REVIEW: Mason, Restoration, Pt. 2

In my previous post, I began a review of Restoration: God's Call to the 21st-Century World by Patrick Q. Mason. I ended with Mason's six areas of focus for the future. They are

1. re-enchantment
2. human identity
3. religious freedom
4. refugees and immigrants
5. social justice
6. community

Here's what he means by each of these.

RE-ENCHANTMENT (pp.79-80): Mason means returning a sense of the supernatural to a secular world that rejects all aspects of it. "Anytime we increase faith in the world, or encourage others to do the same, we are doing the work of restoring enchantment in a disenchanted age." Personally, I think the "I believe in science" crowd is ill-informed and thinks they are signaling advanced learning when they are really marking themselves as middling intellectuals. I'm no great scientific mind, but even in my limited reading in this area I have come across enough to know that there is more that surpasses our understanding than is commonly understood. Just in the past year I've read Stephen Hawking calmly claiming that there are around 11 or 12 dimensions and Govert Schilling's book summarizing the latest thinking in dark matter. "I only believe what I see" takes a major hit when science says we can't see most matter. The calm reversal of conventional wisdom on UFOs since early 2020 should help loosen up the disenchantment that held most "learned" people for the past 100 years.

HUMAN IDENTITY (pp. 80-1): In a world more willing to believe in unseen things, we can increase society's understanding of our origin as spirit children of Heavenly Parents. Mason claims that our theology is radical (it is) and that it deeply resonates with people (it does). Assuming when he writes "one remarkable gift the Latter-day Saints could give would be to more fully reveal our Mother to her children around the world" that he means just making this teaching more broadly known, I agree. However, there is not much we know TO reveal than that. Given our Church's cultural tendency to embrace speculation as doctrine, I worry that too much exposure of this doctrine will result in more confusion than clarity. But could it be appropriate for the general members of the Church to humbly but persistently ask for more information to be revealed? What's the worst that could happen? Get told "trouble me no more concerning this matter" (Doct. and Cov. 59:22)?

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM (pp.81-3): This has been an area of increasing focus for Church leadership. If we view this from the perspective of "whatever Church leaders spend a lot of time on is what will be society's main problem in 20 years" it is pretty disconcerting. But let's leave that alone for now. Mason writes our actions on religious freedom are "a model of how Latter-day Saints can ... mobilize in the service of others."

REFUGEES AND IMMIGRANTS (pp. 83-5): Mason begins from Elder Patrick Kearon's fantastic General Conference talk from April, 2016. I fear that many members of the Church whose politics leave them inclined to xenophobia decided to reduce their cognitive dissonance by just ignoring Elder Kearon. That is a terrible shame. This is an area where agreement should be easy.

SOCIAL JUSTICE (pp. 85-6): Here is another area where the political ideas of most members might cause some problems. (As an aside: do these people think Jesus is going to join their political party when He returns? They DO know He plans to come as King, right? That is a role currently absent from the American Constitution.) I was recently at a meeting where our stake's one Black member of the High Council suggested our stake create a community event to commemorate next year's Juneteenth. I think it's an excellent idea, but I'm afraid I don't know how a majority-white church can pull off something like that without seeming pandering or condescending. On the other hand, I've had family respond disparagingly when I've told them my work will be closed for Juneteenth. I said, "Slavery is wrong, so I can get behind a holiday that celebrates its end." There might not be room for the leadership of the Church to do much with a "political" issue, but there's plenty of room for each of us to do so as individuals.

COMMUNITY (pp. 86-7): Mason thinks our Church's "you get what you get and you don't get upset" approach to ward membership and leadership is a good model for building community with anyone around. I would caution that many Latter-day Saints have discovered how to game that system by aiming to live in wards they like. My ward shares a building with the "good" ward of the stake, and our stake as a whole is the poor relation of the next stake to the north of us. In his April 2013 General Conference talk, Elder Stanley G. Ellis shared this tale of "community building":

For 16 years I served in the presidency of the Houston Texas North Stake. Many moved to our area during those years. We would often receive a phone call announcing someone moving in and asking which was the best ward. Only once in 16 years did I receive a call asking, “Which ward needs a good family? Where can we help?”

We can do much better on this issue.

