One of the fascinating things that happen in Lehi’s fatherly advice to Jacob in 2 Nephi 1 and 2 is that he tries to put together an overall philosophical basis for the gospel. Here the war in Heaven is related to our ability to choose, the fall is related to the atonement, and our choices are related to the very nature of existence, which, Lehi says, requires that there be an “opposition in all things.”
The deadline is approaching for the 2012 Summer Seminar on Mormon Culture. Applications are due February 15th for this 6-week seminar for graduate students and junior faculty, continuing for a second year with the theme of “The Gold Plates as Cultural Artifact.” The seminar will be led by Richard Bushman, Professor of History Emeritus at Columbia University. Click here for full details and the application form, in Word (.doc) format or PDF format.
This is the third post in a series taking a broad view of the Book of Mormon (first, second). In this post I will discuss aspects of narrative encountered in the text. Not all scripture is narrative: consider the lengthy legal codes in the Torah and the moral exhortation found in James. Not all historical accounts are in the form of a narrative, although most history books written for the popular market are narrative histories. Most novels are in the form of a narrative, including historical fiction, which adds authorial speculation to large chunks of authentic history, often mixing fictional characters with actual historical figures and events.
It has recently been announced that Steven E. Snow will replace Marlin K. Jensen as the new Church historian. Elder Jensen has been a wonderful historian for our church, bringing both compassion and honesty to the work.I expect this good work will continue under Elder Snow’s direction. I am curious to see what his areas of emphasis will be. I wonder if one of those areas might deal with the pioneers’ settling of West and environmental issues because in the past, Elder Snow has written on this particular stewardship topic.Elder Snow wrote an essay published in New Genesis entitled “Skipping the Grand Canyon.” In it, he reflected on the struggle to survive his grandfather Erastus faced when colonizing the St. George Valley under the direction of Brigham Young. He wrote that although those “early settlers didn’t appreciate the beauty of southern Utah, they preserved it” (243). That preservation was done out of necessity, not out of an aesthetic appreciation. Without careful stewardship, especially of the agricultural lands, those pioneer settlers would not have survived. We are no longer an agrarian society, no longer tied so closely to the land that we feel immediately the effects of our stewardship, for good or bad. Part of that may be because we own such tiny little pieces of land instead of family farms, grazing ranges, and ranches. Even if I do everything I can to improve on my own .21-acre lot in downtown Provo,…
Like most people who’ve looked at Romney’s return, I have to say: there’s nothing terribly interesting there.
Okay, let me walk that back: there’s a lot of hugely interesting things, if you’re interested in all the many ways a person can earn income, and all the many forms a taxpayer has to fill out when the taxpayer is broadly invested. Still, there are a couple things that I thought I’d highlight:
A close reading of Blake Ostler’s work is timely, and I’m happy to do it alongside of Adam Miller. I’ve left mostly to Adam’s post last week to state what we’re up to and why. I want this week, before we come to the chapter-by-chapter work of this project, to say something about how time has affected Ostler’s project—how the project has changed between 2001 (publication of volume one) and 2008 (publication of volume three). I’ll also have to say a word about how it may change before 2012 is over (publication of volume four). My modus operandi will be simple: I will look at the prefaces to the already-published volumes of Exploring Mormon Thought.
I’ve been a bit remiss in keeping up with my interest (OK, perhaps mania) with Mormons in sports. Baseball selected the newest members to the Hall of Fame early this month, and both men and women’s soccer have had their drafts, but I’ve missed them both. So, its time to catch up.
