I found a post that analyzed the leadership styles of these Star Trek captains here.  I will sort of borrow from this site, but because this is a Mormon blog, I will share some of my thoughts on these captains in terms of what kind of bishop they would likely be.  Please feel free to discuss these captains as much as you like.

Kirk

Kirk was a commanding, competitive and charismatic presence.  He loved his ship and his crew, and would do anything to save them.  He was a bit of a maverick, and would bend or break the rules if it meant winning.  He could be very charming and warm when the situation called for it.  He had a good sense of humor, and did not take himself too seriously.  But he expected to be obeyed.  He kept his distance from the rank and file, but had very close relationships with Spock and Bones.  The responsibilities of his office weighed on him, yet he was often very decisive anyway.

It would be unlikely to me that Kirk would ever be called as a bishop.  Chances would be good that as he served in other callings, he would do or say something that would turn somebody off.  His ignoring policy and procedure might be his undoing if he were called, and might prevent him from ever being called in the first place.  I believe he would relate well to the youth, and would be something of a hero figure for some.  But his recklessness probably would not fly in the church.

Picard

Picard was a man with a strong sense of morality, that was more concerned with doing what he felt was right than anything else.  Etiquette,  protocol, chain of command, policy, procedure, etc., were of very high priority.  He could be arrogant, intolerant, and aloof.  He was not comfortable in social settings.  There was something noble about the man, as he always tried to take the moral high ground.

I think it would almost be inevitable that Picard would be called as a bishop.  In fact, I would project him as a Stake President, if not a general authority.  The church would love a guy like Picard.  Always by the book, always taking the moral high ground.  His reluctance to be socially outgoing, and occasional lack of bedside manner, might make him less effective than he could be.

Sisko

I admit that I have less of a feel for Sisko than the others.  He seemed to long for the simple life, and had a sense that life was not fair.  Protecting the home turf was important to him in his role.  An organized, strategic plan seemed important to him.  He was resourceful and innovative

I am afraid that Sisko probably had a better past as a leader than a future.  His bitterness and anger gave him some inner demons, that would likely give him his own problems.  His ability to organize and to delegate would be important to his success.  Ultimately, I think the timing would be wrong for him to be a bishop.

Janeway

Yes, I know Janeway is a woman, but let us consider her anyway.  Janeway could be very warm and personable in private settings.  She also was supposedly quite competent as a scientist/engineer prior to her being captain.  Like Picard she placed a high priority on chain of command.  She expected blind obedience.  She was very decisive, and made those decisions quickly, often with little data or information – which seems inconsistent with her background.  She also seemed inconsistent with the prime directive – sometimes refusing to violate it even when lives were at stake – other times violating it on a whim.

I think that Janeway could be a good bishop on a personal level.  Her ability to be compassionate would really resonate with many people.  Yet, her expectations for blind obedience to her sometimes whimsical decisions would turn others off.

Archer

Archer had some good qualities, and created an environment of trust and respect.  But he often seemed over his head.  His recklessness was not of the same quality as Kirks.  He seemed to surround himself with personal friends, and would likely fall prey to the yes-man.  As his experience grew, he may turn out to be a good captain.  Time will tell.

He would likely do well with the whole trust and respect thing, but his lack of personal discipline and experience would hold him back.

Quote

And one quote to wrap this up:

No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virture of the priesthood, only be persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile…(D&C 121)

The above qualities rarely get mentioned in leadership books or seminars.  And I am afraid that those who have those qualities will rarely get noticed and receive opportunities for leadership.

Anyway, which of the Star Trek captains do you feel would make the best bishop?  Which would best fit the model of D&C 121?

