In the poem below we see something very similar to what Nietzsche called the will to power, only the concept of an expanding universe and growing life energies is framed as "Christpower."
Christpower – thoughts of Spong in verse
Lucy Newton Boswell Negus puts in free verse the thoughts of Bishop John Spong. (Spong’s explanation follows after the poem)
Christpower
Far back beyond the beginning,
stretching out into the unknowable,
incomprehensible,
unfathomable depths, dark and void
of infinite eternity behind all history,
the Christpower was alive.
This was the
living,
bursting, pulsing,
generating, creating
smoldering, exploding
fusing, multiplying,
emerging, erupting,
pollenizing, inseminating,
heating, cooling
power of life itself: Christpower.
And it was good!
Here
all things that we know
began their journey into being.
Here
light separated from darkness.
Here
Christpower began to take form.
Here
life became real,
and that life spread into
emerging new creatures
evolving
into ever higher intelligence.
There was a sacrifice here
and
a mutation there.
There was grace and resurrection appearing
in their natural order,
occurring, recurring,
and always driven by the restless,
creating,
energizing
life force of God, called the Christpower,
which flowed in the veins of every living thing
for ever
and ever
and ever
and ever.
And it was good!
In time, in this universe,
there emerged creatures who were called human,
and the uniqueness of these creatures
lay in that they could
perceive
this life-giving power.
They could name it
and embrace it
and grow with it
and yearn for it.
Thus human life was born,
but individual expressions of that human life
were marked with a sense of
incompleteness,
inadequacy,
and a hunger
that drove them ever beyond the self
to search for life’s secret
and
to seek the source of life’s power.
This was a humanity that could not be content with
anything less.
And once again
in that process
there was
sacrifice and mutation,
grace and resurrection
now in the human order,
occurring, recurring.
And it was good!
Finally, in the fullness of time,
within that human family,
one
unique and special human life appeared:
whole
complete
free
loving
living
being
at one
at peace
at rest.
In that life was seen with new intensity
that primal power of the universe,
Christpower.
And it was good!
Of that life people said: Jesus,
you are the Christ,
for in you we see
and feel
and experience
the living force of life
and love
and being
of God.
He was hated,
rejected,
betrayed,
killed,
but
he was never distorted.
For here was a life in which
the goal, the dream, the hope
of all life
is achieved.
A single life among many lives.
Here
among us, out from us,
and yet this power, this essence,
was not from us at all,
for the Christpower that was seen in Jesus
is finally of God.
And even when the darkness of death overwhelmed him,
the power of life resurrected him;
for Christpower is life
eternal,
without beginning,
without ending.
It is the secret of creation.
It is the goal of humanity.
Here in this life we glimpse
that immortal
invisible
most blessed
most glorious
almighty life-giving force
of this universe
in startling completeness
in a single person.
Men and women tasted the power that was in him
and they were made whole by it.
They entered a new freedom,
a new being.
They knew resurrection and what it means to live
in the Eternal Now.
So they became agents of that power,
sharing those gifts from generation to generation,
creating and re-creating,
transforming, redeeming,
making all things new.
And as this power moved among human beings,
light
once more separated from darkness.
And it was good!
They searched for the words to describe
the moment that recognized the fullness of this power
living in history,
living in the life of this person.
But words failed them.
So they lapsed into poetry:
When this life was born,
they said,
a great light split the dark sky.
Angelic choruses peopled the heavens
to sing of peace on earth.
They told of a virgin mother,
of shepherds compelled to worship,
of a rejecting world that had no room in the inn.
They told of stars and oriental kings,
of gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
For when this life was born
that power that was
and is
with God,
inseparable,
the endless beginning
was seen
even in a baby
in swaddling clothes
lying in a manger.
Christpower.
Jesus, you are the Christ.
To know you is to live,
to love,
to be.
O come, then, let us adore him!
(Source)
Compare the above poem to D&C 88 below.
D&C 88 (words in bold my own for emphasis):
6 He [Jesus Christ] that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth;
7 Which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made.
8 As also he is in the moon, and is the light of the moon, and the power thereof by which it was made;
9 As also the light of the stars, and the power thereof by which they were made;
10 And the earth also, and the power thereof, even the earth upon which you stand.
11 And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings;
12 Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space—
13 The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things.
… 45 The earth rolls upon her wings, and the sun giveth his light by day, and the moon giveth her light by night, and the stars also give their light, as they roll upon their wings in their glory, in the midst of the power of God.
