Conservatism in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

The Quorum is a high-level governing body in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Quorum “helps set church policy while overseeing the many business interests of what is known widely as the Mormon Church.”[1] On December 27, 2025, Jeffrey R. Holland, “a high-ranking official . . . who was next in line to become the faith’s president,” died.[2] He was 85. To be at that age and yet next in line to lead a major Christian denomination is a sign of just how tilted toward the elderly the leadership of that Church was at the time. Almost exactly three months earlier, Russell M. Nelson, the then-sitting president of the denomination, died at the age of 101. Dallin H. Oaks, at the age of 93, became the next president. These ages make 75, the mandatory retirement age for Roman Catholic bishops, look young, though Pope John Paul II died at 84 and Pope Francis died at 88—both men while in office. Especially in Christianity, whose Gospels depict Jesus and his disciples as much younger men, the question of whether an aged leadership unduly foists conservatism on what in the Gospels is characterized as a radical religious movement.

In 2020, a group of researchers put the old adage that people tend to become more conservative as they age to the test. Contrary to the folk adage, the study found that political attitudes tend to be stable over time; however, when attitudes do change, “liberals are more likely to become conservatives than conservatives are to become liberals, suggesting that folk wisdom has some empirical basis even though it overstates the degree of change.”[3] Regarding religion, research indicates people tend to become more religious as they age, but this doesn’t answer the question of whether a person’s religious beliefs become more conventional or orthodox within a religious institution as the person ages. Simply put, are older people in a congregation more likely to “upset the apple cart.” To the extent that living through decades has a thickening effect on the idealism of the youth because the inertia of status quo, whether of an organization or a society, is difficult to move, even with a faith that can move mountains.

As a complication, the influx of social ideology (e.g., social issues) into the religious domain can make orthodox religious believers seem more or less conservative. I have argued elsewhere that the overreaching of social ideology onto the religious domain minimizes or ignores the sui generis nature of both domains. Based on the study on political ideology changing over time as a person ages, it seems reasonable to posit that a person’s social ideology is most likely to stay constant, but when it changes, it is more likely to get more conservative. It is important not to omit the possibility, however, that very old people can surprise us and actually shake things up a bit in leading a religious organization.

Russell Nelson “was revered as a prophet” even though he was “the oldest serving head of the church” when he died at 101.[4] If the label of prophet resembles the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures, the implication is that Nelson spoke truth to power. It may be going too far to say that his time at the helm of the denomination “will forever be remembered as one of . . . profound change” because he emphasized global ministry and increased temple construction.[5] The need to temper the magnitude of the change reflects the empirical results of the study on changes in political attitudes discussed above. For instance, in 2019, when Nelson was in his mid-90s, “the church made a surprise move . . . by pledging to roll back a series of anti-LGBT policies introduced in 2015 that had reportedly led to 1,500 people leaving the [denomination] in protest.”[6] That the motivation to roll back the anti-gay policies may have had something to do with the loss of membership, and thus money, tempers the magnitude of the shift in the social ideology in the Church’s leadership. Attention to finances can itself be construed as conservative. Furthermore, reversing the ban on children of same-sex parents being baptized and the expulsion of gay members who are married are not as surprising as the announcement that the denomination would perform gay-marriage ceremonies would have been.

That rolling back two policies does not count as profound change is also supported by the fact that just two years later, Holland gave a speech “in which he called on church members to take up metaphorical muskets in defense of the faith’s teaching against same-sex marriage.”[7] That the speech “became required reading for BYU freshmen in 2024” is itself an indication that the social ideology in the Church’s governing body and leadership had not changed.

That both Nelson and Holland opposed homosexuality even as two policies were rolled back does not mean that those men had become more conservative, and that were younger men in charge, the Church’s stance on the social issue would have been more progressive in 2019. Therefore, this case study should not be used to argue that because Jesus and his disciples are characterized as middle-aged in the Gospels, Christian denominations should be led by young or middle-aged people or else the radicalism of the movement in the Gospels can be expected to be hampered by old men at the helm. In fact, that Nelson did so much—albeit not necessarily of profound change—in the last decade of his life in leading his denomination qualifies the typical assumption that people over 85 should be put out to pasture because they cannot possibly make a difference, whether to an organization or a society.

Nevertheless, the finding that when political attitudes do change as a person ages, most often this results in a more conservative ideology, means that young and middle-aged people can be included at the highest level of an organization so to counteract or balance out the admittedly mitigated tendency. In other words, the elderly can make contributions as organizational leaders and are not necessarily more conservative than they were, so the need to balance out excessive conservativism, due to age, with younger leaders, is less though it does exist to some extent. The tendency of the elderly to resist giving up some power to younger members is thus something to watch out for in church governance, but the elders need not be replaced altogether as a prerequisite for religious organizations to be able to adapt to a changed environment at least to some extent so to be able to survive. It is not as though a denomination must adopt a progressive social ideology, which I submit is extrinsic through related to religion anyway, in order to survive; rather, the mitigated, or muted, tendency of people to become more conservative with age should itself be countered institutionally in terms of there being ways of including young and middle-aged members at the highest organizational level of leadership and governance. Generally speaking, the tyranny of the status quo should be countered so both change and constancy can have a chance at swaying the day.

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1. CBS News, “Jeffrey R. Holland, Next in Line to Lead Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Dies at 85,” CBSnews.com, December 27, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Johnathan Peterson, Kevin Smith, and John R. Hibbing, “Do People Really Become More Conservative as They Age?” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 82, No. 2 (April, 2020), pp. 600-11.
4. Nadine Yousif, “Russell M. Nelson, Head of Church of Latter-day Saints, Dies Aged 101,” BBC.com, 29 September, 2025.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

On Arjuna's Vision of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita

In chapter 11 of the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna reveals his real form to Arjuna. The chapter seems like a departure from the surrounding chapters, which focus on bhukti (i.e., devotion to Krishna). For example, in chapter 9, Krishna gives Arjuna the following imperative: “Always think of Me and become my devotee.” Unlike seeing the deity as he really is, sincere devotion to that which is based beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion is possible without being given “divine eyes.” The metaphysically, ontologically real is an attention-getter in the text, but it is the devotion, or bhukti, that is more important from a practical standpoint. Even theologically, the experience of transcendence, of which the human brain is capable, can be said to be more important than “seeing” divinity as it really is because the latter, unlike the former, lies beyond our grasp. In fact, seeing Krishna as he really exists is not necessary, for in chapter 10, Krishna says, “Here are some ways you can recognize and think of Me in the things around you [in the world].” This is yet another reason why the devotion rather than seeing Krishna as he really is, ontologically, should be the attention-getter in the Gita.

