Jesus and the Samaritans & The Restoration Branches

 I was listening to the audiobook The Fourth Gospel by John Spong, and he says the following (transcribed from the audiobook):

… exiled Jews were determined to return to their home someday and that desire forced them to separate themselves radically from non-Jews in overtly distinguishing ways. This is what caused them to adopt such practices as strict Sabbath day observances, kosher dietary laws, and mandated circumcision … in time when these exiles were allowed to return to their Homeland they saw themselves as quite distinct from and superior to those who remained in their conquered land, whose bloodlines were now suspect and whose religious practices were assumed to be corrupt. The term Samaritan was then applied to this group of people … the hostility between the returning Jews and the "half breeds" who populated their former Homeland was palpable. All of these feelings are captured in this Johanna episode when the Samaritan woman responds to Jesus request for a drink of water at the well of Jacob.  … the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is a deep theological conversation about human boundaries and what role Jesus would play in the world of human tensions. To the woman's hostile question as to why he, a Jew, would ask her (a Samaritan) for water, Jesus responds with a new invitation. He offers her living water, a synonym for the spirit that binds human life together. The woman, not yet understanding the dialogue, notes that he has nothing in which to draw water from the well … she asks him the key question, "Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well?" Note the use of the pronoun … is identifying herself with the ancient covenant made with the patriarchs. …. Jesus responds … by lifting the conversation beyond this ancient division. Jacob's well provides water that sustains life but only momentarily. Those who quench their thirst with the waters from Jacob's well will thirst again he says. Jesus is offering a kind of water that causes people to become so whole they will never again know thirst ... 

…  people forget that this woman is a mythological symbol of Samaria …. This is a symbolic conversation about how the unfaithful region of Samaria can be incorporated into the new understanding of Christianity that Jesus is believed to present. It's about how ancient religious divisions in the human family can be overcome in the new human consciousness that Jesus comes to bring. … she is asking one she identifies as a prophet [Jesus] to settle the dispute as to whether true worship is to be identified with Mount garazime in Samaria or with the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus asserts that God is beyond that … Jesus asserts that God is beyond that sort of human limit. God is spirit, unbounded and all permeating spirit, and those who worship this God must do so in spirit and in truth. Salvation comes from the Jews he asserts but he then immediately transcends the Jewish limits to embrace all people including those who are the deepest objects of Jewish scorn, the Samaritans. … Jesus is proclaiming that even those considered worthy of rejection by the Jews, are to be included in the realm of God to which Jesus is the opening. 

Compare this to the Spirit in the Book of Mormon ultimately seeking to build Zion through one shared and simple Doctrine of Christ; and avoiding all manner of "ites." From this perspective, Smith and Rigdon provided additional Scriptures that have the capacity of uniting all Smith-Rigdon Restorationists as one Vine. If there is one Spirit and one Vine, it would not matter where a restorationist saint met, whether in the Reorganized LDS Church Temple in Missouri, or the Salt Lake Temple, etc. The same Book of Mormon Spirit would be manifest in both places.

The next day I was listening to Gospel Tangents episode 712 (breaking down restoration walls), and at the 5-8 minute, Patrick McKay says he started visiting with other Smith-Rigdon Restorationists outside his own restorationist branch, and he began to realize that they shared a common spiritual ground. He started to think about Jesus going to the Samaritans (just as Spong discussed above), and he thought about how Jesus seeking to unite Jew and Samaritan, might be a call for him to go to other Smith-Rigdon branches outside his own branch and to attempt to unite everyone (all the restoration branches) as one spiritual body.

At the 15 to 18 minute mark he discusses my own belief that the restorationist branches are ultimately interconnected to the True Vine; and when you get past the bureaucracy and institutional successional claims of authority, it is the same Ecclesia manifested in different styles and varieties.

He further explains at the 24 minute that the Doctrine of Christ in the Book of Mormon is simple and shared by all the restoration branches; and in the Book of Mormon there are only two Churches or Ecclesias, the Ecclesia (or congregations/gatherings) of Christ and the congregations of the contentious and devilish. From this perspective, all the Smith-Rigdon Restorationist sects are congregations of Christ. They may have different names and ways of interpreting the use of Temples today, etc., but they all believe in the same Book of Mormon Spirit and the same Doctrine of Christ. 

