The Most Important Christian Women

Who are the two most important women in the early Christian church? This was a question asked of me recently in a dream by two gentlemen. 

In the dream, I found myself resting in my home. Suddenly two men that I know and respect appeared at my side. They are not individuals that I think of very often, although I always enjoy my association with them (infrequent as it is). They are both very religious and faithful men, but in different ways.

The first has been an important leader in the Mormon Church and continues to serve in varying capacities whenever he is asked. He is very kind and dedicated in his service and has also experienced personal tragedies in his life that have softened him and made him a very caring man.

The second individual is quiet and is often misunderstood. He can also be driven in unique and impractical ways. Some people see these tendencies as personal failings. He endures these misunderstandings in quiet without complaint. He is a loving father and has the complete faith of a child. This faith informs much of his life.

As I thought upon the question they posed to me, I wondered if the symbolism of the dream implied that their own characteristics supplied the answer. Did the two most important women of the early Christian Church have the same qualities that they had? If so, I see an answer that looks like a combination of Mary and Martha – as recorded in the 10^th Chapter of Luke. Both are dedicated and full of faith. One of them (and represented by both men in my dream) is deeply spiritual.

The more I thought it over, however, the more I came to believe that the answer lies not with the men themselves, but with their wives. In fact it is interesting to me that the question would come from individuals that seem to be a rather odd (even random) combination of my own acquaintances. But who, when looked at more closely, demonstrate certain qualities in a very strong way. This is particularly true of their wives. In fact, of all the people I know, these two women may be the strongest examples of certain important traits.

The wife of the first man is a kind woman who is also a very dedicated woman. It is very important to her that she be doing the right thing. She is always trying to help others. She comes from a successful family of faith and is well enough off – though never extravagant. She has shared some very tragic events with her husband but has risen above them to become a soft and caring individual.

The wife of the second man is a very different sort of woman. She grew up in a strictly religious environment that imprinted upon her the need for dutiful service. She tends to feel that she is never doing all that she should and is often very hard on herself. She is a talented lady and has had to shoulder much of the responsibilities of supporting her family. Because of the immense responsibilities of her life, she has made mistakes – some of them have been significant. These mistakes have broken her and left her almost without hope. In her moments of despair, she has turned to God and found His grace. And it has been this grace that she has held onto with everything she has. It has literally saved her life. It has given her the strength to overcome her weakness and become a great source of strength to others. Out of this renewal has come an advanced degree and more service. She has gained a profound understanding of the healing power of Christ’s atonement but has never forgotten how vulnerable she is and how incapable without His help.

If these women are the symbols that provide the answer to the question posed in my dream, then I come again to Mary and Martha in the Gospel of Luke. The aspect of dutiful faith – as represented by both Martha and Mary – is obvious enough in both of these women’s lives. The aspect of sin and dependency on Christ is less obvious.

What surprises me about these two choices is that they don’t include Mary, the mother of Jesus. In any account of important Christian women (early or late) Mary must be at the top of the list. Why, in my dream, is it not apparent that she is one of the two? My only answer is that she is to be held apart. She is someone to be revered, but not necessarily someone that we should pattern our lives after. Besides her unique blessing from God, Christian tradition informs us of her early determination to dedicate her life to God without marriage. Clearly Mary is unique among women but I don’t think she was ever meant to be emulated, except perhaps in the focus of her faith. Christ’s commandment to follow Him was meant for all of us – men and women alike. Mary is to be appreciated in a different way.  

It is likely that the greatest women of the early church are meant to be types (as dream symbols often are) for all women. And Mary and Martha clearly meet this criterion.  I realize that I am making an assumption by accepting the traditional view that this Mary (Mary of Bethany) is the same person as Mary the sinner and Mary Magdalen. Susan Haskins has made a compelling argument that they are, in fact, all different individuals.

The traditional view argues from the different acts of Mary anointing Jesus and from the statement by Pope Gregory the Great (at the end of the sixth century) that these women all represent the same person (Haskins, p. 16). In fact both arguments are credible and plausible – as is the possibility that only some conflation has occurred, that maybe two women are involved. Either way, I am arguing that the symbol of the sinful and repentant Mary Magdalen is the correct interpretation of my dream.

I think this is important at a deeper level as well. The traditional Mary Magdalen, the woman from whom Christ is known to have cast out seven devils (Mark 16:9), and the woman who presumably was taken in adultery and then repented, would be the right person to be a witness of Christ. Every one of us must come to the realization of our own sinfulness before God. Unless we do so, we cannot be saved.  

