Year: 2016

The New Harmonized First Vision Account

by Dave Banack • May 5, 2016 • 65 Comments

Sunday night, Elder Richard J. Maynes, of the Presidency of the Seventy, delivered a CES Devotional on the First Vision. In particular, he made explicit reference to the four first-person accounts of the First Vision authored by Joseph Smith that we have. [See the text of the four accounts at this handy page at the JSPP site.] He also referenced the Gospel Topics essay “First Vision Accounts.” It is encouraging to see senior LDS leaders incorporate the essays and the scholarship coming out of the Church History Department into their talks and recommend this material to the general membership. This post is about a very new resource that Elder Maynes referenced in his talk: A harmonized narrative of the First Vision posted at the Church History site (within LDS.org) incorporating details from all four primary sources. It was posted there only about a week ago. Wow. It’s not everyday that the Church restates the narrative of its founding event and posts it online.

Hell Part 1: Close Readings of the Book of Mormon

by Clark Goble • May 3, 2016 • 25 Comments

I love doing close readings of scripture. The normal way to do this is reading linearly through the entire book of scripture. An other great way is to study by topic. Each helps you see things you might miss using only the other method. While I’m glad our gospel doctrine has encouraged reading all scripture, part of me kind of wishes there was something akin to the Gospel Principles class. Just with broader topics and focused on reading our key texts rather than simple answers. My goal here is to do that sort of thing with a particular focus on the Book of Mormon. It’ll take time and may follow a somewhat circuitous route. With luck I’ll make a post each week in this series. I’ll be mixing the two methods I mentioned slightly as I’ll typically pick a few texts related to the topic and then do a close reading of them. I was kind of encouraged by a recent BCC post on Nehor and Universalism. It was that best kind of post: one that made me think for several days about the mentioned passages.

Wanting Authenticity and Getting It

by Clark Goble • May 1, 2016 • 64 Comments

Many of you may have seen the J. Golden Kimball stage show from a number of years ago. He was the infamous swearing general authority. I must admit I first heard it on my mission when a companion had some tapes of the show. We were in the southern states where J. Golden had served as a mission president during its more dangerous era. It was a very different portrait of general authorities than I was used to. One of the best known stories was his going off and telling wards they were going to hell. He was sometimes told he had to go back and apologize. According to the stage show he’d blame this on phone calls. “It’s that damn contraption the telephone that gets me in trouble. Before it was invented I could go out and say anything and come back and deny it. Now they call Heber and before I get back he’s waiting for me at the train station.”

Venting, Capping, and Sympathizing

by Julie M. Smith • April 30, 2016 • 112 Comments

Two items came across my news feed yesterday:

Abraham, a dilemma solved?

by Walter van Beek • April 26, 2016 • 23 Comments

The man who killed our former Secretary of Health, dr. Borst (see my last blog), will be institutionalized with mandatory psychiatric treatment, for a period as long as is deemed necessary by the experts, till they deem him no longer a threat to society. The judges opined that he was completely unaccountable, living in a totally parallel world. He had set out to kill his sister, and then ‘God told him’ on the spot to kill dr. Borst; he killed his sister later. The prosecution had demanded 8 years in prison first and then institutionalization, and considers to appeal the verdict. Anyway, in our day and age the ‘call of Abraham’ is judged as insanity, so let us return to the Genesis story, for a third angle on what I consider one of the most dangerous tales in the Script. In my first blog I treated the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac more or less in the way that the Bible presents it, as a test. I argued that the Scriptures may laud Abraham for his obedience (and not just in Genesis), yet on the other hand offer more than enough arguments for the opposite verdict: that Abraham in fact failed the test; viz. Abraham should have used all he knew about God to fight the command to sacrifice. The Book of Abraham does just the same: while hailing his obedience Joseph added reasons why God’s demand for Isaac’s…

Teacher Development Developments

by Julie M. Smith • April 23, 2016 • 27 Comments

I stumbled upon this manual, a new teacher development guide released by the church. It is quite similar to previous iterations of the church’s teacher materials, with two significant differences:

