Abide: Moses 7

Joseph Stuart: Moses 7 features Enoch, a figure that receives scant attention in Genesis, but as an overwhelming impact on the Pearl of Great Price. Importantly, it makes experiences with God the Father also shape how we view the father, his relationship to us and recognize his character and disposition. In today's episode of Abide, we discuss Moses 7 and how it contributes to Latter-day Saints’ ideas about God and His relationship to us. My name is Joseph Stuart, I'm the Public Communications Specialist at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for religious scholarship at Brigham Young University. Kristian Heal is a research fellow at the Institute and each week we discussed the week’s block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “Come, Follow Me” curriculum. We aren't here to present a lesson but rather to hit on a few key themes from the Scripture block so as to help fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas. Today, we're joined by special guest Terryl Givens, a senior research fellow at the Institute, who with Fiona Givens has written The God Who Weeps, How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life, and more recently, The Doors of Faith from the Maxwell Institute Living Faith Series and Deseret Book. Kristian, before we ask Terryl a few questions about Moses 7, what's, what else is going on in the chapter beyond what I said in the introduction?

Kristian Heal: The story of Enoch starts earlier in Moses chapter six. And when we read Enoch’s call, in Moses 6:27 to 30, can't help thinking of Doctrine and Covenants 1. God says to Enoch, “I'm angry with this people, my fierce anger is kindled against them, why they have gone astray, and they deny me and have sought their own counsel in the dark.” In the first section of the Doctrine and Covenants, God's anger is similarly described, “And the anger of the Lord is kindled and his sword is bathed in heaven, and it shall fall upon the inhabitants of the earth. Why? Because they have strayed from mine ordinances. They seek not the Lord to establish His righteousness for every man walketh in his own way.” The consequences of such behavior, but clear to God, Enochs call like Joseph's was God's response to a world that was about to fall into calamity. God's response was not only to call a prophet to preach repentance, but to call a prophet to build Zion. Zion is the antithesis of an antidote to a world descending into a pandemic of self absorption. It seems that only by building a city united in purpose, a city that prioritizes the care of the poor, as the key component of living together in righteousness, could God show the world that there was a better way to live? Moses chapter 7 is an incredibly rich chapter. Ultimately, it is a continuation of the battle between God and Satan for the souls of the children of Adam and Eve. This is captured clearly in verses 26 and 27, where we see both God and Satan acting in the world. Satan comes with a chain, brings darkness, and laughs at the misery he causes, God sends angels bearing testimony of the Father and the Son. And since the Holy Ghost upon those who believe they were then caught up in Zion. Enoch is in the middle of the cosmic battle for the souls of God's children, and he introduces us to the great refuge of the righteous, the city of Zion.

Stuart: Thanks for that introduction. Terryl, you've written that the Pearl of Great Price is the least studied, written about, understood, and appreciated book in the Latter-day Saint canon, but that it outweighs in theological consequence and influences all of the rest. Why do you think this is the case? What is it about the book of Moses, for instance, that makes it so important theologically on one hand, but also keeps it harder to understand or less used, on the other hand?

Terryl Givens: Well, I think it's important to recognize that the book of Moses and Pearl of Great Price generally is doing both theological and cultural work that is radically unlike anything that the Book of Mormon was accomplishing. I think Rodney Stark is correct in his statement, that if the Latter-day Saints relied only on the Book of Mormon for doctrine, they'd be just another Protestant sect. This may sound outrageous to claim but I think the church would be virtually the same if we didn't have a Book of Mormon, because it functioned primarily as an evidence that God was speaking again to the human family that, that Joseph was the prophet he claimed to be, that his authority was legitimate. It isn't until we get to the Pearl of Great Price that we really get the deep theological foundations, the real doctrinal, kind of reconstitution of an ancient gospel. I mentioned four things in particular that I think that the book of Moses gives us now in Moses 6, we get pre existence pretty clearly indicated, for the very first time right in December of 1830. Already, we've got a completely new version of the human soul as eternal and coexistent with God. Getting into Moses 7, we encounter a God who is passable who, who feels our pain who suffers with us contrary to the Creed's of the, right, to God without body parts or passions, we get Theosis explicitly indicated, and actually a brief portrait of what Theosis might look like. And then maybe most important for the future direction of the church is we get the Zion project really grounded in and outlined for Joseph Smith.