One place to start would be regarding the prospects, or chances, of salvation.  It is my impression that mainstream protestants believe in a Heaven/Hell dichotomy, and that the vast majority of all mankind will end up in Hell.  Thus the chances are not good for humanity as a whole.  But it is the believers we are talking about.  And since much of protestant Christianity seems to believe in salvation by grace alone, or something close to it, the true believers are ‘in’.  And for many, once you are saved or ‘in’ you will never lose your salvation.  And I suspect that even for those who would accept the possibility of losing you salvation (on never really being saved in the first place) gaining or re-gaining your salvation would be as easy as gaining it in the first place.  So I would suspect that the optimism in the after-life ought to be fairly high for this group.  One source of pessimism may be doubt in whether or not one has really been ‘saved’.  Since it is by grace alone for many, and nearly grace alone for the rest, it seems it would be a little bit like winning a lottery.  What if you were mistaken about actually being saved?

The prospects, or chances of salvation are a bit different in Mormonism – from my understanding.  There is not the same Heaven/Hell dichotomy.  Mormons do not have the same beliefs regarding Hell.  The equivalent in Mormonism would be called ‘Outer Darkness’.  This is a place for those souls who had a sure knowledge, and then denied.  It is commonly thought that there will be very few individuals who would even qualify for this place.  Everyone else will be spared this eternal misery.  So in this respect, Mormonism is nearly universal when it comes to being saved from death and Hell – which ought to be quite comforting.  The prospects for mankind as a whole are quite good – in fact they are basically guaranteed basic salvation from death and hell.  Yet, beyond basic salvation there is the idea of degrees of glory.  So, those who have been saved may be ‘in’, but perhaps only partially ‘in’, since salvation is by degrees.  I suppose this can be a source of either optimism or pessimism, depending on your point of view.   Additionally, this aspect of salvation (which Mormons would call exaltation), is based partly on the merit of the individuals themselves, and thus it would be like meeting certain requirements rather than winning a lottery.  Thus for the believers, a source of doubt would be if they had met the requirements for a fullness of salvation.

I have some other thoughts on this, but I think I will stop here and see how this turns out.  Please feel free to share your thoughts on this, and where my thoughts may be messed up.

The basic point is this, people know that terms like ‘non-Christian’ and ‘Cult’ are loaded terms, and they use them anyway.  They may justify this by telling themselves that they are using a lesser known meaning or use of a word, while the audience will largely take away the common use of the word.  Peterson does a good job of bringing this out.

This statement is repeated over, and over again on the first Sunday of every month in Fast and Testimony meetings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Members, of course, are not forced to say this, but most of them do.  This certain statement bothers a few people when they hear it.  They will often say that the ‘know’ part is to strong, and ‘true’ is a pretty strong word as well.

I use this phase occasionally when I bear my testimony, and I would like to make the attempt to express more thoroughly what I mean when I say this.  I expect that my experience will be similar to many church members, and I hope my explanation can be helpful to somebody.

I

The personal pronoun at the beginning of the statement is one of absolute exclusiveness.  The statement is not one which implicates anyone else.  I am the only one taking a position when I say this.  It is my integrity, reputation, competence, etc., that is at stake.  The statement does not express nor imply the beliefs or knowledge of anyone else whatsoever.

Know

One way to think about knowledge is that of beliefs that are true.  One can imagine two intersecting spheres – one of belief and the other of truth.  The area of their intersection can be called knowledge.  There are some things that can be believed, that are not true, which would not constitute knowledge.  There are also things that are true which are not believed, which would not constitute knowledge either.  A person making the above statement feels that their beliefs regarding the church have sufficient justification for them to be personally held as being true.  Thus, these beliefs constitute knowledge for them.

For me, the sufficient justification is that of subjective, internal, personal experience.  This experience cannot be objectively measured or verified by any external effort.  It also cannot be refuted by any external agent.  Thus, the only person that could evaluate whether my subjective, internal, personal experience provides sufficient justification to hold my beliefs as knowledge is me.

That

This word can be fairly important in understanding what is being asserted in the statement.  The knowledge in question is knowledge that, rather than knowledge how.  For example, one can say I know that my car is powered by an internal combustion engine, without knowing how a combustion engine works.  And in this case, one can know that the church is true without knowing how it is true – as in knowing the truth regarding every detail of Mormon theology.

