The Dialogue I Love

I haven't read Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought very much in the last few years, since it got sort of artsy-fartsy for a while and didn't have a heckuva lot I was interested in.  With the ascension of Kristine Haglund to editorship, however, things are improving.  This was especially evident in the latest issue (Summer 2010).

Admittedly, part of my reason for this post is to plug my own article in the issue, titled "Joseph Smith in Hermeneutical Crisis".  In the article I explore Joseph Smith's ministry as a response to the multiplicity of biblical interpretations that arose in early America's democratic environment.  The traditional Protestant doctrine of "perspicuity" said that the Bible was supposed to be clear and self-interpreting.  The widespread popularity of Scottish Common Sense philosophy only reinforced this expectation.  Many people, including Joseph Smith's contemporary Alexander Campbell, believed that if the process of biblical interpretation could be freed from creeds and other constraints, it would lead to widespread agreement and the unification of Christianity.  Thus it was extremely unsettling for people to realize that in America's democratic environment, disagreement was at an all-time high.  Joseph Smith addressed this crisis by revising and reinterpreting the Bible so as to make it the clear and unobjectionable text that American Protestants expected it to be.

There's other great stuff in this issue, though, besides my own paper.  In particular, Heikki Räisänen's piece on the Joseph Smith translation made an excellent complement to mine.  Whereas I focused on how Smith's revision of the Bible was a response to his historical context, Räisänen looks at the precise ways in which the text was revised.  She does a very good job illustrating that Joseph's changes stood in the tradition of conservative evangelical interpretation of the Bible, particularly with respect to resolving contradictions in the text.

By the way, one thing that neither Heikki nor I researched in detail was how well-known to Joseph Smith's contemporaries were many of the contradictions he corrected in the Bible.  Were these discussed in atheist literature?  Bible commentaries?  Were they well-known enough to have been discussed in Smith's debate club as a young man?  Or were they little-known enough that we can assume Smith discovered them on his own?  This would be a great follow-up project for someone to tackle.

The issue contains other great papers as well, including Ben Park's piece "Early Mormon Theologies of Embodiment" and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's piece exploring the role of LDS women in second-wave feminism.  Ben does a very good job exploring the development of Mormon embodiment theology.  One highlight for me was when he placed it in the context of early nineteenth-century anti-Trinitarianism, which often emphasized God's embodiment as a counterpoint to philosophical theology.  Another highlight was Ben's explanation for why Joseph Smith taught that resurrected bodies contain no blood: namely, that blood was viewed as a "corrupting" influence.  It had never occurred to me before that the Old Testament's revulsion against blood played a role in this particular theological innovation.  (Joseph Smith's hermeneutical lens was peculiarly Old Testament-colored, in a very New Testament-heavy age.)  Ulrich's piece, meanwhile, demonstrates that some LDS women were at the cutting edge of the feminist movement of the 1970's and 80's, keeping pace with the leading lights of feminist theology in such institutions as Harvard Divinity School.

If you find the time to read past the articles section, you will also find a fascinating interview with Mary and Patricia Rorty, widow and daughter of the late philosopher Richard Rorty.  I had no idea that Rorty had married a Mormon, so I read with some interest her reminiscences of his mixed feelings about the Church, and the way they peacefully coexisted in their mixed marriage.  Say what you will about Mormons, but Mary is clearly a very intelligent, perceptive, and progressive woman, just like her late husband.

Rumi's Beautiful Poem on Evolution

The following poem is from the Islamic mystic Rumi.  I am lifting it from a work titled The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, by Muhammad Iqbal.  Iqbal prefaces the poem by saying, "It is strange how the same idea affects different cultures differently.  The formulation of the theory of evolution in the world of Islam brought into being Rumi's tremendous enthusiasm for the biological future of man.  No cultured Muslim can read such passages as the following without a thrill of joy."  Here's the poem:

Low in the earth
I lived in realms of ore and stone;
And then I smiled in many flowers;
Them roving with the wild and wandering hours,
O'er earth and air and ocean's zone,
In a new birth,
I dived and flew,
And crept and ran,
And all the secret of my essence drew
Within a form that brought them all to view-
And lo, a Man!
And then my goal.
Beyond the clouds, beyond the sky,
In realms where none may change or die-
In angel form; and then away
Beyond the bounds of night and day,
And Life and Death, unseen or seen,
Where all that is hath ever been,
As One and Whole.

(Rumi: Thadani's Translation.) 

 A thrill of joy, indeed.  I wish the Christian world could catch some of Rumi's enthusiasm!

