"Proclaim Peace" Season 2, Episode 2 // The Role of Division in Creation and Growth, With Jared Halverson

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In this episode of the "Proclaim Peace" podcast, hosts Patrick Mason and Jennifer Thomas are joined by Jared Halverson to explore the themes of peace and conflict through the lens of scripture. They discuss the significance of division in creation, the life-giving aspects of conflict, and the balance of opposites in relationships. The conversation delves into the creation, fall, and atonement as a divine paradigm, emphasizing the importance of maintaining unity amidst differences.

Transcript

Patrick Mason (00:01)

Hi everyone, and welcome to the "Proclaim Peace" podcast, where we talk about how the principles of the restored gospel can help us all to become better peacemakers. I'm Patrick Mason, I'm here as always with my friend and co-host, Jennifer Walker Thomas. Hey Jen, how's it going? We are back.

Jennifer Thomas (00:16)

We're back, Patrick. We're back for Season 2. We're really excited about this episode today and it's just basically gonna be, we hope, a conversation about conflict and division and how this gets launched. And most particularly, I think the fact that we live in a fallen world as a result of what happens in these chapters and what we can learn from that and how we can move a little bit better through the world with a deeper knowledge of it.

Patrick Mason (00:41)

Yeah, so we're really excited to do this. We'll talk about the first few chapters of Genesis today. And as we thought about a guest immediately, we thought about our friend Jared Halverson, who I think is really one of the great teachers and expositors of scripture that we have as Latter-day Saints. And just by way of introduction for those who might not know Jared, ⁓ he's an associate professor of scripture, of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University.

This is after serving for more than two decades in the church educational system for a long time as an institute teacher at the University of Utah. ⁓ He was educated at BYU and then went and got a master's degree and PhD at Vanderbilt University where he specialized in American religious history. This is degree very similar to what I got. So he and I always have a lot to talk about when we get together.

Jared has really become, he is absolutely beloved by his students, the thousands and thousands of students that he has taught over the years. I think he is really one of the great gospel educators and communicators we have. And a lot of people will know this because they listen to his podcast, Unshaken, which is just a really terrifically popular podcast where he really dives deep into the scriptures.

We're grateful to Jared that he would come and share his reflections on these few chapters of scripture with us here on "Proclaim Peace."

Patrick Mason (02:06)

All right, well, Jared Halverson, welcome to the "Proclaim Peace" podcast.

Jared Halverson (02:10)

I'm so grateful to be here with you too.

Patrick Mason (02:11)

Man, we're so excited. I can't wait for the conversation. So we always start with the same question and it's amazing the range of different answers that we get, but how do you personally define peace?

Jared Halverson (02:24)

It's a great question and in some ways deceptively simple because it's not as simple as it seems. just that you would ask me that at first I just want to think, well, everybody knows what peace is, but I don't know if we're all defining it in the same way or feeling it in the same sense. I served my mission in the Caribbean and so we had hurricane season every fall. And to me, the eye of the storm describes peace pretty beautifully, because we're constantly surrounded by forces that threaten to pull things apart. And I survived a few hurricanes when I was in the Caribbean. And there's just something powerful about that concept of the eye. And it's really hard to get into. In some ways, what keeps us from the eye of the storm is the storm itself. And yet, if you allow the storm to pass and you can be in the eye and kind of follow the storm where it goes,

I sometimes wonder if the Lord allows us to go through these difficult things, if we'll just lean into them and kind of push our way through with his help into that eye. And then wherever the storm takes us, I think if we can stay within the eye, we're going exactly where the Lord wants us to be. And so to me, there's something powerful about that concept of inner peace, despite outward turmoil.

I think the Lord describes it so beautifully in John of his peace is different from the kind of peace the world gives. And I think what the two of you are doing in this entire endeavor describes so beautifully the kind of peace that the world lacks and the kind of peace that in some ways the world can't provide, but that the Lord can provide despite whatever is going on in the world. I love the the Greek term Irene, which is which is peace.

Irenic is a term that we sometimes use in English. Irenics is a theological term as far as the study of how do we help churches build peace instead of fly off into denominational debate. Or even just the Hebrew shalom is such a powerful just sense of the kind of peace the Lord is offering, which is this wholeness and this this reconciliation. It's much more than just the absence of conflict.

In some ways, as I'm suggesting with the eye of the storm, the conflict is all around us, but it's not within us. And I think that's a huge difference.

Jennifer Thomas (04:34)

So I really like that metaphor of instead of being storm chasers, which is I think what a lot of people are, like let's go after the turmoil and the turbulence and let's try to get ourselves in the middle of it, that you try to move in a space where while the turmoil happens around you, you stay in a position of peace. So you're sort of the opposite of a storm chaser, you're the peace chaser.

Jared Halverson (04:54)

Exactly. And I think again, that sense of moving with it, because if I stay in the same spot, if I'm not changed by the experience, then once the storm passes over and I'm in this place of peace, the storm is going to change and there's going to be a new conflict. And if I can move with it instead of just, no, this is my place of peace and nothing's going to change, then unfortunately when it passes over us, we're back in the storm. And yet

the wind is blowing in an opposite direction. In Spanish, it was called a virazon, and that was often even more dangerous than the front end of the storm. Everything gets moved to one direction, then it passes and then breaks it all off in the opposite. And I worry about those that can't adjust, that can't move, that can't learn from the kinds of conflicts that they've endured and follow peace wherever it leads them.

