I can convert, if that makes things easier ...

So, Lauren may have mentioned Rabbi B, our holy man at Beit Am, the local Jewish ... uh, house. I mean, I guess it's a synagogue, but it's actually just a house. Lauren and I went into the living room, where we were greeted by a friendly woman who told me she was a convert, and were introduced to a couple of young women who turned out to be sophomores in college. I thought they were about twelve. Anyway, we were asked if we were students, we said yes. Then they asked if we were there for a world religions class - apparently, some class makes kids go to different churches/temples/mosques and all the churches/temples/mosques know about this. Do we look like a couple of undergrads taking a world religions class? Perhaps you can compare us to the barely pubescent girls standing next to us. So we said no, we're just visiting.

Anyway, we made ourselves comfortable as people filed in, a group of about 25, altogether. Several families, a couple of single women. Many people wore the little head caps (yarmulke or kippah), including most men and a few of the women. It was a cozy group, most people seemed familiar with each other, and all were very Corvallis looking. I mean, they wouldn't have been out of place at the Unitarian church - that kind of Corvallis. One older woman, when I asked if this was the only synagogue in the area, said that it was, but that they try very hard to be "inclusive" of different ways of expressing Jewish faith.

Then came Rabbi B. Oh, Rabbi. Well, for one thing, he likes to play guitar and sing in Hebrew. And I ask, who doesn't? It was a great time for all. I really perfected my weird middle eastern bleating. But Rabbi B has inspired me to look into conversion. For his sake. For my sake. For the sake of all of us. Alright, I'm not converting. I'd be more than embarassed if he ever were to stumble across this humble blog, but I guess he should know. He could make half this nation Jewish, if only he could get out there more often.

After the service, we talked to some nice people, including a woman and her very beautiful daughter who explained to me the 600+ rules of the extremely strict Jews. I asked if they followed the rules and the woman said "no, we religiously do not" and I thought that was a good answer. We ate some bread, drank a little wine, and milled about. Lauren had to explain over and over that yes, she's Jewish, but no, she hadn't been to temple in a number of years, and I got to say, excitedly, that this was my first temple experience since I was twelve, when the only Jewish kid in The Dalles had his Bar Mitzvah. I think it was less fun for Lauren (though I haven't read her blog entry yet), but I would rank the temple up there with the pentecostals for sheer good times. I loved the singing, the people were so friendly, and there was a real warmth to everything. Maybe because it all happened in a house, so it was like going to your weird uncle's place and finding out that all these people get together and sing and hey, why does that sign say you can't cook meat in this kitchen because it's for dairy? Well, I guess that's just because he's my weird uncle and, you know, he has a lot of rules he likes to follow.

I was a little put off by some of the reading selection on offer. There were a number of periodicals available that were zionist (okay) but also some that were pro-Israeli militancy. I have to think through my dislike of Israel right now. I would probably be called anti-Semitic by some because I really do have a hard time with Israel. Could a Jewish state coexist in the middle east without militancy?

Let's think a bit about Zionism. For a little Zionist context, go here: http://www.mideastweb.org/zionism.htm. A nice bit of history on the movement, along with early Israeli policies of discrimination, as well as forces (like anti-Semitism) pushing Jews toward Israel. I like the overtones of political ecology, as (for example) the kibbutz was created by early Jewish socialists to address the problem of preference for Arab labor among plantation owners. Or the associations among many Arabs between British imperialism and early Zionism.

One of the things that always gets me about Israeli apologetics is the notion that Arabs teach their children to hate Israelis. Alright, I can believe it. But what do Israelis teach their children? Can I be more critical of Israel because I link it to western imperialism, because it is a nation founded on imperialist ideals, not so different from my own nation? From the above website:

One of the earliest warnings about the Arab problem came from the Zionist writer Ahad Ha'am (Asher Ginsberg), who wrote in his 1891 essay "Truth from Eretz Israel" that in Palestine "it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled", and moreover:

From abroad we are accustomed to believing that the Arabs are all desert savages, like donkeys, who neither see nor understand what goes on around them. But this is a big mistake... The Arabs, and especially those in the cities, understand our deeds and our desires in Eretz Israel, but they keep quiet and pretend not to understand, since they do not see our present activities as a threat to their future... However, if the time comes when the life of our people in Eretz Israel develops to the point of encroaching upon the native population, they will not easily yield their place.