Buddhist and Mormon Anthropologies

There are some interesting parallels between the Buddhist and Mormon conceptions of humanity's place in the cosmos.  In particular, both Buddhism and Mormonism teach an infinite regress of worlds and an infinite regress of "the self".  (Infinite regress here means that these things have existed for all eternity, and do not have a "beginning".)  Both traditions also teach that all "selves"-- demonic, human, and divine-- are of fundamentally the same species.  Yet from these anthropological starting points, the two traditions diverge in some highly interesting ways.  A comparison of their differences may point adherents of each tradition toward some questions they never thought to ask, and some possible implications they never thought to consider.

Let's begin with the concept of infinite regress.  Buddhism posits a cycle in which the world is continually re-created and re-destroyed.  The creator here is not a god, but an impersonal force or natural law called karma.  "The self", meanwhile, is stuck in a cycle of continual reincarnation, and has passed through an infinite number of past lives.  Thus history for a Buddhist goes like a never-ending sine wave, with alternating high points and low points.  Mormonism's regress of worlds is rather different.  It sees history as being like an infinitely branching tree on an ever-upward trajectory, with an infinite number of worlds being constantly created and glorified.  As for the regress of selves, Mormonism, like Buddhism, sees "the self" as going through several lives or stages of existence.  The difference here is that the stages are not cyclical.  Once a stage is complete, it will never be repeated.

Both traditions also see demons, humans, and gods as being fundamentally the same species.  For both Mormons and Buddhists, the difference between the categories of being is a difference of merit and advancement rather than ontology.  In both traditions it is fully possible to pass from one category to another, and in fact a host of divine beings who have reached a high level of development are standing by to help raise the lesser creatures to their level.  (In Mormonism these are the Godhead and the angels; in Buddhism they are the Bodhisattvas.)  Both Mormonism and Buddhism posit that this development is achieved through adherence to a self-existent and transcendent moral law to which even the gods themselves are subject.  Mormonism refers to this as the moral law, whereas Buddhism calls it "karma".  The main difference here is that Buddhism sees movement going in both directions, both up and down the chain of being.  Even the gods often squander their time in heaven, and thus are reincarnated as lower beings.  Mormonism, by contrast, sees movement going almost exclusively in an upward direction.  Only those who utterly and deliberately reject the divine plan of salvation can regress to a lower stage of existence.

The two movements' conceptions of the self are also somewhat parallel.  Both movements have tended to see human souls not as unified, autonomous entities, but as aggregates constituted from some sort of substrate or matter.  In fact, philosophers in both movements have proposed the idea of spiritual atomism-- that souls are actually composed of particles of matter!  Yet each movement has drawn from this a very different implication.  For Mormons, it is dignifying: humans are composed of eternal rather than contingent elements, and thus are free and self-existent beings.  But for Buddhists, what it suggests is that the self is "empty" or non-real.  The self is merely an aggregate of other things, and dependent on them for its existence.  It is not a unified entity, so the appearance of autonomy is an illusion.  In fact, Buddhist philosophers have argued that because everything that exists is dependent on something else for its existence, reality must have no independent grounding, and thus nothing is really real.  For the good Buddhist, enlightenment is to recognize the self and the universe for what they really are: nothing at all.


So while Mormonism and Buddhism have very similar anthropologies, they draw very different theological implications from them.  We might summarize the difference by saying that Mormonism is optimistic, whereas Buddhism is pessimistic.  In Buddhism, the cycle of reincarnation is seen as an endless and pointless existence filled with continual striving and suffering.  The goal of a good Buddhist is to escape the cycle altogether by deconstructing and ultimately dissolving the self.  In Mormonism, the endless striving and movement between stages is actually seen as a good thing.  Far from escape, the eternal goal of a good Mormon is in fact perpetuation of the system, by creating new worlds and populating them with human souls!

The similar ontological foundations of the two movements means that there's a great basis for interfaith dialogue here.  Both movements might be able to learn from each other.  For example, a Buddhist might ask a Mormon, "What's to stop a god from falling or sinning?"  The Book of Mormon's own "proseperity cycle" seems more consistent with Buddhist expectations than with Mormon ones.  When beings reach a high level of achievement, they tend to become proud, complacent, and self-satisfied.  Why doesn't Mormonism make allowance for regression as well as progression?  Alternatively, our Buddhist interlocutor might ask, "What is the point of the plan of salvation?  Human life is full of misery and suffering.  Am I really a son of perdition if I refuse to strive for its perpetuation?"  To this a Mormon might pose an equally provocative counter-question. "Instead of 'striving' to escape the cycle of existence, why not just go with the flow?  Why not just try to reduce the total amount of suffering in the world, so the endless continuation of human life won't be so bad?"