The church

This can be a complicated phrase with a few possible meanings.  For many members, they will not draw a clear distinction between ‘the church’ and ‘the restored gospel of Jesus Christ’.  I do this myself often.  In the context of the above statement, what is being referred to is not the building, or the people, or the policies, or the organizational structure.  What they are referring to is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Is true

In the context of a testimony, true can have two primary definitions.  One is that true is in agreement with reality, and the other is that true is being loyal and faithful – in this case to Christ.  When I make a statement similar to the above, I would apply both meanings to true.

So to summarize, the common statement above could be restated roughly as – I have had subjective, internal experiences which I have judged to provide sufficient justification to hold that my beliefs in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints constitutes knowledge that the church is loyal and faithful to Jesus Christ and is in agreement with reality.  Or put another way –

I know that the church is true.

I have been reading some Kierkegaard recently, and he pointed out two areas of worry regarding a paid ministry.  And I believe that what little paid ministry there is in the church, it avoids both areas of worry.

Actually, there is only one area of worry – corruption.  And this worry can come from two sources – the state and the congregation.  Kierkegaard made accusations of apostasy against the church of Denmark, and perhaps Christianity as a whole, and he felt that corruption from paid ministry was part of the cause of such apostasy.

Kierkegaard felt that if a minister were paid by the congregation, then he might preach what the people want to hear – rather than the gospel as it is.  If the minister were paid by the state, then he may be pressured to preach what the state desires him to preach.  Either source of pay can lead to a corrupted gospel.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, local people do almost all of the teaching and preaching.  They do not get paid a dime for this.  And while the forces of correlation place suggested boundaries on what is taught, there is still a lot of freedom to teach what one feels ought to be taught.  The general church leaders do not depend on weekly collections for their pay, and such a modest ‘salary’ approach allows them to avoid much of the corrupting influences Kierkegaard speaks of.

Additionally, since the source of the pay is not from the state, it has little if any influence on what is taught or done in the church.

So while the absence of a paid ministry is not absolute in the church, I believe there is a lack of financial based corruption, which is an important safeguard in keeping the restored gospel pure.

He published a book in 2008 with the findings of his poll, How Americans View Mormonism: Seven Steps to Improve Our Image. Dr. Lawrence received a PhD in communications psychology from Stanford University in 1972. He said that of over twenty doctoral candidates in his group, he was the only LDS, Republican, conservative hawk among them. So he knows a little about being in the minority.

Lawrence Research

Now if you know anything about recent events in California, you’ll recognize that Gary’s business, Lawrence Research was the opinion polling company that was heavily involved in Proposition 8. Gary was also the state LDS grassroots director for the Protect Marriage coalition. Brother Lawrence, who has served as a bishop has spent over 35 years studying opinions and behaviors of the American public.

From the results of his survey, Dr. Lawrence maintains that the misconceptions, distortions, and untruths being told about Mormons have slowed the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that the average member is best positioned to turn things around. By the way, the name of his next book, due from Deseret Book later this year is “What Part of Our Name Don’t You Understand?”

Survey Results

For me, the most interesting result of the survey was that our perceived image is upside down. Forty-nine percent of those surveyed had an unfavorable impression of Mormons. Only thirty-seven percent had a favorable impression. They say that we have weird beliefs and are secretive. Yet they also say we are good neighbors, hard workers, believe in clean living, have high moral standards and help others.

Lawrence said that thirty-seven percent of all Americans do not know a Mormon, and fifty-five percent of all Americans do not know an active Mormon. In fact, those who know one Mormon have a worse opinion of us than those who do not know any Mormons. We are viewed unfavorably more than Jews or Baptists (3.5 to 1) and Catholics (2 to 1). Mormons, less than 1 to 1. That’s a terrible ratio.

