Asking Questions

This past weekend we attended graduation ceremonies for our daughter, Social Sphere, and her husband. Both graduated from the College of Family, Home, and Social Science from Brigham Young University. At BYU, graduation consists of a commencement exercise, on Thursday, with all graduates—nearly 6,000 this April. And then, on Friday, a convocation ceremony, by college; this is where the students get their name announced and walk across the stage to be handed their diploma. 

Both of these events have speakers, and they tend to be memorable. I still remember mine. So I thought I’d pick a couple of the speakers and share some valuable thoughts from them. 

Robert P. George
This photo was used in the
BYU Commencement Program,
I found it here

At the commencement, an honorary degree—the degree of doctor of law and moral value, honoris causa—was conferred upon Robert P. George, a professor at Princeton, referred to by the New York Times as “the Conservative-Christian Big Thinker.” I thought I wasn’t aware of him before this speech, but I did a search of my files, and I have collected a number of pieces he’s written. Particularly, he co-wrote “What Is Marriage?”[i] along with then-grad student Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Gergis. Supreme Court justices have referred to this work already in their opinions, and are likely to turn to it again following tomorrow’s oral arguments concerning same-sex “marriage.” 

He didn’t speak about marriage; he spoke about the necessity of religion in finding truth. I expect eventually I could get a transcript, but for now, I’ll just share a few things from my written notes. 

Professor George starts with the question, “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?” quoting Tertullian. And he adds, “What do secular studies and religious studies have to do with each other?” He’s speaking at Brigham Young University, after all, one of the largest and oldest religious universities. And he wants us to know that the way BYU integrates spiritual and academic—or secular—studies is valuable, even necessary in our world. 

He quotes Pope John Paul II as well: “Faith and reason are like two wings of the human spirit by which it soars to the truth.”  

So there are two separate but equal paths to truth—faith and reason are both necessary for the intellectual and spiritual quest for truth, in harmony together. 

Professor George reminded us that the very idea of a university is religious. According to John Henry Cardinal Newman, the idea of a university requires both kinds of learning, faith and reason. The earliest—and at one time nearly all—universities were created by churches to educate religious people more fully. And we continue to need universities that do not limit the universe. 

He said that universities have three main purposes:

1.      The creation of knowledge.

2.      The preservation of knowledge.

3.      The transmission of knowledge. 

He adds an additional purpose: The appropriation of knowledge.

He’s using the term appropriation in a particular way, which I tried to glean from context. I think he means something like putting knowledge in its appropriate context, in the larger picture. Or he could possibly mean making the knowledge one’s own. 

He says faith is necessary in the cause of learning. He said, “Our aim is not merely to acquire knowledge, but to explore its lasting significance.” Our aim is not necessarily to know truth, “but to grasp its meaning—its existential meaning.” 

This is where religious colleges can be valuable. He said, “Religious colleges must be more than secular universities with religious symbols in the classroom and prayers before some classes.” Faith must play a role in intellectual life, and inform curriculum. 

He urged that we “avoid the pitfalls of aspiration to be the Mormon Harvard or the Catholic Princeton—especially in humanities and social sciences.” He said the consequences of mimicry will be the loss of the appropriation of truth. “The secular will soon come to be regarded as the only valid intellectual pursuit,” the only type of thought considered rational.  

This is not just theoretical, he said. While many private and state universities were created with a religious purpose, many have lost the religious wing of thought. He suggested reading The Dying of the Light, by former Notre Dame provost James Tunstead Burtchaell, which follows seventeen religious colleges in which each school's religious identity eventually became first uncomfortable and then expendable. 

But, he says, “Secularization isn’t inevitable.” You can resist. And you can command respect. The world needs the connection between religious fidelity and academic excellence.  

Professor George said, the question of how to find truth keeps coming back. “Human nature will see to it. We long for the truth. We’re not satisfied with placing the deepest questions out of bounds, or off limits.” 

He said that some secular institutions are beginning to see this. “Institutions need to be a bit more like Brigham Young. This is no time to back off. It’s time to be superior.” 

