Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Is Every Nation the Gathering Place for its Own People?

The concept of gathering is a central feature of Mormonism. We often talk of the physical gathering of the early saints—a literal move together to establish a Zion-like society. And we talk of the shift, in later Mormon history, where "[e]very nation is the gathering place for its own people" (spoken by Bruce R. McConkie in 1972 and reiterated by Russell M. Nelson in Oct. Conference). But how literally are we to take this? Given recent global trends making “trans-nationalism” more possible, the Chinese Saint (for instance) could very well be born, raised, and die in America without even returning “home” to China. In this light is it still an injunction for the Mexican saint to gather to Mexico? The Nigerian saint to Nigeria? Etc.?

Should we still hold to the notion of "Every nation [as] the gathering place for its own people"? The larger question is how does globalization impact our conception of “gathering”?.]

5 comments:

TGP said...

It seems to me that globalization changes where people locate for economic reasons, but not necessarily for "gathering".

There is, however, another issue for encouraging the "mobile" class of the church to stay in their local areas. The reason is that those who are likely to be mobile are also likely to be leadership. If they leave, it creates a leadership vacuum.

SmallAxe said...

It seems to me that globalization changes where people locate for economic reasons, but not necessarily for "gathering".

There is, however, another issue for encouraging the "mobile" class of the church to stay in their local areas. The reason is that those who are likely to be mobile are also likely to be leadership. If they leave, it creates a leadership vacuum.


I agree with you in regards to the issue of leadership, but your post raises two questions:

1) Does globalization necessarily conflict with gathering? My assumption is that there is a necessary tension between the two as gathering currently defined calls for a bodily location according to nationality, and globalization implies the ability to transcend one’s particular locality (and perhaps the dissolving of nationalism—or at least a redefining of it). I guess what I’m looking for is further clarity in navigating this tension.
2) This moves us onto the next question. What exactly does it mean to “gather” (and implied is, why are we to gather?)? I see the leadership issue as one of pragmatics, and only partially related to the theological issue at hand. For instance, as a Japanese Saint, must I live in Japan in order to be “gathered”? If I live in the US am I an “ungathered Saint”, or at least a disobedient saint for not following the counsel of the prophets? Furthermore, what if I was born in America? On the outside the issue is one of making sense of “nationality” in the current interpretation of gathering; and of clarifying the quote on the basis of ethnic and nationalistic complexities. At root is the question of how fit our theology is in a globalizing world, and how responsive it will be in light of new technologies that lead to the compression of time and space.

There was actually a formalish time when the gathering became more or less officially in one's own nation.

I think I’ve addressed some of this above, but that’s exactly what my question is, seeing that Russell M. Nelson repeated the injunction to gather to one’s own nation, how does that still hold true in light of increasing globalism? As a Mexican saint should I return to Mexico?

SmallAxe said...

Hey mullingandmusing,

Thanks for supplying the great quotes. I found the Joseph Smith quote particularly interesting. Gathering for the purpose of temple building cuts along quite different lines than nationality and/or ethnicity.

If one is in another country, I suppose the advice would be to ask God what He would have them do.

To be frank, I agree with you, but this also seems to be a rather individualistic interpretation of Mormonism. How do you reconcile that with the clear statement to “gather to your homeland”? The General Authorities could have said, “Gather to the place God needs you to be. This may or may not be your country of origin, but gather for the purpose of temple building and strengthening the stakes of Zion.” But they didn’t. They could have added the caveat, “But we really hope faithful members who understand or are part of local culture to build the stakes of Zion in those localities.” Instead they framed the gathering issue on the basis of nationality and location of birth. I too know of no one that is considered an “ungathered saint”, but the question immediately arises as to why we don’t. Are we not taking the words of the prophets at face value (A potential response to this question could be that their statements are meant to reflect our past encouragements of gathering to Utah, and as such they are seeking to discourage any need people feel to relocate, whereas those who “must” relocate—similar to those who must work on Sunday—should do so)? Or have we accepted the fact that the church is (or could be) a diverse place, and thereby read into the quotes provided above to mean something other than they say (Such as you suggest that “Being gathered is coming into the fold through baptism and other covenants”)? Perhaps the latter option could be strengthened by the fact that they haven’t overtly corrected our (mis)reading. But I think one issue is that their comments cannot be literally likened to a diverse multi-ethnic, multi-national body of saints. Joseph Smith is really the only one who comes close.

Anonymous said...

My thoughts aren't terribly elegant, but as I understand it, the "gather-to-your-homeland" rhetoric was intended to counter the earlier explicit direction to gather to Utah (and perhaps recent reiterations were to counter a similar implicit understanding).

I don't think it's an injunction against expatriating for work or other reasons. A lot of that is premised on my understanding of the gathering as being more spiritual/metaphorical than used to be the case.

Pragmatically, the Church needs people who can operate the church everywhere it exists. But I seriously doubt there's any postmortal significance to nationality.

TGP said...

samdb,
As I see the problem that diahman is pointing out is that the mandate was not just "don't gather to Utah anymore". It isn't in the form of a negative command to not do anything, but it was a positive command to "gather to your homeland." If they had said that we aren't gathering anymore, so go wherever and do whatever you need to for economic, personal, or educational reasons, then you're assessment is right. But, the also said that there was a mandate for Mexican saints to go to Mexico, etc. It does raise questions about nationalism and race.