The "Church" as Zion-minded Friends on The True Vine: A Loving People United as One in Genuine Friendships

 Allow me to begin with some keys verses from the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, revealing what the true "church" actually is: an organically mystical Body of Friends:

John 15:1-17 (EXB):

Jesus Is Like a Vine

15 “I am the true vine [contrast Israel, the unreliable vine; Ps. 80:8–18; Is. 5:1–7]; my Father is the gardener [farmer; vinedresser]. 2 He cuts off [or takes away] every branch of mine [in me] that does not produce fruit [whose lives bear no indication of a relationship with Christ]. And he trims and cleans [prunes; the verb implies both trimming and cleaning] every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce even more fruit [Heb. 12:4–11]. 3 You are already clean [or pruned] because of the words I have spoken to you. 4 Remain [Abide] in me, and I will remain [abide] in you. A branch cannot produce fruit alone [by itself] but must remain [abide] in the vine. In the same way, you cannot produce fruit alone but must remain [abide] in me. …

... 7 If you remain [abide] in me and follow my teachings [my words abide/remain in you], you can ask anything you want, and it will be given to [be done for; come to] you. 8 You should produce much fruit and show that you are [or become] my followers [disciples], which brings glory to [glorifies] my Father. 9 I loved you as the Father loved me. Now remain [abide] in my love. 10 I have obeyed [kept] my Father’s commands, and I remain [abide] in his love. In the same way, if you obey [keep] my commands, you will remain [abide] in my love. 11 I have told you these things so that you can have the same joy I have [my joy may be in you] and so that your joy will be the fullest possible joy [might be complete].

12 “This is my command: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 The greatest love a person can show is to die for his friends [No one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends; Jesus’ death is the ultimate expression of this principle]. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I no longer call you servants [slaves; bond-servants], because a servant [slave; bond-servant] does not know what his master [lord] is doing. But I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me; I chose you. And I gave you this work: [appointed you] to go and produce fruit, fruit that will last [remain; abide]. Then the Father will give you anything you ask for in my name [see 14:13]. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

1 Nephi 15: 15:

 ... Yea, at that day, will they not receive the strength and nourishment from the true vine? Yea, will they not come unto the true fold of God?

Alma 16:15-17:

15 And thus did Alma and Amulek go forth, and also many more who had been chosen for the work, to preach the word throughout all the land. And the establishment of the church became general throughout the land, in all the region round about, among all the people of the Nephites.

16 And there was no inequality among them; the Lord did pour out his Spirit on all the face of the land to prepare the minds of the children of men, or to prepare their hearts to receive the word which should be taught among them at the time of his coming—

17 That they might not be hardened against the word, that they might not be unbelieving, and go on to destruction, but that they might receive the word with joy, and as a branch be grafted into the true vine, that they might enter into the rest of the Lord their God.

John 17:22 (EXB):

I have given these people the glory [honor] that you gave me so that they can be one, just as you and I are one.

Mosiah 18:8-10:

8 And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;

9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—

10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?

Here's a radical idea: with the above scriptures in mind, what if the restored gospel was not a litmus test of "which boxes do you check off" to hold a temple recommend, and it wasn't about attending Chapel; but instead, what if being "the church" meant being part of a fold of friends as described in the verses above? What if we took seriously John 13:35 (EXB), "All people will know that you are my followers [disciples] if you love each other [one another].” What if we took the Book of Mormon passage above to mourn with those who mourn seriously? What if we took the passages about what it means to be a Zion-People seriously in Moses 7.

Or will we focus on our clothing or doing our "duty" without being friends, or feeling "perfect" and righteous like the Pharisees did? Or will we live as if we are branches on the true vine, as if the sap of God's love flows between us as an interdependent spiritual organism, regardless of our leadership position, Church-building attendance, outward attire, or whether or not we wear a certain kind of garments or have a Temple recommend card in our pocket. 

For me, to be "Mormon" is to embrace the Smith-Rigdon Movement, the restored gospel or LDS Christianity. I am not Catholic or Protestant. I am Mormon. There are many ways to mormon. I served the second half of my mission in Independence Missouri and met many "Book of Mormon believers" who did not follow the tradition of the Brighamite saints that settled in Utah. These other Saints were just as devoted to the restored gospel as any member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I encountered. On my mission in Missouri I learned to consider them members/branches of the church/vine, as in the word "church" in Greek means Ecclesia: meaning an assembly of people seeking to take upon them the name of Christ or follow in his steps. 

