Martins joined the LDS church in 1972 with his wife Ruda and son Marcus. Grover describes in detail race relations in Brazil. From page 36,

“This racial climate is a positive factor in the functioning and success of Brazilians of African descent. It does not eliminate issues of race, but it places them in a difference context. Elder Martins is an example of how a person of color can succeed in this type of social system.”

Martins grew up very poor. Grover says on page 37,

“He liked school and had a firm commitment to education, so he was unhappy when, after the sixth grade, knowing that his parent needed help, he left school to begin earning money to help them. At age twelve, he found only low-paying jobs: picking oranges or digging ditches. It was a step up to become a courier at a law office.”

Grover says that Martin never regretted helping his family; instead it furthered his resolve to get an education. His greatest help ended up being his future wife, Ruda. She worked as a secretary in a law office, and encouraged his to continue to pursue his education. Ironically, Ruda’s family was his first exposure to racism. From page 38,

Ruda’s family were fair-skinned mulattos and were concerned about their daughter marrying someone darker. A common belief in the Afro-Brazilian community was that marrying someone darker would “weaken” their racial lineage. “They had feelings against those who were darker and were actually more intolerant because they were not white but yet did not want to marry someone who was darker,” Helvecio explained. “They felt that it would be better if their children married either mulattos or whites but never someone darker than they.

Ruda and Helvecio continued to study and date, and eventually Helvecio became a favorite of his mother in law. After they married, both continued to work; Helvecio finished a bachelor’s degree in accounting at night, and went on to take finance and business administration graduate classes, as well as a teaching certificate. He earned a job at the government owned oil company, Petrobas, and taught night finance and business administration classes at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. He moved up the corporate ladder very quickly at Petrobas.

Helvicio grew up with the Catholic faith, but adopted his wife’s religion of Macumba, “an Afro-Brazilian religion that included, among other beliefs, spirit possession and the worship of African gods.” Page 40 continues,

Thus, even as Martins became one of few blacks in a job environment and social circle that included Brazil’s president and was almost exclusively white, he and Ruda participated in one of the most distinct black cultural groups in the country—one that appealed primarily to poor and black Brazilians.

In 1972, he and Ruda felt the need to look for another religion. Missionaries arrived at this opportune time, and they were baptized on June 2, 1972. Their baptism created conflict with Ruda’s family, but Helvecio’s sister eventually joined the church as well. From pages 41-42,

Helvecio’s and Ruda’s acceptance of the priesthood restrictions was, surprisingly not difficult. In fact, it had been the first question they had asked the missionaries; and Helvecio, although he could not later remember the exact words, recalled that “it was very clear and precise and sounded so right that it didn’t bother me at all. At that time I accepted it as being the will and desire of the Lord” (28) In fact, they were somewhat annoyed that it became an issue that other members of the Church frequently brought up. In the beginning their complete acceptance of the restrictions and continued activity in the Church created some questions and even mild antagonism toward them from members who were struggling to understand the restrictions themselves. Many expected the family to leave the Church soon and were surprised when they remained active…

However, they then went from being a novelty in the Church to notoriety, attracting attention that they did not desire. In fairness to their ecclesiastical leaders, the Martinses were unique. There were other faithful black members, but most were poor. Helvecio probably had the highest social position and prestige of any Brazilian member, white or black. Few members had any political or economic influence, while Martins was on a first-name basis with the president of Brazil. He met often with cabinet members and other government officials or groups about the priesthood ban. They also gave interviews to the press who were curious about the restrictions and about the Martinses’ acceptance of those limitations.

Helvecio spoke in stake conference shortly after his baptism and was introduced to all the General Authorities who visited Rio de Janeiro, including several apostles. His visibility was so extensive that his colleagues at work started referring to him as a “Mormon bishop.”

None of Helvecio’s reaction was artificial or compensatory. “I didn’t feel bad, I felt very good,” he states with the utmost sincerity. “I felt supported and blessed. Logically I realized there were many things I could have done and many ways I could have served that [were] not possible because I didn’t hold the priesthood. But I didn’t feel any less or inferior or rejected or relegated to a second-class citizen. Everybody supported me, everybody helped and assisted me, and I felt that things were even a bit easy for me.” (38)

Grover discusses Martins advantages growing up in Brazil. From page 43,

He did not see the priesthood restrictions as aimed at him personally but rather to a group of which he was part. That is an important psychological factor that meant he did not take the restrictions personally. Second, because he lived in Brazil, he did not have access to much of the literature in the United States giving various unofficial “reasons” that could have created confusion and conflict. This lack of information probably helped eliminate many potential concerns, and he could reconcile himself to the restrictions with what he knew.¹⁵

Third, the restrictions did not significantly affect his participation in the Church. Some Afro-Brazilians in Brazil report being baptized and then forgotten; but Helvecio’s leaders recognized and respected his status and experience outside of the Church. Within a week, both were immediately called to positions that did not require priesthood. Helvecio became teacher of the Gospel Doctrine class, while Ruda served as a counselor in the ward Primary presidency. Such callings quickly integrated them into the fabric of their ward and stake, giving them considerable interaction with the other members.

Finally, he was in a Brazilian congregation that did not exhibit the forms of racism that might have existed elsewhere, even in Brazil. Most in the congregation probably did not attach much significance to the racial restrictions except as an American practice that came with the gospel but was not essentially Brazilian. Most Brazilians dealt with the restrictions by ignoring them as much as possible.

Martins served in many positions, including Public Relations Director, stake executive secretary, and counselor in two stake presidencies, bishop, and mission president (twice). At the end of this second stint as mission president, he was called to the Second Quorum of Seventy in 1990. From page 47,

After a year in Brazil, he suffered a serious accident in June 1991. He fell in the shower and needed surgery on his neck to correct the effects of a fall in the shower and needed surgery on his neck to correct the effects of the fall and an earlier injury from a car crash in 1969. That surgery affected his ability to move, and he struggled to maintain his health. He continued to work hard through suffering chronic back pain. In October 1995 at age sixty-five, he was released after five years as a Seventy.”

Grover notes that Martins is “remembered only sparingly in connection to the black issue.” From page 48,

Although I think that knowing Elder Martins would greatly enhance anyone’s life, this comparative anonymity would actually please him. The last thing he wanted to be known as a symbol of his race. He stated firmly to me: “Soon after my call, some poorly informed people ironically tried to identify me as the Brazilian General Authority, or a representative of the black race to the Lord. This idea is a mistake. I was not called by the Lord to represent any people, nationality, ethnic group, race, or any part of society or group of His children. I was called as a representative of the Lord to his people, just as those who preceded me, those at my side now, and those in higher Quorums than the idea of one I now am a member….Consequently I formally reject the idea of representing any group; that is not what I am.” (76).

