The Dangers of Extremism, Fanaticism, and Skepticism | Donald Cannon | 1979

[Music] thank you president thomas for that generous introduction and thank you keith for that beautiful invocation my brothers and sisters i do regard it as an honor and a privilege to have been asked to to speak to you today in this devotional assembly i have spoken in youth conferences and firesides and in state conference but i think never have i felt the need to say something meaningful and helpful to those who had listened and as i thought about what i might discuss with you today at first i was tempted to turn to my first line of research interest in first love in a sense church history and to draw directly from that field and then felt that would not be appropriate for a devotional that in this setting in a devotional as brother missouri has indicated in his eloquent prayer we ought to preach and we ought to be about the business of saying things which will be in accordance with our father's will and which will be spiritually enlightening and stimulating and so i then set about the task of trying through my teaching experience here on campus to identify that message which i felt would be most relevant at this time for this audience and so i arrived at what may seem an unusual topic the dangers of extremism fanaticism and skepticism it's been interesting as i have had occasion to talk to some of those on campus during the last two or three weeks as i've been working on this dress and have mentioned the title almost invariably they have taken one side or the other and have said yes that skepticism really is a terrible problem or fanaticism that's the real issue and have failed to see the the overall picture and the balance that i'm trying to stress in talking about this subject today let me begin now by relating an incident which occurred about a year ago on july 31st 1978 emmanuel david borrowed a hose in a pickup truck went into a local canyon and committed suicide three days later his wife and seven children jumped from the 11th floor balcony of a salt lake hotel all but one died one daughter rachel was just released last week from a salt lake hospital david in the news articles was identified as a former mormon last summer and again in the fall a number of my students asked me what went wrong how could a mormon do such a thing the problem i believe is related to a broader issue and is related to a quote that i would like to give you from sidney rigdon piety without intelligence is fanaticism in other words emotional religion without intellectual control equals fanaticism rigged in saying however can be inverted intellect without faith equals skepticism the point is there must be a balance now the lord has a formula for this as all other things in our lives and i would turn now to section 88 and read part of verse 118 seek learning even by study and also by faith this i would suggest to you brothers and sisters is not only a guide for study and for learning but for living as well the lord wants us to build both our faith and our intelligence listen as he says this in the 93rd section verses 36 and 37 the glory of god is intelligence or in other words light and truth light and truth forsake that evil one now according to my understanding light here refers to the spiritual subject matter or emphasis while truth refers to the intellectual subject or emphasis now in illustrating the dangers that exist on both ends of the spectrum both related to fanaticism and skepticism let me draw from church history some examples so one each from the 19th and 20th centuries to illustrate first fanaticism second skepticism and third balance that we ought to have in our lives first to illustrate fanaticism and from the 19th century james j strang first appeared among the mormons in february 1844 just four months prior to joseph smith's assassination as a matter of fact joseph had baptized strang in the baptismal font of the unfinished nauvoo temple yet within a month of the prophet's death this recent convert produced a letter ostensibly written by the prophet joseph smith and given to and sent to him just prior to the prophet's death strang argued that this letter designated him as joseph smith's true successor to support this bizarre claim strang delivered revelation many revelations in the thus saith the lord's style of joseph smith and called upon all latter-day saints everywhere to gather to vore wisconsin the new zion in a dramatic gesture strang dug up brass plates wrote testimonies for four witnesses translated the plates and published a book entitled the book of the law of the lord in short strang appeared to many disillusioned saints to represent a dramatic single successor to joseph smith indeed for a newcomer to the mormon faith strangs showed an extraordinary knowledge of mormon belief and practice through his own fanatic zeal force of personality and perhaps organizational skill this would-be prophet succeeded in attracting most mormons who felt uncomfortable about following brigham young indeed some of the leaders of the yet unfounded reorganized church followed strang for a considerable period of time while denouncing polygamy in public strang practiced it in private indeed his alleged male secretary charlie douglas was discovered to be one of his secret wives when he became mysteriously pregnant by 1855 this unusual leader had moved to his headquarters to beaver island in northern lake michigan where he then proclaimed himself king king