So, as the foundations for modern Israel were being laid, Arab nationalism also was growing, and conflicts arose as the two peoples asserted their rights to the limited land base. I guess I have an affinity for Israel, to the extent that it is based largely on the progressive, post-enlightenment ideals that I hold. So if I can criticize the U.S., can I not criticize Israel? Why do I feel pangs of guilt when I do? Am I anti-Semitic?

Well, Rabbi B, perhaps we can work through some of these issues in the decades to come.

XOXO,
EK

Just Jewin' it.

Friday night. The night of the Jewish sabbath. Erin and I started the evening in sin by a) going out to dinner, therefore requiring us to touch money, b) drinking cocktails, not manoschevitz wine, and c) eating meat and following it up with desserts that invariably had milk product in them. So it was a good start to our encounters with all 30 Jews in town.

I know Erin's going to pissed that I beat her to this comment, but the Rabbi was a total dreamboat and made temple totally worthwhile. I'll leave the rest open to Erin.

Now, this was possibly my first time going into a temple voluntarily in my entire life. It has been somewhere around a decade since the last time I looked at a Siddur, the Jewish prayer book. But memories came flooding back! It was strange remembering that at one point in time I used to be able to read Hebrew, instead of needing to rely on the transliteration like I did Friday night. Fortunately, we chose to go to the renewal service, which meant that all of the normal songs were sang with alternate tunes, and some new songs were added to the repetoire. What struck me most was everytime we started a new tune, the rabbi would encourage us to try it out using "yaidaidi" as our words. He said that this is a high form of prayer because you can focus not on the words, but on the meaning of the song within you. In other words, it's medatative. Interestingly enough I have memories of my grandmother signing similar tunes, using those non-words. I thought about how Jewish cultural memory is strong enough to transcend time and space- we all now the same songs and sing them with the same tunes, and even though it has been a long time since I've heard the Mourner's Kaddish, I can proudly say that I still know it. It's like wrinkles on your palm: you see them everyday and take them for granted. When you try to conjure up an image of these lines, you can't, but when you see them again, you know that they are all in order.

So, needless to say, it was an absolute trip for me to re-examine Judaism. It was also fun to be there with Erin, a goy. I was trying to explain to her what to expect before the service, but could only remember the important things during the service. For example, whatever you do, do not drop the siddur. If you do, you gotta kiss it. Do not, under any circumstances, take our your cell phone. Dear God, don't ring the doorbell!!! When they give you the wine, wait until we say the long-ass prayer!

Otherwise, the service was just as long as I remember them being. But the dreamy rabbi helped make it all easier to swallow.

You're a sheep and you know it

Lauren recounted how we decided to go to a Jehovah's Witness service and how we were miraculously visited by N, our JW. N was, indeed, awkward, though not nearly as awkward as G, his friend. G just kind of looked at us when introduced and his handshake epitomized the "dead fish."

The service was mind-numbing. Lauren and I sat in the back and warbled our way through the first song. A nice, overweight woman in front of us (Lauren is right - JW girls are BBW) loaned us her song book, and all the song lyrics are pulled directly from the bible. My brain went into cruise control and I occupied myself by reading little snippets from the old testament about weird tests that God thought he needed to put people through, back when God had a very different relationship with humans (apparently).

The first speaker, who gave a 30-minute sermon, was a kind of funny old man with unfortunate hair. He got up and started talking about the world being like a chess game because we've got a king and then we've got these rooks and zzzzzzzzz ... sorry, I dozed off there for a second. Um, I think he was saying that Christ was the king but it was all backwards because the king died to save the pawns. He seemed to think it was a big deal that the game is similar to human society, as though the game and human society are of two separate realms.

