The Mormon Organon

Death, the Fall, and Darwin: Roman Legions of Death, Part 2 of 7

SteveP — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:57:40 +0000

So to begin. Assume that the story that science tells is tout court correct. That humans evolved from apelike ancestors and have existed as a species for roughly two-hundred thousand years and became behaviorally modern about fifty-thousand years ago. They have been living and dying for almost eight-thousand generations.

Dying. What do I mean by that? Actually, it can mean a lot of things. For example, it can mean the cessation of living. Scripturally it can also mean a number of things. Paul’s letter to Romans is a great place to start. No I take that back, Jim Faulconer’s book on Romans is a great place to start. Look at the attached photo It shows the index entries for ‘death’ in his book on Romans giving a short peek into the way Paul uses the word.

We can pare this down a bit. There are four principal ways death enters into Paul’s discourse. The first as a kind of ogre, often combined with Hell such that Death and Hell reign as metaphorical monsters defeated by Christ. Secondly, it is used in the usual sense as cessation of life. Third, as sin itself. Sin is a kid of death. Forth, death is seen as a separation, usually from the Law or from God. I’m drawing on several commentaries [1, 2, 3, 4] for these interpretations of Paul’s letter to Romans. (Seriously Jim’s is the best if you ever wanted to understand Roman’s from an LDS perspective get Jim’s book.)

For now I’m going to ignore the death as monster view (Despite my being a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan). What unites the last three, is the idea of the end of a certain kind of life. While many have tried to work out a definition of life or a set of characteristics that define and condition life. Eugene Thacker, here seeking a way to understand life of both earthly and divine instantiations, captures some of the relevant features of how to recognize life and thereby, I’ll infer, death. He says:

“First, life must be characterized as something that is generous, productive, proliferative, and germinal. Life is that which flows or pours forth-whether one posits a transcendent source of that flowing, or whether life-as-process simply flows from itself. This implies a second requirement, which is that the generosity of life is itself irreducible and unlimited, though the particular manifestations of life may in and of themselves be constrained. one posits a “life-force,” “All-Soul,” elan vital, or emergent properties, there is something, some Life, that conditions the possibility of the conditioned, or the living-even if this conditioning principle is itself fully immanent within the conditioned.” Eugene Thacker. After Life (Kindle Locations 519-523). Kindle Edition.

Perhaps death can be contrasted as becoming-nonlife-of-the-once-living. Anytime something transitions from generous, productive, proliferative, and germinal it can be defined as death.

Now back to the Fall. The Fall is seen as a transgression that ushers the possibility of death into the world. What kind of death? What sort of generous, productive, proliferative, and germinal thing was lost? Back to Paul in Roman’s 5 we read:

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law.

14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

Here it appears that sin becomes a kind of death. Fitzmyer writes about these verses [2]:

“Death” is not merely physical, bodily death (seperation of the body and soul), as it has often been interpreted by theologians in the past, but includes spiritual death (the definitive separation of human beings from God, the unique source of life). p. 412.

The life without freedom from sin is what is lost. Notice the wording ‘sin’ enters the world and a kind of death comes in, not physical but death as a separation from God.

20 The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,

21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Here Paul is arguing that the Law makes it easier to identify sin and the impossibility of living a sinful life, but also to point to the kind of life the atonement life. As he says in Chapter 7:

11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.

12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.

13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

Death through sin though the atonement becomes eternal life through the grace of Christ.

Romans suggests that the Fall was the entrance of sin into the world. Paul seems fairly clear on this point. The Law is given as Fitzmyer says, to make sin obvious so that need for Christ’s atonement becomes clear. There is much play in Paul and his use of death seems to move back and forth with death-as-sin being compared and contrasted with temporal death. However, his comparison seems to be one of analogy rather than a focus on temporal death. He is pointing out that the death that comes from sin is analogous in its possible finality and seriousness to that death that comes as cessation of life.

In what way is sin death? To explore that more, we must turn to the Book of Mormon.

However, before turning to reading the Book of Mormon, however,and using Paul to provide an interpretive framework for its explication, I need to make two detours. French thinker Badiou, provides another useful interpretive framework for understanding the Fall, so we’ll visit him. And Meillassoux, a contemporary French Philosopher, I will use to dismantle the idea that any kind of ‘absolute being’ relevant.

The lesson to take from all this is rather simple: Death can mean a lot of things, as it does here in Romans, and we need to be careful when reading the scriptures to get both the context of its use and the possibilities its use offers to interpretive communities if the scripture.
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[1] Faulconer, J. 2012. The Life of Holiness: Notes and Reflections on Romans 1, 5-8. Neil A. Maxwell Institute. Provo, UT.
[2] Fitzmyer, J. A. 2008. The Anchor Yale Bible: Romans, A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Yale University Press, New Haven.
[3] Byrne, Brendan. 2007. Sacra Pagina: Romans. Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MI
[4] Moo, Douglas J. 1996. The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Epistle to the Romans. William B. Eerdmns Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Death, the Fall, and Darwin: A More Harmonious Reading, Part 1 of 7

SteveP — Wed, 15 May 2013 00:33:57 +0000

This is being posted semi-concurrently at BCC (Posted there about a week earlier than here).

‘There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!’ snarled Voldemort.
‘You are quite wrong.’ said Dumbledore . . .

—————– Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. p. 718
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One of the key challenges in defining a post-Darwinian LDS theology is that of the Fall. The Fall is considered one of the foundational pillars of Mormon doctrine (as Bruce R. McConkie has often argued). This because the Fall is what provides the backdrop for the necessity of the Atonement, another foundational LDS doctrinal pillar.

The received view of the Fall goes something like this. The Earth was created in a paradisiacal state in which Adam and Eve lived in a state of innocence. Satan temps Eve to partake of a forbidden fruit. She gets Adam to partake of the same. Sin and death enter the world. It ‘Falls’ into a new state where physical death reigns, where sin is possible, and unless a redeemer fixes the results of this event mankind must remain in this state. Christ provides the role as redeemer and through the atonement conquers both sin and death, providing the opportunity for repentance of individual sin and for a resurrection of all mankind. In this, the entire LDS plan of salvation pivots on the Atonement, which in turn is necessitated by the Fall.

