First of all, sincere kudos to the New York Times for running columnist David Brooks' extremely thoughtful review of The Book of Mormon. Brooks' review, "Creed or Chaos?", is just the kind of piece one wouldn't expect to find in the bastion of secularism. Two cheers for the NYT for being broadminded enough to allow Brooks' stout defense of religion!

For Brooks, The Book of Mormon admittedly quite amusing, even uplifting, but the redeeming uplift of its central message is exactly wrong. The Book of Mormon's message, as Brooks describes it, is that while religious creeds are so much rotten and destructive muck, "religion itself can do enormous good as long as people take religious teaching metaphorically and not literally; as long as people understand that all religions ultimately preach love and service underneath their superficial particulars; as long as people practice their faiths open-mindedly and are tolerant of different beliefs."

Love and service—that's all that matters. The rest of religion deserves the crudest skewering, which Parker and Stone are only too happy to give it. Of course, since Parker describes The Book of Mormon as "an atheist's love letter to religion," they obviously think they're doing religion a favor by enlightening it.

The problem with this view, as Brooks makes clear, is that "its theme is not quite true. Vague, uplifting, nondoctrinal religiosity doesn't actually last. The religions that grow, succor and motivate people to perform heroic acts of service are usually theologically rigorous, arduous in practice and definite in their convictions about what is True and False."

One would think that this would be evident to the show's creators. The plot entails a couple of Mormon missionaries going to Uganda in Africa, where they find AIDS, tribal despotic cruelty, genital mutilation of women, famine, and poverty. In short, social chaos. In the musical, the missionaries learn that creeds don't cure chaos, niceness does. And religion can be useful if it simply gives up creeds and helps people be nice.

Is feel-good niceness of the sort preached by Parker and Stone really strong enough to face actual social and moral chaos? "I was once in an AIDS-ravaged village in southern Africa," Brooks notes dryly. "The vague humanism of the outside do-gooders didn't do much to get people to alter their risky behavior. The blunt theological talk of the church ladies—right and wrong, salvation and damnation—seemed to have a better effect."

The best cure for Parker and Stone of their self-congratulatory preaching about what's really needed in a place of chaos like Uganda would be to go and work there for a year—certainly they could live off the profits of The Book of Mormon in the meantime—and see how well their upbeat message plays amidst the real thing.

The simple point is that sin is too deep and complex to be dealt with through brisk and breezy do-goodery of the type cheerfully preached by Parker and Stone. Sin is deep and complex because human nature is deep and complex. The depth and complexity of the Christian creed matches the depth and complexity of both.

Brooks offers the hard-edged and no-nonsense 20th century apologist Dorothy Sayers essay, "Creed or Chaos?" as an antidote to the vagaries of Parker and Stone. "It is a lie to say that dogma does not matter; it matters enormously," Sayers chided the wish-washers of doctrine in her own day. "It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism."

That uncompromising realism at the heart of Christian doctrine reaches the very depths of the corrupt but often sincere human heart—the heart that revels in destructive sex, the heart of the tyrant that murders, the heart of the rapist, the worn out heart of the war-torn and afflicted, the hopeless heart of the starving children and the hardened heart of those who blithely ignore their plight, and even the self-satisfied, scatologically-saturated hearts of the likes of Parker and Stone. It is as hard, tough, exacting, and complex as it needs to be to reach the depths of real sin among real people.

Against the feel-good message of Parker and Stone, Christians understand that while vague feelings of wanting to do good often underlie good intentions, good intentions are notorious for paving the road going in the wrong direction. That's because vague feelings can't take the place of real, hard-won wisdom, the kind of wisdom about the world and human nature that is embedded in theological doctrines. "Rigorous theology," maintains Brooks, "provides believers with a map of reality. These maps may seem dry and schematic—most maps do compared with reality—but they contain the accumulated wisdom of thousands of co-believers who through the centuries have faced similar journeys and trials."

Feelings by themselves are not a good guide. We are creatures of both heart and mind. "Rigorous theology allows believers to examine the world intellectually as well as emotionally," notes Brooks. Being creatures of mind too, we want more than just feeling good. "Many people want to understand the eternal logic of the universe, using reason and logic to wrestle with concrete assertions and teachings."

Finally, deep doctrinal content keeps people from becoming the tools of the manipulators of pop culture. "Rigorous theology helps people avoid mindless conformity," Brooks points out. "Without timeless rules, we all have a tendency to be swept up in the temper of the moment. But tough-minded theologies are countercultural. They insist on principles and practices that provide an antidote to mere fashion."

“Creed or Chaos” by David Brooks of the New York Times

The only problem with “The Book of Mormon” (you realize when thinking about it later) is that its theme is not quite true. Vague, uplifting, nondoctrinal religiosity doesn’t actually last. The religions that grow, succor and motivate people to perform heroic acts of service are usually theologically rigorous, arduous in practice and definite in their convictions about what is True and False.

That’s because people are not gods. No matter how special some individuals may think they are, they don’t have the ability to understand the world on their own, establish rules of good conduct on their own, impose the highest standards of conduct on their own, or avoid the temptations of laziness on their own.
The religions that thrive have exactly what “The Book of Mormon” ridicules: communal theologies, doctrines and codes of conduct rooted in claims of absolute truth.

Rigorous theology provides believers with a map of reality. These maps may seem dry and schematic — most maps do compared with reality — but they contain the accumulated wisdom of thousands of co-believers who through the centuries have faced similar journeys and trials.

Rigorous theology allows believers to examine the world intellectually as well as emotionally. Many people want to understand the eternal logic of the universe, using reason and logic to wrestle with concrete assertions and teachings.