The Troop Surge, Revisited

Joshua Holland of AlterNet has posted an article titled, "The Mythology Surrounding Petraeus' Surge in Iraq Will Keep Us Trapped in Afghanistan". The article makes some valid points, but its analysis of the troop surge is somewhat lacking. Holland argues,

The surge didn’t work. The additional troops were deployed by May 2007. What followed was a bloodbath --June and July were the most violent summer months of any year of the occupation. August was one of the bloodiest months, period. Then, that month, the powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mehdi Army to stand down. The number of Iraqi civilian deaths fell by about 50 percent the next month and decreased again in October and November. The militia was estimated to be 100,000 strong and was arguably the most powerful ground force in Iraq after the U.S. military.

Holland is certainly right to contextualize the troop surge by juxtaposing it with al-Sadr's leadership of the Mahdi Army.  But his assessment of the course of events is not entirely accurate. 

First, let's look at a timeline of events.  The troop surge began in February 2007, with about 3500 troops arriving each month until the surge was completed in May.  From February to November, coalition forces undertook a massive military effort to impose government control over Baghdad, which was largely controlled by sectarian militias.  Al-Sadr went into hiding during February and March, but re-emerged in April to urge his troops-- and Shi'a everywhere-- to fight the foreign invaders.  At the end of August, a clash between Sadrists and the US-allied Badr Organization led al-Sadr to call for a cease fire.  In March-May 2008, coalition forces laid siege to Sadr city, resulting in al-Sadr's de facto surrender of the city to Iraqi government forces.

Now let's look at some casualty figures.  Here are the coalition casualties for 2007, according to iCasualties:

Jan: 86, Feb: 85, Mar: 82, Apr: 117, May: 131, June: 108, July: 89, August: 88, Spetember: 70, November: 40

Clearly April and May were the bloodiest months for coalition forces.  These months coincided with al-Sadr's return and the height of the 2007 battle for Baghdad.  A steady decrease in coalition casualties followed.

The civilian casualty figures are even more telling.  Here are the figures put out by Iraq Body Count (IBC):

Clearly, the number of civilian casualties in June was much lower than any of the preceding twelve months.  Violence rose again in July, but then dropped off again in August.  To characterize these months as a "bloodbath" is to fail to put them into the context of the 12 months that preceded them. The previous summer was much bloodier.  Certainly the most dramatic drop in violence came as a result of al-Sadr's cease fire at the end of August, but the situation had already somewhat improved, and in fact al-Sadr's decision was arguably a result of the coalition's efforts.

Notice also what happened after May 2008, when Sadr City surrendered.  Civilian casualties dropped off significantly, and continued to gradually stabilize thereafter.  At the very least I think we have to acknowledge this success, which almost certainly would not have been possible without the additional troops provided by the surge.

Let's hope that the peace the surge helped achieve can survive the country's present political stalemate and the withdrawal of the last of our combat troops next month.

Is the Book of Abraham Papyrus "Missing"?

In 1835, Joseph Smith purchased an ancient Egyptian funerary scroll containing a Document of Breathing Made by Isis, which anciently belonged to a priest named Hor.  Because the fragments from the outer end of the scroll were falling apart, the prophet and his scribes preserved them by pasting them to stiff backing paper.  The interior portion of the scroll was better preserved, and remained intact as a scroll.  The mounted outer fragments have survived, but the intact interior portion was burned in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Handwritten manuscripts from the Kirtland period of LDS Church history seem to indicate that the Book of Abraham was "translated" from one of the extant mounted fragments of this scroll.  But when this fragment is translated Egyptologically, it turns out to have nothing to do with Abraham.  As a result, missing papyrus theorist John Gee has argued that a Book of Abraham may have followed the Document of Breathing on the lost interior portion of the scroll.  He explains, "Both Mormon and non-Mormon eyewitnesses from the nineteenth century agree that it was a 'roll of papyrus from which [Joseph Smith] translated the Book of Abraham,' meaning the 'long roll of manuscript,' and not one of the mounted fragments that eventually ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art" (John Gee, “Some Puzzles from the Joseph Smith Papyri,” FARMS Review 20, no. 1 (2008): 119).