A movie focusing on chapter 11 would highlight special effects, and indeed at least one does this to gaudy excess, whereas a movie based on the compassion of Krishna and devotion of Arjuna would be a melodrama, at least if Ramakrishna, a Hindu mystic who lived in the nineteenth century, is any indication. His devotion was so intense that a guru allowed Ramakrishna to perform ritual as he intuited. I contend that this, rather than hoping to see the divine as it really is, ought to be the goal of a religious person.

Benkata Bhatta, speaking at a Bhakti Yoga Conference in 2025, asked why, given that Krishna tells Arjuna when he is seeing Krishna as the deity really is, “Now see for yourself how everything in creation is within Me,” why does Arjuna request to see Krishna as the deity really is? Bhatta’s answer was that we are visual creatures. Hence, Jesus says in the Gospels, blessed are those who do not see me yet believe. Yet even in the case of Jesus, the incarnated Logos, he is not seen by even his disciples as the Word itself, by which God created the world. In contrast, Krishna is giving Arjuna a way of accessing something that is already there in front of us, only Arjuna needs divine eyes to see Krishna as the deity really is. Just before revealing Himself, Krishna tells Arjuna, “but you cannot see Me with our present eyes. Therefore, I give you divine eyes.” Although Jesus’s disciples do not see Jesus as the Logos, they do not need divine eyes to see Jesus ascending to heaven as resurrected. The resurrected body is itself at least how the incarnated Logos really is, even if it does not show the Logos as it is before being incarnated by God’s self-emptying, or lowering, of itself. Paul’s vision of Jesus, as well as that of the disciples when they see Jesus next to Elijah and Moses, can also be said to be transcendent and thus as Jesus really is, as incarnated. Nevertheless, it can be argued that seeing the Logos as it really is, sans being incarnated, requires “divine eyes.”

In his talk, Bhatta said that vision defies enumeration, and is brighter than “hundreds of thousands of suns.” All living being. No beginning, middle or end; without limit or boundaries. How can this be encapsulated in the vision?  A person would need divine eyes, which Krishna gives to Arjuna to see Krishna as that Supreme Person is. Simultaneous unity and unending multiplicity. Innumerable arms, faces, mouths, bellies, and many terrible teeth. This is, I submit, intentionally overwhelming, and this can be treated as an indication that being provided such a vision goes too far for us mere mortals.

 In The Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto’s descriptors of terrifying, fancinating, mysterious pertaining to the human experience of the holy aptly describe Arjuna’s reaction to seeing Krishna. For instance, Arjuna says, “Oh great one, seeing this wondrous and terrible form. . . . Your many terrible teeth; and as they are disturbed, so am I. . . . my mind is perturbed by fear. I can no longer maintain my steadiness or equilibrium of mind.” Arjuna sees the soldiers on both sides, their heads smashed by Krishna’s teeth. He is bewildered, terrified, and humbled. “What are you?” Arjuna asks. Krishna answers, “Time (or death) I am, the great destroyer of all worlds.” This ontological basis of Krishna is the metaphysical basis of the Gita’s main ethical teaching for Arjuna, who is in a confused state ethically on whether to fight against some of his relatives on the battlefield in a civil war: death is already fated, so an instrument. Don’t worry about the ethics of killing your former teachers and even some of your relatives. Yet even as destiny exists, there is still space for free will. Arjuna can decide to walk away from the battlefield.

Arjuna calls Krishna the god of gods. Arjuna begs forgiveness for having been so informally friendly with the supreme deity. “You are my dear friend, but simultaneously you are so much greater than I am,” Arjuna now realizes. Krishna forgives Arjuna, and thus treats the latter as a friend. Arjuna says, “I am gladdened, but at the same time my mind is disturbed with fear . . .” According to Bhatta, Arjuna is grateful for being shown the divine vision, but is also afraid—too much so, in fact. The fear is making it difficult for Arjuna to love Krishna. So, Arjuna asks to see the four-armed Narayana form of Krishna. The four-arms reminds him that Krishna is the Supreme Person and yet is less terrifying. Krishna grants this wish. To encourage Arjuna, Krishna further withdraws to a two-armed human-like form. This is divinity seen as human-like, just as Jesus is the Logos in human form. Just as seeing the Logos as it is may be too terrifying for mere mortls, Arjuna tells Krishna, “Seeing this beautiful human-like form, now I am myself . . .” Krishna sympathizes with the confused warrior, saying during the vision, “this form of Mine you are now seeing is very difficult to behold. The form you are seeing you’re your transcendental eyes cannot be understood simply by studying the Vedas, or by undergoing serious penances, nor by charity, nor by worship.” Lest this line be construed as privileging the ontological vision over bhukti, Krishna goes on to say, “only by undivided devotional service can I be understood as I am, standing before you, and thus be seen directly. Only in this way can you enter into the mysteries of My understanding . . .”  Krishna appears to be saying that only by bhukti can He not only be understood as he is, but also seen, thus in a way that does not require divine eyes. To be sure, Arjuna is able to see Krishna in human form (i.e., with only two arms) differently after having seen the deity as He really is, but, according to Bhatta, the source of divine power is coming down to a loving relationship with Arjuna. Even though there is admittedly a power to having a healthy kind of fear if it facilitates a fuller, personal, intimate relationship, for otherwise such a relationship may be taken for granted, seeing Krishna as He really exists is not necessary to be even intensely devoted to the deity and even understanding and seeing the deity as it really is.

Therefore, reading the Gita as if the vision in chapter 11 is the most important part may be a mistake borne in part from the sensationalism of how the vision is described in the text. The descriptors theorized by Otto, especially that of tremendum, can and should be tempered, and this can be done by focusing on loving devotion instead of a vision of a deity as it really is. It is not as if we have divine eyes, whereas devotion to a transcendent entity or object is within our purview.

On Presumptuous Pride: Netanyahu Castigates Europe

While conducting a genocide and even a holocaust in Gaza from 2023 through at least the summer of 2025, the Israeli government was in no position to launch diplomatic threats against either the E.U. or any of its states for recognizing a Palestinian state alongside the Israeli state.[1] At the time, the warrants issued by the ICC for the arrest of Netanyahu and a former defense minister were still outstanding, and no doubt more warrants would be issued for other culprits in the Israeli government and military. I applaud Jews around the world, and especially in Israel, who have had the guts to protest publicly on behalf of human rights in Gaza and against Israel's savage militaristic incursion into Gaza and the related death of tens of thousands and starvation of millions. The human urge of self-preservation is astonishing in that as of August, 2025, so many residents of Gaza were still alive. So, for Netanyahu to charge government officials in the E.U. with being antisemitic is not only incorrect and unfair, but highly presumptuous given the severity of the atrocities unleashed by Netanyahu and his governmental cadre. Regarding both the Israeli protesters and the Netanyahu government, distinguishing the ethical from the theological domains, which are admittedly very much related, is helpful.

