The Opposite of Repentance (Reflections on "Pride")

I sat in a Priesthood quorum meeting last Sunday when the question was asked: “What is repentance?”

One Elder responded that it helps him, when defining something, to consider its opposite or antonym. He went on to explain his belief that the opposite of repentance is pride. I saw a lot of heads nodding in agreement, but the comment left me feeling a little unsettled.

This is a topic I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately, most specifically wondering whether the very popular talk given in 1989 by Gordon B. Hinckley on behalf of the ill Ezra Taft Benson, needs to be examined more closely.

Neat Packages:

I believe there is a human tendency to prefer simplicity over complexity. Wrapping up complex concepts in neat little packages puts our minds at-ease and elicits a sense of peace and comfort. In the LDS faith, these feelings of peace and comfort are often taken as signs of “truth.” 

Often there is a “race to the bottom” to sum up or fully enclose the entirety of an idea, process, or person in the simplest terms. Think of phrases in the workplace like: “That company is just greedy!”, “so and so is just lazy!”, “they’re just under qualified!” among these (and many other) “soundbites” in the church can often be found the phrase “they’re just prideful.” 

“At the end of the day…”

“It all boils down to…”

“What we need to remember is…”

“[some authority] has already taught us that…”

“It may be simple, but it’s not easy…”

“If we step back with an eternal perspective, it’s clear to see…”

We think it elegant to reduce things to their core essence. We love to speak and think in axiomatic phrases. This can be helpful if the reduction is, indeed, true. But there is a danger in reducing things beyond a reasonable level, especially if doing so allows an important topic to forever be relegated to a particular “brain bin” without further thought or insight.

Abraham Lincoln said:

"Elegance is reducing a thing to its simplest form without divesting it of its necessary attributes"

(He didn't actually say this, but there should be some quote out there I can substitute in here that says the same thing...)

I wonder whether the typical church talk and classroom stage is un-helpfully set as a round table (or pulpit) of wisdom with the goal to “solve the problem at hand” by the end of our allotted 15 to 60 minute time block. The typical church teacher and student feel more rewarded when they leave a class with questions “answered” rather than “left on the table.” We definitely have an unspoken (and spoken) tradition of finishing everything we do with “testimony” summing up what we “know for sure” about the topics just discussed. I wonder what it might be like to end a talk or lesson with an upside-down testimony stating the things that we DON’T know…

A Wide Net:

President Benson’s “Beware of Pride” talk has always been confusing to me because of how wide a net it casts and how reductive it is to isolate “pride” as the root cause of nearly EVERY sin. I actually really like the parts about pride being “competitive in nature” (social signaling and posturing can be quite toxic) but he starts to lose me when he goes down another level and defines pride as “enmity toward God.” 

First of all, not everyone believes in God. Contrary to common beliefs within the church that every atheist is actually a god-hater, some people just aren’t convinced or weren’t raised to believe in God… they’re not carrying a chip on their shoulder in regards to God (nor a dark secret that they actually know God is real, but don’t want to admit it a-la the AntiChrists in the Book of Mormon), they’re just worried about other things in life. It’s very hard for a devout LDS member steeped in Mormon culture to imagine a life that doesn’t, at its root, revolve around faith in God, but that’s a real thing!

But, you might say: “There are no atheists in foxholes!” - See? That’s a reductive generalizing statement itself (not to say it isn’t sometimes the truth).

Also, another logic breaker of this seemingly-secure axiom that “god-spite” or “fellow man-spite” is the root of ALL sin is the idea that many people sin ignorantly or curiously. People make mistakes, they weren’t “out to piss off” anyone, least of all God. It actually comes off, to me, as paranoid, that President Benson went around the world believing that when someone messes up or behaves in a harmful way to themselves or others it’s because they have beef with God (and maybe, by transference, to President Benson himself who is supposed to be God’s representative on the earth?). Believe me, my kids do crazy, stupid, harmful stuff all the time out of sheer ignorance or curiosity, not due to an “I’ll show you!” attitude (though that’s pretty common too).

Another reason people persist in sin, or don’t repent, is because of fear of punishment. This one is particularly insidious because “church culture” (which includes teachings from the scriptures and prophets) has actually reinforced the feeling that repentance is difficult and embarrassing/shameful. There’s not enough space to illustrate this point fully, but take, for example, the canonized scripture that “sexual sin is next to murder” and that only a few sins are so bad that they can’t be forgiven, murder among them (Alma 39). The fact that there is a culture that seems to actually put barriers up to repentance/change within the church should at least be acknowledged in a talk/discussion with such scope. 

