other event devastated the region (North Carolina according to some accounts of Joseph Smith). Now in this case the genealogy of the text is somewhat different from what the history of the text gives us. Its history is the later editing and redactions leading to Genesis, more than a thousand years after the time of Moses. (An other way to look at this is to say that our Genesis has its genealogy in these earlier lost texts) The narratives are told and retold again, slowly transforming themselves into the text we have now.

Why do I bring this up? I think that the repression of the very question of genealogy entails a kind of hidden inerrancy that I find problematic. It implies a static view of scripture that seems quite at odd with what Joseph Smith or other prophets have taught. Further it requires that the meaning of the text is purely found within the descriptions given within that text. It ignores the fact that what is in the text includes the feature of being about something outside the text. By castrating from the text the very question of its genealogy people remove the very question reality from the text. Put simply they remove a text's ability to reference things. This nominalizing tendency is alive and well among both foe and friend alike of the scriptures. To judge the text purely by the text is to fall in the trap of assuming an inerrancy and a determinate history to the text that denies its very nature. A nature in which an author wrote about things.

Ostler's view arises out of process philosophy, starting with Whitehead but more particularly developed by Hartshorne who was himself highly influenced by Peirce. The differences between these two thinkers are illuminating and often raise interesting issues. The overall framework of process theology I am more leery of, if only because of the implicit equating of God with the ouisa of the Trinitarian theology. It seems quite difficult to reconcile with Mormon theology. Since process theology (along with the philosophical tendencies of both Peirce and Whitehead) adopts a basically neoPlatonic outlook, the problem of the difference between the One as the source and perhaps "sum" of all reality and an individual God is rather important.

Peirce, perhaps anticipating in certain ways Buber and even Levinas, speaks of an "It" and then "thou - I" relationship. The "thou" is an "it" where "I" am also found. This is important for Ostler's view, as well as the writings of various recent Mormon theologians. (Although rarely put to print unfortunately) Peirce, however, must be seen in the context of a general neoPlatonism. Perhaps a neoPlatonism quite different from those of Emerson and especially Schilling in Germany (which culminated in both Hegel and Nietzsche as two opposed reactions).

How does this relate to DNA? Well, I bring up Peirce since DNA can best be seen as a kind of semiotic reality constituting life itself. (Once again Peirce was ahead of science) Yet mutations and other errors in DNA are also a manifestation of Peirce's fundamental doctrine of fallibilism. Many have noted a certain similarity between DNA and the logoi of late Hellenism. They provide a telos, but not a telos with a clear path. The logic of the semiotic "word" in biology is "teleonomy." Just as a perfect "form" is, in its temporal manifestation in the word, never a pure manifestation, so to do we find this with our system of DNA codes. The "individual" is this holistic manifesting of multiple logoi within the material world.

This conception, of course, begs the question of whether DNA is the only logoi at work. It we view the manifestation of DNA, especially in the development of the brain, as a complex interplay of the signs of DNA with the signs brought into the system from its environment, we can see that even in a purely sectarian view things are quite complex. (Consider, for example, the logoi of lead molecules on the developing semiotic network that characterizes a young child) If we recognize these environmental logoi that dramatically affect the manifestation of our sign carriers (the DNA of cells), then perhaps haven't we provided room for other logoi, perhaps of a more spiritual kind?