Finally, I enjoyed what Grover wrote about race issues. From page 51,

Much has been written about Mormonism and race issues in the United States with minimal reference to South America or the Caribbean. Brazil has by far the largest number of members of the Church (hundreds of thousands) who are black. A high percentage of some congregations are of African descent.³⁴

Numerous black bishops and stake presidents are serving and have served. Research that discusses race in the Church but which does not examine what is happening in Brazil, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Columbia, or other areas of Latin America, let alone Africa, will not be accurate. Focusing only on African Americans seriously distorts the overall picture of blacks in the church.³⁵

So, do you agree that we have a distorted view of blacks in the church?

Growing up, Immaculee had no idea if she was a Hutu or a Tutsi.  Her parents had endured previous political unrest, and wanted to raise their children as if their tribe did not matter.  (It turns out she was a minority Tutsi.)  In 1994, this awful episode began, and she hid with 7 other women in a small bathroom.  She lost half her body weight, and spent literally 3 months praying.  (She is a Roman Catholic.)  The subtitle of the book is “Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust”.

She describes her attempt to forgive, even amidst this awful tragedy.  She describes a spiritual experience she had, while essentially witnessing a murder.  I don’t emotionally understand the experience, but I can slightly grasp it intellectually.  She describes hearing the murder of a Tutsi mother, and her child left to die:

page 93-94,

One night I heard screaming not far from the house, and then a baby crying.  The killers must have slain the mother and left her infant to die in the road.  The child wailed all night; by morning, its cries were feeble and sporadic, and by nightfall, it was silent.  I heard dogs snarling nearby and shivered as I thought about how that baby’s life had ended.  I prayed for God to receive the child’s innocent soul, and then I asked Him, How can I forgive people who would do such a thing to an infant?

I heard His answer as clearly as if we’d been sitting in the same room chatting: You are all my children…and the baby is with Me now.

It was such a simple sentence, but it was the answer to the prayers I’d been lost in for days.

The killers were like children.  Yes, they were barbaric creatures who would have to be punished severely for their actions, but they were still children.  They were cruel, vicious, and dangerous, as kids sometimes can be, but nevertheless, they were children.  They saw, but didn’t understand the terrible harm they’d inflicted.  They’d blindly hurt others without thinking, they’d hurt their Tutsi brothers and sisters, they’d hurt God–and they didn’t understand how badly they were hurting themselves.  Their minds had been infected with the evil that had spread across the country, but their souls weren’t evil.  Despite their atrocities, they were children of God, and I could forgive a child, although it would not be easy…especially when that child was trying to kill me.

In God’s eyes, the killers were part of His family, deserving of love and forgiveness.  I knew that I couldn’t ask God to love me if I were unwilling to love His children.  At that moment, I prayed for the killers, for their sins to be forgiven.  I prayed that God would lead them to recognize the horrific error of their ways before their life on Earth ended–before they were called to acocunt for their mortal sins.

I held on to my father’s rosary and asked God to help me, and again I hear His voice: Forgive them, they know not what they do.

I took a crucial step toward forgiving the killers that day.  My anger was draining from me–I’d opened my heart to God, and He’d touched it with His infinite love.  For the first time, I pitied the killers.  I asked God to forgive their sins and turn their souls toward His beautiful light.

That night I prayed with a clear conscience and a clean haert.  For the first time since I entered the bathroom, I slept in peace.

I still can’t fathom her capacity to forgive.  It is awe-inspiring to me.  After the war, she met the man (one of her neighbors), that killed her parents, stole their property, and burned her home to the ground.  Semana, the jailhouse guard allowed her to see him so she could spit on him if she wanted.  From page 204,

“He looted your parents’ home and robbed your family’s plantation, Immaculee.  We found your dad’s farm machinery at his house, didn’t we?”  Semana yelled at Felicien.  ”After he killed [your mother] Rose and [brother] Damascene, he kept looking for you…he wanted you dead so he could take over your property.  Didn’t you, pig?” Semana shouted again.

I flinched, letting out an involuntary gasp.  Semana looked at me, stunned by my reaction and confused by the tears streaming down my face.  He grabbed Felicien by the shirt collar and hauled him to his feet.  ”What do you have to say to her?  What do you have to say to Immaculee?”

Felicien was sobbing.  I could feel his shame.  He looked up at me for only a moment, but our eyes met.  I reached out, touched his hands lightly, and quietly said what I’d come to say.

“I forgive you.”

My heart eased immediately, and I saw the tension release in Felicien’s shoulders before Semana pushed him out the door and into the courtyard.  Two soldiers yanked Felicien up by his armpits and dragged him back toward his cell.  When Semana returned, he was furious.

“What was that all about, Immaculee?”  that was the man who murdered your family.  I brought him to you to question…to spit on if you wanted to.  But you forgave him!  How could you do that?  Why did you forgive him?”

I answered him with all truth:  ”Forgiveness is all I have to offer.”

I never want to experience a tragedy so awful.  I truly admire Immaculee’s capacity to forgive; she is a tremendous example of a Christian.

I believe Paul invented Christianity, not Jesus. There are only a couple of last minute, thrown-in scriptures that Christians use to claim Jesus intended to start a new church, but the overwhelming evidence points to Jesus merely trying to reform Judaism.

He went on to say,

Paul is definitely the one that changed Christianity into what it is even today. It was Paul that actually brought the Gentiles into the fold without the need for circumcision. It was Paul that stated Jesus fulfilled Mosaic Law including the law of tithing, on and on. The movement that Paul inherited was not a unique religion but was a Jewish sect. Paul made it a unique religion. In fact, if there actually was a falling away, Paul is the one that initiated it.

In a previous post on the Apostle Paul’s Remains, Bishop Rick said,

There are many who believe that without Paul, there would be no Christian faith…that it is him that kept it from going the way of all the cults of the time. It was Paul that took Christianity beyond Judaism. Until then, it was really just another Jewish sect.

As I mentioned there, and I will mention again, I disagree with Bishop Rick.  Here in America, we tend to think the Catholic Church claims to be founded from Peter, and then Martin Luther started the Reformation.  Mormons believe Joseph Smith started the restoration.  However, such a  picture is highly simplistic, and not entirely accurate.