Jennifer Thomas (05:43)

Well that's great. Thanks for starting us out on such a perfect and thoughtful way. We are jumping right into the Old Testament and as I've thought about this discussion today one of the things that struck me is that we live in this period of extraordinary division. We're talking all the time about the polarization that we're experiencing, the conflict that it brings into families, marriages, congregations.

And ⁓ I think sometimes we have a deep desire to respond to that division by just trying to flatten it out to like make everything the same, make ⁓ our relationships like we make conflict go away because we just push aside the thing that is, you know, bringing us into a point of contention sometimes. But one of the things that struck me so profoundly is as we start this discussion with the creation of it all.

Right, with the events that put us all in motion. It's that God starts this pattern of creation by introducing division. It's the opposite. It's not saying, I'm going to flatten everything out and make everything easy peasy. He says, okay, we're going to start with a division. We're going to divide the light from the darkness. We're going to divide heaven from the earth. We're going to divide land in the water.

And so I'm wondering if you want to just give us some initial insights about what you think this tells us about how we should approach division. Is it something to be terrified of and try to just placate and smooth out or are there some really divine concepts in there that we need to be willing to explore?

Jared Halverson (07:13)

Jennifer, you have an incredible eye for scripture. think that's such a fascinating way to couch the creation of that. God begins by forcing things apart. We're going to see so much of the rest of his of God's story of bringing things together, but maintaining the difference throughout the entire process. So I think it's fascinating that the Hebrew word that appears here as divided appears.

more often in Genesis one than in any other chapter of the Old Testament. And so there's something deep about division in a good way. mean, later in the Old Testament, we'll see that same Hebrew word talking about setting someone apart, like Aaron is being set apart or the house of Israel is being distinguished from the surrounding nations. And so there is this sense of defining one's own identity and being divided.

and set apart and distinguished from other things. And so when you see this chaos over which the spirit of God is moving, the breath of God and the eye of God seeing all of these things and then calling for light to come forth, but then dividing light from darkness, dividing water above the firmament from water below the firmament, eventually you'll see a division of sea and land.

Obviously, the culminating part of creation is dividing male and female. And to me, there's something fascinating about needing to have difference as something inherent in the creative process. I often talk about, Patrick, you might roll your eyes at this because you probably heard me talk about this a million times. But my favorite quote from Joseph Smith is that by proving contraries, truth is made manifest. And by contrary, you're wrestling with paradox and these opposites that

don't seem to attract and yet you fuse them together and truth comes forth. And over the years as I've taught this idea of proving contraries, one concern that has often been raised by good scriptorians themselves, their mind often races to the book of Revelation. So here we are in Genesis. Let's fast forward to Revelation. When one of the churches is described as the Lord says, I want you either hot or

because if you're lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth. And their concern is, if we're dealing with these opposites, if we're trying to balance justice and mercy, or faith and works, or in this creative sphere, light and darkness, or sea and land, don't those just cancel each other out? And so you're combining heat and cold, and all you're left with is lukewarm. And I'm so grateful that they push back with that verse, because I think it helps prove the point.

that we're trying to maintain the difference instead of simply offset those differences. Because when the Lord says, I want you either hot or cold, there's a suggestion that I can use heat to do certain things, and I can use cold to do certain things. And heat can't do what cold does, and cold can't do what heat does. And so I'm definitely not trying to combine them into some kind of mushy middle that cancels out

the benefits of either extreme, but rather, I when we get injured, we're alternating icing and heating. Right. And so I think there's value in what does light do and what does darkness allow and what where do we find? What do we find on land that we can't find on sea and vice versa? And so needing to have the differences, those contraries of creation, we could call them in Genesis one, I think is so

rich as far as recognizing our differences and seeing them as gifts from God that allow us to accomplish things more fully and have a more robust creation because of those differences rather than I'm going to cancel you out and then you'll cancel me out. And that idea of compromise leaves everyone dissatisfied ⁓ as opposed to and neither the opposite of we're just going to take turns being uncompromising.

Patrick Mason (10:57)

Hmm.

Jared Halverson (11:03)

That's not the strength either. But in some ways, balancing those opposites, I mean, Carl Jung talked about the paradoxicality of all life. And Emerson talked about the world standing by balanced antagonisms. And so here in Genesis 1, I think we see some beautiful Emersonian balanced antagonisms and needing to maintain the difference there so that each side can exercise its own unique gifts.

Jennifer Thomas (11:29)

Well, and it seems to me to also be the conditions necessary for us to exercise agency, right? Like if you're setting in motion this whole process that's going to allow human beings test and try out things so that they can become like God through a process of exercising free will and making choices. And without a set of differences to kind of work against and for, it's hard to learn how to do that.

Jared Halverson (11:52)

Exactly right. And I would even say there's the difference between good and evil, and that allows for agency. But I think even more importantly is the difference between good A and good B. And there we're exercising agency on a much higher level. It's kind of the good, better, best that President Oaks has talked about. And so not to see in the creation account here, darkness as a bad thing, but as a necessary counterpart and certain things that you need to have.

Patrick Mason (11:52)

Yeah.

Right.

Jennifer Thomas (12:03)

Yeah, maybe even more important.