Heal: So we're looking today, particularly at Moses, chapter 7. This chapter is first published in the 1832 edition of “The Evening and Morning Star,” making it, I think, the first published part of the Pearl of Great Price. The chapter begins right in the middle, “And it came to pass that Enoch continued his speech.” Why do you think this is the bit that gets published first, or that, that is first sort of introduced to the world more broadly.

Givens: I think that there is no single event or influence in Joseph Smith's life that was more transformative and shaping of his future ministry than encountering Enoch, as a figure. And I love the fact that this begins a media race, and that it's the first part of The Pearl of Great Price that sees print, because I think that reflects the exuberance and excitement of Joseph Smith. And it's as if he doesn't even pause to give it an introduction, to give it any context. He is so excited to get into print what he sees as his model, both for the institutional direction of the church and for his self understanding of what it means to be a prophet. And that's what we're seeing here is just raw exuberance.

Stuart: Now, I love that you're focusing in on the Prophet Joseph's excitement, but when you say that he's modeling Enoch, or that he has such a great effect on him. What's an example or two that you use to arrive at that conclusion?

Givens: Well, the fact that, that Zion becomes the focus of all the revelations that follow in the wake of this revelation from Enoch, the prophet, and suddenly and for the really, for the first time, in Christian history, we get a sustained and successful attempt to create a sustainable Zion community. And Joseph's identification with the prophet Enoch is so profound that he will refer to the Law of Consecration as the law of Enoch, when code names are used by early leaders to protect themselves from, from persecution. Enoch is, of course, the name that Joseph chooses, he tells the assembled saints and relief society that, that, that he is going to make them a kingdom of priests as in Enoch’s day, he indicates that other attempts have failed, but he is going to pull off this Zion project successfully. So I think it radically shapes a practical application of the restoration in very concrete term. I mean, the fact that we get this plat of Zion, just for me is one of the great monuments kind of, to that, to the artifactual kind of right concreteness of Joseph Smith's understanding that we're actually going to map out Zion, and here's where the buildings are going to be. And here's how it's going to be organized and arranged. And this is all a direct consequence of Moses 7.

Stuart: And we'll be sure to include a link to the plats of Zion in the show notes which you can sign up for at mi.byu.edu by signing up for our newsletter.

Heal: The glory of sort of Zion is it's the end of, sort of, Enoch’s project. But at the beginning, he kind of protests his weakness. I'm pretty glad he says, and all the people hate me for him slow of speech. And similarly, right at the beginning of the Doctrine and Covenants, we have this notion of the weak things of the world, the weak things, weaken simple things, doing work in the world. What's the relationship between this sort of Zion project, and this, this weakness that we see manifests right at the beginning of it?

Givens: Yeah, I, you know, I have my own ideas about what weakness is meant to depict here. And I think of it in, in two regards. I think, first of all, it's saying that these people don't have any cultural capital. And so they are weak as to the standards and values and influence in the world. I think it's also referring to a kind of epistemic weakness, I guess I would call it. That there has to be a kind of openness rather than certainty, a kind of intellectual searching rather than intellectual self confidence, so that they are susceptible to novelty to genuine revelation as it, as it shifts and completely rearranges their paradigms and expectations and how God interacts with the human family.

Stuart: Yeah, it actually makes me think about something else that you've written about, which is the life of Eugene England and thinking about the essay at the church is as true as the gospel and the great humility that it takes to recognize that imperfect people are those who are the stewards over us spiritually. I was wondering if you thought about Moses 7, as you are writing your biography of Eugene England, entitled, Stretching the Heavens from UNC press?

