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Charity Never Faileth
By Rob "Rareay" from the LDS Issues Forum
The more I interact with critics of our church, the more I'm drawn to 1 Corinthians 13. It's the chapter about charity. I've found that just about every time charity is present on both sides of an issue, mutual growth, understanding, and respect happens. These things do not occur where neither side, or only one side, exhibits charity.
These are good words to keep in mind as we go through life interacting with people:
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1 Corinthians 13
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
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Here's a related story. Truman Madsen, now retired as Richard L. Evans Professor of Christian Understanding at Brigham Young University, relates an instructive anecdote about a great New Testament scholar, Krister Stendahl. Stendahl, who taught at Harvard for many years and served as the dean of Harvard Divinity School, also spent a few years as the Lutheran bishop of Stockholm.
During Stendahl's tenure there, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built a temple nearby. As commonly happens when Mormons build a temple, there was complaining, puzzlement, and some opposition among the local people. Bishop Stendahl, who has Latter-day Saint friends and had visited Brigham Young University, reacted dramatically and quite unexpectedly.
He called a press conference, and held it in an LDS stake center. There, among other things, he outlined to the Swedish press three principles that he thought should govern our discussions of the religious beliefs of other people. Prof. Madsen, who was there, summarizes them as:
(1) If you want to know what others believe, ask them. Don't ask their critics or their enemies. (2) When looking at the religious faith of others, compare your best with their best, not their worst with your best. (3) Always leave room for "holy envy."
Some explanation and examples will make these three principles clearer.
The first should be fairly obvious. Enemies of a religious faith are unlikely to present it as its believers would. They are, in fact, quite likely to distort it and caricature it -- unwittingly if they are honest, deliberately if (as all too often happens) they are unscrupulous and seek only a cheap and easy victory. This does not necessarily mean that there is no place for critics, or for listening to them. But if we really want to understand another religion, they should not be our first resource.
The second principle is "When looking at the religious faith of others, compare your best with their best, not their worst with your best." We commonly hear people contrast the loving ethics taught by Jesus in the New Testament with the acts of self-proclaimed Islamic terrorists. But it is not at all fair to compare our seldom-achieved moral ideal with horrid crimes that are, despite their prominence in the newspapers and on television, still relatively rare among the world's hundreds of millions of Muslims. The butchery of the "Christian" crusades would be a more appropriate comparison to Islamic terrorism. And the death decree against Salman Rushdie should not be compared to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, but to the Inquisition and the burnings of heretics that punctuated the history of the West and lack real parallel in the Islamic East.
Stendahl reminded his Swedish audience of the human element that unavoidably affects even the most pure beliefs. If a religion is revealed, it is nonetheless revealed through fallible mortals. Alluding to the explanation on the title page of the Book of Mormon that "if there are faults they are the mistakes of men," this eminent Lutheran theologian commented that such frankness increased his confidence in the book, rather than decreasing it [Italics added].
Finally, Stendahl counseled his audience to leave room for what he termed "holy envy." We can learn greatly from faithful practitioners and believers of other faiths. The loving, joyous reverence of Orthodox Jews for the Sabbath -- far from the cold, mechanical legalism of the stereotype -- challenges us whose observance of the Lord's day is often routine and perfunctory. Likewise, we can profit by reflecting upon the Jewish passion for religious learning, the simplicity and service of the Mennonites, the heroism of Protestant missionaries under terribly difficult conditions, and the social idealism of Dorothy Day and her Catholic Worker movement.
Regarding Mormons and their temples, Stendahl suggested baptism for the dead as an object of "holy envy." We do nothing for our dead, he said. It is as if we have forgotten them. In contrast, he observed, the Latter-day Saints seek to bring the blessings of Christ's atonement even to the dead.
At a minimum, observing Krister Stendahl's three principles would eliminate much of the religious strife in a world that is growing ever smaller and more interdependent and that can no longer afford such conflict.
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