Review
======
Title: The Theist
Author: Gerrie J. Mooy
Publisher: Gerrie J. Mooy; Amazon states: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Genre: Devotional
Year Published: 2014
Number of pages: 231
Binding: Trade paperback
ISBN10:
ISBN13: 978-1-50540-699-3
Price: $15.00
Reviewed by Dennis Clark for the Association for Mormon Letters
Despite the title, this book is not a theological treatise. It is more nearly a testimony, an extended testimony, with some personal experiences included, but mostly garnished with experiences invented by the author to illustrate his ideas. And that is unfortunate, because when we see the author behind the persona of *The Theist,* the book is much more engaging.
As for the title: the equivalent term occurs in Voltaire’s French, and in its earliest appearances in English was used as a synonym for “deist,” according to the OED; now it appears as its antonym. I have the impression that Mooy uses the term as an antonym for “athiest,” but in either case he uses it as the title of his book in the affirmative sense it now has in the noun “theism”: “Belief in the existence of a god or gods; especially, belief in a personal God as creator and ruler of the world” (*The American Heritage college dictionary*, 4th ed.)
Mooy makes the mistake of many devotional writers in assuming that he knows who his audience is, but does not focus on an audience. He seems to assume that the entire world is his audience. He says “The book summarizes what is to be accomplished in life. These are the reasons for life and what we take with us when we die. Knowing ultimate truth creates the purpose driven soul” (16-17). This is a large undertaking; without some idea of who his audience is, Mooy stays at a fairly high level of abstraction all the way through. With a sharper focus, his book would be better. It took Bruce R. McConkie many volumes in a similarly comprehensive endeavor, and when he quit, he noted that he had written more words about the Savior than anyone else — but he never claimed to have exhausted the subject. Nor does Mooy claim that he has. He promises to summarize the task, not exhaust the subject. He fails in his aim.
There is a reason that an author venturing into this arena should use a sharper focus: Joseph Smith is not a systematic thinker. I found one of the best analyses of Smith’s thinking I know in Colin Douglas’s excellent book, *Six Poems by Joseph Smith.* In his analysis of Section 93 of Doctrine and Covenants, he writes:
“Section 93 (like all the rest of scripture) does not, in fact, present a systematic philosophy or cosmology. Rather, it presents loosely connected aphorisms, stated dogmatically, without reasoned defense or explanation, leaving the reader to discern relationships” (15).
To some readers, this may seem suspect, especially as Mormon readers have been conditioned by books like John A. Widtsoe’s *Rational Theology* to believe that Joseph Smith promulgated such. The above summary of Smith’s writing describes Mooy’s practice quite well, except that he points out the relationships between his aphorisms. Douglas explains why he believes that Joseph Smith was not a systematist, in terms I find convincing:
“This ambiguity is not a fault in the text, or in the thinking of Joseph Smith; rather, it reflects the nature of the problem of getting at ultimate realities by means of language. Indeed, it may not be possible to get closer, or much closer, to that toward which section 93 points aphoristically and suggestively, for language has its limits, and certainly analytical discourse would not have gotten any further” (15).
Those limits of language are why it took McConkie six volumes to finish his Messiah series. These six volumes were not written to be a systematic theology, but I’m certain McConkie would argue that he intended them to be a systematic cosmology, beginning with the appearance of Jesus as the premortal Messiah, moving through mortal life (in 4 volumes), and finishing with the reign of the millenial Messiah, and its implications for the future life of all of us. But Mooy does intend to summarize both a systematic philosophy and a systematic cosmology. His chapter titles show it: “The Soul of Man; Existence of God; The Opposition; Why You Exist; Why You Were Born; Ben’s Story; Our Eternal Journey; Knowing God; Jesus Christ; The Kingdom of Heaven; Appendix: Scientific Inferences, Notes.” This is why, on the cover, *The Theist* bears the subtitle *Why* as it does on Amazon (but, being a librarian, I take the title from the title page, if one exists: Mooy has one).
Douglas also tackles the question of Joseph Smith’s identity as a revelator. Discussing the ambiguity of Smith’s language, he writes: “It also reflects the fact that Joseph was not a systematic philosopher or theologian but rather something more fundamental—a prophet and a poet. Joseph certainly was aware of the limitations of the language he was using. He complained in a letter to William W. Phelps, dated November 27, 1832, of being limited by a ‘crooked broken scattered and imperfect language’” (*Personal Writings of Joseph Smith* Revised edition, compiled and edited by Dean C. Jessee [Salt Lake : Deseret Book, 2002]; p. 287).
That letter deserves, and repays, more attention. In its context, and addressing Phelps personally, this is a fuller part of the letter than Douglas’s excerpt (edited by me to standardize spelling and punctuation, and set in lines of verse by me):
“Oh, Lord, when will the time come when Brother William, Thy servant,
and myself, shall behold the day
that we may stand together and gaze upon
eternal wisdom engraven upon the heavens,
while the majesty of our God holdeth up the dark curtain
until we may read the round of eternity,
to the fulness and satisfaction of our immortal souls?
Oh, Lord, deliver us in due time from the little,
narrow prison, almost as it were, total darkness
of paper, pen and ink;
–and a crooked, broken, scattered and imperfect language.”