For me, the word "church" means the Vine and the members are the branches on the Vine. The church is not a sect or religious institution. Its not a corporation, nor an elite leadership or a church manual or handbook. The "true church" is the true vine with its fruits/results of a loving community. 

What if instead of focusing on doctrinal or creedle differences we focused on the doctrine of Christ in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 31: 1-2, 20-21), and did not get hung up on doctrinal or restorationist-sectarian differences, especially since the original "doctrine" of the "restored church" (which was bound in LDS Scripture in 1835) was the Lectures on Faith, a monotheistic trinitarian document, that is no longer considered doctrine today in the Brigmite sect, nor in most other restorationist sects. Hence creedle doctrines do in fact change and develop. What if we considered the doctrine of Christ: which is simply to repent (apologize for wrongs, make restitution, and re-choose the better path), be baptized (as symbolic of becoming a fruitful branching member on the vine); and receive God's Spirit, in Greek Pneuma (pronounce Numa). The Spirit or Pneuma, is a person or member of the Godhead but also is in part an empowering fluid power (as Mormon apostle Parley Pratt and modern biblical scholar Engberg-Peterson explain); thus, it is literally poured into us like sap flowing in a Vine, enlivening and uniting the branches (see Prov. 1:23, Isaiah 32:15, Acts 10:45; D&C 19:38; Mosiah 18:10, 3 Nephi 20:27). 

If we all had Christ's pneuma (spirit) to be with us, then would it matter which Book of Mormon sect we attended or if we attended a "church building" at all? Would it not matter more that we gathered anywhere and everywhere as true friends, as braches on the same Vine? What if being an LDS Christian became about our love one to another and by our fruits (loving friendships) others knew us; i.e. they could recognize us by our joyful and radiant show of love one to another. The most important question on our minds would continually be: are we a Zion-People, united as genuine friends, as pneumatic filled branches on the Vine bearing good fruit (results) that demonstrate that we have taken upon us the name of Christ and have his pneuma to be with us?

The Same Pattern of an Inevitable Tension between Philosophical Mystics & Controlling Dogmatists, Repeats Itself in both the Bible and in Mormonism:

• Priests versus the Poetic Prophets

• Jesus' Way versus the Pharisees' Tradition of the Elders 

• Paul versus Peter, James, and the "super apostles"

• Authentic letters of Paul versus disputed letters of Paul

• Gospel of Mark vs. Gospel of John

• Erasmus versus Luther

• Rigdon vs. David Whitmer

• Joseph Smith versus William Law

• Orson Pratt versus Brigham

• BH Roberts vs. The Brethren 

• McConkey vs. Eugene England

• Rock Waterman (emphasizing the Word) versus Brethrenism (emphasizing the Handbook) 

God: An Anatomy (Book) & Fig Leaves, Gods, & Sex

 In Professor Francesca Stavrakopolou's book  God: An Anatomy, in Part 2 (God's Genitals), in chapter 5 (Cover Up), at location 1591-1664 of the ebook we read (all words in bold are my own for emphasis):

The censoring of Michelangelo’s work was just one of a number of Counter-Reformation strategies adopted by bishops, priests and theologians in the wake of the Council of Trent (1545–63) to tackle what had come to be seen as the scandalous profanity of frontal nudity in Christian art.[3] No matter that Michelangelo, like many of his predecessors and peers, used the nude theologically to celebrate the humanity and masculinity of the divine Christ. For too many, the genitals were both spiritually and morally dangerous, and were thus to be hidden from view.

This was far from a new idea. The genitals have long functioned as a site of religious and cultural anxiety in human societies. Simultaneously associated with sex, reproduction and urination, the places and spaces between our legs trigger deep-rooted social and cultural concerns – particularly about their public display – and are coded with values and meanings in ways many other body parts are not. These values and meanings are closely linked to the generative and changeable physiology of our genitals. … They are powerfully transformative. And like other manifestations of power and transformation, they are potentially dangerous – unless carefully harnessed or managed by the social and cultural preferences of the communities in which we live. …