Jared Halverson (12:20)

darkness to be able to kind of recover from the day, the daytime of light. so again, not good versus evil per se in this account. We need the sea can do things that the land can't and vice versa. And that that exercise of agency, I think is even more profound than the good versus evil type.

Patrick Mason (12:37)

Yeah, and I think that's part of the discernment we have to have when we approach conflict is that, especially in our relationships and so forth, is I think normally when we think about differences and division, we think about it in moral terms, right? Good versus evil, right? There are some differences that are moral, where there's a clear right and there's a clear wrong. And sometimes we want to introduce that into our relational conflicts.

When in fact, actually maybe the difference between me and my wife or between me and an award member, we're not talking about good and evil, we're talking about land and sea, right? We're talking about two things, two different approaches, two things that I like the way that you talked about it, Jared, bring different gifts and two different spaces where different things can be done. And they are different, let's not pretend that they're the same, but it's not a moral difference.

And I think there has to be some discernment there as to which kind of difference we're talking about here.

Jared Halverson (13:32)

Exactly

right. I think there's the creative differences that we're seeing in Genesis one, as opposed to the destructive differences where we have flattened things down to some kind of good versus evil. anything that's different, because I'm right, anything that's not me must be wrong. And to be able to get past that kind of black and white thinking into this sense of you have something on your side that is different than my side.

Patrick Mason (13:37)

Yeah.

Jared Halverson (13:58)

And honestly, this is way too long for the conversation we're going to have today. But that to me is the power of those, those contraries that Joseph Smith was describing that if you can couple them together, each half keeps the other half from escalating into some kind of unhealthy extreme. So if any virtue taken to its extreme becomes a vice light to the extreme is going to become destructive of life.

Patrick Mason (14:13)

Mm-hmm.

Jared Halverson (14:22)

and darkness to an extreme without any light to separate it, that's going to be destructive as well. So is there some kind of coupling these contraries, this balancing of opposites, so that in some ways, having a wife that thinks differently than I do allows me to think in my terms, and as we come together on things, the differences allow us to differentiate in much more positive ways.

Patrick Mason (14:48)

Yeah, I I think about this, you know, there are so many metaphors along these lines, I think about Paul and the body of Christ, right? That we, our inclination is to pass judgments for the eye to pass judgment on the hand, you know, the foot to pass judgment on the liver, or whatever it might be. And Paul is trying to tell the Corinthian saints, no, no, no, it's the differences, it's the different gifts that you bring that are so important. And I think about, you know, in creation,

We don't want the mushy middle between light and darkness. We don't want to live in a world of eternal twilight or something like that, of just grayness. But it is those moments where they meet that produce really brilliant sunsets and sunrises, right? It's the places where land and water meet and actually have some conflict. That's where we get beaches, you know? ⁓ And so it's,

Jared Halverson (15:38)

Yeah. Well, and wetlands is, yeah, the amount of life, the richness, the ecological diversity. completely agree, Patrick.

Patrick Mason (15:47)

Yeah. So, so in my reading of it this time, something sort of stood out that I'd never really thought about. So you get these divisions, right? Light and darkness, the waters, land and sea. And then it's only after that, that you get the possibility of life. It's only after has God has done these acts of division, differentiation, right? Then you get the possibility of plant life and then animal life.

and then finally humans. So in some ways, this just extends what we were just talking about. But Jared, how can you help us think about what is the life-giving aspect of conflict that sometimes we want to run away from, but actually the conflict can be life-giving?

Jared Halverson (16:30)

It's so true. And honestly, absence of that can also be life taking. I remember when I was in grad school, I had a class we were studying early Puritanism in America. And you as a historian of religion as well know this as well as anybody. And I remember learning about the Puritans when they left the diversity of England to come and form this kind of monoculture in New England. Things got weird fast.

And there was almost this sense of because there was no one to distinguish themselves from, led to rampant amounts of hypocrisy. They felt better than their peers in England, but then they only have each other in New England to compare themselves to. There becomes some real problems come when there isn't any difference and there isn't any conflict.

Patrick Mason (17:15)

We could think about that in our own history, right? I mean, the first couple of decades of LDS settlement in Utah is maybe the weirdest period in our history. Yeah.

Jared Halverson (17:24)

No, read, Patrick, you read my mind. You read my mind.

As a Latter-day Saint, hearing, reading, studying Puritan history, yeah, the early pioneer days in Utah made such more sense to me. thought, I mean, to the point, honestly, I remember, I here's something for conflict. I was at the University of Utah and I'd been asked by the sociology department to come and present to their master's students in social work on LDS views of traditional marriage.

Patrick Mason (17:35)

you

Jared Halverson (17:52)

And they asked if I would be willing to do that. And I just big smile and go, oh, I'd love to. And they must have mistaken my excitement for naivete because they said, you're going to be in the minority here. People aren't going to agree with you. And I said, oh, I know. I love those kinds of opportunities. It helps me clarify my beliefs. I want to be able to understand where they're coming from. And I remember walking into the room and one of my students at the time.

She saw me and immediately broke into tears and I sat down next to her and said, are you okay? And she said, I'm here. am a believer. She was actually a convert to the church and she said, I knew anytime something comes up where there's going to be potential conflict between members and non members or Latter-day Saints and former Latter-day Saints, it feels like all eyes are on me and they end up kind of hating on me. And then she's been kind of tongue in cheek said.