A literalist reading of the Fall suggests that prior to the Fall physical death had no part in Earth life. While such literalisms are widespread within LDS membership, and in much of the unofficial rhetoric of some past church leaders, such a reading seems untenable in light of current understanding about the way that life has unfolded on Earth. Are literalist readings necessary? I don’t think so, but there has been little work in constructing a conception of the Fall that is both true to its doctrinal necessity and current understanding of how life on Earth has unfolded. There is a temptation to resist a scriptural reading informed by science, because science is by construction provisional. However, I would argue that all hermeneutical frameworks, of which science is just one, are provisional and must be renegotiated in light of information, perspectives, and facts that present themselves within the current horizon for interpretation. To not do this is lose vitality and introduce a kind of fragility that ultimately collapses the entire structure for some people.

My task today is to lay the framework for a reading of LDS scripture that is both true to the text and to the world we see unfolding through modern scientific enterprise. Why we should take any stock in the scientific worldview has been outlined in many of my previous posts and I invite you to look at those if you are uncomfortable granting science any relevance to theological interpretation. Here I take for granted that this is a worthy task to attempt to ground scripture in the physical realities that have been uncovered in the last two-hundred years and are robust enough, I argue, that to ignore them can only be called irrational.

Here is what I hope to do in outline. I will begin by exploring the use of the word death in Paul’s letter to the Romans, this will give context to the ways that the word ‘death’ can be used in the scriptures. This will set the stage for reading Book of Mormon Scriptures in 2 Nephi and Alma 12 that explicitly explore the Fall. A useful way to start is considering Badiou’s concept of an ‘event.’ I will then argue with Meillassoux that the typical view of God as absolute is incoherent. In fact I will argue here are no absolutes, including the common Plotinian readings of God as the ‘One,’ or as the ‘Uncaused Cause,’ which are inappropriate for Mormon views. Including the placeholder God in which God is envisioned as a position filled by persons who have acquired necessary attributes to instantiate what is essentially the same structure that plays the same role as the ‘One’ in Neo-Platonic conception of deity, except with holes that have to plugged in with physical persons.

Good Mormon Doctrine seems to be based more on a God that is much more contingent, much more temporal, and as I’ll argue much more emergent than the NeoPlotinic God that some keep trying to slip back into our theology. I will hear draw on Adam Miller’s important new book to show how an object oriented ontology seems more appropriate to Mormonism than classic borrowings from classic Trinitarianism. I will propose a conception of ontology that not only allows for an evolutionary history, but requires it, and which sees the Fall as the entry of the possibility for human agency into the universe and its attendant accidents and opportunities. This suggests a new understanding of Christ’s atonement as an unfolding of a kind of ecological niche construction of grace toward agential behavior.

This is pure Adam Milleresqe Goldberging. I do not offer this as a suggestion of what I believe, but as speculation on directions that might prove fruitful in Mormon Theology that more fully engages with what we’ve discovered about the world. I plan to post about every three days. Feel free to chime in as we go.

Part II: Roman Legions of Death!

Scholar of Moab makes Ben Park’s ‘Nearly Essential Readings’ in Mormonism for Members!

SteveP — Thu, 09 May 2013 23:48:36 +0000

Ben Park has compiled a list of Essential Readings in Mormonism that includes both fiction and non-fiction. After listing 10 essential reads, he adds a list of ‘Nearly Essential Reads’ which includes The Scholar of Moab. Wonder why? You know what to do to find out.

Clark Monson on Wolves

SteveP — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:22:12 +0000

President Monson’s son weighed in on the debate about introducing wolves back into Utah with one of the most insightful articles written on the subject. It ends with this:

As Latter-day Saints, we are doctrinally obligated to preserve the Lord’s creations. Encouraging wolves to resume their ecological role in Utah is not the only way we can demonstrate our commitment to living things, but to today’s ecologically sophisticated world, it would be one of the most demonstrative and courageous.

This may be one to share with your legislature friends. Here is the link.

Wolves matter.

On guns

SteveP — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 20:06:53 +0000

In silence I’ve watched the splashes of opinion on Facebook and among blogs on gun control. Mostly because I see the issue framed in such complexity that I knew I could not put up a comment with enough depth to capture what I feel. I felt sorrow and devastation at the horrific shooting in Newtown. I found it unbelievable and still can’t get my head around the loss of so many innocents. I’ve shed tears almost at every mention.

I also sorrowed that it became politicized so quickly. Such a national tragedy was something we might have mourned together–left and right. Perhaps because we were too fresh off a divisive political season such was inevitable, but still it broke my heart, and sadly once again we find ourselves with ideological polarizations promoting a caricature of the deep discussions we ought to be having. This will be a strange post because it will likely please no one. The trouble is I stand in a place of such rarity that you might write this in your book of ‘life lists of uncommon sightings’ on the same page that you’ve earmarked for unicorn sightings. That I am a liberal will not surprise you if you’ve read my posts. That I am a gun owner might. But so it is. However, from those two perspectives I’ve developed some specific proposals that may help frame a discussion that needs to take place about guns in America. We need to talk. Left and Right. Gun owners and not. Sadly, I fear this will not happen. The art of conversation is being lost. Ideologues even promote the idea that to compromise (an art that stands at the heart of our country’s founding and functioning– think of the Great Compromise in the Constitutional convention between the Virginia and New Jersey plans) is a sign of weakness. However, the way forward must be through rational discussion, good information, and a willingness to work together (another art that lies at the foundation of our country that has disappeared–as exemplified by a broken and dysfunctional congress).

First let me establish my gun cred (lest you think my experience of such is analogous to a certain recent political candidate who attempted to grab hunting chops by claiming he liked to shoot varmints.)

