2 Nephi 31, Mosiah 18, & 3rd Nephi: Baptism

Baptism was under debate in the nineteenth century. Was it necessary to salvation (a sacrament or ceremony required for heavenly admittance)? Part of inclusion into a particular order/society (and was that necessary)? Did it regenerate the sinner or simply offer the possibility of regeneration? 

The issue of authority—does a church need educated clergy/bishops to carry out such sacraments or ordinances?—was also under debate.

The issue was of such importance in the nineteenth century that Joseph Smith paused his translation--Oliver Cowdery as scribe--in May 1829 to receive a series of revelations that resulted in baptism by men holding the Aaronic Priesthood. The passage that inspired this act was apparently from 3 Nephi, but the "problem" of baptism shows up in The Book of Mormon earlier. 

2 Nephi presents baptism as following the Son's example--the particular "how" of the act is not addressed, other to separate the remission of sins from the act of baptism. Mosiah 18 follows suit: baptism is presented as admittance into the community. Repentance is more about the individual's relationship with God and is not accomplished instantly or permanently. 

3rd Nephi 11:38 presents baptism (or at least the inner change that accompanies baptism) as a necessary ordinance--"And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God." Chapters 7 and 11 both stress baptism as an act that takes place after repentance: "Verily I say unto you, that whoso repenteth of his sins through your words and desireth to be baptized in my name, on this wise shall ye baptize them" (3 Nephi 7:25). Baptism by "fire and the Holy Ghost" is emphasized in all remaining chapters. That is, baptism by water leads to the second less calculable (and less observable) yet apparently more necessary experience. 

Questions about the actual act of baptism in response to 3rd Nephi are understandable. And if one needs to explain Joseph Smith’s ability to attract members, the events here go a long way towards that explanation. Not only does Joseph Smith use The Book of Mormon to inspire him and Oliver Cowdery to direct action, he resolves several issues at once in the form of a straight-forward ritual carried out by ordinary guys who experience a vision. 

The act and the accompanying ordination back a belief in revelation/divine intervention as well as the position that the gospel is to repentance what baptism is to a remission of sins (baptism remits sins but doesn't accomplish repentance instantly or permanently). The visual, outward ceremony is accompanied by inward grace.

In effect, in response to The Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith pulled together high church and low church approaches—visions, authority, scriptural deference, personal revelation, lay people, rituals, and long-term progress--with one act.

I will post more about Joseph Smith later. Here, I will say that over and over, Joseph Smith's response to religious queries was to go out and make something. If he was a painter, he would have surprised the world with Under the Wave off Kanagawa. If he was a musician, he would have pulled a Beethoven. 

He was an American populist religious leader with a grounding in New England religious thought: therefore, he had wide-reaching revelations that tackled ongoing religious problems in everyday, physical ways.

King Benjamin's Speech: Revivals

Nineteenth-century readers would have recognized themselves in King Benjamin's listeners.

Towards the end of his life, the good King Benjamin gathers his people together and gives a speech. Near the end of the speech, his listeners cry out, "O have mercy and apply the atoning blood of Christ" (Mosiah 4:2). As a consequence, they are touched by the Holy Spirit.

Revivals in which speakers evoked an emotional crisis, a desire to repent and (re)commit to Jesus Christ, were not only common in the nineteenth century, they were familiar to the previous generation. 

The Great Awakening began in the 1700s before the Revolutionary War. One of the sad (but true) aspects of the Salem Witch Trials is that less than fifty years later, the girls' behavior would likely have been perceived not as possession by the devil but as possession by the Holy Spirit. George Whitefield from England was likely the greatest revivalist of the era, charming even the mostly agnostic Benjamin Franklin. Jonathan Edwards was the New England clergyman who made revivals acceptable. 

Jonathan Edwards

In many ways, revivals were a reaction against a perceived indifference or rote attitude regarding religion. My personal diagnosis is that revivals were a reaction to an upheaval in culture. The Salem Witch Trials were not the ultimate hurrah of Puritanism; they were the last hurrah, the end of a culture in which government and traditions and beliefs converged. The colonies were becoming more and more pluralistic. Revivals were a way to locate common ground and reassurance amid uncertainty.

Jonathan Edwards, one of Calvinism's New Lights, greeted revivals as a solution to apathy though he did not preach in the Whitefield manner. He read "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" without histrionics (he wasn't a histrionics type of guy) but he did it to create an acknowledgment of guilt or emotional catharsis in his listeners. 