I was reminded of a quote from my time working at BYU, when then-President Jeffrey R. Holland thought it wasn’t enough to be the Harvard of the West; President Holland wanted to see Harvard and Yale fighting “to see who can become the BYU of the East!” 

Professor George urged, “Always be faithful to your mission.[ii] Appropriate truth more and more deeply.”  

So far BYU has kept its mission to educate the whole person—mental, physical, and spiritual—in a world that doesn’t know how valuable that kind of education is. 

 

That idea of asking the deep question and searching for answers continued in Friday’s convocation. The main speaker for the College of Family, Home & Social Sciences was Sheri L. Dew, CEO of Deseret Book, and a former graduate of that college. 

Sheri Dew
image found here

She first became familiar to many of us when she was a counselor in the LDS Relief Society General Presidency, the world’s oldest, and possibly largest, women’s organization. She was the first single woman to hold such a position that I was aware of in my lifetime. And she was a great example. 

I’ve often seen parallels to her in my life. She’s just a few years older than I am; I think she must have still been at BYU when I was a freshman. She played basketball—better than I did. And played piano—also better than I. She’s a writer and editor (better…) She’s a terrific public speaker. My life changed directions from career to family when I got married, but I’ve wondered, if I hadn’t been blessed that way, would I have been a (much less visible or accomplished) mini-version of Sheri Dew? 

She talked about when she was assigned to be the CEO of Deseret Book. It was at a challenging time in the book industry. She didn’t know how to run a company. She had skills in identifying talent and working with authors. When she talked with then-President of the Church Gordon B. Hinckley about the position, and shared her doubts, and said she wished she was smarter, he laughed and said he wished so too. 

Her point was that there will come things in your life you’re not capable of handling if you rely on your own. So she suggests living your life “with the help of heaven.” You should “seek heaven every step of the way.” 

She told a story of an interview with a reporter some years ago. You never know what you’re going to get with an interview, but the woman seemed genuinely interested and curious—about a female CEO of a Church-owned corporation. It turned out they had a great conversation. 

Well into their chat, the reporter asked, “Do you have greater access to the power of heaven than I do?” That’s an interesting question and took some thought. Finally Sheri Dew answered, “Actually, yes.” And she added that she was “not saying God loves me more, or I’m more spiritual.” She was saying that we are committed, covenant members; we believe that when we promise to live a certain way, Heavenly Father makes promises to us, including greater access to His power. 

The Spirit came into the room. The reporter could feel it too. She said, “I wish I could say that about my church.” Sister Dew, ever willing to share her faith, said, “We can help you with that.” 

There are things we learn from the Spirit. She spent much of the rest of the time talking about learning to learn. That requires asking questions. Asking questions is good. 

Many people have asked her questions through the years. She has kept lists of them. Many are of the personal type: How will I know who/whether to marry? Should I take a job across the country? Some are deeper, more pressing, faith related. They’re all good questions for a person of faith. She asks them if they’re willing to put in the work to get answers, to engage in a spiritual wrestle. 

There’s a process for getting to truth. She has them bring every question, get their scriptures and study materials, read what the prophets have said, do the work. Study, search, ponder, pray. 

People of faith are required to exercise faith to have it grow. Our search, our wrestle for answers, leads to peace of mind, growth, and faith. Our Father will bless us with greater vision of what the world is like, what life is like. 

Once there is a testimony of the gospel (the heartfelt certainty that Heavenly Father is real, the Savior is real, and you’re on the right path home to them), then questions aren’t about doubts of belief; they’re about growth. 

She ended with, “Our Father needs men and women of covenant who are willing to wrestle. Learn to receive answers. Humbly, carefully, constantly engage in a spiritual wrestle.” 

I love that. I keep a list of perplexing questions most of the time. And I can see the growth as I look back and realize when answers have come.  

Using study, asking questions, and allowing answers to come through the combination of spiritual and secular study—learning is unlimited.  