This was of particular interest to me in the context of the Book of Abraham and God being depicted with an erection. For it helps us see this Mormon depiction of God in a positive light. The next section was of particular interest because, as I have argued in the following blog series, I believe that Joseph Smith was seeking to liberate the Saints from Augustinianism. Thus Professor Stavrakopolou's following words here provide further support for my arguments:

In the hands of early [Catholic and Protestant] Christian theologians, [the story of Adam and Eve is] about human misbehaviour became a morality tale about the dangers of the flesh. ‘They turned their eyes on their own genitals, and lusted after them with that stirring movement they had not previously known’, conjectured the fifth-century CE bishop Augustine of Hippo – a Christian convert and reformed womanizer, who knew the hazardous allures of the body all too well.[6] His formulation of humanity’s ‘original sin’ would quickly become a central doctrine of the Western Church. Eve became a temptress who led her husband into religious deviancy. Transgression led to sexualization, rendering innocent nudity shameful nakedness. The first humans fell away from God, exchanging the easy intimacy of the garden for the sweat, pain and unruly sexual desire of the carnal world. Salvation from original sin, congenitally inherited by all humans, was only to be found in Christ – the celibate, sinless counterpart to Adam – who was birthed into the world by Mary – the virginal, uncorrupted foil to Eve. Woeful shame and dangerous lust have infected our genitals ever since.

And yet there is nothing in the biblical story of Eden to suggest that the covering of the genitals reflects the sin of sexuality. Rather, it is a tale about the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and the threat they now pose to God, who shares with his divine colleagues in the heavenly council his worry that, in acquiring wisdom, the humans have become ‘like one of us’.[7] They are akin to gods. Their rudimentary clothing marks this transformed, elevated status –a new status further acknowledged by God himself, who replaces their flimsy fig leaves with more durable outfits of leather, made by his own hand. Beyond the bounds of the garden, humans immediately harness their newfound wisdom to do as the gods have always done: they bear children, cultivate crops and rear animals; they kill, travel, play music, build cities, forge tools, craft weapons and perform rituals. In covering their genitals, Adam and Eve reveal not their sexualized self-corruption, but their godlike capacity for the creation of culture.[8]

Note how the Professor explains that the Council of Gods were endowing Humanity with Divine attributes by providing the fig leaves so that they can do as the gods have always done and bear children. With this context in mind, Joseph Smith can be seen as completely reversing the Augustinian point of view. Instead of the fig leaves being a cover-up of shameful genitals, Joseph Smith presents the fig leaf aprons in the temple as symbolic of the procreative potency of the male phallus in a positive and affirming manner as a source of power through strength in the loins and the priesthood seed toward an increae of lives (Abr. 2:11; D&C 132: 15-20, 63).

The professor continues:

The distortion of this [Adam & Eve] story by early theologians is just one episode in the long history of a ferocious Christian hostility towards sex and the genitals. It was a hostility shaped in part by the acute ascetic tendencies of certain ancient and classical Greek philosophies, including aspects of Stoicism and Platonism, in which the base and the bodily were sharply distinguished from the sublime and the immaterial. …

Note how this is also remedied in the restored gospel, which is a more materialist or physicalist spirituality. She goes on to summarize the attitude of the Apostle Paul and then says, "For Paul, an out-and-proud celibate himself, the holy and the horny could not and should not mix." Once again, from this perspective I see the restored gospel as being more affirmative of bodily drives and desires. For example, see Parley Pratt's 1840 pamphlet An Appeal to the Inhabitants of the State of New York, Letter to Queen Victoria, in particular the essay Intelligence and Affection, where he speaks favorably of the procreative sensual affections.

She goes on to point out that many early Christians began to see sex itself as something to be avoided, as she writes:

By the second century CE, this hostility had intensified. In an important text known as the Acts of Thomas, the risen Jesus suddenly appears in the bedchamber of a couple on their wedding night, urging them not to have sex: ‘Know that if you refrain from this filthy intercourse, you become temples holy and pure . . . and you will not be involved in the cares of life and of children, whose end is destruction’. …

… many early Christians –including Paul and the Gospel writers –believed that the world as they knew it was about to end, for it was to be swept away by the Kingdom of God, in which there would be no place for sex nor need for procreation. …

This historical analysis gives further support to the need of the restored gospel, in order to restore the original hebraic attitude of sexuality and reproduction; that had clearly been distorted by dualistic Greek philosophy and the mistaken apocalypticism of certain sects within Second Temple Judaism.