"Old Lights" Puritans, on the other hand, objected to the emotional excesses of the Awakening (one revivalist held a bonfire in which sacrilegious stuff was burnt, including--he offered--his pants; at the same time, a number of students accused their professors of not being committed enough to various beliefs: sound familiar?). In response to the Old Lights, Edwards argued that one couldn't divide up the impressions of the Holy Spirit, being okay in one instance but not okay in another. 

Edwards still struggled with the ramifications of the Awakening, namely the "revolution in authority." As George Marsden writes in his excellent book A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards, "For the moment, few evangelicals (and certainly not Edwards) saw such spiritual equality as having implications for social status generally. But in the long run, the implications were there."

Herein lies the inherent contradiction of Protestantism: By stressing the individual's relationship with God, all Protestants, from Luther to Edwards, left the matter open to challengers. "I'll just go start my own religion then," says the challenger. "No, no, no," proclaim the leaders. "We didn't mean THAT." 

Too late.

The Old Lights weren't just offended by the break with past authority. They were also offended by the instant-salvation aspect of the revivals. Marsden states, "[Charles Chauncy] was not against truly transformative works of the Holy Spirit, but he believed they were usually manifested as a gradual process of recognizing and living according to God's grace. 'Enthusiasm'...was a sort of overheated and contagious mental state that led people to mistake their own overwrought passions for the work of God." 

Moreover, ordinary citizens were getting a tad tired of all the unrest. The revivals weren't as horrific as the Salem Witch Trials but the mob-like drop in rational thought wasn't too different. (As Marsden later remarks, "[C]harity...on both sides...was becoming a rare commodity.")

The Second Great Awakening in the nineteenth century was a continuation of the first with a stronger emphasis on Millennialism and Methodist theology. The Burned-over District in New York was so named because so many revivals occurred there.   

As for the attendees/believers, they would have come from varying backgrounds and taken up varying positions: Franklin, non-religious yet friends with the similarly outspoken and bombastic Whitefield; careful, logical Edwards, wholly passionate in his quiet way about revivals; Chauncy, rational and appalled about the fall-out.

And everybody in-between.

King Benjamin's speech supplies several distinctive and familiar revival-type characteristics:

1. It is an organized event.

In the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, some controversy existed over planned, authorized revivals--organized by clergy--versus pop-up revivals carried out by itinerant preachers. People like Edwards naturally favored the former. Civil authorities had reason to be wary of the latter.

2. The necessity of the written word is stressed.

Speakers in the past didn't have microphones. Whitefield had the ability to be heard at a tremendous distance--one possible reason he was so popular. But generally speaking, a speech had to be taken down in some manner and passed on. 

3. King Benjamin warns his audience of internal splits and contentions. 

4. The listeners are threatened with judgment.

However, as typical of The Book of Mormon, the judgment is not the wrath of God holding sinners over a flame ("oops, nope, gotcha--just joking") but rather the result of the individual withdrawing from God. "Mercy hath no claim" on the damned because the damned "shrink from the presence of God" (Mosiah 2:38-39). 

5. Salvation is promised to all, including those who "ignorantly sin" (Mosiah 3:11), such as little children. 

6. As mentioned above, while listening to King Benjamin, the people cry out for mercy. 

7. When the people cry out, they are visited by the Holy Spirit. 

8. As a result of feeling the Holy Spirit, they are "filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience, because of the exceeding faith which they had in Jesus Christ who should come" (Mosiah 4:3).

9. King Benjamin then continues his speech, exhorting the listeners, "[Y]e must repent of your sins and forsake them, and humble yourselves before God; and ask in sincerity of heart that he would forgive you; and now, if you believe all these things see that ye do them" (Mosiah 4:10).

Some revivals descended into what can only be called mass hysteria--something resembling concert attendees swooning when the Beatles came to town. Jonathan Edwards, for instance, was unable to finish his famous speech due to mob-like behavior, of which he was honestly not impressed. That mass hysteria does not occur with King Benjamin. See #10.

10. The people enter into a covenant. 

Encountering King Benjamin's speech, nineteenth-century readers would surely have spotted similarities to revivals at the time. They would also have spotted differences. 

They may also have spotted a resolution to the ongoing tension between grace and works.

Both Chauncy and Edwards agreed that a sudden emotional outburst isn't enough. But why not? If there is an elect, why is a manifestation of grace not enough to be going on with? And who is experiencing that manifestation of grace/sanctification anyway? (Edwards warned revival attendees against trying to distinguish "true" sanctification from "false.") For that matter, why do such experiences seem to fade over time, so the experiencer begins to backslide? (Edwards was truly upset by the backsliders.)

