I really enjoyed Patrick Kearon’s talk this last General Conference. His message was well summarized by his title: “God’s Intent Is to Bring You Home.” He told the story of a policeman he once watched from a hotel window whose job for the day was to turn people away from a closed street. Elder Kearon said that the policeman looked like he was very much enjoying turning people away: “he seemed to develop a spring in his step, as if he might start doing a little jig, as each car approached the barrier.” He contrasted this policeman with God, who he said is eager to bring us home.
I thought this was a lovely message. But it seems obvious. Why would he feel the need to say it? The linguist Paul Grice came up with four maxims that appear to govern our conversational interactions. The first of these, which I think is relevant for this talk, is to be informative. We generally say things that we expect the other person doesn’t know. We want to communicate something. A Monty Python sketch provides a handy illustration of how this maxim can be violated for comic effect. When the pilot tells the passengers “There is absolutely no cause for alarm,” he of course brings up the possibility that there is cause for alarm, because why would he be telling them that if he didn’t think they might be alarmed? That is, the passengers are expecting the pilot to follow the norm of being informative. All the same goes for assuring them that “the wings are not on fire.”
Getting back to Conference speakers, if they generally follow this maxim (to be clear, they would be doing so without conscious reference to or necessarily even knowledge of it), why would Elder Kearon need to remind us that God wants to bring us home, not block our way like the gleeful policeman? You could argue that Conference is mostly repetition anyway, and that’s certainly true. There are general trends that come and go (when was the last time speakers exhorted us to keep a journal, for example, which seems like a staple of Conferences of my youth), but these do so only slowly. You could slip talks in and out of Conferences a decade or two away in time, or even longer, and they mostly wouldn’t seem too out of place.
But I still think it’s interesting to wonder why of all the topics he could have been repetitive on, Elder Kearon decided to repeat on the idea that God wants to bring us home? I wonder if he might not have chosen this topic because he wanted to counter what he felt like was a trend in the opposite direction, that emphasizes God’s role as a heavenly gatekeeper, who gladly keeps us out of heaven if we haven’t quite been as righteous as he required.
And once the question is set up that way, I think the answer is obvious. Russell M. Nelson and Dallin H. Oaks are the leading candidates for the gleeful gatekeeping policeman in Elder Kearon’s story. President Nelson gave his infamous “sad heaven” talk in 2019. Last October, both gave talks referring a lot to the three degrees of glory, emphasizing that it’s too bad that not everyone will be in the Best Place in the afterlife with them.
I’m sure all three men would insist that they believe in the same gospel, and they’re just focusing on different parts of it. But to me it seems pretty clear that they don’t, that Elder Kearon is more like Elder Uchtdorf in believing in a God who unconditionally loves us and really wants us back, while Presidents Nelson and Oaks believe more in a God who, while he certainly would like to have lots of his children back, also isn’t going to lower his standards to let any of the riffraff in. In any case, whether you’re with me in thinking Elder Kearon’s approach is fundamentally different, or if you think he just has different points of emphasis in what is fundamentally the same gospel, his first talk as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve has me still very happy that he’s been called.
I echo your happiness with Elder Kearon’s call. He seems gifted with true empathy for humanity. I look forward to more kind, compassionate, Christlike messages from Elder Kearon’s heart to ours.
I think that the vast majority of humanity makes it. Why would God set up a plan where a large majority of his children fail to re-enter his presence?
I believe you are right on–especially with your title of this piece. Not only do Nelson and Oaks seem to endorse a road-blocking God, but they seem almost gleeful about it. Well, maybe not gleeful, but that’s definitely a God they can get behind and endorse with determination. It’s almost as if a road-blocking God helps to ensure the need for their positions of authority.
This reading is of course complicated by the fact that it was Nelson himself who called Kearon to the twelve—and by all appearances rushed his ordination, to prevent anyone from blocking him in case Nelson passed away before the next conference.
I’m sincerely curious as to what your take is on what happened here: is it that Nelson didn’t realize that Kearon would directly contradict him on this important theological question? (Cause given how thoroughly these people are likely vetted—as well as how compassionate Kearon’s two previous Conference talks were—I’m going to consider that unlikely).
Is it that Nelson perhaps thinks he and the other Twelve can “moderate” Kearon and bring him more in line with their more stringent theology, like they apparently did with Holland and Uchtdorf’? (Cause given how quickly Nelson and Oaks will likely die in the near future, they probably won’t be around long enough to change him).
Is it that Nelson himself does not actually perceive himself as being a gleeful gatekeeping policeman (no matter how the rest of the bloggernacle perceives him), and therefore nods along happily with everything Kearon says, utterly unaware that Kearon is actively contradicting him? (Given the notorious lack of self-awareness among the powerful, that’s at least a possibility, I guess.)
Or is it that God Himself really did inspire/order Nelson to call Kearon to the twelve, irrespective of Nelson’s personal thoughts on the man, bowing obediently to the will of the Lord?