At the death of Christ, there was a large movement known as Gnosticism.  This dates right to the time of Christ.  Christian gnostics believed that Christ was not actually human, that he was not born, and that he came supernaturally to the earth.  They don’t believe in Mary, Joseph, the star, and all that is associated in the Biblical story.  The Gospel of Thomas is a gnostic gospel.  It is not a narrative, like the 4 gospels are, but rather just a group of sayings of Jesus.  Gnostics valued intellectual/spiritual knowledge above all.  One could say they were the first group to espouse “intellectualism.”  Gnosticism is kind of an umbrella term, like Protestantism.  Just as not all Protestants believe exactly the same things, there are different flavors of Gnosticism.  Gnostic groups rivaled Orthodox Christianity in size until about the 7th or 8th centuries.  Constantine persecuted the Gnostics in favor of Orthodox Christianity.  I did another post discussing the varying beliefs of Gnostics.

About 2 years ago, I did a post on Montanism which dates to about 170 AD.  Briefly Montanus was a Christian prophet from Turkey, and I discussed interesting similarites between him and Joseph Smith.  I also did a post on Marcionism.   Marcion lived 110 – 160 AD in Sinope, Turkey.  He is probably the first person who tried to establish a Christian canon.  His New Testament was much smaller than ours today.  It included an edited version of the Gospel of Luke, and 10 of Paul’s letters.  He was the son of a bishop, and originally embraced by the orthdox church, but due to his embracing of Gnostic doctrines, he was excommunicated.  However, his movement became so large that it rivaled the orthodox church in size for about a century.

I also know about Ariunism, but have yet to post on the topic.  Arius was an early Christian leader that rejected the doctrine of the Trinity.  Now his idea of God isn’t the same as the Mormon conceptualization either, but he does show some diversity of thought as well.

The Catholic church wasn’t really distinct from the Orthodox Church officially until about 1000 AD.  A case can be made that there was some schismatic activity as early as about 700 AD, but prior to 1000, there really was no Catholic church–it was known as the Orthodox Church.  I previously discussed the idea of theosis in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and its similarities to Mormon Exaltation.

So, suffice it to say, I think there is a lot more diversity of Christianity than simply Paul.  Certainly Paul was a great missionary, and affected Western Christianity significantly.  However, Gnosticism was well established at the time of Paul, and certainly other movements like Marcionism, Ariunism, and Montanism (to name a few) spread Christianity as well.  I think it is a stretch to call Paul the author of Christianity.

Palm Sunday

It is always celebrated exactly one week prior to Easter.  The celebration refers to Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey.  It is one event captured in all 4 gospels, but only The Gospel of John talks about people waving Palm fronds in front of Jesus.  The palm branch was a symbol of triumph and of victory in Jewish tradition, and it is evident that many Jews believed Jesus was more of a political/military king than a spiritual king.  There’s some interesting information at this Wikipedia Entry.  MSNBC has a nice photo of Pope Benedict the 16th celebrating Palm Sunday Mass earlier today.

I have often wondered why Palm Sunday is completely ignored by Mormons.  Palm Sunday is the beginning of the last week in the life of Jesus, and I just can’t figure out why Mormons wouldn’t want to celebrate with the rest of Christendom.  Do you have any ideas?

Passover

I didn’t realize that Passover is an eight-day celebration.  I remember attending a Passover meal and celebration with a college friend–it was a lot of fun!  I must say that Jews really know how to celebrate, and I think Mormons could learn some celebration techniques from them.  Passover is one of the most important Jewish holidays, which is also known as Pesach,  Chag he-Aviv, Chag ha-Matzoth and Z’man Cherutenu.

As you’re probably aware, the Passover celebration commemorates Moses leading the Jewish liberation from Egyptian slavery approximately 1500 years ago.  ABC annually broadcasts Cecil B. DeMille’s film, The 10 Commandments on Easter Sunday.  Moses told the Egyptian pharaoh that if he did not let the Israelites go, God would issue 10 plagues to afflict Egypt.  The term ‘Passover’ specifically refers to the 10th plague.  Moses told pharaoh that God would kill all the firstborn sons of Egypt.  Moses instructed the Israelites to spread the blood of a lamb on their doorposts so the destroying angel would “pass-over” their homes, leaving the firstborn Israelite sons alive.  This last plague finally caused pharaoh to release the Israelites from slavery, and the Exodus story follows.  I plan another post specifically devoted to the Exodus theories, but I want to talk specifically about the Passover and these 10 plagues in this post.

A 2-time Emmy award winner for investigative journalism named Simcha Jacobicivi (pronounced Sim-ka Yah-cob-oh-vitch) teamed up with Titanic Director James Cameron to put together a documentary titled The Exodus Decoded.  It aired on the History Channel in 2006; you can rent it via Netflix.  Jacobovici is not a stranger to controversy.  You may be familiar with another documentary of his titled The Lost Tomb of Jesus in which he claims to have discovered the bones of Jesus and his family in Jerusalem.  He has another documentary titled Quest for the Lost Tribes in which he believes he has discovered the Lost tribes in areas such as Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, China, Burma, and Africa.  Here is a website questioning Jacobovici’s Exodus claims, and another website questioning the Lost Tomb of Jesus DVD.

Jacobovici makes a very interesting case for the 10 plagues of Egypt; he believes they were the result of the Santorini Volcano eruption of 1500 BC.  He notes similarities between the Passover narrative and a volcanic eruption in 1986 in Cameroon.  I must say that there are some startling similarities, and Jacobovici seems to have some very interesting parallels.  Let’s talk about the actual 10 plagues of Egypt.

1.  The Nile will be turned to blood. Jacobovici notes that in 1984 and 1986, separate volcanic eruptions turned Lake Monoun and Lake Nyos in Cameroon blood red.  Dr George King of the University of Michigan explained that both of these lakes contained high levels of iron.  An underwater natural gas leak created a disturbance, turning the lake red in color.  Jacobovici notes that the Nile is near a fault line.  An underground gas leak could have turned the river blood red as mentioned in the Bible.

2.  A frog infestation.  Jacobovici says that all living things in the Nile would have died due to lack of oxygen in the water resulting from the gas leak and subsequent iron stirred up in the water.  However, frogs would have been able hop out of the water, explaining the frog infestation.

3.  Lice.  With all the dead fish, lice would have been a problem.

4.  Flies.  Once again, dead fish would have attracted flies

5.  An epidemic.  Disease would have spread to everyone following the death of so many fish in the Nile.

6.  Boils.  Jacobovici notes that many people developed Boils following the 1986 eruption at Lake Nyos, Cameroon, and shows several photos of these awful boils.  Jocobovici explains that “It turns out that carbon dioxide mixed with air put people into a kind of coma, reducing circulation to the skin and causing the kind of boils described in the Bible as plague #6.”

7.  An Unusual Hail storm.  I’ll abbreviate Jacobovici as SJ in the quotes below; I want to quote directly from the DVD here.