The Book of Mormon resolves the issue here--and in other places--by proposing a solution that makes works not a way of illustrating that one has been marked by grace (though that Calvinist concept is definitely present) or a way of carrying out a change in heart (though that more Methodist attitude is also present). Rather, the individual is drawn to grace by the individual's path or preference or even personality: where the individual is headed, what life the individual is trying to form through choices, actions and rituals (works), dreams, plans, objects, people, places...

You reap not just what you sow but what you care about sowing.

Mosiah 12 & 13: The Ten Commandments

In Mosiah 12 & 13, Abinadi quotes the Ten Commandments.

In nineteenth-century America, the Decalogue was a link to the Lost Tribes of Israel, a popular topic of the time. Many scholars and religious leaders and archaeologists in the nineteenth century maintained that some or all tribes had made their way to America, bringing with them important wisdom, most specifically the Ten Commandments.

In the aftermath of the Civil War as the United States became home to immigrants from places other than Northern Europe (and Canada), the Ten Commandments were presented as unifying standards, products of "natural law," which presupposes that humans across many cultures will identify similar behaviors as right or wrong. (See section on Natural Law below.) 

The hope was that this natural law--along with archetypes and legends, such as the Founding of Our Country--could bring various religions and sects (and states) together. Hence, the erection of numerous monuments before and after DeMille/Heston's The Ten Commandments. 

Transplanted Israelites alongside their ethical legacy were common currency in the nineteenth century. Despite sharing an interest in those ideas, the first readers of The Book of Mormon were more interested in the associated doctrines. As I will address later, Millenarianism flourished within Mormonism but never went entirely in the same direction as it did in other societies. To borrow from my popular culture background, Joseph Smith had a more Spike attitude towards life and human endeavors than an Angelus attitude, more "let's invest in human activity" than "let's watch the world burn."

Like Joseph Smith, many early Book of Mormon readers were coming out of the Calvinist tradition. An ongoing doctrinal controversy within that tradition was the relationship between grace and works or, rather, the exact nature of grace. Passages within The Book of Mormon return to this issue again and again.

In the Book of Mosiah, Abinadi is brought before the wicked King Noah and King Noah's priests. He uses the opportunity to pull a Martin Luther, to accuse the priests of claiming adherence to a set of behaviors they don’t actually practice: “I perceive that [the Ten Commandments] are not written in your hearts” (Mosiah 13:11). The argument bears resemblance to a current-day interpretation of ancient texts, Jesus’s words, and King Benjamin’s speech, the latter also from The Book of Mormon:

• Michael Coogan argues that the Ten Commandments are likely extremely old. Documentary evidence indicates that they preceded the various versions that appear in the first five Books of Moses. The classically numbered third commandment—commonly presented as “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain”—is more accurately rendered as “You should not use the name of Yahweh, your god, for nothing.” 

Both books are worth checking out. Joselit

discusses monuments--see above.

Coogan goes on to discuss how ancient religions customarily paired magic with theology. Speaking the name of one’s god was often part of a spell. Coupled with the classically numbered second commandment about idols, the third commandment of the Decalogue tosses out the idea of propitiation through such appeals: “The Israelites’ new god with the mysterious name was not a god who could be controlled by invoking his name in incantations or magic, any more than he could be localized in a statue” (Coogan). Paul, who knew his scriptures, built on this idea.

• Jesus uses the Ten Commandments to make a series of rather sarcastic points. (There is far more sarcasm in the Gospels than may make some religious commentators comfortable—it is a touching indicator that Jesus had a singular personality, though one can’t help but wonder if Heavenly Father turned to Jesus upon the Ascension and said, “You do realize many humans have absolutely no sense of humor. They are going to take a bunch of that stuff you said very, very literally.”)

Don’t commit adultery becomes If your right eye offend thee (with lustful gazes), pluck it out.

Although some scholars perceive Jesus as increasing the rules, I agree with those scholars who argue that Jesus is actually driving home a point that comes up with the Rich Young Man: If you truly think you are already completely righteous for keeping all the commandments, fine—now, try this on. Are you as good as you say? Are you honestly dedicated to what you claim to follow? If you keep pushing the envelope here, you might find that the essence of the law is better than a checklist. Because cutting out your eye is a dumb idea. Instead, try to use thoughtfulness and commonsense to be a decent human being. It’ll be easier.

As David Mitchell states about the eye of the needle directive, “Jesus was being sarky and going, ‘It’s about as easy for a rich man to get into heaven as it is to get a planet into a shoe.’” 

Trying to bargain will get a believer absolutely nowhere.

• King Benjamin’s speech early in Mosiah presents a series of if…then statements. The “then” statements are often treated as commandments by readers. They are not. They are “fruits” of adhering to the first commandment:

Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.