Sometimes this fear is merely a mask for “pride” (of a different nature: personal image preservation) but I know that those people aren’t at war with God (enmity with God) they’re actually more likely to be constantly praying and upfront with God, they’re just struggling to find COURAGE to take difficult steps with their loved ones and social circles.

Another common, non “enmity,” reason for persistence in harmful or unhealthy behavior is the belief that one is actually PROTECTING other people. Whether that protection comes from wanting the people in their lives to have pristine “hero” figures or to protect them from embarrassment or heartache, it can feel, to the offender, like a noble reason to avoid change. Imagine the extreme case of a person hiding their problems because they fear the knowledge might push an unstable person in their life toward self-harm or suicide.

An additional scenario to contradict the over-broad “enmity with God/Man” theory is literal addiction. People can be trapped in their own minds, or more accurately, “of multiple minds.” Where they do honestly want to change, but continually relapse due to chemical dependence.

One last thing to toss in for consideration is trauma. Trauma can literally rewire the brain to be more fearful, less empathetic, and more prone to self-destructive behavior and addiction. Those who engage in these harmful behaviors are often driven to do so as coping mechanisms for dealing with their trauma (this can be, perhaps, lumped in with fear and addiction, but deserves to be called out separately).

The above list is not exhaustive. Perhaps you can think of more reasons people persist in harmful behavior other than strict “pride” (as defined by President Benson)?

At The Root:

I’m going to contradict my central premise here by “reducing” all of the above reasons into one unified theory… one that I think would have been infinitely more-helpful to the human beings in the church than the blameful “everyone who disobeys resents god or their fellow man” approach and which is actually the opposite of repenting/seeking positive change: 

Education. 

What cures those who “sin” (engage in harmful behavior) in ignorance? Education (the opposite of ignorance/not knowing something). 

What helps those who are afraid to change? Education - whether that’s to assist them in taking a longer view of their actions or to dispel unhealthy beliefs/interpretations/teachings they’ve previously latched on to.

What helps someone who believes they’re protecting others by not changing? Education. This too involves helping the person take a wider, longer-term, view of their actions and assisting them to think rationally and logically about how human relationships thrive on trust and honesty.

What about atheism? This is a tough one, but even atheists live in the same world with believers and are governed by the same social and psychological dynamics (God’s rain falls on the just and the unjust). One thing is for sure, telling them (or even believing deep down inside yourself) they’re “just mad at God” will likely be the least-effective approach to helping them make positive change in their lives.

Seeing a lack of education as the root of sin invites each of us to learn and teach and therefore grow and change…  it contains a more-productive call-to-action within its premise than the dismissive allocation of all cases of sin to the “pride” bin. By not blaming the offender, our responsibility to engage in the process of help remains intact.

Where He Was Right:

I do, in fact, believe “pride is the root of [many] sins” - that most people persist in harmful behaviors (sin) due to “pride” but I define pride differently. Pride is a judgmental label that allows us to categorize a myriad of complicated factors into a “neat package” so we can divest ourselves of the responsibility to reach out and help our fellow human beings. Reducing the motive of sin to “pride” creates walls of “us” vs. “them” because, of course, “we” are on God’s side and “they” are not. If only “they” would be more humble, “they” could be more like “us!” Ironically, believing that “pride” underpins most sinful behavior encourages us to be more prideful.

Sometimes, worst of all, “pride” is a label we put on ourselves that deflects our own responsibility to “unpack” a lot of complicated experiences and feelings and go through the painful process of learning (education). “If I could just be less prideful, I’d change!” Well, it’s not quite that easy, there’s a host of work to be done and a lot to learn for long-term real change. Do we sometimes “just have a bad attitude?” Yes, of course, but what, where, and why did we end up with that attitude? Those are the million-dollar questions, and the pursuit of learning those answers is the beginning of wisdom.

Was President Benson’s intention to be judgmental or to encourage church members to be judgmental? No, I don’t think so. I think he thought he had found a deep nugget of wisdom and being able to “sum up” everything under the heading of one “universal sin” probably felt really good… revolutionary… like discovering a unified field theorem in physics or something. He was probably pretty “proud” (pun intended) to have put such a neat bow on the whole question of "motivation for sin."

Was he preaching against education/learning? No, in fact his conclusion about the antidote to “pride” is “humility” which we often define in the church as “willingness to learn.” Though I’d argue that his definition of humility is more about submission to authority and strict obedience than about being open to learning/changing perspective.