In the (sometimes) unpopular and (often) conveniently forgotten parable of the Pharisee and the publican (in Luke 18), it is the sinful publican that has the faith to be saved and not the self-righteous Pharisee that lives the letter of his faith. It is the sinful publican that can’t even lift his eyes to heaven but pleads with God to “be merciful to me a sinner” that does have this sufficient saving faith.

Where do we see this humble pleading before God today? Where do we see the brutal self-awareness of our own failings? Clearly not from the popular advocates of our day. I do not deny that social change is necessary, nor am I suggesting that we throw away the many positive social gains that we have made in recent generations.

I am arguing that the real feminine examples for us now (for all of us) are timeless – and that they are typified in the early Christian church by the remarkable lives of Mary and Martha. We would do well to seriously consider their examples.  

References

For a fascinating account of the conflation of the gospel women see Susan Haskins’s book Mary Magdalen, Myth and Metaphor, published by Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993.

What is Love?

Several years ago my aging father made a shocking announcement. He said that when he was dating my mother, and for several years after they were married, he did not love her.  I was so upset by this that I was unable to respond, and my brother and sisters were likewise very uncomfortably surprised. Dad had always been devoted to Mom. Yes, they had challenges in their marriage but it was obvious that they loved each other a great deal. And this love has continued and endures.

How, then, could my father admit to such a thing? I wondered about it a lot. It bothered me for quite some time. Obviously he was physically attracted to Mom from the start. He also enjoyed the love letters he got from her while they were dating – the ones signed Love, Elsa. I was certain that he loved her all those years ago. Was Dad losing his mind?

He did admit that he felt a great sense of duty to take care of Mom. And he asked me years later if this duty might not be a form of love. We both came to suspect that the current fashion of emotional romanticism was a bit provincial – not a bad thing, but not a historically complete one either.

If you look in the dictionary under love, you soon notice that there are a handful of definitions for this very common word. It can refer to an affectionate concern for another person or to God, it can be an enthusiasm for something, it can also be a sexual attraction – or the act itself. Love is a zero score in tennis, a material worn in mourning and a game of chance.

A love apple is a tomato, a love handle is a layer of fat, a lovelock is a bit of hair, a lovebird is a kind of parrot, a love bush is a kind of dodder, a love potion is a kind of charm. And so it goes. Clearly, love is a lot of different things.

Here, then, was a possible way out of my confusion. Dad, who has always been more given to cerebration than to sentimentality, may not have recognized a keen emotional response to Mom at first. But love her he certainly did. My oldest sister is proof of that.

But Dad’s admission implied something more. Something happened after living with Mom, starting a family, and struggling together as a couple with the challenges of life. He learned of Mom’s astonishing compassion for everyone. He learned of her devotion to him, and of her enduring faith that would become tested almost beyond belief. Dad learned that Mom was truly amazing.

I have come to realize that for many people the deep connection that binds us to others is not manifestly emotional. In fact, most of the time we create connections with others that we may not even be aware of. Of course, our experience with romantic love can be emotionally profound. But there are many very important connections that simply don’t fit the category.

Little children, for example, rarely feel emotionally attached to their family the same way that adults do. They still have to learn what their developing emotions mean. But this should not imply that they do not form bonds with their family or that they do not love their family. To a child its connection to its mother is the most profound experience of its life.

In fact, I believe that the connection between an unborn child and its mother – direct from the womb, through the placenta and into the lifeblood of the infant – continues throughout life. Yes the physical tissue is sundered shortly after birth, but there remains an unseen umbilicus that no amount of circumstance can render.

I saw this firsthand a number of years ago while serving in a small church group to help a young man overcome some of his challenges. He had become estranged from his mother emotionally and in a number of other ways. She was very traditional and could not tolerate much of his behavior – some of which was quite improper. For his part, he could not tolerate the guilty feelings that she seemed to always impose on him.

And yet in spite of this very real impasse, the young man could not be helped until he was able to overcome the breached relationship with his mother. Through the years of estrangement, the unseen umbilicus was still there.

In my own life, I have recently come to recognize that this connection doesn’t even go away when a mother passes away. Truly it is a universal umbilicus. It is a bond that never dies. And if I might expand somewhat on the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s famous essay – it is a most significant proof that “love abides”.

The Apostle Paul understood very well that love is not always a primrose path or a romantic fantasy. In his unsurpassed description of love (found in the 13^th chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians) he compares our experience with love as seeing “through a glass, darkly.”

And recently, Pope Francis has emphasized that love is more importantly tied to truth than to passing emotional experiences.