Believe that ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and humble yourselves before God…(Mosiah 4:9, 10)

If you believe—

You will not have a mind to injure others.

You will treat your children well.

You will help others and have a magnanimous attitude. (Mosiah 4)

In sum, the Ten Commandments are used in The Book of Mormon as a way to resolve the connection between grace and works. Abinadi chastises the learned because they fail to practice what they claim to know/embrace, which chastisement could be taken as an argument in favor of works. However, as detailed above, the overall argument more resembles the points made by Coogan, Jesus, and King Benjamin: the Commandments only have merit as works if they reflect faith-based beliefs as part of character. 

Abinadi then makes an assertion about knowledge/works that would have signaled a battle-cry to nineteenth-century readers, namely a lack of knowledge does not preclude salvation, when he declares without qualification, “Little children also have eternal life” (Mosiah 15:25).

Such a statement may seem a given to readers now—but a gauntlet is being thrown down.

Natural Law

Coogan argues quite reasonably that the Decalogue specifically references ancient Israelite culture. I think he has a point, but I also think there is something rather impressive here about what C.S. Lewis referred to as the Tao; throughout history, people have considered certain things good and bad despite what society considers acceptable and non-acceptable. Slavery has sometimes been acceptable but nobody has ever advocated it as a lifestyle; violence was often far more acceptable but few cultures have ever supported violence/betrayal against a friend (other than those societies that substitute individual virtues with service to the State)...and so on.

Mosiah 4: The Poor

 

The opening of Mosiah, Chapter 4 extols the principle of grace (a topic I will address in several entries). Yet verse 24—"I would that ye say in your hearts that: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give”—returns to what people do with their beliefs.

I have been in Sunday School classes where verse 24 was used to discuss whether or not people should give money to panhandlers. People in favor of the loose change theory of charity spoke up and darted judgmental glances at others. They could glare at me all they wanted--I rarely have cash on me--but I happened to know that one of the recipients of those judgmental glances has, over his lifetime, donated considerable amounts of money to charitable programs in America and other countries. At the time, I was considerably irritated.

Such judgmental members clearly missed the point. The verse rests on a state of mind as much as an act. Previous verses address assumptions made about those in need and conclude, "Are we not all beggars?" (Mosiah 4:19). The one-road-to-charity folks are actually guilty of the very thing the speaker, King Benjamin, is preaching against. You can’t judge someone else’s circumstances based on what you see or assume.

In our social media-obsessed world of labels and insta-judgments, I think this lesson often gets lost.

More importantly, for the purpose of these posts, the world has changed. 

Nearly the entire history of the world is the history of people trying not to starve to death. Big Brother’s game-based control over the refrigerator is more accurate to the human condition than perhaps appreciated. Historical exceptions such as Ancient Egypt (trustworthy harvests; major works projects) are the exceptions that prove the rule.  

It is notable and touching that even in poverty-stricken circumstances, human beings are capable of great nobility and compassion. An examination of Anglo-Saxon skeletons indicates that elderly peasants who could no longer work were still cared for by somebody.

A descendant of the original soup kitchens.

That "somebody" would have belonged to the family/community. From the ancient world to the early nineteenth century, the number of aid organizations to which one could contribute was far less than now by a magnitude of a thousand+. 

Regarding the nineteenth century specifically, charity organizations in the urban environment flourished as the urban environment took hold (there's no indication that poor people before urbanization were any better off; they were simply more invisible). The YMCA began in the mid-1800s, the Salvation Army also in the mid-1800s. Soup kitchens came and went but weren’t going strong as regular city institutions until the mid-1800s.

Most charity for most of history was local and church-based. And brought about almost entirely by face-to-face/door-to-door requests. Such efforts did great work! But the fail-safes that modern people take for granted—something as basic as not being sent to jail for debt—didn’t exist. Most people were one harvest away from not being able to feed their families. There is a reason that Pa Ingalls spent a large amount of Laura’s childhood not at home (no, the reality wasn’t like the television show). When a bunch of locusts eat your wheat, you have to go work on the railroad instead. 

And there's a reason that the agricultural poor, despite D.H. Lawrence, went to work in mines and factories when the Industrial Revolution rolled in. Despite the incredible dangers of those places, they were better than working on farms. 

Factory workers at Amoskeag, who were working 12-hour days, still considered that they had gained advantages, such as more free time in the evenings. And they joined social organizations, a pattern of civic engagement that took off in the nineteenth century. 