There’s a story someone I know told. He was studying law at BYU, and then ended up taking an additional class at the University of Utah. He had found that there was a wide range of opinions in discussions at BYU. Because of the trust people had in the safety of their belief, they were free to explore, to discuss and debate. But at the other school—even among a fair number of faithful people—without the same school mission of using spiritual resources for getting to the truth, the discussion of anything that went beyond the popular secular opinion was oppressed. It looked like the class of good minds was too neatly aligned. It was enlightening, because if you’ve known freedom of thought, you know when it’s missing. 

There are many places where a person can find truth. Many schools. But there is a huge advantage when the very mission of the school is to allow all resources, not just secular ones, for finding truth.

 

That can be done anywhere, but it takes faith, and questions, and study, and wrestling. And then comes growth. 

---

[i] Robert George, Sherif Girgis, and Ryan Anderson, “What is Marriage?” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol. 34, number 1, 2011: 245-287.

[ii] BYU’s mission statement and aims can be found here: http://aims.byu.edu/ .

What Is Power?

During one of our Sunday lessons this week, the teacher (a good friend of mine, who embarrasses me by saying I’m one of the smartest people she knows, but who is also very smart in various less sedentary ways) put this word equation on the board:

Belief + Action = Faith, and Faith = Power

This was a religious lesson, about not feeling ashamed that your belief is not yet knowledge; if it is a strong enough belief that you then act on it, trusting it to be true, then that is faith. And it is by faith that the world was created and all miracles happen.

But the Faith = Power part intrigued me. I have written here before about the word power; specifically about the difference between leaders and power mongers. Leaders serve, while power mongers act in ways to increase/protect their power over others. So I wondered if this equation could be applied also to power in a more general sense, or whether there is an actual difference.

Phenomenal Cosmic Power; Itty-bitty Living Space

What is power? In a lot of youth literature, people have special powers, maybe magical or super powers, or at least special talents and abilities beyond normal humans. And then there’s the dilemma that, “with great power comes great responsibility,” (according to Spiderman’s Uncle Ben). I don’t think I want to deal with that kind of issue today. I want to deal with something closer to real world power. I went to the handy dictionary. There are a lot of layers in defining power. So I think I’ll pick and choose how I mean it here.

Power is the ability to act, produce, accomplish, do. It can also be the ability to influence the behavior of others, which could be either very good or very bad. In the world of politics—which most of us would prefer to avoid but can’t if we care about our own freedom to act, produce, accomplish, and do—power might also mean the authority to act, or to control the actions of others. Such power is like fire, important for use in certain limited circumstances, but dangerous in the wrong hands or in the wrong situations.

I’ve previously asserted that seeking power is evil, but I think I need to clarify the definition, because having the power to do good, and wanting that ability, is not a bad thing. The power to act in a positive way is good, but power to act in a negative way is, well, bad.

So how do we make sure that we’re seeking power for good? And how do we prevent others from gaining power for evil?

Power needs a source. So if we’re going to a good source—THE Good Source—then we can be pretty certain our power will be for good. If you have something Good to do, and you ask God for the power to do it, when that power is granted, you know you didn’t supply it yourself; you put in the work, but you got the ideas, the energy, the opportunities—the power—from the source for good. There’s a sense of humility in the heart. If you’re missing the sense of humility and thankfulness, and in its place find a sense of superiority or entitlement, you’re probably seeking the wrong kind of power.

I don’t think there’s any problem with wanting power from God to do His will. That is very different from power mongering—loving power for self. But power to do God’s will is always about serving His children, even when leading and influencing them. The evil kind of power is about controlling, rather than serving. Originally, I said it this way:

A power monger is the polar opposite of a leader. He/she uses coercion as a basic tool. A power monger uses deception to gain power, not trusting honest persuasion to get people to give it to him/her. A power monger doesn’t recognize God-given rights, but only the privileges he/she decides to grant, usually to those most likely to return political favors (money, votes, support). A power monger can coerce at any level from family to international, but those with an appetite for power generally seek it over a larger and larger circle of minions.