Negative Image

Simple ignorance is often blamed for Mormonism’s negative image, but Gary also concludes that it is driven by fear — fear of a supposed political agenda, wealth, organizational ability, unwavering doctrine, and a unique vocabulary that is often misunderstood. He gave some wonderful examples but I’ll have to defer in sharing some of the better ones until I receive his book that I ordered from Deseret Book.

His book explains that individual members in their daily interactions with others are the key. In his presentation, which he has probably delivered dozens of times, he pointed out that friendly and natural conversations, the facts, simple claims, individual latitude, non-threatening invitations and gentle mentoring are the ways Mormons can combat distortions, improve our image, and spread the gospel.

Unique Vocabulary

A central claim of our church is that we have the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Gary explained that this phrase is not well understood by those outside our faith. They equate the word restore as something you do to an old car or a piece of old furniture. He suggested that a better phrase to use would be: “We claim to be the re-established Christian Church.” I like that. It is simpler and easier to understand.

He even broke it down for us into three bite-sized pieces: 1) Christ organized a church. 2) Men changed it and 3) It has been brought back. Amazingly, 84 percent of Americans have had exposure to our church, yet only 14 percent can tell you that this is our main differentiating claim from other Christian churches. While people may not agree with our claim, we want and need them to understand it.

Meaning of Gospel

They can then decide for themselves how they will respond to that claim. But if they never get the real message, how can they make a legitimate choice? Naturally, some people will reject the gospel truth once it has been presented to them. And that’s another word that we use differently from the rest of Christianity. To us, the gospel means more than the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter and Paul.

Most Mormons equate gospel to mean the overarching plan of happiness that was presented in our pre-earth life. We have come to see the gospel as more than just a theology, but as a way of life, and that it encompasses all truth that we embrace. But in reality, the gospel is the good news of the doctrine of Christ, that all will be resurrected and that we can be forgiven of sins through repentance and ordinances.

Higher Education

That’s why we can say that the fullness of the gospel is contained in the Book of Mormon even though there are many additional doctrines we believe that are only found outside the Book or Mormon. In fact, some within our church have gone so far as to claim that obtaining a degree of higher education is a part of the gospel. Does that mean that early saints and prophets without a B.A. degree are not saved?

Of course not; that would be a ridiculous example. While we believe in continuing education and encourage our members to get all the education we can, an advanced degree is not a requirement for entrance into the kingdom of heaven. A high school diploma is not required. There is no requirement for any type of certified education to meet God’s conditions to enter into his kingdom; only obedience to his laws.

Mormon Scholars Testify

In our Mormon culture, besides placing great emphasis on education, we also hold those who have received advanced degrees and yet remained faithful in very high esteem. Dr. Lawrence has shared his testimony in greater detail on the website, Mormon Scholars Testify, which was created by another visitor to our stake, Dr. Daniel C. Petersen, speaking about BYU’s involvement in the Dead Sea scrolls.

My fellow blogger Steve Faux introduced me to the site a few years back when he was asked to share his thoughts and feelings about being a believing Mormon who teaches evolution at the University level. I have watched participation grow over the years until there are now more than 200 testimonies recorded there. Compare that to twenty being promoted on the opposing site Ex-Mormon scholars testify.

Opposition in All Things

One of our fundamental doctrines is that we believe there must be opposition in all things. I love the Internet for the very reason that it allows us to see the very best and the very worst of the extremes on just about any issue. I’m not a scholar and will probably never have an advanced degree, but I have come to appreciate both sides of the debate on controversial subjects I have written about over the years.

I can judge for myself when someone is presenting the truth in a distorted manner because I have been counseled over the years to study things out and come to my own conclusions about the truth of an issue. Some things can never be proven and will have to wait until the next life to determine who is right and who is wrong. That’s one of the purposes of life – to exercise faith and choose what we believe.

