The preliminary program for the Sunstone symposium is available, and includes many familiar names. Some of the bloggernacle folks who are listed include: Wednesday: 9:30 – John Dehlin (Mormon Stories) 2:00 – John Dehlin Thursday: 11:15 – Mormon feminism panel including Alisa (ExII) and Tresa (FMH) 2:15 – Tresa (respondent to Laura Compton) 4:45 – Janet, Kathy, Tresa, and Tracy – Joanna Brooks (Mormon Matters) Friday: 3:30 – Bridget Jack Meyers Jeffries 4:45 – Sheila and Sara panel -Mormon women on tour panel (Joanna Brooks, Holly Welker) 8:00 – Tracy (BCC) Saturday: 11:15 – DKL talking about Glenn Beck. Bring popcorn. 2:15 – FMH’s panel with Lisa, Tresa, Shelah, and Melanie. 4:45 – Panel with me, Kristine, John Dehlin, and Ms. Jack -Bored in Vernal 7:30 – Mormon women panel including Exponent II’s Caroline I think that’s all of the bloggernacle folks — at least, all the ones that I noticed in a quick skim through the program. (If I missed anyone, please let me know.) And obviously there are many other excellent speakers as well. (Jan Shipps! Margaret Toscano! Todd Compton! Claudia Bushman!) Maybe I’ll see some of you there.
Year: 2010
A Mormon Image: Cemetery in Carrol County
After retirement, my father turned to family history and temple work to fill his time. Most of this work has focused on researching ancestors from Virginia and North Carolina. I took this photo at a cemetery in Carrol County, VA, near the the birthplace of my father’s grandparents. My father is shown in the picture. While in the cemetery he was able to locate headstones of people for whom he had completed temple work. It was the first and only time that my father has visited this place that has taken so much of his attention. As a side note, I have to feel for my ancestors who left lush, green, beautiful Virginia for the desert of Vernal, Utah! Sorry Vernal. By L-d Sus ___ This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
The End of the World
I took a stroll through the End of the World last week. Brought the wife and kids and a picnic lunch. It was beautiful, as always. But one of these days (and it won’t be long) it will be gone. Maybe us too.
How to write a revelation
I have been working on a paper looking at the Doctrine and Covenants, and my research has me thinking about how the texts of modern revelation were produced. I think that there are a lot of Mormons who assume that the words of the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants were dictated word for word to Joseph. On this model, the Doctrine and Covenants is rather like the Qua’ran, which also consists of a series of revelations given to a prophet over a period of years in response to concrete historial circumstances. Pious Muslims affirm that the Qua’ran was dictated word for word in classical Arabic to the Prophet Muhammed and transmitted without error to the present. Some Islamic theologians have gone farther, declaring that the Qua’ran is uncreated in time. Rather, it is an eternal emanation of the Divine mind, the Word that was in the beginning with God incarnate in the world. (There are problems with this story of the Qua’ran’s text of course. The verses inscribed in the Dome of the Rock, for example, which represent one of the earliest extant Islamic texts vary slightly from the current version of the Qua’ran.) Despite flirting with it in a couple of places in our scriptures, Mormon metaphysics isn’t especially congenial to such a super-charged version of textual inerrancy, but I don’t think that it is a stretch for many Mormons to see the texts of the Doctrine and Covenants as…
The One True Hot Dog Stand
I’m hungry. I need a hot dog. Nate’s Dawgs smells delicious, but they’re a little pricey. Joe’s Rolled Meats are cheap, but they taste like cigars. Trader Moe’s dogs are additive free, so I guess they’re healthier than the others. But the girl at the Delirama counter is a total babe. How can I possibly select the optimal hot dog stand?
Reincarnation, Mormon style
In a PEW survey a few months back, 24% of American adults indicated that they believed in reincarnation (ie, that people will be reborn into this world again and again). Apparently many Christians don’t have a problem overlapping their Christianity with Eastern beliefs.
