My prescription for promoting high culture in the LDS Church

There was a great post the other day over at Times and Seasons by Kent Larsen entitled "Key to the Culture of Mormons" which inspired a long comment by myself, which I thought I would share and develop in this forum. The topic I responded to being the transmission of "high culture" in the LDS community and the current absence of mechanisms of exchange.

There are many layers at play here but I do agree that currently there are few mechanisms in place, or at least the current mechanisms are not being used, to transmit 'high LDS culture' across the entire worldwide church body. I think the explanation is largely historical and is a manifestation of the growing pains/identity shift of a church that was largely isolated in Utah for most of its history which has then suddenly exploded into an international, multicultural church in the last 50 years, coming to a forefront in the last 10.

First, I believe that the church can and should help promote high culture and art by incorporating it into the official worship program. I think the Church is trying to do this with such activities as the International Art Competition, which I look forward to the next exhibit, and a recent emphasis in showcasing art in the Ensign.  I think they are also trying to disseminate high culture through special events in the conference center, such as these fabulous Christmas concerts, Latino celebrations, as well as productions in the small theater at the conference center, etc. They are also trying to disseminate it through BYUTV and in general BYU is used as a mechanism to create and share such art. I think the Church leadership is aware of the need to inspire and showcase such creativity and the ideal of developing high culture as part of a religious community is perhaps strongest in Mormonism when compared to other modern religions. Also, I would add that I think the Church has good taste in art and music based on what it tends to showcase on its official stages and publications. However... I think the Church still has a long way to go in terms of reaching this ideal and in the refinement of their current mechanisms, particularly regarding worldwide marketing and distribution.

A couple ways I would like to see the LDS Church incorporate high art and culture into the official worship program:

1. Allow greater flexibility in the hymnal, encourage local musicians to compose sacred music and help them publish, in some poor countries in Africa and Latin America you might need to help these artists financially to publish and record.

2. Give local members more flexibility in the art and decor of local temples. Even if it delays the opening by a few weeks, bring artists in the temple to paint murals, use local artists to do the woodwork, I think it would go a long way in both building the richness of LDS culture as well as building the faith and commitment of local members through participation. I think Mormon culture has lost something special in the process of streamlining our temple building. I love the beauty of the early temples, Salt Lake, Manti, with their brilliant architecture and high art, they are shining gems of the testimonies and commitment of the people.

3. Make the high art sourced in the International Art Competitions more available for mass consumption. The Church even awards some of the best works with "Purchase Awards" but then they get hung in the Church Museum or somewhere on Temple Square never to be seen by the majority of Church members. Why not use these as part of the LDS Gospel Art Kit or make them easily available for purchase through the Church Distribution catalogue? 

4. Potentially showcase high art/music at Conference. How many members have never heard the beautiful “The Redeemer” or similar oratorios? I thought it was interesting when the church brought in the Brazilian singer Liriel Domiciano and allowed her to sing not only in Music and the Spoken Word but in the Sunday morning session of Conference. The linked article says that that had not happened since 1930. Conference is perhaps the most central distribution mechanism of LDS culture, and for setting precedence; I think the church could use it strategically to inspire the development of the sacred music tradition of the Church. When a Koto or Javanese Gamelan orchestra accompanies the Mormon Tabernacle Choir we'll know the Church is trying to reach out to its international membership.

I think the second side in this equation is that members of the Church interested in these topics need to unite and use business and the Internet effectively to promote the creative arts of LDS artists. I think it needs to be separate from the Church and BYU but not so far removed from the mainstream that it can be dismissed by the mainstream membership of the Church. I think it will need to be web-based to reach the international church if it is truly going to represent and try to promote a world-wide high-art culture of Mormonism.

Those are my thoughts, I'm sure they are not new ideas and I know there are more important things to manage in the worldwide church such as pure doctrine and leadership, so this would all just be a cherry on top.

Slideshow of LDS Art

Quick update before my next post- I added a slideshow of LDS Art in the sidebar. Some of them are a bit more obscure and I realize it is hard to see details in the little sidebar so I would be happy to share where I located them on the web. Also, feel free to send me any pieces you think should be part of the slideshow, but I can't gaurantee I'll post them all, they must pass the screen of my own personal tastes :) I hope the artists see it as a free endoresment and not as a copyright issue.

Second, I added a feature to allow people to subscribe via email as I realize not everyone uses RSS readers.

Mormons should think twice when calling Jesus their "Elder Brother"

Mormons sometimes refer to Jesus as their "Elder Brother." This phrase is troubling to many onlookers from traditional Christianity as they see it as lowering the status of Jesus from God and King or putting us as practitioners on the same level as Jesus. It is a phrase that fuels their claims that we worship 'another Jesus' or the ridiculous smear tactic of saying Jesus and Satan are brothers, which was even used by Mike Huckabee in the presidential race, putting the issue in national papers.