Rabbi Chaim Sacknovitz, “The seventh plague was the plague of hail, but the Bible describes hail in a very unique manner.  The hail was together with ice with fire, the idea being that the fire and the ice mixed together, that they coexisted together.  The Bible then describes God as making a miracle within a miracle, taking opposites in nature, and having them coexist together.”

SJ, “Incredibly, there is an Egyptian papyrus that tells the exact same story.  It’s called the Ipuwer Papyrus and is dated by many scholars to the Hyksos period.  The Ipuwer Papyrus specifically states that Egypt was struck by a strange hail, made of ice and fire mingled together.  Another piece of the puzzle has fallen into place.  It now seems clear that the biblical and Egyptian texts are describing what scientists call ‘accretionary lapilli”, volcanic hail, and could have only come from earthquake induced Santorini volcano.

Dr. Catherine Hickson, Geological Survey of Canada, “When the ash cloud goes up into great distances in the stratosphere, essentially what happens is that you have moisture in the atmosphere, you also have a lot of water vapor in the cloud itself, so small fragments of ash and crystal actually form the nucleus, very similar to a hail stone.”

8.  Plague of Locusts. Jacobovici says the volcano causing weather changes, and this hail storm would have excited the locusts.  He says,

Cold weather produces a drop in their body temperature and makes them land en masse.  The Volcanic hail and weather disruptions caused by the Santorini eruption would have forced great clouds of locusts which are common in this part of the world to suddenly land in Egypt.  As the hail storm cleared, and the temperature rose, so did the locusts, exactly as the Biblical account describes.

9.  Darkness. Following the Mount Saint Helens eruption, ash blocked out the sun and made it appear very dark.  Jacobovici quotes scientists as saying the cloud of ash from the Santorini eruption could have been 40 km from top to bottom, 200 km across–that would be approximately 25 miles high, and 122 miles across.  He quotes Prof Jean-Daniel Stanley of the Smithsonian Institution saying that ash was found at the ancient Egyptian capital of Avaris:  “We had to look through 10 to 20,000 grains to find one ash grain.  So, we found a total of 40 ash grains.  Not all ash looks the same.  Ash has an imprint aspect.  The ash particles that we find in the northern and northeastern Nile Delta are individual grains that came in from Santorini.”

10.  The Firstborn of Egypt die, and Israelite children are spared.  Jacobovici has an explanation for this phenomenon as well.  Once again, he cites the Cameroon eruption at Lake Nyos in 1986.

SJ, “The final plague took place at midnight, after Moses ordered the Israelites to sit down to what became known as the first Passover meal.  While the Israelites were involved in the Passover ritual, the Egyptians slept, and then it happened: every firstborn male Egyptian died.  Every house was affected.  No one has ever been able to offer up a plausible scientific explanation for the death of the firstborn until now.  According to our scenario, at this point in the sequence of events that began some 6 months earlier, the gas leaks that set the chain of plates in motion would have finally erupted.  Carbon dioxide would have seeped to the surface, and being heavier than air, would have killed animals and sleeping people before it dissipated harmlessly into the atmosphere.

In case you think all this is conjecture, consider this.  It happened in exactly the same way in 1986 at Lake Nyos, Cameroon.  On the fateful night of August 21, the villagers at Nyos went to sleep.  They couldn’t have known that the carbon dioxide gas which had turned the lake blood red, was now reaching a critical point.  As the people of Lake Nyos slept, the top of the lake was keeping the carbon down like a cap in a pop bottle.  But then the earth rumbled, and a landslide took place sending rock into the water, disturbing the surface pressure and releasing the gas.  The gas then rose to the surface, and like some alien monster, emerged from the water, droplets forming on it, turning the invisible gas  into a visible fog.  The fog then rolled across the water, and across the land, suffocating everything in its path.  And as suddenly as it appeared, it disappeared, dissolving harmlessly into the atmosphere.

The next day those who had been sleeping on higher ground woke up to find some 1800 people dead, hundreds of cattle and small animals also dead, all around there was deadly silence.

Villager, “I was sleeping among the dead people, inside the house, some of them were outside.  Animals every where lying cows, dogs, everything.  All the family, we were 56 but 53 died.”

SJ, “After the death of the first born, Pharaoh finally relented, letting Moses take his people out of Egypt.  According to the Bible, what made pharaoh give up was the selectivity of the deaths: the fact that it was only male, firstborn who died.  It was this selectivity that demonstrated to him that God himself was involved.  How can we account for this?

Well, Egyptian firstborn males had the privileged position.  They were the heirs to the throne, to property, title, and more.  They slept on Egyptian beds low to the ground, while their brothers and sisters slept on rooftops, sheds, and wagons.  The Israelites sitting up at their first Passover meal did not feel a thing, while the low traveling gas suffocated the privileged Egyptian males sleeping in their beds.  This conclusion is backed by the archaeology.  At Avaris, Professor Manfred Biatek has found mass graves dating to before and during our date for the Exodus.  The earlier graves are classic examples of ancient epidemics and killed men, women, and children.  But at the time of the Exodus, the mass grave he found has only males in it.

Biatek, “Here you see bones of burials in the early 18^th Dynasty.  They are all male victims. By the size of the graves, and the number of individuals in the graves, we think people died in rapid succession and the individuals were just thrown into the pit, some of them lying on their stomach, some lying on their side.  Some of the people were just 20 cm deep and just some dust put on top of them.  The bible says that pharaoh’s son also died during the plagues of the firstborn.  Since we claim that Ahmose is the pharaoh of the Exodus, we should be able to prove that Ahmose son died young.

Searching the Cairo museum, we found Ahmose’ son, the prince had died young, he was only 12.  For the first time ever, we have a face and a name to a victim of the biblical plagues.

So, I found this to be a really interesting scientific explanation for the plagues.  What do you think?  I found James Cameron and Simcha’s final words regarding these plagues interesting.  They discuss how these explanations will bother both skeptics and believers.

Cameron, “It seems that the Bible, geology, and archaeology, are all telling the same story.  But skeptics, who would like to regard the Exodus as myth, might resist the idea that it actually happened, because this would imply that God does indeed exist.  Believers on the other hand may feel that a scientific explanation of the Biblical story takes God out of the equation.“

SJ, “But in the book of Exodus, God does not suspend nature, he manipulates it.  In other words, according to the Bible, we should be able to understand the science behind the miracles.

Easter

You’ll notice that date of Easter varies considerably from year to year.  The reason for this is because of it’s relationship to the Passover.  Christ died during the Passover festival, and rose on the first day of the week (Sunday.)  There’s a Jewish joke that goes like this.

“When is Chanukkah this year?”

The other man smiled slyly and replied, “Same as always: the 25th of Kislev.”