I believe the real problem with the talk is just giving everyone in the church, for many generations, a “smoking gun” for their minds to go to when assessing the “why” behind another person’s or their own harmful behaviors. There’s not much encouragement for empathy and understanding and curiosity about the unique underpinnings of each individual’s life pattern and choices.

Followup Notes:
As pointed out to me by Urim, it is widely believed that Pres. Benson plagiarized his Beware of Pride talk. Some believe from a female family member who was writing/riffing off of the writings of C.S. Lewis, but ultimately C.S. Lewis' words and ideas are echoed throughout (usually without citation).
https://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon315.htm

Also pointed out by Urim: President Benson said a lot of wacky stuff:
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/ezra-taft-benson/fourteen-fundamentals-following-prophet/

Corinthians, Cosmos, Cruft, and Credence

The Apostle Paul once said in 1 Corinthians 3:16 - “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”

Most often I hear this scripture interpreted in the context of the law of Chastity, saying that we need to keep ourselves morally “clean” to be worthy of God’s spirit being our companion. While this can be a valid and helpful interpretation, I believe that if we stop there, we’re missing out on a great deal of other meanings that can be drawn from this rich metaphor.

Bro. Engstrom gave a great SS lesson the other day about language in Isaiah, Job, Psalms, and Proverbs. He asked about the “why” behind the use of poetic language. Some of the reasons identified in the class highlighted the idea that these symbols can have many layers of meanings and they encourage us to wrestle with the interpretation rather than settling for “face value.”

Temple symbolism is one of the deepest wells we can explore, so why stop at one interpretation? In that spirit, my talk will explore the questions “how is the physical body like a temple?” and “how can the symbolism of the temple be applied to our every day lives?”

Review of temple symbolism:

Ancient temple physical structure:

• Outer court, inner court, Holy Place, Holy of holies.
• Holy of holies had ark of covenant, the top of which was the “judgement seat” where God’s presence was thought to dwell.
• Veil separates holy place from holy of holies.
• Altar of incense in front of veil symbolic of prayer being essential before going through veil.
• Environment progresses from less holy/worldly to more holy/godly

Ancient temple process structure:

• Inner court had a laver or “washing station” for ceremonial washings to prep for entry into Holy Place.
• Holy place has incense/prayer station, and some believe an oil station, to prepare for passing through the veil. Almost all priests officiating in the temple anciently stopped in the Holy Place (never entered the Holy of Holies, or passed through the veil)
• On Day of Atonement, High Priest makes sacrifice and sprinkles the temple instruments with blood to purify for preparation to enter Holy of Holies/God’s presence.
• This once-a-year Day of Atonement act was also seen as necessary for the mass forgiveness of the House of Israel’s sins by proxy of the high priest.
• No one except the high priest is ever allowed into the holy of holies.
• The people progress from physically/spiritually unclean to clean.

Ancient temple social structure:

• Ancient temple only allowed those descended from Levi (one of the 12 sons of Jacob/Israel) to officiate in the temple.
• “Narrowing down” of candidates:
• World —> House of Israel —> Levites —> High Priest
• Winnowing down based on authority/calling

Broad understanding of temple purpose:

• A meeting point between the physical realm and the spiritual realm
• Often depicted as a “journey”
• A place to “take bearings” on the cosmos (High Nibley)
• Cosmos = “system” in Greek: Temple process or “system” is a metaphor for other “systems”
• Tabernacle from root meaning “hut” also shares the same root as “tavern” a dwelling place - gathering place, protection
• Some criticize temples and churches as trying to “contain, trap, or overly define” God, but temples can also be seen as encouraging a link between abstract ideals and practical implementation; a place where physical is informed by spiritual
• Holy of holies represents the pinnacle of something. Often represents the dual nature of responsibility: knowledge or power mixed with the danger of that power. Vulnerability that needs valid protection, but can grant benefits if wielded appropriately.

The modern-day temple employs very similar symbols: washing, anointing, moving between rooms or chambers representing increasing holiness, prayer, veils, and moving from “the world” towards the presence of divinity, knowledge, power, and vulnerability. Even the temple recommend process can be seen as a winnowing down of candidacy for entrance - similar to the ancient requirement to be of the house of Israel, or of a specific tribe, or even to be a specific person with a specific calling.