Givens: Well, I think about Moses 7 when I write just about anything, these days. And you know, what, for me is, is so significant about how God is depicted in Moses 7 is the fact that we don't ever get a clear indication of what it means to not be a sovereign deity. The fact that God weeps, yes, it means he's passable, he shares our pain and, you know, that's hugely significant, but it's also really important to recognize that for him to weep is an indication that he's not happy with the way things are unfolding. And if he's not happy with the way things are unfolding, then contrary to the creedal tradition, he is not, he does not ordain all that comes to pass. And so, you know, Elder Holland expressed this sentiment, I thought, rather, humorously when he said, well, God is patient with all of this imperfection in his leader, so we have to be too. But that really is one of the points of, of Moses 7 is that God is no happier than we are, with the inadequacies, inadequacies and insufficiencies of our response to a fallen world.

Heal: There is a wonderful line when Enoch is first introduced into the, the book of Moses and goes out into the world. And the response of people is that there's a strange thing in the land, a wild man has come among us. And this seems to capture in some ways, kind of the strangeness of the whole restoration project. Do you see anything kind of inherently strange and wild about how God works in the world?

Givens: Yeah, and I think, you know, a couple of great scholars of early Christianity, Elaine Pagels, comes to mind Stephen Greenblatt comes to mind, both of whom asked the question: How is it possible that the early Christians abandoned this conception of God as loving and kind and compassionate for one who predestined multitudes to hell and imposes the burden of original sin on all? And they give a very interesting psychological explanation, they say, apparently, humans are more willing to accept depravity and guilt than they are uncertainty. And I think that's really a wonderful psychological insight. So we are uncomfortable with a God who can radically intrude and disrupt right, the status quo, we want a God who is domesticated and predictable and conforms to a pattern that we expect. And so I love the fact that Enoch, right, embodies the wind that bloweth, where it listed, right? And so I think that we're, we're fortunate to have as an article of faith, right, that we can't predict how the restoration is going to continue to unfold from this point on. And I think we need to be, be willing to celebrate that unpredictability.

Stuart: My next question is about Moses for 7:22, where he sees Adams children in the world and observes that Adams children are a mixture of all of his seeds save it were the seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain, where black and hemlock place among them. And Zion is a people of one heart and mind, but outside of Zion is characterized by segregation and racism. Do you think that the book of Moses gives us any clues for how we can root out racism as President Nelson has asked us to do as a precursor to building Zion in the latter days?

Givens: Well, I think I would modify slightly that the wording of that question, I don't know that it gives us any clues as to how to do it. I think what it does is imposes on us the burden of figuring that out. But I think like the Book of Mormon, the book of Moses is, is a chronicle of the costs of tribalism. And what we, what we get -and I love this pairing- we get Enoch, who is right, repeatedly bewildered. How, when is the earth going to rest? How is this going to be resolved? How are we going to fix this? And then in verse 63, we see it all resolved, right. And we've got one of the most gorgeous verses in all of Holy Writ, “And the Lord said unto Enoch, then shalt thou and all thy city, meet them there, and we will receive them into our bosom, and they shall see us and we will fall upon their necks, and they shall fall upon our necks, and we will kiss each other. And there should be mine and bowed, and it shall be Zion.” But we're not told how to get there. And I think what we're being told is, here's the problem. And God expects us to find a way to figure it out. And I think that's how Joseph Smith understood it. And so that's why we see in the early church, I think there are cul de sacs and dead ends and experiments, right with different ways of organizing society and economics and marriage, as we try to work through how to create this Zion society. But I think we can't be passive and expecting the strategy to be given us.

Stuart: Yeah, reminds me of one of the most quoted lines in the church handbook of instructions, which is, adapt to local circumstances. Essentially, everything is laid out, as if things were ideal and then adapt to local circumstances. So not always told what to do when things aren't ideal. But as you said, the necessity of finding revelation to figure it out

Heal: There is a love the idea of this unknowingness. This, this, the work that's left for us to do. And kind of contrast interestingly, with this, God's desire to give his prophets, these panoramic visions that we see here with Enoch, we see with Moses, we see with Nephi see with the brother of Jared, what sort of work do these panoramic visions do in the kind of in restoration scripture what functionally playing for us?