“Love,” he wrote, “cannot be reduced to an ephemeral emotion. True, it engages our affectivity, but in order to open it to the beloved and thus to blaze a trail leading away from self-centeredness and toward another person, in order to build a lasting relationship, love aims at union with the beloved. Here we begin to see how love requires truth. Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life. Without truth, love is incapable of establishing a firm bond; it cannot liberate our isolated ego or redeem it from the fleeting moment in order to create life and bear fruit.”

I believe that love is the value and importance we place on the very significant connections in our life. These connections can be quite different depending on the persons, the cultures and the circumstances involved. In our time, the emotional part of love has taken center stage. This may be fine, as far as it goes. But there is also a danger in this.

When we confuse love with positive emotions only, we can make the mistake (as many people often do) of thinking that we no longer love someone who has let us down. “I don’t love you anymore,” are heart-wrenching words that, sadly, are spoken much too often. And then, paradoxically, after the words are spoken, the confession is followed by the aching of the soul. Clearly the connection was not lost.

The truth of these tragic situations is that emotions between estranged lovers can become predominantly negative, even though connections remain. And it is because the connections remain that estrangements like separation and divorce are always so painful, despite the fact that this so-called emotional love has long since dissolved.

It is this modern confusion that makes Kierkegaard’s insistence that love abides so counterintuitive.  After all, people fall into and out of love all the time – or so we believe. If, however, we were to ask ourselves if connections between people were to commonly disappear, we might be less certain.

There is only one way for the true connections of love to be broken, and that is through selfishness. In fact selfishness, in this sense, is the refusal to form or to recognize the importance of connections at all. To be this selfish is to live in a cloistered sensual existence.

Many years ago, I fell in love with Kathy Vernon. We had dated off-and-on for many months before she agreed to accept my second proposal and marry me. We made our formal vows in the Salt Lake (Mormon) Temple in the spring, when the Utah foothills are covered with fresh grass, when new oak leaves are still glossy green, and when sego lilies are young and unblemished.

We knew so little about life and had to learn many basics of human relationships. We inevitably used each other as Guinea pigs as we struggled together, in the laboratory of life, to learn how to make a marriage work. We had to figure out money matters, marital roles and how to stay strong for each other when our first child lingered for months on the brink of death. Sometimes we managed OK. At other times we didn’t.

We learned that Kathy was used to a staid and practical masculinity. She had to adapt to a new husband who was neither of these. We learned that I was used to open and sentimental femininity. And I had to adapt to a new wife that kept things to herself and wasn’t comfortable looking into the deep emotional lives of others.

Often she felt overwhelmed and I felt misunderstood. But through all of the challenges we discovered something early on. We discovered that we needed each other very much. And we discovered this during those times when the connection between us was strained. Sometimes it was strained because of misunderstandings. Sometimes it was strained because school and work took me away from home for a while. In either case, the estrangement hurt each of us a lot. I came to realize – for the second time in my life – that these connections are very real.

The first time I realized this was while Kathy and I were dating at BYU. On one particular day we had been together for much of the afternoon (doing something that I no longer remember). I do remember, however, saying goodbye to her at the outer door of her apartment complex.

I said goodbye to Kathy and proceeded to the parking lot. I no sooner had opened the door of my car when I realized that Kathy was inside the complex standing by her front door locked-out of her apartment. How, exactly, I knew this is beyond me. I could neither see her nor hear her. But somehow I knew anyway.

I decided to act on this unusual insight and proceeded back into the complex. And, just as I expected, Kathy was standing outside her door – locked-out – wondering what to do next. She was surprised to see me. I decided not to go into details right then. I was still trying to figure out what my little mystical experience meant.

I have since come to understand what was unclear to me then: my connection to Kathy goes far beyond the visible and audible. It is a deeper thread that is forever unbreakable.

You may find this admission a bit over-stated.  After all, no one can be sure that love will last forever? Please notice, however, what I actually said. I said that the connection between us would never break. I do believe with all my heart that I will always value this connection greatly – in other words, that I will always love Kathy.

But even if the unthinkable happened and we were separated, for any number of reasons, the connection we have with each other would still exist. We have shared too much of our lives and our hearts. Dissolving this bond is no longer possible.

I do not think that every connection we have with others implies a loving relationship. But I do believe that everyone we love involves a connection. And we would do well to remember that the straining of these connections only ends up hurting everybody, ourselves included.

Which brings me to my final point; which is, that the loving connections of our lives are gifts from God. And as such, they are not ours to create or destroy on our own account.

“God is love,” declares the Apostle John (1 John 4:8). And as the Prophet Mormon indicated, this special kind of love – the love called charity that is defined as God’s love – is a gift that must be bestowed on us from above (Moroni 7:48).

