Stories from My Mission: Ethnic Tensions in Argentina

Normally when you think about ethnic tensions and strife Argentina is not a place that you would associate with that kind of thing, mostly because there is very little ethnic tension in Argentina. The fact that there is so little tension makes it that much more surprising when you run into it. One of the (mostly) unspoken points of pride among Argentines is that they are not racist ("Como los norteamericanos" [Like the Americans] as they would say). They like to view themselves as not partaking in the gross sin of racism (again, "Unlike those Americans, who are the worst racists in the world") unlike some or most of their neighbors. But even though they pride themselves in being non-racist I have found them to be no different from everyone else in the world.

One of the reasons why there is so little ethnic tension in Argentina is because the people there are so homogeneous. It is estimated that 93%-96% of the population is of European origin. That is, pure European origin, not mixed native and European (Mestizo), which only makes up 3%-6% of the population. This is very odd for a Latin American country because, for example, Mexico is about 60% Mestizo and 30% native, and Paraguay is about 95% Mestizo. Furthermore the most prominent country of origin for Argentines is Italy, which makes up approximately 60% of the population, followed by Spain (30%). This high amount of Italian heritage has greatly influenced everything from cuisine to language.

Thus the homogeneity among Argentines is the reason why there is so little ethnic tension in Argentina, despite what a few Argentines have told me, who insisted that Argentines are just naturally more resistant to racism (it's sort of like arguing that Eskimos are more naturally resistant to heat stroke). Despite this I found that many Argentines actually do deal with ethnic tensions, but it is not just as visible as it is in other places. I will give a couple of examples that I was able see in person.

In my second area of my mission, Sáenz Peña, there is a small barrio (neighborhood) on the edge of the city where several Toba live. The Toba are a tribe of natives that lived in the area of the Gran Chaco when the Spanish conquistadors showed up. The relationship between the Spanish and the Toba was about average, meaning the Spanish took their land, moved them to very poor plots of land, exploited their labor, and generally mistreated them.Since then the relationship between the Toba and the Europeans has not been about average (meaning not very good, which is average for the relationship between natives and Europeans). There have been some very serious problems but it is nothing that anyone talks about anymore.

So there was a barrio, called barrio Toba, where all the Toba lived in Sáenz Peña. The Toba there mostly kept to themselves, and everyone else kept away from them. When I say everyone kept away from the Toba, I mean there was a buffer zone of 50-100 meters surrounding barrio Toba where no one would build, as you can see in the image from Google Earth below. I have marked barrio Toba in the image with a red outline. You can see the (unofficial) buffer zone to the north and to the west, with the edge of the city to the east.

Barrio Toba in Sáenz Peña outlined in red.

To the south there are a few houses, but the people that lived there were the poorest of the poor. When I got to Sáenz Peña the barrio directly to the south of barrio Toba didn't even have a name, which is unusual in Argentina. A few months before I got there the city had some devastating floods and the people who had nothing left after the flood were given small plots of land in the poorest part of the city, right next to barrio Toba. The city did not provide power, water or sewers, or even a school for the people in the poor barrio. They just sent a road grader though to make the roads and told people to move in. In many cases the deal was 4000 for 150 pesos, that is 4000 bricks for 150 pesos. You buy the bricks and someone brings them on a horse drawn cart and dumps them on your plot. You then have to build the house yourself using nothing but mud (and straw!) for mortar. It was a very primitive life and disease was rampant. So the only people who would even live close to the Toba were the poorest of the poor who lived in the worst of conditions.

While I was in the area I worked with one missionary, who was Argentine, who tended to try to avoid the Toba at all cost. This avoidance was at times painfully obvious. I remember once we were visiting someone who lived in the poor barrio just south of barrio Toba and when we were done visiting we had to head north to find our next appointment. My companion, the Argentine, insisted on walking around barrio Toba rather than go through it. Below I have marked on the satellite image where we were and where we had to go. We were at point A and we had to get to point B.

The most direct route would have taken us through barrio Toba.

But he insisted on taking a route that almost doubled the distance, just so we wouldn't have to go through barrio Toba. Below is the route we took.

When I asked him why we couldn't just take the direct route his only reply was, "We just shouldn't go in there."

In that area there was one man who was a member of the Church who was also a Toba. He would come to church occasionally, and when I was with my American companions we would occasionally go visit him. At the time the branch (local Church congregation) was having a hard time getting things organized. They were trying to get home teaching started. At one point I suggested to the branch president that this Toba brother should have home teachers assigned to him. The branch president was a bit evasive in his answer and when I pressed him what it came down to was no one was willing to visit him. (I should note that the branch president was not unwilling to do it, he was just stating a reality. He had many problems he had to deal with in the branch and adding the ethnic tension between the Toba and everyone else to the mix was just a little much for him.)