Back to the JW obsession with the Bible. I was listening to this radio program last night on NPR and the guest talked about an era before Jews had a coherent view of the afterlife. Isn't it amazing that our faith is so young? Elaine Pagels has a book about Satan and how he's a recent invention, too. By "recent" I mean within the last couple of millenia, but still: our religious system has grown with our modern world. Back to the JWs: I guess I have a hard time with such reliance on the Bible when the Bible is so reflective of particular times, changing with what we need within society. It is a living book, I believe that; it is living because nothing in human society can be entombed as truth. No matter how hard we try to point to eternal truths, change is the only constant. Of course, the collected books that we have in today's Bible were pretty much settled on by (what? Nicene Council-ish? About 300 AD?) - but does that mean they haven't changed since then? I don't mean through translations, I mean that the actual content is read differently.

This is one of the fundamental truths, I guess, that I believe in: you can't stop time, and you can't decide that something is right and everything else is wrong, full speed ahead, damn all evidence to the contrary. Your belief system crumbles in the face of dissonance. And then you have to come up with new explanations, new tricks to incorporate new evidence (dinosaurs lived with humans! The grand canyon was created in the flood!), when you're really ignoring the evidence and covering your ears and shutting your eyes and screaming out "LA LA LA LA I don't hear you!" I guess this is me, child of the post-enlightenment, product of my times.

I had this big argument years ago with my friend M, about whether science was just another religion. Maybe it is. At the time, my position was that science and religion are very different, but I think I've come around to a different point of view. Science is a religion of tangible evidence. Its fetishes are calculability, prediction. I think it is wrong to point to "Darwinism" or something of that ilk and say that it's just dogma; dogma is not part of the scientific epistemology. The substance of religion is weird, but so is the substance of science; what distinguishes them is how they decide what is "real" in the world. What makes religion different from science is how knowledge is gathered - whether it is from above (over time, handed down by elders) or below (new is better, building on the past but always changing). But science is not SO different from religion, because we've seen that religion continues to change, too, to fit new information with old beliefs in ways that make sense. And, besides, I think that science, too, will be found wanting. I guess this is where postmodernists come in, and my own discomfort with what I view as overreliance on positivism within the sciences.

The point of the NPR program last night was that doubters have a role in history that is often overlooked. Our society may be overly fond of change - especially since change is commercialized, enshrined in our market system - but at least we're not just worshipping at the altar of Zeus. So I think I'm saying that Christianity might have arisen from doubt, too. Christians doubted something about the old testament, and Christianity has, in its DNA, the logic of doubt. I guess that's why we have about a million Christian sects, and they're all pretty sure of their truthiness, but they all claim to stick to the Bible. Yet another bit of evidence for my theory that the Bible is a living book (thank you, science!).

If my head explodes soon, I have only myself to thank.

Can I get a witness?

Here goes this weekends accounts on religion:

Friday
EK: Lauren, what church should we go to?
Me: I don't know. Where do you want to go?
EK: How about the Jehovah's Witnesses?
Me: Yeah. That sounds good.

Saturday
A knock on our door. EK answers and chats to a strange visitor. Post coversation,
Me: Who was that?
EK: A Jehovah's Witness. It was his easiest sell.

Moral of the story, God wanted us to visit with the Jehovah's Witnesses today.

We entered the senior center (where they are temporarily holding services) and were approached by two very awkward men, including our Saturday visitor. They tried to find seats for us, and upon the suggestion that we sit in the front, I suggested we set up seats at the back of the room. Mostly for an easy escape route, especially after they told us we would do a bible study for over an hour. Argh.

My first impressions of the service were mostly that I felt like this reminds me of the movie Jesus Camp. It brought a whole new light to the term "Bible Thumpers." Every thought from the sermon was supported by a passage from the bible. This was my first time taking such a close look at the bible, but it was a quick tour through, as we were constantly turning pages, trying to figure out where, exactly, the Book of Matthew might be found. Before or after Exodus?

The population was also interesting to observe. Couples pray arm in arm. Almost all of the women were extremely overweight. Weirdest of all, all the men had these black suitcases that they kept handy. They must have all of their sell material in there. Or something?