A Mormon Image: Joseph’s Birthplace Memorial At Dusk
“I was born in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and five, on the twenty-third day of December, in the town of Sharon, Windsor county, State of Vermont.” Joseph Smith History 1:3 By Gary Boatright Jr. ___ This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
God’s Game
It seems to me that there are two contradictory sets of underlying assumptions about the plan of salvation. One is the “salvation as a game” perspective and the other is “salvation as a journey” perspective. The key difference between a game and a journey is that in a game the rewards are given by people, while in a journey the rewards are obtained from nature. For example, money, gifts, recognition, and grades are rewards given by people. In a game, someone has the authority to bestow the reward. In a job, your boss has the authority to grant your paycheck; in a sport, the referee has authority to bestow points; in school, your teacher has authority to assign grades; in court, the judge or jury have power to decide a victor. In a journey, however, the rewards are not given by an authority – rather they are obtained from nature. The mathematician seeking a more efficient algorithm, the inventor working to build a new solar cell, the athlete striving to train her body, and the carpenter working to build a house are all examples of individuals on journeys. Their rewards grow directly from their work, and are not granted by any human authority. To illustrate, compare learning—a journey—with school, which is a game. Learning—a journey In the journey of learning, the goal is to obtain certain knowledge. The only way to obtain knowledge is through study and experience. There is…
Sunday School Lesson 25: Psalms
I’m going to skip my usual whine about how much material is covered in the reading for this lesson (unless announcing that I won’t whine counts as a whine). Overview One traditional division of the book of Psalms—often called “the psalter”—divides it into five sections, on analogy with the five books of Moses: Psalms 1-41, Psalms 42-72, Psalms 73-89, Psalms 90-106; and Psalms 107-150, with Psalm 150 being the closing doxology for the whole collection. Those who accept this division understand the first and second psalms to be an introduction to the psalter as a whole, so some manuscripts give the number “1” to the psalm we number “3.” If you are reading a psalter and it the chapters and verses don’t line up with your expectations, see if adding 3 to the psalm number corrects things. It is obvious that Psalms was created from previous collections of hymns. See the psalms of Asap (Psalms 73-83) and of Korah (Psalms 42, 44-49), as well as the “Songs of Ascents” (Psalms 120-124). The duplication of some psalms is further evidence that the collection we have was created from earlier collections. Compare Psalm 14 and Psalm 53, Psalm 70 and Psalm 40:13-17 and Psalm 108 and Psalms 57:7-11 and 60:5-12. Traditionally, most of the psalms in book 1 (Psalms 1-41) are ascribed to David, and most of them address Yahweh. In contrast, in book 2 (Psalms 42-72), most of the psalms are…
Sunday School Lesson 24: 2 Samuel 11-12; Psalm 51
2 Samuel 11 Verse 1: What do you make of the fact that the story is set at the time of the year when “kings go forth to battle,” but David sent his army to battle and stayed behind himself? What is the writer telling us about David when he says “But David tarried still at Jerusalem”? (Note: presumably the time when battles could once again commence was at the end of the rainy season, approximately the beginning of May.) Verses 2-5: How do you suppose that David could see Bathsheba bathing? Where do you think people would usually have bathed? How do you think David’s house was situated relative to the other houses? What does verse 4 suggest about why she was bathing? Why is it significant that Uriah was a Hittite (or, more likely, descended from an earlier Hittite immigrant)? Who were the Hittites? The Hittite empire was no more at this time, so what does it mean to call Uriah a Hittite? Since the name Uriah means “the Lord is light,” he appears to be an Israelite, though calling him a Hittite makes him a foreigner. Do you think that might have had anything to do with the way that David dealt with him? How is verse 4 ironic? What would the punishment be if Bathsheba were found to be pregnant and, therefore, to have committed adultery? Does Bathsheba betray her husband willingly? In other words, given…
Adventures in the Journal of Discourses
I’m going to briefly argue for the general importance and contemporary relevance of the Journal of Discourses. But first, let me say: My grandpa (Max Olsen) is a very good man.
