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Alan Rock Waterman wrote an excellent review and summary of Daymon Smith’s recent book “The Book of Mammon: A Book About A Book About The Corporation That Owns The Mormons.” Here is a link to the rather lengthy (but good) article: http://puremormonism.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-corporatism-has-undermined-and.html This book is top on my to-read list. I really enjoyed the Mormon Stories interviews with Daymon Smith:
http://mormonstories.org/?p=980 Back to the article though. I know it got a little bit arcane, but I enjoyed Mr. Waterman taking time to explain the “Corporation Sole” aspect. I know a little bit about forming corporations, having formed a few simple ones for myself and for clients as an accountant. I appreciated a more in-depth explanation of this archaic form (dating back to Roman law). I was stunned to read in the actual corporate charter that the senior apostle becomes the new “President” or Trustee-in-trust per the charter. That pretty much explains why that member of the Quorum is “mysteriously” chosen as the new leader
I know this topic has a STRONG potential to go negative, probably too negative for our community, but I wanted to bring up the material in the book and article.
On a positive note, I am reminded again how important it is to see our selves as
MEMBERSof the Church — meaning we are equal in ownership, the same as anyone else no matter their title. I am also reminded of how important our role is, how important it is to STAYand take back that ownership! The “restoration” of the truth is what we make of it, not what gets promoted from the PR department of Church HQ, or by the bureaucrat acting at any given time as “Official Spokesman” for press releases. While understanding some of these laws and regulations may take away from some of the “mystery” around the church governance, in some ways, it is comforting to know things are being done according to smart practices and in accordance with the law that help ensure the future of the church…rather than just pure revelation from the minds of holy men. Even so, it does seem the revelation slant is emphasized much more than the practical explanation of things. I guess that is more interesting for many, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the church is dishonest or deceptive about it, just that they don’t emphasize these things much, in my opinion. or that they really believe the processes and practices were inspired / revealed Pres. Uchtdorf’s recent talk about not being able to distinguish culture and practices and let go of them when new things are needed seems appropriate here.
Thanks for the info Brian. I also read part of the puremormonism blog earlier today, and was interested in this book… but my reading list is very long so I don’t know when I would get to it. I didn’t notice there was a Mormon Stories interview, so I will check that out. Listen to the Mormon Stories podcast, it is better than the book. The book was full of words that no normal person would ever use. I began to think he was making up words as he went along. Also the book jumps all over the place and does not maintain a coherent line of reasoning at times. The book however can be humorous and I believe Daymon was trying on most occasions to take a sarcastic approach to the subject matter, but this also gets tedious after awhile. I would have found it a much better read if he would have had a more straight forward approach in his writing. I like Waterman’s work generally. I appreciate his perspective and I think I would get along with him brilliantly in conversation. However, I read the post (which is very long for a blog) and think that it takes a certain degree of cynicism to interpret everything as a merely the inevitable outcome of cold corporate structure and set of processes. Institutional organizations matter, I’ll grant that, but I really don’t see how organizational framework itself removes inspiration from the decision making process.
If an inspired decision was made that led to a glut of old Book of Mormons, couldn’t they then receive inspiration yet again on how to deal with the glut of Book of Mormons? This idea that standard practices of divisional accounting and double-entry bookkeeping somehow eliminate the role of inspiration in institutional decision making is incomplete at minimum, and like I said, requires a certain degree of cynicism to arrive at that.
If the order of the twelve needed to be changed for some reason they could easily change it by changing the order of the twelve through adopting new emeritus rules etc. I don’t think the corporate charter forces them to have a certain succession, but perhaps does require them to define succession. Clearly no set of paperwork filed with government to create the corporate entity of the church is going to make reference to “inspiration” but just because it isn’t typed in a document doesn’t mean anything at all. So which came first, the policy on succession which was then penned into the charter, or did the charter magically appear from a typewrite forcing a specific succession? I just think the interpretation and analysis is again being colored by cynicism. I’m no lawyer, but if there is need for a change in succession I am doubtful that the legal entity is binding on the matter.
For example, he references and compares the structure to the Catholic Church, but makes no mention of a legally defined succession arrangement from Cardinal seniority to the position of Pope; the Pope is elected by the college of cardinals. If the Catholic church is not bound by seniority succession and the claim is that we have a similar corporate structure, then how does seniority succession become binding on us but not on Catholics? There is more going on here.