Some things I learned about the JW's:
1) They LOVE the image of Jesus being a shepard. They love the image of us being sheep needing guidance. Do not stray.
2) There are a lot of options for sex/sexual curiosity/sexual gratification. All but one are wrong: sex in marriage RULES! Do not stray, fine young sheep. Don't be tempted by TV, movies, or things you happen upon while on the interwebs.
3) The devil will slap you. That's right. Avoid the slap from satan. Is that actually code for masturbation? All I know is that I almost died of laughter with the image of satan slapping me.
4) Jehovah's Witness men are awkward.
5) Our witness will probably come back to our house over and over again, until, as he said, it's like having tea with a friend. NOO!!!!!!

Mind over matter, my friend.

Wow. This week, my mind is flooded with thoughts. I am going to start with a brief reflection on our blog. As you may or may not have noticed, our blog entries started as very jokey, I think. We filled them with as much sarcasm as possible, and perhaps even more than was necessary. And I think that this has changed over time. I can't speak for EK, but on a personal level, as we gained more experience in church and started to (at least mentally) create lists of pros and cons for different religions from our own worldview, I think we have started to see how religion can maybe work for people, what it fulfills in life, how we can benefit from it, and etc. And, especially for me, as I experienced religious ritual and grazed over religious basics, I have gone from not seriously thinking about them, to seriously thinking about them. And on that note, I have an annoucement to make: EK and I are going to join the UU church here.

Just a few thoughts on this: I never felt like I belonged to a religious community until I went to the UUs. Perhaps this is because it is non-creedal (or all-creedal as a friend pointed out after today's service). But this church is spiritual, the sermons are thought-provoking, the people are optimistic, hopeful, humanist, welcoming, and service-oriented, and there is an active community. I had a "conversation" with my mom today. She has yet to admit that she has successfully raised just one Jewish daughter-my sister. To me, it's not a question of Judaism versus ___(fill in religion here): it's a question of no religion versus ____(fill in religion here). Yesterday I found out that one of my friends in town (a very conservative Jew) was never able to come out to her Jewish community here in town. I find it upsetting to have to be untrue to who you are because of God or how God's words are interpreted. How can I belong to the Jewish community (or most other religious communities, for that matter) when they can't accept another human for who they are? I never felt such a love for a church and its community than I have for the UUs here in town, and I am actually excited to belong to a religious community for the first time in my life. It's oddly strange, though, that I started this journey thinking that I would gain a little more knowledge about religions, not actually finding home within one.

Now, getting back to our quest...
We went to the Church of Christ Science today. I am curious to learn more about Mary Eddy Baker. How did this religion, unlike most of the other more recent religions (see EK's latest Mormon entry) escape the whole body/mind connection? To Christian Scientists, it seems to all be a matter of mind over matter. God, combined with a right mind, can heal you. This blows my mind. I agree that there is something to health and healing in having a right attitude: Debbie Downer is always in the dumps. But it is scary to give up medicine of any kind! Do Christ Science members not believe in homeopathic remedies? Where does this all apply? Clearly I need to do more research on this. Perhaps this is to be saved for a visit to the reading room. Or a testimonial service.

The one thing that did strike me with this morning's service was how boring it was. Seriously, a monkey could lead the service. The woman and man who led the service literally followed a Christ Science-wide pre-fab service. This included nothing more than reading passages from the Bible and drawing connections to Mary Eddy Baker's work (which from what I perused was fascinating stuff). Basically, we were read to. The hymn's were pretty, but I almost fell asleep when we were listening to the service. I guess that is also a mind over matter issue, too... So, a lesson learned: you want songs, go to the Pentacostals, you want a good sermon, go to the Catholics. Whatever you do, do not attend a Christian Science church service.

Following this visit, we raced over to the UUs and made it just in time for their awesome guest minister speech. This minister spoke about spirituality, and gave 4 main ways to become more spiritual. EK took notes and I am sure she will post them on the blog. The sermon made me cry as I thought about what I could do to become more spiritual in my own life (note: that's a 100% tear-jerker rate for the UUs). Another thing that struck me about the service was the openness to creativity. This is especially in contrast to the Christ Science service, where even the church leaders had no room for creativity. This says a lot about how a religion views God... Is God flexible, unknowable, real, forgiving, kind? Or is God male, strict, linear/knowable (see EK's previous Mormon entry)?