A power monger sees him/herself as elite and superior over the other lower beings, as opposed to seeing him/herself among fellow citizens as a leader would do. A power monger doesn’t avoid chaos, but rather uses it (sometimes even creates it purposefully) as an opportunity to cause more people to succumb to the desire for protection, which he/she offers. A power monger is selfish, doing good for others only if it will increase his/her personal power.

I think the Spherical Model helps explain the difference. Those who choose to dwell only in the southern hemisphere, in either statist or chaotic tyranny, think there are only two choices: control others, or be controlled by others. They seem perversely unaware of the entire northern hemisphere where people work and live freely among one another—using limited government to help with the limited times people fail to consider one another’s rights and self-govern. It’s the hemisphere where freedom, prosperity, and civilization thrive. It’s not a dog-eat-dog world there; it’s a mutually respectful world. Unlike the power mongers in the tyranny hemisphere, leaders in the freedom hemisphere must be servant leaders, who lead by persuasion, information, and example.

Why don’t we simply choose that? Some of us do. But we live in a world where we do not have a critical mass of people choosing the better way.

I believe God used the faith of righteous people to establish this country in the first place. God has power to do anything. I believe He can bring us back to the freedom zone; I do not know if that is His plan, or if some sort of disastrous version of natural consequences is more likely.

But this will continue to be true:

Faith in God → Power to Do Good

We can act on our desires to do good in our homes and communities and country, and He will give us power to accomplish enough good that we can still enjoy many of the blessings of that northern hemisphere that so many others are too blind to see. If we act on faith, miracles will still happen.

Why Civilizations Die: Part II

This is Part II on David P. Goldman’s ideas from How Civilizations Die (And Why Islam Is Dying Too). Part I is on fertility decline. Today we cover the idea that secularization and fertility decline go together.

Goldman suggests that sociologists have been wrong in the way they include religion as just one factor among many, when looking at a civilization, no more important than political structures, language, and climate, for example. But religion, he says, is a more important factor in civilization success than any other.

In the introduction, Goldman asserts,

The repudiation of life among advanced countries living in prosperity and peace has no historical precedent, except perhaps in the anomie [breakdown or loss of social norms, uprootedness] of Greece in its post-Alexandrian decline and Rome during the first centuries of the Common Era. But Greece fell to Rome, and Rome to the barbarians. In the past, nations that foresaw their own demise fell to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Plague, Famine, and Death. Riding point for the old quartet in today’s more civilized world is a Fifth Horseman: Loss of Faith. Today’s cultures are dying of apathy, not by the swords of their enemies (p. xiii).

What is this loss of faith? Where does it come from? Can we see it coming and prevent it? Because knowing that most of the world is in collapse is rather overwhelming if we can’t learn something useful from the awareness.

Goldman proposes that there is a relationship with our need to overcome death. Is there something of who we are that lives on? “The truth is that humankind cannot survive without faith, specifically faith that our lives have meaning beyond the mere span of our years. Civilizations that lose their faith also lose their desire to continue and fail to reproduce themselves” (p. 16).

Simple faith in a religion equals sustainable fertility—but it is not enough. If the faith is tied to culturalism or nationalism (seeing the tribe or nation as central), the faith slips once the other purpose fails. Once a traditional society—one of believing people, usually rural and agrarian—enters the modern world (high education, urbanized, governmental usurpation of family responsibilities such as caring for the elderly), the clash frequently leads to secularization hand in hand with drop in fertility.

Goldman examines several places where fertility decline was sudden, and coincided with a precipitous decline in religious observance: Quebec, Poland, Spain, and Ireland. From the mid-1930s for several decades,

Quebec was more Catholic and more fecund [had a higher fertility rate] than any province in the industrial world. In 1960 attendance at mass was 88 percent, the highest in the Catholic world, and the average Quebecoise had four children. By the 1980s the fertility rate had fallen to just 1.5, and Mass attendance to 20 percent (p. 180).