We have not been entrusted with the disposition of loving connections. This is a privilege retained by a greater power than our own. And this should be obvious to anyone paying much attention to the world we live in. We are not just animals that interact with others of our own species purely by instinct, and then proceed on our merry way. Neither are our interactions with others the mere unconscious calculations so favored by evolutionary psychologists.

We interact with others, and in so doing, we form lasting bonds. And if we follow the direction of Heaven and lose ourselves in the service of others, we cannot help but form a vast network of relationships that will bind us to others forever. And like a grove of giant redwoods that withstand the storms of centuries because of their interlocking roots, we can bind each other together in divine ligands that were made for the eternities.

Maybe you feel that you cannot love or be loved. Perhaps you have convinced yourself that you were born unattractive or are not the romantic type. If you have ever thought this way, you had best think again. Whether or not you love or are capable of being loved is not your decision.

The Hollywood and dime novel version of love is not the whole story – or even the most important one. Most love is very different. A good neighbor loves. So does a thoughtful employer, or neighbor, or friend. A parent loves and so does a teacher. You are loved in more ways than you know. And surprisingly, you love more people than you realize.

It no longer bothers me that Dad didn’t have deep romantic feelings for Mom. He spent most of his life devoted to her. For many years, when Mom was often sick and confined to her bed, he cared for her and never complained. Dad and Mom have been profoundly connected from the start. And they always will be. God has promised that they will. He has promised that Love Abides. 

References

For a good overview of how love has been understood in the great books, see Chapter 50: Love, in Mortimer J. Adler and William Gorman (eds.) The Great Ideas, A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World. My copy of Love Abides is in Jaroslav Pelikan’s (ed.) The World Treasury of Modern Religious Thought. Published by Little, Brown and Company, 1990. The paragraph written by Pope Francis is found on page 48 of The Light of Faith, Lumen Fidei, published this year (2013) by Ignatius Press.

A Personal Note on Feminism

The word feminism, like the word love, should never be used unless its meaning is clear. There is just too much confusion, and too many opposing meanings, otherwise. Not unlike the word love, which can mean the highest of divine attributes or the meanest of mortal depravities, the word feminism confronts the world with an equal mixture of motives and mores.

I hesitate to write on a subject that will probably be misunderstood and possibly resented. But I believe that my understanding of the subject as a biologist provides a perspective that may be helpful to someone confused about some very basic points of human nature.

To begin with, mortality is a Darwinian reality. I’m not asking anyone to agree with or disagree with many of the tenets of evolutionary biology. But I do take it as a given fact that there is a struggle to survive that applies not just to beasts but to humans as well. It may seem crude to insist on the survival of the fittest and on the fact that some of us are more gifted than others. But in reality some individuals will (and do) out-compete their fellows for the goods of this earth.

Part of this reality includes inherent differences between men and women. I don’t mean to argue about the relative capabilities of men and women in the workplace. I find much of this tedious. But there is little room to doubt that of the two sexes, men are stronger and more competitive as a group and on average.

Argue if you wish about the biological meaning of this inequality and of its fairness in the modern world. The end result is the same. Whether on a stone-age deer hunt, or in a modern corporate office, men will use their advantages to promote themselves and their Darwinian fitness. Women will lose most of these battles, especially if they try and engage them with masculine pretensions.

Natural feminine leadership builds on the natural strengths of women. They are different than the natural strengths of men, although there are often many areas of overlap. The greatest goods of human life are the purview of these feminine gifts. I mean, of course, the blessings of hearth and home.

From a religious standpoint, men are just as guilty as women in neglecting this truth. If it is a virtue for a mother to stay at home with her growing children, it is also a virtue for a father to spend as much time in the home as is appropriate. Neal A. Maxwell was clear that the warning of Jacob Chapter 4 (verse 14) – that men will fall if they look “beyond the mark” – refers to those who do not make the gospel a focus in their families. This applies to men and women alike.

We will look in vain if we try to find a Christian justification for corporate competitiveness. And sadly, much of the disquiet over the leadership roles of women in the church likewise follows this very mortal preoccupation with misplaced power. Women, thinking they will only be happy if they get part of this power, neglect their quieter natural leadership – the leadership of nurturing – and in so doing often mortgage their own opportunities for personal happiness.

The Latter-day Saint position on the eternal nature of feminine leadership is not clear, but it might be imagined. And I think it is very real and very pertinent to the modern Latter-day Saint angst over a male-dominated church hierarchy.

We don’t know what sort of leadership or priesthood our Mother in Heaven holds. But we can imagine that it is significant. It may very well be comparable to that of our Heavenly Father. It may be even greater. I suspect that the nurturing gifts of mortal women are a clue to what it is like. But think about what this means.

