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Affleck, Afton Grant. 1977. Love is the gift. Bookcraft.

Rating:
2

Summary:
The book combines stories about what the author considers to be three types of love and responsibility (direct, peripheral, and panoramic – based on three types of vision) with her thoughts on love and responsibility along with scriptures and advice from Mormon General Authorities.

The three types of love/responsibility are:
-Direct: responsibility to members of the immediate family.
-Peripheral: responsibility to friends and neighbors ‘whose needs are revealed through the light of the Spirit’ (p. 8)
-Panoramic: responsibility to all spirit brothers and sisters who have ever lived, who now live, and are yet to live (paraphrased from p. 8; underlining mine because it is a pivotal point).

Review:
Precursor to Chicken Soup for the Mormon Soul?

As the book began I was actually thinking that it wasn’t going to be too bad, but by about halfway through I was beginning to see some very serious problems with the book and the slant given to the stories.

The first problem is that the author explains the altruistic behavior of the people in the book by calling it ‘love’. I guess in a sense you could call it that, but in many cases I think the better explanation is the genetic one outlined by Dawkins in ‘The Selfish Gene’ – at times being altruistic is more beneficial for the survival of our genes than is being selfish (see chapter 2, page 6).

The second problem with the book is the strong sense of religious superiority. As you read the book (especially if you are not a Mormon or a believer in god or religion) you get the distinct impression that the only good people in the world are those that fear god (spirit brothers from above). If you don’t then you are inherently a bad/unhealthy person. The author accomplishes this by always trying to draw connections (often the connections don’t actually exist) between people changing their unhealthy lifestyles or addictive behaviors and their conversion (or re-conversion) to Mormonism. What the author conveniently leaves out is that there are a lot of healthy, non-religious people in this world. She also does not address the idea that perhaps people can become healthy without a belief in god or religion. She essentially argues that all things that are unhealthy equate with sin, including misbehavior (often times related with foster children that have been abused). At the end of the book you can’t help but think the author is espousing elitist ideology and claiming that if you aren’t with her (a god-fearing Mormon or Christian at least), then you must be strongly against her and are therefore unhealthy and sinning.

Some of the stories are also quite offensive. Chapter 10 illustrates Native American Indians as all being illiterate farmers with no civility. The author shows an incredible lack of understanding of different cultures, which (hopefully I don’t offend anyone by saying this but I probably will) seems to me to be fairly typical of a lot of religious groups that believe everyone should convert to their way of thinking. By thinking everyone should think like they do and behave like they do they are essentially saying that other ways of life are wrong or less advanced. I find that utterly offensive.

Chapter 15 also attacks notions of equal rights for men and women. The author essentially argues that women shouldn’t/don’t really want equal rights because they will cease to be different from men. She also attacks anyone that would even consider questioning the authority and dictates of the Mormon General Authorities. And, on top of the other things, she also equates beliefs in equal rights with hippy-like behavior and drug use. As a former Mormon who left the Church for some of these exact reasons (equal rights and questioning authority) I found this chapter to be particularly offensive and naive.

But I think the boldest and simultaneously the most ridiculous part of the book is a brief section in Chapter 17 (p. 84 to be exact) that advocates a worldwide Mormon theocracy. “Charlie Stewart’s desire was to involve people in the process of strengthening their brothers and sisters. His vision encompassed the whole world of man – Church members and nonmembers. He realized that the actualization of the vision must begin within the Church – the gospel of Jesus Christ must be accepted and lived. This would make possible ‘the placing of all known resources for the benefit of man under priesthood direction, a legal administrator, that the needs of all could be met in the Lord’s way.’” I know this idea was very popular among the early Mormons and that as part of their temple ceremony they still agree to give everything to their religion, but this is tantamount to political treason and, well, ridiculous. They are claiming that the ideal way to govern the planet would be to put everything under the control of the Mormon Church. Admittedly the Mormon Church would deny this adamantly, but it is somewhat inherent in their beliefs to convert the entire world. If you have ever been slightly afraid of the goals and aims of Mormonism, I think this chapter is a good reason – they have every intention of eventually converting the entire world to their way of believing and living and then governing it as theocracy ruled by a bunch of old white men.

I should also point out that despite trying to group the stories into the above mentioned categories, the book format is pretty inconsistent. Some stories are a page long, others are 15. Some chapters are just thoughts by the author, others are stories told by a contributor. As a result of the loose format it is kind of hard to really grasp the intent of the author at the end.