I own:

a) .50 caliber muzzleloader
b) .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle
c) 2-12 gage shotguns
d) lever action 30-30 hunting rifle
e) .45 long colt / .410 shotgun under/over deringer pistol
f) bb gun

Not an arsenal certainly, but enough for my purposes. So here I sit, an ecologist, environmentalist and hunter. (As environmental ethicist Rolston Holms II points out, ecologists tend to understand the role of death clearly enough they rarely become the kind of animal rights people exemplified by PETA and tend rather to see the processes of predation, including humans as predators, as natural. Part of the life and death processes that maintain life on earth. But this is not about hunting. If you want to get my take on ecology and death read this paper published in the academic ethics journal Agriculture and Human Values.)

So into the frey. I got my first gun at age nine or ten. It was a bolt action .22 rifle. My dad insisted that to use it we attend the NRA gun safety classes. Under their tutelage we learned that guns were powerful, dangerous, and a serious responsibility. This ethic was instilled in me so thoroughly that it saved my sister’s life. I had an empty gun. I knew that I had emptied it and removed the bullet from the chamber. I knew that it was empty. Knew it. There was not even a little doubt in my mind the gun was empty, I was sitting in a chair sighting in on things around the house. I came to my sister and I thought about pulling the trigger. Had a lesser ethics been installed I might have. It was one of those moments that even now scare and sicken me. Had I acted I would have killed my sister and ruined my and the rest of my family’s life. The gun was loaded. But I had been taught well how to treat guns and tragedy was avoided. Still, guns were a part of our lives. I lived in Evanston, Wyoming where we would walk through the neighborhood, with guns over our shoulder and no one batted an eye–except for an older lady who would remind us not to shoot the birds. We were after rabbits, so we told her we would not. So in that culture a couple of eleven year olds walking down the street with .22s was not even worth a notice. We knew guns and knew enough to be careful thanks to the NRA. I also served in the military–three years Army, two in the Army Reserve. Guns were just a part of the standard equipment. A tool we hoped we would never use, but we knew how should the need arise. We had extensive training.

On one side, my friends on the left need to start understanding why people own guns and find them tools, cultural artifacts they’ve come to associate with family time, Boy Scouts (there are several merit badges associated with boy scouts such as rifling, shotgun shooting and such, (I shouldn’t bring up Boy Scouts (I told my sons if they got their eagle they could not get a driver’s licence, but that’s another post.))) Most gun owners I know recognize there are legitimate reasons to have some sensible regulations on guns (Nate Oman wrote a fairly good article here). We need to find commonalities. To reduce the debate to an argument about whether its guns that kill people or people that kill people is epitome of absurdity from both sides.

You on the right, quit trying to say people are trying to take your guns away. That just isn’t the case. We need to ask hard questions about how best to live in pluralistic society that has legitimate needs to protect the innocent and also protect the rights of people carry weapons. Sorry, but this is going to require dialogue, not entrenched positions that view the other side as inherently evil. This is not a question of good and evil, but divisions about legitimate questions about how to best promote the needs of diverse groups in a sensible way, and for which compromises are necessary in order to come to some middle ground that both sides can live with.

Guns are a problem. Not just in light of the horrific big tragedies like Newton, but the slow, individual tragedies that unfold almost every day (Mostly among poor inner city communities that don’t have the clout to get noticed in our society).

So to that here are a set of six proposals from which to start.

1. Some people should not have access to guns.

For example, children; anyone convicted a violent crime, the mentally ill, anyone who poses a danger to themselves or others. These are people that both gun owners and not can agree should not have access to guns. Because not everyone should have access to guns there must be mechanisms in place to ensure that only those who should have guns do have them. This means that regulations will be necessary. But what kind?

This can be. and usually is, handled by regulations governing the sell of new guns. Utah has a mandatory background check. When I bought my deninger a few months ago, they looked to see if I’d committed a crime, or was wanted for arrest and such. It took about twenty minutes.

However, many guns are bought and sold in a huge used market. These take place at websites, gun shows, and among friends. This puts guns into the hands of people who should not have them. That this occurs is is well known and not really in dispute. This is a challenge that needs to be faced so that people can buy and sell what is legitimately theirs to buy and sell, yet we have to acknowledge the fact that some people should not have access. Self regulating is unlikely to work. There are solutions though.

One would be to set up a state run internet exchange (and don’t you in Utah dare argue the state should not be involved in this kind of activity. I had to go buy a bottle of brandy for a Christmas cake recipe and saw the massive restriction the state of Utah puts on buying alcoholic beverages to protect children from the dangers of evil rum–Do the children deserve less to protect them from gun violence?) Thus used gun purchases could be tied to the same background checks that are used for new guns and could be implemented for both gun shows and sites that cater to used gun sales.

Some may argue that this would create undue burden to taxpayers, but not necessarily, ebay runs an entire company based on taking a tiny percentage from such transactions. This could actually generate income that could be used to manage the program and even earn extra money to support police programs designed to protect us from this kind of violence, such as special quick-acting response teams, or teacher training on how to respond to such emergencies.

I have a friend who suffers from severe depression. He has acknowledged that sometimes when he is in the grip of this blackness that he has wanted to end his life. He says that had he access to a gun there are times he would have used it. This is where some waiting period would be helpful. It rare for a gun emergency to arise that a three day waiting period (like the right wants for abortions ironically). Also, perhaps a program for frequent gun buyers, like that used by TSA for pre-screened passengers, could be implemented to avoid the three day waiting period for those who buy guns frequently. These people with special pre-clearance would help make exceptions for those who feel they need it (These need to be done well, unlike concealed carry permits available in Utah who only make you take a class, but pass no skill tests–The idea that a bunch of people armed with weapons (a serious argument among some) who have rarely fired one is downright scary).

2. Hold people accountable for what is done with their guns.

Recently in Utah a child brought a gun to school and pointed it (unloaded) at another child threatening to kill her if she told. The eleven year old was charged with felony counts, but no mention has been made of the parents or others who let that child have access to that gun. This needs to end. If a crime is committed by a minor with a gun, how that child got access is relevant and we need strong laws to punish those who through carelessness or deliberate actions let a child have access to guns.