In an eternal world, where we no longer live by Darwinian laws and where Celestial beings are filled with the love of God, would not feminine leadership be valued more than it is here and now?

And would it not be a great mistake, then, to confuse the power of a fallen world with eternal opportunities? I say this for the benefit of men and women alike. If a man feels the need to express his masculinity in an ersatz form of domestic leadership, he is in for a rude awakening I suspect – when he awakens in the eternal world to realize that feminine virtues are no longer the condescending palliatives offered to the weak and disadvantaged. Feminine virtues will in all likelihood perfuse eternal Celestial lives for everyone.

Darwinism is a passing phase. Families and the nature of men and women are eternal. Of course we should seek to establish justice and rectify inequality. Of course the women of the world need a great deal more care. But this will never be done properly in a world were Darwinian selfishness governs our everyday lives.

Mortality was never designed as a place for women to exercise masculine leadership. In this world the only way to properly appreciate and reward women is to understand their eternal place in God’s family. If we are to hope for an equitable world right now, it will only happen if we keep this perspective.

References

For Elder Maxwell’s argument about Jacob Chapter 4, see That My Family Should Partake (page 7).

Individualism and the Fabulous Animal

In one of the great statements against human naturalism, G.K. Chesterton argued that, “We can accept [man] as an animal, if we can live with a fabulous animal.”

This is quite an arresting image. It turns our traditional version of the fable upside down. And yet this tergiversation is obviously valid. Instead of the animal that talks, tells stories, laughs about the past or dreams about the future, we see human beings doing the same thing. And of course, this is fabulous, because animals (which supposedly include us) don’t do such things.

It is also a ringing challenge to those who deny human exceptionalism. And most captivating of all is that wonderful word “fabulous”. I say wonderful because in addition to the traditional sense of that word (of talking and thinking in ways that fabulous animals do - and in ways that non-fabulous animals do not) we are also fabulous because we can willfully transcend our mortal nature. We are also wonderful. Indeed, we are fabulous.

One of my favorite fables is Aesop’s fable of The Dog and the Wolf. In the story, a hungry and skinny wolf meets a fat and happy dog. The wolf asks the dog how he seems to be so well off. The dog replies that his master feeds him for watching the house at night and for keeping thieves away. And then the wolf notices the scar around the dog’s neck. He learns that the scar is from the rope that keeps the dog tied up during the day, and the wolf decides to leave. “Well,” says the wolf as he departs, “you can just keep your nice, fat happiness, I’ll take my skinny old freedom any day or night. I’d rather be free than fat.”

Chesterton asks us to consider why a talking and reasoning human being is no more remarkable than a talking or reasoning wolf. This is so obvious – or at least it should be – that we marvel at the institutional sophistry that ignores it.

Suppose for the sake of argument, however, that humans are no more remarkable than any other living species. This means, of course, that we inherited our likes and dislikes, our hopes and fears, and our many biological constraints from other forms of life.

This also means that even our most inspiring moral achievements: The Decalogue, Magna Carta, The Sermon on the Mount, etc., were only ways to enhance the reproductive success of their respective authors. It means that we are really only interested, one by one, in taking care of our own carnal self. We are forced by our biological history to be individualists.

Perhaps you don’t like the portrayal of this word “individualism” in such a negative way. Especially if you are a warm-blooded American, you believe that individualism is one of the great virtues of your heritage. I know that I most certainly do.

But the word “individualism” didn’t start out this way. Yehoshua Arieli has pointed out that the concept is of non-American origin and that it represented an ideology in direct opposition to our current system of values. To be an individualist meant to have an excessive regard to personal interests. In a word, to be selfish, even to the nth degree. It was individualism, for example, that was responsible for the abuses of the French Revolution. And it is individualism that is the enemy of our higher religious sensibilities.

Of course it is also individualism that lies at the heart of Darwinian naturalism. Each individual is inherently programmed to look after itself. Survival of the fittest is the epigram inscribed over the lintels of our modern institutions.

But in America we changed that meaning. After all, our ancestors came to this land with a personal optimism and dreamed of success. Some of them failed. But many of them didn’t. And through the years we have adopted a can-do attitude that not only recognizes magnanimous behavior, but has come to expect it.

It is the individual, after all, that takes out the neighbor’s trash when she is on vacation. It is the individual that helps a handicapped stranger cross the street. It is the individual that decides, even in the middle of a hard day, to follow the admonitions of Christ.