There is a really interesting article on the Jewish calendar at Judaism 101.  (It’s a fantastic website.)  The Jewish calendar tries to correlate

the rotation of the Earth about its axis (a day); the revolution of the moon about the Earth (a month); and the revolution of the Earth about the sun (a year).

…

Months are either 29 or 30 days, corresponding to the 29½-day lunar cycle. Years are either 12 or 13 months, corresponding to the 12.4 month solar cycle.The lunar month on the Jewish calendar begins when the first sliver of moon becomes visible after the dark of the moon. In ancient times, the new months used to be determined by observation. When people observed the new moon, they would notify the Sanhedrin. When the Sanhedrin heard testimony from two independent, reliable eyewitnesses that the new moon occurred on a certain date, they would declare the rosh chodesh (first of the month) and send out messengers to tell people when the month began.

So, you can see that a 12 or 13 month year (they have leap months instead of leap days) can wreak havoc on knowing when holidays will be as we try to correlate the Jewish calendar with our Gregorian Calendar.  As Christians were debating when to celebrate Easter, the consensus was to keep Easter near the Passover festival.  As a result, the date of Easter changes with the changes in celebration of the Passover Festival.  Another Jewish joke says that every Jewish holiday can be boiled down to “They tried to kill us.  Let’s eat.”

I wish Mormons celebrated, rather than simply observed, the Easter holiday.  It would be nice to have more of a celebration of Easter; I really like Easter gets the short shrift for celebrations, but I think that Christmas celebrations in our church are lacking as well.  Two years ago, I posted the question, Why don’t Mormons celebrate Easter? It is my #2 post over the past 2 years. I always receive a spike in hits for that post around Easter.  If you do a Google search asking “do Mormons celebrate Easter”, my post comes up on the #2 position.  I expect that as Easter approaches this week, my 2 year old post will get another spike in views, and will probably be #1 by the end of the month.

So to answer my own question is, yes, we observe Easter, but we don’t celebrate Easter.  Do you wish there was a greater emphasis on Easter?

One of the interesting quotes from the book concerns whether Joseph started another denomination of Christianity, or a new religion.  From page 11,

Most antipolygamists were so alarmed by the Mormons that they refused to concede even that the latter-day faith was itself Christian….

In some senses, latter-day revelation and practices were indeed so distinct from other forms of Christianity that it is valid to call Mormonism a new religion.  Religious historian Jan Shipps has cogently argued that Mormonism in the nineteenth century brought believers out of one faith and into a new one–a distinct religion, emerging out of but different from Christianity.  As this book emphasizes, latter-day faith was also deeply related to American Protestantism and was frequently opposed with tools that had been deployed against Catholicism.  If nineteenth-century Mormonism was a new, post-Christian dispensation, it was also developed and defended in American space and time.

I guess what struck me about the quote was that Christianity developed out of Judiasm to form a new religion.  Is Mormonism a new religion formed from Christianity?

Daynes writes,

The struggle between the church and state about who would control marriage has been a long one in the Western world.  By the end of the eleventh century, it was generally conceded that jurisdiction over decisions about what constituted a marriage resided with the bishop and his court.  In the two centuries that followed, the Roman Catholic church enunciated its beliefs about marriage and increasintly upheld the superiority of church practice over local usage.  Articulated in 1140 by the monk Gratian in his definitive Concodia discordantium canonum, these beliefs included the idea that the marital bond was indissoluble and that it was created by the free consent of the bride and groom.

Because the church wanted to make the formation of marriage effortless and easy, it followed Roman law, under which “marriage was virtually a formless transaction.”  The marriage was valid if the man and woman simply exchanged vows of marriage in the present, not future, tense.  As long as consent was given in the present tense, the church upheld the validity of the marriage even if there were no witnesses present, no clergy officiating, no specific form followed, or no consent given by parents.  Even consummation was not necessary if consent was given in the present tense.  Moreover, sexual intercourse after promises given in the future tense also created a valid marriage.  Certain impediments could, however, invalidate the marriage.  These included a previous commitment  by blood (consanguinity) or by marriage (affinity), and being impotent or too young.  With these exceptions, the church upheld the primacy of present consent between the couple over other considerations.  To be sure, the church discouraged the clandestine marriage such consent might foster, and the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stipulated that couples planning to marry announce their intentions and prohibited priests from officiating secret ceremonies.¹⁰[Daynes footnotes many texts supporting this position.]

Although the church upheld the validity of secret, informal marriages, marriages usually were performed publicly and contracted in some ritual.  This was so not only because the church could punish couples marrying secretly even if it did not invalidate the marriages but also because secular courts retained jurisdiction over property.  Marriages without the consent of parents or lord could well result in the loss of an inheritance or succession to feudal lands.  Thus, while the church determined what constituted a marriage, it did not control all aspects of it.¹¹

Two problems produced inherent tensions in this marriage system.  First, allowing secret, informal marriages created difficulties in knowing whether a prospective spouse was already married.  Second, jurisdiction over marriage resided mainly in the church, but civil courts asserted their authority over property rights created by marriage and by birth.  These inherent tensions helped produce a different set of beliefs about marriage during the Reformation.  Although marriage was a divine institution, according to Martin Luther in his Babylonian Captivity, it was not a sacrament, it did not impart grace, and it was not necessary for salvation.  Other reformers following Luther’s lead, and all reformed churches rejected the Catholic Church’s claim that marriage was a sacrament.  With that change in belief, control over marriage could be vested in civil rather than religious courts.  Reducing the clergy’s jurisdiction over moral life, Protestant governments on the Continent began requiring parental consent for minors to marry and mandating the presence of witnesses to validate a marriage.¹²  In response, the Catholic Church tightened regulations for marriage at the Council of Trent in 1563, requiring that the traditional exchange consent take place before witnesses, one of whom was the pastor.¹³

In England, however, the Reformation took a different path in regard to marriage.  Because elites found that ecclesiatical courts had adequately served their interests, reformation of the English church did not included abolition of these courts.  The Church of England was independent of the Roman Catholic church before the Council of Trent, so its requirement of witnesses and a pastor for a valid marriage had no force.  Clandestine marriages flourished; perhaps as many as 20 percent of marriages in England in the mid-eighteenth century were clandestine.  Not until 1753, with the passage of the Hardwicke Marriage Act, were such marriages curtailed.¹⁴

The Hardwicke Act was not passed until long after the American colonies had begun developing their own marriage laws.  New England drew on the Reformation’s ideas about civil government’s control over marriage.  Magistrates, not ministers, performed marriages there until 1686, when the Crown established its control over New England after revoking those colonies’ charters.  In the South, the Church of England was the established church, but without bishops or ecclesiastical courts, civil regulation of marriages was uncontested.  A variety of churches proliferated throughout the middle and southern colonies, and the marriages performed by the rites of those churches were recognized.¹⁵  With diverse religious traditions and peoples, the idea that free consent of the couple in the present tense created a valid marriage passed into the common law.

