Orthodoxy vs. Orthopraxy

The parents have been out of town for the past few days, leaving me sort of in charge. This means it is my job to cook dinner and also to have my little brothers do their chores. Predictably, the first task is easier than the second. It turns out I may have made even harder than it needed to be, however.

You see, my mom has worked out a checklist system for summer chores where each of the younger children is supposed to complete a certain number of chores before each meal (the older children, not including me, have similar checklists, but those are typically ignored). Yesterday I made fajitas for dinner and I invited my little brothers to come eat. Ricky/Baldy complained that he hadn't completed the requisite number of chores to qualify for dinner. I told him to come eat anyway, since we always eat together as a family, and that he could finish his chores later. I shoved the thought aside, and it came back to me today while I was folding laundry.

I began to worry that perhaps I was undermining my mom's rules by having Baldy eat with the family without finishing his chores (even though she's done it herself). If my brothers know they can eat dinner with the family no matter if they've done their chores, will they actually do their chores? Naturally, this led me to consider the nature of religious orthodoxy.

I've lately found myself involved in what is primarily (but not totally) an internal struggle over the relative merits of religious orthodoxy versus religious orthopraxy. I see this as boiling down to a question of "letter of the law" versus "spirit of the law." As religions go, Christianity is the orthopraxy to Judaism's orthodoxy. A key point of the New Testament is that we should not get so tangled up with obeying the Law that we forget to love God and love mankind. But within Christianity, each tradition lies at a different point on the spectrum. I'd like to think that my chosen tradition of Mormonism is less orthodoxic and more orthopraxic, but I can see that is not necessarily the case. We have our core doctrines and rituals, of course, and those are relatively few. Then we add on a whole bunch of subsidiary commandments and practices. We call them doctrine but I'm not convinced. I think they're mostly cultural. To illustrate, I use the example of the Word of Wisdom.

It is quite well-documented that the early Church did not place the same emphasis on the Word of Wisdom as we do now. Back in those days, it was exactly a "Word of Wisdom" and not a "Word of Commandment." In fact, one could make a good case that Jesus Himself drank alcoholic wine, or at least made it for others. Today obedience to the Word of Wisdom has been made a requirement for earning a temple recommend. But the fact that things were not always this way suggests that many of our "commandments" are not so eternally significant as we like to think.

Let me make a suggestion on the nature of sin. It is ridiculous that you would punish a child for drinking water, but it makes sense to ban water bottles during class if you are a teacher and your students are getting distracted. Same basic principle. Alcohol is not of itself evil (I think), but it causes people to lose focus and lower their inhibitions, which may then lead to sinning. Same thing with movies/music/etc. Anything that distracts us from learning light and truth should be avoided. I can truly say that I've learned more eternal principles from certain PG-13 and R rated movies than some children's movies (The Dark Knight vs. Night at the Museum II, for example), but in general it is probably the case that we are more likely to learn without the added distractions of sex and violence.

I'll briefly discuss an idea that was brought up in my Institute class last spring, and that is the distinction between so-called "Square Mormons" and "Compass Mormons." A Square Mormon is one who follow rules precisely and to the letter. They are rigid like a carpenter's square. A Compass Mormon, on the other hand, is one who reevaluates the principles they have been taught in each situation. They may be said to draw a circle which circumscribes all truth (it is true that God commanded the Israelites not to kill, but it is also true that God commanded Nephi to kill Laban). Hyrum Smith was a Square Mormon. He followed the Word of Wisdom precisely. Joseph Smith was a Compass Mormon. He shared a bottle of wine with Hyrum and John Taylor at Carthage Jail.

I should interject here that I've been developing this idea within a Mormon framework. That is how the thoughts developed in my mind, but the structure should hold in any context, be it religious, political, parenting, etc.

Now I have to find a way to bring this train of thought back to my original story. Crap. Let's see here. . .

It is usually in our best interest to obey the rules, especially when we are young and learning. As we mature we begin to understand the rules. We see what they are meant for and what their limitations are. It is probably the case that we will never get in trouble for following the rules religiously, but sometimes maybe it is better to ignore the rules. A teacher once said to me "There's an exception to every rule, except the rule that says there's an exception to every rule."

Still too many words. Back to the story.

My mom has written up chore checklists for her older kids, but we aren't expected to hold to them rigidly like my little brothers are. We know our responsibilities and we generally follow through on them, checklist or no checklist. In fact, she hasn't written up a checklist for me at all, partly because I'm at work all day, every day, but also because I clean stuff anyway. I don't limit myself to the things on the checklist. If I see something that needs to be cleaned then I'll clean it.

I still don't think I've worked my way back to the point I was trying to make. My goal was to say that there are people who need the rules and other people who don't. There, now I said it. Maybe I'm on to something here. Or maybe I'm just rationalizing my own evil behaviors. Regardless, this post relies too heavily on philosophical introspection. How boring.

One last note: I could not bring myself to write an "I'm starting a blog" post, but I should mention that, for the time being, my blog will probably sound like a cross between The Sarah Starrr Story and The Dilbert Blog. Both of those writers see the world in ways that closely resemble my own worldview, but - let's be honest - the main reason I expect to sound like them is that ripping off writing styles is easy. Eventually I'll probably fall into my own blogging groove, but until then, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?