Choose What We Believe

I recommend you read the testimonies of Dr. Lawrence, Dr. Petersen, S. Faux and any others that you may recognize. They come from a variety of disciplines such as the Arts, Business, Management, Accounting, History, Religion, Social Science, Language, Literature, Law, Medicine, Psychology, Philosophy, Science, Mathematics and Engineering. Yes, Mormons believe in the value of education.

I hope this helps to dispel any misconceptions that Mormons are ignorant, closed-minded, brain-washed or uneducated. We do not follow our leaders blindly, nor do we worship our prophets, living or dead. But we do value loyalty and respect to those who we sustain as prophets and apostles. It is my testimony that they are leading us to Christ. I choose to follow their direction and counsel for my family.

For a great discussion of our image, or rather reputation, listen to what Michael Otterson had to say to Robert Millet on this episode of Mormon Identity on The Mormon Channel.

Ken is a senior at Sturgis High School (Michigan).  He enjoys participating in the orchestra and also plays the guitar.  After graduating from high school he hopes to serve a mission for the church.  He has always dreamed of being a paleontologist some day, and will probably start out doing the geology path once he starts school – unless he changes his mind.

His eagle project involved organizing an effort to provide local elementary schools with audio CDs of selected books.  As a result of this effort over 60 audio CDs/books were provided to the schools.

In addition to the required merit badges, Ken enjoyed earning the archery, rifle shooting, space exploration, music and art awards.  He served as the patrol leader, and also as troop chaplain.  He also earned the ‘On My Honor’ and ‘Arrow of Light’ awards.  All of this was not easy for him, and we are pleased with this important accomplishment.

For the sake of argument, let us assume for the moment that this rumor has some truth to it.  Do nice, expensive scriptures lead to a functionally closed canon?  Unfortunately, I think the answer might be yes.

What if, instead of an expensive, leather bound set of scriptures,  we had a three-ring binder.  This way, when new revelation for the church was received by a prophet, such revelation could just be posted at lds.org, people could print out their own copy of it, and slip it in their own scripture binder.  Or similarly, with on-line information and technology progressing as it is, maybe the scriptures could be on-line and additions to the scriptures would just be a matter of updating the scripture wed site.   In this way, new scripture would only be a matter of receiving revelation, presenting it to the church for sustaining vote, and updating a website (or something to that effect).

As it is now, the words of the prophets are written in the Ensign.  It seems to me that how members take these words range from being the equivalent to scripture, to being personal thoughts and opinions.  It is sometimes difficult to know how much weight to give these articles.

So once again, the question(s):  Do nice, expensive scriptures lead to a functionally closed canon?  Should the church have made the D&C more like a binder so additional scripture could be easily added?  Will new technology eventually lead to non-printed scripture which could serve to functionally re-open the canon?

There has been something of a subtle movement within the church to change the phrase ‘free agency’ to ‘moral agency’.  A few of the local members in my home ward are quite fond of pointing this out every time anyone mentions free agency in a lesson discussion.  They feel the need to correct some error on the part of the individual who uses the more common term free agency.  These good folks will point out that the phrase ‘free agency’ is not a scriptural phrase (although they never mention that the phrase ‘moral agency’ isn’t scriptural either). – [Update:  D&C 101:78 does use 'moral agency'.  I was wrong.]

But these few local members are not the only one’s getting into the act.  A search on the phrase ‘moral agency’ at lds.org will bring up several recent conference talks.  It does appear that some church leaders are beginning to prefer the term ‘moral’ to ‘free’ when describing our agency.  Why should this be, and what is at stake?

There is a long history of philosophical and religious debate regarding free will.  There is a pretty good wikipedia entry that seems to be a good introduction to the basics of this debate.   I think it would do us well to be somewhat familiar with this history without getting bogged down by it.  This will help us know what is at stake when considering the terms ‘free’ and ‘moral’ with regards to agency.