I mentioned this to a member of the branch who was also a counselor in the district presidency (kind of like a stake presidency). He sort of blew it off by saying, "Of course, he's a Toba. We don't talk to them." (As a note, he said this rather sarcastically implying that he did not approve of the way everyone else treated the Toba. This member was one of the few people who was willing to go into barrio Toba and talk to them. There were a few others, but not many.)

The few times that I did go into barrio Toba we were always met with children peeking out from doors and windows and all the adults hiding from us. Some times I wish I spent more time there and worked on getting the Toba to trust me.

There were other minor things that I came across that reminded me about the ethnic tensions just below the surface. The Argentines didn't really get along with Chileans, or the Bolivians (and they just sort of ignored the Uruguayans), but it was never as pronounced as it was with the Toba. Overall the ethnic tensions were practically nonexistent but that probably had to do more with the extreme homogeneity of the country and not so much something special about the Argentines.

Stories from My Mission: Sandra Gets Baptized

This story comes from the second area of my mission in the city of Sáenz Peña. Whenever a missionary arrives in an area the standard procedure is for the missionary who already knows the area to give a "data dump" on the incoming missionary. This includes things like the names of people that are currently meeting with the missionaries, members we are working with, important information about the area etc. Thus on my first day in the area I sat down with my companion Elder Keyes and went through the standard procedure. There were a few people they had been teaching and I wrote their names down on my weekly agenda that I carried around with me.

Then I asked if there was any one who was ready to be baptized. Elder Keyes looked at me and said, "Yes...well sort of. There is one woman named Sandra who is going to get baptized."

"Oh?" I asked, "When is she getting baptized?"

"She doesn't have a date yet."

(me) "... how many charlas [discussions] has she had?"

"Just one...well sort of...but she is going to get baptized."

"Did you ask her if she wanted to get baptized?"

"No, but I just know that she is going to get baptized."

"Has she come to church yet?"

"No."

"When was the last time you talked to her?"

"We saw her about three weeks ago."

"And that was the last time you gave her a charla?"

"No. That was four weeks ago."

(me) "..."

"How many times have you talked to her?"

"Once or twice. But she is going to get baptized."

"How do you know that?"

"She's a great person and I just know that she is going to get baptized."

There was something sincere about the way that Elder Keyes said it that made me know it too. Even though I had never met her I knew that Sandra would get baptized. Under any normal circumstances Sandra would have been considered to be a dead investigator (i.e. not progressing in the discussions, not showing willingness to meet with us, not reading, coming to church etc.). But there was just something about Elder Keyes and the way he said it that made me believe it too (for anyone who knows Elder Keyes they know that he is a very sincere, kind person, and he really does know what he is talking about). So I put her name down on the back of my agenda as a future possibility.

Over the next few weeks when I was working with Elder Keyes occasionally we would walk past Sandra's house, but we never seemed to have time to stop and talk to her. But eventually we did have an opportunity to stop, and she wasn't home. So we tried again. And again. And again. Eventually we found her two kids at home (aged 11 and 13). We talked to them briefly. We asked if their mother was around and they told us that she was working, she had just gotten a new job on the other side of the city and it took a lot of time to travel and to work. They seemed nice and asked when we could come back and talk about the church again. We said we would come back when we could.

Eventually we finally caught Sandra at home and were able to talk to her a little bit, but she didn't have a lot of time. She was getting ready to go to some school thing with her kids. We set a time to come back and meet with her but when we came she wasn't there.

After six weeks with Elder Keyes, it was time for him to go home. I saw him off and promised him that I would take care of the people that he cared about so much.

My new companion came into the area and like normal we sat down and I told him about all the people we were teaching. My new companion, Elder Pereyda, was Argentine and very opinionated. I gave him all the standard information, but when I came to Sandra things got a little interesting. The conversation was roughly like the one I had with Elder Keyes, except with Elder Pereyda interjecting comments about how this was stupid, a waste of time, he wasn't going to write her name down because it was obvious that she wasn't an investigator (remember it had been 10 weeks since her first and only charla, and about 4 weeks since our last contact with her). My new companion was "efficient" and wasn't going to waste his time with someone who had no prospects of progressing.

I sincerely told him that Sandra was going to get baptized, because Elder Keyes had told me so, and I believed him. Elder Pereyda just thought I was daft.

Over the next few weeks the issue of Sandra was a minor bit of contention between the two of us. It was never spoken but it was there every time we talked about our list of investigators. I even pointed out Sandra's house to him as we were walking by and told him that if we were unable to teach her before I left the area then he could go there and have a guaranteed baptism. He wasn't much amused with that. I could tell that he was just waiting to "cut her off" so that he didn't have to deal with the thought hanging over our companionship. Because of this I always steered him away from meeting with Sandra because I knew that if he went to meet her with his attitude then a disaster would happen.