Now, I understand why Mormons use this phrase and I'll summarize the doctrine later in this post, and I know the intentions of Mormons are not as the onlookers surmise, but in this case I am going to side with our critics and challenge Mormons to examine the words they casually use in their testimonies and prayers to see if this cultural pattern aligns with our doctrine.

This phrase, "Elder Brother" is not found in scriptures, neither Bible nor other LDS scripture. The principle of it is in the Bible, a combination of Jesus being the "Firstborn" and "Son of God" and all mankind being referred to as the "children of God". The reason the concept has gained prominence in Mormonism is due to unique LDS doctrines about what took place before the creation of the earth particularly as taught in the book of Abraham and the 93rd section of the D&C. Abraham 3 paints a scene in which God the Father is standing in the midst of spirits and among the crowd is the future Abraham and presumably other prophets as part of the "noble and great ones" and it is open to interpretation how far that net is cast. --In passing I will point out that it implies that there were some 'not-so-noble and not-so-great ones', I might have been in that category :) -- Then the spirit person who would come to earth and whom we know as Jesus is described as being "one among them" but with the adjective of being "like unto God." D&C 93 talks about Jesus receiving "not of the fullness at first" but that he became 'like unto God', "grace by grace". So there are some referrences in LDS scriptures that put Jesus "among" the wider family of humanity in the pre-earth realm and suggest development and growing into the role of Savior, but Christ is never lowered from his role or status, the added understanding is that mankind has divine heritage and potential and that only testifies to the power of Christ in His role.

I suspected the phrase may have had origins in the LDS hymnal but that search revealed that although there are some hymns that emphasize Jesus' role as friend and comforter, the phrase "Elder Brother" is never used and the vast majority of LDS hymns actually have the opposite emphasis, i.e. praising of Christ in his role as God, Savior, and King. My limited search on lds.org, along with the help of some friends, shows that the phrase first surfaces with Brigham Young and then can be found in discourses by most of the LDS prophets since then but always in passing, usually in reference to Christ's leadership role in the pre-earth realm.

I think the phrase is most common at the local level of discourse and vernacular in the Church, and just gradually became a common phrase members use in prayers and testimonies. I don't think it is used all that much, it is definitely used more by critics of the church than it is actually used by members. I listened for it in the last fast & testimony meeting in my ward and never heard it.

Again, I understand the doctrine and believe the phrase is accurate, I understand Mormons' excitement for this additional understanding of Jesus in the pre-mortal realm, and I believe that Mormons use it with reverent intimacy, but...

If we look at all the titles used to describe Jesus and their relative frequency in scripture, including how prophets refer to Him, how He refers to Himself and how God the Father addresses Him, we should be using this phrase "Elder Brother" rarely or not at all in following that established pattern. Additionally, I think there is always a tendency to become too casual in our reference to Deity and this phrase lends itself moreso to casualness. I think there are other ways of expressing the beautiful doctrine of Christ's role as the Firstborn and preordained Savior of mankind as well as the intimate friendship he provides.

Changing our language would put us in greater alignment with the language of our scriptures and save us a lot of misunderstanding when communicating with the greater Christian community.

The Mormon Purse

If a person were to see a group of Mormons walking to a chapel on a Sunday morning they might be perplexed by the appearance of everyone, men, women and children carrying purses, I personally refer to mine as a man-bag. I'm speaking, of course, of the bookbags for carrying the LDS canon of scripture, which includes the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. There are a number of cultural quirks that surround this little phenomenon--

First, the lingo--if a mormon says they want a new "quad" for Christmas they are not necessarily looking to go off-roading on a 4X4 but are instead looking for a set of scriptures that binds all four of those books into one. Likewise a "triple" is a not a baseball reference but reference to having two separate bindings the Bible (Old & New Testaments) and their "Triple" (Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price).

Second, there is an entire product line of bags that have been created to address this need of Mormons to carry their scriptures. There are dainty lace-edged ones for the young girls, then there are ones from Guatemala that incorporate traditional cloth patterns. My brother brought a set back from Argentina that were a unique blend of traditional Argentinian leather work and Watatsch Front Greg Olsen paintings. I have one made of Cambodian silk that I got the last time I was in Phnom Penh.

I find that scripture cases are one of the early artifacts that are created as the gospel spreads to new lands. It is a welcome phenomenon, especially if it translates into the words of the scriptures being likewise always carried within the hearts of the people.

I could not find very many examples of the international flavor scripture bags. If you have one, send me a picture and I'll post it. Here are the few I found:

Kangaroo fur from Down Under (Did anyone buy a coin purse there?); imports from Guatemala; a little Polynesian flavor; and some leather work from the Holy Land.