All in all, interesting stuff from this week. I also read a book, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which I will talk about when we visit with the Muslims.

A Toofer Sunday

Today was a "Toofer," as they say on 30 Rock. Except, instead of getting the guy who both went to Harvard and is black, Lauren and I went to two church services. First up, The Church of Christ, Scientist.

This service was pretty sparse - I think around 25 people, including several single women. There were no single men. Lauren and I were greeted by a woman named Marcia, who gave us a pamphlet called the Christian Science Quarterly. This pamphlet guided us through the service, and when I say guided us, I mean that the pastors (one woman, one man) literally followed it word for word. First, there was a "scriptural selection" that was all about following authority, for authority is put in place by God. So, in rejecting authority, we reject God. The "responsive reading" was a collection of bible quotes followed by Science and Health quotes. They were tied together by theme, and this was fairly interesting, but the delivery of the message was as dry as could be. It was just word for word from the readings, with no interpretation, no joking, no creativity or application to what we find around us. As their Quarterly noted, "we shall now read Scriptural texts, and their correlative passages from our denominational textbook; these comprise our sermon. The canonical writings ... [apply] to all ages, past, present, and future, constitute a sermon undivorced from truth, uncontaminated and unfettered by human hypotheses" (Quarterly Explanatory Note). The notion of truth (or Truth or TRUTH or TRUTH) was extremely important to the Christian Scientists, and from what I could glean, this Truth is unimpeachable and good and, I suppose, does not need to be interpreted because it's laid out so clearly there in the Bible. All fine concepts, except you have to leave rationality at the door, for the truth of the Bible, in all its complexity and difficulty, cannot be reasoned through. It is told and absorbed, I think, and you just take it. As when the (female) pastor told us to accept authority; if the Bible is the ultimate authority, then there is no questioning the Bible. But if you (I) believe that the Bible is a human construction, then you (I) get a bit hung up on the removal of the human hand from biblical readings.

Now, I like a lot of things about Christian Scientists. I like the Christian Science Monitor, a great periodical. I like the emphasis on both the masculine and feminine attributes of God, and I like the rejection of the trinity. I read as much as possible from the literature they had available at the church - I like that they are believers in writing things down. Lots of magazines, books (by Mary Baker Eddy) and other information ... and they have Reading Rooms that are open to the public and that are quiet places to read! But I don't like that they are so devoted to dogma, and I don't like that they have co-opted the term "science." Science is a process, it is an outgrowth of our western philosophical traditions and the Enlightenment - in this sense, I am also dubious of some science, for it reflects our humanity and human perceptions and human priorities as much as it reflects some concrete Truth about the world. I skirt the post-modern at times. Anyone's use of the term "science" to describe a static Truth is a misrepresentation of science, in my opinion. I think that both scientists and very religious people can misrepresent science in this way; as a way to uncover something that is unchanging and real. I would label myself a constructivist in the sense that science (and religion) actually construct the world we find around us, rather than revealing it. But science requires evidence and reason, and so can change with new data; religion requires acceptance (faith) and so is unchanging. Problematic.

I'll try to describe a bit more of what I could understand about Christian Scientists: I think that most of what they believe comes down to the importance of the spirit, or the Mind, and the impermanence and even "error" of matter. I read a story in Science and Health about a little girl who injures her finger but then doesn't feel the pain and tells her mother that she is "all right." I think the little girl was supposed to represent purity or truth or something good, but I thought get the girl to a doctor. Sickness may be a mirage, but surely injury is not? Or am I wrong? But it gets to the point of what Christian Scientists seem to emphasize, captured in this quote:

There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.
-Mary Baker Eddy, from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (468)

