"Done by Common Consent": Part 6

Spiritual Poverty

How is spiritual poverty akin to financial poverty?

American Economist, Lant Pritchett, a professor at Harvard and Oxford, has spent his career studying and finding solutions to global poverty and economic growth. 

I think we can apply some of Pritchett's insights to the problem of spiritual poverty.

Pritchett's research shows the greatest predictor of poverty is where you live.  You see, there aren't poor people so much as there are poor places, and people who live in poor places end up being poor.  (Think of Haiti.)

What is interesting is that Pritchett has not found a "personal pathology of poverty" -- meaning global poverty is a function of systems of low productivity rather than individual behavior.

In Pritchett's study of wages, he compared wages of Nigerians and those who immigrate to the United States from Nigeria.  He found that the same person, doing the same work, will be paid 16 times more in the U.S. than in Nigeria. 

​The person's pay, you see, is not so much a product of what he does, but where he does it.

Chickens?

To curb extreme poverty, Bill Gates made the news in 2016 by proposing a plan to buy a chicken for poor persons in Africa.  He stated, "Our goal: to eventually help 30 percent of the rural families in sub-Saharan Africa raise improved breeds of vaccinated chickens, up from just 5 percent now."  

(See, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36487536)

Now, if we're serious about reversing global poverty, there are 3 ways to go about it: 

   (1)  Move.  Buy poor people luggage so they can move to a more prosperous area (which, according to Economist Russ Roberts, would be the #1 solution).

   (2)  Welfare.  Buy poor people chickens, like Gates, or give them cash, or vaccinate them for worms, or try a thousand other "programmatic" solutions.  

   (3)  Reform.  Implement policy change and reform at the government-level to increase economic productivity.  This is what India did in the 1990s, which contributed over $2 trillion dollars to their economy.

What is the Spiritual GDP of the Church?

Now let's apply these 3 solutions to improving the spiritual economy of the Church:

   (1)  Move.  For those in the Church who are poor, hungering and thirsting, the seekers, the truth-testers, the spiritually starving . . . they could leave to a more spiritually-prosperous place (or people). 

   (2)  Welfare.  I think this is where the Church excels.  The Church is able to take those who are extremely impoverished spiritually and to give them a "chicken."  The church has many programmatic solutions to help those living on a dollar-a-day start making two-dollars-a-day. 

​Well, what's the problem with this approach? 

   Welfare can never make us wealthy.

   (3)  Reform.  How can the Church stimulate spiritual growth?  What could it do to make room for people to be more authentic in their faith?  What reforms in the Church would bring us out of spiritual poverty? 

I personally believe Jesus Christ is not a Reformer.  I believe He is a Restorer.  But . . . there is something to be said about pruning.  

   Well, where should we start? 

Holy Moly, It's Possible!

Let's be children for a moment and play with our imaginations.  Have we ever wondered what it would be like to have our meetings at church conducted:

   after the manner
   of the workings
   of the Spirit, by
   the power of the Holy Ghost;
   for as the power
   of the Holy Ghost led them
   whether to preach, or to exhort,
   or to pray, or to supplicate,
   or to sing, even so it was done.

(Moroni 6:9)

​Huh.  Notice it does not say that the leaders, priests, or teachers led them, by rather it was "the Holy Ghost [who] led them."

   Really?

Who Presides at Church?

Why do we need someone to preside over our meetings?  How are they chosen? 

Is it the bishop?  The Stake President?  The person with the most "keys?" 

(So not the patriarch, I guess, since he doesn't hold keys.)   

   The office of Priesthood
   and Patriarch . . . shall hold
   the keys of the patriarchal blessings
   upon the heads of all my people.

(D&C 124:91-92)

Ummmm.  Well, anyhow . . . let's tear off the Band-Aid and ask the hard question:  Why can't God preside over our meetings?

And how would that change our worship services if we treated God as the presiding authority?  Can't we let Him direct our meetings "after the manner of the workings of the Spirit" (Moroni 6.9)?

In Moroni 6, we find:

   They were numbered;
   They did meet together oft;
   They repented;
   The power of the Holy Ghost led them.

They were one as a result of living by common consent, not because they were united under a presiding authority.  (After all, they were already united under Christ, who was the "author and finisher of their faith.")  

I submit the reforms most needed in the church are those that will help us live by common consent. 