Any religion that would applaud the behavior of Israel since that country started bombing civilians (and their homes and even entire cities) in Gaza does not deserve the appellation of religion, much less faith. In the Torah, we can find examples where Yahweh punishes Israel for disobeying the covenant, which includes the Ten Commandments, which in turn include the prohibition against murder, especially of an entire population as if every resident were culpable.

Nietzsche castigates the line, "Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord," because it contradicts omnibenevolence, which is a divine attribute. Even so, Israel might want to heed the line, for even though collective justice does not apply outside of Israel, the Torah applies it to Israel. That Israel includes even the Israelis who have protested the genocide and holocaust in Gaza confirms the vital point that divine decrees in a scripture do not always subscribe to our notions of what is ethical, for otherwise Yahweh’s omnipotence would be constrained by our moral principles. Of course, this point does not give us an “out” for behaving unethically in harming other people, especially innocents, especially if in God’s name, and this is precisely the fallacy into which Netanyahu and his cadre as well as supporters have fallen, even if implicitly rather than consciously.

Put another way, in the Book of Exodus, not even the Hebrews who have not been worshipping the Golden Calf in the desert while Moses is on the mountain can enter the promised land for 40 years; all of Israel is being punished. Similarly, a divine decree against Israel for having broken the commandment against murder so severely would include even the Israelis who have publicly protested Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza (as well as his enabling of attacks by Israeli “settlers” against Palestinians in the occupied territories). That more Israelis could have stopped working and protested such that the Netanyahu governing coalition might change course or even collapse is not the point. Rather, my point here is that collective justice is unethical even when issued by a divine decree, so Israel’s collective punishment of all of the residents of Gaza cannot be justified, either in ethical terms or as if Netanyahu could issue divine decrees that transcend the ethical realm.

Furthermore, the Final Act in terms of Yahweh’s judgment is beyond Israel’s control, given that atrocities have already been committed, and the Christian unqualified (in both senses of this word!) enablers of Israel might remember this too. To presume that a Last Judgment goes your way, or does not apply to oneself, is impious and presumptuous, and in line with the pre-eminence of self-love rather than faith in caritas seu benevolentia universalis. It is ironic that any Christian would forget this very practical faith, and even enable people who violate it so severely. Similarly, it is interesting that the governing coalition of Israel would dismiss Hillel’s teaching not to treat others as you would not want to be treated. Take out the two nots, and Jesus’s Second Commandment is revealed. 

In other words, the means of supporting Israel’s teleological-theological role in salvation history should not violate divine decrees, or else the Final Judgement may come as a surprise because means are arguably just as important as goals. In fact, the choice of means, rather than the ends being sought (e.g., the triumph of Israel for theological purposes), may be what Yahweh looks at in judging human creatures. 

Even though the theological and ethical dimensions of means are important, and may even be more important to the ends being sought, a distinctly theological point does not reduce to one of ethics, for otherwise Yahweh would be subject to our ethical ideas, rather than vice versa. Even though it has been quipped that there is nothing like gods on Earth than Generals on a battlefield, not even their commander-in-chief is capable of issuing divine decrees, and thus should be held ethically and legally accountable; this is two degrees of separation from such a person as Netanyahu lashing out hate-speech slurs against government officials in Europe because they object to what is arguably a genocide and even a holocaust in Gaza and want to help the residents thereof.  

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1. Tal Shalev et al, “Israel Launches Diplomatic Attacks on Its Western Allies Ahead of Palestinian Statehood Recognition,” CNN.com, August 20, 2025.

Acting Morally: Bhukti Yoga and Kant Beyond Duty

At Harvard’s Bhukti Yoga Conference in 2025, a Hindu religious artist whose Hindu name is Srimati Syamarani, spoke on the art of spiritual life. A person is like the hand of Krishna. The hand puts food in Krishna’s body, so the entire body is nourished. The hand serving the body is a duty. So too is following the type of bhukti that is following rules and regulations out of duty. At some point, it will no longer be felt as a duty. In Kantian terms, this means not acting ethically by being compelled by reason—the necessity of the moral law that reason presents to us; rather, going beyond moral duty is to approximate the holy will, but not because it is the nature of finite rational beings to be good; rather, it is out of love of the moral law, including its necessitating us to act ethically. In bhukti devotion, however, it is not love of the form of moral law (i.e., it being an imperative, or command, of reason) that obviates the sense of duty to serve Krishna and other people, as in being a hand of Krishna serves Krishna’s body; rather, it is love directed to Krishna (and ensuing compassion to people) that transcends ethical obligation per se. This is not to say that bhukti practice can go beyond feeling obligated due to a feeling, whereas it is by the use of reason that Kantian gets beyond duty, for it is the feeling of respect that empirically motivates a person to treat people as not only means to one’s own goals, but also as ends in themselves. As rational beings, we partake in reasoning, albeit in a finite way, and reason itself has absolute value because it is by reason that value is assigned to things. Even so, it cannot be said that a devotee of Krishna in Hinduism can go beyond acting out of duty due to an emotion (i.e.., love or compassion) whereas for Kant it is just by reasoning that a person can go beyond acting because one is duty-bound.

To Kant, acting out of a maxim, which is simply a reason for doing something, that includes a desire for an empirical object is lower than having as a reason, acting out of the moral law. Material principles presuppose an object of desire. Getting that object is a condition of having the subjective, material principle. Kant didn’t want a material maxim, such as the desire for one’s own happiness, not to mention wealth, to have anything to do with the moral law. A material maxim cannot furnish the content of a moral law. “All practical principles that presuppose an object (matter) of the faculty of desire as the determining ground of the will are, without exception, empirical and can furnish no practical laws.”[1] A moral law, which is practical in that it relates to actions rather than, say, metaphysics, cannot be oriented to getting something that is desired. Not even the desire to be happy can be admitted to a moral law. “All material practical principles as such are, without exception, of one and the same kind and come under the general principle of self-love or one’s own happiness.”[2] Even though self-love, unlike self-conceit, is constrained by moral law, self-love is sordid in that it can be the basis of a reason for doing something (i.e., a maxim) that is connected with a desire for something. Additionally, Kant maintains that “(t)he maxim of self-love (prudence) merely advises,” whereas “the law of morality commands. . . . there is a great difference between which we are advised to do and that to which we are obliged.”[3] In short, being motivated by self-love is not strong enough to get us to act morally. It is the form of a moral law, specifically as a command by reason, that turns out to be crucial in us, who have other inclinations, to be moral agents.  

