Map of Heaven advocates more study of afterlife

First, neurosurgeon Eben Alexander published “Proof of Heaven,” his account of a near-death experience he had when in a coma due to a severe meningitis attack. The book was a big success, and not surprisingly has its many admirers and detractors. Claims of an afterlife, not to mention personal accounts, have that whiff of religion that annoys secularists and atheists. On the flip side, just about any claim of a near-death experience is held up as “proof” by believers in the divine.

However, in his follow-up book, “The Map of Heaven” (co-written with Ptolemy Tompkins), Alexander is deliberately de-emphasizing the religious angle to the afterlife, while not completely eliminating it. Instead, Alexander advocates the science of the prenatural, or “supraphysical realms” that exist beyond earth. He argues that the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, personal experiences -- some noted in the book -- and the work of historical scientists and academics make it necessary to consider the afterlife and near-death experiences as a science to be studied, rather than something based only on faith. The author cites the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia as one academic center where consciousness, including perceptions of the afterlife, are being studied.

I found the book persuasive but I’m a believer, and as mentioned, there’s no doubt that a cottage industry trying to debunk Alexander and others will always be around. And to be fair, proof that one can touch is not going to be found in “Map of Heaven.” Alexander believes that all humans have an inherent knowledge of a divine existence, and that to lose it, or enhance it, are acquired traits. He argues that as young children we were more in tune with these perceptions, and that their strength weakens as we age. He further argues that religions -- not one religion -- are tools for humans to regain the spiritual consciousness that we once had as children. In fact, he asserts that just about every religion in the world has as its goal, and accomplishment, a path to understanding the afterlife and the greater consciousness. Our ability to tap into this metaphysical portion of the earth depends on us. The author suggests meditation, and accompanying music, as positive tools.

In the book, Alexander writes, “... it’s important to understand that beneath the ’religion vs. science’ debates that lead nowhere, there is another, deeper, and fantastically fruitful discussion going on. In this discussion, a new group of participants -- people who have undergone near death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and other experiences suggestive of the survival of consciousness -- are increasingly being allowed to describe the experiences they’ve undergone. And a small but select group of scientists have decided to take them seriously; to ponder, with the combination of fierce intellectual rigor and vigorous, empirical open-mindedness that all good science demands, what they might mean.”

Since this is a community with a majority of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I’ll mention some similarities in “Map of Heaven” to Mormon theology, with the reminder that Alexander appropriately is disinterested in picking a preferred religion. “Map of Heaven” describes an afterlife that is located in the same world we exist and is comprised of several layers of consciousness, each more perfect than the other. In fact, Alexander argues that each object in our world probably has a more-enhanced version of itself in another layer of existence. We enjoy more perfection as we advance to each higher level. 

The book is written kindly; it’s not preachy or supercilious. Nevertheless, Alexander wants the reader to understand that despite their doubts, he knows that an afterlife exists. In fact, he urges that the word “believe” be changed to “know” when it comes to the divine, quoting Carl Jung, who late in his life said, “I don’t believe; I know,” when asked for his stance on the afterlife. Further study on the divine is envisioned by the author as a means toward better understanding a discipline that is with us and has always been with us.

Recognizing the divine, understanding that there is a map of the afterlife, can provide meaning to a world that sometimes seems meaningless. The adversity of the world, great or small, is a preparation for something greater. The author writes, “... ’all shall be well’ is not the same as ’everything is peachy.’ It does not mean the world is without its terrors and sufferings. It means that we can navigate this world if we remember one thing: that beneath its apparent meaninglessness, there is a world of meaning which is rich beyond all imagining.”

As mentioned, this is a subject that is easy to play the skeptic with; perhaps that’s because scoffing at personal experiences involving the afterlife or increased consciousness is easier than wondering if there is something to all this and perhaps even trying to see if we can enhance our own consciousness. I think I can echo Alexander and others that despite what our personal opinion on these issues are, the best stance is to respect the opinions of all involved.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardNET

Despite what you might hear cremation is acceptable to LDS doctrine

(This article was first published in 2010 at StandardBlogs.)

I serve as a home teacher to an elderly woman. She has very little money and tries to stay independent. Eager not to have her death be a burden to her children, she long ago started putting money away so that when she dies, she can be cremated.

However, as she expressed to me, the decision has caused her anguish, as some members of the church have told her that cremation is not permitted in the LDS Church. “I simply have no other way of paying for my funeral,” she told me with a mixture of frustration and determination.

In the past weeks, the issue of cremation versus burial has become more personal to my family. My wife’s father, a member of the church who lived alone in Hungary, died. A somewhat reclusive man, he was dead at least a week before we were notified. Wanting to arrange for a funeral celebration in early April, we had no alternative but to have him cremated and his remains stored until the service.