You can’t really “fail” the modern temple experience (there are too many kind temple workers whispering the right answers in your ears), but there ARE symbols involved for having your knowledge tested (which would imply the potential to be rejected or to fail), and you can certainly “fail” a temple recommend interview! ;-)

Exclusivity… bad?

The temple process may appear exclusionary or exclusive on the surface because, in many ways, that is exactly what it’s doing… it’s taking a large group, the world, and selecting for a certain subset of the group to “advance”, then that smaller group is further reduced, until only the creme-de-la-creme makes it to the ultimate goal/reward. There’s a modern sentiment that this kind of exclusive-ism is a bad thing and any kind of winnowing process is negative… however we have many positive ways of framing this kind of exclusion that are acceptable socially:

• Pruning (in which we recognize good and bad branches in a plant and remove the cumbersome, intrusive, or undesirable ones) 
• Brainstorming (in which we start with a LOT of random ideas and narrow them down to a few good ones)
• Computer algorithms (in which a lot of random noise is reduced to meaningful data sets)
• The Scientific Process (in which many hypotheses are presented, and, ideally, only the testable, reliable, repeatable ones are adopted)
• Vetting individuals for a job (in which applicants in the workplace are interviewed and evaluated for suitability to specific employment)

For the scriptorians, here’s an example of how Jesus was “exclusive” and engaged in this kind of “temple-ish” behavior: He preached to the whole world and he preached to the 5000, but he called 12 to be closer to him, then among those 12 he called 3 to be “closest” to him. He had his own “outer court” and his own “holy place” and his own “holy of holies.” He even gave that super exclusive inner-circle special names… James and John were “The sons of Thunder” and Simon got renamed to “Peter.” They alone got access to the mount of transfiguration and the garden of Gethsemane.

Q1: How is the physical body temple-like?

If we take this broad view of the temple as narrowing down candidates on the way to a specific worthwhile goal, the body is FULL of these kinds of processes!

Eating is the most obvious, where a nutritional candidate is introduced into the system (or the “cosmos” of our body), it passes through and is temporarily held in various chambers each separated with a kind of “veil” and it is broken down into useful and non-useful parts. There are various “tests” performed to make this nutritional determination and the helpful parts are advanced into the “Holy of Holies” the bloodstream… and delivered to various celestial destinations like the heart, lungs, and brain, or to undergo further “trans-substantiation” into physical tissue. While, the non useful, non-nutritious stuff… well, it takes an alternate route we’re all familiar with… but even that route is part of a LARGER temple journey in which the parts disposed by the body are assimilated back into the ecosystem (a different, larger “cosmos”… the “eco-cosmos”). Next time you take a bathroom break, maybe stop to consider the “temple-ness” of your body!! But more-seriously, In this way, we could think of partaking of the sacrament as a very literal temple experience!

Breathing is a similar temple experience where a wide net of gases is taken in from “the world” and refined down to the specific subset of gases our body finds useful, while the rest is expelled as CO2. The nose, mouth, esophagus, and lungs are full of “veil”-like structures and “chambers” which filter dangerous particles and eventually enrich the blood with oxygen. The latin word “spirit” literally comes from the same root as “to breathe” (that’s why the creation story says that God put Adam’s spirit into him, aka: the breath of life)… so literally “breathing” infuses your “temple” with a kind of “holy spirit!”

Dreaming might also be seen as a temple-like winnowing where our brains take a myriad of random inputs from our recent experience and attempt to make sense of them, processing, discarding, and experiencing emotions and ideas while we sleep. I’ve sometimes experienced a “holy of holies” feeling when awaking from a dream where confusing ideas have been rearranged in a way that now makes good sense.

Biological reproduction is another temple-like process, I won’t go into detail here… but think about it: the outer court, the holy place, the holy of holies, only the single individual high priest allowed through the veil where a spirit of God is invited to begin its own temple journey.

This is rich symbolism!

Q2: What Temple Symbolism is there in Everyday Life?

Missionary work is a temple-like process. Missionaries cast a wide net knocking on every door and stopping every person on the street, then they work their way down to a small group of people to regularly teach, then “the elect” who show enough interest to separate themselves from the world choose to take the next step of commitment… there’s even a baptismal interview process to further the exclusivity! The “holy of holies” here is baptism and the GoTHG.

Friendship and dating follow a similar process where we start wide and winnow down. We move from superficiality to intimacy. The “holy of holies” here is vulnerability and visibility into our “true selves.”