It is my opinion that the term ‘free’ will push us toward being in the same camp with those who believe in Libertarian Free Will.  These people will reject determinism altogether, and maintain that our futures will have some aspects that are truly open, and that all the philosophers, scientists, and even God himself, will not be able to perfectly predict or perfectly know every detail of our eternal future.

It seems that the term ‘moral’ would eventually push us toward the camp of the compatibilists.  These people may accept determinism, yet maintain accountability for individual behavior since there is a lack of coercion on the part of God.   Thus even if we are not free in the libertarian sense, we can still be held accountable.

Those who forward the phrase ‘moral agency’ will justify this by expressing the need to emphasize the accountability aspect of our agency.  Personally, I do not feel that this emphasis is necessary within Mormonism.  Mormonism takes a strong stand on personal choice, behavior, and keeping the commandments.  The concept of the degrees of glory also force something of a merit judged level of salvation. 

Additionally, I think the term ‘moral’ could place us on the wrong side of the debate over free will.  Emphasizing accountability at the expense of emphasizing the freedom of the will could give ourselves and others the impression that we are compatibilists rather that libertarian free willers.

I feel that the term ‘moral agency’ brings with it an unnecessary emphasis on accountability and an unfortunate implication that we are compatibilists.  For these reasons I prefer the term ‘free agency’ to ‘moral agency’.

I think it is important to keep in mind that a central and unique claim of Mormonism is that of modern, ongoing revelation.  This revelation takes the general form (through prophets and apostles for example,) and the specific (through individuals).  Thus the preferred alternative to ‘the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture’, is divine revelation.

Yet the revelations themselves suggest that we must study things out in our own minds prior to asking if they are right (D&C 9).  We are also told that God will not command in all things (D&C 58).  Meditation and pondering about the gospel are common exhortations that members of the church are given.  For mankind to be free and moral agents, they must not only be able to act freely and independently,  they must also be able to think freely and independently.  Otherwise agency makes little sense.  Yet, anyone who believes in personal revelation, must accept the possibility that God might influence and  inspire someone’s thinking on a subject.

Thus the ‘philosophies of men, mingled with scripture’ might be the results of meditating and pondering gospel principles (even in an inspired way), and communicating the results in a persuasive and long-suffering way, using the scriptures to show the consistency of the thought, appealing to a common and authoritative  source.  But then again, it may not be any of this.

Ultimately, I believe it comes down to the content of what is being communicated.  I believe that dismissing the religious claims and thoughts of others as being ‘the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture’ is an easy, and lazy way out.  Thought combined with scripture is not necessarily dangerous. 

The philosopher William James gave some criteria that I feel most Mormons would embrace (and probably already do) for evaluating the religious experiences and claims of others in his ‘Varieties of Religious Experience’ chapter 2.  His criteria are:

- How did hearing the claim or experience make you feel?
- What are the fruits?
- Does it make sense?

Such criteria have been used by missionaries for years when discussing the ‘first vision’ of Joseph Smith for example.  Such criteria were likely used when we gained a ‘testimony’ of some religious truth ourselves.

Dismissing false doctrines and ideas is an important thing to do.  When we do this, it should be for the right reasons – the feelings of the spirit, the fruits of the spirit, reasonableness, and not with the all-to-easy label of ‘philosophies of men, mingled with scripture’.

My father spent his entire career teaching Geography at Ricks College, along with several religious classes.  He served for nine years in the Presidency of the Rexburg Idaho North Stake, along with many other callings.  He served a mission in Australia as a young man, and served another mission in Kenya recently with my mom.  He had six children.

He contributed a few posts to this blog.  He compared Mormonism to Taoism here, wrote about the atonement as a process here, and made a lengthy comparison between the gospel and chess here.  He even had an article published in Dialogue about Christ’s World Government here.

My father was an excellent example of faithfulness and duty to his family and to the church.  The older I get, it seems the more I become like him.  I will miss him very much.  My firm belief in the resurrection and the eternal nature of the family gives me great comfort.

‘Til we meet again, dad.