This went on for about 3 weeks until one day I got a call saying that I needed to go into Resistencia, where the mission office was located, so that I could get my official Argentine ID (Documento Nacional de Identidad, or DNI). The trip would take a full day so I would have to spend the night in Resistencia. I was to be traveling with the companion of the zone leader who also had to go get his DNI, which meant that our zone leader would be staying with Elder Pereyda.

As I was getting ready to leave (as in I had by bag and was walking out the door with the zone leader's companion) Elder Pereyda looked at me and asked if there was anything that he and the zone leader could do while we were gone (I knew the area better and I knew who all the people were that we had been talking to, he was still learning the area). I looked at him and the zone leader, Elder Cook, and in a moment of inspiration said, "You could visit Sandra." Elder Pereyda got a gleam in his eye that said, "Now's my chance. This is going to be a charla franca [frank discussion, usually when we tell the person that we will never visit them again]." He wanted to get Sandra off the list, even if he had never written her name down on his own list, he knew that she was still on my list.

Elder Cook saw the exchanges of "looks" and knew that something was up. He asked if Sandra was some kind of problem. I told him no, she was going to get baptized, which started the whole discussion again of, "How many charlas has she had?" and all that. But in the middle of it I just walked out the door to go catch the bus to Resistencia and left Elder Pereyda to explain to Elder Cook (I'm sure the explanation was full of sarcasm) all about Sandra, the mystery "investigator" who had only one discussion, had never come to church, and had talked to the missionaries a grand total of 5 minutes in the past 10 weeks. I'm sure Elder Cook was primed and skeptical when they left to go find Sandra that evening.

The next evening, after my trip to Resistencia, I finally returned to the house where we were staying. Elder Pereyda and Cook were there and were ready with a story of their own that they couldn't wait to tell. After I left them the day before they planned a few things and went to take care of some things that the zone leader, Elder Cook, needed to take care of. When they were done with that it was getting pretty late and dark so they had time for one final visit before they went home. That is when they decided to visit Sandra.

She happened to be home, available and with time to talk. They decided to skip most of the formalities and after a brief chat they dived right into a discussion of the basic message of the gospel (i.e. Book of Mormon, the restoration, prophets). At this point Elder Pereyda asked the blunt question, "Do you want us to keep coming by and visiting you?" To which she said, "Yes." That took Elder Pereyda back a little. Then Elder Cook asked her if she was willing to commit to baptism and to becoming a member of the church. Her response about killed Elder Pereyda. She answered with a simple, "Sí."

The almost didn't know how to respond to that. But they collected themselves and then set about setting a date for her to get baptized. They spent about two hours talking with her and making sure that she really was ready and willing to get baptized (she was). Over the next two weeks we met with her some more and taught her the rest of the charlas. She came to church and finally three weeks after that night she got baptized. I wished Elder Keyes could have been there.

Shortly after that Elder Pereyda got transferred out of the area (which is unusual but there were things that I had to do in the area that only God knew about). My new companion was Elder Palazuelos. We visited with Sandra some more to have was were known as "new member discussions". Even though her children were there for a few of our visits they didn't seem to be too interested (they had a cousin and an aunt and uncle who were very active members of another church who were trying to get them to join that church).

After six weeks with Elder Palazuelos I finally got transferred to a new area. A few weeks after the transfer I had the opportunity to talk to Elder Palazuelos. I asked about Sandra. He said that she had gotten sick and needed surgery and had a hard time coming to church. The transition to coming to church is always a difficult thing for recent converts and missionaries are always hoping that the people who they baptized keep coming and remain active in the church. But Elder Palazuelos said that one Sunday Sandra's two children, with out prompting, showed up at church and asked the missionaries to be baptized. They had see a change in their mother and wanted to be part of that. So on their own (aged 11 and 13) they just came and wanted to be baptized.

Some day I hope to be able to find out what happened to Sandra and her children, and find out if they are still going to church, because God was looking out for them and was making sure that we, the missionaries, were ready for when they were.

Stories from My Mission: Who in the world is Tina Danner?

[Author's Note: Those who have been following my blog for a while may have noticed that I never use my own name on my blog. There really isn't any reason for it, I just like having an "online persona" for my blog. The concept of having a pen name really isn't that uncommon, and in some cases it helps writers from getting their readers mixed up with their other works. So I am going to do something I normally don't do and that is mention my real name, because it is integral to the story.]

