the stigma of early return the stigma of early return - Sunstone ...

S U N S T O N E
wrote in her book, Forest For the Trees,
“Writing is nothing if not breaking the silence.”
On Saturday, 18 September 1993, I sat
alone in Seattle, Washington, reading a newspaper
article, “Mormon Church Purges
Perceived Heretics.” I had lost everything
from the warmth and love of family to my
own identity. Six Mormons had been chastised
by the Church and were made to experience
the violence we call excommunication
and disfellowshipment—metaphorical death
by any other name. A real war was taking
place. Those six had embraced their light
while one wimp still hung about in the dark
of silence and ambiguity. Sobering in a
nanosecond, I realized it was more painful to
live in silence than to break it. I started writing
that September. I wrote until I found my
form, stride, and best of all my identity. This
summer, my book, Ghost Between Us, will be
on the shelves.
Alas, “September Six” can never be
“September Seven,” but I can honor them.
They and others like them saw their light and
went before. Their energy gave us SUNSTONE
and Dialogue. I still have that newspaper article
on a wall in my study. I look one day to
tell those six brave souls and people like
Peggy thanks in person. Until then, this will
have to do.
MIKE OBORN
Bellevue, Washington
GREATER GOODS
IENJOYED THE ARTICLE, “GUITARS IN
Church,” by Gael D. Ulrich (SUNSTONE,
Dec. 2002). I’ve seen similar situations in
Church music. Last year, a young non-member
married to a member moved into our
ward. He was a talented organist and, after a
short time, was called to be one of the ward
organists, and he accepted. His prelude music
was a treat for most of us, but the ward
music leader fretted that it was not in keeping
with the instructions for Church music. She
was torn about whether to say anything or
not. I suggested that he was really in the ward
temporarily, that playing gave him a chance
to contribute, that most of us were enjoying
something different for a time, and that when
he moved, he could leave with having been
accepted and knowing he contributed. I suggested
a greater good would be accomplished
by not being heavy-handed in following the
handbook. He moved sooner than expected,
and the situation took care of itself. But I
surely miss his variations on the hymns! I
hope he is accepted to play wherever he
might attend.
I also enjoyed Dan Wotherspoon’s editorial,
“Saving the Whole World.” I wasn’t
quite as struck by Elder Ballard’s remarks
about missionary “bar-raising” since it
seemed a reiteration of what has been said
before. I viewed this as another example of
how much time the Church spends trying
to get local leaders to follow counsel already
given. When I read Dan’s great personal
story, I don’t see that if he were to come
along now, he would be excluded. He did
something to change and go rather than being
sent with the hope that something
would change him.
I’ve never been a bishop nor a mission
president but I served in a mission with a
large number of disobedient missionaries
who were a huge drain on the mission president’s
energy. And in most of these cases, I
don’t think the mission did much for the
missionary. I estimate that about 20 percent
were in this category. There were probably 60
percent for whom the mission functioned
primarily as a time of development or, as the
saying goes, was “as much for the missionaries
themselves as for the work they did.”
Preparation, motivation, and spiritual development
all have to be carefully weighed in
missionary callings, but miracles do happen.
So who knows? I heard Elder Ballard as saying
those who recommend potential missionaries
must be very careful but that
extending calls will never be a black and
white situation.
THOMAS D. COPPIN
Bountiful, Utah
THE CASE FOR PROPHECY
IREAD WITH INTEREST BRIAN STUY’S
short piece, “Romancing the Stone,” about
perceived problems in dating of the Old
Testament book of Daniel (SUNSTONE, Oct.
2002). Unfortunately, Stuy considers only
one side of the “Daniel Question,” and a
dated one at that.
This battle over dating the book of Daniel
has been raging for sixteen centuries.
Traditional Judaism and Christianity believe
Daniel was written in the sixth century B.C.,
by a Jewish official of the Babylonian court
named Belteshazzar (the Hebrew name for
Daniel). Like Stuy, most members of the
academy argue it was written in the middle
of the second century B.C.
In examining this question, however, we
must remember that the basis for the disagreement
is primarily the result of the academy’s
skepticism about things religious.
Daniel, you see, is a casualty of its own exactness.
The book of Daniel portrays the period
between the Exile of the Jews in Babylon and
the birth of Christ with great precision—too
much precision, say academics. They label
Daniel vaticinia ex eventu, meaning “prophecy
after the event,” meaning it could only have
been written as history, not prophecy. The
foundation of this criticism is the denial of
prophecy: God could not have revealed the
events to Daniel, so his account could not
have been written until after they had occurred.
Yet if one believes that God can speak
to prophets, the accuracy of Daniel’s account
is to be expected, not criticized.
Among the arguments Stuy echoes is the
claim that Daniel’s use of the Hebrew and
Aramaic languages “assert a much later date”
than the sixth century B.C. Stuy suggests the
language used reflects a linguistic tradition
“arising only about 200 B.C.” This is simply
untrue. The Aramaic used in Daniel, for example,
is now referred to as “Imperial
Aramaic” and was a unique dialect used primarily
for government business. Discoveries
and analyses over the last century, such as the
Papyri from Elephantine Island (Biblical
Yeb), have dispelled these criticisms. Far
from arising later, this dialect had completely
disappeared before 300 B.C., well before
Daniel’s suggested date of authorship.
Next, Stuy echoes the incorrect identification
of the “breast and arms of silver”
(Daniel 2:32) as representing Media. This
is interesting because the Median Empire
had disappeared by the time of the second
kingdom mentioned in the Nebuchadnezzar’s
vision. The Medes were absorbed
into the Persian Empire when Cyrus defeated
Astyages, his grandfather and last
king of the Median Empire, about 559 B.C.
Babylon did not fall until 539 B.C., so, because
they had already been replaced
themselves, the Medes could not have replaced
the Babylonians. Stuy incorrectly
states that Babylon “was overthrown by the
Medes (silver kingdom).” Babylon was in
fact conquered by the Persians. While the
remnants of the Medes played a significant
role, it was as a part of the fledgling Persian
Empire under Cyrus. Since Stuy’s analysis
of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is incorrect
from the start, the subsequent information
is also incorrect. The “Brass Empire” was
the Greek empire of Alexander, not Persia,
and the “Iron” that of Rome instead of
Greece.
There are several other problems with
Stuy’s claims (all of which are based on common
academic theories), but I will focus only
on the assertion that dating the book is possible
because Daniel’s prophecies faltered
when the Maccabees “failed to free the Jews
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