These aren’t rhetorical or sarcastic questions, btw, I’m asking sincerely.
Great questions, JB. I obviously don’t know, but my best guess is that the differences among the GAs that seem so prominent to me (or to you, I’m guessing) just aren’t that big a deal to RMN. Elder Kearon was in the Seventy, and not only that, in the presidency of the Seventy, and that was good enough indication that he was fully on board with the Church’s current direction. And if RMN isn’t that concerned with these differences, he could be more right than I am too, as the Church as imagined by Elder Kearon might not actually be much different from the one imagined by RMN. It may be that I, as a participant on the fringe, grasp at small differences as hoped-for evidence of de-fundamentalizing the Church and dropping celebrity GA worship and things like that, but maybe such changes are just beyond what could realistically happen, even if the kindest of the Q15 made it to the presidency.
Excellent post, Ziff!
I hope that RMN intentionally pulled in a Grace-based, God’s love -advocate in order ro balance the many works and justice-based attorneys and priestly businessmen in the Q15. I don’t always agree with RMN, but I do think he works hard to magnify his calling and approach his legacy strategically. It’s possible that after selecting a sufficient number of priestly bean-counters and gate keepers, he chose a Grace-based voice for balance and strategy. Perhaps to replace Ballard (who also only possessed a bachelor’s degree like Kearon). Perhaps to replace Holland. I hope that whether or not we are hitting on the exact reason- there was intentionality in selecting a “bleeding heart”. That’s the positive view.
The more skeptical view is that I suspect Kearon’s anti-gate-keeping stance is a happy accident. RMN is self-reflecting and legacy building. He’s announcing crazy numbers of temples that won’t be built in his lifetime, but he nonetheless insists on being the one to select, plan, and announce la crazy number of temples. He’s left his mark on our hymnal, all the art, nearly all the pioneer temples- including gutting and restyling our treasured SL Temple- the holy of Hokies itself. He initiated the big Jesus shift away from weird Mormonism and into mainstream Christianity. He also wants to be the prophet who breaks through and plants a flag in the Middle East with the Dubai temple. I suspect Kearon was selected because of his experience as a communications executive in the Middle East. He’s going to be a key liaison in building and maintaining relationships in Dubai and other areas of the Middle East now and in the future. I have a lot of cognitive dissonance about the Dubai temple. The UAE seems to be collecting other faiths and giving them prime space in a symbolic pluralistic gesture, knowing all along that they would never truly threaten the stronghold- almost exactly as Brigham did 150 years ago as other faiths were gifted prime space in SL. I won’t go into the rest of my idiosyncratic qualms about the extremely expensive materialistically “collected” , numerically unjustified Dubei temple, but highly suspect Kearon was the most qualified middle eastern liaison in all of the 70.
RMN learned to speak Mandarin with his photographic memory and perfect pitch, and gained traction in China with his professional accolades. There had long been talk among the saints that RMN was going to be a catalyst in seeing China open up to the church the way we had seen him take part in preparing Czechoslovakia for the Velvet Revolution. And, RMN chose Gong- a diplomat who specialized in Asian relations, portentously for such eventuality. I believe RMN has expansionist aspirations for both Gong and Kearon.
Time will tell . Will Kearon be assigned a gate-keeping topic? Will he be challenged to stretch himself and preach repentance and conformity? Would he, like. Christofferson, be willing to toe the line and be a mouthpiece for a hard line, one that decimated his own brother? Will Kearon be intimidated and conform over time? Be mentored by Oakes into priestly liturgy? Or, will his testimony of the love and mercy of God stand indomitable? I’m already praying for him.
Kearon seems to be a good man. I hope they don’t break him.
Thanks for this, Ziff. I’ve found it quite amusing to reflect on the irony of Nelson’s newest apostle delivering a talk which so clearly undermines Nelson’s own ethos! Shaking my head in disbelief . . .
[Slightly off-topic]: Thoughtful and openhearted teachings from leaders like Elders Holland, Uchtdorf, Christofferson and Gong have been refreshing to me over the years, but I think these have been mostly overshadowed by the bigger focus on commandments/covenants by others. I really appreciated Elder Kearon’s first talk. However, even if he continues to preach a welcoming church and an all-loving God, his influence is likely to be minimal. The default culture within organizations is inherently concerned with maintaining stability and continuity. And in an organization where the Church president holds significant sway (and where the current one emphasizes gatekeeping so much), Kearon’s work to shift the focus seems unlikely to actually move the needle. I am very happy that Elder Kearon’s been called, too. But it seems that the voice of a gatekeeping policeman wins out. (And to be really depressing, I think that teachings from leaders like Kearon may merely offer us a veneer of compassion, allowing us to believe we are thoughtfully building Zion, while still fixating on individual adherence to commandments/covenants.)