Unique Outreach by the Rochester Stake
This week, the Rochester Stake in New York is sponsoring a special performance of Carol Lynn Pearson’s Facing East, to be followed by a fireside featuring a discussion led by the Rochester Stake President. Notably, the performance is being directed by Jerry Argetsinger, who was the long-time director of the Hill Cumorah Pageant throughout the 90s, and costume design is being handled by Gail Argetsinger, a Tony award-winning costume designer who designed and supervised the construction of thousands of pageant costumes during the 90s. For those unfamiliar with Facing East, it is the story of a Mormon couple who is grappling with the suicide of their gay son. It was written by Carol Lynn Pearson, a Mormon playwright and whose husband (and the father of her four children) left her to confront and explore his own homosexuality. He returned to live with her 6 years later after being diagnosed with AIDS, with Sister Pearson caring for him in the months preceding his death. She authored a book about the experience, Goodbye, I Love You, and has sought through her works to encourage understanding among gay members and their families (including the recent No More Goodbyes: Circling the Wagons Around Our Gay Loved Ones). Of her effort, she’s said “I love the Mormon community … and I have a unique opportunity to build bridges.” This sponsored performance follows other notable developments within the Church this past year, including the Church endorsing…
A Mormon Image: Brothers
We’ve been teaching our oldest son Peter that he’s a big brother to our younger son Jeremy. When Peter learned that Joseph Smith also had a big brother, he fell in love with the concept. Now whenever we go somewhere church-related, he asks, “Will there be a picture of Joseph and Hyrum?” By Robert Gibbons ___ This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
The hidden apologetics of Banner of Heaven
Scott at Bloggernacle Times has been putting on a very impressive Behind the Music retrospective about the old Banner of Heaven blog. The hair, the women, the trashed hotel rooms — it’s all there, complete with interviews with band members (Brian G. comes clean about the infamous “no brown M&M’s” contract), groupies band aids, and even the occasional critic. In fact, about the only point that Scott seems to have missed so far is the group’s hidden apologetic purpose. What apologetic purpose, you ask? Only that a widely read book — also widely perceived as hostile towards the church — was google-bombed halfway into oblivion. Now, curious souls who google “Banner of Heaven” are as likely to read about X-boxes or the speculation train as they are to learn about Mountain Meadows. Apologetics, meet Web 2.0. And the apologetic stone cut without hands will roll forth virally, until it has overcome the entire Googleverse. Amen.
New Mormon Blog at Beliefnet
Jana Reiss, former T&S guest blogger and author of Mormonism for Dummies, is running a new Mormon blog at Beliefnet: Flunking Sainthood. Put a link in your blogroll (do people still do blogrolls?) and visit often. Having myself previously hosted a Mormon blog at Beliefnet, I have some idea of the challenge the new blog is facing. The problem can be put very simply: (1) few people who aren’t Mormon have much to say about Mormonism, and (2) there aren’t too many Mormons hanging around the Beliefnet site. But it just seems wrong that one of the most popular Internet religion sites doesn’t host a Mormon blog (they host just about everything else), so I’m happy Jana is taking on this project. I hope she is the surprise hit of the year at Beliefnet. As the author of What Would Buffy Do: The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide, I’m sure she has a few tricks up her sleeve. You can help by visiting FS on a regular basis and leaving friendly and informative comments.