Our greatest examples of human excellence are generally religious individuals. And we recognize their excellence in direct proportion to their examples of serving others. As Robert Bellah has pointed out, a prophet is never a private individual. Any truthful assessment of human nature must deal with these remarkable individuals just as they must deal with the egotist. It should be clear that individualism can be a lot of different things.

Individualism, like the wolf in Aesop’s fable, insists on personal autonomy. Unlike the dog that is tethered to its master’s decisions, the individualist decides to either follow a carnal nature or to follow a higher law. In a very real way, our individual response to the world determines what kind of fabulous animal we will be. We can remain guttered in the mortal nature “red in tooth and claw” or we can overcome our carnal instincts and live a remarkable life. Only as individuals can we decide to live a life that transcends our individual selfishness. Only as individuals can we decide to be charitable – or, to use the proper academic word, can we decide to be altruistic.

The altruist is the humanitarian that helps others when the offered help provides no benefit to himself. The altruist might be a young man who helps others to escape from a fire. It might be a women volunteering at a homeless shelter. Any non-reciprocal aid to a non-relative falls into this category of altruism. Needless to say, many human naturalists deny that any such thing exists. To them, any apparent altruistic act is merely a hidden attempt at winning favors. One wonders what sort of human beings these theorists think we are.

(In fairness, though, there has not been enough thought given to these two forms of altruism. I mean the spontaneous help given to a stranger (the type focused on by evolutionary theorists – perhaps because it is amenable to their theories) and the thoughtful transcendence of self that a determined religious commitment develops.)

There has been a great deal of academic posturing around this concept of altruism. This is because a great deal is at stake. On the surface, and for all practical reasons, charitable acts to others (especially to non-relatives) do not make Darwinian sense. And if this is true, then a great deal of the humanist argument fails.

It is a measure of our myopia that we even fall for these naturalistic arguments. The very reality of our individuality confronts us on every side, every day, and with everyone we meet. The denial of this individuality is no longer tenable. The biological laws of meiotic recombination make it so.

And yet this same ineluctable individuality forces us to acknowledge that we are very different from the rest of the created order. Our individualism greatly transcends a mere genetic reshuffling. It involves the will and our mental and spiritual awareness. And herein lies the great irony: that our institutional naturalism denies our fabulous nature even as our natural individualism insists upon it.

So next time you stop to talk to your dog, or to rub the sore around its neck, remember our friend G. K. Chesterton, and consider just what it all means. I think you will agree with us. We truly are fabulous.     

References

Chesterton’s statement comes from The Everlasting Man (the last paragraph of Chapter I, The Man in the Cave). My copy of The Dog and the Wolf is on page 17 of Aesop’s Fables, published by Easton Press, 1979. My summary of Arieli’s work on individualism comes from Gary Wills’s book Head and Heart, American Christianities, published by The Penguin Press in 2007. Robert Bellah’s point about prophets is on page 317 of Religion in Human Evolution (published by The Belknap Press in 2011).

Keys to the Gates of Peter

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri describes a place between the dolorous regions of Inferno and the blessed abode of Paradiso. It is the challenging and redemptive Mountain of Purgatory. This is the place where Dante and his travelling companion Virgil – and by extension the rest of humankind – learn how to cleanse themselves of the seven deadly sins that are endemic to humanity.

In order to be allowed passage from Inferno, one must pass through a small gate that is guarded by the Apostle Peter, or by one of his angel helpers. This is the place that has been recognized in Christian literature and art as the Gates of Peter. This is the Christian recognition of Peter’s role – proclaimed by Christ Himself (in the 16th Chapter of The Gospel of Matthew) that, “Thou art Peter: and upon this rock I will build my church: and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

These gospel verses have tremendous significance in Christian history although they are largely passed over by theologians. The meaning doesn’t really seem to be difficult to understand. Early Christian writers (along with most of their subsequent followers) understood them to vindicate the leadership of the Catholic Church – manifest in Christ’s recognition of Peter.

So, for example, Theodore of Mopsuestia indicated that this verse, “shows, in consequence, that this is the common good of the church … that in the church would be the key of the kingdom of heaven.”

John, Patriarch of Jerusalem (575-593 A.D.), wrote: “As for… the Holy Church, we have the word of the Lord who said to Peter, Chief of the Apostles, when giving him the primacy of the Faith for the strengthening of the churches. “Thou art Peter, etc.” To this same Peter He has given keys of heaven and earth; it is in following his faith that to this day his disciples and the doctors of the Catholic Church bind and loose; they bind the wicked and loose from their chains those who do penance.”