I'm so grateful you're here today because today they're going to hate on you. And I just laughed and I said, happy to be your human shield, honored to be able to be part of the process. But I remember getting up and you could kind of sense that tension where I'm here, the embodiment of institutional Latter-day Saints, the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints. And here all of these people disagree with me. And I remember saying at the beginning, kind of calling out the elephant in the room and honoring our differences.

Patrick Mason (18:45)

Hahaha!

Yeah.

Jared Halverson (19:10)

And saying to this group, I am so grateful that you are different from me. I am grateful that we don't see eye to eye on all of the aspects of these issues because you will help me from getting weird or at least weirder than I already am. And so this sense of I need you and I hope that you'll reciprocate and realize that you need me as well. And so I love what you're pointing out, Patrick of do you want life on this planet?

Do you want growth? Do you want an opportunity to to fill creation with living breathing moving agents and not just objects in that case, we're going to have to set things up with difference and back to your point Jennifer as far as the focus of that or the allowance of agency that that provides. I think that there's without it. There might be life quote unquote.

But there won't be the kind of living that the Lord asks and expects of all of us.

Jennifer Thomas (20:05)

So, know, Patrick off obviously started out this conversation talking about the way it indicated it was necessary for physical life, right? That without this tension, we don't have physical life. But this conversation just makes me reflect on how absolutely necessary this kind of tension has been for my spiritual development. If I had just thought, if I thought the same way and the same things that I thought when I say got home from my mission after I'd had just really transcendent spiritual experiences, I would have frozen in time. And the experiences, the tensions that I've had moving through life with people who believe differently, both within and without the church, have been very life-giving for my testimony and have been an experience for me to grow. And so any thoughts on that, about how this is deeply relevant to our spiritual development and the quest we're all on for life eternal?

Jared Halverson (20:56)

Definitely. And I think honestly, as we see in Genesis, we don't spend, we get one chapter really on the creation of the cosmos and quickly, but by the end, we're already dealing with interpersonal relationships and you've got the creation of Adam and Eve and the inherent differences that are manifest not only in that moment of creation, but immediately thereafter when you get into the Garden of Eden narrative and the fall.

And again, those necessary kinds of the friction that allows for both heat and light in good ways. The difference that allows us to continue our growth. And so if we're picturing the need to not just live, but to thrive, the need to not just exist, but to coexist, I think there's there's beautiful opportunities that come as we're hearing something that's different from I mean, even the

the successive nature of creation, that the fact the Lord divided it up in today's suggests that it's all, I mean, obviously he's omnipotent. He could have done it all in one moment, but allowing for this change and this development and this growth and taking time and times to be able to do that, I think there's a sense of I'm creating or I'm being created and co-creating myself in certain aspects, but then he'll introduce something different.

And then I'm now growing in another aspect. And then some new level, some new round of creation, a new day, so to speak, and introducing continuous differentiation and seeing how will I respond to it? How will the plants take advantage of sea and land? How will animals take advantage of plants? How will humankind take advantage of animals?

And I hope taking advantage is not taken in the negative term. But I'm amazed at the Lord's patience with us and the excitement, I think, that with which he approaches this this whole process, that by the time all is said and done at the end of day six and into this period of rest in day seven, it's very good. It's something that he rejoices over. And in some ways, OK, I have now set up the classroom.

perfectly for the mortal education to now unfold, where there's all these differences surrounding this, our first primeval ancestors, as they are going to be able to go through their lives within their differences, surrounded by opportunities for difference everywhere they look.

Patrick Mason (23:25)

Yeah.

Jennifer Thomas (23:25)

Let's talk about that pinnacle of creation. it culminates in this division of, this creation of man and woman, this division, and representing the pinnacle of creation on this call, the final. My question for you is, let's talk a little bit about that, because there are increasingly tons of tensions in our society around the divisions of men and women, right?

Patrick Mason (23:36)

Hahaha.

Jared Halverson (23:38)

Atma, Jennifer.

Jennifer Thomas (23:50)

Lots of people arguing that either they don't need each other, they shouldn't need one another, they should just exist on their own terms, or women should be made to serve men such that that's the only way that they can be of one flesh is like we revert back to a pattern in which women are made to do that. But there's got to be a better way. The Lord has asked us to do this work of becoming one flesh. He's like, okay, I'm going to divide you and now the goal is to become one flesh.

So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, a little bit about what that means for us, both in terms of just the role we play in humanity and helping it to move forward, but also in terms of marriage and the larger family of the children of...

Jared Halverson (24:27)

Such great questions.

Patrick Mason (24:27)

Yeah, so if you could solve all of gender relation problems

Jennifer Thomas (24:30)

Yeah,

you've got five minutes.

Patrick Mason (24:31)

for us in the next five minutes, Jared, that would be great.

Jared Halverson (24:33)

Whatever, that's where you this whole endeavor.

To me, it's interesting that, again, the power of proving contraries, it's difficult. It's hard work. Jung described it as most people lack either the intellectual and or the moral effort required to be able to strike these balances and live within paradox. It's hard work. It would be so much easier to get back to that mushy middle. And we're just going to cancel out our differences. And they don't matter.