After that rather dry and decidedly confusing service, Lauren and I biked over to the Unitarian Universalists, where over 100 people were gathered. There are two services every Sunday, an indication of how popular this church is in Corvallis. Perhaps because the church seems to fit Corvallis so well, it is a place of vibrancy and life and relevance. The sermon was beautiful and funny, delivered by a guest pastor. UU pastors are professional, something that is evident in the quality of their sermons, which pull quotes from a number of sources (including novelists, philosophers, scientists) and are delivered with humor and humanity. People laughed out loud, they clapped after a solo, they got up and shared their thoughts about the sermon. Every aspect of the church is meant to be inclusive; when the pastor told people to stand, he said "stand as you are able." The sermon itself was about how to be more "spiritual" - a term I kind of reflexively hate, but which was suitable for the sermon. So, according to this very nice (and we think Jewish) pastor, increasing spirituality may be done through asking yourself questions. 1) How can I be more compassionate, more kind; 2) What am I grateful for, how can I express thankfulness; 3) How can I be accepting and maintain integrity in the face of frustration, failure, and loss; and 4) What commitments and values do I want to be faithful to? These questions, provided without answers but with parameters and stories, were the core of his teaching. He did not say "FIRST, you must be compassionate." No, he started by saying that of all the religions of the world, compassion is what binds us. There are rules in Unitarian Universalism, or at least there are values, but UU spirituality does not require belief. It does not require that we kneel at a certain time or fast at a certain time. Again, I am speaking about UU in negative terms (what it does not mean) but I think it is more fascinating for what it does mean.

At any rate, Lauren and I have decided to join the Unitarian Universalist church. I'll call it a church, though I suppose that's not strictly true. It's a congregation or something. Whatever it is, I think that I'll join it and hopefully be part of it. I'll end this post with a passage from the Bible:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men ... But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
-Matthew 6:5-6 (New International Version)

The UU pastor mentioned this in his sermon. What a powerful thing it is! That we should pray behind closed doors. That prayer is something we do "in secret." I have not seen a more powerful indictment of public prayer. Of course, elsewhere 1 Timothy 2:8, Paul says to "pray everywhere." To return to the Christian Scientists: which is it? Are we to pray alone? Are we to pray openly and "everywhere"? First Timothy is also the book that says women should be submissive; not just submissive, but they should not be teachers. They also shouldn't braid their hair or wear gold or pearls. I'm okay with not braiding my hair, but I refuse to give up the pearls.

Like I said, I'm joining the UUs. The literalists are not appealing to me.

I just love that God is so orderly

I went and met with the Mormons on Tuesday, and I've been meaning to blog about it since, but I was temporarily distracted by a ski trip on New Year's Eve. The skiing was fun, the fireworks and hanging out in the snow until 2 am were even more fun. But I digress.

I met with two of the sister missionaries at the LDS center right by campus: Sister B, whom I'd met before, and Sister H, who was new. Another girl (M) was also there. She was baptized only last spring, so I guess she's still kind of learning.

Sister B is very animated and likes to explain God through analogies of children and their parents. As in, "you know when your parents tell you to do something, but they give you a choice?" and she's always talking about God and you. I thought this might be an effective metaphorical tool, though I very much doubt that God is anything like a parent. Perhaps I view him more as a disinterested and ultimately unknowable entity. Very much in contrast with Mormon views; their teachings are all about being close to God, being "like" God (after the final judgement), and God's plan for us. It is a relationship that is personal. Hell, or the "outer darkness" is distance from God, the absence of God for eternity.

Sister H is very sincere and serious, and she is new to the missionary life. She looks quite austere and plain. She recently arrived in Corvallis, so I guess they have a kind of leapfrog system, where one sister replaces another and the remaining sister is there to mentor the new sister. I think it's a wonderful way to reinforce people's faith in the religion (probably the ultimate reward of the system, rather than gathering a lot of recruits).

We talked about the afterlife, mostly, and they read me some good quotes from the Book of Mormon. I once tried to read the Book of Mormon but I found it tedious; I had no frame of reference. It's much nicer when you're reading it aloud with some missionaries who can explain what they think is important. We talked abou the trinity, and they said that there isn't a trinity, but that God and Jesus are two separate physical beings. I do not understand how this can be interpreted as anything but polytheism.