of a movement now consisting of some 2500 followers this strange man succeeded in attracting enemies as well as adherents and in 1856 he fell victim to an assassination today a tiny group of followers remains essentially in the midwest and in new mexico in a paper presented at the may 1979 meeting of the mormon history association held at lamoni iowa graceland college lawrence foster a perceptive non-mormon scholar from georgia tech stated that strang was without a doubt the greatest of the early mormon schismatics another scholar this time of mormon klaus hansen has called strang one of the most creative individuals in mormon history now admitting his talent and his creativity i nevertheless feel compelled to conclude that strang was essentially motivated by fanaticism his actions and his words each attest to his fanatical frame of mind listen for example to a statement which he made early in his life he was resolved to be rivaled to caesar or napoleon to be a priest lawyer a conqueror or to contrive some way to marry the heiress of the british crown which would have been queen victoria such was the fanaticism of james j strang now the 20th century counterpart of strang is probably not emmanuel david whose story i told at the beginning it is more likely irvil lebaron as you are probably aware lebaron was recently brought to salt lake city to stand trial for the murder of a rival polygamist leader permit me to present some background material on lebaron verve lebron was originally affiliated with the mormon splinter group known as the church of the firstborn under the auspices of this group herbal aberrant and his brother joel founded a haven for polygamists in 1963 at los molinos mexico in the baja peninsula joel lebaron ervil's older brother served as the leader with irvil as second in command they soon disagreed and by 1970 irvi lebaron had founded his own sect the church of the lamb of god with headquarters in san diego from their california headquarters irvin lebaron and his followers began issuing books and tracks in which they claimed the authority to execute anyone who refused to accept irvil as god's representative here on the earth one such publication entitled contest at law which he co-authored with daniel jordan advanced a theological basis for killing other religious leaders whom they designated as impostors a key passage from that book reads god strictly commanded men to institute and carry out lawful and legitimate worship of him on the basis of the teaching of the civil law with the provision that anyone who should openly and presumptuously disregard this law should be executed in august 1972 joel lebaron was shot to death at his home in ensenada mexico irvine lebaron was arrested tried convicted jailed and then released after serving eight days of a sentence during the next two years lebaron warned the people of los molinas to repent and join his church failing to persuade them he and his followers firebombed the tiny community with molotov cocktails this is somewhat reminiscent to these conditions of the bob jones mass suicide and other problems that we have seen in guyana and elsewhere during the period 1974 77 at least 10 so-called opponents of the church of the lamb of god either disappeared or died in may of 1977 when dr rulin allred of murray utah fell victim to assassin's bullets a manhunt for irvil a baron began lebaron a tall imposing darkly handsome man seems totally obsessed by his brand of religion residents of the mexican village where he had been in hiding until his recent capture described him as me taught diablo or half devil that's the best spanish i can do certainly this self-proclaimed follower of the lamb of god has fallen victim to the very real danger of fanaticism now some illustrations one each from the 19th and 20th centuries to illustrate the problems of skepticism in my opinion perhaps the best example of 19th century skepticism as it relates to our church is the god bite movement concerning the god bites there have been two major schools of thought first most historians have characterized the god beyites as intellectual dissenters and reformers who disagreed with brigham young's strict policies and hope to guide the church into more progressive paths more recently ronald walker of the church historian staff has concluded that the god bites were religious revolutionaries whose aim was the transformation of mormonism both schools of thought however agree upon the essential skepticism of the god beyonds now some of the god-bite descenders will be familiar to you they included e.l.t harrison william godby massa lyman edward tullage william sherman and tbh and fanny stenhouse harrison and tullej both of whom were new converts in england began their protests very early against mormonism when they published articles of dissent in the millennial star after they gathered to zion they published people day a magazine which publicized other points of view at variance with church leaders by 1864 god be who gave the name its movement had joined their cause and others soon became affiliated now as the god bites continued their work their skepticism deepened edward tullis writing about it later said we were settling down into a philosophic state of religion anchoring faith in the divine mission of the world rather than the mission of any special prophet in january 1868 they commenced publishing the utah magazine with harrison as editor and god be as publisher in the pages of the utah magazine