Let's avoid those and just be identical to one another. And that would be easy and yet it wouldn't be conducive of life. The other side, the opposite extreme is equally easy. Let's divide like we've seen throughout Genesis 1 and then keep the divisions so distinct that never the twain shall meet. And yet the phrase that you brought up, Jennifer, of those twain becoming one flesh,

There's something about maintaining difference even while you become one that I think is so powerful and that life for us cannot be created without that unity of difference. So how do I balance the two and maintain difference within my equality, within my unity? I think it's powerful even the way Genesis 1 is set up.

I should say even as male and female and their creation are being are being set up in Genesis one in the creation of plants and animals, the phrase after their kind or after his kind comes up over and over and over again. You almost can't go through a line of those verses without the reminder. It's going to be after their kind. And as soon as that is done in verse 26 and 27, you see God saying, let us make man in our image.

And it's almost like we've been primed for this idea that creation occurs after one's own kind. And for God, in this case, plural, for Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother to say, let us make man and woman in our image. They will be after our kind. And to see male and female created he them or created they them would be more accurate.

to be able to understand then that we are after the image of heavenly parents and that there's therefore a divine difference between male and female on the level of divinity itself. This is not just kind of being an undifferentiated kind of breath of God that he breathes into inert matter and then somehow just decides I'm going to make this breath this this puff of wind is going to be male and this puff of wind is going to be female.

But no, I'm based on the proclamation that gender is part of our eternal identity and purpose. This is who we are. And in fact, it's who our heavenly parents are. And so the need for differentiation within the unity of marriage and within the unity of humanity, within the unity of divinity, I it doesn't get much deeper than this. And so to me, there's something, even if this is one version of the creation narrative,

Then in chapter two, when you get this other version of Eve being taken from the rib of Adam, again, symbolically, I think there's something magnificent about the implied incompleteness of Adam without Eve. this need, if peace in the Greek and the Hebrew suggests some kind of wholeness and reconciliation, that the division inherent in creation is half the process, and then the reconciliation.

of those divisions is the other half of the process. Again, not to merge into a mushy middle, but somehow to coexist and cooperate. That's the work of divinity. That's the work of peacemaking.

Patrick Mason (28:06)

Yeah, and it's obviously it's so hard. Like you said, I mean, it's is. It's one thing to say it, you know, would that we were each as powerful as God is, and he could just say it and it would be right. Obviously, the work of this is why, you know, we're humans and and he's God or heavenly parents, you know, different. But it's.

This is a lifelong thing, especially as we think about men and women and this differentiation, right? Within marriages, within relationships, with other kinds of things. How do you maintain the individual differentiation and growth and the possibility for a person to discover who they are as an individual and do it in relationship and do it together? And there's going to be times and seasons of life and all those kinds of things. It is a lifelong journey.

Jared Halverson (28:57)

It's in some ways though, it's I love what you described there, Patrick. There's that's that's the process. It's it's supposed to be hard life. Again, it's too easy to go to one extreme or the other. And even when we see Adam and Eve, I mean, mean, in Chapter two of Genesis, where there's this this it's the celestial marriage and Eden.

where death hasn't even become a possibility yet. So it's meant to be eternal from the start. And there's this concept of bone of bones and flesh of flesh. This idea of leaving mother and father and then cleaving unto one another and such a powerful word cleave because it means both to divide and to reconcile. And so the fact that it's the same word suggests that...

There's something inherent in the process of cleaving and cleaving that I want the I cleaved you the first time to create the difference. But now the rest of your life is going to be spent trying to reverse that while maintaining the difference that I think there's there's value and there's power and there's purpose in both forms of the verb to the point that there's I mean, in some ways, that's the problem of the fall.

that if it's either the woman without the man or the man without the woman in the Lord from Corinthians, we're starting to see that from creation itself, that it was meant to be that way. And then when the subtle serpent slithers his way in to begin tempting, the fact he approaches them individually suggests something that, and even the so-called curses that come after the fall. In some ways, those aren't curses, those are consequences.

Patrick Mason (30:07)

Hmm.

Jared Halverson (30:33)

And in some ways, reminders of the unity that was meant to exist from the beginning. So whether that's a unity of love when it comes to Eve and the desire for man and woman to be one with each other in the creation of life or the oneness of work that you see in Adam that by the sweat of your brow, you're going to have to bring forth life from one another or life from the earth. Either way, there's going to be sorrow is the English King James phrase or just toil and labor from the Hebrew.

There's something about that toil and that labor and that stuff that fellow suffering that is going to allow for a unity in terms of love and in terms of work that you see here. I think there's something profound about the adversaries goal in dividing us and trying to aim for one person's strengths when they're uncoupled from the opposite person's strengths. I've sometimes heard the joke that that

Men want to be right and women want to do right. And any of those kinds of gender differential differentials can be oversimplified. But there's this sense of as I see it, kind of this vertical and this horizontal where if Adam is like, no, God said, don't eat the fruit. I'm not going to eat the fruit. And Eve is considering outward. God said multiply and replenish. How are we going to do that under the present circumstances? And and

And Adam say, no, I want to be right with God. And Eve said, well, I want to do right by humanity. And again, whether it's loving God and loving neighbor, those two great commandments that are meant to be one, mean, that's where the cross comes together. And so I think we're seeing that with Adam and Eve. And if the adversary can get one gender to make decisions unilaterally in ways that the consequences are never unilateral.

the consequences of decisions are always shared. And so if we can come to a point where we are not going to make these decisions separately, we're not going to decide on anything until we are completely one on this. And like Doctrine and Covenants 107 teaches, without that unanimity, there's not power in the decision anyway. And so whether it's Adam and Eve making the decision to partake of the fruit together, or whether it's Adam and Eve together with God,

deciding on how to take the next steps forward. All of those things have to be done in unity within those differences rather than some kind of unilateral choice on one's own.