One of the subtle things about learning another language is learning how to pronounce the different sounds. Even with Spanish were the alphabet is essentially the same there are subtle differences in how certain letters are pronounced. For example, the most obvious ones that every student who learns Spanish learns right off the bat is the difference in how you pronounce a /j/. In Spanish it is pronounced with like the English /h/. Another very subtle and less known example is the difference in how /d/ and /t/ are pronounced in Spanish.

English has a very hard /t/ sound, and in the most extreme instance it sounds like we are spitting. In Spanish there is no such thing. The /t/ in Spanish sounds almost exactly (or even in many situations, exactly) like the English /d/ sound. It is not as close as the Spanish /b/ and /v/ which are effectively indistinguishable (and of course leads to some of the most common spelling errors in Spanish, and coincidentally a major test of whether or not someone is a native Spanish speaker).

So when I first got to Argentina and I had to introduce myself I would typically say something like, "Hola, me llamo Elder Tanner" with a strong English /t/ (note: all male Mormon missionaries use the title "Elder", even when we are speaking Spanish, which, because it is an English word, causes confusion). In my first area when I first introduced myself to the Church members they would all pause and then ask, "What was your name?" Some of the members had extensive experience with American missionaries so English (or American) names were not that unusual for them. But for others my name was very unusual, and the fact that the /t/ in my name was followed by an /a/ made the /t/ that much more pronounced (my companion's name was Elder Tenny, and he never seemed to have my problem with the /t/, except he had to deal with the fact that everyone wanted to pronounce it "Tennis", because of the /y/ on the end, which in Argentina sounds like /sh/).

In English, if I introduce myself as "Elder Tanner" saying "Tanner" with the normal English /t/ no one notices, since a strong /t/ is common. But in Spanish, the /t/ sounds hard and harsh. Which meant that people would try to imitate the way I said my name and would say, "Elder Ch-anner". There was one member who thought it funny and every time he saw me for the next 6 months would say "Elder Channer" with emphasis on the /ch/ and each time would practically spit his teeth across the room, and then smile slyly like he had just made the best joke in the world. I hated it.

But that was not the only misunderstanding with my name that happened on my mission, which finally brings me to the subject mentioned in the title, how I found out that I am "related" to Tina Turner. Before my mission I had heard of Tina Turner, and I even knew that she sang songs, but if you had shown me a picture of her I would not have recognized her, nor would I have recognized any of her music. After my mission I think I have listened to a grand total of two of her songs. But apparently she was uber-famous in Argentina, as in everyone, even in the most remote hamlet in the middle of nowhere, had heard of her. Even though they had all heard of her, to them there was no difference between the names Turner and Tanner (hey, there's not a lot of difference in English), so I had only been on my mission about a day when I first got the question, "Are you related to Tina Tanner?", except they would say it, "Tina Danner".

The very first time I got the question I was confused, because I had never heard of someone named, "Tina Danner" or even "Tina Tanner". I think my companion Elder Tenny realized the mistake the first time and corrected them and said, "No it's Tina Turner". After that first time I think I was asked if I was related to "Tina Danner" about once a week for the first three months. After that it slowed to about once a month or so, and I typically was asked the same question without fail at least once a month, and sometimes more, for the rest of my mission.

After my first area I learned to say my name with a softer /t/, but apparently in my second area I wasn't saying it soft enough since I still had a few people call me "Elder Channer" or maybe "Elder Danner". By my third area I had fully transitioned over to introducing myself as "Elder Danner" with a very soft /t/ that to an English speaker would sound like a /d/, but to Spanish speakers they could tell the difference, even if the /t/ was practically a /d/. I got a lot less confusion over my name after that.

Too hard, even for God?

I recently started reading The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson. Close to the beginning of the book I came across this quote:

"By what force of evolutionary dynamics, then, did our lineage thread its way through the evolutionary maze? What in the environment and ancestral circumstance led the species through exactly the right sequence of genetic changes? 

The very religious will of course say, the hand of God. That would have been a highly improbable accomplishment even for a supernatural power. In order to bring the human condition into being, a divine Creator would have had to sprinkle an astronomical number of genetic mutations into the genome while engineering the physical and living environments over millions of years to keep the archaic prehumans on track. He might as well have done the same job with a row of random number generators. Natural selection, not design, was the force that threaded this needle." (pp. 50-51)

I read that and thought, "Wait, so his argument against the existence of God, or at least the creation is: Because it is too hard and involves an incredibly complex number of interactions across several billion years, and because I would consider that too hard for any being that I can conceive of, it is therefore too hard for God. Thus he could not have done it. It must have been random because otherwise it would have been too hard for any being that I can conceive of."

So in other words, whether or not God could have created humans through a long and involved process, is limited by whether or not a single man can conceive of it being possible? That seems rather, um... limiting to me. I glad that the universe, and God doesn't limit themselves to only do what a single scientist, philosopher or even group of scientists and philosophers think possible. If that were the case, then the universe would be an awfully boring place.