In the 1830s, however, most people were still laborers or farmers, which means that most people were poor laborers or farmers. Even the “wealthy” people who helped out Joseph Smith were not what we moderns would necessarily deem wealthy (though Martin Harris did pay $3,000 for The Book of Mormon's printing of 5000 volumes, which cost is close to $100,000 today--the calculation is confused by certain things being less expensive and other things being more expensive, and printing was steadily becoming less expensive; it was nevertheless a great deal of money). 

In the 1830s, many aid organizations associated with urban environments were still in their infancy. Consequently, one of the best survival mechanisms at the time was to be a member of a functional social community, such as a religious community. See King Benjamin's citizens, nineteenth-century experimental communities like Oneida, and, eventually, Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo.

Nineteenth-century readers were well-aware of the benefits of such communities. And well-aware of the daily risks they otherwise faced. The reminder to hold one’s fire regarding another person’s circumstances would have hit home.

Mosiah & Alma: Missionary Work

Missionaries have existed in every era. For nineteenth-century readers of The Book of Mormon, missionaries were part of the cultural landscape. 

A Little Background

The earliest missionaries for Christianity were in many ways similar to the early Buddhist missionaries: the idea was to run out and tell people about a new freeing, universal way of being. As Andrew F. Walls points out in The Missionary Movement in Christian History, early Christian missionary efforts avoided later "paternalistic" attitudes (which bother us moderns) because Christians themselves were under the same demands for personal growth. Interestingly enough, in The Book of Mormon, Jacob's "y'all are a bunch of jerks" speech to the Nephites relies on this idea. The comparison of Nephites to Lamanites emphasizes the Nephites' failures.

The Nineteenth Century

The evangelical movement in the late 18th century to early 19th century was somewhat different and fell into two strands.

Marriage Proposal from Hell

The first was the idea of converting non-Christians--the late eighteenth century saw a massive increase of Western missionaries to Africa, the Middle East, Asia and, in the Americas, to the Amerindians. Many of these missionaries were celebrities. There is more than a hint of adventuring in accounts of their deeds.

Consider that in Jane Eyre, when St. John Rivers wants to marry Jane so they can serve in foreign climes together, the heroic, self-sacrificing, and grand gesture attracts Jane. However, she opts instead for a domestic life. Although she praises Rivers at the end of the book, she also uses “Dear John” phrases that were not uncommon at the time, such as we’ll meet again in the hereafter. Jane writes, “[T]he good and faithful servant has been called at length into the joy of his Lord.” And...he’s dead.

Pliny Fisk

The second strand was converting other Christians to another form of Christianity or to sincere practicing Christianity (as opposed to apathy). The Burned Over District in New York was home to this type of missionary work.

The first approach tended to focus on finding points of similarity between Christianity and "pagan" or "animistic" religions, as when Ammon informs the king of the Lamanites that the Great Spirit he prays to is the God that Ammon is introducing to him. And many of these missionaries became unintentional anthropologists, especially if they were sincere in their efforts to understand another culture.

The second approach tended to focus more on doctrine, as when Alma and Amulek get into arguments with various Zoramites. This type of preaching would have resonated with The Book of Mormon's first readers. Standing on a street corner or renting a hall/getting invited to a church and preaching a sermon on a particular doctrinal idea was extremely familiar to just about everybody--religious or not--in the nineteenth century.

All approaches brought with them the expectation of cultural as well as religious change. The king stops killing off his servants. Alma and Amulek undermine an entire social caste system. For that matter, Buddhism challenged caste systems in India. The change not only to belief but to culture bothers moderns. It would have been par for the course in the ancient and early modern world.

King Edwin converted--his

successors then repudiated

his conversion.

And, as Walls again points out, such upheavals to culture are never as conclusive as they sound. Saxons "converted" to Christianity when they were forced to by other Saxon groups. They then dropped Christianity when the first group got conquered by someone else. They converted back when it suited their purpose, no one else's. Likewise, Buddhism in China was perceived as adding to Confucianism, addressing what Confucianism left to other disciplines, rather than replacing it.

For nineteenth-century readers, who were constantly hearing about yet another group of Christians going off to set up a colony of believers somewhere, the connection between belief and lifestyle would have been a norm. And American missionary work was quite successful in part due to America's pluralism (although nineteenth-century America may not appear pluralistic by twenty-first century standards, by nineteenth-century standards--especially in the acceptance of different types of Christianity--it was quite pluralistic). 

That is, Americans were used to setting up volunteer organizations, getting them funded, and then dismantling them when necessary. American Christians were also quite used to sending Christianity into their own frontiers by whatever means were available: circuit riders; revival meetings in tents; magazines, and anything else that came to hand.