Jennifer Thomas (32:58)

So I might be like adding my marriage here and maybe it's weirder than everybody else's. But we are two strong people and we have very different strengths. And we found that one of the hardest things for us to do is to come to unanimity of decision in the sense that ⁓ we both absolutely agree that this is the best path forward. But what we have learned to do is trust one another implicitly. So it's more like, okay, today.

I don't really understand why you're making that decision, but we've talked it through and I understand that it feels very important to you and I can get behind that and I will walk the consequences of that decision with you. And so there's sort of been this balance in our relationship where I don't think it's always been that we've been exactly on the same page with every decision, but that we bring our strengths to the table. We have high trust for one another. We say, hey, I can't see something that I trust that you can see, but what I am going to tell you is

whatever the consequences, I won't say later, sorry, see, bad choice on your part. You know, I told you so. But also I won't then give you all the credit when it goes well. It's a unified process. Does that make sense? And I think sometimes we expect from marriages and these points of tension when they're coming together that everybody has to be absolutely on the same page before we can move. Whereas I think some of the best relationships to me,

Patrick Mason (33:57)

I told you so.

Jared Halverson (33:58)

Yeah.

Jennifer Thomas (34:20)

I watched the Garden of Eden play out as two people that had extraordinarily high trust in one another. And it was like, I feel like I have to make this decision and I'm gonna trust that you will have my back and then we'll walk that path with me. And without both of them being willing to do that, we actually would not, one person could have made the right decision unilaterally, but if the other person hadn't been willing to sustain them in that decision, then we wouldn't have actually gotten the benefits of that decision, if that makes sense.

Jared Halverson (34:48)

I think is,

yeah, well said, well said. And I think in some ways you see that in the aftermath where where this decision has been made and Adam realizes the wisdom of it or even again, the way the Lord sets it up is, okay, now there needs to be connection between the two of you. again, this idea of difference is easier. It's like, fine, you go your way. I'll go mine. And then I don't have to compromise with anyone. I mean,

Jennifer Thomas (35:04)

Mm-hmm.

So much easy. Yeah.

Jared Halverson (35:13)

Peace in the absence of another person, I would think comes pretty easily. I'm the only, here I am on this desert island by myself. I'm totally at peace with the world, because I am the world and it's the whatever world I want it to be. Whereas in some ways, the fact that it happened one by one, I think is really powerful that Eve partakes of the fruit. And now there's going to be consequences that Adam could have avoided had he chosen. And it's like, ⁓ okay, I want to do this way. You want to do that way?

Okay, then you can live with your decision, I'll live with mine. And yet from the start, that was never the idea, that there was something higher in terms of the unity and let's bear these consequences together. I sometimes joke with my students because so many of them are in that marriage age, that when Adam and Eve were married in the Garden of Eden, I don't know how much of a romantic proposal that could have been on Adam's part where it's like, well,

Patrick Mason (36:04)

Hahaha!

Jared Halverson (36:06)

I've named all the animals and I swear that nothing, I'm not compatible with any of them. So it's you and me. Yeah, you know, it's almost like, know, if you were the last man on earth, I'd still, you it was like, well, if you were the first man on earth, it's like that, that's all the option you've got. And so, I mean, talk about an arranged marriage, right? With no real choice in the matter. But to me, as I point out to my students, I think it's the second proposal that is far more romantic than the first.

Patrick Mason (36:11)

There's no sparks there.

Jennifer Thomas (36:13)

Thank heavens.

Jared Halverson (36:32)

If the first was Adam on one knee saying, can I have my rib back? The second proposal is Eve saying, will you join me East of Eden? Will you reckon, will you, can we be reconciled with the decisions that the decision I've made and the decision that that you'll have to make and we're going to take this path together. And, and to me, Eve's proposal of will you join me in the, in the lone and dreary world?

Patrick Mason (36:32)

Mm.

Jared Halverson (36:58)

will make it, it'll be less lonely and together we'll make it less dreary, I think is just so profound.

Jennifer Thomas (37:02)

But it was also the only path that was productive of life. There was no other path that would have allowed for this creation of humanity and the opportunity for all of us to enjoy these experiences. So I think again, it's that tension that without that tension, there was no life, there was no possibility, there was no agency.

Jared Halverson (37:06)

Exactly.

Yeah.

And honestly, think I see that in what I mean, so too often, I think we take the the Lord's words or see the Adam's words to the Lord when it's like, Adam, did you partake of the fruit? And he's like, I mean, hey, the woman, she is the one. And we throw Eve under the bus and we throw Adam under the bus in the process of like, is that are we just playing the blame game? And he's pointing at the serpent and Adam's pointed at Eve. And we're all individually innocent.

But I wonder honestly when the way Adam phrases it where he says the woman that thou gavest me that I'm supposed to be with like from the start, we're supposed to be together. And if decisions were made because we weren't together, shame on me for not being with her when the decision was made. I own that you told us it was supposed to be a oneness in our differences.