Life itself begins with passing through a “veil” and entering a “chamber” that we call a body. This is a temple process. Built into this process are many failsafes and quality-control checks that favor positive outcomes. This “chamber” (our body, our tabernacle, our temple) ideally marches ever closer to divinity, from holy, to holi-er, before we pass through the final “veil” which is death which leads to achieving a “holy of holies” final state.

Zoom Out: Belief as the "Holy of Holies"

At an even broader level, there is a bridge within us that, like the temple, connects spiritual and physical: that bridge is our thought processes - which treat “information” as candidates to be vetted.

We are inundated constantly with a barrage of random stimuli. Our sensory system has a “free” involuntary initial filter to this deluge of input… that’s why we can be in a busy room full of people and concentrate only on the conversation at our specific table. This is a very useful “veil” and allows us to function without being overwhelmed, more narrowing happens in a more deliberate way further downstream.

Choosing which ideas “make it” and which to discard is essential to our happiness, survival, and sense of fulfillment. This is a holy, temple-like process. The “holy of holies” here? The adoption of ideas, also known as “Belief.”

If you picture the temple process as a metaphor for target practice (moving from the easy outer edges towards a challenging center), then the bullseye is the “holy of holies” or the most desirable or impactful outcome. Our internal belief system is treated as the “holy of holies” by many people, organizations, and entities… our beliefs are highly sought after ground. Our beliefs are the target of political rhetoric, religious discussion, and most prevalent today: advertising.

If you really BELIEVE you need to look a certain way or act a certain way, then that will drive your actions, especially your spending. Protecting our belief system, keeping it “holy ground”, meaning it is very rarely tread and only by ideas that have been fully vetted, is wise. That’s not to say we aren’t open-minded, the outer courtyards are open to all, but there is a valuable narrowing process as “ideas” move closer to “beliefs.”

The exercise of our agency in regards to IDEAS is a crucial responsibility associated with responsible living. The things we choose to believe lead to our actions and become the foundation for our habits, and eventually our character. When bad ideas, or falsehoods are adopted as true beliefs, bad things happen.

Structural Revision: Who watches the watchers?

One last question: Are temples intended to be static, unchanging, pillars of absolute truth? In regards to our internal, bodily temples, will the same structures that worked in the past suffice for the future?

The portability and flexibility of Moses’ ancient tabernacle may be instructive. It was constructed of lightweight, easily-rebuilt and easily-moved materials. It was designed to literally be torn down and rebuilt infinitely as the children of Israel traveled through the wilderness in a variety of circumstances and environments.

Modern temples, while similar to the ancient in some ways, have significant differences from their ancient counterparts.

We have even seen in our lifetimes significant revisions to modern temple ceremonies.

President Nelson recently gave a talk about the major foundational revisions being done to the Salt Lake City temple which have required extreme measures and put the temple out of commission for a significant time period. He used that process as a metaphor to encourage us to assess and evaluate our own “foundations.”

If you’re anything like me, the temple of my “metabolism” certainly doesn’t work the same way it did when I was a teenager… I’ve had to change how I eat, sleep, and breath as I’ve matured (often to my dismay). Why wouldn’t our internal beliefs function similarly?

I believe our internal, bodily, temples should follow a similar pattern, especially where our beliefs are concerned. The Apostle Paul said “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” What might it mean to “put away” some things as we mature?

I’m also reminded of the saying: “Many of the opinions and beliefs I hold about myself today were formed by an uninformed, immature child.”

I find it helpful sometimes to step back from thought patterns I take for granted and ask: “Do I REALLY believe that? Why?” I also sometimes ask myself: “What belief do I have that is driving this behavior? How might I go about adjusting this belief for a more favorable outcome?” This is a holy temple process.

I believe we should be regularly attending “the temple”… to me, “attending” or “attending to” the internal temple of my body and mind means evaluating the construction or structure of the system itself and being willing to add chambers and veils (which might also be called “boundaries”) but also being willing to discard distorted or
negative components.

Successful mastery of this “inner temple of belief” will create ripples that will expand out to positively affect all the other concentric surrounding “temples” we’ve discussed.

When Jesus died, the scriptures say “And the veil of the temple was [torn] in [two] from the top to the bottom.” This was symbolic of a MAJOR revision in exclusivity and orthodoxy in regards to the Plan of Salvation. It symbolized that divinity, aka “God’s presence,” was no longer withheld from mankind behind certain un-necessary veils or gate-keepers, and ALL were empowered to enter the “Holy of Holies.”

What other temple processes abound IN us and AROUND us? Where do we need to add veils and chambers? Which should be torn out?