This quote was also rather interesting because I had just read an article about how one philosopher's questioning of materialism and of randomness being the determining force behind our existence got him branded a heretic by the scientific and philosophical community. I put that philosopher's book on my "to read" list. I'll get to it after I finish The Social Conquest of Earth.

The rest of the book so far has been pretty interesting. I like it, even if the author occasionally takes unwarranted swipes at religion every so often. I also really get the sense that he is arguing against a conception of God that I also find untenable, and if that is how it really is then I too would agree with him, but it's not so I don't.

PS: Also when he mentioned "an astronomical number of genetic mutations" I was reminded of this quote from Richard Feynman:

"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."

Comparison of texts from 3 Nephi 20:23-27 and Acts 3:22-26

Astute readers of the Book of Mormon and the Bible may have noticed that in the book of 3 Nephi there is a passage that is nearly identical to a passage in the book of Acts. The two passages are so similar that critics of the Book of Mormon use the passage in 3 Nephi as "proof" that Joseph Smith just plagiarized the Book of Mormon from the Bible (and a vast array of other books). But before we get into that let us consider the passages themselves. Below I have a side by side comparison of the two passages.

The text in the passages is marked in various ways. If there are differences in the passages (i.e. parts of the text that do no appear in the other passage) those are marked with either red or blue. Variations (i.e. parts of the text that are similar but use different words) are marked in either rose or purple. There are also two quotes of other parts of the Bible in both passages. Those have been marked with green, with a link to the source of the quote after each quote.

Differences in the text are marked in RED. Variations in the text are marked in ROSE. Quotes are highlighted in GREEN. 3 Nephi 20:23-26 23 Behold, I am he of whom Moses spake, saying: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be cut off from among the people.[source]	Differences in the text are marked in BLUE. Variations in the text are marked in PURPLE. Quotes are highlighted in GREEN. Acts 3:22-26 22 For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. 23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.[source]
24 Verily I say unto you, yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have testified of me.	24 Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.
25 And behold, ye are the children of the prophets; and ye are of the house of Israel; and ye are of the covenant which the Father made with your fathers, saying unto Abraham: And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.[source]	25 Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.[source]
26 The Father having raised me up unto you first, and sent me to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquities; and this because ye are the children of the covenant—	26 Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.

The first thing to note is that the passage in 3 Nephi is not a word for word quote of the passage in Acts. There are some significant differences between the two passages. Let me start with the "God/the Father" variation. In both verse 25 and 26 there are variations where the text in 3 Nephi uses the term "the Father" when referring to God, while the text in Acts uses "God". This may seem like a minor thing but in context it makes sense. In 3 Nephi Jesus always refers to God as "the Father" or "my Father" and thus the difference between the two texts fits with the broader context, i.e. there is no incongruity in the use of "the Father" in 3 Nephi.

Next, in the broader context the inclusion of this passage makes sense, both in Acts and in 3 Nephi, even though their main meaning in their respective contexts are different. In Acts Peter is addressing the Jews and uses the passage to explain to them that they have rejected the prophet that Moses had instructed the Israelites to listen to "in all things". That part of the passage seems to be the emphasis of Peter's larger discourse. But in 3 Nephi the emphasis, despite the very similar language, is on the covenant that "the Father" made with their fathers. Thus the same passage with almost the exact same language has a very different meaning based on the context. In Acts the emphasis is on the prophet rejected, in 3 Nephi the emphasis is on the covenants made.

Finally we can take a look at the two quotes with in the two passages. The second quote, in verse 25, is a quote from Genesis 22:18. There is a slight difference between how the passage in Acts gives the quote from Genesis and the text in 3 Nephi follows the Acts rendering, but there is no substantial difference in the meaning.

The first quote in verse 23 (Acts 3:22-23) is the more interesting one. Even though the passage in 3 Nephi follows almost exactly the wording found in Acts (and not the wording found in Deuteronomy), there is one seemingly minor difference. The "destroyed" in Acts is changed to "cut off" in 3 Nephi. This seemingly minor change is actually very interesting. The King Jame Version of the Bible (the version that Joseph Smith had available to him) uses the word "destroyed", but if Joseph Smith were plagiarizing this passage then why did he change it to "cut off"? It is a minor change, with potentially big implications. The thing is in the versions of the Bible that Joseph Smith had available they all read "destroyed", yet the passage in 3 Nephi uses "cut off". Interestingly many years later when it became popular for scholars/theologians/churches to make their own translations of the Bible this passages frequently got translated as "cut off" (among other things) instead of "destroyed". In other words that one word, "destroyed", in the KJV was at the center of a very minor Bible translation controversy, but it was only years later that revised translations of the Bible changed it from "destroyed" to "cut off". Perhaps they were all taking the lead from Joseph Smith! (not really, but if you want to read more about this then follow this link.)