3. Begin to think about ways police can be supported in their efforts to prevent these types of crimes.

This could include training programs in how teachers and parents should act when they first hear shots being fired. I’m not sure any of us know what to do and some careful thought needs to go into how to respond in such situations and to prepare those likely to be involved in the proper response. The ideas like arming all teacher, many of whom, not having grown up in a gun culture, will not want to be armed has many difficulties, as there may be entire schools in which teachers may not want to be armed. This can, and should not ever be, mandatory.

What we do not need to do is start legislative efforts trying to anticipate and protect us from every kind of violence possible or likely which demand that people fear their lives with extra burdens to prevent the rare possibility of attack. I think about this every time I enter the airport and have to take off my shoes, because one incompetent terrorist once tried to hide a bomb in his shoes. This creates an endless cycle of stricter and stricter rules that are rarely helpful. I live in constant fear that a terrorist will one day stick a bomb up his or her butt and we are evermore be asked to bend over whenever I want to fly. No matter how carefully we prepare, those who want to do harm, will recognize what structures are there, and take actions to account for them to enact their evil intent. We need sensible policies that protect the innocent, but not an endless sequence of reactionary measures instituted to confront the specifics of each case.

4. Continue Health Care Reform.

Mental illness is real and often a contributing factor in the kinds of senseless violence we see in these attacks. Often in the US getting access to the help necessary is unavailable to the people who need it most. This is especially true of mental health needs. Effort in this area must continue. The US is far behind the rest of the world in this regard, in which, by every measure we are among the furthest behind in any measure of health care (except ironically spending).

5. Criminals should not be better armed than our police

Hunters and citizens do not need automatic assault weapons, bazookas, tanks or F15 Fighter planes. Period. End the perception that by banning these we’ve given up our right to bear arms.

7. End the influence of the NRA

When George Bush resigned from his lifetime membership with the NRA because of their ridiculous stances, it generated a lot of attention. Little has changed since then. The NRA has become a bizarre, bloated caricature of itself. Where once it promoted hunter safety and strong hunting ethics as I describe above, it has now lost all sense of proportion and makes pretend arguments that Americans are on the verge of having its guns taken away and argues that even the most sensible gun regulation is going to send us down slippery slope to a totalitarian regime in which no one can own a gun. The NRA really has become a force for nonsense and paranoia, but with deep enough pockets to sell their twisted perception of reality to masses of supporters that really truly believe their guns are in danger of being taken away. This plays out in Facebook type discussions that argue that first the Nazi’s took guns away and then started the massing killings. Almost always a comparison with Nazi Germany is inappropriate but it comes up often enough to be a persistent meme, but this is not only not historical, it’s nothing but a propaganda ploy by a very powerful organization that needs to go. It needs to be dismantled. Not by the government (I can hear the screams of the propagandized at that suggestion), but by hunters and gun owners themselves who understand that there are appropriate regulations that will support sensible procedures and policies that will protect our children and still allow gun owners to exercise the constitutionally granted right to bare arms. I picture hunters and sensible gun owners starting an organization much like the NRA used to be, before they became extreme advocates of an anything goes, including ownership of essentially military-grade assault weapons. A sensible organization that promotes what’s good about American gun culture without the craziness and congressional buyoffs engaged in today is sorely needed.

So there they are. We need need to talk. Stop the polarization and start real conversations. While these proposals may not cover all the ground, nor even ultimately be useful, I hope they will start the conversation rolling.

Your Christmas gift guide

SteveP — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:17:18 +0000

Having trouble picking which of my books you would like to give for Christmas? Here is a handy guide I’ve created to make it easier!

You can read more about them here:

A Short Stay in Hell

Rifts of Rime

The Scholar of Moab

Or just pick them up at Amazon!

Scholar of Moab

Rifts of Rime

A Short Stay in Hell.

Or Barns and Noble (do a quick search)!

Or, if you like to delve into my sappy side, my Christmas novel, The Gift of the King’s Jeweler, published by Convenant Communications back in the day, has just been released on Kindle.

Wise advice on Sunday School Teaching

SteveP — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 01:14:35 +0000

From my friend Blair Hodges:

“Too often, the Sunday School teacher doesn’t have a sympathetic understanding of the place of science, philosophy, the arts, and history in the lives of young people, consequently, he depreciates, even belittles these branches of knowledge in his classes. In this way, often without realizing it, he creates confusions and conflicts, instead of an over-all harmony, such as spiritual growth should produce…

“The Sunday School teacher who makes a pastime of ridiculing men of science, and of holding them up as the arch enemies of religion, usually loses the respect of the most intelligent members of his class. Others, who for the time being accept his conclusions, are forced later on to believe they must choose one or the other. Sometimes, they don’t choose religion. And if they don’t, the deceptions of unscrupulous and irreligious teachers of science may have been one of the causes; but it’s equally true that the Sunday School teachers themselves may have been the worst offenders.”

Ezra J. Poulson, “Make Your Teaching Live,” Instructor Vol. 83, No. 4 (April 1948): 178-9, 199.

So true. Within science I’ve seen far more damage done by members who dismiss science as somehow anti-religious than any other form of anti-Mormonism.

Scott Parkin’s review of my new book, Rifts of Rime

SteveP — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 20:51:54 +0000

After all the excitement of this week, I am off on vacation to Maine. But to keep you entertained and well informed, with special permission from AML’s own Scott Parkin, I am reposting his review of my new book, Rifts of Rime.

This was originally posted at the Association of Mormon Literature (AML) Discussion Board. You may want to visit it and look at what’s going on in Mormon lit.

In addition, don’t forget to look at my other books, Scholar of Moab, which was awarded AML’s best novel of 2011, and was a Finalist for the Montaigne Medal, a national award for the most thought provoking book. Look at the reviews at the link.

Also “A Short Stay in Hell” is tearing up Goodreads. Warning, do not read if you don’t want to stay up all night thinking. Take a look at AaronR’s discussion ongoing right now at BCC.

Since I’ll be sailing, eating lobster, and biking through ancient forests, I won’t be checking this often so I’m turning off comments on this post until I get back.

To the Rifts of Rime Review!