Quoting a report by Catherine Krull and Fran Trovato, called “Where Have All the Children Gone,” the book notes,

By 1982, more than 42 percent of Quebec men and women still in their reproductive ages had undergone voluntary sterilization. Moreover, in the period 1978-1998, abortion increased from 17.9 per 100 live births to 41. The 1998 figure is in fact much higher than the ratio for the same year in Canada as a whole” (p. 181).

The failure of the culture coincides with the failed efforts for Quebecois nationalism (separatism from the rest of Canada and preservation of French language and culture). Religion there was tied together with the sense of chosen-ness. When the dream died, religious belief died with it.

Poland’s fertility collapse is somewhat similar. In the 1950s, Polish families had 3-4 children. By 1979 (when Pope John Paul II visited), families still had 2-3 children, a drop, but still high by industrial world standards. Now, a single generation later, fertility is at 1.25 (children per woman), about half replacement level, and among the lowest in the world. What happened? The Cold War ended. That should have been a good thing. But Poland had viewed its Catholicism as resistance to Soviet-imposed atheism. Their faith and heroism contributed to the end of the Cold War. But without the need to resist, they seemed to lose their purpose—along with their reason for survival.

In Ireland there is the usual secularization pattern: rising prosperity and urbanization. But just as in Quebec and Poland, “the Irish stopped having babies and families—and shortly afterward stopped going to church” (p. 185). In 1965 Irish women had four children. By 2010, that number was two. And Mass attendance dropped from 91% in 1973 to 34% in 2005. This coincides with the cease in hostilities against Great Britain.

Spain was another country that combined nationalism and Catholicism, particularly under Francisco Franco.  The fertility plunge began in 1975, the year Franco died. Up till then, Spain had enjoyed one of the highest fertility rates in Europe, around 3 per woman (about 2 more than the rest of Europe). Within a mere twenty years Spain plummeted to the lowest fertility in Western Europe. Spain was “the most extreme turn away from family life observed anywhere in the world—until Iran’s population plunge of the past fifteen years” (186).

When a culture either achieves some grand goal it is seeking, or recognizes that it is doomed to failure regarding that goal, it loses its will to live. But if it’s going to lose the will to live either way, where is there hope?

Hope must be what we find when we look at the exceptions, particularly America and Israel. What is different about these two nations that allows for faith to continue, even to thrive, in the modern world? Goldman describes the difference as having to do with our understanding of God, his covenants with us, and inalienable rights. And it comes down to what we choose to love. More on that in the next post.

To Believe In

I’m reading Children of the Mind, yet another in the Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card. As with the last one or two, I haven’t loved the story, but I’m captured by the occasional interesting idea. 

There’s a moment early in the book when Ender/Andrew is talking with his wife, Novinha, at a time when she has withdrawn following the death of an adult son. Ender, I have to say, has been very committed to staying married, no matter how hard she makes it. At this point she has joined a convent of sorts, and he has gone there to join her. 

She shook her head. “You don’t believe in God, how’s that for starters?”

“I certainly do too believe in God,” said Ender, annoyed.

“Oh, you’re willing to concede God’s existence, but that’s not what I meant. I mean believe in him the way a mother means it when she says to her son, I believe in you. She’s not saying she believes that he exists—what is that worth?—she’s saying she believes in his future, she trusts that he’ll do all the good that is in him to do. She puts the future in his hands, that’s how she believes in him. You don’t believe in Christ that way, Andrew. You still believe in yourself. In other people…. You aren’t leaving anything up to God. You don’t believe in him.”

…“Maybe I don’t believe in Christ the way that you do,” said Ender. “But isn’t it enough that I believe in you, and you believe in him?” (pp. 29-30)

The argument between them isn’t as important as this description of believing in God. I think it’s a way of describing faith—believing so much that you act on the belief, trusting in the outcome. Not just believing in God’s existence, but believing God, trusting Him. And for those who can’t yet do that, but can trust someone else who does trust God, that is at least a step in the direction God is suggesting. 

