I'm wondering if the Mormon work-ethic and their material success in this-world is directly linked to their conception of heaven. I've noticed many leaders among the Mormon church are very successful financially, the Mormon church itself heavily invests in profitable projects, and even the Harvard business school has a lot of Mormons...
In contract you have in Catholicism a sense that living in poverty is actually the highest ideal. Renouncing all personal possessions, etc. though few live up to the ideal.
Now if we look at the Catholic idea of the beatific vision, everything material is merely temporary, a delusion, keeping one from focusing entirely on God. That is, maybe your worldly endeavors could lead you to hell, and you're a lot better off renouncing everything.
In the Mormon Heaven, there is a sense that one may possibly progress to working with or for God in a real material sense. Literally helping children in another world reach God...
Now if one images their present situation as being a "training" the tasks such as leadership, organization, managing to have a beautiful home, etc. could in some sense be parallel or almost preparation for the highest task.
In a sense, leading and nurturing a healthy and successful family is literally parallel to the work God does and possibly our Heavenly work, and the above are merely extensions.
This is all, of course, entirely speculative.
It seems to me this line of thought regarding "training" has something very right about it.
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I find the idealization of poverty a difficult issue - on the one hand, it's obviously true that a focus on and valuing of wealth can lead to harm and interfere with one's relationship with God. On the other, we try to alleviate poverty, and there are obvious goods that go along with certain kinds of material wealth.
Similarly, even the 'poor' in a place like the U.S. of Europe will typically have more material wealth than the 'wealthy' of 2,000 years ago. Ought these 'poor' really renounce their wealth (much more so people higher up the economic ladder)?
This tension goes back to the Gospels. When Jesus supposedly says it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, is he talking about relative wealth? Or, is he talking about wealthy people in that specific time (who might have certain characteristics - as opposed to how material wealth is typically generated nowadays)? Or is he talking about the specific wealthy, young man, who apparently did value his possessions more than a relationship with God?
I am wondering what the typical Mormon interpretation of these kinds of passages is, given Mormon material wealth - does the unique Mormon scripture provide a basis for one interpretation rather than another?
Perhaps this is OT.
My interpretation of the passage hinges on the apostles response (the surprise). I think they were surprised because there was a notion that wealth was linked to favor from God. That is, if the rich can't get, who possibly can?
DeleteChrist doesn't explicitly reject their notion, but says all things are possible through God. I think we might also consider the Good Samaritan where the rich man is cast in a positive light for using his wealth to assist his neighbor.
From what I understand about Mormons there has been a little bit of "prosperity Gospel" (wealth linked to God's favor) among a minority of Mormons at some times, but at the recent conference one of the speakers specifically said that wealth does not mean one is favored or more holy. The Book of Mormon is fairly explicit about helping the needy.
I think you're absolutely right about needing to keep things in context. My understanding is that "helping the poor" biblically meant giving people basic calories (e.g. bread) when they were literally starving to death or suffering debilitating diseases - not giving hand-outs to people with housing, TVs, and poor financial skills.
Thanks for this information - interesting.
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