46 Unto what shall I liken these kingdoms, that ye may understand?
47 Behold, all these are kingdoms, and any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power.
From this point of view section 88 produces clarity in that Christ is in all things and is moving within all things, so the holy is not separate from organic life but Christ is of matter and in matter, as the Beating Heart of emerging forms in all life. All spirit is matter and all matter is spiritual, being infused with Christpower: an expanding force of plenty.
Since, as D&C 88 puts it, the spirit of Christ is in and through all things and makes that which moves come into being and become, it stands to reason that Christpower is the power of our organic drives to thrive. In this sense, Joseph Smith was fully "godly" in a sense, in that he manifested the truth of scientific cosmic expansionism and the organic life powers through his natural instincts and desires to grow and expand and gain power and dominion.
See also Moses 1: 32-33 (words in bold my own for emphasis):
And by the word of my power, have I created them, which is mine Only Begotten Son … And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.
In Smith's revelations Christ is the source of all power and this power is extended to Latter-day Saints. For example:
D&C 100:1 (words in italics for emphasis):
"Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my friends Sidney and Joseph, your families are well; they are in mine hands, and I will do with them as seemeth me good; for in me there is all power."
D&C 95: 8:
Yea, verily I say unto you, I gave unto you a commandment that you should build a house [temple], in the which house I design to endow those whom I have chosen with power from on high;
Joseph Smith said you've got to learn how to become Gods yourselves. Well what is God? We will see that according to Mormon scripture, God is the manifestation of the will to power, or to use a more LDS sounding phrase: the call to dominion, or what the poem above calls Christpower. To become like God is to become an expanding force of plenty like God.
What is God?
DC 109:77 O Lord God Almighty, hear us in these our petitions, and answer us from heaven, thy holy habitation, where thou sittest enthroned, with glory, honor, power, majesty, might, dominion, truth, justice, judgment, mercy, and an infinity of fulness, from everlasting to everlasting.
1 Nephi 22:24
And the time cometh speedily that the righteous must be led up as calves of the stall, and the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion, and might, and power, and great glory.
Hence God can be defined as a manifestation of the infinite fullness of all Power. What does God want for humans? What is God's ultimate will for mankind?
DC 76: 10:
For by my Spirit will I enlighten them, and by my power will I make known unto them the secrets of my will—....
What is God's will?
"This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).
God glories in upright men becoming like him: that is manifestations of power and dominion like the Gods. As LDS President Lorenzo Snow put it with some modifications, “As man now is, the Powerful Gods once were; as the Gods now are in Power, men may become equal in status and Power.” The goal is not to grovel before the throne of a god nonstop but for a man to become an eternally creating being like God.
What kind of eternal being is God? God is the ultimate ground of power and dominion (as we saw in D&C 109:77 and 1 Nephi 22:24). The goal for humans is to inherit the same power and dominion in eternal life through “obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel” (Articles of Faith 1:3). At the time this was written the central law and ordinance of the gospel was the call to dominion through plural marriage; which was how men and women became Gods and gained power and dominion through their expansion via their seed/progeny increasing. Even going back to the Lectures on Faith in 1835, we see an emphasis on Power and Dominion. We read in Lecture on Faith # 7:
As we have seen in our former lectures, that faith was the principle of action and of power in all intelligent beings, both in heaven and on earth …
... Christ: all will agree in this that he is the prototype or standard of salvation, or in other words, that he is a saved being. And if we should continue our interrogation, and ask how it is that he is saved, the answer would be, because he is a just and holy being; and if he were any thing different from what he is he would not be saved; for his salvation depends on his being precisely what he is and nothing else; for if it were possible for him to change in the least degree, so sure he would fail of salvation and lose all his dominion, power, authority and glory, which constitutes salvation; for salvation consists in the glory, authority, majesty, power and dominion which Jehovah possesses, and in nothing else; and no being can possess it but himself or one like him: Thus says John, in his first epistle, 3:2 and 3: Behold, now we are the sons of God, and it doth not appear what we shall be; but we know, that when he shall appear we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And any man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.—Why purify himself as he is pure? because, if they do not they cannot be like him.