Givens: Well, I think, I think that question really takes us back to Moses 1, right, where we, we get Moses’ panoramic vision. And I've always thought that Moses chapter one gives us redirection. And this is the, this is one of the great chapters to illustrate the dangers of proof texting and taking things out of context. But when, when Moses sees the immensity of creation, which is in and of itself, a stirring and a moving, a powerful experience, he is brought to realize I'm nothing, right? I'm nothing. And so sometimes we extract those two truths, but, but the Lord corrects that misperception, because it's as if I think it's as if you say, no, no, you've misunderstood. No, the immensity of space and creation, only emphasizes the miracle of me, putting you at the center of it, by making you the focus of all of my efforts to bring to pass your immortality and eternal life. So in some ways, it's one of the greatest evidences or manifestations that we have of the Latter-day Saints understanding of grace. Because what Moses realizes is, there is absolutely no reason for me to have any kind of an expectation of being of significance in the cosmos or in your heart. And then God says, Yeah, but I chose to put you there. So I think the drama of that gesture on God's part can only be appreciated in the context of this panoramic vision.

Stuart: Thank you for that. Terryl. Now, you and your wife, Fiona, have written an entire book called the God Who Weeps. So folks who are interested in learning more about your feelings on Moses 7 and about what it means for us to have a God who weeps and understands us can look there. But I'm also struck by the idea that there were children of Adam who rejected the prophets and chose to follow their own way being left outside the safety and glory of Zion. And that's why God weeps. It's not because they're not listening to him this one time, it's a repeated pattern of behavior. Do you think that this is significant for Latter-day Saints theology?

Givens: Yeah, I do. I think that restoration theology consists of two impulses that are often intention. And at the personal level, I think the lesser of the two has prevailed. And what I mean by these two tensions are Joseph Smith's expansion of the Heavenly Hierarchy, right, there's not just saved and damned, there's all different kinds of saved and damned, which I'm not sure if it really solves any problems. It just makes heaven a little more complex, right. But then the other impulse, which is moving in the opposite direction, is to universalize access to eternal life. And so most of us operate psychologically, in a kind of zero sum mentality, right? That status is always relational. It's always hierarchical. So our self esteem and contentment is always related to how we are positioned in some kind of an ordering. So it's in its most perverse version, you get Augustine saying, well, the delight of the blessing in Heaven will consist in part on their ability to witness the sufferings of the damned and hell. And as heinous as that is, morally speaking as a sentiment. It's, it seems to be reflected in a lot of Latter-day Saint attitudes that I call the “Jonah Complex.” That there is this insistence that justice will have its day, and there will be this rigid division between the righteous and the damned, and yet Joseph Smith's whole life was devoted to collapsing these distinctions and boundaries and trying to unify, right, the chain of human belonging. In this regard, I'm, I'm just deeply moved by one line from one of my greatest spiritual mentors, who's Nikolai Verdai, who wrote the history of morality begins when God asks Cain, where's your brother Abel? But it will end when God asks Abel, where's your brother Cain? And I think as Latter-day Saints, we have institutionalized the response to that question. We have said we have in place mechanisms and practices and beliefs that allow us to, figuratively speaking, descend into the depths of hell, and help Christ rescue those who were outside the orbit of His love. And so I think that the whole program of postema Salvation as we understand it, is the greatest kind of universalizing impulse in the Christian world.

Heal: That’s beautiful. You mentioned that in our frequently asked, when shall the earth rest and this seems to be something that's a great concern as he's particularly as he sees this sort of panoramic vision and the trauma that plays out on the, on the earth. How does this idea of the earth resting play out in our own eschatological expectations?

Givens: I think one could give a historical answer to that question insofar as institutionally, we are shifting the nature of our response, right? For the first generations our answer was, well, Christ is going to come and clean house and so we were fervent premillennialists. We espouse prelim millennialism meaning that we expected that at the height of chaos and sin and catastrophe, Christ would come and, and set things to write. But increasingly, one hears from the leadership a language that is much more than a post millennialism. That, no, if we're going to deliver the kingdom up spotless to the Father, then we're the ones that have to get it in order. And so I think those are kind of the two ways one could respond to Enoch’s dilemma. And I think the only moral fully moral response is the latter of those two, is to not wait passively for Christ to save the world, but to realize that it waits upon our actions.

Stuart: Terryl, you and Fiona have done a lot of great ministering work, responding to Latter-day Saints who are undergoing faith transitions, or who have questions about theology or trying to find our way and the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. How has your reading of Moses 7 shaped the way that you respond to those who live with doubt?