That we'd have to wrestle with this. We'd have to figure out how are we going to do this? And as a part of that, is that him not blaming someone else, but taking ownership that it was supposed to be done a different way on my part. And I need to be totally one with my wife. And so as she is leaving the garden, I'm going with her.

Patrick Mason (38:30)

That's great. We only have a few minutes left. I want to ask you, and we're already talking here about Adam and Eve and the consequences of their choices, what we normally call the fall, right? And obviously, the Latter-day Saints have a more elevated view of the fall than many of our other Christian sisters and brothers because of the revelations of Joseph Smith and other prophetic teaching. And I know, Jared, I've heard you teach so powerfully about

this idea of creation, fall and atonement and how this is not just kind of in these first few chapters in Genesis, but this is a kind of divine paradigm, a divine model that we each find ourselves in and participate in. And I wanna ask you about the fall part of that, because I think most people could say creation good, atonement good, right? We like that, but the fall not so much, even if theologically we know like, okay, it was good, like Eve had to eat the fruit so that we could all be here, right? That's a good thing.

Right. And so even if we can explain it theologically, it still feels yucky to be in the fall. Right. And I think we associate creation like no conflict, atonement, no conflict, fall, conflict. I don't like to be in the fall. So I want to get into, you know, into one of these other places. you, and I've just heard you talk so beautifully about this. What is good about the fall? Why is it?

a necessary, not just an inevitable part of it because we all screw up, but what is divine about it? What is divinely appointed about this aspect of our existence?

Jared Halverson (40:03)

Yeah, when Elder McConkie described creation, fall, atonement as the pillars of eternity. To me, when I was I was studying all these developmental stage models of faith development and faith loss and so on. And there's so many, as you know, there's so many different models and numbers of stages and how you label them and so on. And as I was trying to I was analyzing each one separately, but then trying to synthesize them all together. And the spirit was so kind to whisper Jared, don't overcomplicate things.

Patrick Mason (40:19)

All right.

Jared Halverson (40:30)

You already know this, and so does every other Latter-day Saint out there. It's just creation, fall, atonement. That's the story arc of life. That is the process. That's what we go through. And I've always loved what... Well, think about what Bruce and Marie Hafen described in their book, Faith is Not Blind, that we go from simplicity through complexity to simplicity on the other side of complexity. And so there's creation and then fall and then on to atonement.

Or in the language of peacemaking, we go from peace to conflict, to peace on the other side of conflict. And that second piece is so different than the first one. The first one is naive. The first one is almost kind of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. I'll put it this way. There's an innocence in Eden, but the Lord didn't want us to maintain mere innocence.

He wanted to progress to true holiness and the elevation of the atonement far surpasses the elevation of Eden. And so, but we have to pass through the fall on the way. And it's not just to see what we were missing because again, if that were the case, don't put cherubim in the flaming sword there. It's like, ⁓ my bad, hurry, rush back and let's eat the fruit of the tree of life as quickly as we can. And that reverses the problems here.

The fact that the Lord says no to that, I think is really profound. That it's like, no, you took a step forward. There's no going back, but there's a chance to continue the process forward. And I think forward is the vector that we need to keep in mind to see the positive aspect of the fall. Elder Orson F. Whitney described the fall as having a twofold direction, downward but forward, and it set our feet on progression's highway.

And I think, for example, if I use this model whenever I'm working with somebody in faith crisis or a family member who feels like I've got a prodigal child that's never going to return. I just let's just see this in terms of creation, fall atonement. And let's look at the positive aspects of the fall. You're seeing a loss of faith that's downward, but there's often also a gain in in understanding, in openness, in empathy towards other people.

And those are the positive horizontal movement in the fall. And again, the fact that the Lord says, don't take the shortcut back home just to regain your lost innocence. The cherubim of the flaming sword are there to force Adam and Eve and their posterity to take the long way around. And that long fall is a chance to develop some spiritual strength and to live by faith and to learn to balance those opposites and prove those contraries and develop the Christ-like nature. And none of that would have happened if he just snapped the finger and said, hurry, get back in before you've really had to wrestle with the differences that lie out there. And so to me, when I've explained this to people in faith crisis, it's often I'll just say, so how's the fall working out for you? And they're like, huh, what do mean? And I'll describe the process of creation, fall atonement. And it's like their eyes light up.

That's exactly where I am. And again, from our theology, that's not a bad thing. I'll often say to them, congratulations on progressing to get to this point, but please don't stop progressing here. East of Eden is a lousy place to set up permanent camp, but take advantage of what you've learned and how you're growing and what you're developing and take that with you on this long way around as you return to Eden in the right way. I'm amazed at the Lord's patience with us in that process. I hope that it gives those that are wringing their hands in concern and anguish over loved ones that might be struggling in certain ways, look for the positive in their journey and you'll see it. And even if we can maintain the relationship so we can talk about the difference between the downward and the forward,

And how do we mitigate the downward dimension? And how do we really lean into the forward dimension? I think there's value there in maintaining peace between those two groups of people. I've sometimes joked that people in creation stage can't stand people in fall stage, and they're wondering, where's your faith? But people in fall stage can't stand people in creation stage, and they're always wondering, where's your brain? And there's this...