It might not be possible to know, for example, that being honest in your business dealings will lead to financial success. A high level of financial success might not even happen. But being willing to act honestly in business may be the path to a more fully lived life, a happier life. And if not in this life, then in the life to come—God’s choice. But acting on that trust opens the way for God to offer blessings of abundant life that won’t come, with or without financial success, when the honest path isn’t followed. 

People who do not believe in God—do not trust Him—look for some other entity to trust. That makes them vulnerable to tyrants in a way that God-trusting people are not. If we know, as our founders did, that our rights come from God, we don’t give in to a power-hungry dictator who steps up and says, “Trust me; I’ll give you everything; just let me make all the decisions.”

I am reminded of these orchestrated protests exemplifying lack of civilization in cities around the country. These people do not trust God, to begin with. But in addition, they do not believe in themselves. They trust some super-entity, some government, to coerce outcomes that they want. They are sacrificing their time and work opportunities—real living, or making a living—trusting that some benevolent dictator will step in and meet their demands. From my point of view, believing in God is much more rational. 

Women of Faith

In this very large city where I live, there is an active interfaith community. One of the regular events is a Women of Faith dinner, held several times a year. The host religion invites women of all faiths to come to their building, learn about their religion, have a dinner—usually vegetarian to accommodate the various religious requirements, but also to be a cultural culinary experience. At the various tables where we eat, we discuss our varied religions. Usually there are some prompt questions to help get the sharing started.

I have been to six now: my own, a historic black church, then the Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and last night Zoroastrians. Besides being very educational, each of these events has been personally spiritually uplifting. There is a sense of safety, of interest to learn without condemnation, of wanting to understand—a willingness to be friends.

At my table last night there were two Zoroastrians (immigrated from India and Pakistan, and very happy to be living here), a well-versed Catholic woman, a Unitarian, and young Muslim woman. Our conversation was a delight. The young Muslim woman, a third grade teacher at a Muslim school, was especially enlightening, since I haven’t been to a mosque yet. She grew up in Minnesota, plus spent a number of years on military bases, with her parents. So while her heritage is Indian (or possibly Pakistani, I forget), she is very American.

She is Sunni, but to her there is a fluidity among sects. In this city she says there is little separation between Sunni and Shia, as there is in many war-torn countries, and she would probably be welcome wherever she chose to attend in the city. But she is comfortable with the local mosque she knows, that feels familiar. About half of US Muslims, she said, are African American, and they do tend to worship separately, probably more for cultural than doctrinal differences.

She isn’t married yet, and her parents are leaving that to her—no matchmaker as they’d had in their generation. But dating is only for courtship, which so far hasn’t led to anything. She is young and pretty, so I’m sure marriage and family will come. All the subjects she teaches are in English, but she does believe in learning scripture verses in Arabic, for girls as well as boys. If this young woman were the face of Islam worldwide, I would see her religion only as peace and goodness. And it is likely this is true of the vast majority of people of her faith.

The Zoroastrians summed up their code as: good thoughts, good words, good deeds. I have no argument with that. In fact, every time I have attended a Women of Faith event, I have encountered women who abide by their faith tradition because they believe it makes them better people and brings them greater peace and happiness in life. Women of most faiths value truth, honesty, family, passing along their values to their children, respecting others, making good choices, and sharing with others.

Some time ago a friend my husband grew up with was working on a book about talking about religion, a way of asking questions, exploring without judgment, for greater understanding. It was a good idea, but as I read a couple of sample chapters I thought, that is what we do here. Let the women get together to share an evening together, and the result is peace, friendship, and understanding.

I am a firm in my own religion, and I believe that if everyone believed and lived according to my religion, we would have not only worldwide peace but also flourishing civilization. But since we don’t all believe the same, my plan B belief is that if everyone earnestly strived to live their own religion, emphasizing truth, goodness to one another, and strong families, then civilization would have more than just a fighting chance; it would just about be guaranteed.