In the end, if a casual reader happened upon these passages they might think that the version in 3 Nephi was copied from Acts, but a closer reading reveals some rather interesting and important differences that work in context and do not mark the passage as obviously or ignorantly copied to flesh out the text.

Now we can get to the really interesting question. How did it happen that a very similar passage is found in both the New Testament and the Book of Mormon? One response to this is that the both Peter and Jesus were inspired to say very similar words when teaching their respective audiences. This is the response used by some defenders of the Book of Mormon, and this response is used for other passages as well. The general idea is that because God is the ultimate inspiration for the scriptures it should not be that hard for Him to inspire two people on opposite sides of the earth to say or write the exact same thing.

This all assumes that the passage found in Acts originates from Peter. There is no other record of that passage in the Old World before Peter used it in his defense before the Jews, but it is not much of a stretch to think that someone else made a habit of saying something similar before Peter ever used it in his defense to the Jews. It is entirely possible that before Peter ever said it Jesus taught it to his disciples and they in turn taught it to others. When Jesus commanded his disciples to go forth and preach the gospel to all the world, he didn't send his disciples out by saying, "Go tell people some stuff and to do good generally. Oh and make sure you mention me. And baptize, yes baptize people.... That's all." He sent them out with a specific message, in many cases the message was memorized. His disciples spent much of their time with Jesus learning his sayings and learning (memorizing) his major sermons.

There is no indication that what we now know as the four gospels were not written down until at least 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the mean time the teachings and saying of Jesus were passed around by oral tradition, meaning people would learn (memorize) the sayings and sermons and would repeat them back to congregations or anyone who bothered to listen. This means that much of what the disciples taught was not original material. In this context it would not be unusual for Peter, when he had to defend himself before the Jews, to reach into his memorized database of sayings and teachings from Jesus and use and adapt a particular saying that Jesus had first taught his disciples. Thus it could be that the passage that is recorded in Acts 3:22-26 was first taught by Jesus and then later was used by Peter.

With this in mind we can return to the passage that appears in 3 Nephi. In this context we have Jesus teaching the Nephites the same things he taught in Jerusalem, so it would make sense that he would include something that he taught to his disciples in Jerusalem, especially Peter. Just because we do not have a record of Jesus teaching it to his disciples does not mean that he did not originate the saying that was later attributed to Peter. This way of thinking about the passages in 3 Nephi and in Acts also shows that when Jesus arrived at Bountiful he continued using the same method of teaching that he had used in his mortal ministry, that of oral tradition. And he made sure that he taught the same things to the Nephites that he had taught to the Jews in Jerusalem. And thus he fulfilled the commandment of the Father.

Stories from My Mission: The Argumentative Missionary

A while ago I posted a story about a preacher from the Assembly of God who was rather argumentative and confrontational. This story is from the opposite side, where a missionary was the one who was argumentative and confrontational, with a similar negative effect on the person being argued with. I'll spoil the ending now and say that it is never a good thing to be argumentative and confrontational when you are supposedly a representative of God.

Coincidentally this happened in the same area where I had my confrontation with the preacher. The missionary I was with was not my companion, we were on what is called splits or exchanges where another missionary companionship comes to our area and we split up and go with an Elder who is not our companion to work in our area for a day or an afternoon.

Because I was the one who knew the area I was in charge of determining where to go. After leaving our house (we had a whole house with a yard! but we never cut the grass in back so it grew to be about 8 feet high), we tried to visit a few people that my normal companion and I had talked to previously, but no one was home. As we were walking down the street we passed the house of a lady who had talked to the missionaries previously but most of that contact happened before I came to the area and I had only visited with her once, though I had talked to her a few times but only briefly. I knew that she might be home and I thought that perhaps she would have time to talk to us.

I explained this to the missionary I was with, who had been in the mission for about a year longer than I had, and thus had more experience with teaching and also with speaking Spanish. He agreed that we could try and talk to her so we stopped and clapped at her house. She was home and she was willing to let us in to talk to her for a little while. After sitting down, exchanging some pleasantries, and the other Elder introduced himself and we then moved into what should have been the more religious portion of our visit. The other Elder asked her a few questions about her previous interaction with the missionaries and how much she had read of the Book of Mormon.