Even enjoying doing your duty is a material practical principle because such a motive is empirical in nature, whereas being motivated to act because of the form of the moral law is not a material principle. The holy will of an infinite being can only be approximated by finite rational beings by trying to extirpate material desires (i.e., trying to rid oneself of all inclinations). But we can’t do that completely. Even so, we can be morally good agents because we can feel obligated to do something out of duty; we know we can be ethical because we are obligated. That is to say, we can be moved to do something just because it is our duty. Moral goodness is only possible for finite rational beings; if we were infinite, we wouldn’t be morally good—we would be good because that would be our nature. A fully rational agent would just do as a matter of its nature what it ought to do, so doing so would not even be thought of or felt as a duty. In bhukti, Krishna does not feel obliged to act ethically; rather, the deity does so out of compassion, which is the deity’s nature.

To Kant, Love and benevolence are a matter of duty to for finite beings such as us. In contrast, pathological love is from an inclination and thus cannot be a duty.  Practical love is the duty to make the following maxim: acting for others’ state rather than one’s own as a reason for doing something. Even though for Kant self-love is subject to the moral law (whereas self-conceit is not), it seems to me that the maxim of love and benevolence is difficult to reconcile with the idea that self-love is confined by the moral law. I think Kant’s desire to distinguish self-love from self-conceit is responsible for his over-estimation of self-love normatively (i.e., as a good thing).

Also, whereas love and benevolence are salient in bhukti devotion and the devotee’s interpersonal relations, for Kant, practical love can’t be the sole motive in acting on a moral duty because but there cannot be a duty to have a feeling. “If a rational being is to think of his maxims as practical universal laws, he can think of them only as principles that contain the determining ground of the will not by their matter but only by their form.”[4] The moral law has the form of an imperative by the nature of law itself, as necessitated by reason. Necessitation is the process by which a finite rational being brings oneself to do what one ought to do by what one takes as a command of reason to do. Necessitation is a psyche process in the phenomenal realm (i.e., of appearances) that is empirically motivated by means of the feeling of respect. But this is only empirically so; a priori (i.e., apart from experience), it is the duty itself that motivates us. Think of reason as commanding you. A person follows the command by being motivated by a feeling of respect for the moral law itself. It is precisely that feeling that can obviate the sense of duty itself; even though our nature, unlike Krishna’s or God’s, is not goodness itself (omnibenevolence), we can get beyond feeling obligated to act according to the duty required by reason and motivated by respect for other people as ends in themselves (because they too are rational beings). With sufficient respect for the form (i.e., imperative) of moral law itself, a person can act morally not out of a sense of duty.

In her talk, Srimati Syamarani spoke of following the rules and regulations first as her duty, but then out of love for Krishna. In contrast, Kant claims that love cannot be the sole motive for acting morally, whether out of duty or not. Respect for the imperative of reason itself in its capacity as a moral law-giver is very different than the love that a devotee directs to a deity, and yet these two ways can get finite moral agents acting morally and yet not out of a sense of duty.

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1. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., 5:36.
4. Ibid., 5:27.

On Absolute Truth in Hinduism: Impersonal Energy or a Supreme Person?

At Harvard’s Bhakti Yoga Conference in 2025, a man whose Hindu name is Kaustubha spoke on the three phases of ultimate truth: Brahman, Paramatma, and Bhagavan. Is the absolute truth an energy or a person? Is God a non-personal energy or a person. In Vedanta Hinduism, this is a salient question. According to Kaustubha, absolute truth is that which is not dependent on anything else; a truth from which everything else comes. Kaustubha defined Brahman as being impersonal energy, which is that from which everything else manifests. The Upanishads emphasize the realization by a person that one’s true self is identical to the impersonal energy of being itself that is infinite, aware, powerful, and blissful.  Although the Bhagavad-Gita can be interpreted thusly, as per Shankara’s commentary, but also as Krishna being the Supreme Person, which is more ultimate than Brahman. What gives? Who, or what, is on top in terms of ontological ultimacy (i.e., ultimately real)?

Vyasdeva wrote Srimad Bhagavatam, in which divine love is emphasized. He was trying to clarify the Hindu scriptures. For him, devotion includes knowledge of renunciation (i.e., Brahman realization). Also, devotion is not oriented to getting earthly things, such as wealth. Life should be used for enquiring into the nature of absolute truth. Vyasdeva’s answer: “Learned transcendentalists who know the absolute Truth call this nondual substance Brahman, Paramatma or Bhagavan.” These are three features of the one absolute truth, which is the source of all existence. We can know that truth in three ways. They are “qualitatively one and the same. The same substance is realized as impersonal Brahman by the students of the Upanisads, as localized Pramatma by the Hiranyagabhas or the yogi, and as Bhagavan by the devotees.”[1]

Paramatma is a manifestation of Vishnu in the human proverbial heart.  Bhagavan is in a personal form as the Supreme Person. Vyasdeva claims that “Bhagavan, or the Personality of the Godhead, and impersonal Brahman is the glowing effulgence of the Personality of Godhead. . . . (T)hose who are perfect seers of the Absolute truth know well that the above three features of the one Absolute Truth are different perspective views seen from different angles of vision.” Yet Vyasdeva contends in his text that Bhagavan is superior to Paramatma and Brahman. To be sure, he nestles realization of Brahman and Paramatma within the realization of Bhagavan. A person does not have realization of the Supreme Person (Bhagavan) without realizing Paramatma in one’s heart and without Brahman being realized at identical to one’s innermost self (atman).

Kaustubha interpreted Brahman realization as a person realizing that one is made of spiritual energy, and thus is in reality eternal, immutable, and one with the universe. In saying, “I am beyond desire,” a person has an evenness of mind. “I am spirit.” Paramatma realization too can be achieved by a yogi in meditation.  In this realization, a person might say, “I am in constant contact with, and under the shelter of the supreme consciousness, the cosmic intelligence, the soul of the universe.” That Supreme Soul exists within a person because it exists in one’s own heart. This divine Being is controlling the material universe, and is the dear friend of everyone. Brahman realization is included within this realization. In Bhagavan realization, a person might say, “I realize and love the supreme form of Vishnu, which has all-attractive names, forms, qualities and pastimes, and expands ultimately through its various energies and reciprocates with my love.” The material realm consists of three gunas; each one of these modes of energy, illumination, detachment, and destruction, has an influence on a person.