Review
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Title: The Rifts of Rime
Author: Steven L. Peck
Publisher: Cedar Fort (Sweetwater Books imprint)
Genre: Fiction
Year Published: 2012
Number of Pages: 280
Binding: Trade Paperback
ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-1-59955-967-4
Price: $14.99 (print); $3.75 (ebook)

Reviewed by Scott Parkin for the Association for Mormon Letters.

A brief review and three mini-essays on related questions.

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Before I get into the review proper, it seems only right that I disclose that I am a Steven Peck fan, and have been from the first work of his that I read. In fact, I asked to review “The Rifts of Rime” precisely because I have read and liked Steven Peck’s recently published novels, short stories, and blog posts (I’m not a poetry guy, so I haven’t read much of that), as well as his stand-up presentations at conferences.

So I can’t pretend I didn’t come into the reading with anything less than a full bucket of (well-earned) charity, more than a little willingness to give the author the benefit of any doubt, and a presumption of depth and cleverness sufficient to convince me that if something didn’t make sense it must be my own lack of skills or imagination rather than the author’s.

The problem is that fandom is a two-edged sword—along with ready forgiveness comes heightened expectation; inherent in being put on a pedestal is the potential to topple off.

Fortunately for me, after reading “The Rifts of Rime” my fandom remains strong and my pedestal for the author has gained some new buttresses. I liked this book for a variety of reasons that I will attempt to explore in the mini-essays that follow.

**Summary and Review**

Long ago the god-like Wealdend quickened five animal species to high intelligence, self-awareness, and self-determination. These creatures (gray squirrels, tree squirrels, marmots, wolves, and ants) share the world with their unquickened cousins, along with an injunction that no Quickened shall kill another.

Untold years later the societies of the Quickened have grown, flourished, and found equilibrium with one another at a pre-industrial level. Craftsmanship abounds but engineering remains limited in a medieval/enlightenment society largely organized and structured by species differentiation.

The tree squirrels love the word and are adept at paper-making and poetry; the marmots are physicians and philosophers; the gray squirrels are warriors; the wolves are nomadic storytellers and hunters; and the ants remain largely unknown by dint of their inescapable difference as the only non-mammalian quickened species (and lack of evident vocal chords). Each species (caste?) is essentially separate and self-contained within an integrated society. Each has a role, customs, and social norms and all seem essentially content. There is a fundamental equality with each species performing its role as part of a greater whole, governed by a council with representatives of each.

The story begins in a time where reverence for the Wealdend has faded into a beloved folklore embraced by most as religion, appreciated by others as fable, and dismissed by a few as myth. That softening reverence has brought with it an emerging revolution where the peoples’ reverence for tales of the Wealdend and the Quickening are used as cynical tools of motivation to justify radical overthrow of traditional order by the Thane of the gray squirrels who is determined to subjugate all others under his leadership.

The story alternates viewpoints between Pinecone, a poet of the tree squirrels who finds himself embroiled in the politics of rebellion as he tries to preserve his religion and social order against the Thane and his cynical manipulations, and Leafe, a paper-making tree squirrel thrust into a warrior’s role with a faction of the gray squirrels opposed to the Thane. We follow these two characters through discovery, intrigue, revelation, and ultimately war as they attempt to defend traditional order and restore peace.

“The Rifts of Rime” is a vividly imagined science-fantasy that puts interesting characters and uniquely realized cultures through difficult conflicts that I found engaging, interesting, and relevant. It deals with both social and existential questions in a direct, unflinching way within a world that is as imaginative and self-consistent as anything I’ve read recently.

The novel is marketed for young adult readers but has been reviewed by many as a middle-grade tale, presumably because it uses talking animals as main characters—though if age of protagonists matters, we are dealing with a university graduate assistant, trade guild leader, and senior military officers. While I believe the story is accessible to young readers, its sweet spot is with readers who can engage at the level of existential exploration. Though it is a relatively direct conflict with clearly defined issues and sides, I don’t believe that clarity should be mistaken for simplicity. These are foundational issues of loyalty, hope, social role, social boundary, ethnic prejudice, manipulation of religion for political gain, revisionism, and nature of god, among others. These are core elements that demand their own space, not convenient add-ons. There is a deceptive depth to the story that will be lost on younger readers.

The writing is clean with only a few plodding sections, and the regular appearance of squirrel poetry was endearing and relevant both as plot element and expression of the author’s own love of poetry. It’s not the sparkling prose you see in Peck’s other novels, but it is strong and readable and never gets in the way of the story being told. In terms of physical production, there were a disappointing number of typos and editing glitches (more than a dozen), and while the book is completely readable I thought it was somewhat distractingly over-designed. I’m not a fan of the cover art.

I very much enjoyed “Rifts of Rime” and look forward to its announced sequel. It succeeds on multiple levels as adventure, morality tale, social comment, and philosophical primer. It’s well-written, vividly imagined, and consistently realized in a nicely paced story that kept me fully engaged. It should appeal to both younger and more mature readers, and offers more than a few nuts to ponder and savor long after the cover is closed. Highly recommended.

**A Question of Audience**

I was surprised to see how many people on GoodReads reviewed “Rifts of Rime” as a middle-grade title. I suppose that starts with talking squirrels and progresses to the back-cover blurb that describes Peck’s novel as “akin to Brian Jacques’ ‘Redwall’ series.” As I suggested earlier, I think “Rifts of Rime” is certainly accessible to middle-grade readers, but I think it does Peck a disservice to assume that Rifts is a thin or simplistic story. Direct, yes; simplistic, not so much.

One of the things about genre readers is that we tend to find age-based audience categories less useful in gaging how interesting a novel may be. Many adult fantasy readers choose to read entirely within the YA category because they find the stories to be every bit as conceptually complex as general market stories, but less prone to excesses of sex or violence (though extreme violence is becoming increasingly trendy in YA genre novels these days).