So those are Mason's six goals for the Church in its third hundred years. From my perspective of millennial social thought (MST), the last three seem directly related to my area of interest. Building Zion will definitely involve elevating our thinking and behavior on issues of refugees and immigrants, social justice, and community. What is standing between us and meeting these challenges in a "higher and holier" way? Mason identifies six items of cultural baggage the Church must address. They are

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

In my next post, I will look into these stumbling blocks in more detail.

REVIEW: Restoration: God's Call to the 21st-Century World, by Patrick Q. Mason

I read this book six months ago and I have been literally carrying the physical book with me since then, figuring I would be more likely to blog my review if I always have the book available. (Don't feel bad for my back; it's a very light 100-page book--Amazon says it weighs 5.6 ounces, whereas my back is usually carrying around more than 4,000 ounces.) So if I've had the book with me night and day for six months why haven't I already blogged about it? Let me just say this: my church calling is hard. Like, really hard. I wouldn't recommend this calling to anyone.

So here's my review: There's one big idea to this book, and I think it's a good one. There are a few little particulars related to that idea, and I think they are bad. The book is bright yellow, and weighs 5.6 ounces. The end.

First, the good big idea. Mason sees a greatly expanded role for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the world, not in a proselyting sense, but in a humanitarian one. He starts by identifying the Church's historical withdrawal from society as a defensive response to persecution. He calls this idea the "fortress church" (p.2). He reviews early Church statements and teachings to find what the original generation of Church members thought the word "restoration" meant. Mason argues that what was being restored wasn't necessarily Christ's church or priesthood authority, but Israel (p. 13). "God's great restoration project seeks to unite all generations of the human family from the beginning to the present and onward all the way to the end of time" (pp. 16-7). God wants to restore people, not things.

This is my understanding of the idea of God having a covenant people. Not that some people are better in the sight of God--we're all His children and he is no respecter of persons (Romans 2:11). Rather, God's house is a house of order (Doct. and Cov. 132:8), and He only called Abraham His son for the purpose of using Abraham's seed to bless the rest of His children. This is what Jesus meant when he said God was able to make children of Abraham from stones (Matt. 3:9): being God's chosen people is an assignment, not an honor. From my reading, it seems Mason would agree with these points. He writes, "The purpose of the Restoration is to fulfill the ancient promises that all of God's children, regardless of the nation or clan they find themselves born into, can and will be 'heirs to the kingdom of God'" (p. 18).

This is where Mason's book crosses path with my interest in millennial social thought (MST), and my main reason for reviewing this book in this space. Mason calls Jesus "the Messiah of the marginalized" (p. 19), and writes, "any restoration we claim to participate in must therefore be primarily oriented toward those who have suffered on the margins of history and currently suffer on the margin of society." Here he's starting to get pretty bold--we tend to think of socioeconomic issues as political issues. "I think he ought to keep his mouth shut about old age assistance," right? But I agree with Mason. After all, if our task is to build Zion we aren't going to do that without some large socioeconomic changes among us. Some Church members who are most opposed to taxation plans they would call "socialist" are in for a shock when they realize what it means to "have all things common" (4 Ne. 1:3). I've had temple-endowed members tell me before, "We aren't being asked to live the Law of Consecration right now." Elder Dale G. Renlund has said, "In the endowment, we covenant ... to dedicate ourselves and everything the Lord blesses us with to build up His Church" (Renlund, Apr. 2023). We've not only been asked to live it, we have accepted the challenge.

Mason identifies six areas of focus where Latter-day Saints should focus on changing the world, and six items of baggage we must address to allow us to do so. I don't even think these 12 things are where Mason goes wrong, but it's in the presentation of some of them that he errs, and I fear that members of the "fortress church" who are already distrustful of calls to do anything except live like a 1950s white middle-class American will ignore the good when rightly identifying the bad here.

But first the focus items and the baggage we should acknowledge. His six areas of focus for the future are

1. re-enchantment
2. human identity
3. religious freedom
4. refugees and immigrants
5. social justice
6. community

My next post will detail what he means by each of these.

Upcoming Reading and Reviews

I recently finished reading Restoration: God's Call to the 21st-Century World, by Patrick Q. Mason (Faith Matters Publishing, 2020). I will share some notes and thoughts later this week.

Books I am excited to start soon which will be at least somewhat related to Millennial Social Thought include the following:

• This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, by Yancey Strickler (Viking Press, 2019)
• Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (Crown Publishing, 2023)
• Stealing from Each Other: How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit, by Edgar K. Browning (Holtzbrinck Publishing, 2008)

Later this week I'll write about my current framework for this effort.

