Grace/works trending along with polygamy and racism issues?

[jay santos]

Maybe religious discussion can help me ignore the game.

The trends in church members handling polygamy and blacks/priesthood issues have been discussed here. No matter what you believe doctrinally or how you explain it, there is a definite trend. Certain ideas are now almost becoming majority thought that fifty years ago would have sounded heretical.

Here's another on the same lines: grace/works. This is my favorite issue. I see a trend as the old, starchy justice loving generation dies off and the youngsters of the church replace them with a more accepting, tolerant attitude that is more accepting of the concept of grace. It's not happening overnight and our culture is still dominated by the justice lovers but it is changing.

The most widely misinterpreted scripture in the church, IMHO, is 2 Nephi 25:23. It's going to be hard to overcome it, since many prophets and apostles misinterpret it, and the misinterpretation is written right into the Bible Dictionary and accepted by nearly ever Latter Day Saint, but someday I believe the church will accept the meaning I agree with as stated by Stephen Robinson in "Believing Christ".


From "Believing Christ" By Stephen Robinson:

"AFTER ALL WE CAN DO"

In my opinion some of the blame for our misapplication of gospel superlatives and other similarly obsessive reasoning comes from a misunderstanding of 2 Nephi 25:23: "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." (Italics added.)

At first glance at this scripture, we might think that grace is offered to us only chronologically after we have completed doing all we can do, but this is demonstrably false, for we have already received many manifestations of God's grace before we even come to this point.

By his grace, we live and breathe. By grace, we are spiritually begotten children of heavenly parents and enjoy divine prospects. By grace, a plan was prepared and a savior designated for humanity when Adam and Eve fell.

By grace, the good news of this gospel comes to us and informs us of our eternal options. By grace, we have the agency to accept the gospel when we hear it. By the grace that comes through faith in Christ, we start the repentance process; and by grace, we are justified and made part of God's kingdom even while that process is still incomplete.

The grace of God has been involved in our spiritual progress from the beginning and will be involved in our progress until the end. It therefore belittles God's grace to think of it as only a cherry on top added at the last moment as a mere finishing touch to what we have already accomplished on our own without any help from God. Instead the reverse would be a truer proposition: our efforts are the cherry on top added to all that God has already done for us.

Actually, I understand the preposition "after" in 2 Nephi 25:23 to be a preposition of separation rather than a preposition of time. It denotes logical separateness rather than temporal sequence. We are saved by grace "apart from all we can do," or "all we can do notwithstanding," or even "regardless of all we can do." Another acceptable paraphrase of the sense of the verse might read, "We are still saved by grace, after all is said and done."

In addition, even the phrase "all we can do" is susceptible to a sinister interpretation as meaning every single good deed we could conceivably have ever done. This is nonsense. If grace could operate only in such cases, no one could ever be saved, not even the best among us. It is precisely because we don't always do everything we could have done that we need a savior in the first place, so obviously we can't make doing everything we could have done a condition for receiving grace and being saved!

I believe the emphasis in 2 Nephi 25:23 is meant to fall on the word we ("all we can do," as opposed to all he can do). Moreover, "all we can do" here should probably be understood in the sense of "everything we can do," or even "whatever we can do."

Thus, the correct sense of 2 Nephi 25:23 would be that we are ultimately saved by grace apart from whatever we manage to do. Grace is not merely a decorative touch or a finishing bit of trim to top off our own efforts -— it is God's participation in the process of our salvation from its beginning to its end. Though I must be intimately involved in the process of my salvation, in the long run the success of that venture is utterly dependent upon the grace of Christ."

[MikeWaters]

I think you are correct. This is part of the general trend towards "Christianizing" the church. We are seeing more emphasis on Christ, a bit less emphasis on Joseph Smith (i.e. the line of thought that JS must approve you to enter the celestial kingdom, etc).

One might argue that the trend towards accepting grace is the result of a better understanding of the atonement.

As Mormonism feels more secure, it feels less need to draw hard distinctions between itself and (other) christian religions.

[Indy Coug]

The whole crux of the matter about works/faith/grace is whether grace is so pervasive and so encompassing as to absolve anyone of any responsibility for their actions (aka "works") because the grace of Christ is sufficient for those that merely believe.

Belief <> Faith and faith is made manifest through our works, not some rubbber-stamped invokation of belief.

Some Christian sects literally believe it's irrelevant what you do with your life. If you believe, you will be saved.

There are ample scriptures in all of the standard works that stress the importance of works as part of being partakers of the Atonement and being saved. Taking a slightly different angle with 2 Nephi 25:23 doesn't alter that fact.

If you think the grace of Christ is sufficient to bail you out of self-justified sin and inaction, or a half-assed approach to following the example Christ set, you've been drinking from the gigantic vat of kool-aid mainstream Christianity has prepared.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

The whole crux of the matter about works/faith/grace is whether grace is so pervasive and so encompassing as to absolve anyone of any responsibility for their actions (aka "works") because the grace of Christ is sufficient for those that merely believe.

Belief <> Faith and faith is made manifest through our works, not some rubbber-stamped invokation of belief.

Some Christian sects literally believe it's irrelevant what you do with your life. If you believe, you will be saved.

There are ample scriptures in all of the standard works that stress the importance of works as part of being partakers of the Atonement and being saved. Taking a slightly different angle with 2 Nephi 25:23 doesn't alter that fact.