the first indications of spiritualism appeared as a substitute for their now defunct faith in mormonism the god beites turned to spiritualism which was very fashionable at that time strangely enough spiritualism had its roots in the same soil same new york soil that nurtured mormonism both mormonism and spiritualism developed in the burned over district of upstate new york in september 1868 harrison and godby traveled to new york city then the center of spiritualism where they claimed to experience 50 seances they recorded visits from such people as joseph smith jesus christ peter john solomon alexander von humboldt they resolved to return to utah now and try to convert brigham young and the saints to their newly revealed religion obviously they would encounter some opposition during the winter of 1868-69 they attacked the economic policies of the church while rejecting the priesthood and promoting spiritualism by october of 69 the god beites forced an open controversy with brigham young and the council of the twelve the leaders responded in a remarkably patient manner for example president young called a special committee orson pratt wilford woodruff and george cucannon to go with the home teachers or as they were called block teachers to dissuade them from their course when patience and persuasion failed to work the leaders of the god-bite movement were summoned before the salt lake stake high council which handled all matters of church discipline in that area including the general authorities and in that tribunal george cucannon gave his now famous definition of apostasy apostasy he declared was not simply disagreement with church leaders but active opposition in and the attempt to persuade others that church leaders are in error following their excommunication the leaders of this movement founded the god be it church of zion but within five years this movement had peaked and then dwindled quickly into obscurity now my example of skepticism in the 20th century does not come from church history but from my own experience and to avoid embarrassment here possible embarrassment i will use a suit on him of john i first met john in berlin in 1958 we were both serving as mormon missionaries and although we never worked together as companions we had occasion to visit and became rather close friends our paths frequently crossed and toward the end of our time in the mission field we were both on the mission staff at the headquarters john was one of the most interesting bright and fascinating people i have ever met his talents and abilities covered a wide range and he had a magnetic personality a very very effective missionary after an honorable release he returned home married his high school sweetheart and settled down into his college studies although we lived some distance apart we had occasion to be together several times in the next few years we belonged at one time to a little study group and i remember once in a little group that where he was in attendance how impressed i was with his ability to grasp material and to communicate what a beautiful facility for communication he was blessed with but i noticed too a tendency to question church procedure and policy now as the years passed and our visits together were less frequent i still found evidence of of an increasingly skeptical attitude not only toward the church but toward many things i was saddened but i was not really surprised to learn a few years ago that john had apostatized from the church left his wife and children and was pursuing a quote new life for himself of course his wife children and parents were shocked and tried everything possible to get him back on the right course but to no avail about two years ago he called me here at my office and asked to meet me i made an appointment but he failed to keep it since then i have learned from others that he has continued on his wayward course having cut his spiritual roots his life is now as near as i can perceive it devoid of meaning and he is wandering aimlessly unsure of anything whenever i think about john i am overcome with feelings of sadness i am sad because of what john has done to himself and because i think the church has lost a man who could contribute much now some illustrations to point out the importance of achieving a balance in our life and avoiding either skepticism or fanaticism obviously if i'm looking for a 19th century example joseph smith wouldn't be bad the prophet of the restoration carefully avoided extremes to many of his contemporaries he his life was the epitome of the balanced life here was a man who communed with deity and yet fraternized with man among his closest friends were both the unschooled brigham young and the highly educated orson spencer men women and children from all walks of life felt at ease and comfortable in his presence listen to some of those who knew the prophet jesse and smith called him the most godlike man i ever saw while john chidester was impressed that he had encountered the greatest man on earth to daniel mcarthur joseph smith seemed to possess more power and force of character than any ordinary man to my great-grandfather angus m cannon he saw the mormon prophet as one of the grandest examples of manhood i ever saw now these are not the statements generally attributed to an extremist but rather to a man whose life has poison balance and equilibrium thus the eloquent parley p pratt could describe joseph smith's character as benevolent his intelligence