Givens: I think it is, it has changed both the way that I relate to God, the way that I engage in the practice of prayer, as well as the way in which I view those who are at different stages or phases in their own spiritual journeys. I think Moses 7 has helped me to recognize that that one of the fundamental distortions of prayer that we have, I think, inherited from a Christian past is it prayer is an attempt to try to change God's mind, to try to get him to care about the things we care about. “Oh, help my son, to return from his dark path.” As if God doesn't desire that more than we do. And so suddenly, it makes prayer, more of a participatory practice, rather than a kind of oppositional dialectic where we're trying to find a way to convince him of, of something. And I think that that's a very powerful shift in consciousness, and more generally speaking in the way that it's altered the way that I relate to other people. Regardless of what our doctrine is, our doctrine is fairly imprecise on the question of how universal will progress be in the worlds to come? What doors will be open to us? What I do know is that our only correct hope is that there is no final buzzer, that there are no doors that will close, that God will find a way to accommodate all levels and rates of progress throughout the world and throughout time.

Stuart: I have a follow up question that's close to it. As Latter-day Saints, many of us know folks who are in different stages of their faith journeys, who are trying to figure things out, but no one ever fully teaches us how those who are in a comfortable place in our faith journeys can minister to those who have doubts who are searching for their place in Zion. I would be curious if you could reflect on how Moses 7 might teach us more about how we can minister to those at any point of their faith journey?

Givens: The lovely passage in Moses, that is part of the chapter 7, but that we, we don't reflect upon very much, it seems to me might have really profound theological implications in this regard. And that's when, after Moses, or excuse me, after Enoch, witnesses, the weeping of God. And his response is this, “It came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Enoch, and told him to call the doings of the children of men wherefore Enoch knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept, and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity and his bowels yearned, and all eternity shook.” That is the closest we ever get in Scripture to a vision of what Theosis might look like. Right? In the 19th century, the emphasis was on power and dominion and creating worlds. But here we see that what has happened in this incredible epiphany is that Enoch becomes capable of the expanse of empathy that characterizes God. And so it seems to me that we're given this as a clear model, that we need to be capable of deeply grieving for those who are struggling and who are wounded, who are searching for a way forward out of doubt and darkness. I think one of the happiest developments in church culture emanating from the top in the last 10-20 years has been the decriminalization of doubt that we have seen coming from the pulpit in General Conference. Where there's an increasing recognition that that doubt is not a sin, it can be a positive catalyst to something better, and I think we need to minister with that in mind.

Heal: Moses, Chapter 7 ends with this plaint praise Zion is flat, bringing in our is, or for our reasons to hope for a return of Zion, do you think?

Givens: I think that we have seldom since 1978 at least had more concrete grounds to think that Zion may in fact be a reachable goal, because we have seen such concrete pronouncements from the brethren and such concrete actions and behavioral and attitudinal changes on the part of the membership to be truly inclusive, to be truly hostile to tribalism, in all of its forms. I have to say the political events of the last 10 years though, have had made it I think harder than maybe at any time in our history to be optimistic about the actual full realization of Zion anytime soon. I wish I could have done a more optimistic note than that, but those are the realities that we face.

Stuart: I think that things that you said earlier, though, that we have to be the change, we have to be a part of that change. We're not waiting for the Savior to come, we are creating the society by which people can encounter the Savior. Terryl, thank you so much for joining us today. And folks who are interested in the God Who Weeps can look at Deseretbook.com, as well as your new book, The Doors of Faith from the Maxwell Institute, and Deseret Book. And then for those who are interested in your larger look at The Pearl of Great Price, you've written a book with Oxford University Press entitled A Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture with Brian Halligan. Thanks again for joining us.

Givens: Thanks for having me.

Stuart: Thank you for listening to this episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast. Head on over to iTunes or your preferred podcast provider to subscribe, rate, and leave a review, each of which are worth their weight in podcast gold. You can receive show notes including references to the sermons and articles referenced in this episode by signing up for the Maxwell Institute newsletter at mi.byu.edu. Please also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube for more content from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for religious scholarship. Thank you!