For me Rifts falls into this category of broad audience story that is specifically accessible to younger readers—but not specifically limited to them. The conflict is fairly clean with an obvious bad guy (and his minions) and a set of obvious good guys. The goal here seems not so much an analysis on nuances of goodness (or badness) as an exploration of the challenge of recognizing when social convention and groupthink lead us to do bad things in the name of good causes or social order. When both opposing forces represent social authority and can quote the same scripture to justify their causes it can become difficult for ordinary people to decide which is good until the conflict is already well advanced.

It’s an idea that has relevance and appeal to all age levels. The fantastic setting and situation does not imply young readership or the Disney taxonomy of intelligence.

This is where comparing Rifts with “Redwall” seems unfortunate. Jacques creates a simple conflict with an conically obvious bad guy, Cluny the Scourge—a rat who uses his tale as a whip, wears a batwing cloak fastened with a ferret skull, and kills for the simple joy of being evil. Peck creates a charismatic, powerful leader who has earned his current title as Thane through strength, service, and wisdom, and is both loved and respected by those around him. He is an implacable foe, but he is not just a caricature of evil.

One is a simplistic conflict centered around an obvious villain typical of middle-grade stories; the other is a clear conflict centered around competing versions of horrible events offered by people with equivalent social and moral authority, one of whom must be lying, but neither of whom seems suspect to the average citizen—the villain is obvious to us, but not to all the characters in the story.

One presents the direct feints and thrusts of straight-forward battle; the other explores the challenge of convincing honest people to fight against established authority. Redwall brings an external enemy to our doors; Rifts threatens all we know from within our own trusted authority structure.

Redwall is a deservedly popular middle-grade series that succeeds in delivering on the promises made in its first chapters of a clear, iconic battle of good and evil: us versus them. Rifts starts at a level of complexity well beyond anything even suggested by that venerable series and delivers on the promises it makes of a more nuanced set of challenges and conflicts centered within the broader community: us versus us. We are required to think, not just to experience.

Both are appropriate for younger readers; Rifts has more to offer more mature readers—not least because of the complexity of its world-building.

**A Question of Creativity and Imagination**

In the review section above I referred to Rifts as science-fantasy, which may seem odd for an obviously fantasy story. My primary reason is this: in creating his world, Peck has gone to unusual effort to create a fully realized, deeply imagined world that is both unique and plausibly real in light of his squirrel protagonists. Peck didn’t just replace humans with squirrels and trivially squirrelish behavior in a general medieval morality tale; he created practices, folklore, poetry, common wisdom, and customs specific to each Quickened species that are plausible extensions of known animal behavior.

For example, strong emotional reactions from the squirrels include involuntarily closing their eyes, rubbing their paws, or pounding a back foot. The angle and height of the tail is a secondary component of all communication and emphasizes attitude and respect. Rubbing noses and grabbing cheeks represents variably familiar social interaction (not unlike the social kiss, which can mean different things to different people). Aphorisms revolve around trees and nuts, military honors are named for paws and tail, and constellations are named for badgers, wolves, and other familiar animals. Squirrels feels vulnerable and tend to panic when too far from a tree.

One of the games of science fiction is to create rigorously plausible futures and institutions based on knowable facts—or at least reasonable extrapolations. Peck has used real knowledge of animal behavior as a basis for creating the details of his characters, their behaviors, their institutions, and their responses. A squirrel duel involves a lot of scurrying up trees and along limbs punctuated by brief attacks designed to take advantage of height or position. Fact drive creativity, and unique plot elements and details of milieu flow from there.

For some that rigor may be intrusive; it does slow the pace in places as details are presented. It’s the same trade-off that occurs with rich physical description versus spare—it’s a stylistic choice that will appeal to some and seem overwrought to others. For me it added creative thickness and imaginative depth.

This attention to unique world-creation and imaginative plot development moves this story into that crossover category of conceptually plausible but unique world-building normally associated with science fiction in a story that is otherwise pure fantasy. The author has engaged the game. It’s one of the many things that engages me as a genre reader—Peck knows the conventions of genre and has paid proper respect to them in a story that is otherwise very much about basic existential exploration.

**A Question of Religion**

One GoodReads review expressed disappointment that Rifts was a Christian novel, and another opined that the philosophical/existential questions were presented too starkly and directly.

This will be a matter of taste, but I personally like the way that Rifts goes directly at core existential questions without window dressing, toe-scuffing, or masking metaphors. The society of the Quickened is founded on the undeniable fact that some animals are quickened and others are not—direct evidence that normal evolution cannot explain. In fact, among the wolves only the women are quickened—their mates remain wild (interpretation of social statements is left as an exercise for the reader).

This glaring evidence of artificial uplift (The Quickening) so permeates the assumptions and behaviors of the Quickened that the distinction between philosophy and religion has all but vanished. There is no doubt of the fact of supreme beings, though there remains much debate as to their nature.

In fact, that clear evidence creates its own problems and foregrounds some very basic existential questions. With direct evidence of the Wealdend as one-time intervenors in their affairs, the core question is no longer whether they exist, but rather where are they now and what is their nature? If we’re blessed (Quickened), then why are we killed by the unblessed (unquickened)? How can the Wealdend allow the good to die and the wicked to prosper? Why do the Wealdend not intervene to eliminate useless suffering?

The Quickening does not eliminate these questions; rather, it make them that much more poignant and troubling for the characters. If the characters didn’t wonder about these kinds of questions I would have to doubt their intelligence.

And Peck goes straight at those questions. That he offers possible answers for some of those questions is apparently a turnoff for some readers, who seem to want to deride the text as didactic or preachy. For me the questions arise honestly from context, are handled with grace by characters who seek to understand for their own peace—not as grand enlightened preachment—and who then move on to full participation in ongoing events. These characters ask fair questions and struggle for sensible answers without excessive navel-gazing or endless maundering.

I suppose it is tad heavy-handed at times, but I’m okay with that. This story is as much about characters seeking answers to basic questions as it is about the approaching war that has made those questions newly relevant. It would be irresponsible to reveal such questions without spending some time looking at them.