I was gratified to see most of the class come back, but we’ll see if it happens again. Here’s the tentative syllabus for the next few weeks. I was really apprehensive about today, for two reasons. First, the material in this lesson was largely groundwork for the next few weeks, and really shouldn’t stand on its own, because you don’t see the payoff. Time constrained me, though. Second, this is some of the most tentative material I’m working with, and I’m hesitant about some of it. I’m still working it out in my own mind, but this seems to be the direction the evidence points in. Because of those two things, and the amount of material to cover, I’m not sure it all got presented in the clearest way, and I know at least one of the major arguments didn’t get presented. Reverse summary: Next week, we’re going to start reading Genesis against other creation accounts, particularly the Babylonian Enuma Elish, to see the doctrinal arguments it made. In order to build up to that, I presented three main points: 1) Whatever portion Moses may have written of Genesis 1 is now unrecoverable, and its current form dates to much later (likely around the Exile c.600 BCE). 2) The Book of Moses creation account neither proves Moses wrote our Genesis account nor is it an independent witness to an earlier version of Genesis 1. 3) The Book of Abraham Creation…
Right now, I have 200+ pages of Mitt Romney’s 2010 tax return clogging up my work printer. He’s a Mormon, it’s a tax issue, I’m a tax guy, so there will clearly be a blog post in the near future. Unfortunately, I also have a job and a family and obligations (and did I mention it’s 200+ pages?), so that post may or may not happen in the next couple days. I’ve glanced through really quickly and, even though it’s fascinating, there doesn’t seem to be anything terribly surprising (his effective rate’s a little lower than I expected, but not much). Still, if there’s anything you’re curious about regarding his tax returns, please feel free to leave questions in the comments; I’ll try to answer them in my next post. As you leave comments, though, remember our comments policy. Specifically, don’t insult each other, don’t call Romney’s (or anybody else’s) personal righteousness into question, and, in general, play nice. And enjoy the look into a world of personal finance most of us rarely see.
The story of Lehi’s family and their travels to the promised land perhaps reaches its height in the crisis point during the storm while they are on board the ship they built. The internal divisions within the family have lead to yet another dispute, and the Lord puts them through a trial to help them work it out. In fact, this is just the last of three stories in this lesson, all showing a similar pattern — and in each case showing faith and diligence (as the lesson describes it), leads to the Lord’s assistance in resolving the trial.
Dear Media,
Perhaps due to the authoritarian structure of the Church, students at BYU (more than elsewhere?) come to college expecting Pure Truth to be bestowed by The Authorities (i.e. professors) on those less enlightened (i.e. students), instead of learning how to engage data and arguments. I’ve often distributed a collection of readings and articles to students in my Institute and BYU classes. These help introduce and reorient students towards a broader perspective of LDS intellectual engagement, approaches, and critical thinking. Essentially, this is accomplished through stories, historical/doctrinal/cultural engagement, scholarly engagement and explicit guidelines. My “standard packet” has varied a bit from time to time, so here’s a fuller list than anyone has previously received. Carlfred Broderick, “The Core of My Faith“- Broderick reflects on his parents, upbringing and schooling, and various issues he dealt with along the way. He’s an inspiring model, I think. Bruce Hafen, “Dealing With Uncertainty“- Hafen lays out three degrees of faith, and acknowledges messiness while providing one of my favorite “thou shalts.“ John Welch, “Becoming a Gospel Scholar” (I got permission to run this at Patheos, but here’s a PDF copy.) Two short pieces from criticalthinking.org, Universal Intellectual Standards and A Checklist for Reasoning (combined in one PDF) James B. Allen, “Line Upon Line“- On doctrinal understanding and policy shifting and changing in the Church. Robert Millet “What is Our Doctrine?” Less for doctrinal bright lines and more for acknowledging the messiness of history and doctrine.…
“Belief” is more like an armchair anthropologist’s naive explanation of what’s going on with religious people than a description of what actually happens when someone sits in a pew or kneels by a bed. The way the word gets used as shorthand for willful gullibility is all wrong. These days, talking about religious “belief” is often just a tolerant way for non-religious people to make sense of religious phenomena from across the room by, in effect, saying that the religious phenomena they don’t understand don’t really happen. Stuff doesn’t happen at church, people “believe” stuff happens at church!
ABC broke the news: Mitt Romney has donated millions of dollars worth of stock to the Mormon church. SEC filings disclose that a Bain partner donated $1.9 million of Burger King stock to the Church; in addition, the Church has received stock of other Bain holdings, including Domino’s, DDi, Innophos, and the parent company of AMC Theaters.
But why? Why would Romney give the Church equity stakes in bad fast-food chains, second-rate pizza chains, and other such holdings?