Saint Theodore of Studium (795-826 A.D.) would likewise affirm: “Since it is to the great Peter that Christ our God gave the Keys of the Kingdom and entrusted the dignity of the Chief of the flock, it is to Peter, that is to say, his successor, that one ought to submit every innovation which is made in the Catholic Church by those who turn aside from the truth.”

The sources from the time of the creeds to this day are fairly consistent within the Catholic Church: the keys given to Peter are granted to the Catholic Church as emblems of spiritual authority.

But this is not really the emphasis that we see in Matthew’s account. Instead of emphasizing the role of keys as symbols of power and authority, the context of the narrative is that of salvation in the world beyond the veil: the “gates of hell”, “the kingdom of heaven”, “whatsoever…shall be bound in heaven”. This is quite a different perspective than the traditional one emphasized in ecclesiastical history.

There have been, however, notable exceptions. The heavenly tradition (if I might call it that) is quite clear in the Divine Comedy. Here Peter has been given charge of granting passage to the departed souls seeking escape from the sufferings of Inferno – not of an ecclesiastic position of authority.

Clearly these two interpretations of Matthew 16:18-19 have existed side by side for a very long time. So, for example, George Ladd (formerly Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary) states clearly that “The truth is implicit in the statement that the gates of Hades should not prevail against the church.” He then goes on to admit that the “image of the gates of the realm of the dead is a familiar Semitic concept.”

For anyone interested in Old Testament references to the gates to the realm of the dead see: Isaiah 38:10, Psalms 9:13, Psalms 107:18, Job 38:17, etc. One particularly interesting reference is in Genesis 28 (verses 17-18) where Jacob stops in his travels to sleep and dreams that he sees the Lord. When he awakes he understands that, “Surely the Lord is in this place … This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

The gates of Hades mentioned in Matthew’s text do not refer to the Catholic Church. The sense of the dialogue between Christ and Peter is concern for the souls in the Kingdom of Heaven. The keys given to Peter are to save the spiritual lives of men and women, both in this life and in the life beyond. They are not a grant of political power in this world, whether that be civic, ecclesiastic, or of any other institution.

Hugh Nibley made this quite clear in Mormonism and Early Christianity. In the important passage, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” the word it is all important. It has been understood almost exclusively to refer to the church. But as Nibley says: “Moreover, the thing which is held back, is not the church, for the object is not in the accusative but in the partitive genitive: it is “hers,” part of her, that which belongs to her, that the gates will not be able to contain.” Clearly this is a reference to those in spirit prison. “[A]nd the gates of hell shall not prevail against [those that are now a part of her – i.e. those that are in spirit prison]”.

This is the meaning that Dante understood when he wrote of the gates of Peter. It is also the tradition that we have preserved in the image of the “pearly gates” – mentioned at the end of the 21st chapter of Revelations (verse 21) – where the gates of heaven are made of pearls.

Yes, Peter became the leader of Christ’s church on earth. But the keys themselves have always been meant to save others – whether in this life or beyond the veil – not as a means of power. “My kingdom is not of this world,” proclaimed Jesus to Pilate. Why should He then grant to Peter keys to something that is not His – keys, that is, to earthly power?

Clearly this was not the intent. The keys of the priesthood are keys to salvation. They allow for the work of redeeming the dead. In the meantime we are left to the powers that be (often lamentably so). This doesn’t mean that we are to passively suffer the injustices imposed on us by the purveyors of power. Far from it. It does mean, however, that God’s work can continue in spite of these injustices.

Yes, The Kingdom of Heaven will come and Christ will be its ruler. But in the meantime, the leader of His church on earth will hold the keys to the temple, not the keys to the White House. It was never meant to be any other way.
References

The famous verse in the Gospel of Matthew is Chapter 16 verses 18 and 19. Theodore of Mopsuestia’s quote is from Fragment 92, cited in Manlio Simonetti’s Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament Ib (Thomas C. Oden General Editor). Intervarsity Press, 2002. The quotes from Saint Theodore of Studium and John, patriarch of Jerusalem can be found in James Likoudis’s St. Thomas Aquinas, Papal Supremacy, and the Witness of the eastern Churches in the First Millennium (www.credo.stormloader.com/Ecumenic/thomaqui.htm). George Ladd’s A Theology of the New Testament was published by Eerdman’s in 1974. The references to the realm of the dead are on page 116. For Nibley’s discussion see Mormonism and Early Christianity (Deseret Book Company, 1987) pages 106-108.

How to Be Happy

Children can teach us a lot of things. Before they begin to second-guess the world around them, they are amazingly innocent. They laugh when they are happy, cry when they are sad, and (despite our condescending habits) really pout when they are mad.