After a few questions the other Elder asked her why she had not progressed more and read more of the Book of Mormon. She answered with a simple response that indicated that she had her doubts about the veracity of what we were teaching. Her response was something along the lines of "Well the Bible says such and such, so I don't see how what you are teaching can be true." It was a response that now with many more years of experience I would know how to respond, but at the time I was a little unsure of how to respond and since the other Elder was leading the conversation I just left it up to him to address her doubts. That was a very bad thing to do. Looking back I now know better how to respond to doubts like that, and I would learn through the course of my mission what is needed to overcome doubts like that. A moment like that is a perfect time for tenderness and understanding with a good dose of knowledge and humility. What she got was just the opposite.

When she expressed her doubt to us the other Elder looked at me with a slight smile and a look that said, "I can't believe she just used such a stupid argument on us!" He then flipped open his Bible to a relevant verse and read it to her and explained in a somewhat condescending way why she was wrong. She countered with another argument from the Bible to which the other Elder again whipped out another verse to "thump" her with. At this point he was no longer interested in conversing with her, he merely wanted to Bible-bash with her. This continued for a while until she started getting nervous and stopped arguing back at the other Elder.

During the exchange I just sat there unsure of what to do. When it was over and the other Elder had "won" we gave a half hearted goodbye and left. After we left her house the other Elder looked at me and confidently proclaimed that he loved it when he got the opportunity to Bible-bash since the other people never know what they are talking about, and he can just "thump 'em" with a whole list of memorized verses from the Bible. He showed me his list of verses that can be used in case of just such an argument. He also recanted to me a series of his best "Bible-bashing" sessions that he had had. I was rather embarrassed by what had happened and unsure of what to do. For the rest of the time I was with that Elder I tried to steer clear of talking to anyone who might put up a fight.

A few days later I was walking down that same street with a member of the branch (so I was not with my normal companion again) when I heard her call out, "Hey Elder!" I went over to the fence in front of her house and she spoke to me and said, "I still don't know if you are from God or not, nor do I know if that Elder Whats-his-name [referring to my normal companion] is from God either, but I know that that one Elder you came by here with a few days ago is not from God. I don't know if the pastor of the church I go to is from God or if you are, but I can tell that that other Elder definitely is not from God."

In what was a moment of maturity beyond my years at the time I very graciously admitted that she was right, and with full sincerity I offered my apologies for what happened. I never spoke to her again.

"They came confessing their sins": What was the disputation about baptism mentioned in 3 Nephi 11?

As recorded in 3 Nephi 11, when the Savior came to visit the Nephites, He was very clear in his explanation as to the manner of baptism. What is notable about His explanation is the reason why He had to give the explanation. In verse 22 we read, "And [Jesus] said unto them: On this wise shall ye baptize; and there shall be no disputations among you." Thus Jesus was giving this explanation because there was a disagreement among the members of the church as to the manner, or maybe even the necessity, of baptism. Apparently there was some question as to how people were to be baptized as members of the church, and whether or not there was anything else that needed to be done.

After explaining how the Nephites should baptize Jesus continues his explanation by saying,

28 And according as I have commanded you thus shall ye baptize. And there shall be no disputations among you, as there have hitherto been; neither shall there be disputations among you concerning the points of my doctrine, as there have hitherto been....

40 And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock; (3 Nephi 11:28,40)

Again there is the admonition that there should be no disputations and also a warning that if anyone adds to the doctrine, or takes away from it certain critical points, then those people are not building upon the rock of Christ, but on a sandy foundation that cannot weather the storms of life and temptation.

There may have been some question in some Nephites' minds whether or not baptism was even necessary. Approximately 34 years previous to this event when the sign of Christ's birth was given there were some who had insisted that the Law of Moses was fulfilled and that the Nephites no longer needed to keep it (see 3 Nephi 1:24-25). It is possible that there may have been a similar dispute at that time. The assumption that baptism was no longer required may have seemed obvious to many Nephites since they were all aware of the fact that the Law of Moses had been declared fulfilled (see 3 Nephi 9:16-20). The issue in their minds may have been that baptism, according to their understanding, was part of the Law of Moses, and thus they no longer needed to practice baptisms.

There also may have been some discussion about the actual mechanics of baptism, such as what needed to be said and other things. All these questions were answered by Jesus in his explanation of his doctrine. All of these possibilities that I have mentioned so far involve things that would have taken away from the ordinance of baptism but in verse 40 Jesus mentioned that "whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil" (emphasis added). In other words, the possibilities that I have presented of what was causing contention all fall under the "less" category, so now the question is, what were some Nephites proposing that fell under the "more" category?

For one such possibility let us look into references to "altars" in the Book of Mormon. (What to altars have to do with baptism you ask? Just wait and see.)