In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna’s recipe for not being attached to these gunas is devotion to the deity, Krishna.[2] But aren’t forms the opposite of Brahman realization, such that seeing beyond forms is necessary? Krishna answers that Brahman is one of that deity’s energies, so if a person is lovingly devoted to Krishna as the Supreme Person (i.e., Bhagavan), a person has Brahman realization too, so viewing Absolute Truth as personified in a form does not violate the non-dual quality of Brahman as impersonal energy. In fact, Kaustubha implied that devotion to Absolute Truth as Krishna, the Supreme Person (and thus the highest deity in the Hindu polytheistic pantheon), is better in resulting in a person being compassionate to other people than is Brahman realization, wherein a person’s true self (atman) is known to be identical to the infinite impersonal energy that pervades (and is) reality.

In Srimad Bhagavatam, Vyasdeva asserts, “The most advanced devotee sees within everything the soul of all souls, the Supreme Person. Consequently, he sees everything in relation to the Supreme Lord and understands that everything that exists is eternally situated within the Lord.”[3] So, a “devotee who faithfully engages in the worship of the Deity in the temple but does not behave properly toward other devotees or people in general is called a prakrta-bhakta, a materialistic devotee, and is considered to be in the lowest position.”[4] Such devotees, Kaustubha claimed, are not devotees because they do not recognize the divine apart from the Supreme Person.  Hypocrisy comes with this. In contrast, a sincere devotee “shows mercy to ignorant people who are innocent and disregards the enmity of those who are inimical towards them.”[5] Compassion toward all naturally emanates from having loving compassion in devotion to the Supreme Person. That is, regular religious experience that is sincere automatically renders one more compassionate to other finite beings. I submit that such a mechanism is more efficacious than is intention to put a religious teaching into practice by being compassionate to other people because we have various inclinations that can eclipse any intention.

Is it the case, however, that Bhagavan realization, in which the devotee’s love is directed to Krishna as the Supreme Person qua ultimate reality, is better than Brahman realization in resulting in people being compassionate to other people? I contend that Bhagavan realization is indeed superior because the currency of compassion is in a person’s bhakti relation to the deity already. In contrast, knowing Brahman—that a person’s self is really the same as the impersonal being that supports the created realm as a floor of sorts—does not in itself include compassion. Rather, it is by realizing that we are all the same because we are all basically the same “substance” as Brahman that the implication is reached cognitively and through meditation that we should be compassionate to other people. In other words, an experiential, extratextual realization of the identity of individual and infinite being is not itself compassion; rather, the exercise of compassion should follow from the realization. Even if this happens automatically rather than by intention, which is admittedly possible, compassion is not in the realization itself, whereas compassion is in bhakti devotion to Absolute Truth in a personified form. This is the idea.

Such a conclusion is not necessarily generalizable to reach Kaustubha’s claim that Bhagavan realization is superior to Brahman realization, for it has not been shown that Absolute Truth reduces to (or is epitomized by) compassion. For example, Brahman realization may be superior to bhakti yoga in terms of not suffering from being attached to the desire for objects in this world. Furthermore, Kaustubha’s hierarchy of realizations flies in the face of his preachment on religious toleration. A person who values compassion most may prefer Bhagavan realization, whereas another person who is primarily concerned with not suffering may prefer identifying intellectually and experientially with Brahman. Even if the latter is considered to be one of Krishna’s energies (and thus that the Supreme Person is more real than even Brahman), encapsulating the divine in a human form is, as David Hume points out, highly anthropomorphic (i.e., positing human characteristics onto non-human things or animals). As Nietzsche might say, it is human, all too human, to view Absolute Truth in our own terms. It is much more difficult, Hume maintains, to grasp divine simplicity without hanging recognizable forms on the transcendent. Furthermore, that Brahman is one of Krishna’s energies may defy the nature of Brahman itself as that which even the creation of the gods comes, as Brahman is out of which everything that exists comes, is sustained, and ends. It may be asked nonetheless if a better means of showing compassion as caritas seu benevolentia universalis to everyone isn’t worth some anthropomorphism if that is necessary to get compassion “up front” in the process of realization itself such that compassion may more automatically flow out, with other people, fellow devotees or not, as the referents.

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1. A.C. Bhaktivedenta, Purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2.11.
2. See the Bhagavad-gita, 14.21-27.
3. Vyasdeva, Srimad Bhagavatam (11.2.45-47).
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

The Basis of Christian Faith: Beyond Idolatry

I think perhaps the title of the film, Silence (2016) ought to have been “The last Priest” because the main character, Rodrigues, is the last remaining Roman Catholic priest in Japan. His inner struggle is the core of the narrative, and of the theological/ethical dilemma to be resolved. The movie is set in Japan in 1640-1641. A Buddhist inquisitor, Mokichi, is torturing and killing Christians, who must step on a stove carving of Jesus as proof of committing apostasy (i.e., renouncing their faith). Taking it as proof, Father Rodrigues torments over whether to apostasy in order to save the Japanese Christians whom Mokichi is having killed serially until the priest renounces his faith. I submit that the assumption of proof rests on dubious grounds, so Rodrigues is actually faced with a false dichotomy.

The full essay is at "Silence."

Christianity on Climate Change

First Reformed (2017) contains fundamental ideas concerning the human condition and wrestles with the relationship between religion and politics.  Ideas play a significant role in the film, hence it can be used in support of the thesis that film is a viable medium in which to make philosophical (and theological) ideas transparent and derive dramatic tension from clashing ideas. In this film, the ideas that clash concern the role of religion in the political issue of climate change—or is that issue primarily religious?

The full essay is at "First Reformed."

American religion and politics: A Propensity to Overreach

Even though they are formally separated in the U.S. under the constitutional rubric that the federal government cannot lawfully establish a religion and infringe on the free exercise of religion, religion has ventured into politics and vice versa. Valued ideals pertain to both even though the highest in religion are transcendent, meaning that they extend beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility, according to St. Denis (aka Pseudo-Dionysius) in the sixth century. So far is the political variety from such ideals as being in heaven! Yet the political sort has enjoyed a near monopoly in the world, including its public discourse. At least as 2019 was giving way to a new decade, captivation on President Trump’s tweets (i.e., brief statements made on the internet’s social media) and the process of impeaching him in the U.S. House of Representatives was strangely devoid of any religious discussion in the public square. This is all the more extraordinary because of the significant role that religion had played historically in presidential politics.