The other point about members of the twelve being chosen for their secular accomplishments rather than their theological accreditation is another example of cynicism coloring the perspective. Why can’t it be both or either or neither? Paul was probably chosen by Christ in part because of his Roman background and the particular set of skills and experiences he had which would empower him to spread the gospel. Clearly there are many many accomplished business people with vast legal and corporate experience who are members but are not necessarily chosen as GAs, and then there are many others who are. But so what? Why must we interpret their secular experience as being completely irrelevant to God, or perhaps ignore that maybe God endowed them with those experiences specifically to enable them in furthering the work of the Church. I don’t listen to the twelve and think that they are devoid of spiritual insight or that they lack a theologically studious disposition. Sure, I think secular experience is a factor in the decision (including local leadership here), but why must we interpret it as being a flawed, non-spiritual, non-inspired, irrelevant factor? I think worthiness and and spirituality are key ingredients, and the combination of background, worthiness and spiritual mindfulness are all weighed in the balance.
All of this being said I tend to be sympathetic with his overarching push. I too have a degree of cynicism regarding the corporate and institutional framework of the church and how that can translate into policy and practice that I sometimes wish were different. Correlation and the rise of sometimes boring and inelastic doctrinal instruction is one example that I think about. I also think the Church and Member relationship can be cold at times and put too much distance between the pulpit of the President and the members. i.e. the use a P.R. spokesman rather than the Prophet (as recently shown when the spokesman addressed BKP’s talk rather than Monson or Packer themselves). I have concerns about some of the decisions with respect to the investment choices made, about building malls while at the same time increasing burdens on local congregations by doing away with paid janitorial services.
Overall, my point is that we all bring out own bias, cynicism, jadedness, belief perspective and experiences to bear on any given set of observations…and I think that the cynicism more present than I would prefer. Judging by the length of this post itself, clearly Waterman succeeded in inspiring some hard thinking and discussion.
Good post. I think I thought some of those things while reading the blog but despaired of being able to communicate them. Very well said, UF. This is not an aspect I like to be honest, but… Quote:If you had no idea before now that the Church was actually owned by a corporation, read on. It gets worse.
Anyone with any smarts would have spotted that one. “Corporation of the President” is over everything.
The church needs to stop being seen as merely another besuited organization. That is not the image a spiritual group wants to put out, particularly given how much trouble other corporations have caused in the world – poverty, greed, war, pollution, you name it.
I think it has affected our architecture, proselytizing techniques and dress, not to mention scripture study etc
Quote:You’re way better off with a copy of Strong’s Concordance by your side and a good set of commentaries.
I’ve lost my old copy of Strong’s. but have been thinking of buying a new one. There used to be a BoM concordance too.
The footnotes are not completely useless, but they often fail to note when a verse in the Book of Mormon can be found in the Bible. I keep on finding familiar phrases in the BoM, and actually have to go to a Bible concordance to find out where they are in the Bible.
I don’t think the footnotes are completely useless. I am reading the New Testament at the moment, but reading the NRSV version. When I want to cross reference to the Old Testament when Jesus is quoting something, or the Gospel author is talking about a prophecy being fulfilled, I pull out my LDS scriptures. They have pretty good cross references to that stuff so I can find which passages are being quoted elsewhere. My NRSV Bible only contains alternate translations and alternate texts in the footnotes, which I love! But it doesn’t help me with my study tasks sometimes.
Well, we’ve all got our personal preferences in terms of Bible translations, but I find the references within the BoM (i.e. referring to itself) pretty helpful. As for the Bible, there’s so much choice out there and we don’t have to go to the COJCOLDS for it. I am a fan of the KJV as I’ve said elsewhere, but I have been using the New English Bible recently. In terms of language it is a poor translation, with some very clunky phrasing. What’s good about it is the formatting, and the fact that the verse numbers are all in the margin, not within the text, meaning that it flows better in terms of layout. This means that I can just about forgive some of the unwieldier or inappropriate word choices in the text, and read through it more easily. The origins of the NEB lie in the British Isles, where Protestant churches from Quakers and Baptists to the Church of England and Church of Scotland got together and tried to produce a new translation.
I have been doing most of my actual bible study online these days using a website that allows you to go verse by verse with parallel translations along with several sources of commentary below the verses. Found some interesting insights when studying baptism a couple months back after a few questions arose about in HPQ about the connection between the physical act of baptism and the actual “washing away” of sins. i.e. that the physical ordinance does not wash away sins itself, but is rather a token of accepting that repentance is operational through Christ.
Also, reading the commentary helps ground me by being more aware of the LDS/non-LDS nexus within Christianity.
There are plenty of other similar websites – gives you not only the option of various English versions, but ones in other languages including the Greek and Hebrew.
Here’s another one:
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