In the Book of Mormon there are several references to sacrifices. Lehi and Nephi offered sacrifice. King Benjamin offered sacrifice. Sacrifice plays an important part in some doctrinal sermons. The Nephites were commanded by Jesus to stop sacrifices by the shedding of blood. But despite all these references to sacrifices, which presumably happened on an altar, there are only four references to altars in the Book of Mormon. The first refers to an altar built by Lehi after leaving Jerusalem. The second reference comes from a quote of a vision by Isaiah. The last two references come from parts of the text in Alma where Mormon is explaining or commenting on the results of the missionary endeavors of Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah. It seems that Mormon is simply mentioning the altars almost in passing, like we would mention a pulpit or the pews in a chapel.

The first reference in Alma comes in chapter 15, which reads:

17 Therefore, after Alma having established the church at Sidom, seeing a great check, yea, seeing that the people were checked as to the pride of their hearts, and began to humble themselves before God, and began to assemble themselves together at their sanctuaries to worship God before the altar, watching and praying continually, that they might be delivered from Satan, and from death, and from destruction— (Alma 15:17)

The second reference is in chapter 17:

4 And [the sons of Mosiah] had been teaching the word of God for the space of fourteen years among the Lamanites, having had much success in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth; yea, by the power of their words many were brought before the altar of God, to call on his name and confess their sins before him. (Alma 17:4)

The references in Alma to altars are so unremarkable that most people pass over them without thought. In the second reference, many people would read it and think that Mormon was waxing poetic when he said that the Lamanites "were brought before the altar of God". But if we return to the previous reference we read that the people began to assemble in their sanctuaries, where their sacrifices were presumably performed, "to worship God before the altar".

From this passage we can learn a little about the layout of the Nephite's (and later the converted Lamanite) sanctuaries. In their sanctuary where they met to worship there was, apparently, an altar much in the same way our church buildings have pulpits (this concept of an altar at the front of a church is not so confusing for Catholics, Orthodox and other similar creedal Christians, it's just unfamiliar to those of us who grew up in a Protestant influenced church culture). The exact size and configuration of the altar is not clear, but it may have been big enough for a single person to go stand on top of it (hmmm...suddenly the Rameumptom doesn't seem to come entirely out of left field, still imagine how surprised you might be if you walked into a church building and you find that the members of the congregation took turns standing on top of the pulpit, or sacrament table, and shouting out a memorized prayer at the top of their lungs).

The verse in chapter 15 simply calls it "the altar", but in chapter 17 it is referred to as "the altar of God". In Nephite phraseology saying that someone was brought "before the altar" may have been the equivalent of us saying we "filled the pews". The verse in chapter 15 merely states that the people "began to assemble themselves...before the altar" where they prayed, taught and exhorted each other, and made sure that they were all kept in the way.

But in chapter 17 the recently converted Lamanites were brought, "by the power of [the sons of Mosiah's] words" before the "altar of God" where they "[called] on his name and [confessed] their sins before him." This sounds like something a little more formal, organized and dramatic than a simple church meeting. We read elsewhere that the converted Lamanites had made a covenant, a very public covenant that the Nephites knew about, and apparently this covenant was made before the "altar of God", so it was a very serious thing.

When the converted Lamanites came to the land of Zarahemla being lead by the sons of Mosiah, one of the stipulations that the Nephites may have insisted on before accepting them and giving them the land of Jershon   may have been that the people of Ammon must appear before "the altar of God" and "call on his name and confess their sins before him" and covenant to never take up arms again. It may have been a condition for their acceptance into the Church of God, that they publicly confess and covenant to never fight again.

What may have unintentionally happened here is that an additional "step" towards salvation was added for those who were not Nephites, or who had previously apostatized from the church. For non-Nephites and perhaps for excessive sinners the church, or at least some of the church leaders, may have been requiring that certain people go through a public confession of their sins and make an additional covenant that was not required of Nephites. It may not have been a problem when the people of Ammon did it for the first time, but the practice may have continued and approximately 100 years later the practice had become established among some branches of the church.

Thus when the church met for their general conference at the temple in the land Bountiful, they were discussing what was required of new members to join the Church of God. Some Nephites may have insisted that baptism was not necessary since the Law of Moses was fulfilled. Others may have disputed the manner of baptism, and there may have been still others who insisted that all new members, or at least former Lamanites/Gadianton Robbers needed to perform the public confession and covenant making before the altar of God. This debate was causing significant contention in the church and it was apparently the primary reason why Christ came to visit them.

After settling the immediate dispute regarding baptism, and any other additional requirements, Jesus then proceeded to give them the new law and new covenant, just as he had done in Israel, the law that would replace the Law of Moses. While much of what I have presented is speculation, we can get a sense that the history, culture and societal issues confronted by the Nephites were a bit more complex than Mormon could have expressed given his size constraints. But we can get hints of the more complex issues dealt with by the Nephites if we are willing to read the Book of Mormon more closely and to consider arguments that we have never considered before.