as universal and his language abounding in original eloquence parley said furthermore that joseph could have his audience laughing at one moment and weeping at the next even his most in veteran enemies were often overcome if they would but listen to the prophet the prophet's sense of humor stands as impressive evidence of his balanced life joseph recognized as unhealthy the mind which lacked balance perspective and humor in his day some who claimed to be religious said that humor was incompatible with religion joseph smith on the other hand saw human religion as quite reconcilable while recognizing that life was serious business joseph knew the value of genuine humor i might say parenthetically that i had thought to present an example of his humor but 19th century humor is such a long ways away that i think i won't do that the prophet was not a monk who remained in monastic isolation he enjoyed being with people and participating in sports and recreation in his day wrestling was a very popular sport and joseph engaged in it either for fun or because he was challenged to do so in his journal he wrote i wrestle with william wall the most expert wrestler in ramus and through him on one occasion a minister visited the prophet and he carried his sanctimonious behavior to such extremes that the prophet just couldn't stand it i suppose and so he he said let's wrestle and the minister was overcome just shocked and uh so the prophet acted as if he were wrestling with him i guess without really doing so and then giving him a little sermon on the christian follies of the day so-called christian follies and then giving him a good sermon on avoiding piety excessive piety or fanaticism leonard arrington the church historian has summed up the character of joseph smith by saying that joseph was a pious individual but not inhibited ernest but not fanatical and had a warm affectionate personality a prophet who was both sincere and playful a wonderful exemplar of the precept man is that he might have joy now for the 20th century i would do no better than to select president kimmel his life his entire life is i think a true example of balance and by the way i'm drawing here from his excellent biography by his son and grandson and i might say that this is one of the most marvelous books ever to issue from an lds press not only because of its realistic treatment and honest treatment but because it's being read which is very unusual for an lds book yeah allow me to present some examples drawn from this book there is a balance between hard work on the one hand and and recreation on the other during the 1930s when he was an aspiring real estate man and a member of a presidency a mistake and and a busy family man he would sometimes work all through the night without any sleep and that to me is hard to imagine under even those conditions and yet he did that very frequently at the same time during the same year that he was doing that he attended 38 movies and so there is some balance here maybe during the night uh he pushed his children as we all do to get uh to to achieve their potential to get a good education and when ed who is a faculty member here studied too hard as a as his father perceived it he said friends are important too don't just just get bees if you have to don't be too narrow he was there's a balance between seriousness and humor there's no one more serious than president kimball when he gives a talk or when he counsels or is in interviews and yet in private and appropriately there is the the humorous side uh the story is told in that book again of a quartet composed of members of the twelve uh president kimball ezra taft benson marquis peterson and matthew calley uh which would be a very interesting quartet and they sang at a party for the 12 about a cure for baldness whenever i use this example i'm always in the wrong company uh last time it was rick warner uh i won't say who but anyway uh legrand richards and milton r hunter both of whom had very little hair came out dressed in wigs after they sang this song and so so there's a balance there president kimball is not subject to classification he's not a liberal he's not a conservative he's not strict he's not lenient he's balanced for example during the 50s when he was a member of the 12 he spoke many times here at byu and stressed the style of our own which in large measure has reinforced the address standards that we observed today and somewhat earned the reputation of being uh rather strict in a kind of joseph feeling smith way and yet during that same period on a world tour he came up with some rather rather interesting and rather flexible ideas for example in burma he suggested after touring that area that we not have a traditional mission staff with the family and the missionaries and so on but rather just send individuals in to do missionary work and we have done that to some extent now in in nigeria and elsewhere um he then went on to karachi pakistan and there he commended a couple a baptist couple who were running an orphanage for real christian faith in action now president kimball has stressed missionary work very very extensively but not at the expense of other areas he has also pushed temple work genealogy family home evening morality developing a relationship with christ his is not a one-theme hobby horse gospel he has said lengthen your stride and at the same time cut back he has suggested that we do more and do it more effectively but that we cut out some