Take the Long Way Home

The other night a documentary came on PBS that I could’nt miss - it was on Mormonism.  I have a soft spot for Mormons.  They send those sweet little boys around to your house and ask if there is anything they can do for you.  Of course usually it’s me that does for them.  How can you turn them away?  They aren’t allowed to see their own mothers for two years!  They are only allowed to talk to them twice a year!  How can any mother of boys not invite them in for a drink of lemonade (it’s pretty hot where I live), or for supper?  Or buy them Christmas presents?  Okay, maybe I have gone a little overboard at times, but they break my heart.  I know that they are there to “convert” me, but I hope that they leave my city knowing that there is such a thing as a Catholic that loves God, and loves them. 

Anyway, back to the documentary…  I was curious about how PBS would present it.  Would they be cynical and mocking?  Would they include any evangelical balance, or only present it from the Mormon perspective?  I was quite impressed with it.  It felt as though they were trying to give it a fair shake.  There was a little history that they left out, and they didn’t delve very deep into Mormon theology, but overall it was a positive portrayal (I was pleased by this because I kept thinking, what would a documentary on Catholicism look like if done by PBS?  If they did it this way, I would be satisfied.  They wouldn’t have gotten it all right, but maybe they wouldn’t have gotten it all wrong either.).  One thing that I was moved by was some of the Mormon members recollections of “experiences” with God.  I have always been very cynical when it comes to religious experience.  In becoming Catholic I have had to expand my boundaries a bit.  I have become a bit more tolerant of “experience”, but I have certain lines that I refuse to cross and I’m happy to say that Catholicism has the same lines.  But I’m getting ahead of myself… 

In my limited exposure to Mormonism it seems to me that experience plays a big part in their faith.  I have been told by those sweet little Mormon missionaries that if I read the Book of Mormon the Spirit will let me know that it is true.  They insist that I will feel a “burning in the bosom” as I read.  They tell me of their own experiences, their “testimonies”, that are a huge part of the faith.  Mormons don’t go to “church”, they meet together on Sunday and listen to different folks giving their “testimonies”.  They share their “experiences” with each other as encourangement.  I’ve heard some ex Mormon’s say that it’s like peer pressure, if you don’t have a great testimony to share about how great God is and how much evidence there is that He is working in you that they felt the need to make stuff up, or not share any sufferings or trials they were going through.  It seems to me (looking in from the outside) that experience is everything to them.  The main tenets of their faith are built around the idea of revelation from God.  Ongoing revelation.  While we Catholics are restricted to the revelation of Christ and the revelation given to the original Apostles, the Mormon’s have modern revelation.  At least initially, this revelation took the form of visions.  Joseph Smith had visions of God where God told him what to believe.  Later, I’m not sure that these revelations were visions, but Joseph Smith believed that God spoke to Him.  It’s this idea of God speaking in visions that I want to focus on. 

There is plenty of evidence from Scripture that God does indeed speak to people in visions (no matter  how uncomfortable I am with that!).  In converting to Catholicism I had to come to grips with people today who have visions.  Our Lady of Guadeloupe, Our Lady of Lourdes, Fatima, and don’t forget Padre Pio.  There’s the Immaculate Heart and the Divine Mercy.  Visions all!  So what makes these visions different from those of Joseph Smith?  How can I believe that God spoke to Saint Bernadette, but not to Joseph Smith?  The difference I believe is in the role of these visions.  For Joseph Smith the vision established a new religion (even if you believe that God was restoring an old religion, you have to accept that the revelations continued to change and evolve, establishing a set of principles and then revoking the same set while establishing a new set and on and on).  The visions and later revelations related to the core of the faith, they set the tenets of the faith.  They were establishing principles - I think it’s fair to say that the Mormon religion was founded on these visions.  While Catholic visions do not deal with the tenets of the faith.  They are not for the changing of doctrine or dogma.  In fact, if the vision suggests a change, then the vision is automatically declared not from God!  To be accepted by the Church, the vision must conform to dogma, not the other way around.  There is no such thing as “new revelation”, not in the same sense as the Mormon understanding.  When a Mormon prophet gets a revelation then a change or clarification on doctrine is immediate (I don’t mean it’s accomplished in 15 minutes, but it is imminent - Joseph Smith received a revelation about polygamy and it took him awhile to incorporate it but it happened within his lifetime.  When Brigham Young received the revelation telling him that polygamy was no longer appropriate, it too was incorporated within a short period of time.).  While after a Catholic vision much time passes before the Church will officially rule on whether they think it’s “valid” or not.  The reason behind this is the Church wants time to investigate.  They want to investigate the vision itself, the person having the vision, but most importantly they want to see what kind of fruit comes from the vision.  For a vision to be declared “valid” (or whatever the official terminology is) it must conform to Church dogma, and it must produce good fruit.  It takes a long time to see fruit, decades and decades sometimes.  And even when the Church makes her official pronouncement, it’s still considered to be a private revelation.  It’s  not binding on the Church as a whole.  All she says is that there is no harm in believing the vision, no harm in practicing whatever devotion it suggests.  But as a Catholic you don’t have to pay any attention to the vision at all! 

This does a cynical heart good to hear.  Although I’m coming around on believing in these things, I’m glad to know that my “authority” is not going to make any decisions based upon someone’s visions!