Hedges Around the Law

The ancient Jews were constantly building hedges around their divine law.  God told them that the Sabbath was a day of rest.  He told them to keep it holy.  He also commanded them to allow their servants to rest on the Sabbath.  By the time of Jesus, the Jewish government had a large and complex set of laws based on this fairly simple commandment.  A specific distance was set, beyond which it was illegal to travel on the Sabbath.  The people were required to prepare their Sabbath meals the day before, to avoid the work of food preparation on the Sabbath.  Specific activities were forbidden by law, including many charitable activities, to avoid work on the Sabbath.   (Jewish leaders even accused Jesus of Sabbath breaking for healing someone.)  This one law, to keep the Sabbath day holy, was surrounded by a thick hedge of additional laws to avoid even the smallest chance of breaking God's law.

The Sabbath was not the only law that the Jews built hedges around.  Practically every commandment had something in Jewish law to clarify or extend it.  Jewish leaders were so afraid of the people breaking commandments that they hardly gave them room to think for themselves.

Sadly, this hedge building is fairly common today as well.  It is even becoming common in government, not just religion.  The Catholic Church has laws against using birth control, based not on commandments, but rather based on two unrelated scriptures.  The first is God's command to Adam and Eve to multiply.  The second is an isolated incident where Judah's son Onan was killed by God for using a very primitive form of birth control (which is, ironically, the only form of birth control considered permissible by modern Catholics).  (Note that Biblical experts contend over the actual reason for God's wrath.  The most likely reason for God's reaction is not the use of birth control.  Onan was required by law to impregnate his dead brother's wife, to give his brother offspring, and he deliberately used the birth control to avoid fulfilling this responsibility.)

Now, I want to discuss a few hedges found in the LDS (or Mormon) Church.  There are probably fewer official hedges in the LDS faith than many other churches, but the culture within the Church has spawned its own hedges.  As much as 50% of Mormon's believe it is forbidden by Church doctrine to drink caffeinated beverages.  This is based on LDS scripture forbidding members from drinking "hot beverages" (later clarified as meaning coffee and tea specifically).  Around the early '90s, Church leadership published a press release stating that no such law (forbidding caffeine) existed, and that rather, the Church discourages the use of any addictive substance in a case where it would cause addiction (in reference to caffeine, this merely means to consume it only in moderation, with good judgment).  Despite this press release, Church culture still regards the consumption of caffeine as sinful.

Another Mormon hedge is forbidding women from working outside the home.  Thankfully, Mormon culture has largely gotten over the idea that even single women should not work outside the home, but it still holds that married women should not.  LDS Church policy provides only mild support for this, but it also explicitly recognizes that this is subject to exceptions, and it is really only the business of the couple and God.  Many Mormons, however, still believe that other couples' personal choices are their own business in this regard.  First, I need to clarify: The point of this Church policy is not that "women belong in the home and men should be the breadwinners."  The point is that children thrive more when cared for by a parent in the home than they do in day care or in the care of baby sitters.  Since women are typically better suited to this task than men, it makes the most sense, in the typical situation, for the mother to be the one that cares for the children.  Now, a female friend of mine discovered, with her husband, that he was better at caring for the children than she was, when he lost his job, and only she could find work.  They are both quite content with her working and him being a stay-at-home dad, but her mother-in-law has taken this hedge to the extreme, telling them that they are sinning by having her work instead of him.  This is perhaps Mormon cultural hedges at their worst.  As with caffeine, this is not Church doctrine or even Church policy.  This is entirely cultural, and it actually violates Church policy, which specifically states that there are exceptions to this policy which are only the business of the couple involved.

There are a few hedges more I want to discuss.  One is the opposition to Dungeons and Dragons.  D&D is a table top role playing that got a lot of flak in the past because of some extremely stupid acts taken by some people who played it.  It was blamed for some murders as well as some other crimes.  Many churches during that time took up arms against the game, claiming that it was evil because the rules included the mention of demons and devils (they were mentioned as potential enemies for the players to defeat, but the opponents of the game left that fact out; they also left out that the Bible itself mentions such evil entities more frequently than the D&D rules).  Supposedly, at some point, an LDS leader said that the game was evil and should be avoided.  I have searched for this reference on multiple occasions, with no luck.  The most reasonable person I have talked to about this told me that what was actually said recommended that Church members use good judgment when playing games (D&D, as an example), because it could be easy to get sucked into some games.  Dungeons and Dragons has become a common game among Mormon gamers, and thus far, there have been no reports of harm caused.  One beneficial part of Mormon culture is a focus on spending time wisely, and it is likely that this tempers the potential risk of becoming too focused on a game.

The most prevalent game based hedge in Mormon culture is playing cards.  A Mormon leader once asked members of the Church to stay away from "face cards."  (I also have been unable to find this reference.)  This has lead to a widespread belief within the Church that playing cards are forbidden.  This is actually completely wrong, and it is based on a misunderstanding of language.  One reason for the immediate assumption that "face cards" meant playing cards is that the Church already forbids gambling.  The assumption here was that the Church leadership was building a hedge around the gambling law, to "help" Church members to avoid the temptation.  This is not what actually happened though.  The LDS Church does not build hedges (and has taken pains over the last few decades to eliminate the hedges that have managed to get in).  It expects members to govern themselves (and frequently says as much).  The misunderstanding was in the simple fact that "face cards" did not mean playing cards.  The royalty in playing cards are sometimes referred to as face cards, but this term was hijacked from another type of cards: Tarot cards.  The Church leader was not telling people to avoid playing cards or to remove the royalty from the deck first.  He was telling people to avoid what was becoming a common method of fortune telling, and since Tarot cards are not used for any other purpose, it was easier to forbid "face cards" than to explain in more detail.  Most of the people at that time understood, so no explanation was needed.  Since then, Tarot cards have declined in popularity, so few modern Mormon's recognize that "face cards" does not mean the royalty in playing cards, in this context.  Consequently, many Mormon homes forbid the use or possession of playing cards within the home.

These are not the only hedges in Mormon culture, but they are some of the most prominent.  There are plenty of other hedges, like the opposition to government welfare on the grounds of Church policy encouraging self sufficiency (or worse, on the grounds of personal responsibility, which has been proven to not apply to a vast majority of those in poverty).  In the LDS Church, we sometimes even discuss the hedges of the Jews, but few of us recognize the hedges withing our own religious culture.  To be clear, these hedges are not doctrinal hedges like those of the Jews.  They are not supported by Church leadership.  Nearly all Mormon hedges are entirely cultural in nature, and they are often the result of misunderstandings or incorrect assumptions from Church membership.  The result of this is almost always unrighteous judgment of others, which is forbidden by Church doctrine.


(I am LDS, I drink caffeine on long drives to stay awake, I play games with playing cards, and I play D&D, when I have time.  Judge me if you dare.)