A New Start

Every time I thought my life was about to get calmer in the past year, it instead got more not-calmer. In January 2022 I accepted a job that moved us from Florida to Ohio. In March I moved, and a month later my family moved. (I recommend moving in shifts because it makes everyone speculate that you're separating, and then they go out of their way to be nice to you, and when you finally "reconcile" everyone thinks it's such a happy ending. If you had just all moved at once everyone would be, like, "Fffftht.") The next few months were busy with learning a new job and getting all our stuff sorted. (I have too much stuff, and you have too much stuff; when the Beverly Hillbillies moved they managed to fit all of their possessions AND all the family into one car, but when we move it looks like Napoleon's baggage train.) Right when I was ready to begin my serious blogging about Millennial Social Thought, in September 2022, I was called as a counselor in our bishopric, and right when I was going to start new at the first of the year, I was called as bishop.

I will be the first to tell you that I am the worst bishop in the Church, and most of my ward's members would verify that claim without a moment's hesitation. There are two main reasons for this: one is my being terrible, and the other is my work.

An aside, for comparison's sake: 22 years ago, I interviewed for a job stocking shelves at Staples. In the interview the manager asked about a "hypothetical" situation where someone had smeared feces all over the restroom and asked what I would do. I thought, "That's a really weird hypothetical." Only after I took the job did I learn that it wasn't a hypothetical question AT ALL.

Similarly, when I interviewed for this job I was told that some people dislike the work demands during budget time, and did I have a problem with working extra when required. I've had a few experiences with overtime in my career, and they were fine, so I said I could handle it. Then we got to January 2023 and it turned out that "when required" meant "all the time for six straight months." I told my boss I now run a church congregation that meets on Sundays and she made the helpful suggestion of, "Don't make any plans for the weekends."

Well. The biennial budget cycle ended this weekend. I have a more-reliable computer situation. My Fitbit says I had my best night of sleep ever last night. In short, things are looking up for the first time in over six months. So I am recommitting to this Millennial Social Thought blog project, combined with the stories of my foolishness that the serious student of my blogging has come to expect. (Remember when I just let myself into a high school, changed into my swimming suit in the locker room, and swam laps in the pool until the PE teacher asked what I was doing? Or when I accidentally asked a coworker out on a lunch date? Or when I told my doctor I was a professional hostage negotiator? Or when I had a random pair of underwear fall out the leg of my pants...TWICE?) This is the content my public demands.

A Story of My Stupidity

I was in the waiting room of a doctor's office today. Two other people were also waiting. A nurse opened the door and very clearly called out, "Raven?" No one answered. She called again, "Raven?" Then she went back inside.

The receptionist then said, "Raven, she was calling for you." No one else was responding and the receptionist was looking at me. I said, "What do you guys think my name is?" She asked, "How do you say your name?" I said, "Brandon." She said, "Yeah, that's what she said." Then she went to get the nurse (and no doubt share the tale of my craziness).

I asked the other two people in the waiting room, "Did you guys think she was saying 'Brandon'?" They both said yes. I said, "I guess I need to go to the ear doctor next." That got a big laugh, which the repeat reader will know is my sine qua non of a good public interaction.

Other "Lose, Vague, and Indeterminant" Terms

Along the line of trying to determine the best name for what I'm currently calling "Millennial Social Thought," there are other instances of confusingly similar terms in this area. For instance, some people use the terms "religious economics" and "economics of religion" interchangably, while others view them as two different things. I'm probably in the "two different things" camp: to me religious economics is when economics is influenced by religious views, while the economics of religion is applying economic principles to religious actions. If you give some of your income away because of a religious principle you are practicing religious economics, but if you theorize that actions in testimony meeting can be explained with a signalling model you are practicing the economics of religion.

Similarly, the term "consecration" just means "to make holy" to most people, but to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints it means "the dedication of all resources." To some "stewardship" might mean nothing more than princple management, but to certain groups of Christians it implies a future reckoning with God about how the resources were managed.

Hypercycloids and Circles

When I was younger my brother taught me how to use straight lines on graph paper to draw the things that comprise the Pittsburgh Steelers logo (which I learned much later are called hypercycloids). I thought it was awesome and I did it all the time. It was my version of that dumb angled S thing that everyone else drew when they were 10 years old.

I have often wondered if the circular shape you get out of such a drawing is, in fact, a circle. So I decided to figure it out.