One reason I appreciated the answers Peck offers through his characters is that they seem consistent with my own LDS understanding and resonant with my own LDS cosmology. The Wealdend are a married pair who allow the Quickened to make their own decisions after providing them with guiding wisdom. They enable revelation but require the recipient to reach out and act by their own effort to complete the transaction. They are both joyful and sorrowful at turns.

There is also an evident Nephite/Lamanite vibe where competing cultures reject each other precisely because of their differences in interpretation of shared cultural lore. This sibling rivalry adds venom to some conflicts that made them that much more interesting for me.

Maybe my LDSness blinds me to Peck’s shameless didacticism, but I don’t think so. The society and mythos he has created is consistent and the characters react plausibly within it. The very fact of the Quickening is so pervasive and startling that the question of cause never fades, and the idea that religio/philosophic elements would thus permeate their society is more than reasonable. That they happen to resonate with my own worldview is a bonus, but not the reason; I read fantasy to experience a richly imagined and delivered world that expands my ideas, not to be reinforced in my assumptions.

For my dime, this novel delivers. I like a concept-dense piece, and appreciate honest musing within reasonable limits.

—

I understand that Steven L. Peck wrote this novel twenty-odd years ago and is only now publishing it. That doesn’t surprise me. The writing is not as polished nor is the pace as brisk as “A Short Stay in Hell” or “The Scholar of Moab,” but the same unique viewpoint, unflinching approach, and attention to plausible extrapolation and richly detailed characters and worlds is as clearly evident in this earlier tale as it is in his later works.

This is not a great novel, but it is a good one that shows all the promise of initiating a very interesting series that I actively look forward to reading. My fandom for Steven L. Peck’s works has found yet another justification in “The Rifts of Rime.”

How I teach the ways of science at the Y

SteveP — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 19:22:29 +0000

There seems to be a mistake people make about the way that BYU science departments function and should be taught. There is a myth spreading through dark corners of the internet that BYU should keep religion and science separate the way secular universities do. It takes a strange and perverted form in the voices found among those benighted dogmatists who guard the boarders of pure doctrine, as they perceive it. They claim because science is to held as suspicious or inimical to faith that scientists should not try to reconcile conflicts between the two. Actually at BYU we have been instructed, à la Brigham Young, to, “not even teach the mathematics tables without the Spirit of the Lord.” In fact, each year, two questions appear on the forms that students evaluate faculty on for each class every semester:

Has your testimony been strengthened?

And how well did the instructor integrate the gospel in the subject?

(For all my classes my rates are 7 to 7.4 out of 8, with the university and department average ranging form 6.2-6.6, so I am significantly above average! Who’da thunk it.)

There will always be those stunted self-proclaimed, righteousness checkers who wrap themselves in threadbare cloaks they have constructed from purloined and out of context words of the prophets and apostles to hide beneath their own venomous ignorance, from where they can decry those facing the real and persistent challenges in reconciling things like evolution and the church. These one-dimensional individuals from the darkness of their manufactured world, can call, “I! I have the true view of the apostles and all others are heretics and apostates. Burn them! Curse them! Run from them all true followers of my warped view! I! Only I, have interpreted their words correctly. See here are fifty quotes plus five that support my true view.” (Ironically, they claim the general authorities are unwisely running BYU by allowing scientists to run rough shot over their tinker toy views, “He’s claiming the apostles have ‘tinker toy views’ because I and the apostles see eye to eye on all, and here is twenty more quotes plus six to support me!!!!!! Me!!!! I’m right, everyone else is wrong!!!!” )

The sad thing is, we are losing good people who, when confronted with the massive evidence from science, come to believe under the misguided attempts of such blind internet truth-checkers, that the two really are incompatible. I’m reminded of the early church when Paul and Peter opened the sharing of the gospel to the gentiles. A group of Jewish Christian converts would come in after Paul and declare that new Christians had to follow the Jewish law, including circumcision (“Look, here are seventy quotes plus three from the Torah that show that circumcision is necessary!”). These did much damage to the emerging Church. Likewise there are internet creationismizers who insist that scientists must never attempt to reconcile their views with religion and that we keep them apart. BYU should not be mixing science and religion!

Fie. I cannot compartmentalize truth. It goes against my nature to not revel in the beauty and wonder of the universe without and within. When these righteousness checkers would throw off wondering students into the wilderness of doubt and tell them to either deny their minds or the gospel because they cannot be both right. They spill the guts of many a questioning soul. Demonstrably.

At BYU we are interested in the souls of our students. Interestingly both the religion and science departments here are wrestling with the hard issues. When I was here as an undergraduate the climate was different. Religion and science departments were at war and both warned students about the other. This is not the case anymore. Both sides have realized that the war was unnecessary and costly (I lost five of my best friends in this war all who became unbelieving scientists because the creationismizers told them early on there was no way to be faithful Mormon and a evolutionary scientist, with or without circumcision).

But things are much different. At the invitation of the Department of Religion earlier this month I was asked to talk to seminary teachers about evolution. I showed them the evidence, we talked about faith, we came to understand that no good comes of confusing students who are facing the most exciting evolutionary story the world has ever seen: Genetics, archeology, paleontology, medicine, crop science are all developing in amazing ways under the insights gained by evolutionary biology. The amazing thing was as we explored the issues for four full hours we saw little reason to keep up the war. It was a faith promoting and spiritual experience—and that with a line of hominid skulls lined up on the table. Religion and Science must work together to try and sort out difference, challenges and sticking points. There is work to do. It’s all not been sorted. But rather than sticking our heads in the sand, we are using all the tools at our disposal to find answers to hard questions. And it’s happening at places like BYU.

I do not doubt that I will continued to be called an apostate and face patently ridiculous claims that I am attacking general authorities by trying to wrestle with challenging problems reconciling science and religion. Like the stories of Japanese solders rumored to be marooned on tropical islands who continued to fight WWII long after it ended, so too these internet purveyors of hatred and judgment, who follow scientists around decrying their work as evil, are stuck in a mode of discourse that has long since moved past such contentious and vicious myopia. Science and religion are no longer the enemies such views continue to proclaim.