If there’s sufficient interest, I will post some general notes, handouts and materials here instead of mailing out everything to my class. Handouts are pdf format and have live links embedded. I felt the first week went well; in contrast to the last time I taught this, few students had a science background, and only 1-2 had previous experience with me. I introduced myself and established some formal bona fides. The more important informal trust that comes from personal experience and knowing someone will come over time, I hope. I had students introduce themselves, give a bit of their own background in terms of studies and interests (only one with hard science, several in literature and humanities, a few in business/finance), and express what had brought them to the class, what they hoped to discusses, or nagging questions or issues in Genesis. As expected, questions ran the gamut, but no one expressed a desperate struggle trying to “square evolution with the story of Adam and Eve that I had to take literally as a Mormon.” Time passed quicker than expected, and I moved into some intro material for the following week. The purposes of the class dovetail with the approach, to understand Genesis as an Israelite might have and in process, answer some questions and make sure we’re asking the right kind of questions. “Many Bible accounts that trouble the inexperienced reader become clear and acceptable if the essential meaning…
From a literary point of view the second part of Nephi’s vision, his vision of the future, is very like an epic. It covers a broad sweep of human history and mentions the actions of a series of heroes and heroic groups who have an impact on the fate of humanity. Unfortunately, the broad nature of this epic vision is difficult to cover in a short form, like a blog post or something you might share in a Gospel Doctrine lesson.
Note that I will not be posting notes for lesson #5; I’m taking the week off. (Notes for lesson #6 should be right on schedule, however.) Also note that when I teach this, I plan on covering 1 Nephi 11-15, since I think it makes more sense to treat Nephi’s vision in its entirety and in its context.
Times and Seasons has selected Jimmer Fredette as Mormon of the Year for 2011. James Taft “Jimmer” Fredette began 2011 leading BYU’s basketball team to the NCAA championships, leading many to expect that the team might make the later rounds of the playoffs. While those hopes were unrealized (in part due to the sudden withdrawal of BYU’s next most important player, Brandon Davies), BYU’s performance in the tournament set a high point that hasn’t been rivaled by a BYU team since 1981, and Jimmer earned every major National Player of the Year honor, including the Wooden Award, the Naismith Award, the Adolph Rupp Trophy, and the Oscar Robertson Trophy. After finishing the season and graduating, Fredette was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks, who promptly traded him to the Sacramento Kings as part of a previously arranged deal. Although his first season was cut short by the basketball strike this past year, Fredette played his first game December 17th. He is currently the only Mormon playing in the NBA. Central to Fredette’s impact is his popularity among Mormons, which was so strong that it attracted national attention, coining terms like “Jimmermania.” Particularly fascinating, in our social-networking informed world, were the reactions to an early February Facebook post attacking Jimmermania, which extended to something like 600 comments in less than 10 hours (250 in one hour alone — see the archive here – no, I didn’t count them). The thread itself was…
Julie is posting detailed commentary and Kent is providing literary reflection; I’m afraid all I have to offer on the Book of Mormon is general observations. This week let’s talk about situating the book as a whole, not so much in terms of content and form (which I’ll address in later posts) but in terms of function and use. How does the Church use the Book of Mormon? How do you use the Book of Mormon?
***WARNING: This post mentions sex. I use the word a lot in this post. If that makes you uncomfortable, this may not be the post for you.*** Over the summer, the Bloomberg administration announced that, for the first time in two decades, public school students in New York would be required to take sex-ed. The curriculum the administration recommended—HealthSmart (middle school and high school) and Reducing the Risk—include, among other things, lessons on abstinence and birth control.
While perhaps not the most important symbol in the Vision of the Tree of Life (1 Nephi 8-11), the Iron Rod may be the one that has received the most attention, at least in recent decades[fn1]. But I think I was able to find something that kind of fit with the whole vision instead of just mentioning the Iron Rod. I like this hymn for not just (vaguely perhaps) invoking some of the imagery of the vision, but also for placing an emphasis on the Lord’s role in assisting us.
This isn’t a lesson; it is the notes from which I will prepare a lesson.