A Mormon Image: Hand in Hand on Temple Square
Walking hand in hand with my family on Temple Square in April 2009. Taking our one year old daughter for the first time was very special, and as we walked I looked around to ask someone to take our picture. We were alone. As I looked at our shadows, I thought that was a much more powerful image; for me, it invokes the feeling of moving forward and facing the future together. This is my favorite photo from that trip. By Christy D. ___ This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
Inoculation Works
I finally picked up and read a copy of Simon Southerton’s Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church (Signature, 2004) a couple of weeks ago. Yet I still attended church last week and have not drafted a resignation letter. Inoculation works. There’s nothing particularly new in the book — it summarizes mainstream academic views about the origins of the native inhabitants of the Americas, reviews more recent DNA evidence that confirms the mainstream view, then critiques mainstream LDS beliefs about the Book of Mormon and the peopling of the Americas. It is not a book that should have stirred up much controversy. That it did suggests we LDS have a problem, but it’s not a DNA problem. Our problem can be described in two words: Correlation and inoculation. Problems With Correlation What is Correlation? It is an organizational unit within the LDS bureaucracy with a staff and a budget. What does it do? It reviews most or all material published by the LDS Church for compliance with whatever guidelines they are (hopefully) given by senior LDS leaders. Lesson 42 of the D&C and Church History manual lists six things that Correlation does: Maintaining purity of doctrine. Emphasizing the importance of the family and the home. Placing all the work of the Church under priesthood direction. Establishing proper relationships among the organizations of the Church. Achieving unity and order in the Church. Ensuring simplicity of Church programs…
An Unexpected Gift
At 3:28 this morning we welcomed a new son into the world. As one would expect, congratulations and well-wishes have come flooding in from friends and family all day. And for all of these we have been moved and grateful. First thing this morning, however, we received a congratulatory gift we hadn’t anticipated. Women housed in the Alexandria Detention Center had sent us a hand-crocheted blanket, cap and set of booties. (In Packer yellow-and-green for my Cheese-head wife no less). Both modern and ancient scripture admonish us to serve the “least” of those among us, noting that doing so is akin to serving Christ himself. My wife and I found ourselves touched that, at such a sacred and spiritual time for our family as the birth of our new son, we had been remembered by some gracious women who, by some standard, might consider to be the “least” of those in our society today. Humbled by the act, we resolved to reach back out in some way to those women at the Alexandria Detention Center. Small acts of love are truly contagious.
Old Testament Lesson 23 Study Notes: 1 Samuel 18-20, 23-24
I apologize for the rough status of these study notes. They are not yet finished, but they are as good as they are going to get this week. As you read these chapters, ask yourself why they are included in scripture. Do they testify of Christ? If so, how? Do they serve some other purpose? History is important in its own right, but it isn’t clear why this particular history is important as scripture. How would you explain its importance? Perhaps the answer is “Ultimately this isn’t an important story,” but that ought to be our last conclusion rather than our first, the conclusion we come to only after the others fail. After all, people have found meaning in these passages for millennia. It would be brash, to say the least, to dismiss the collective judgment of millions of people without good reasons for doing so. Though David has been anointed to be king, he does not become king immediately. A great deal happens before he is finally made king. (See the list of events at the end of these study questions.) These chapters are devoted to the events of that time. Do you think that this interval of about 10 years was necessary to David’s development? Was it necessary, instead, for some other reason? Was it, perhaps, unnecessary? Perhaps it happened but didn’t have to happen this way. <em>1 Samuel 18</em> Verses 1- 4: The language used here is…
Interreligious — not Irreligious — Diplomacy
Before I sign off – or am run out of town – I might serve you well by offering a perspective on an extremely interesting conference held last weekend on the USC campus in LA. The conference was titled “Mormon Engagement with World Religions,” and was organized by Randall Paul, founder of the Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy, and by Brian Birch, head of the LDS chapter of same Foundation. Randall’s vision of the inter-religious conversation is quite rich and distinctive. He is not interested in diluting or understating doctrines in order to commune lamely on some lowest common denominator of belief; rather, he believes we can get closer to the truth by being frank about our differences and talking together to figure out what they mean. I think he’s right, and this conference went some way toward proving such a proposition. Let me first say that this was a terrific conference, with very interesting and substantial presentations from in 7 sessions over 2 days. Elder Bruce D. Porter gave a clear and bracing keynote address in which he first expounded the expansiveness of LDS thought, its openness to all sources of truth, and then made clear our commitment to the essentials of the Restoration. Finally, he emphasized the interest of LDS in making common cause with other believers against aggressive secular trends in our Western societies. Panels followed that focused on general theological questions, on the current situation, and on…
