The Church announced last month that second hour meetings should now begin with prayer. Also, while on the topic, the announcement reminded us that English-speaking members need to be saying thee, thou, thine, and thy when addressing God in prayers.
Of course, the issue of proper prayer language has long been a gospel hobby of Dallin H. Oaks in particular. I can’t even guess what interesting changes he might make if he outlives Russell M. Nelson to become Church President. Perhaps he’ll add a question to the temple recommend interview for English-speaking members only that asks if they’re using proper prayer language. Or perhaps he’ll require English-speaking wards and branches to submit audio recordings of their meetings so that the use of proper prayer language can be audited and corrected if necessary.
As has been discussed for years on the Bloggernacle, it’s weird that we turn these words around that used to be the informal forms of address to make them the formal ones, and so turn on its head the idea that God should be close to us, and instead puts him at a distance. It’s also strange to do different things in different languages. I’m sadly monolingual, but as others who speak more languages than one have also noted, it’s common that even the Church’s own materials (e.g., scriptures) in other languages follow the convention of using the less formal words when addressing God. So it’s English speakers only who need to put God at a distance; for everyone else, he can be treated as close.
The idea that this type of direction from Church leaders originates with any God worth worshiping is just hard for me to swallow. God cares that much? Seriously? And wants to be treated differently by English speakers in particular? There’s a clear alternative explanation, though, of course: President Oaks, and other Q15 members who push this idea of proper prayer language are used to hearing prayers said with thee and thou, so they figure that’s the right way for it to be done. And hey, I get it! I may only be half their age, but I was raised in the Church too, and I also find it jarring to hear someone pray and tell God something like “we thank you for your blessings.” It’s just that I don’t attribute that I’m jarred to God. I figure it’s just something I’m not used to.
What I think the Q15 aren’t imagining, when they push issues like proper prayer language, is that they’re making obvious that at least some of what they teach is just their personal preferences or gospel hobbies. By teaching such things and attributing them to God, they probably don’t realize that they’re inadvertently undermining all kinds of other things that they say that can also be easily accounted for by the “it makes me uncomfortable so God must not like it” explanation. For example:
- Why is God so opposed to homosexuality?
- Why does God carefully exclude trans people from holding the priesthood?
- Why does God disapprove of discussion of or attempts to communicate with Heavenly Mother?
- Why is the female priesthood ban so important to God, even more important than growth of the Church?
- Why are the clothing choices of women and girls such an important issue for God?
- Why did it take God so long to warm up to brass instruments in sacrament meeting?
Of course the answers are straightforward. If the Q15, or at least the most powerful among them (which corresponds well to the oldest) are made uncomfortable by something, they’re sure that God is inspiring their discomfort. If they’re icked out by gay people, or suspicious of trans people trying to escape their divine gender role (or get their hands on unauthorized priesthood), or unable to imagine women in positions of authority or as exalted beings in the next life, that’s God telling them. If they are worried that women exposing their legs or midriffs or shoulders are forcing sexual thoughts on men, it must be God who’s made uncomfortable by these clothes too. If they feel connected to God when hearing an organ but not a trumpet, that must be because God loves organs more than trumpets.
As it appears the Q15 have such an attribution problem–thinking that all their thoughts and discomforts are messages from God–I think for me the real question is whether there are any things they teach that can’t be boiled down to their personal preferences and discomforts. General Christian principles, maybe. Love thy neighbor, when you’re in the service of your fellow beings, you’re only in the service of God. Things like that.
I’d love to hear what you think. Am I overattributing the issues the Q15 talk about to their personal preferences? Or are there other clear examples of their personal preferences driving what they teach? Or would you expand on things they teach that you think cannot be attributed to their personal preferences?
I dunno. Is it really enough simply to use thee and thou when praying to the Almighty? Perfect pray-ers pray their prayers in iambic pentameter.
Oh my goodness Rockwell. Ziff that’s a comment for the 2023 funniest comments article you will write in a year.
I agree the prophets and the apostles seem to mistake their preferences and culture for God’s preferences. They seem to focus on these things while giving relatively little attention to what seem like the the biggest problems the world faces. I don’t understand it.