The full essay is at "American Religion and Politics."

The Bahá’i Religion: Theological Problems

The Bahá’i religion is based on the monotheistic teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, the nineteenth-century prophet whom Bahá’i’s maintain is the prophet even for the twenty-first century. The monotheism dovetails with the religion’s earthly goal of unity even in diversity.[1] At the same time, the religion is universalistic in that it holds that truth can come out of various religions, including non-deism Buddhism and polytheistic Hinduism. Bahá’i aims to be a tolerant religion in principle, although it seems to me that the monotheistic religions would naturally be favored. Although Hindu and Buddhist teachings and prayers are incorporated, Bahá’i does seem to emphasize Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yet this does not absolve Bahá’iism from the tension in being both monotheist and inclusive of truth from non-monotheist religions. 

Even within Bahá’i’s grasp of the three monotheist religions an underlying tension can be found. Specifically, although Bahá’iism aims to accurately represent all three of the Abrahamic religions, the desire to emphasize what those religions have in common comes at the expense of taking each in its own, distinct terms. In particular, Bahá’i teaching treats Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed similarly even though they are different types in their respective religions. The imposed isomorphism enables Bahá’iism to claim Bahá’u’lláh as the fourth is a series of the same prophet-type. This type stresses the divine-connection of the prophet at the expense of his human nature. Meanwhile, the goal of unity—the Kingdom of God—is also portrayed in distinctly earthly terms, albeit idealized, as the unity possible around the world of different peoples in “a civilization founded on justice, equality and unity in diversity.”[2] Viewing the Kingdom of God in such concrete, even partisan terms can arbitrarily narrow and even skew the divine into terms that are human, even all too human.

According to Bahá’i teaching, a series of prophets has provided mankind with God’s teachings on how to take the next step as religion has progressed through human history.[3] Although the progression has been toward monotheism, a non-deity religious sect such as Theravada Buddhism and a polytheistic religion such as Hinduism are still drawn on in Bahá’i prayer, given the religion’s belief that truth can come from many religions.

Looking back, we see a line of prophets ending with Bahá’u’lláh. “In every era of history, God has opened the gates of grace to the world by providing us with one of His Manifestations charged with providing the moral and spiritual stimulus that human beings need to cooperate and advance.”[4] Although Bahá’u’lláh is “the One Whose teachings will bring the maturation of humanity, ushering in the long-promised time when all the peoples of the world will live side by side in peace and unity,”[5] all of the previous prophets, or Manifestations, are of the same type; or, more to the point, the claim is that Bahá’u’lláh is on par with Krishna, Siddhartha, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, but is Moses on par with Jesus?—the former being a man asked by Yahweh to lead God’s people out of Egypt and the latter being the Son of God, fully human and fully divine. Is Siddhartha, the Buddha (enlightened one), on par with Krishna, a Hindu God? The Buddha insists he is not a deity, or even a prophet; he teaches his insight as a way to end suffering. What exactly is Bahá’u’lláh on par with? The capitalization of Manifestation connotes a unique relation to God. In Christianity, the Son of God is qualitatively different that the sons or children of God. What, then, of Siddhatha, Moses, and Mohammed who do not claim to be more than human beings? Is Bahá’u’lláh like them, or is he like the divine Krishna and Jesus Christ? The reference to Manifestations may suggest that every figure in the line is sinless—more divine than merely human.

The 2019 Grassroots Teaching Conference of the Four Corners Region in the U.S. states that the prophets were “social visionaries, stainless mirrors of virtue” who “set out teachings and truth that answered the urgent needs of the age,”[6] which could last hundreds of years until the next prophet comes along even if the teachings have to cover very different contexts from that in which they sprouted. This raises the question of whether teachings from the nineteenth century are readily translatable in even the first two decades of the twenty-first century, which, like the preceding century, was so transformed by technology. If not, then Bahá’u’lláh would not be the final, definitive prophet.

Even the contention of a line of prophets is controversial. To label a Hindu deity as a prophet or even manifestation of God is project the Abrahamic religions onto Hinduism rather than be faithful to the distinctiveness of the latter. So too, the prophet figure is foreign to Buddhism. Even within the Abrahamic line, the claim of a future prophet after Jesus would not be accepted in Christianity, and likewise after Muhammed in Islam. The Bahá’i claim that Bahá’u’lláh is the last of the prophets thus conflicts with the claim that the religion is consistent with Christianity and Islam.

The prophet figure is based in Judaism, where the prophets speak truth to power used as a vice. How well does the Bahá’i notion of prophet fit with the original? Moses is not even considered a prophet in Judaism, though he is portrayed as a social visionary—but his role in freeing the Hebrews is preeminent. Does not a religious vision transcend society? Is it not rather presumptuous to claim that certain social structures are sacred? Also, is Moses a stainless mirror of virtue? Yahweh bars Moses (not a prophet anyway) from entering the promised land for having taken credit for water coming out of a rock even though Yahweh has accomplished the miracle, yet Moses is heroic in going back to Egypt to free the Hebrews enslaved there. In regard to the Hebrew prophets, they are usually pointing out God’s displeasure at another person for not being virtuous rather than being virtuous themselves. When David displays a lack of virtue with regard to Bathsheba and her husband, Nathan, a prophet, informs David that Yahweh is not pleased with David’s lack of virtue. Does this imply or necessitate that the prophet is himself (or must be) virtuous? 

Moreover, are all of the prophets recognized by the Bahá’i religion perfect reflections of virtue? Would they not have to be divine in some special way (e.g., Krishna and Jesus)? The extinct Greek deities show us, however, that to be divine is not necessarily to be virtuous. Siddhartha, Moses and Mohammed do not even consider themselves divine. Is Mohammed virtuous? If so, should we apply the standards of his own time, when he was regarded as quite progressive, or ours?

Five of the Ten Commandments are moral or normative, and God as omnipotent (all-powerful) cannot, by definition, be limited to human moral principles. Can we know that the moral commandments are divine commands rather than projections of a culture’s normativity? Bahá’iism holds that “God is unknowable in His essence and that we cannot understand the nature of God.”[7] If God is unknowable, then how can we be certain that a virtue is divine-sourced and revealed as such? Faith is of belief, and thus falls short of the certainty of knowledge. Moreover, if we cannot understand God, how can we be sure that we understand God’s message in its pristine form? The messenger and subsequent copy-editors, being human, may have their own perspectives and agendas.