Imagine the spiritual wealth we would possess if everyone was allowed to exercise their gifts to the edification of all.  Imagine the heavens opening as everyone sought the Spirit to lead our meetings rather than subcontract out our spiritual prerogatives to a third party.

   They did minister
   one to another;
   and they had all
   things in common
   among them,
   every man dealing
   justly, one with 
   another.

(3 Nephi 26:19)

We might ask, "Well, isn't this what leaders do?  Aren't they facilitators of the Spirit?  Don't leaders seek inspiration in planning and conducting our meetings?"

   Weeeeell . . . then why is Church so boring?

The Facts

Forget everything I've said. 

Just ponder your very own personal experience at church. 

How would you rate it?  Five Stars?  Four Stars?  Two Stars?  No Stars?

   Negative Stars?

Have we all felt something was . . . lacking?  The chief evidence that our meetings are not being led by the Holy Ghost is the fact that they are lifeless.  Rote.  Trite.  (I once sat in Opening Exercises before Priesthood meeting where they spent 25 minutes talking about setting up chairs in the cultural hall.)

Why is General Conference monotonous, devoid of color expect for the floral arrangements decorating the pulpit?  

Joseph Smith said:

   How vain and trifling
   have been our Spirits,
   our conferences,
   our councils, our meetings,
   our private as well as public
   conversations, too low,
   to mean, too vulgar,
   to condescending,
   for the dignified Characters
   of the called and chosen 
   of God.

(Joseph Smith, Letter from Liberty Jail, March 20, 1839, accessed at https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-c-1-2-november-1838-31-july-1842/86)

Welcome to Sunday School

Okay, maybe things aren't totally bleak. 

​Let's take a look at our church lessons.  In my ward, most of the discussion involves the teacher asking "application questions," such as, "How has the gospel brought you joy?" 

And then class members will share their personal feelings and experiences for a 30-minute "group share." 

But . . . do these "sharing sessions" edify us?  Do our meetings energize us?  Fill us with light?  Draw us to our knees to repent?  Inspire us with greater truths?  Focus our faith on Christ?  

In my personal experience, I have sat through many Sacrament Meetings (which are supposed to be the pinnacle of our meetings) without any mention of the Savior.  (Case in point: when the speakers are given the topic of Scouting, or Girl's Camp, or Tithing.)

Feed My . . . Shepherds?

Leaders get spiritually fed all the time.  They are busy planning, counseling, training, filling out food requests, paying people's rent, giving sermons, going on home visits, implementing policies, rubbing shoulders with dignitaries . . . it is really satisfying to be in leadership because you matter.  You are respected.

When a leader offers criticism it is inspired correction; when a lay person offers criticism it is apostasy. 

(Leadership requires double-standards.  It teaches us to measure the truth of a proposition not by the proposition itself, but by the person offering it.  Maybe this is how Satan was able to lead away one-third part of the hosts of heaven.  "Yeah, but it's Lucifer, dude!")   

Well, what about the sheep who go along without the buzz of caffeinated importance?  Are they to be treated like sheep to be acted upon?

   Thus saith the Lord God
   unto the shepherds;
   Woe be to the shepherds
   of Israel that do feed
   themselves!
   should not the shepherds
   feed the flocks?

   Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe
   you with the wool, ye kill
   them that are fed: but
   ye feed not the flock.

(Ezekiel 34:2-3)

Pause.  Let that sink in.  We allow leaders to flex their agency and act, but require non-leaders to be passive participants in whatever the leaders have dreamt up.  

​Video games call these people Non-playable Characters (NPCs).  They don't get to make real choices.  Their decisions are pre-scripted by the programmer.  They interact with the environment but cannot change it.

But what happens to our spiritual initiative when we are assigned a cubbyhole and are told to stay in our lane?  (If you do not know what I mean, then you probably haven't had the pleasure of being censored for coloring outside of the lines.)

Which do you think takes greater faith:

   (1)  Allowing leaders to plan and conduct our meetings, and going along with the flow; or

   (2)  Relying upon Christ, and his Spirit, to "lead" our meetings as a body.  

   Neither take ye thought
   beforehand what ye shall say;
   but treasure up in your minds
   continually the words of life,
   and it shall be given you
   in the very hour that portion
   that shall be meted
   unto every man.

(D&C 84:85)

Or, you know, we could just keep writing 10 minute talks on topics we are assigned as NPCs.​