… And the Savior says, Matthew 5:48: Be ye perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect. If any should ask why all these sayings? the answer is to be found from what is before quoted from John's epistle, that when he (the Lord) shall appear, the saints will be like him: and if they are not holy, as he is holy, and perfect as he is perfect, they cannot be like him; for no being can enjoy his glory without possessing his perfections and holiness, no more than they could reign in his kingdom without his power.
(Source)
From Imitating the ascetic celibate martyr to imitating the action and power of Abraham, and the fecundity of Solomon and God himself:
According to biblical scholarship, which I've linked to throughout my blog posts, the Apostle Paul had repeatedly said to imitate him as he imitates the Messiah. Fully imitating Paul would have meant you being celibate and willfully suffering and dying a martyr in imitation of the Suffering Messiah. Pauline Christianity was a protest-mythos against the masculine power of Rome. The Greek and Roman gods were powerful icons of bravado and victory. Paul inverted that Roman mythos with the Christ as a deity that willingly suffers and dies on the cross. In this way, rather than the cross being a symbol of defeat, weakness, and low status, Paul turned it into a symbol of victory of Christ over the cosmic Powers and Death itself. Only, in Paul's mythos, victory was obtained in death not in living. Victory was obtained by suffering and dying in imitation of the Messiah.
Paul’s martyr-centric mentality made sense in the context of his literal belief in the imminent/very soon return of his Conquering Messiah who would conquer and destroy the Romans and annihilate from the earth all mortal beings; and only his Christ-followers enacting the role of being "virgin brides" and seeded/enseminated supernaturally by the Christ Spirit (including his "male brides") would reside on the newly immortalized earth after the the coming of Yahweh with His Messiah (and their armies to set up a theocracy on the earth). In this context it makes sense why he encouraged his single followers to remain as he is (unmarried and celibate).
Yet the imminent return of the Messiah did not come as Paul expected. Instead, hundreds of years passed and America was established. Decades and decades of priestly renunciation and celibacy was no longer practical and there was no longer a Roman Caesar to protest against as a willing martyr. A new day had dawned.
When Joseph Smith first began his prophetic career in the mid 1820s to early 1830s, he was heavily steeped in a culture of revivalist Protestantism; and so he naturally channeled the Protestant Mythos into his scriptures as LDS Scholars Blake Ostler and Terryl and Fiona Givens discuss in detail. But by the 1840s, new revelations through the Prophet Joseph Smith revealed the restoration of all things, which I consider to be at its core a return to the lifeward power and organic vitality of the Old Testament mindset, and what I call Abrahamic Expansionism: where one becomes holy (set apart) and perfect ("complete") not through ascetic life-renunciation and celibacy but by imitating the Old Testament Patriarchs and entering into the embodied practice of plural marriage in order to glorify an embodied God through the continuation of the seeds/lives. What really distinguishes Joseph's "restoration of all things," is the overcoming of the Protestant denial of the reproductive body and its attack on sensuality through a return to the Old Testament celebration of the fruitful and multiplying body, when the procreative sensual body was deemed good.
Joseph Smith restored the goodness of the natural drives toward progression, dominance, and dominion; as one finds in the Hebrew Bible's Heroes, with its call to dominion through acting out the organic lifeward powers of the goodly body. To imitate Solomon and Abraham as sexually vital men was also to imitate God himself who is also a virial sexual Man of Power. As the Encyclopedia of Mormonism puts it:
According to Enoch's record, Man of Holiness is one name of God: "In the language of Adam, Man of Holiness is his name, and the name of his Only Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ" (Moses 6:57). God further declared in the revelation to Enoch: "Behold, I am God; Man of Holiness is my name" (Moses 7:35). This name reinforces the observation that God the Father is an exalted man of flesh and bones (D&C 130:22), and that every aspect of his character is holy.