God transcends the limit of human cognition (and perception), and thus human concepts, according to pseudo-Dionysus, a Christian theologian and saint of the sixth century. Even the concept of the Trinity is to be transcended. As the twentieth-century religious scholar, Joseph Campbell said, the mask of eternity becomes the final obstruction to the religious experience.[8] The message that reaches us mere mortals may, in Nietzschean coinage, be human, all too human. In David Hume’s theory, the message could be said to be so anthropomorphic (misapplying human characteristics to non-human objects) that the quality of divine simplicity is obscured like a black hole in the middle of a galaxy.

As with the kingdom of God in Christian liberation theology, the societal ending point in Bahá’i can be criticized for being human, all too human, albeit in a good way as far as ideals go. Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation “contains laws, principles and truths which make possible the unification of the human family and the construction of a world which is both materially and spiritually prosperous.”[9] The promise of material riches is rather earthly (as opposed to heavenly). Although Yahweh promises the Hebrews that Israel will have material wealth if the they faithfully keep the Covenant and the Christian Prosperity Gospel maintains that God will reward people who have true belief (i.e., that Jesus Christ is the Son of God) with material (and spiritual) wealth, treasure on Earth has generally been contrasted with spiritual wealth by religions, including Christianity.[10]

Encroachments of religion onto other domains has been endemic since antiquity; bolstering particular political and economic theories, structures, and related ethical principles by christening them in a Kingdom of God can be thought of as self-idolatrous in that certain human artifacts are deemed sacred. A religion espousing such a kingdom can actually exacerbate divisions at the expense of unity because the selection of particular artifacts can have a partisan, or partial, quality. In contrast, a Kingdom of God not of things from our world—an other-worldly Kingdom—can more easily be associated with a divine source.

The Bahá’i goal is a Kingdom of God on Earth that includes a relatively equal distribution of wealth. Both the degree of politico-economic specification and the “leftward” ideological tilt render that Kingdom much like that in Liberation Theology, and thus vulnerable to the same criticism. Although unity is highly valued in the Bahá’i teachings, the religion fails to eschew political partisanship in rendering the religion’s ideal society wherein people can be transformed such that religion is fulfilled. Interestingly, members of the religion are discouraged from discussing and participating in partisan politics because doing so is divisive rather than unifying, whereas discussion of political and economic ideals is actually encouraged under the rubric of a Kingdom of God.

Generally speaking, when a religion extends to other (related?) domains, the unique or distinctive native fauna in the religious garden can easily be overlooked. For example, transcendent experience, which transcends the limits of our concepts, thinking, perceiving and even emotions, can be clouded over by concerns that are properly of other domains, grabbed by religion as if the distinctive element of religion—transcendent experience—were not legitimate or worthy enough in itself.[11] Even within religion, fights about whether a religious founder or prophet is divine or merely human or over the nature of the divine entity, being, or object (which transcends our cognition anyway) can keep us from stepping into religious experience—beyond even the divine masks—even during worship services!

For more, see: God's Gold: Beneath the Shifting Sands of Christian Thought on Profit-Seeking and Wealth and Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical. Both are available at Amazon.

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1. This is similar to Schopenhauer’s ethical theory of compassion being based on Plotinus’s (a second-century Christian philosopher) notion of the One.

2. From the 2019 Grassroots Teaching Conference of the Four Corners Region.

3. This notion of religion progressing through history is close to David Hume’s theory in The Natural History of Religion. Yet for Hume, the human brain can only go so far in holding onto the pristine, uncorrupted idea of divine simplicity (i.e., pure monotheism) without projecting more comfortable human attributes. Friedrich Nietzsche found a vice—that of vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord—among the other anthropomorphic divine attributes. He argues that vengeance is in conflict with omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), thus the concept of God has been discredited even as news of this has not reached the culprits and their enablers yet. Bahá’iism maintains in contrast to Hume that the last prophet’s teachings can bring mankind to construct the Kingdom of God on Earth, completing the world-historical progression of religion. I contend that even Hume underestimated the ways in which the human brain is incompatible with a fruition of religion here on Earth. Denial, for instance, is a strong force holding internal contradictions within a given religion in place—even hiding them from the culprits themselves!

4. Universal House of Justice, October 2017.

5. Ibid.

6. From the 2019 Grassroots Teaching Conference of the Four Corners Region.

7. Ibid.

8. Campbell makes this statement in the PBS miniseries, The Power of Myth (episode Masks of Eternity).

9. Ibid.

10. On the shift toward accepting wealth in Christianity, I have written the academic treatise, Godliness and Greed, published by Lexington, following which I wrote the non-fiction (i.e., dictionaries not needed) book, God’s Gold. I argue that the Commercial Revolution and the Italian Renaissance as being bench-marks for the transition from a dominant anti-wealth stance to a pro-wealth stance—the latter making the Prosperity Gospel possible. In other words, Christian social ethics were pro-wealth before the Calvinist work ethic came around in the Reformation.
11. On distinguishing the religious domain from stuff grounded in other domains, and on the primacy of transcendent experience, see my book, Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical. Available at Amazon.

Transcending the United Methodist Vote to Retain Prohibitions on Gay Clergy and Weddings

Delegates meeting at a special session of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church voted on February 26, 2019 to retain the denomination’s ban on gay clergy and same-sex weddings. The alternative plan would have permitted individual congregations to decide for themselves. Clearly, Methodism is not Congregationalism.  The debate was heated on both sides.[1] Transcending them, we may ask whether the heat was overblown. Pope Francis had urged his fellow Roman Catholic bishops and other clergy not to focus so much on that issue and abortion. That urging was itself controversial, which in itself can be read as confirmation that the two issues were getting too much attention and energy. Unlike the case of the Pope’s urging, the vote at the Methodists’ General Conference threatened to split that Church. Can this too be taken as an indication that the emphasis on the issue was disproportionate to its religious importance?

Just how important is homosexuality as a religious issue in Christianity? Jesus does not speak of it in the Gospels, so the issue must boil down to God’s referring to two men lying together as an abomination, which means “disliked by God.” Relatively small things are also disliked by God, including eating things that crawl on the bottom of the sea. So rather displeasing to God does not necessarily translate into a huge sin. How important is the displeasing itself, whether about something that we now take as arbitrary or important? In other words, is it really bad to do something that is displeasing to God. If a person does something that is displeasing to you, that is hardly worse than something that you hate or even detest. Even so, doing a displeasing thing is not a good thing, especially as concerns God, which is to be glorified rather than annoyed. This is perhaps what the issue hinges on in Judaism as well as Christianity, only the latter has the additional question of how much attention ought to be paid to the Old Testament prohibitions. That the issue of homosexuality, like that of abortion, easily gets heated makes it more difficult to get through these questions.