I have had the good fortune of being able to observe this very revealing childhood laboratory of human nature for a long time. My daughter Alicia (now 21 years old) has been a child for over two decades. She suffers from a form of epilepsy that has rendered her mind aphasic in many ways. She sees the world differently than most of us, and her emotional life is very basic. She can be very happy or sad but doesn’t get overly bothered by the moods of others.

One very noticeable part of her affliction is the lack of a sense of self. Alicia doesn’t care what she looks like or how she behaves. She has never worried about what others might think of her. It is very easy for those of us that live with her, to know how she feels. She is incapable of hiding anything.

When Alicia is happy she smiles and claps her hands. This isn’t a habitual token. It comes from her heart. And the applause isn’t intended for anybody else. It is an intense and rapid staccato that is sparked by her burst of emotional contentment. And it is quite interesting to see what makes her feel this way. Over the course of two decades, I have learned a lot about what makes her happy by trying to get her out of bad moods.

The best way to make Alicia smile is to tell her she has done a good job. It doesn’t matter too much what her accomplishment has been. Often we compliment her for reading a sentence correctly in a children’s book. Sometimes we compliment her on the way she sorts the spoons. She takes great satisfaction (and seems to be constantly clapping) when working on a jigsaw puzzle that she is good at. And she loves being recognized when she sings the right words of a song.

But more interesting to me is the other major reason that Alicia smiles. It happens when she makes other people happy. Many years ago, when she was a little girl, Alicia noticed how happy I was when she handed me a wash cloth after I brushed my teeth. She had watched me enough times to memorize my little routine, including the way I washed my face afterwards. On one particular day she decided to help. When I smiled and give her a kiss, she just bubbled with happiness and began clapping with real energy. I just had to give her a big hug.

Now, however, this fun little experience has become a good deal less entertaining. Alicia tries to help me in the same way every time she sees me brush my teeth. She has mastered all kinds of variations on the theme. Sometimes she throws me a towel. At other times she sneaks up behind me to surprise me. It has become annoying – as most things are after being repeated hundreds of times. But I don’t have the heart to let her know it bothers me. I still muster a smile and tell her how polite she is.

Alicia enjoys bringing you a glass of water as long as she knows it makes you happy. She will also willingly pass you a plate of food at dinner if you make sure to seem pleased. And she will watch a basketball game on TV (even though she doesn’t understand the game) and shout hooray if your team scores – when she sees that you are celebrating too.

I have also observed something very interesting about what fails to make Alicia happy. I mean her continuous need to acquire things. She can be annoyingly fixated on gathering the oddest objects. She will try and steal cups and water bottles in order to enhance her little backyard laboratory of bubble blowing. She will refuse to leave a parking lot if there are hair bands (however small) to be found. And if she thinks there are pennies nearby, she won’t stop looking until she finds one. More frustrating is the need she has to gather more and more books from the library shelves every time she visits (which she insists on doing almost every day).

Alicia acts out an extreme that the rest of us normally experience under better self-control. We know how fun it is to get a present or a bit of spending money. And so we believe that acquiring things is a way to become happy. Alicia’s experience is noteworthy: the psychological drive to acquire does not make us happy. In excess it can only lead to frustration. Yes, a thoughtful gift can make our day. But the belief that we constantly need more things is a childish error.

Just last week I was reminded of both of these truths in sharp contrast. I am in the process of moving my office to my home. I am now working out of my house. Part of this change involves buying several fairly expensive things. I got a new printer, new phones, other new electronic devices, even a company vehicle. It was getting quite a bit more than I ever get for Christmas or for my birthday. It was all nice, but left me none the happier. I still sought out time with my family and a good book at the end of the day.

On the other hand, I was thrilled by a note Kathy received at the same time I was buying all of these things. The note was from a friend in North Carolina (where we used to live) who had attended a class wherein students were asked to name some of the people that had made a difference in their lives. Many students mentioned bishops or school teachers. And apparently one of the students mentioned my name. When I learned this, I felt a real joy. It made me happy all week (and continues to do so as I write about it). It was a very clear example to me that helping others can make us much happier than can the acquisition of things.

We, in the Western World, are surfeited with these kinds of things. In any given week, the mere packaging of the things I might buy is of more value than all of the weekly purchases of a typical individual among the millions of the World’s poor. And yet, for those of us who have been privileged to visit these developing countries, it is obvious that we are no happier than they are. Very often the opposite is truer.

Go “sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” (Luke 18:22) Such a demand from the Lord was too much for the rich young ruler. And it is certainly too much to ask of most of us today. And yet the truth has never changed. If we should spend all our days serving others – even if we only manage to help a very few - “how great shall be your joy” (Doctrine & Covenants 18:15).