Every aspect of God's character would include his tangible sexual body, so that being "holy" becomes being sexual and procreative, not celibate or overly ascetic. In fact, when Joseph Smith produced the Articles of Faith in 1842, it mentions being "chaste" in #13, which was written when Smith was practicing plural marriage (not monogamy nor celibacy). Meanwhile, in Smith's theology only those who have sex with multiple partners through plural marriage gain the highest exaltation and "are worthy of a far more...exceeding...eternal weight of glory" (D&C 132: 16; the word in bold my own for emphasis).
What might this analysis above about what it meant to be "worthy" and "chaste" in 1842, have to say for the current more puritanical attitude that one finds in the Utah-based Institutional LDS Church and Chapel culture today?
In Joseph Smith's Pro Sensual Vision, one is to imitate God by progressing toward the same power and dominion as God through his law and ordinance of plural marriage (in imitation of David, Solomon, Moses, and Abraham):
D&C 132 (words in bold my own for emphasis):
1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines.
… 38 David also received many wives and concubines, and also Solomon and Moses my servants, as also many others of my servants, from the beginning of creation until this time; and in nothing did they sin save in those things which they received not of me.
39 David’s wives and concubines were given unto him of me, by the hand of Nathan, my servant, and others of the prophets who had the keys of this power; and in none of these things did he sin against me save in the case of Uriah and his wife; and, therefore he hath fallen from his exaltation, and received his portion; and he shall not inherit them out of the world, for I gave them unto another, saith the Lord.
… 19 And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power and the keys of this priesthood; and it shall be said unto them—Ye shall come forth in the first resurrection; and if it be after the first resurrection, in the next resurrection; and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths— ...; and shall be of full force when they are out of the world; and they shall pass by the angels, and the Gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.
… 62 And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.
63 But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.
Note here the clear explanation of why men are to take many wives and concubines: it is for expanding one's power and dominion like David and Solomon; and your propagation and exaltation glorifies the Gods that came before you. To be a God is to acquire power and dominion by multiplying your seed with wives and concubines that you've acquired as a sign of your power. This restores the Hebraic theology when noble hebrew men were to gain wealth and dominion through conquests in battle, gaining land ownership and cattle, as well as wives and concubines. Smith coopted this hebraic way of being and amplified it so that Mormons expand their power through the procreative act and the continuation of the seeds; which was a sign of power and dominion not just on earth but throughout eternity.
In the Hebrew Bible, God gives to David his wives and concubines as a sign of his kingly status and power; and Joseph Smith expands this idea into the afterlife so that Mormons are to imitate King David on earth in order to become like God (who lives like King David in the afterlife). In this way the Protestant god without parts or passions (without bodily form) is restored back to bodily form (as described in the Hebrew Bible); and the bodyless, sexless deity of Protestantism is recast as a bodily Man of Holiness with wives and concubines.
Rather than the negation of the organic sexual body and the denial of the dominance hierarchies of Life (through monastic status-renunciation and celibacy), Joseph Smith restored the life-centered organic philosophy of the religion of Jesus and its path of the masculine hero in the Hebrew Bible.
The Protestant God was described as a non-gendered, asexual, bodiless Vapor without parts or passions. This was a direct reflection of Greek philosophy and the monastic attitude that negated the energies of life. Joseph Smith on the other hand saw in his study of the Hebrew Bible references to the Gods plural, and multiple passages of God having an anthropomorphic (human-like) body. From this he could also see clearly that the God of the Old Testament endorsed plural marriage and was more liberal in his views about sex compared to the Victorian Puritans of his day. From this he engaged in his own version of midrash just like Paul did and he envisioned a God with a tangible body, in fact a sexual body; so that celibacy and renunciation was not the path to becoming like God but instead the true path was becoming more life-affirming, more joyful and happy through an active embodied life that is sexually fulfilling. This was the path to Godhood.
This is why Joseph Smith says in the King Follett discourse that you have got to learn how to become Gods. That is you need to understand that the purpose of life is not groveling before a vaporous bodiless dictator in the sky and denying your body of flesh and passions, hiding in a monastery being celibate or seeking to escape your depraved flesh by dying a martyr to escape life. Instead the goal is to live an embodied life of sensual pleasure, joy, play, and laughter. Aligning with the lifeward energies which are of Christ as Christ is the Christpower in and through all things; so that the energies of life are of God: that drives men to seek strength, status and territory, and in Smith's mythos will eventually lead to them achieving thrones and dominion in the afterlife: as an imitation of God himself who was once a man and progressed to Godhood through the same embodied lifestyle and call to dominion.
