The Cultural Hall

For me personally, one of the most important factors in keeping the “Mormon Experience” meaningful in my life has been finding mentors. Getting to know women and men who are bright, compassionate, thoughful and still connected. I am lucky to have had Greg Prince as one of these people in my life. Our families have been friends as long as I can remember. His impact on me has been significant.

This morning I re-read pieces of his interview for the documentary on PBS. It did my heart good. Thanks again Greg.

Here are some of my favorite highlights and a link to the interview:

The Book of Mormon is more than a literary text or a guide to an archaeological dig. Nor does it prove God exists. Can you explore the middle way of looking at the Book of Mormon?

“Perhaps the most prevalent viewpoint in the church is either the Book of Mormon is a literal history of the Americas before Columbus or it’s wrong. There is an alternative somewhere between those two. If you look at the Bible, some of the greatest books of the Bible — and in my mind in particular the Book of Job, which I feel to be one of the greatest books in world literature, is fictional. Its message is independent of its historicity. That’s the key in dealing with the Book of Mormon. Whatever its message is, it continues to resonate with the people who encounter it.

It’s not because of its doctrinal sophistication, because if you look at the Book of Mormon compared to the Bible, the level of theology of the two is quite separate. So that’s not the attraction. It’s not the historicity, because the people who read it don’t come away from reading it thinking, “Well, that was an interesting history.” It’s that there is truth within that book, just as there is truth within the Book of Job that is, in fact, a fictional book. …

That’s the message that people need to get. Forget about the container for a while. Get inside of it and grab the truth that’s in there, regardless of the form that it’s in, regardless of how it got to be in that container — and then you win. …

In his earlier days as a prophet, Joseph Smith was dependent on physical artifacts as part of the prophetic process: plates; … papyrus; … Urim and Thummim, the seer stones. Look at the early revelations, and the introductions to them for a few months say, “Revelation received through the Urim and Thummim.” Then that stops, and it never picks up again, because he is no longer dependent on those physical objects to open his mind to the revelatory process. Now, what does all that mean about the Book of Mormon? Could it be just a revelation instead of a translation? To me, yes. No problem. And it doesn’t have any impact on what it has done subsequently. Yes, it could have been a literal translation of an ancient record, and this is what the result has been. But it’s not the only explanation. And in fact, those parts of the explanation that are susceptible to scientific inquiry are beginning to go in the other direction — a metaphorical Book of Mormon, if you will. …”

Is it tough to be an intellectual in this church? Is it changing?

“Being an intellectual in this church is a hard way to make an easy living, for two reasons. One is the wealth of source material: If you go back and look at the history, it’s enormous — and troubling, because it doesn’t always square with the public relations version of things. The second reason it’s difficult is there is an anti-intellectual bent in the church that in some cases has gone so far as to push people out simply because they were thinking people, either overtly pushed them out by excommunicating them or sending the message that they’re not welcome and we’d be a lot happier if you’d just have the good grace to leave, and leave quietly.

So it’s not an easy lifestyle, but people don’t tend to choose that lifestyle. You are that, or you’re something else. I don’t think you choose to be an intellectual. It’s the way you’re wired. It’s the way you view the world. So there you are, and if you’re going through that journey alone, it’s a very perilous and lonely journey. It turns out there are many other people in the church with a similar mind-set, but they are a loose amalgamation at best. It’s been with difficulty over the decades that those of us who consider ourselves within that philosophy try to hang on to the church for ourselves and try to hang on to others and keep them in.

That’s why magazines such as Dialogue came into being — a lifeline for 40 years now to those whose wiring causes them to question. It allows them to question and to stay in at the same time, whereas otherwise they may just be shown the exit door. …”

Do you see a culture of certainty … in this church? The “I know, I know” — does this create … closet doubters?

“There is a strong thread within the church that clings to the notion that I have to be able to say in public, “I know,” regardless of what the “I know” involves. Unwittingly that has created a culture that says to the other ones who can’t say that in honesty, “Gee, there must be something wrong with me, because I can’t say, ‘I know,’ if I don’t know.” I think that the desire to be able to go up to the pulpit and say “I know” is not unique to Mormonism. I think that pervades the entire world, and it’s why fundamentalism in whatever clothing — Christian, Judaic, Islamic — is a dangerous thing, because it gives a false certitude to people. They think that the tough questions in life can all be reduced to one-line answers, and they can’t. If you think that’s where the world is and you try to live in that world, it’s destructive ultimately. So we have to be able to move at some point from, “Oh, yeah, I know,” to, “Listen, here’s where I am. I think I know some things, and I’ve experienced some things, and there are a lot of things I don’t know. But I’m here for the duration, so let’s move forward together and help each other.”

It is striking, the words “I know” in Mormon culture.

“Well, I come at this as a practicing scientist. Science has been my livelihood for over three decades. When I write a scientific paper and I put anything close to “I know” on it, that means something really strong. And generally we have to qualify that and say things like: “Within the parameters that we have conducted these experiments, here are our conclusions. P.S. — they’re subject to change.” So I can’t just abandon that mind-set when I walk in the doors of a church and suddenly say, “Oh, yeah, I know, I know, I know.” … “