unnecessary meetings now both of these good men joseph smith and spencer w kimball served of course the savior jesus christ and were his representatives and are his representatives and i'd like to talk briefly about the balance in his life some years ago in a general conference session president david o mckay quoted at length from a book entitled the character of jesus by charles edward jefferson in this book jefferson who is not a latter-day saint but a congregational minister discuss 23 traits which he saw as as summing up the character of the savior now drawing upon this study i wish to draw attention to the balance which i believe the savior has achieved in his life jefferson tells us that it is rare to find a person deformed in body but it is not rare to find a person deformed in spirit or in mind he says for human beings it is almost impossible to keep a sense of balance for example if we are enthusiastic our enthusiasm becomes fanaticism if we are emotional our emotion often degenerates into hysteria if we are practical there is a danger our practicality will make us dull if we possess great courage our courage may lead to recklessness if we are prudent our prudence sometimes becomes cowardice if we are sympathetic our sympathy may lead to sentimentalism if we are religious our religion may become superstition and now related to this a little truism that i have felt very close to in my life every virtue and pushed beyond its appointed limit becomes a vice let me repeat every virtue when pushed beyond its appointed limit becomes a vice and so he says we come to jesus we find this perfect balance he was emotional but never hysterical he was practical but never dull he was courageous but never reckless he was prudent but never cowardly he was original but not eccentric he was sympathetic but never sentimental he was the most profoundly religious man ever to walk this earth and yet never once did he fall into superstition now further evidence of the balanced life of the savior is his reasonableness let me just suggest a couple of examples here in his preaching jesus was reasonable take for example his preaching concerning fasting jesus taught that true fasting must be an exercise of the spirit it is not the absence of food that is important to the lord or pleasing to the lord but it is the condition of the heart and the mind of the individual engaging in that fast moreover fasting cannot be done by the clock fasting is a spiritual exercise the body is to be subjected to and controlled by the spirit now in his attitude toward the sabbath certainly the savior was reasonable in ancient israel and indeed in israel at the time of christ the many rules and laws that existed concerning the sabbath were so numerous and so complex that one could not turn around without breaking several of them jesus quickly sensed that the law had become a burdensome meaningless set of rules and so he cut through the maze of conflicting ideas when he set forth a very simple doctrine the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath the life of man he considered of greater importance than the observance of ritual in a word his stand on the sabbath day observance was reasonable jesus christ was not an extremist he stands alone in history the one man symmetrical balanced perfect now what does all of this mean to you and to me if anything how does it apply to us here and now the point is the danger of extremism is real it is as real here as anywhere in the world don't be fanatical about one principle don't allow your emotions to whip you into a distorted pattern of zeal on the other hand don't rationalize revelation away don't be so critical of church programs that you become incapable of obedience permit me if i may to point out just a few danger signals of extremism which i have observed first i shall identify those signals which relate to fanaticism and second those that relate to skepticism first now the danger signals that relate to fanaticism number one becoming a law unto yourself and desiring to violate the laws of both god and man those who believe in personal revelation as we do run the risk also of allowing that belief to undermine their allegiance to laws either the laws of man or the laws of god that's exactly what happened to strang and to lebaron number two placing too much emphasis on one area of the gospel or the hobbyhorse gospel approach now this is a subtle but very very real danger for all of us this can begin as a kind of great interest in one area or one facet of the gospel and all of us tend to that and then this can become an overemphasis and gradually we can become fanatical i have observed in my church experience of fanatics of all kinds of and varieties for example there are word of wisdom fanatics there are genealogy fanatics there are atonement fanatics there are family fanatics and so on down the line every single principle and belief that we have could become a principle of fanaticism if we allow it to become so number three becoming isolated from church leaders here we have a gradual process i believe perhaps just wondering questioning doubting a specific directive or policy or change and then gradually broadening that and then maybe there's a disagreement or an open conflict even with some church leader at some level and then a gulf emerges and widens and gradually we become isolated from church leaders number four building your faith on personality rather than on the gospel of jesus christ i think this is