These developments, along with the movement away from government involvement prevalent in early ninetheenth-century America, elevated consent of the couple over public control of matrimony.  Unlike colonial or contemporary English interpretations of the common law, American nineteenth-century courts generally validated secret and informal marriages.¹⁶  By midcentury in the United States, the opinion of James Kent, the most influential legal commentator of his time, was accepted by all but a minority of courts:  “No pecular ceremonies are requisite by the common law to valid celebration of the marriage.  The consent of the parties is all that is required.”¹⁷  This rule was explicitly applied to Utah in 1885, when its supreme court ruled, “The marriage is complete when there is a full, free and mutual consent of the contracting parties.  They may enter into the marriage relation secretly, and the fact may be unknown to all save the man and woman… [A] couple may meet on the highway at any time in the day or night and there contract a valid marriage…[n]o particular form or ceremony being essential, and no witness being required.”¹⁸  Thus, no specific form for solemnizing a marriage was necessary to make it valid, as long as both bride and groom consented to the marriage.¹⁹  Nor were witnesses required.  Not until 1888 did the law in Utah mandate that two witnesses sign the marriage certificate.  That law also declared that marriages not solemnized by an authorized person were void, thus nullifying common law marriages.²⁰

This explains the more cavalier marriage performed by the bishop that I related  in my previous post about Fred Cox and Lucy.  I have found it interesting that Utah divorce laws were as liberal as the marriage laws, and I plan a future post on that topic.  I have found 19th century beliefs about romantic love strange as well.  Daynes says that consent was the most important aspect of marriage, and says that romantic love was downplayed by all groups during this time period.  From page 64,

Believing the religious aspect of marriage was most crucial, Mormons downplayed the role of romantic love.  In 1853, Orson Pratt wrote that love was not “such as is often described in novels, which acts irresistably, forcing all the other powers of the mind into subjection.”  Charles C. Rich was even more pointed in his criticism of romantic love in 1877:  “When a person is love struck, there is no reason in them.  We should never be struck very bad.”³⁷

…

This nineteenth-century view of romantic love that set the couple apart from the community and tended to displace God was hardly compatible with Mormon beliefs.  “Never love you wives one hair’s beadth further than they adorn the Gospel,” Brigham Young preached.  “Never love them so but that you can leave them at a moment’s warning without shedding a tear.”³⁹  Love was supposed to be guided by and subordinated to religous purposes.

To be sure, love was crucial to marriage.  “No woman should be united in marriage with a man unless she have some love for him,” Orson Pratt wrote, but he added, “Any woman who loves righteousness can and does love a man who works righteousness; and she can, but cultivating this love, be happy in his society, as a friend and as a brother; and if she were united to him in marriage, she could love him as a husband;”

Daynes talks about how consent is critical to the Mormon marriage ceremony, and compares these ceremonies to common law.  From page 65,

Although free consent was crucial, under the common law no particular form of ceremony was required, nor was public notification of the marriage.  The early nineteenth-century republican ethos combined with the social conditions in America to weaken state regulation.⁴⁴  As an 1816 Pennsylvania court decision stated, “We have no etablished church.  A certificate of the bishop, therefore is out of the question.  We have no law compelling the keeping of a register by all persons who perform the marriage ceremony.  Our marriages are celebrated sometimes by clergymen, sometimes by justices of the peace and sometimes before witnesses without the intervention of clergymen or justices…Many marriages take place in parts of our country but thinly settled.  To hold a woman, therefore, to proof of her actual marriage might be productive of great inconvenience, without any advantage.”⁴⁵  As this judgment indicates, registration of marriages was not compulsory.  Americans were averse to state intervention into private affairs, which is what registration of marriages meant to many.⁴⁶

With no law regulating marriage, Utah also had no registration system outside the church.  After a sealing ceremony, a scribe was supposed to enter the date of the marriage as well as the names of the witnesses.⁴⁷  The record was not public, however.  In the 1880s, when the U.S. commissioner of labor compiled statistics on marriage and divorce in America, he could not obtain even the number of marriages performed by church officials.  Nor are these records available to scholars.⁴⁹

Daynes continues this discussion in Chapter 4.  On page 67,

Unreliable public records made it difficult for many couples to substantiate their marriages, but American courts accepted into common law the rule that a marriage could be presumed from the cohabitation, reputation, and acknowledgment of the couple.¹  On the whole, midcentury law in America encouraged marriage.  Because most judges required no particular form of ceremony or a record of it to presume a marriage or a record of it to resume a marriage, they put the weight of the law behind those living as husband and wife.  Moreover, both Georgia and Pennsylvania passed laws stating that marriage was encouraged.  In Utah, marriage was encouraged not only by the continual preaching from teh pulpit but also by the lack of legal barriers to it.

…

Although the Utah legislature enacted no laws legalizing plural marriage, it did pass a measure stating, “No laws nor part of laws shall be read, argued, cited, or adopted in any court, during any trial, except those enacted by the Governor and Legislative Assembly of the Territory, and those passed by the Congress of the United States when applicable; and no report, decision, or doing of any court shall be read, argued, cited, or adopted as precendent in any other trial.”⁴  Because precendent is the basis for the common law, this measure disallowed the authority of the common law in the territory.  Since the common law prohibited bigamy, rejection of common law at least tacitly was in force was in considerable dispute because of the judicial decisions made by non-Mormon judges.

Except for permitting plural marriage, Mormon practice was generally congruent with the contemporary common law in its lack of restrictions on marriage.  Following Roman law, under common law the age of discretion, the age at which a valid marriage could be contracted was twelve for females and fourteen for males.  A marriage contracted by an individual under age seven was a complete nullity.  Although individuals could contract a marriage between age seven and the age of discretion, they could also disaffirm the marriage at any time before reaching the age of discretion.  Such disaffirmation could be either private or public, that is with or without a judicial decree declaring the marriage invalid.⁵  Although under common law parental control continued until the child turned twenty-one, most American judges gave greater weight to the sanctity of marriage than to parental disapproval.  Judges in the United States often rendered legislation raising the age for marriage ineffective by treating such laws as advisory, not compulsory. In Utah, if any restrictions on age prevailed, they were common-law ages of discretion, until 1888 when those ages were incorporated into the Act Regulating Marriage.  Only in 1897 were the ages raised to fourteen for females and sixteen for males.⁶

The next few paragraphs are incredibly interesting in describing some early Mormon marriage practices, but I want to state a few more facts in relation to Congress.  From page 86,