Taking it to the Third Order
Since my “second-order” questioning elicited little discussion (albeit 200+ responses), let me try to “take it up a notch,” as George Constanza might say (forgive the erudite cultural references). Herewith, the “third order,” the Meta-Meta Meditation on the problem of politics/morality/religion. (I gather my guest privileges will expire before we have a chance to go to the Fourth Order, which would start to make me a little nervous anyway, since I don’t know what the Fifth Order might be.) Anyway, here, from my forthcoming blockbuster, The Responsibility of Reason*, is a fragment of that third-order reflection. (Is it relevant to LDS concerns? Only, I suppose, if thinking about the relation between reason and revelation is relevant to us as LDS. You help me judge): Reason’s responsibility is a problem because the rule of simple reason is as impossible as it is inevitable. It is impossible because a clear and distinct grasp of the meaning and goodness of human existence eludes our natural powers, if only because we human beings are naturally aware of being part of some larger whole that exceeds our grasp. Thus an answer to the practical question of human purpose cannot be simply separated from the theoretical question of the way things are, of the nature or Being of what is highest or somehow ultimate. As Tocqueville saw with great clarity, human existence, considered personally or collectively, depends on “dogmatic beliefs,” and nothing can prevent beliefs or…
Late-night Doctrinal Discussions
I’m in the final semester of an MBA program at Oregon’s Willamette University. I took a job in California a couple months ago. That means I’ve got a killer commute to class. All that to say that my time for deep, theosophical discourse with my wife is limited to the occasional late-night discussion when we both really should be sleeping. Generally these discussions rehash the well-worn topics that have occupied our philosophical speculations over six years of marriage. This last week, though, I was caught flatfooted by an entirely new and vitally important doctrinal disagreement inspired by Geoff J’s post on cosmetic surgery: how much power do resurrected beings have over their appearance? Lacking any divinely inspired guidance on this matter, we swam deeply in the sea of groundless speculation. My highly nuanced and sophisticated argument was that, hey, if you’re a god, then of course you can make yourself look however you want. I mean, come on, you’re a god! Her subtly devious defense was that Amulek teaches that we will be restored to our “perfect frame”, which implies that each of us has an eternally unchangeable perfect state which we achieve in our resurrected bodies. So I throw the question out to the wisdom of the bloggernacle — am I going to be 5′ 10″ for all eternity? Are those teeth-whitening strips going to come in handy on the other side? And is there a divine Weight Watchers…
A Peek Inside the Temple
On May 28, a press conference was held in the South Visitors’ Center on Temple Square to unveil a new public exhibit: a cut-away scale model showing the interior architecture and layout of the Salt Lake Temple. The LDS Newsroom and Deseret News posted detailed stories with additional images; in this post I just want to toss out a few ideas for discussion.
LDS & Public Square
OK, now that we’ve basically cleared up any confusion surrounding the ontological status of agency and atonement, let me see what you think about something a little more… political. For many years friends and I had considered the possibility of some kind of political-philosophy oriented educational foundation that would try to help religious people, and LDS in particular, to navigate the world of ideas as these concern politics, broadly understood. What finally got some of us off the dime with this concern was the controversy surrounding the Church’s efforts in favor of Prop 8 in California. Let me first satisfy your curiosity, if you have any, by stating simply that I favored and I favor the proposition, as well as the LDS Church’s efforts on its behalf. This has been much discussed, and we can discuss it more if you like. But maybe it will be useful to go back behind (or above, or beneath) this particular issue to some questions about religious convictions in the public square. Here is what I found in conversations with many young and smart LDS (BYU students and others) during or in the wake of the Prop 8 business: many were convinced (on religious and/or other grounds) that homosexuality is wrong, that homosexual “marriage” is not a good idea, and that it would be better if homosexual practices were not further encouraged/legitimized. But a good number, maybe most I talked to, also were very…
Life’s Tough When You’re a Girl (or a Boy)
A girl I know was considering taking a commissioned sales job at a truck stop. She commented to me, “Maybe I’ll wear a tight shirt and a push-up bra. I bet that would help with my sales numbers.” My immediate reaction was, “Don’t sell yourself like that!” I’m told that there is a correlation between a man’s physical height and his achievement in traditional measures of success (fame, fortune, etc.). I’d bet that there’s a similar correlation for women and bust size. So why would I feel comfortable encouraging a man to use his physical traits to advantage in his work, but uncomfortable encouraging a woman to do the same?