At root, the Methodist delegates disagreed on the importance of the abominations in Leviticus for Christians as well as the importance of “displeasing to God” in itself. Within the disagreement could also have included how much, if at all, to weigh the cultural imprint of the ancient Hebrews in the Biblical naming of specific dislikes of God. Perhaps these questions should have been debated first, so the delegates could have grasped how much basic disagreement existed. The question of whether differences on them are sufficiently important as to justify ecclesiastical separation could have debated too. To be sure, these questions are not easy, and it could be that the sheer distance between answers could justify separation. Religious interpretation by nature allows for a lot of daylight between individual or group interpretations, and people to whom religion is important are likely to find themselves investing a lot of emotional energy into that daylight.

Hence, in the history of a given religion, whether Buddhism, Judaism, or Christianity, splits and splits of the splits have been the norm. Perhaps this is natural, but it also possible that the religious person tends to go over-board in failing to restrict his or her emotions and accepting the fact that a religious institution is not going to perfectly align with any individual therein.  A loss of perspective, including emotional and cognitive, can easily go with homo religiosis—our species when it gets religious. In other words, the real problem may lie with homo sapiens (i.e., our species). The problem is that the loss of perspective flies in the face of the core religious nature of transcendence. As St. Denis of the sixth century wrote, transcendence involves going beyond the limits of human perception and cognition (and sensibility, or emotion). So if these are too intense, we can assume too little attention is being payed to valuing and experiencing transcendence, which if I am correct is the basis and distinguishing mark of religion as a unique phenomenon or domain. In theory at least, if religious transcendence is regarded as foremost, less emotional investment would go into even the basic questions discussed above. If Joseph Campbell was correct, even the masks of eternity must be transcended so as not to obstruct a person’s religious experience, whose referent-point lies inherently beyond perception, cognition, and sensibility.

For more on transcending the ethical in religion, see Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical, available at Amazon. 

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1. Bill Chappell, “United Methodist Church Votes to Keep Bans on Same-Sex Weddings, LGBTQ Clergy,” NPR, February 26, 2019.

Business and Religion: Financial Ethics Found Lacking in the Vatican's Institute of Religious Works

In probing corruption leads in the Vatican Bank, Italian financial police stumbled onto a plot in July 2012 to smuggle €20 million into Italy. The alleged culprits included a monsignor, a financial broker, and a former member of Italy’s secret service. For his part, the cleric was said to have had people pretend to give him donations of €560,000 so he could furtively pay the financial broker for his role. Crime, Italian politics, and the Vatican Bank: hardly a novel discordant tune even then. That not just any bank, but that of a church, could stray so far from what would reasonably be expected from a bank whose formal name is the Institute of Religious Works still boggles the mind. 
The intersection of ethics, religion and business is fraught with complexity.  A religious verdict from ethical premises is possible nevertheless. Generally speaking, religion does not boil down to ethics. John D. Rockefeller was unethical in restraining trade when he ran Standard Oil. Yet pressing the railroads for excessive rebates and drawbacks (compensation from the railroads serving other customers) does not de-legitimate the titan’s claim to have been a Christ-figure in saving “drowning” competitors. Theological inconsistency, rather than unethical conduct, would be needed to expunge Rockefeller’s industrial-religious identity. Such inconsistency can be found in Rockefeller having forced competitors unwilling to be bought out into bankruptcy; Jesus did not inflict harm on people who refused to follow him. Human ethical systems cannot limit God, which is omnipotent.
Divine-sourced ethical principles, such as those in the Ten Commandments, are regarded as religious in nature, rather than merely soured in a human ethical system. Accordingly, were Rockefeller to have broken one of the Ten Commandments in running Standard Oil, his commercial-religious identity could be assailed. In the case of Msgr. Scarano at the Vatican Bank, his clerical, not to mention Christian, identities are vulnerable to the allegations that he bore false witness and stole money from the Vatican. That Kant concluded from his ethical system that lying can never be ethical is irrelevant. However, that Kant’s categorical imperative can be re-stated as, Treat other rational beings not just as means, but also as ends in themselves, suggests that Kant’s theory can be understood as the Golden Rule, which is binding in religious terms. Hume’s theory that determining something as unethical “just is” the psychological sentiment of disapproval finds no such corresponding theological ethic and is thus invalid in assessing the commercial-religious identities of either Rockefeller or Scarano.
As with Rockefeller, the case of Scarano begs the question, how can a person so religiously inclined so delude oneself in such matters?  If driving a car well were important to me, I would be double sure that my driving is as flawless as possible. I would ask friends to ride along or follow me from behind to assess my driving. Were one of them to tell me that my passing skills leave much to be desired, I would work on them—maybe even take a driving lesson. Of course, no one can be a perfect driver. So too, Scarano cannot be sin-free. Even so, were I to be a really bad driver and yet represent myself as highly skilled, people would naturally wonder about my state of mind. At the very least, the sustained cognitive dissidence (i.e., allowing for or ignoring hypocrisy in one’s conduct) likely in Scarano’s mind raises the question of the clerical screening process for mental health.
Moreover, that the Institute for Religious Works has been embroiled in charges of corruption time and again suggests that cognitive dissidence has come to characterize the Vatican’s culture. Considering the questionable prioritizing of avoiding a scandal over defrocking and turning in rapist priests, a pattern of cognitive dissidence can be suspected. The question is perhaps what religious works would look like. From this answer, the question would pertain to how finance could be put into service without undercutting the religious nature of the works.
In conclusion, ethical conduct, religion and finance are a tricky business not easily disentangled. A preliminary point can nevertheless be made with some certainty. Specifically, unethical conduct does not necessarily invalidate a religious identity in a person’s commercial or financial role. The ethical principle would have to be part of a divine decree, such as in the Decalogue, to contradict the assumed commercial religiousity.  A human-constructed ethical theory or principle cannot by definition limit God’s omnipotence (i.e., all-powerful), whereas God’s making of a moral divine decree cannot contradict God’s nature, or essence. Both Rockefeller and Scarano can be found culpable in religious-ethical terms bearing on Christianity even though it is possible to be both unethical and religious without contradiction.

Source: Gilles Castonguay and Liam Moloney, "Vatican Bank Probe Leads to Three Arrests," The Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2013

For more on Rockefeller's application of Christianity to his monopoly, as well as more generally the history of Christian thought on business, see my book, God's Gold, available at Amazon.

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