This de facto recognition of plural wives changes as Congress stepped up its campaign against polygamy in the 1880s.  Polygamy, along with those consanguineous marriages that many considered incestuous, had become symbols of family crisis in America.  Reformers ralled behind legislation requiring marriage licenses, raising the statutory age of marriage, banning marriages between blood relatives, and curtailing plural wives’ ability to inherit from their husbands.  Even the courts began to soften their support for informal matrimony amid the reformers’ fears of free love and “rampant Mormonism.”  Polygamy, a “prime instigator” of the social climate that produced these reforms, became one of the first targets for change.¹⁰⁷

During the 1880s, the federal government dismanted the entire system the Mormons put in place in the 1850s to protect plural marriage.  Not only were the polygamous families excluded from inheriting from intestate estates, but also Congress passed laws regulating marriage and mandating registration of marriages.  By enforcing these laws, by taking the selection of judges out of the hands of Mormons, and by attacking the church itself, the federal government was also able to curtail the church’s influence over the civil courts and to diminish the ecclesiastical courts’ control over family issues.

I had no idea that the Mormon practice of polygamy led to many of the regulations of marriage practices today.  Were you aware of this?

I probably should give a review of these 3 sources.  Of the 3, I liked The Jesus Tomb best.  Jacobovici does DNA tests on the bones, chemical tests on the ossuaries, and uses statisticians to try to locate the probability of find a tomb with Jesus, two Mary’s (mother and wife), a brother James, and son of Joseph.  You may disagree with his results, but he did make a valiant effort to be scientific about it.  (A note about an ossuary.  Apparently at the time of Christ, people were often buried in a tomb.  After about a year, the body would decompose, leaving only the bones.  To save space, it was a custom to take the bones and “re-bury” them in a much smaller limestone box.  The largest bone in the body is the upper leg, so the box would only need to be about 2 feet long, and the bones would be placed there to save considerable space.  Often names were etched into these limestone boxes to identify the bones.)

Bloodline was dreadful.  Honestly, it was so hokey, I actually couldn’t pay attention to the whole thing.  It was supposedly a real life cloak and daggar documentary.  The producers would set up interviews with experts of Jesus’ bones in France, and they would either end up dead prior to the interview, or would just refuse.  Of the experts they managed to actually interview, most seemed like whack-jobs to me.  I give it no credibility.

I have just briefly skimmed the India site–I came upon it a few weeks ago.  I don’t quite know what to make of it yet.  I have heard people compare Christ to Buddha, and some claim they might have been the same person.  I do know of an ancient tradition that the Apostle Thomas (yes, Doubting Thomas) served a mission to India.  (Apparently, these claims about Thomas seem pretty credible.)  I also know that India has an ancient Christian history.  Really, I need to learn more, but it is interesting to me.

So, with Christ being resurrected, Christians would obviously find these 3 sources as problematic.  If Christ was really resurrected, there should be no bones, right?  I must say I was really intrigued by Simcha Jacobovici’s position.  Simcha is a Jew, and said that if the bones were really discovered, then it would actually give credibility to Christianity, because it would in fact give proof that Jesus was an actual person.  (Of course, there are many who claim Jesus never existed, citing lack of evidence.)

So, it got me thinking.  Obviously, all 3 can’t be right.  But what if one of them is right?  Critics of Christianity would loudly trumpet the fact that the resurrection couldn’t have happened if the bones were found.  They already make claims that say this discovery “would shake the foundations of Christianity”, seeming to imply that Christianity would somehow disappear.  But would it really disappear?

I don’t think so.  Let’s assume for sake of argument that one of these positions was scientifically proved correct–Jesus bones have been positively found.  Now, while I am sure it would cause much re-evaluation among Christians, I do not believe Christianity would vanish.  I suspect that many Christians would have to re-evaluate the resurrection.  Here’s some possible scenarios that I see happening.

(1)  The resurrection is actually not a physical resurrection.  I believe many people already believe this.  When we look at it, it’s a little tough to reconcile with the scriptures, because Jesus ate fish and honey after his resurrection.  “Touch me” was his reply–so it does seem to be a fact that he was physically resurrected.  But perhaps this physical resurrection would only apply to him, and not us?

(2)  Perhaps there was some sort of stem-cell/cloning technique for the resurrection.  Perhaps Jesus “corruptible” body is on the earth, but his new “celestial” body looks/feels the same, but is basically a perfected clone of his human body.

(3)  Perhaps the resurrection is not important at all.  Perhaps the Gnostics had it right, and the body is not needed in heaven.  Perhaps, Jesus true purpose is not the resurrection, but rather his purpose was to teach spiritual truths.  In this scenario, the resurrection is meaningless, and Christ’s atonement and teachings are what really matters.

I’m sure there are other options.  Can you think of some?  If Christ’s bones were truly found, would it really spell the end of Christianity, as skeptics claim?

Anyway, tradition has it that the largest part of his bones reside in a white marble sarcophagus located under the Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome.  Recently, current Pope Benedict XVI allowed scientists to carbon date the bones.  They do date to the 1st or 2nd century AD.  Pope Benedict feels vindicated, proclaiming,

“This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul,” Benedict said, announcing the findings at a service in the basilica to mark the end of the Vatican’s Paoline year, in honor of the apostle.

More information can be found here.  Anyway, while the bones date to the proper time, I doubt there is a way to conclusively tell if the bones really belong to Paul, or just some other 1st century person.  I’m sure skeptics will remain unconvinced, and disagree with Pope Benedict’s proclamation.

So what do you think?  Could the bones really belong to Paul?  Would it help your testimony one way or the other?

In 410 AD, the Roman Empire stretched from Africa to Britain. Christianity was the official faith of the Empire. At this time, the empire started to fail, and barbarians descended on Rome. Troops were recalled to protect the city, leaving outlying areas unprotected. Fifth century Ireland was untouched by Rome and Christianity. These Norsemen descended on Britain, capturing a boy 16 year old boy named Succat, later to be known as Patrick. He entered Ireland as a slave, where he was a shepherd. He was a slave for 6 years, before God told him in a dream to run away. Quoting from the DVD,

“Escaping across the Irish sea, the now devout youth was reunited with his overjoyed parents. But Patrick seemed changed, restless, unable to settle down. One night in a dream he has a vision of the Irish people. They asked him, with one voice, to return to them and to bring them the word of God. Thus Patrick’s journey to sainthood begins.

Patrick studies for 12 years to prepare himself, and in 432, he is sent to Ireland as a missionary bishop. This is his long-awaited opportunity to spread the Gospel among the Irish. Patrick is not blinded to the risk of challenging the gods of the war-like Irish, yet he defies the Druid priest by lighting the forbidden fire high on the hill Swain to celebrate Easter.