Zion and the Limits of Intellectual Agrarianism
There is a strand of progressive Mormon thinking that associates Zion with an exaltation of agrarian virtues. I am thinking here of folks like Hugh Nibley or Arthur Henry King or my friend Russell Arben Fox who argue that small scale, local economies, ideally based in large part on agriculture provide the best possible model for building Zion. At least one way of understanding this line of thinking is to see it as a kind of Mormonization of agrarian thinkers like Wendell Berry. It is striking in this regard that Leonard Arrington, whose works on nineteenth-century Mormon communitarianism provide the historical ur-texts for much of this thinking, was trained at North Carolina in a progressive economics department then much under the influence of an earlier generation of Southern agrarian thinkers. I am skeptical.
Eye Single
A dear friend–who is a single, never-married, 40-something, extremely faithful LDS woman–emailed this to a few friends. I share it with her permission, having edited out identifying information:
Though the lesson doesn’t include chapters 12 and 14, the manual recommends them as supplemental reading and I agree. We need to read them to see the full story. There is quite a bit in this section, from the choice of Saul as King, to his usurpation of Samuel’s authority and consequent loss of authority, to the choice of David to replace him, to Saul’s madness, to the story of David slaying Goliath. Rather than try to cover all of that material, these study questions will focus on chapters 9-10, 13, and 16: Saul’s selection and downfall; David’s election. Chapter 9 Verse 2: The phrase “a choice young man” is a hendiadys: “young and tob.” What the word tob means is debatable. Some translate it here as “handsome,” others as “impressive,” others as “good.” The root of tob means “pleasant,” so perhaps the majority of translators assume that the tob means “good-looking” as it is used here, particularly since the final comment of the verse is about physical appearance. (Compare this verse to 1 Samuel 10:23-24.) Why would Saul’s handsomeness be relevant? Verses 5 & 21: What attributes of Saul’s character do we see here? Verse 8: Why is the servant so intent on visiting the seer? According to Tesamura’s The First Book of Samuel (270), at the time a shekel was 11.4 g of silver, slightly more than $6 today, but it is difficult to know what its purchase…
A Fortunate Fall and Ontological Agency, cont.
Thanks for some good suggestions, objections, discussion re. my first post. Let me try to kick the can down the road just a bit further with a few more reflections: First, the Fortunate Fall — that the Fall is good news, is extremely well attested in quite authoritative (or at least, to me, impressive) statements by LDS authorities. To put it simply: to be fallen and then redeemed is better than never to have fallen. I don’t have my sources here to document this – feel free to help me here if you wish – but I have little doubt of this. Beyond Eve’s beautiful celebratory statement in Moses, which seems to me without any very close parallel in any other Christian tradition, there are many statements that go further, affirming even that Eve knew perfectly well what she was doing in “transgressing” and that it was all for the best. Of course there are traces, and perhaps more, of the felix culpa idea before Milton in the Christian tradition. In Benjamin Britton’s Ceremony of Carols, for example, there is a beautiful text from some middle-English (I think) source celebrating Eve’s partaking of the apple. But the Augustinian association of the original sin of pride and sexuality as a disorder limit severely the theological development of any such notion. So it does seem to me that LDS resources are quite distinctive in this respect – thus, for example, the deep…