“If Pratt wanted to leave for posterity a record of his apostolic role in providential history, he also wanted to leave for futurity the story of the flesh and blood Parley P. Pratt (393).” Regardless of whether we agree with Givens & Grow on this point, it is the lens through which we ought to view their recent biography. Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism is a substantial addition to Pratt’s timeworn autobiography, an attempt to fill out our understanding of the man – both who Pratt was and also the critical (though often overlooked) contribution he made to Mormonism and its theology. While I take this to be the explicit aim of the authors, I’m more interested in the normative impact this biography will potentially make on its readers. Or maybe I’m merely so focused on my own agenda that I can’t help but exploit Givens & Grow toward this end.[1] Regardless, in this biography of one of the key figures in the Restoration, I see the potential for a restoration (or at least reemphasis) of three critical and interrelated aspects of early Mormonism[2]: a restoration of the specifically Mormon notion of prophet; a restoration of the contextual and dialogic nature of prophetic revelation; and a restoration of intelligence as the glory of God and the focus on education that this belief entails.[3] But first, let me just outright endorse the book as worthwhile. The telling of…
After taking off 18 months or so, I’m returning to teaching Institute in my free time. Beginning January 12, 8 PM in the Union Square chapel of Manhattan, I’ll be teaching a class called “Genesis, with an Introduction to Studying the Bible in Hebrew.” The Institute Director added the last part, but I don’t mind one bit. I’m quite looking forward to it. Institute can really be a breath of fresh air, especially for those who are looking for a deeper exploration of the scriptures than Sunday School allows. After all, there’s no schedule to follow, no manual to adhere to, none of the constraints that people argue over. Instead of 45 minutes with ambivalent mostly non-readers, I get 75 minutes with a self-selecting group of slightly less ambivalent reading-a-bit-more. This is not to say there are no constraints; in a lesser implementation of Helaman 10:4-5, teachers generally get vetted one way or another, and then are simply trusted to teach. I have reviews/recommendations from teaching for eight years under three different Institute Directors plus my three summers teaching at BYU, and they contact my Bishop and Stake President as well. After that… well, I teach the scriptures and the Gospel, and love it. And that’s all the local Powers That Be really care about. Are the students edified? Growing and learning? Reading their scriptures more? If so, they’re supportive. This class will be selective. I anticipate spending several weeks…
Case Background: Kiewit Power Constructors Co. contested a National Labor Relations Board decision to reinstate two fired electricians for threatening workplace violence. Kiewit Power had warned the electricians that their breaks were too long, and that they may need to take them in a different location. The electricians responded by saying things would “get ugly” if they were disciplined and the supervisor “better bring [his] boxing gloves.” In reinstating the electricians, the NLRB found the statements “were merely figures of speech made in the course of a protected labor dispute.” Kiewit appealed the decision and case landed in front of the D.C. Circuit this past Spring. Outcome: Kiewit got “jimmered” by the D.C. Circuit in an opinion authored by the Hon. Thomas B. Griffith this past fall. In relevant part: To state the obvious, no one thought that Judd and Bond were literally challenging their supervisor to a boxing match. Once we acknowledge that the employees were speaking in metaphor, the NLRB’s interpretation is not unreasonable. It is not at all uncommon to speak of verbal sparring, knock-down arguments, shots below the belt, taking the gloves off, or to use other pugilistic argot without meaning actual fisticuffs. What these words stand for, of course, is a matter of context. Compare, e.g., [Link] (last visited July 6, 2011) (the Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin literally dropping gloves to fight the Rangers’ Brandon Dubinsky), with [Link] (last visited July 6, 2011) (describing Vice Presidential candidate…
I enjoyed the holidays this year, but I am glad they are over. The tree is no longer shedding needles in our living room, and the few lights and garlands we hung have been taken down. We celebrated a simple Christmas here, with very few decorations other than the nativities and the tree. We exchanged few gifts. We are trying to teach our children to be thoughtful and discriminating in what they choose to give each other rather than buying every single thing they think (rightly) that their siblings would enjoy. I remember a Christmas ten years ago. We were staying in our graduate student apartment for the holidays because I was too pregnant to travel. It would be our first Christmas alone with our little toddler, and I was so excited. We made origami and crocheted ornaments for our little tree and I sewed and stuffed a nativity set for our son to play with. We picked out two gifts to give him–one book and one toy. A few days before Christmas, our Relief Society president called and asked if she could drop off something for us. I was shocked when she started unloading the back of her SUV, which was filled with food from the Bishop’s Storehouse, diapers, detergent, and wrapped gifts. I protested that surely, this must be a mistake, there are other families who need this more than we did. I was hurt at the thought…
The flurry of posts at T&S and elsewhere around the Bloggernacle is a reminder that 2012 is Book of Mormon year in Gospel Doctrine class. Which Book of Mormon are you going to read?