Despite these obstacles to converting the Irish, Patrick succeeds where others might have failed, perhaps because he teaches the Irish a Christianity that harmonizes easily with their indigenous religion.

Terence Murphy, professor of history at American University says, “The groundwork was laid by the Celtic religion of Druidism, which had an emphasis on the sacred number 3. The Irish were already used to gods who had 3 persons. There was an emphasis on immortality, the immortality of the soul, and an emphasis on resurrection in the afterlife in the Druidic religion.

Patrick also presents to the Irish a benevolent, rather than a punishing God, a god who created the world for human beings to enjoy. These beliefs are expressed in an ancient prayer, attributed to him.

…

Legends about St. Patrick abound. It is said that he used the shamrock to explain the trinity, that he drove the snakes from Ireland. By the time of Patrick’s death in 461, Ireland is overwhelmingly Christian. With Patrick now gone, what emerges from the Irish landscape, is a new society, a society of monks. They are the spiritual heirs of Patrick. Neither they, nor Patrick could know that they would preserve the best of classical civilization, not only for Ireland, but for all of Europe. Within a decade of Patrick’s mission, there are hundreds of monasteries all over the countryside.

In contrast to the European continent, where the bishops of large cities hold authority, in Ireland, it is the abbots of monasteries who preside over religious life. The role of the abbot is not the only unique aspect of Celtic Christianity. Irish priests hear private confessions, while a Roman Christians must confess their sins before the entire congregation. The Celtic Church also refuses to legislate private moral and social behavior. One of the ways the faith of the Irish takes flight is reflected in the roles of women. Bridget of Kildare is a powerful leader of the Irish Christian church.

Terence Murphy relates that ‘In Ireland, there are female saints, like Bridget. Bridget stands out because she is the female equivalent for Ireland of Patrick. She is regarded in a special way. One of her names in the Middle Ages was ‘Mary of the Gael,’ In other words, the virgin Mary equivalent of the Irish people.’

This Mary of Ireland would found, build, and supervise, an immense monastery, housing both nuns and monks. And now something amazing begins to transpire in the great monastic centers of Ireland. A society that before Patrick, had relied solely on an oral tradition, now becomes literate under the guidance of Christian missionaries. In a matter of a generation, Irish monks not only read and write, but had become the world’s finest scholars in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.

Terence Murphy relates that ‘The Irish monks had an ethos of study, as a way of worshipping God: work, and prayer, and study. Their work was largely copying down manuscripts, preserving learning, as well as augmenting learning. So at the center of every Irish monastic institution, there would be a Scriptorium, a place of writing and a library, a place for studying.

The flowering of Irish learning comes not a moment too soon. In the chaos of the barbarian invasions, all the great libraries of Western Europe are destroyed. Yet, while the ancient classical civilizations are crumbling, Irish monks are devoting themselves to copying and preserving the literature of the vanishing culture.

Paul L Maier, professor of History, Western Michigan University states, ‘I think it would be safe to say that every book written before the year 1000 AD—that includes all of the Greco-Roman classics, that includes all of Holy Scripture, Old and New Testaments, that includes all the theological works, from the Jewish side, that includes Josephus, from Augustin or anyone else, we would not have these books today, if it had not been for the manuscript recopying in these monasteries.’

And so it is in western history and culture, are preserved intact by the hand of a few Irish monks as the monks on this wind-swept island toil away at their illuminating manuscripts. Western Europe enters the period that would come to be known as the Dark Ages, ushered in by the barbarian invasions and the fall of Rome.

It seems that Mormons often look down on other religions when we refer to the Apostasy.  I can remember attending a Lutheran Bible Study class years ago.  When I spoke to the Lutheran priest, he said that Mormons act like nothing happened between 100 AD and 1830.  He found that Mormons were completely unaware of most history, and I must say I still agree with him.  I have endeavored to learn more.

Without St Patrick, and the conversion of Ireland, Christianity would have lost some priceless treasures that all Christians enjoy.  I think St Patrick’s missionary stories should be better known, and lauded by all Christians.  I think his life is an example of Christian service, and forgiveness, that we all should emulate.

I want to point out some interesting things from his article–questions which Mormons should also start asking.  You can see the full article here.

What’s the difference, anyway, between baptising the dead and baptising babies? A tiny infant will have as much understanding as a dead person — none at all — of the complex philosophical belief-system it’s being inducted into when baptised, say, a Catholic. Transubstantiation? There’s daily communicants go to their deaths without any clear understanding of the concept. So what chance the mewling tot?

Indeed, given that all Christian Churches believe that the soul lives on after death and retains understanding and consciousness of self, doesn’t it make more sense to baptise dead adults than live babies?

Apart from which, if the Catholic bishops hold that the beliefs of the Mormons are pure baloney (as they must), and their rituals therefore perfectly meaningless, how can it matter to them what mumbo-jumbo Mormons might mutter over Catholic cadavers?

…

Let’s look at the facts as understood by the early followers of Christ. For more than 300 years after the Crucifixion, baptism of the dead was widely accepted, its biblical basis located in 1 Corinthians 15, 29: “Otherwise, what shall they do who are baptised for the dead if the dead rise not again at all? Why are they then baptised for them.” In other words, a deceased person could be baptised by proxy: otherwise, how could such a person be included in the Resurrection? A good question.

The radical Cerinthians and the Marcionites were especially energetic baptisers of the dead. It was to wrong-foot these sects, seen as competitors with the official Church at a time when it was consolidating its position as the State religion of the Roman Empire, that the Synods of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) voted, after bitter debate, to condemn the practice.

He makes the case that the decision to stop baptism for the dead was to marginalize these other Christian sects.  At this point, I wanted to learn more about this practice.  I was aware of the 1 Corinthians reference, but didn’t know that the practice went on for 4 centuries.  So, I decided to see what I could find on this.

John A. Tvedtnes, a Hebrew and early Christian scholar at BYU, writes:

Check out my posts on Marcionism and Gnosticism to learn more about these movements.  Here’s another post on Gnosticism and another on Montanism.  (My 2 gnostic posts are ranked #2 and #8 of my most viewed posts–funny because there aren’t many comments on them.)  There’s also an interesting link to Barry Bickmore’s site and Jeff Lindsay’s site.

Finally, I like his reasoning here.

What if Mormons are right and Catholics and Protestants wrong?

In that scenario, shouldn’t all members of all other religions be literally eternally grateful to the Mormons for sharing their saving grace even unto and after death?

If, on the other hand, it isn’t the Mormons at all, those who turn out to have been right can wave a merry farewell to the crestfallen followers of Brigham Young as they trundle downwards to their eternal comeuppance.

What’s the problem?