If you think the grace of Christ is sufficient to bail you out of self-justified sin and inaction, or a half-assed approach to following the example Christ set, you've been drinking from the gigantic vat of kool-aid mainstream Christianity has prepared.

Just because I say I believe in grace and I like the current trend in the church and anticipate even more of a movement in the church, it doesn't mean I follow Christ in a half-assed manner.

Mormons are just as guilty in exaggerating Christian's beliefs in easy grace as Christians are in ignoring Mormons belief in grace. You really get down to basic beliefs and a good Christian is no different than a good Mormon (who's maybe slightly ahead of the curve when it comes to the current Stephen Robinsonizing of the church).

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I think you are correct. This is part of the general trend towards "Christianizing" the church. We are seeing more emphasis on Christ, a bit less emphasis on Joseph Smith (i.e. the line of thought that JS must approve you to enter the celestial kingdom, etc).

One might argue that the trend towards accepting grace is the result of a better understanding of the atonement.

As Mormonism feels more secure, it feels less need to draw hard distinctions between itself and (other) christian religions.

Try to find anything on JS, the First Vision, the golden plates, etc. on Temple Square. You'll have to go to the basement of the Visitor's Center. The clips from Conference all talk about ecumenical Christian subjects. The Visitors Center on the South side of Temple Square that once had diaramas (Disneyland like) with the Nephi, etc. figures/robots talking has been dismantled, replaced by offices. The part of the past that IS now really highlighted (and the most appealing, gripping part of the story, in my view), is the trek west, the founding of Salt Lake City, etc. which of course is all somewhat analogous to Moses and the Hebrews trekking through the Sinai, etc., ultimately finding a promised land. (The Visigoths thought the same thing about themselves after they fled the Huns, wandered for many years culminating in their occupation of Rome, and then by treaty with the waning Empre settled in Toulouse, Gaul, renamed France by the Visigoths' ultimate conquerers, the Franks, who emerged triumphant by cutting a deal with the new Emperor, er, Pope, following their King Clovis' conversion to Christianity much the same way that Constantine converted, i.e., prompted to do so after divine interention helped them to win a great battle. Before that, the Franks had adapted the Illiad and the Aeneid so that a a sequel explained the founding of their own (barbarian) culture. What's more fascinating than the confluence of myth and history? Nothing, in my view.)

By the way, grace, as that term is understood by old Christendom, is quite a harsh, pitiless doctrine, in my view. You're either elect, and saved by grace, or you're SOL, no matter what you do. This was a key point of departure between Martin Luther and the Roman Catholics.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by jay santos

Just because I say I believe in grace and I like the current trend in the church and anticipate even more of a movement in the church, it doesn't mean I follow Christ in a half-assed manner.

Mormons are just as guilty in exaggerating Christian's beliefs in easy grace as Christians are in ignoring Mormons belief in grace. You really get down to basic beliefs and a good Christian is no different than a good Mormon (who's maybe slightly ahead of the curve when it comes to the current Stephen Robinsonizing of the church).

Odd. I remember teaching about how we all needed grace in order to be saved 20 years ago as a missionary. I'm not quite sure how Stephen E Robinson's snippet represents any "trending" or revolutionary exposition on 2 Nephi 25:23 that changes our understanding of the role of grace in our lives.

Too often, people take anecdotal evidence of individual members and their attitudes towards certain doctrinal subjects and extrapolate that to be mainstream Mormon thought and/or substantiated by modern revelation.

[Alkili]

Grace doesn't do any good for someone who doesn't want to accept it. We will get what we truly want out of life, if we want to live in the celestial kingdom then we will be busy becoming the type of people who will be there.

Works don't justify grace but instead are fruits of what we want out of life.

[Indy Coug]

Grace and works are joined at the hip and you're not going to get to the finish line with only one of them.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Odd. I remember teaching about how we all needed grace in order to be saved 20 years ago as a missionary. I'm not quite sure how Stephen E Robinson's snippet represents any "trending" or revolutionary exposition on 2 Nephi 25:23 that changes our understanding of the role of grace in our lives.

Too often, people take anecdotal evidence of individual members and their attitudes towards certain doctrinal subjects and extrapolate that to be mainstream Mormon thought and/or substantiated by modern revelation.

With assholes like Seattle Ute around, I understand where the defensiveness comes from on the issues of whether or not the Church is trending/changing/evolving. It doesn't bother me, though.

I think you're nuts if you think don't think this grace emphasis is a trend. It's not the thing you can prove with data, though I'd be all for it if you could. But it's definitely not an anecdotal thing. It's a serious movement with people like Robinson, Millet, Madsen, Hafen at the forefront. The younger apostles like Holland, Eyring, Bednar discuss it much more than the older ones. Our generation is much more likely to emphasize grace in a sacrament talk or Sunday School lesson than our parent's generation who mostly grew up as farmers and were hyper focused on the cause and effect nature of works--naturally so.

[Indy Coug]

On my mission, we would teach grace like this (sometimes with drawings):

Imagine Christ being up in the clouds, high above a mountain that you're on. We try as best we can to keep climbing up the mountain, always facing the summit. No matter what we do, even if we reach the summit, we can't get up into that cloud where Christ dwells. At some point, Christ has to reach down and pull us up so we can be with Him.

Some people are better climbers than others, but as long as we're facing the summit and trying to climb higher, with our arms outstretched to the clouds, Christ will reach His hand out to us.