And insisting that Mormon worship in Africa or China has exactly the same dress, music, songs, holidays and culture of Mormon worship in Utah. That tries to obliterate the unique dress of those areas. It overrides their musical taste. It puts Utah’s Pioneer Day as a holiday for people who have different pioneer ancestors. It is God’s preference doncha know, that the Tongans wear a white shirt and tie and European style stuff on their legs, none of this business of the guys wearing something that looks like a dress. And in Australia they need to sing that beautiful song about the mountains in Utah, because God really likes that song. Come to think of it, God must really love Utah’s mountains because there are a few songs about our own mountain home and high on a mountain top.
As far as the prayer language, I thing the GAs want to keep it partly because that makes us all familiar with it and it just sounds like how God would talk, so it makes the Book of Mormon and D&C sound like they must be scripture. Instead of sounding like Joseph Smith made the BoM sound like the King James Version because to him, that sounded like scripture. If it was really translated, why not translate it not modern English. But if it was made up to sound like scripture, then it should sound like the Bible, and that was Joseph’s Bible.
Anna, agreed. If you’ve read any of the plain English renditions of the Book of Mormon (which the church has officially discouraged), they definitely feel less scriptural. I sometimes wonder how much traction the BoM and D&C would have gotten if Joseph had produced them in everyday language. This is one of my many “what if” musings, like “What if John Taylor had outlived Wilford Woodruff?” (Taylor was the younger of the two.)
Adding my vote for Rockwell’s comment.
After reading this I’ve been contemplating the heady gloriousness of believing that every thought you think is straight from God. It certainly explains the weird focus on random issues—and the self-importance of some of the Q15. I don’t think you’re over-attributing at all.
Fortunately, we in the ladder daze have been given the proper way to address God by God himself:
GOD: Arthur! Arthur, King of the Britons! Oh, don’t grovel! One thing I can’t stand, it’s people groveling.
ARTHUR: Sorry.
GOD: And don’t apologize. Every time I try to talk to someone it’s ‘sorry this’ and ‘forgive me that’ and ‘I’m not worthy’. What are you doing now?!
ARTHUR: I’m averting my eyes, O Lord.
GOD: Well, don’t. It’s like those miserable Psalms– they’re so depressing. Now, knock it off!
ARTHUR: Yes, Lord.
GOD: Arthur, King of the Britons, your Knights of the Round Table shall have a task to make them an example in these dark times.
ARTHUR: Good idea, O Lord!
GOD: ‘Course it’s a good idea! Behold!
-Monty Python And The Holy Grail
It’s not fair to throw the current Q15 under the bus about church leader’s hobbies without acknowledging that PAUL did it a heckuvalot of hobby-horsing around himself (head coverings, hair length, women’s roles, etc.)
The hobbies of a faith language become ground zero for leaders when the culture is threatened or shifting. The early church struggled with Gentile/Jewish culture wars, and we saw questions pop up like ‘should adult men who convert to Christianity be circumcised?’. Yeah- they struggled with hobbies. Surely the neglect of Jewish church hobbies were a concern when James the brother of Jesus dragged Paul back to church HQ (Jerusalem) to be chewed out and reformed.
I don’t think most of us are self-reflective enough to know why the spirit reaches out to us in certain ways. Nor are people observant enough to see how God’s light can shine in so many different colors to affect all his/her/their children.
In addition to praying in iambic pentameter, we should also note the importance of subject/verb agreement when speaking like it’s the 16th century. Surely God cringes every time someone says “thou has” instead of “thou hast”.
The church leadership needs to consider the risks of such incomplete guidance on prayers in the handbook. People sitting in 2nd hour meetings throughout the English-speaking world are at risk of their opening prayers being unheard, teachers not having the Spirit with them, and unsafe travel to their homes thereafter.
I came from a ward that was well outside of Utah, and was a combination of poor and convert families and I don’t think hardly anyone used “ the language of prayer.” It was humiliating when three months into my mission I had someone come up to me and tell me I was praying wrong. It really did feel like I was putting God at a distance, but I changed because that’s what obedient missionaries do.
Talk about being more concerned with the box then the jewel.