The idea that cremation would be contradictory to God’s law has always struck me as ridiculous. Common sense dictates that someone killed in a plane crash, for example, is pretty well cremated. But, like the woman I home teach, I frequently was told growing up in the church that cremation was wrong. One rationale I heard often was that a cremated body could not be resurrected. That seemed like a flip answer to a serious question.

The reason for the “cremation is wrong” is probably due to its reference in “Mormon Doctrine,” which was written by the late LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie. Now, “Mormon Doctrine” is an amazing work, but its title is not accurate. It’s Bruce R. McConkie’s “Mormon Doctrine.” In fact, some of the book was changed after its first edition. In the second edition, here is what McConkie says about cremation: “…Cremation of the dead is not part of the gospel; it is a practice which has been avoided by the saints in all ages. The Church today counsels its members not to cremate their dead. Such a procedure would find gospel acceptance only under the most extraordinary and unusual circumstances …”

After reading that, I can understand why I, and my fellow ward member, have been told that cremation is wrong. Based on McConkie’s interpretation, poverty, it seems, would not be an “extraordinary” or “unusual” circumstance. McConkie’s opinion on cremation was shared by very early Christians, who regarded cremation as showing disrespect for God.

Except, McConkie’s wrong on this issue. Cremation is acceptable to LDS doctrine. In the July 1972 LDS Church publication, The New Era, Spencer J. Palmer, a former mission president in Korea, offered the LDS Church position on cremation: “Funerals and burials are prohibitive in cost to some of the most faithful members of the Church in that part of the world. Hence, although I personally prefer embalming and burial and although it has been the pattern followed by Israel, there appears to be no prohibition against cremation in the scriptures or in the theology of the Church.”

In the August 1991 LDS Church publication, The Ensign, Roger R. Keller, associate professor of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University, gave a lukewarm but definitive OK for cremation as an option. He wrote, “Ultimately, whether a person’s body was buried at sea, destroyed in combat or an accident, intentionally cremated, or buried in a grave, the person will be resurrected.”

I think the “cremation is wrong” doctrine is a lot like the “caffeinated soda is wrong” or “white sugar is wrong” rhetoric you hear often from well-meaning but over-exuberant members of the church. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is designed to provide comfort to our lives, not worry a poor old woman to her death quicker than she deserves.

-- Doug Gibson

100-plus years ago, Utah, Mormon Church sold lots of magazines for publishers

I read a Rolling Stones piece on the Kingston polygamy family. It’s a breathless piece. The subject is described as “America’s most twisted crime family.” (You can read it at http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/inside-the-order-one-mormon-cults-secret-empire-20110615.) Today’s polygamists are a muckraker’s dream, just as the current Mormon Church was 100-plus years ago. At the 2011 Mormon History Association meeting, a small “keepsake” book — courtesy of historians Michael Paulos and Kenneth L. Cannon II — was offered. “Cartoonists and Muckrakers: Selected Media Images of Mormonism During the Progressive Era” featured excerpts from 100-plus-year-old muckraking pieces against the Utah Mormons, those purveyors of polygamy, once paired with slavery as the “twin relics of barbarisms.”

Rolling Stone’s piece has nothing on these pieces. Here’s a sample of early 20th century progressive journalism as directed against The LDS Church and its chief henchman, its president, Joseph F. Smith:

• Cosmopolitan Magazine, No. 50, March, 1911, “Viper on the Hearth” — a three-part series: “The name of the viper — I take it from the mouth of the viper — is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It lies coiled on the country’s hearthstone, and on;y asks time to grow and collect a poison and a strength to strike. … True, the Mormon himself had place in my mind for what he was and is — one who prefers lust’s substance to love’s shadow and would sooner wallow than dream; but it was not until my visit to Salt Lake City that he and his religion dawned upon me for the national threat they really are …” (The author, Alfred Henry Lewis, was the most celebrated writer in America at that time). Lewis described the LDS prophet Joseph F. Smith as an evil mastermind over a weak-willed, easy-to-lead U.S. senator, fellow Mormon, Reed Smoot.

• McClure’s Magazine, in its January, 1911 article, “The Mormon Revival of Polygamy,” described the LDS church President Joseph F. Smith in this hyperbolic manner as a man who had revitalized polygamy to Utah two decades after the manifesto. It reads: “Even before 1901 polygamous households had been reestablished on a considerable scale, but with the succession of Joseph F. smith to the presidency of the church the restoration of old conditions became practically open. … All of Brigham’s successors have been mild-mannered souls, but President Smith is a man of violent passions; one could easily imagine him torturing heretics or burning witches to advance the kingdom of God.” (The writer of this piece was Burton J. Hendrick, who later in his career would win three Pulitzer prizes).