The importance of the physical body cannot be underemphasized here. So much of what I've learned about their faith revolves around the actual, physical body (though God's is "perfected"). Here's what I think they believe (apologies for mistakes): before you're born, you're a spiritual entity, then you go through the "veil of forgetfulness" and you're born into the Earth planet and attached to a body. You're also attached to a family. When you die, you go to this planet (place) that is made up of spirits, where you can be in a relatively good place or a relatively bad place. Sister B explained it more as a state of mind - that we all go to the same place, but you can be there in a positive frame or a negative one. This is where God gives us a chance to accept "the Truth" and so spirits are going around, much like the helpful sister missionaries, teaching people about the Truth. Then there's judgement - sometime soon, I guess, since these are the "latter days" - and we'll all be placed in the hierarchy of planets (places) arranged for us: the celestial kingdom, the terrestrial kingdom, or the telestial kingdom (from best to worst, in that order). The absolute worst, though, is the outer darkness. After the final judgement, we are reunited with our bodies (though, I guess, they're "perfected" at this point, like God's). The celestial kingdom is where you want to go, and there you'll be with your family, and all your bazillion children, and God's there, playing pickup basketball or whatever he does in his free time. It sounds pretty airtight, huh? Around this time in our discussion, Sister B said "I just love that God is so orderly about everything" and I thought, this will never ever ever resonate with me. If there is one thing I believe about God, besides our inability to comprehend him, it is that he is not orderly. I mean, why did he feel the need to give us an appendix? That's not orderly. I think that the explanation of God's Plan is orderly, but I don't think that God is orderly.

Note about 19th century religions: for some reason, there are several common threads of thought that have been incorporated in many of these, including the importance of our physical bodies, rejection of the trinity, the revitalization of some truth that has been lost or obscured over time, and the return to a physical place (like Earth) after death. Mormons believe that they have the Truth, and that it will not be lost again, as it has been so many times. They also believe that God has many messages, or texts, but that the core of what we should believe is contained within the Bible and the Book of Mormon, plus a few assorted gems that I'd like to learn more about (Pearl of Great Price, Doctrines and Covenants). I didn't have time to ask what they thought of Gnostics or other heretics, but my interpretation of their beliefs is that Mormons are indeed "heretics" in the traditional sense of the word, which is why people like my grandmother don't like them. Me, I love heretics, but I digress.

My friend Amy was recently telling me about a couple of Mormons we know, and she said they were offended by the show "Big Love" because it portrays Mormons as polygamists. I think almost the opposite: the show really portrays the LDS church as the greatest opponent of polygamy, and the polygamists as more than fringe - they are shunned. Besides, I don't think that society's condemnation of polygamy is the church's greatest enemy any longer. I think that social liberalism and economic socialism are today's boogeymen for LDS. And liberals don't give a shit (usually) about polygamy. At least I don't. I associate the modern LDS church with heavy investment (literally and metaphorically) in material wealth and with an economically and socially conservative ideology. This is more problematic, in my view, than whether some guy wants a bunch of wives. Then again, I'm a raving lunatic. My point is, Amy was talking about these two Mormons, who are well-educated and (relatively) liberal and they had this gripe with a show that portrayed fringe Mormons ... and I think they're totally off base. I could be wrong, but I think that the major tests for the Mormon church will emerge as its adherents diversify and bring new thoughts into the fold. I can't wait for the first famous "feminist Mormon sociologist" and other radicals who will likely, someday, emerge from the bulk of teachings and seek to transform some part of them. And the resultant struggle, of course, as the Truth is tested, found wanting, and changed yet again.

Mormons like to use the word "agency" a lot. God gave us agency. Agency is the force of change in our human world. We'll see the Mormon church change, as it has already, as God gives people messages or as little girls look around and decide to incorporate Marxism into Mormonism ... it's not so unthinkable. And maybe God won't change, but as Durkheim said, "God is society, writ large." And so as society changes, so may God; it fits my thinking of God-the-unknowable quite well; we can infer all we want about God's intentions or plans, but in the end, he gave us a damn appendix and that is truly unknowable.