Despite all of the problems there are actually a couple of good things in the book that would definitely attract Mormons. There is a chapter (23) about Michael McLean and his early musical career. Most Mormons would find this chapter interesting. There are also a few good quotes:
-p. 22 “He remembers that Greg pointed out that unacceptable actions can be symptoms of need rather than of meanness.”
-p. 107 “None of us ever arrives at a place where we don’t need encouragement and honest approval.”
-p. 120 “We can in no way judge what a child’s needs are unless we have a pure knowledge and are nonjudgmental of the factors which made him the way he is.”

Overall, I found this book to be, like many other non-official Mormon books, somewhat naive and very elitist (i.e. Mormons are the best and everyone else sucks). I’m sure the author didn’t really want her book to come across that way, but given Mormon theology and the format of the book, I don’t think there was anyway around it. Mormons may get a kick out of a book that reinforces their notions that Mormonism is a cure-all for every ailment under the sun, including alcoholism, homosexuality, disbelief, abuse, and drug abuse. But for anyone with a little bit of experience with psychology or sociology, they would easily see through the baseless claims and recognize that this book is Mormon propaganda and nothing more. I don’t recommend this book for thinking people.

Rector, Connie & Deputy, Diane [compiled]. 1977. Links of Forever : Inspirational Stories of Lineage and Love. Bookcraft Publishers, Inc.

Rating:
5

Summary:
The book is pretty much the same thing as the sequel (Rector and Deputy 1980), so I’m not going to write a new review for it. I have just duplicated my review for the other book but excised the elements that are not relevant.

The book is a collection of stories about different divine interventions that have facilitated the Mormon goal of providing salvation for the dead. Let me expound just briefly on this concept for those unfamiliar with it.

Mormons believe that it is necessary to be baptized and participate in several additional rituals (temple endowment, washing and anointing, etc.) in order to finally enter into heaven (their conception of heaven is different from most Christian religions as well, but I’m not going to go into that here). Of course, if everyone must participate in these ordinances/rituals, then everyone that did not participate in them (which would include pretty much everyone who lived past the age of eight and died prior to 1830, with the possible exception of ancient prophets and some of their followers) would not be able to enter heaven. But Mormons, in consideration of those that never had the chance to hear the gospel, also believe that these rituals/ordinances can be performed for the deceased by living proxies (like pinch-hitting). Because it is impossible to determine if individuals have accepted the efficacy of these rituals in the afterlife (meaning they want to become Mormons), Mormons have decided that they will just do the ordinances for everyone and those that don’t want to accept them don’t have to. Thus, in a quite literal sense, Mormons intend to convert not only everyone that is currently living, but also everyone that has ever lived.

In their goal to accomplish this, the Mormon Church has encouraged its members (and even funded some individuals) to do genealogical research – looking up the names and relevant information (birth, death, marriages, etc.) for the deceased. This information is collected centrally and members of the religion that have participated in these rituals then act as proxies for the deceased in these rituals. With the exception of Sunday and major holidays, thousands of these ordinances are performed every day in LDS temples around the world in the Mormon Church’s never ending quest to convert everyone to Mormonism.

This book relates how some individuals’ received “divine” help and guidance that facilitated their goal of collecting names and information in order for the deceased to receive these ordinances.

Review:
With that lengthy introduction, let me make a few, brief comments about the book.

As far as the writing goes, there are no Pulitzer Prize winning contributions. The stories are written by the individuals involved, but thankfully, the editors (Rector and Deputy) paid close enough attention to the writing that the grammar and spelling mistakes are nearly non-existent. It isn’t brilliant writing, but it does get the job done.

Normally, I am very critical of faith-promoting writing. Much of it makes unsubtantiated claims with which I take issue. Even though I am inclined to see the experiences related in the book as coincidental occurrences, hallucinatory dream sequences, or accounts that have been revised after the fact in order to bolster religious faith, the authors never really make historical fact claims. As a result, I don’t think the book can be criticized from this perspective. The authors hold no pretenses that this book is a logical argument for the existence of a god or the actuality of his influence. It says it is faith-promoting, and it approaches every experience with that perspective in mind.

I should note that, as an agnostic that used to be a Mormon, I do not believe in supernature (or at least do not believe there is proof of supernature). Every one of the accounts in the book can be explained in ways that do not include divine intervention. The book does not argue for supernature; supernature is assumed. When you approach life with an understanding that there is an active god, it isn’t too difficult to see his hand in pretty much everything, but since the authors don’t try to hide this fact, so be it.

Overall, the book isn’t particularly well-written but neither is it unreadable. I may not agree with the causal attributions in the stories (that they are divine), but since there are virtually no attempts to claim anything other than that which is unprovable (the existence of supernature), I can’t help but give this book an adequate rating.