Dr. Gee's claim is not accurate.  Consider the following eyewitness accounts, which indicate that both the mounted fragments and the intact portion of the scroll were identified as an Abrahamic record, and in fact the "deciphered" portion of the record was among the fragments:

"[Joseph Smith] then walked to a secretary, on the opposite side of the room, and drew out several frames, covered with glass, under which were numerous fragments of Egyptian papyrus, on which, as usual, a great variety of hieroglyphical characters had been imprinted. . . . There, said he, pointing to a particular character, that is the signature of the patriarch Abraham."
(“A Glance at the Mormons,” The Friend; a Religious and Literary Journal 13, no. 43 [July 25, 1840]: 342–43.)

"Some parchments inscribed with hieroglyphics were then offered us. They were preserved under glass and handled with great respect. 'That is the handwriting of Abraham, the Father of the Faithful,' said the prophet."
(Josiah Quincy, Figures of the Past: From the Leaves of Old Journals, (Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, 1883), 386.)

"From this he drew forth a number of glazed slides, like picture frames, containing sheets of papyrus, with Egyptian inscriptions and hieroglyphics. These had been unrolled from four mummies, which the prophet had purchased at a cost of twenty-four hundred dollars. By some inexplicable mode, as the storekeeper informed me, Mr. Smith had discovered that these sheets contained the writings of Abraham, written with his own hand while in Egypt."
(Henry Caswall, The City of the Mormons, or Three Days at Nauvoo, in 1842, 2nd rev. and enl. ed. [London: J.G.F. & J. Rivington, 1843], 22.)

"[Lucy Mack Smith] produced a black looking roll (which she told us was papyrus) found on the breast of the King, part of which the prophet had unrolled and read; and she had pasted the deciphered sheets on the leaves of a book which she showed us."
(M. to Friends’ Weekly Intelligencer, September 1846, in Friends’ Weekly Intelligencer 3, no. 27 [October 3, 1846]: 211-12.)

Our current English text of the Book of Abraham was translated from pJS XI, the "instructions" column of the Document of Breathing. This needn't threaten faith or membership in the Church, but it may require a change of paradigms in the way Mormons think about translation and prophethood. Such changes can be frightening and traumatic at first, but ultimately I think people will find they are also beneficial. Some may even find their faith deepened by the experience. One example of such a paradigm change in action is Karl C. Sandberg, "Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham, and Joseph Smith as Translator," Dialogue 22 (Winter 1989): 17-38. Another I recommend is Jason Monson's Mormon pluralism.

The Environmental Kuznets Curve

The summary below is adapted from Susmita Dasgupta, Benoit Laplante, Hua Wang, and David Wheeler, “Confronting the Environmental Kuznets Curve,” Journal of Economic Perspective 16, no. 1 (2002).

The Kuznets Curve is an inverted-U relationship between pollution and development. According to the model, pollution increases until a nation achieves ~$5,000-8,000 per capita income, and declines thereafter. What the curve illustrates is that the stakes in pollution-control efforts are high.  China and India both already have very high pollution levels, but neither country is anywhere near its maximum level yet, according to the Kuznets model.  Things are going to get worse before they get better.

Pollution decreases at higher incomes because high income societies have more discretionary capabilities for pollution reduction.  The primary factor in the downslope of the curve, however, is government regulation, which can make a difference even in low-income nations.  The problem is that low-income nations often have neither the motivation nor the capability to enforce such regulation. As the chart below illustrates, regulation usually increases with income levels.  The international community can help by subsidizing information and regulation in these countries. Sanctions, by contrast, don't work and can only be counterproductive. We have to be realistic in our expectations of these low-income countries.

Another factor that reduces pollution is economic liberalization.  This is because illiberal governments’ subsidies typically go to polluters, and because private enterprise is more efficient than state-run enterprise, and thus produces less pollution per unit of production. Openness to trade also improves access to cleaner technologies. But although liberalization helps, it is insufficient unless regulations are strengthened.

Sometimes regulation can be informal, at the market or local level. Investors and consumers allocate capital to lower polluters. Evidence shows that firms do respond to these pressures—especially the big multinationals. (In fact, multinational corporations are much better at and more committed to pollution reduction than smaller companies.)  Often, though, market and local actors aren’t aware of pollution risks. Increased information can help enhance informal regulation.

Pollution taxes have been very successful in developing countries. Better information can improve regulation in these countries, as well. It turns out that the hidden costs of pollution are very high, especially for big cities. When poor governments become aware of these hidden costs (such as health care costs or foregone tax income due to premature deaths of workers), they often crack down.

The Kuznets curve model does seem to hold for existing toxins, but pessimists have raised one valid criticism: new technologies do give rise to new toxins, most of which are currently unregulated and unmonitored even in developed countries.  We are going to have to be vigilant about detecting and controlling new pollutants.