a real danger here at brigham young university as well as elsewhere in the church we see people who are good who appear to be righteous who are successful and so we say i'm going to pattern my life after this person i'm going to build my faith on this person but there are real dangers here number one we're building on a shaky foundation we're leaning on the arm of flesh and number two this person or these persons could lead us away i knew a man in the mission field who was so thankful for the person who converted him that he said i'll follow that man anywhere and he did right out of the church into the realm that we call inactivity number five being unwilling to listen to others this again is a very gradual process there seems to be a tendency to to pull away from family friends church leaders others who might provide meaningful input to build a kind of wall around ourselves and gradually to become totally isolated and just listening to our own thoughts now the danger signals that i have observed which are associated with skepticism number one questioning all that comes down from church leaders let me suggest here that uh this again is a gradual thing it relates somewhat to the other danger signals that i've described but we can we can get into a position where we really do so critically evaluate and analyze everything that we that we don't seek the spirit and that we become in a sense unable to receive counsel from those who should give it to us and we may begin to doubt the very source of that council number two being unable to feel the impact of spiritual experiences such as the sacrament of temple ceremonies and other spiritual experiences maybe as i have listed here this is more a symptom than a cause it seems to me as we emphasize or over emphasize the intellectual at the expense of the spiritual or the emotional uh that there is a danger here that that will get to the point where we can't feel and can't experience in a meaningful way is very meaningful what should be meaningful religious experiences in in a sense our our spiritual sensitivity may become dulled to the point where where it won't respond number three avoiding prayer and gospel study now this is closely related to the to the foregoing item uh as we tend to emphasize uh intellectual um angles of vision rather than the spiritual there is a tendency here to to put off or to avoid some of these more spiritually inclined activities such as prayer and gospel study and yet just as the body needs food to sustain itself the spirit needs also spiritual sustenance to sustain itself and one of the major sources or two of the major sources are prayer and gospel study number four feeling that you know more than anyone else this is a part of this isolation that i have described already and it seems to me that there is a tendency to rely too much on our own ideas not listening to others not responding to other ideas just again building a wall around ourselves and evaluating perhaps too highly our own ideas and theories and then number five being unwilling to listen to others here we have a common danger signal i think as many of them are between skepticism and fanaticism again the pulling away from others building a wall being unwilling to respond notin that in both cases in cases of the fanatic and the skeptic they both tend to be unwilling to listen to others they chart their own course now there's one other common danger signal which relates to what i suggested in the introduction if you are overly concerned about fanaticism as a problem and you don't really see any problem with skepticism or if you are overly concerned about skepticism and don't perceive any dangers in fanaticism either of these things out of balance would i i could suggest that you might examine yourself to see if there isn't something out of line there you see at both extremes there are dangers both fanaticism and skepticism can and do destroy the possibilities of salvation the lord has spoken about some of these tendencies in modern revelation in the lord's preface in section 1 verse 16 of the doctrine and covenants he says they seek not the lord to establish his righteousness but every man walketh in his own way and after the image of his own god whose image is in the likeness of the world both the fanatic and the skeptic now the general authorities have repeatedly reminded us to to avoid living lives of extreme to avoid extremes of any kind president kimball said that we need a well-balanced approach to living a well-balanced approach to living now coming back to the scriptural theme here section 88 verse 118 seek learning even by study and also by faith this again i remind you is not just a way to learn but a pattern for living brothers and sisters i would wish to bear testimony to you that the principles that i have discussed today are true that if applied in our lives we will benefit from them and that we will be better servants of our father in heaven i have a testimony of the gospel of jesus christ and of the savior the savior is not just was not just a man but is literally the son of god the restoration is a reality the church that we belong to is true may the lord help us to incorporate these principles that we have discussed here today to make us more effective servants of his in building the kingdom here upon the earth and to make our relationship with this true church more meaningful i pray in the name of jesus christ amen you

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