Inspired by President Nelson’s challenge to fast from social media for ten days, I committed to actively posting on social media every day during this “fast”.
A Social Media Feast.
Why?
Not sure. It’s just what I felt inspired to do.
Oh, I remember something that happened during my mission. The Mission President, having been called to the inaugural First Quorum of Seventy, and empowered with his second anointing, had essentially abandoned the mission for about three months. He left the Assistants to the President in charge, as it were, and the senior assistant pretty much emulated a prominent first counselor in the current First Presidency. In other words, he wasn’t exactly the nicest, and had let power go to his head.
A group of us in “middle management” in the mission, a couple zone leaders and a handful of district leaders, kind of organized a passive resistance movement to the AP. We didn’t break any rules, per se, but as for all arbitrary rules that the APs called for — similar to what we call our selves, what we call our church, and whether we take a break from social networking — we kind of, well, no, we absolutely ignored them.
As the AP got more and more angry, we orchestrated ways to make his life more difficult: things like “malicious compliance”, when we do *exactly* what the little dictator commands, especially when it is stupid to do so.
After three months of this, the Mission President returned, and shortly, all of us ended up being “invited”, individually, to have a chat with the MP. While I wasn’t by any means the ringleader of this little rebellion, I was called in as well.
The mission president began, “Elder, there’s been a mutiny in this mission, where a bunch of elders have decided that they aren’t going to follow their leaders. And you know what, they all seem to be close personal friends of yours…”
For the next hour, my mission president lectured me on the nature of apostasy, and how it threatened my salvation, because I was headed in that direction.
Within days, all six of us were distributed to the remotest parts of the Chilean mission — and that really meant *remote* in those days.
Do we have the obligation to follow every commandment issued by leaders?
I think the dominant narrative in our LDS Church would be yes.
But there is an interesting narrative in the Garden of Eden as presented in the temple. Eve asks Adam if he intends to keep all of god’s commandments. His answer, naturally, is “yes, all of them.”
But Eve noted that there was a problem. They were commanded to multiply and replenish the earth AND to not partake of the fruit of knowledge. These two commandments, whether before Eve partook of the fruit or afterwards, could not both be obeyed.
So, according to the temple narrative, Adam and Eve both partook of the fruit so that human life would be possible.
The reality is that the commandment to not partake of the fruit was arbitrary, and for all intents and purposes, made no sense. Multiplying and replenishing makes sense (if that’s what you feel called to do — not everyone is).
The conclusion of the story matches the plan part of the story: that mankind would make mistakes, they would learn form their own experience, and during the process, there would be a savior to redeem them.
In other words, God has given us minds to think, and hearts to feel, and we are free to choose. Sometimes the choice will involve “sin”, or at least choosing the lesser of two evils. Other choices will be between two goods. But in either case, we are going to have to choose, and the choice will necessarily sacrifice something — often it will be the arbitrary senseless commandments.
Jesus was frequently faced with this. The Law said that mankind could do no “work” on the sabbath, so when Jesus did “God’s work” of healing others, he was condemned. He was choosing to do the higher law.
In like fashion, we are commanded by God to love one another as he has loved us. In contrast, President oaks commands us to institute rigid gender and familial roles, to the explicit exclusion of those who cannot do so as being worthy of the celestial kingdom. Our Prophet has told us that we must worry about the name of the Church and its members, along with taking a fast from social media.
But we’re faced with a choice here. God commands us to love and support one another, and this means of Facebook social media is our channel for support. Shall we abandon god’s commandment to love and support one another in order to obey an arbitrary commandment of men?
My social media account reminded me today that it’s the birthday of a very faithful Mormon man in a same-sex marriage. Shall I self-righteously ignore him on social media at a time when Dallin Oaks has condemned him in the harshest possible language?
Sun Tzu’s Art of War counsels, “There are commandments from the ruler not to be obeyed.”
Wise words.
Huck Finn was faced with the choice of upholding the law of slavery, taught every Sunday in his church (as it was in ours), versus letting Jim, a captured runaway slave, go free. After thinking about it, he decided. “All right, then, I’ll go to hell,” and let Jim go free.
So, I”m going to continue to engage in social media for the next ten days. It’s what I feel called to do. My mission president would call me an apostate. My true believing friends and family may well shun me. All right, then, I’m going to hell.
Anyone want to join me?