And such views continue to do real harm. They embarrass the Church by painting it as unenlightened and afraid of science. But their growing irrelevance is encouraging. Their faulty use of logic, reason and facts is apparent to the most casual observer.

I will continue to seek a reconciliation with to of the most beautiful things we discovered about knowledge both spiritual and physical, from all its sources. I will continued to be attacked and receive veiled threats. I will not respond directly to such violent, mean-spirited, and hateful blog posts, because their silliness says more about them than me, but it is important to know that the quest for understanding will continue. It’s important to see that the division between science and religion that such maintain with the vigilance of a bedraggled river rat defending its darkened hole, is being torn down. Light is flooding in and new knowledge is being poured down upon the heads of the Latter-day saints in wondrous ways. It’s the dawning of brighter light that will outshine the darkness of shriveled blogsters.

Those who are suspicious of science are missing part of the restoration

SteveP — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 23:05:49 +0000

Scientific literacy is falling in America. Part of the reason is that its value is being under-appreciated by a larger and larger segment of the population. Suspicions about evolution and climate change have created an atmosphere where two of science’s most strongly supported investigations are dismissed. To do that, you have to dismiss science itself. Really.

The scientific investigation of such things as evolution and climate change include data gathering on a scale that most would find staggering. It includes data collected with some of the most sophisticated instruments ever built by humans. It includes people who have devoted their lives to accuracy, truth, and hardboiled examination of evidence. It involves the most rigorous oversight of any processes I can think of, and involves many others who engage thorough peer review to find flaws, critique analysis, and expose bad thinking–and most important declare, when it finds error, “You shall not pass!” It requires the most rigorous credentialing of any on the planet, typically taking four to eleven years after a bachelor degree. These years are spend in intense study and proving oneself adept at the tools, depth of understanding, and competency in the field. To complete a PhD one must take these tools, skills and learning, and add to the body of knowledge in innovative and new ways. Then present it to those who have gone before, make rigorous arguments as to why and how you gathered the data, what tools where used for its analysis, and how it fits into what’s been done before, and they must agree you’ve done so. If you can convince your peers (often unfriendly to your task) you will get published, but this requires being examined further by the body of those others who have devoted their life to the study of the subject. If you’ve made mistakes they will find it, bring it to your attention, and shame you thoroughly. And the most wonderful thing of all, unprecedented in any other human enterprise, is that this process is open. The data is freely available. Anyone can see what you did, how you collected the data, what the data actually are, how you analyzed the data, and how you interpreted it in light these investigations. In the history of human thought there has never been a more rigorous and systematic way to try to understand the universe. And it has brought us wonders, medicines, technology, and the ability to understand the universe in amazing ways.

Take Climate Change. The science behind the claim that the planet is warming, that the variance in weather events is increasing, that sea levels are rising, ecological systems are failing worldwide, that species are redistributing and disappearing, that the ice caps are melting, that green house gasses from humans are responsible for these changes, that worldwide droughts, floods, fires, and stronger storms are occurring more frequently are a matter of empirical evidence and investigation using the methods outlined above. (Interestingly the models did not predict the weather would be as extreme as we’ve seen it in the last few years, the models were off but in not in the direction people thought they’d be off. Thinks are getting wackier and wackier every year—maybe you’ve noticed?).

On the other side of the debate are institutes, “Think tanks!” who mine the data from their armchairs for evidence supporting their predetermined take that none of the above are happening. Or not so much evidence as glitches they can exploit to cast doubt on this or that. They publish their results in reports and websites. They have a couple of old physics professors who put their name on every report that comes out. But all in all. They gather no original data. Make no independent studies. Do no publish in the peer reviewed literature and are largely funded by enterprises with much to loose if climate change is true.

What’s been hard to watch, is these studies becoming politicized and the debate conducted largely in the entertainment media where both sides of debate have to be probed, even when the sides on the issue are lining up to be 250 to 2 climate scientists convinced that the climate is changing under human influence (and the two are the holdouts borrowed from the tobacco industry‘s attempt to claim smoking did not cause cancer). Of course you get the the usual cadre of list signers from the chemist, engineering, phychology doctorate who are only too happy to pontificate about subjects outside their decipline, but that are aligned with their perception of politics.

But I’ve blogged about this endlessly on these pages. What really concerns me is that denying this science, requires that the entire scientific enterprise be dismissed. Conspiracy theories of how scientists are working together have to be entertained. The result is that science has never been held in such disregard in our country. I remember growing up on an atmosphere where science was considered one of the finest achievements in modern history. Scientists were held in high regard. Trusted.

No longer. This is having effects. Effects that will ripple into the fabric of our society. I see it on blogs, especially within the Mormon world. Because science if not friendly to naive formulations of creation that held sway before science’s forays into our understanding of the universe required rethinking on fundamental levels, which as a people devoted to both knowledge and continuing revelation ought to have been more easily accomplished.

We live in an amazing day. As President Hinckley pointed out in his talk, Living in the Fulness of Times, in the October 2001 conference:

The vision of Joel has been fulfilled wherein he declared:

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:

“And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

“And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

“The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.

“And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call” (Joel 2:28–32).

There has been more of scientific discovery during these years than during all of the previous history of mankind. Transportation, communication, medicine, public hygiene, the unlocking of the atom, the miracle of the computer, with all of its ramifications, have blossomed forth, particularly in our own era. During my own lifetime, I have witnessed miracle after wondrous miracle come to pass. We take it for granted.

As a student recently pointed out to me, the first thing President Hinckley brings up as an example of this prophecy’s fulfillment is Science!

You now have a chance to see pictures from space that our ancestors can’t even have imagined. And more than just pictures. We understand so much more of how the universe works. From the genetic fabric of life and its ability to change, to the fine scale structure of galaxy on temporal scales from the Big Bang to the unfolding of galactic motion and spatial scales from the size that gives us the structure of the atom (the Higgs Boson!) to the dark matter megastructures that make up 84% of the universe.

As President Hinckley points out. Science is a gift. Do not so easily dismiss the power of its findings in order to fuel your political and economic agendas. It will come back to haunt you. And you are missing some of the revelations promised as part of the restoration.