Caplovitz, D., and F. Sherrow. 1977. The religious drop-outs: Apostasy among college graduates. Beverly Hills, California: Sage.

Rating:
8

Summary:
The book originated as a class paper, then a PhD dissertation, and ultimately turned into a book. Also, the original focus of the book was to be just on the religious experiences and identities of Jewish college students, but in expanding the project it became apparent that extending the analysis to Catholics and Protestants was worthwhile. Ultimately, “[t]he chief objective of [the] monograph [is] to discover the determinants of apostasy among American college graduates” (p. 31).

The bulk of the findings in the book are based on a 1961 NORC survey in which about 33,000 college graduates were asked questions about their college experience. However, the survey included two important questions: ‘In which religion were you raised?’ and ‘What is your current religion?’ When the answer to the second was ‘none’ but the respondent included a religion when asked the first question, the authors considered the respondent an ‘apostate’ (someone who leaves a religion). The authors then explore the characteristics of apostates in contrast to ‘identifiers’ or people who remained in the religion in which they were raised.

The main findings of the book include:
-The apostasy rate for Jews and Protestants in 1961 was around 15% (that percentage of people raised in the religion left by the time they graduated from college; for Catholics in that year it was around 9% (pp. 32-33).
-People in the West are the most likely to apostatize or not belong to a religion; people in the south are the least likely (p. 43).
-Protestant and Catholic men are almost twice as likely to apostatize as are Protestant and Catholic women; Jewish women are just slightly less likely than are Jewish men (p. 46).
-Closeness of relationship with one’s parents is also an indicator of apostasy; the closer one’s relationship growing up and one’s present relationship, the less likely the person is to apostatize (p. 51; however, this statistic has been questioned by later research – see Hunsberger’s work in the 1980s).
-Those who consider themselves “intellectually oriented” are up to three times more likely to apostatize than those who do not ponder “deep” questions or engage in academic pursuits (pp. 57 & 76).
-Liberals are more likely than conservatives to apostatize (p. 64).
-College is a breeding ground for apostasy; there are more apostates at the end of college then at the beginning (p. 109); also, the quality of a school makes a big differences, “Apostasy increases as the quality of the school increases” (p. 111).
-Not attending graduate school was associated with a decline in apostasy rates; attending graduate school increased apostasy rates (p. 147).
-Mixed religion marriages are more likely to lead to apostasy than are marriages between two people of the same religion (p. 154).

Review:
The book is fairly well-written and includes, in the introduction, a detailed explanation of why the primary data source is so old (1961) in light of the publication date of the book (1977) – the co-author, Sherrow, passed away in 1971 while working on the book and it was quite a while before the lead author, Caplovitz, was able to finish up the project.

The data analysis for the book consists of mostly t-tests and elaboration models in which certain variables are held constant in order to test for specific effects (this is a forerunner of regression analysis). Using such models, the authors generate a number of tables that clearly illustrate the relationships outlined above.

There are a few problems with the findings of the book, which is the only criticism I have of it. First, as has been the case with a number of other studies, this study finds that religious apostates are not as happy as religious identifiers (people who stay). The authors begin to hint at where this relationship might stem from, but they don’t really conclude the thought, “In fact, instead of being an antidote to unhappiness as the Zelan-Greeley substitute religion theory would hold, intellectualism turns out to be negatively related to happiness. Both apostasy and intellectualism seem to be causes of unhappiness, working in the same, rather than opposite, directions” (p. 93). What the authors fail to do is hold intellectualism constant and then test for differences in happiness. I’m fairly certain that if you were to do so you would find that apostates are no more likely to be unhappy than identifiers; the happiness component is intimately tied to intellectualism not to whether or not you are religious.

Another finding that warrants additional research is the idea proposed by the authors that apostates tend to be alienated, “The person who is ready to sever his ties with any major institutional sector of society-in this case, a religious community-is apt to be the alienated person-a type of continuing interest to sociologists” (p. 35). I think a clearer notion of what is meant by alienation is warranted, as is a retest of this notion both at present and in other countries where religiosity is not as pervasive as it is in the U.S.

Finally, while perhaps unintentional, the author has a tendency to use pejorative adjectives in describing the traits of apostates (e.g., rebellious, alienated, etc.). Whether you choose to present such traits in the negative or positive is in the eye of the beholder. Rather than calling apostates one might call them “trendsetters” or “revolutionaries” or “iconoclasts”. This does away with the negative connotations of leaving religion, which some people will certainly find objectionable.

Overall, this is a very good book despite the fact that the findings are dated and limited to a precise age group – recent college graduates. It remains a primary source for delineating predictors of apostasy and is a must read for anyone interested in the subject.