Rigorous theology helps people avoid mindless conformity. Without timeless rules, we all have a tendency to be swept up in the temper of the moment. But tough-minded theologies are countercultural. They insist on principles and practices that provide an antidote to mere fashion.

Rigorous theology delves into mysteries in ways that are beyond most of us. For example, in her essay, “Creed or Chaos,” Dorothy Sayers argues that Christianity’s advantage is that it gives value to evil and suffering. Christianity asserts that “perfection is attained through the active and positive effort to wrench real good out of a real evil.” This is a complicated thought most of us could not come up with (let alone unpack) outside of a rigorous theological tradition.

Rigorous codes of conduct allow people to build their character. Changes in behavior change the mind, so small acts of ritual reinforce networks in the brain. A Mormon denying herself coffee may seem like a silly thing, but regular acts of discipline can lay the foundation for extraordinary acts of self-control when it counts the most.

“The Book of Mormon” is not anti-religious. It just endorses a no-sharp-edges view of religion that is all creative metaphors and no harsh judgments. The Africans in the play embrace this kind of religion. And in the context of a hilarious musical, that’s fine.

But it’s worth remembering that the religions that thrive in real-life Africa are not as nice and naïve as the religion in the play. The religions thriving in real-life Africa are often so doctrinaire and so socially conservative that they would make Pat Robertson’s hair stand on end.

I was once in an AIDS-ravaged village in southern Africa. The vague humanism of the outside do-gooders didn’t do much to get people to alter their risky behavior. The blunt theological talk of the church ladies — right and wrong, salvation and damnation — seemed to have a better effect.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/opinion/22brooks.html?_r=1

Dorothy Sayers, “Creed or Chaos?”

Dorothy Sayers’s essay “Creed or Chaos?” was originally an address given at the Biennial Festival of the Church Tutorial Classes Association in Derby, England on May 4, 1940—that is, about eight months after Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. Her message to her fellow Brits was that the washed-out, just-give-me-meek-and-gentle-Jesus without all the hang-ups of doctrine was not enough to face the real evil of the Nazis. The hard-heartedness of real evil could only be met with the hard edges of real Christian dogma.

“Something is happening to us to-day which has not happened for a very long time. We are waging a war of religion. Not a civil war between adherents of the same religion, but a life-and-death struggle between Christian and pagan….In spite of the various vague references in sermons and public speeches to the War as a "crusade," I think we have scarcely begun to realise the full implications of this. It is a phenomenon of quite extraordinary importance. The people who say that this is a war of economics or of power-politics, are only dabbling about on the surface of things….At bottom it is a violent and irreconcilable quarrel about the nature of God and the nature of man and the ultimate nature of the universe; it is a war of dogma.

The word dogma is unpopular, and that is why I have used it. It is our own distrust of dogma that is handicapping us in the struggle [against Germany]…. The rulers of Germany have seen quite clearly that dogma and ethics are inextricably bound together. Having renounced the [Christian] dogma, they have renounced the ethics as well—and from their point of view they are perfectly right. They have adopted an entirely different dogma, whose ethical scheme has no value for peace or truth, mercy or justice, faith or freedom; and they see no reason why they should practise a set of virtues incompatible with their dogma.

We have been very slow to understand this. We persist in thinking that Germany really “believes those things to be right that we believe to be right, and is only very naughty in her behaviour.” That is a thing we find quite familiar. We often do wrong things, knowing them to be wrong. For a long time we kept on imagining that if we granted certain German demands which seemed fairly reasonable, she would stop being naughty and behave according to our ideas of what was right and proper. We still go on scolding Germany for disregarding the standard of European ethics, as though that standard was something which she still acknowledged. It is only with great difficulty that we can bring ourselves to grasp the fact that there is no failure in Germany to live up to her own standards of right conduct. It is something much more terrifying and tremendous: it is that what we believe to be evil, Germany believes to be good. It is a direct repudiation of the basic Christian dogma on which our Mediterranean civilisation, such as it is, is grounded.”

http://www.amazon.com/Christians-Choose-Either-Disaster-Believe/dp/091847731X

http://douglassocialcredit.com/Sayers%20Dorothy%20L%20Creed%20or%20Chaos.pdf

The Book of Mormon Musical

The plot of the musical is quite simple, indeed, predictable. Two ardent Christian missionaries, full of themselves and their ditzy dogmas, go to Africa and try to convert the natives. They succeed only by realizing that all that dogmas stuff is useless, and all that counts is being nice and tolerant.

Of course, since it was written by the every vulgar creators of South Park, no one should be surprised by their endless attempts to outdo themselves in giving offense. And why do they so generously give offense? Today “being offensive” is routinely confused with “being profound and prophetic.”

Obviously, the reviewers suffer under that same confusion. Vogue Magazine coos, that The Book of Mormon is "the filthiest, most offensive, and—surprise— sweetest thing you’ll see on Broadway this year, and quite possibly the funniest musical ever." The New York Times compares it favorably to the classic King and I. The Washington Post remarks that "The marvel of 'The Book of Mormon' is that even as it profanes some serious articles of faith, its spirit is anything but mean,” so that believers should cheerfully “expect to drink from a cup of some of the sweetest poison ever poured." The Wall Street Journal calls it "slick and smutty." And the Los Angeles Times admits, “Sure it’s crass, but the show is not without good intentions…”

So, we Christians are to endure a snappy musical number where the cast shakes its defiant middle fingers at God and sings an unutterable blasphemy? This is, as anyone who has watched South Park knows, tediously typical of Trey Parker and Matt Stone. They’ve simply ratcheted it up for their Book of Mormon.

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