REVIEW: Mason, Restoration, Pt. 3 [EDITED]

[The first version of this stopped after two points because I planned my day poorly.]

So Patrick Mason wants Latter-day Saints to sally outside the fortress church and pursue goal he calls re-enchantment, human identity, religious freedom, refugees and immigrants, social justice, and community, as covered in the previous parts of this review. But before outlining those six goals, Mason identifies six areas where our historical baggage hinders this:

1. racism
2. patriarchy
3. nationalism
4. cultural colonialism
5. inequality of wealth
6. fundamentalism

Now this is where things get even shakier, in terms of keeping everyone on board. The six goals Mason proposes are close to running foul of some members' cherished political views, but these baggage items run foul of some members' cherished doctrinal views. That's because these members have doctrinal understandings that are not doctrine itself, but that's a lot bigger of an argument to undertake. And one foul step in the attempt can wreck the whole enterprise.

Nevertheless, I think Mason is right in all six of these items. But being right isn't enough when you're trying to change someone's mind about what they think are the principles of their religion. You have to have flawless arguments, because if there is any error in your logic, the target audience will latch onto that error as proof that the entire premise is flawed. And this is where I start to find the little particulars that I think are bad.

RACISM (pp. 59-60): Early Church leaders were wrong to be so accommodating to the racism of their day. Later theologians were wrong to gin up "doctrinal" rationalizations for that racism. The Book of Mormon itself seems to indicate the same types of racist pseudo-doctrines were held by some ancient Nephites. The overwhelming whiteness of many US wards and branches can lead to behaviors and cultural practices that would make many of our neighbors uncomfortable to worship with us. My ward has about 100,000 people within its boundary. Probably half of those are non-white. But we have a very small number of non-white attenders, and they often have to deal with obtuse comments and behaviors. We had two Congolese brothers move in about a year ago and many older ward members still cannot tell them apart, and aren't particularly ashamed of that. That's not a great look. The defensiveness of some white members when the discussion turns to racism is keeping us from honestly accessing what we could be doing better. It can be true that you aren't racist and that people from a different background aren't comfortable around a group of people who are all like you. Nobody is calling you racist when they point out that we could all do better welcoming others.

PATRIARCHY (pp. 61-2): Just as Church members of the past were sure their racist cultural heritage was doctrinally based, today we have a lot of sexist views that we calmly accept because we think they have a doctrinal basis. Personally, I am convinced that the true role of women in the Church is far from clearly understood today, but until we have a desire to learn the truth we won't receive it. But can we at least start with the simple things? Stop assuming women are for childcare and food preparation, stop referring to men as "the priesthood," stop creating any explanations for the absence of female ordination beyond "that's our current understanding of the Lord's direction," and stop trying to "even things up" through the creation of a cult of motherhood.

NATIONALISM (pp. 62-3): Someday I might relate the stir I created in my ward when I didn't stand during the national anthem. Let me just say here that a calm explanation of the difference between patriotism and nationalism fell on deaf ears. Since the 1950s Church membership in the United States has identified more with the Republican Party, and since the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016 the Republican Party has been more nationalist than perhaps ever before. There are good signs regarding our rejection of nationalism, such as Trump underperforming for a Republican in LDS-heavy states like Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah. There are bad signs regarding our embrace of nationalism, such as Trump still winning LDS-heavy areas easily. Jesus isn't coming again to be an American.

CULTURAL COLONIALISM (pp. 64-5): Many years ago I had the realization that a lot of the Church's culture can be explained by Joseph Smith growing up in Protestant 19th-century America. God told Joseph to start a church and Joseph said, "I know what church is supposed to look like," and God said, "Sure." But if the Restoration had begun in Africa or Asia our meetings would be drastically different today.

INEQUALITY OF WEALTH (pp. 65-7): This is the only one of these six projects that lines up with my area of interest, millennial social thought (MST). As such, I will write a separate post dealing just with this.

FUNDAMENTALISM (pp. 67-9): I think we've come a long way in a short time with rooting out personal opinions masquerading as dogma. We have men in bishoprics and stake presidencies with facial hair. We have boys in plaid shirts passing the sacrament. You can buy caffeinated drinks at BYU. But like the old saying about science advancing one funeral at a time, this process seems to be moving at the speed of generational replacement. Which is ironic considering that at the forefront of this change is a prophet who must be among a very small group of oldest Church members. We still have work to do, though. The Church contains a large number of members who view science and religion as foes. I had a Seminary teacher who taught against evolution and radiocarbon dating.

Next I will review in-depth the section on wealth inequality, and finally I will address the small bits that undermine the valid arguments.