In Joseph Smith's own words in the King Follett discourse (words in bold my own):
“You have got to learn how to make yourselves Gods in order to save yourselves and be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done—by going from a small capacity to a great capacity, from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, until the resurrection of the dead, from exaltation to exaltation—till you are able to sit in everlasting burnings and everlasting power and glory as those who have gone before, sit enthroned.
If we compare this (above) to the earlier scriptures Smith produced (quoted below), we can see clearly what it means when Joseph said you have got to learn how to become Gods yourselves:
DC 109:77
O Lord God Almighty, ... where thou sittest enthroned, with glory, honor, power, majesty, might, dominion, ....
1 Nephi 22:24
... the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion, and might, and power, and great glory.
Comparing the King Follett discourse to these above scriptures makes it clear, to become like God is to be enthroned with honor, power and dominion; and D&C sections 130 to 132 makes it clear that this is accomplished through the sensual body and through imitating Abraham and King David and Solomon in expanding your territory and gaining higher status through wives and concubines and having singular servants minister unto you; multiplying your seed and enlarging your genetic boundary through sensually expressing your manly procreative powers through all generations of time and throughout all eternity.
In all of this there is an affirmation of the Life-expanding energies of organic thriving and progressing in dominion and power. There is no denying of life's energies and the fecundity of the Life-producing good earth like in monastic forms of Catholicism and Protestantism. The manly energies of status-seeking, territory and wealth accumulation, and expanding in strength and vitality and purpose, is not repressed and denied in Mormonism but given a mythological outlet, a fraternal symbolic world of expressed masculine power.
Rather than a vaporous bodiless and passionless deity one finds in the sectarian creeds, Joseph Smith presents an embodied God of parts and passions, of ultimate power and dominion. From this point of view we can understand why in Smith's History he says in verse 19, that the Gods declared that the sectarian creeds "were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt" and "they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.” Recall our analysis above of Doctrine and Covenants 132. There we saw that "the power thereof" is the power to "seal" in order to act out the "form of godliness" which is accomplished through plural marriage. The sectarian Creeds denied the tangibility of God and the sensual nature of God. The Creeds presented a vaporous no-thing and had no priesthood sealing power.
From a metaphorical perspective, the Creeds had denied the cosmic drive to thrive and enact the organic powers of growth and development toward Abrahamic expansion in power and dominion.
From this point of view, was not Joseph Smith searching the scriptures and manifesting not only the power dynamics therein but the very power dynamics of the Cosmos? Think about it: according to the majority of scientists our universe originated as a singularity, of unimaginable power, with a cosmic event of great explosive power and magnitude; which led to our universe continually expanding!
Our universe originated from a singularity into an expanding dominion with properties that emerged and organized and formed into atoms and galaxies and then life evolved on earth in an evolving struggle for power and dominion. The Hebrew Bible echoes these realities with the Hebrew God organizing chaos into order and encouraging humans to likewise create order out of the chaos on the earth and conquer the environment themselves. Would not then, to be in God's image (as his creation) to be like unto his creations (an expanding force of plenty)?
From this life-ward Cosmic perspective, it makes sense that the virile Joseph Smith would describe the Gods as those who live like Abraham and King David and Solomon, and are not infected with the Fundamentalist Protestant "shaming of the body," but are healthy sexual beings engaged in sexual expression. In a previous post I explained how Mormonism is at its core a theology with a sexual God with a sexual body.
In his writings Nietzsche laments the emasculation of men he sees in the mid 1800s, and the attack on the "rank order" of Life. In a visual presentation, Jordan Peterson reads from the section The Tarantulas, about those who want forced equality and the eradication of competition, hierarchy, and elite men (like athletes) or other men of Aristotelian excellence. When this is combined with, what Nietzsche calls the despisers of the body you have within these ascetic versions of Christianity the total negation of Life. As SparkNotes puts it:
Those who assert that the self is really spirit [absent the tangible body] are "despisers of the body" who have a sick body that hates life and wants to die.
