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So what do YOU think?

So what do YOU think?

Last updated on: May 13, 2023 at 1:24 pm by Dan Peterson

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So what do YOU think? 2023-05-13T13:24:39-06:00 Dan Peterson

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Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas. I’m looking right out the window at it as I write.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

At least half, and probably more, of the flights that I’ve taken in the past year or two have ended up being substantially delayed or altogether cancelled. (Back on 1 August of last year, in a blog entry here, I celebrated a wonderful day on which I spent nine hours traveling from my house to my house while trying to give a fireside in Irvine, California; my journey included some wonderful views of Las Vegas from a circling airliner that then returned to Salt Lake City.)

Yesterday was one more instance. Ed Snow and I were to fly from Provo (!) down to Las Vegas for some fundraising. How wonderful to be able to fly from Provo, only a few minutes from my house! When we arrived at the airport, though, we found that our flight had just been cancelled. (I must add that the problem was evidently in Las Vegas, not in Provo.) But seats were available on Sunday — except that our fundraising meeting is tonight, Saturday. So we managed to find a rental car and we drove, arriving last night.

I have long tried to avoid flying on the day of an event. Too many things can go wrong. And recent experiences have only fortified that resolve.

Another view of my current “Sitz im Leben.” (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Here’s an issue of church and state that bears watching: “Is the Pope Catholic? Yes, but Wisconsin Rules This Catholic Charity Is Not ‘Primarily’ Religious”

Roughly the area where I’m sitting at the moment. Inside, mercifully! (Wikimedia CC photo)

I happened across an interesting question two or three days ago from a former Latter-day Saint convert who has recently, to my sorrow, turned evangelical Protestant. As a preface to the question, though, I think that I’ll provide Jesus’s parable of the Prodigal Son, from Luke 15, to refresh memories. And, for the sake of freshness, I’ll do it in the New International Version:

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

Now, here’s the question that was posed: Apparently, in commentary on his parable, both Elder Bruce R. McConkie and then-Elder Joseph Fielding Smith said that, yes, the repentance of the younger son would be accepted. But, they wrote, he would not receive the same degree of blessing as the unfailingly loyal and righteous elder son would. Asked the former Latter-day Saint believer: Do other believing Latter-day Saints agree with Elders Smith and McConkie in this regard?

Here’s my response: I’m reluctant to disagree with Bruce R. McConkie and Joseph Fielding Smith. I have enormous respect for them and for the offices that they held and, in any case, I’m always tentative on matters of doctrinal speculation. But I’m still willing, where I think it warranted and where they have not claimed specific direct revelation as support for their stances, to differ from their opinions. And, well, this is one case where, yes, I disagree with their apparent stance. I humbly dissent. (I’m taking the questioner’s word for their positions; I don’t recall their comments specifically, and I’m not able, at the moment, to consult their works.)

I’ve sometimes posed questions along the following lines to Church classes:

Suppose there is a man who has lived a bad and ignoble life, but who comes in contact with the missionaries, believes their message, receives it sincerely, genuinely repents, and changes his ways. Can he still receive the same reward as someone who was unfailingly faithful throughout her life? (Overwhelmingly, people have responded “Yes.”)
Suppose, to make it worse, that he is run over by a truck while en route to his baptism. Will he be penalized for having failed to be baptized? (Overwhelmingly, people have responded “No.”)
Will a person who leads a righteous life but dies at twenty-four receive a lesser reward than someone who has led a comparably righteous life that lasts ninety-five years? After all, the first person has inevitably performed fewer good works than the person who lived seventy-one more years. (Overwhelmingly, people have responded “No.”)

The parable of The Workers in the Vineyard, given in Matthew 20, seems relevant to me here:

1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Now, I realize that there are other issues involved in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Most significant in the negative is the fact that the prodigal isn’t merely a late convert. He’s someone who had “known the Gospel” but who had, for a time, rejected it.

On the other hand, it seems to me that the parable breaks down a bit at this point, when we try to compare it to the inheritance of eternal life: However rich the prodigal’s father might have been, his resources were necessarily finite. He had already divided up his estate and the prodigal had burned through the portion that he had received as the youngest son and heir. Coming back now, anything he receives is inescapably coming from the remaining, diminished portion of the estate, which means that the eldest son’s share is being reduced. But Heavenly Father’s “estate” is inexhaustibly rich, infinite, and salvation is not a zero sum game. If I happen somehow to make it to the celestial kingdom, you will not suffer, you will not be the poorer for it. (Otherwise, perhaps we ought to call our missionaries back, we ought not to wish that our prodigal relatives return, so that our shares in the coming life might be apportioned among fewer heirs to salvation!)

What do you think?

Posted from Las Vegas, Nevada

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