LDS Church looking for feedback on Ensign

If you didn't make it to the last page of the Ensign this month you might have missed an opportunity to explain why you didn't make it to the last page! (Actually, you didn't miss it, and it's easier to fill out the Ensign survey online anyway, and I'm sure we all read the Ensign cover to cover.) I encourage everyone to take the survey. A voluntary survey is bound to attract extremes in opinions- even more reason for the readers of this blog to participate as I anticipate that we fall somewhere in the middle. I think it is wonderful that the Editors and GA advisers are making a concerted effort to ask and listen to the wider readership, a great sign of humility.

I have had discussions on this blog and offline with some of you about the Ensign and it's role in both setting and reflecting LDS art and culture. I see it as a powerful media tool for the LDS Church to promote desired cultural tones and to inspire the further development of LDS art and culture. I also find the Ensign to be an interesting barometer of LDS cultural trends and the changing face of the Church.

Before I go off to take it myself I can't help but critique the survey having been involved with survey creation and collection the last few years. :) Overall they get a high score: the length is appropriate; visually it flows well; it follows good rules about mutually-exclusive answer choices, odd number scales; I like the balance of questions. They might get some half-filled out paper versions back as it is possible to interpret the first page to be the end of the survey. My favorite question, hand down, is #10, where we get to describe the magazine as "modern" "too idealized" "inviting" and more exciting adjectives. I'm excited to share my thoughts (I'll be nice, I promise).

Why don't we put Anti-Nephi-Lehities on T-Shirts?

Mormons love the story of the 2000 Stripling Warriors. There are invigorating songs, t-shirts, action figures, cartoons; little boys dress up and want to be like them, and even the BYU head football coach references the story to inspire his team.

In Sunday School this week we covered both this and the foundation story of the Ammonites or the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi and I was struck by how disproportionately the two stories have manifested themselves in modern Mormon culture.

As a young boy it was perhaps natural to aspire to be a stripling warrior, I mean--just look at those guys, what scrawny preteen wouldn't want to have arms like that. However, as I advance in years after yet another birthday, I am increasingly troubled that we often glorify the militarism side of the story and brush over the pacifism element of the story. I wonder if the the choice in artwork and song would be different if the LDS Church were dominated by followers of Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. and not by lifetime members of the NRA?

There are of course multiple reasons why the stripling warrior story has become more popular. The name for one, "Anti-Nephi-Lehities" does not carry the same machismo as the brawny "stripling warrior." I will point out that that phrase "stripling warrior," let alone, "strapping warrior" which is more often the connotation and visual depiction, is never used in the text itself. The text does use the word 'stripling' in it's constant emphasis on how young the boys were and it uses the term soldiers not warriors. (In passing I'll also point out that the term AntiNephiLehi often strikes readers as funny because of our association of the Greek root "anti" meaning "opposition" but greater textual analysis shows cultural and textual consistency, another score for Joseph Smith).

If the visual depictions were more accurate they would more likely approximate the images we see of boy soldiers in the modern era although the comparison stops there as the stories of valiant youth fighting to preserve the life and liberty of their pacifist parents is not even comparable the the innocent suffering of kidnapped-at-gunpoint slave soldiers in the Congo or Uganda.

I look forward to seeing the piece of art that will depict the parents as the heroes and the tender young boy soldiers going to fight as a noble but ultimately tragic necessity.

Mormons should carol instead of knock doors.

One element of LDS culture that I absolutely love is the strong choral tradition.  I am admittedly influenced by my own mother being a choral instructor and my having been a singer in choirs all my life but I also think theologically it is a beautiful cultural treasure. 

Mormons are known for having great choirs, most prominently the Mormon Tabernacle Choir which has even been labeled "America's Choir" due to it's performance at multiple presidential inagrerations and having the longest running radio show broadcast in the world.   Brigham Young University also has a great suite of choirs.  Gladys Knight's choir, Saints Unified Voices, is probably the greatest recent addition to the Mormon suite of choral music and I believe will be looked back on as a significant development in the LDS musical tradition.  Last but not least, one of my personal favorites is the Montreal Homeless Choir started by a member in... Montreal.  

As a people we are striving to be of "one heart and one mind," and the act of singing in "one voice" can be both a beautiful manifestation of that spirit as well as a mechanism for building such a community.  It is a symbolic gesture that is used throughout Mormon worship.  I am convinced there will be gorgeous choral music in heaven.  King Benjamin and Mormon were both looking forward to singing with the choirs above, and the angels at the birth of Christ were no doubt singing Handel's very arrangement.  

I look forward to the choral music that will come from church members as the LDS church grows internationally and across different musical traditions.  The musical repertoire of the SUV Choir is the first great example.  I can't wait until we have Mormon choirs of Mongolian throat singers, Bulgarian women's choruses, or simple church choirs that sound like this community choir in Malawi.