Sunday, September 5, 2010

Paradigms of Conversion

Here's a link to a pipedreams presentation on the organs of Utah. This is one of my favorite public radio shows (especially for Sunday) and an interesting topic. Check it out.

It's a source of great pride and humor that as a Church we entrust a good part of our growth to inexperienced young men and women. The perhaps apocryphal quote from J. Golden Kimble is one of my all time favorites as it speaks to a real truth. We send boys and girls into a world about which they know very little and for which they are barely prepared to stand as representatives of the Church. Yet the system works by and large. It does so because of the Holy Ghost and the capacity the Lord grants all his servants to work beyond their natural abilities. We could go into the many miracles that we've all seen but I think I'll leave that to those who are better at writing inspirational posts than I.

I did want to point out something that occurred to me the other night while reading the missionary accounts of the sons of Mosiah. When they first arrived amongst the Lamanites all the brothers but Ammon followed what I think is the common inclination of missionaries. They went to preach to those with whom they thought they should share a common language, that is the Nephite apostates dwelling amongst the Lamanites. Now we all know the story, only one convert from the entire group.

Ammon on the other hand went to a people that were completely devoid of understanding of Nephite religion. From a philosophy of science perspective you would consider this the difference of paradigms. While they could speak of God they would do so using different languages. Despite these differences Ammon converted masses amongst the Lamanites.

This paradigmatic difference is seen even more sharply when you consider King Lamoni's father. The words he uses when he's praying following Aaron's teaching are these "O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me." These are not the words of someone who comes from a common tradition but of someone who's religion is totally alien to the one being taught. In modern terms it is analogous to teaching non-Christians or those not religious.

The advantage that I see for the sons of Mosiah, is that by teaching a group completely devoid of understanding of "Nephite faith" they were able to: 1. start from the beginning and lay the whole panorama of salvation out, and 2. avoid the misapprehensions that so often cloud conversion by those coming a different branch of the same paradigm-tree. Pedagogically I don't think this means that we should change our teaching methods but I certainly think it means that we shouldn't prejudge those who would be receptive to gospel truths.

3 comments:

Roy said...

Stew,
Sorry to take so long in commenting, but I found this entry insightful and thought-provoking. I've been reading some stuff about neuroscience recently, and there's something to the value of learning the unknown and unfamiliar as a way of experiencing real growth. It resonates well here--gospel learning might be best when we don't have much experience and the attendant preconceptions. Good stuff.

Bill said...

(Preface - I served a mission in Taiwan. I taught only a handful of people who had previous exposure to Christianity. The predominant religion being Buddhism with several other flavors mixed in.)

I recall an illustration in one of our missionary handbooks with 2 American missionaries sitting with a small Chinese family teaching them them about Joseph Smith's first vision. In the thought bubble of the missionaries is the typical depiction of a young Joseph in the grove with two glorious beings above him. In the thought bubble of the Chinese family was a young Chinese boy in a bamboo grove with two Buddhist gods appearing before him. That one simple illustration made me laugh and taught me a very important lesson about the paradigmatic differences of the people I was teaching. (Although at the time I didn't know what a paradigm was...which goes right back to your previous point about being inexperienced.)

dastew said...

From my own experience as a missionary in France I must say that I was ill equipped to teach my fellow Christian's (in this sense those from a western tradition). I lacked the experience and expertise that they had and couldn't relate with them in many ways. I was much more successful in teaching African Christians (a most idiosyncratic form of Christianity if I do say so myself), Muslims, and those with limited Christian experience.

I would say that as an adult I am much better able to talk to my fellow Christians than I was at 20. Perhaps this is the unspoken goal of missionary work. The brethren undoubtedly know this. In the end this could be the reason we have Member missionary work. We as adults in the community can connect with some that the missionaries could not.