Part of that letter was canonized as Section 85; this part was not. But Smith had dictated it to his scribe, Frederick G. Williams; it was then crossed out, then Smith re-wrote it in his own hand, so in this case I am certain that these are his words. So, even taken as a personal cry of distress, it states profoundly his unease with language, especially written language, as a vehicle for inspiration.
Now it may seem to you that I am not reviewing Mooy’s book, because I haven’t quoted from it. I am going to correct that oversight by giving you an extended excerpt from the chapter “Why You Were Born.” This excerpt comprises 9 contiguous paragraphs, and it will give you a good sense of the book, both the nature of his writing and the best parts of the book, his personal experiences:
“It is prophesied that the lost ten tribes will someday return with their records. In my opinion they are lost within plain sight. The patriarchs are important because they tell us what God’s promises are to us. We call this a birthright. Birthrights can be covenants made between God and our ancestors. Most cultures on earth value ancestors. It is a heritage, ‘these are my people!’ A patriarchal order, respect for elders and leaders of extended family are natural affiliations and loyalties practiced by many cultures.
“My father, if he were alive today, would be more than 113 years old. I loved and still love my father. He was gruff and spoke English with a heavy accent. Underneath his façade and impatience he was kind and sensitive to the feelings of others. He struggled with spiritual sensitivity and Sunday work and was not ‘active’ in the church. We had nothing following the war in Amsterdam. My late grandfather’s construction company had been confiscated by the Germans and was long gone.
“My mother and older brother persuaded my father to leave his beloved extended family in Holland and emigrate. Active Latter Day Saints were expected to gather in Zion (Utah) in those days. My father worked hard at two full time jobs simultaneously and managed to build homes on the side. We were obliged to help where we could. His sacrifices for us were routine and ongoing till he died.
“I will share one interesting story about my Dad. Late in the war the German army would not allow food produced on Dutch farms to be shipped to the population centers of the Netherlands. Fuel was also cut off. Thousands of people froze and starved to death during this period. The food was shipped to Germany instead. However, enough food was sent to Amsterdam to feed the German troops stationed there.
“One dark night my father, older brother and a neighbor quietly rowed a small boat up to the side of a barge filled with potatoes and moored in the harbor a couple of blocks from where we lived. We lived on a canal just off the harbor. There were German guards posted on the dock. It required a lot of courage. They managed to slip a large bag of potatoes into the rowboat and silently row away. They removed the potatoes from the bag with German markings and then pushed the bag under the water to sink it. Otherwise if caught with the German bag they would have been shot.
“My father decided that since it seemed so easy they would go back for another bag, over the desperate objections of the neighbor. Now with two bags and three people the small boat was nearly swamped. But, they succeeded in providing life saving food for the family and a number of others. My father loved and cared for his family. I was only three at the time. He saw fatherhood as a solemn duty and responsibility.
“There is a large statue on a square in Amsterdam. It commemorates the heroic strike by dockworkers objecting to treatment of the Jews by the Germans. It was the only known strike against the German occupiers during world war two. The statue is of my grandfather Voogt. Although my grandfather died well before the strike his image was used for the statue because he best represented the ethics of his peers and co-workers.
“He was the personification of those striking workers. Although he drank heavily and would get into fights his crew knew how to build harbor walls and pylons that large ships could be moored to. He was among the few who could do and teach this and even traveled to New York to build the harbor walls and pylons there. He had eleven children before he died. My mother was his second child. This is an example of a heritage that we can all explore.
“My wife’s only remaining uncle in Holland mentioned in a phone call that each year people still gather and place flowers at that statue. Remembering our ancestral fathers and mothers adds meaning to their lives, hard work and accomplishments. Our descendants may honor us the same way. We most effectively honor our ancestors by offering them saving ordinances in temples.”
Do you see what I mean by Mooy having written at too high a level of abstraction? Those nine paragraphs could serve as the outline of a chapter or two of the book, with his gospel message written in as commentary. The book would have been better had the author included more such family history. As it is, his refusal to go into the details of what are two compelling stories about his family is even more puzzling than the quality of the layout of this book. He needs an editor and a graphic designer to help him present the book on its best terms.
He needs to produce his book as well as Elisabeth A. Rolaf-Hornabrook produced hers. She and her husband were both Dutch, and lived through the German occupation of Holland. She produced a fine oral history of her life, in Holland and after, entitled *Through the Refining Fire : WWII Memories and More*. The “more” includes her husband’s service as an ambassador for South Africa. She lives in Orem now, and published her book in 2014 as Mooy did both of his. It runs 285 pages, is illustrated by photographs (many in color), and reads like an extended conversation — which, of course, it is, with Don Norton and his interns. The book is well produced; Hornabrook had help with the editing, and may have had help with the layout. However she did it, she has produced a handsome memoir of an eventful life.
Mooy published his first book, *Surviving Mortality,* with Tate Publishing. It is a decent job of work. But because both books bore the same copyright date, I read *The Theist* first, so I can’t yet tell you if *Surviving Mortality* is better edited. But in a note sent with the books, Mooy says “I am cancelling the agreement with Tate.” That’s a shame. He could have used the help.