Kind of pride from above and pride from below and arguing over which is above and which is below. And whether that's on a moral axis or an intellectual axis, there's conflict, conflict, conflict the whole way through. Whereas I had a student once say, well, how do I know when I'm in the atonement stage then? And I laughed and I said, well, among other things, you're less of a jerk. There isn't that sense of superiority on either dimension. It's, I understand the process and it's okay.

And so I love you in creation stage. I love all the positives of that stage. Hold on to them so that you can safely repel through the next stage instead of taking a flying leap and hitting the rocks at the bottom. But I also love those that are in the fall because of what you're developing and the critical thinking and the willingness to explore areas that you never had the courage to see when you were back in Eden. And so I think if we I mean, the church needs more people in that atonement stage openness where they can honor everyone else wherever they happen to be in the journey and see the value of creation stage and see the value of the fall stage. Back to what we talked about earlier about proving contraries, as I've seen it and studied it, that's how we get to the atonement stage is by proving the contraries of the previous two stages. Because often in creation stage,

You have all these beautiful strengths, but all these inherent weaknesses. once you recognize the weaknesses, you try to get as far away from them as you can. But that means you end up over swinging the pendulum and go from the problems at one extreme to the problems on the other. Whereas if you take the strengths of either stage, they tend to offset the negatives of their opposites. And by balancing them, that's how we move on toward the Atonement anyway.

And again, that's where male and female come in such a beautiful mix of my problem is in my maleness, I become too male and I need the female perspective to help balance it out. And rather than over swinging the pendulum to simply embrace the problems of the opposite extreme, I'll keep you in balance and you keep me in balance and together we'll get to the atomic.

Jennifer Thomas (46:34)

Well, maybe you know you're in atonement phase when you no longer fear the fall, nor are you willing to stay in the abyss. Like you see that you welcome the process and you know, because you know how to get out of it. So, well, we would love to have you. This has been an extraordinary conversation and really fulfilling for me. And I'm wondering if we could just close it out by asking you the question that we ask all of our guests, which is you talked a little bit at the beginning about what you thought peace was.

But we'd love to hear your thoughts on how you find it and access it. How do you sit in the middle of that eye?

Jared Halverson (47:28)

⁓ I'm grateful I don't have to sit there alone. And honestly, the Lord's willingness to join us in the storm and surround us in the protection of his wings, I think is is the power of the I don't think there is real peace absent the Prince of Peace. I was talking with my students recently about the Atonement and speaking of the Atonement stage, Christ used a different phrase for the Atonement that I've never seen elsewhere in scripture.

And to me, it's arguably the most powerful description of the atonement imaginable. And it comes from the one who understands it best. This is in section 19 of the Doctrine and Covenants, where the Lord talks about what he endured in Gethsemane and Calvary, but then gives God the honor and the praise for that. You didn't take away the cup, but he says, I drank it and I finished my preparations unto the children of men.

The fact that Christ would call Gethsemane and Calvary preparation is so profound that it's not, it's like, wait a minute, at the end of the crucifixion, you said it is finished. I thought the atonement was done. And I pictured the Lord smiling and saying, no, my preparation for the atonement was done. So I gained perfect empathy. I embraced the entire human experience, infinitely and eternally. And as a result, I am perfectly prepared to meet you wherever you happen to be. I will be the eye of your storm because I know the storm inside and out and I'm prepared now to bring you peace. I had some students very insightfully say that sounds beautiful, but how do I how do I tap into that? How do I operationalize the atonement in a way that it's like what does that look like? And so it's your question again, Jennifer, same idea.

And as they asked it, I just smiled and I said, keep reading because if that's in section 19 where he says my preparations only three or four verses later, I think he gives us the exact counsel on what to do to to make his preparation meet our need. says learn of me and listen to my words and walk in the meekness of my spirit and you shall have peace in me. And I think the way we access that through the relationship that lies at the heart of redemption.

Have I learned of Christ enough to know what he would do in this situation and how he wants to be with me? Have I made it personal enough that I can hear his voice speaking more specifically to me rather than just generally within scripture? So learning of him, hearing his voice, and then acting on the impressions that come. Walking... in the meekness of his spirit. And until we do that, that's where the rubber hits the road. That's following him wherever the eye of the storm takes me. And as I learn and listen and walk, I just find peace. And I have seen that in the chaos that my own life has confronted, some of the ups and downs that we've seen with physical health and mental health and financial setbacks and you name it.

The storm that rages all around. I'm just so grateful that the Prince of Peace knows how to enter the storm and become the eye And if I'll just walk with him, I'll have peace in him. I have felt that personally and deeply.

Patrick Mason (50:36)

Amazing. Thank you, Jared. Thanks for joining us today and for all those insights.

Jared Halverson (50:40)

No, it's been my honor. Thank you both for and all that you're doing with with "Proclaim Peace." It is such a necessary work. So bless you both for doing it.

Jennifer Thomas (50:40)

Really appreciate it.

Jennifer Thomas (50:48)

Thanks for listening to this episode of "Proclaim Peace." To hear more, you can subscribe on a podcast app of your choice or on YouTube. You can always find full show notes or transcriptions at proclaimpeace.org.

Patrick Mason (51:01)

"Proclaim Peace" is a partnership between MWEG and Waymakers. You can learn more about Waymakers at waymakers.us. Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you next time.