• Pearson’s Magazine ran a three-part expose on Mormonism beginning in the September 1910 issue. It was titled, “The Political Menace of the Mormon Church” and dealt with Smith, polygamy, and the church’s political power and wealth. It was penned by Richard Barry, a famous war correspondent of that era. An excerpt: “These 375,000 people have more political power than any million in the United States because they are a unit. There is little secession among them from the will of their leader. … This political force, compact, unreasoning, unpatriotic, unAmerican, has a curious character, at once sinister and serene. It is the backbone of the Mormon empire, which is an echo from the time that antedates the Christian era.”

It’s very interesting to read these examples of muckraking articles against the Mormon Church.

-- Doug Gibson

Originally published in 2011 at StandardNET (blogs)

Idea that righteous parents can save wayward children a consistent doctrine in Mormon history

Although doctrines and decrees change in the LDS Church — think polygamy and blacks — one consistent teaching from the time of Joseph Smith to today is that the righteousness of parents can provide salvation to wayward (read: unrighteous) children. This is a big deal to many LDS parents (I can think of a score or more, who worry about children who have moved away from church activity.) It’s important to understand that the definition of “wayward” extends far beyond a child that may have picked up criminal habits, lax moral standards or a particular vice. For example, the child of devout Mormon parents who becomes the devout follower of another religion, can often be tagged as “wayward.”

One of the more recent pronouncements on wayward children being saved due to their parents’ earthly exertions came from LDS Apostle James E. Faust in the April 2003 General Conference. In his talk, “Dear Are the Sheep That Have Wandered,” Faust quoted the early 20th century LDS Apostle Orson F. Whitney, who was himself quoting LDS founder Joseph Smith: “The Prophet Joseph Smith declared—and he never taught more comforting doctrine—that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of Divine Providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God.”

Here’s another quote from the late LDS apostle Boyd K. Packer, in the April 1992 General Conference: “Who are these straying sheep — these wayward sons and daughters? They are the children of the covenant, heirs to the promise, and have received, if baptized, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, which makes manifest the things of God. Could all of that go for naught?”

LDS doctrine differs from many churches in that it associates works, as well as faith, as criteria for judgment and ultimate reward from God. In that sense, the promise of salvation for wayward children is less an act of “grace” as a declaration that something can be accomplished for them in the afterlife. In his talk, Faust, who died in 2007, adds this caveat: “Repentant wayward children will enjoy salvation and all the blessings that go with it, but exaltation is much more. It must be fully earned. The question as to who will be exalted must be left to the Lord in His mercy.”

In Mormon doctrine, there is a difference between salvation, which is available to virtually all members of humanity, and exaltation, a higher, divine afterlife status. In fact, the Mormon view of human salvation is far more liberal than many churches, which sometimes draw a line separating humanity into a traditional heaven and traditional hell. It may be that the promise to concerned LDS parents that wayward children will belong to them in the afterlife — if the parents are righteous — is simply a consequence of a parent achieving exaltation and having the ability to interact with others, including children, who have been resurrected into a lower kingdom? The late LDS Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith seems to say exactly that in this excerpt from the LDS tome “Doctrines of Salvation”: “Children born under the covenant, who drift away, are still the children of the parents; and the parents have a claim upon them; and if the children have not sinned away all their rights, the parents may be able to bring them through repentance, into the celestial kingdom, but not to receive the exaltation.”

Also in the “Doctrines of Salvation,” Fielding Smith quoted LDS Prophet Brigham Young, who says: “Let the father and mother, who are members of this Church and Kingdom, take a righteous course, and strive with all their might never to do a wrong, but to do good all their lives; if they have one child or one hundred children, if they conduct themselves towards them as they should, binding them to the Lord by their faith and prayers, I care not where those children go, they are bound up to their parents by an everlasting tie, and no power of earth or hell can separate them from their parents in eternity; they will return again to the fountain from whence they sprang.” Several other quotes from LDS leaders on this topic is compiled in the September 2002 LDS magazine The Ensign.

In the early days of the LDS Church, huge importance was placed on how numerous a family a righteous Mormon priesthood holder could accumulate. The example of patriarchs, such as Abraham, was heavily emphasized. This was one reason, I believe, for the polygamy doctrine. However, the early LDS church also sanctioned “adoptions,” in which groups and families of church members became “children” of church leaders. John D. Lee, for example, was an “adopted” son of Brigham Young. This quote from Joseph Smith seems to underscore how the sealing process of children to parents provided an advantage in the next world:

“When a seal is put upon the father and mother, it secures their posterity, so that they cannot be lost, but will be saved by virtue of the covenant of their father and mother.

“Our Heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in his mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive.” (For more quotes on this topic, go here.)

As I have mentioned, salvation for wayward children is a doctrine that likely scores of thousands of active LDS parents fervently cling to. The LDS Church’s belief that family ties are eternal is not public relations. It is frankly regarded as a promise tied to strict theological obedience. As a result, parents are serving as proxies for countless children, battling for their status in the afterlife even as many of these children have long put Mormonism out of their minds.

--- Doug Gibson

--- Originally published at StandardBlogs in 2013.