(Source)
Jordan Peterson is himself a Christian (a Pragmatic Jungian Christian), and in a discussion with a priest, Peterson points out that Nietzsche is a great critic of versions of Christianity that are indeed problematic. As far as I know Joseph Smith knew nothing of Nietzsche's writings, and the two men philosophically disagreed as much as they might have agreed on things. Yet the same pro-organic-Life energy one finds in Nietzsche's writings, are also deeply rooted in Joseph Smith's psyche and expressed in his scriptural productions. I see the same Lifeward energy manifesting in books like No More Christian Nice Guy.
What Joseph Smith does is affirm the order of Nature and combine it with the fair minded egalitarian ideals of Christianity. Joseph Smith did not remove hierarchy and masculine vitality (as one finds in many emasculating versions of Christianity) but combined both masculine and feminine energy within his theology. For example, while Nietzsche saw women as a mere plaything and vessel of the future Superman species, Smith in contrast sees the woman as co-equal with the man in that it is the relationship of the man and the woman that shall make them divine. Smith also allowed for women to have more than one earthly husband. Meanwhile, he distributed great power to women through the Relief Society. Among the most popular Christian sects, only in Mormonism do you have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother, what is referred to as Heavenly Parents.
In this post I made the argument that the Mormon method of polygamy is made better sense of through the interpretive lens of the Nietzschean will to power. This does not mean that I encourage plural marriage or endorse these passages literally. In fact, some historians believe that toward the end of his life Joseph Smith may have considered abandoning polygamy completely due to its problematic elements.
What can all this mean for modern Latter-day Saints and cultural Mormons? How does one exercise their faith or heritage and the "principle of action and of power in all intelligent beings, both in heaven and on earth"? Without practicing plural marriage, how can one metaphorically live out the goal of inheriting "thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths— ... to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever"?
Many modern Saints find ways to resolve this, such as remaining active members in the Utah Church and practicing monogamy but not having a negative attitude about human sexuality; and expressing Christpower and the Call to Dominion through being really good at their chosen sport or physical activity and competing with others in their career and gaining greater wealth and sharing their surplus with others.
One thing Joseph Smith did not foresee was the Mormon Church of the 1900s returning to the Protestant Puritan mindset and the repression of the sensual body. I'm not advocating polygamy or free love or anything like that. But as I see it, to be true to the spirit of Joseph Smith's original Nauvoo theology, there needs to be some understanding and recognition that Joseph Smith envisioned not the repression of the drive to thrive but the expression of the desire to rise in power and dominion and express oneself sexually through their goodly tangible body; which was at the heart of his philosophy and theology. Joseph Smith was not a repressed monk hiding in a monastery devoted to celibacy and lashing his skin to overcome any desire to masturbate. Joseph Smith was an athletic and virile man of valor and personal power. He did not deny the sensual powers of the flesh that God gave him, but worshipped an embodied God of Power by imitating an embodied God through the pursuit of sensual pleasure and happiness, power and dominion.
What this means for me philosophically is not becoming a polygamist but asking myself how I can metaphorically accept the Call to Dominion? How can I express the cosmic drive to thrive in my personal life? Am I living in my body actively, or hiding in my head too much with my nose in books which I tend to do sometimes. Am I overthinking things or engaging in a more active lifestyle like Joseph Smith modeled?
This whole video lecture is good for understanding Nietzsche's philosophy on slave and master morality, but I especially recommend the 1 hour and 30 minutes to the 2-hour mark, where he talks about the "King David instinct." Note that I reject Nietzsche's dichotomous splitting of "master and slave morality" and instead agree with the video presenter, that the best course is a melding and integration of the two extremes. I think Joseph Smith manifested this balancing integration quite well. So I ask myself, how can I live out the King David Instinct as a modern civilized American?
Dan Vogel argues persuasively that among other motivations for composing the book, Joseph Smith dreamed of uniting his family by exercising his creative talent in producing The Book of Mormon. Am I pursuing my own dreams with manly ambition and expressing my own artistic talents to achieve great things?
Am I rising in rank at my job or progressing in my career like Joseph Smith becoming a mayor, city planner, and a general of a large army? Am I raising my status and increasing my own strength and vitality, and gaining civil dominion as an American?
As an Independent Mormon this is what the Mormon theology of Power means for me.