New Construals of the Self: Secular Age round 4

by Rachael Givens Johnson • April 22, 2016 • 9 Comments

(Links to Rounds 1 , 2, and 3) In the previous chapter, Taylor outlined some of the main “bulwarks” of enchanted belief that had to give way for exclusive humanism to eventually emerge. In Chapter 2, the “Rise of the Disciplinary Society,” Taylor examines some of the new construals of self and society that would help make that shift possible: the development of a “disciplined, disengaged stance to self and society” (136). In doing so, Taylor continually reminds us of the “zigzag” nature of this trajectory; instead of an inevitable subtraction of enchanted beliefs or transcendent references that culminated in a purely immanent humanism—secularism’s irresistible march– new imaginaries were generated by initially religious motives. For example, the early modern devotional effort to bring the Incarnation’s sanctifying force to all the ordinary contexts of life “led people to invest these contexts with a new significance and solidity” (144) ; a significance that would eventually become self-sufficient and severed from transcendent roots. Taylor continually emphasizes the “zigzag” trajectory to combat the guise of inevitability or “naturalness” that modern secular narratives employ to cloak their own contingency and religious origins. So what were some of these new construals? In this post I’ll focus on the new construals of the self, and in the next post will look at those of the new social order (which Taylor explores in more detail in Chapter 4, “The Modern Social Imaginary”). The emergence of a buffered, disengaged self arises through and…

What if Belief isn’t Volitional?

by Clark Goble • April 22, 2016 • 55 Comments

Imagine you walk outside under a beautiful blue sky, the sun warm on your skin. Now someone comes up to you and tells you that you must believe the sky is orange and the air cold. Can you do it? If not, does that mean your beliefs are freely chosen? Can you choose to believe?

Huntsman Buys Salt Lake Tribune

by Clark Goble • April 20, 2016 • 9 Comments

As rumored for a while the Huntsman family has bought the Salt Lake Tribune. Both the Tribune as well as the Deseret News have been struggling for quite a while. The drying up of classified ads has hurt newspapers across the country the last 15 years. For a relatively small market like Utah to have two major papers really has been difficult economically. However unification has always been controversial due to the relationship of both papers to the whole Mormon question. Historically the Salt Lake Tribune arose to be a critical voice against Mormons. It was part of the Godbeite movement in the late 19th century. Godbe wanted religious and political reform in Utah. The fact that the other main paper, the Deseret News, was controlled by the LDS Church allowed for both perspectives to be voiced.

Converts per Missionary

by Clark Goble • April 15, 2016 • 56 Comments

A few years ago in October 2012 the Church dropped the age for missionaries from 19 to 18 for men and 21 to 19 for women. There are various speculations of why the Church did this although I don’t think anyone knows for sure. (A popular explanation is that it cuts down on young men leaving the church when they go to college for their Freshman year) Regardless of why the Brethren did this, at the time I was concerned that it would lead to less effective missionaries. We now have a few years worth of data so we can examine the effect, In my view the most recent Church data in particular tells a story of a drop in missionary effectiveness.

Clark Goble on deck.

by Frank McIntyre • April 15, 2016 • 22 Comments

We’re delighted to welcome Clark Goble back to T&S! Clark grew up in Canada in that part that appears like a strange looking foot extending south and east of Maine. There in the city of Halifax he watched the church grow from a small branch into numerous wards eventually even getting a temple. His father taught physics there which must have been addictive since both Clark and his brother studied physics as well. Clark always dreamt of going on a foreign mission and prayed that this would be so. He soon realized that God both had a sense of humor and that it was tied to overly literal interpretations of prayers when he was sent from Canada to Louisiana. Upon returning to BYU Clark decided he had a masochistic streak and studied mathematics, physics and philosophy until being informed by numerous letters that he had far too many credits to be allowed to continue at BYU. During this era Clark was part of the initial burst of discussion in mailing lists. He was on the original Eyring-L discussing science and religion, Morm-Ant discussing Mormonism and antiquities including the Book of Mormon, and Mormon-L a more social and quasi-politically oriented list. After a few years he left Mormon-L as its tone changed. He ended up running the Eyring-L and Morm-Ant mailing lists for a few years until passing the reigns. He was one of the early members of the LDS-Phil mailing…

Calling All Millennials

by Dave Banack • April 14, 2016 • 45 Comments

The most interesting talk at UVU’s just-completed Mormonism and the Art of Boundary Maintenance Conference was by Jana Riess: “Mormon Millennials: Assimilation or Retrenchment?” Jana gave a preliminary report of research she is doing for a new book on the subject. She defined the Millennial generation as those born in the 80s or 90s. Others define it as those born between 1982 and 2004. Are you a Millennial? Glad you’re here. Hope you stay.

The Best Kept Secret in the Church

by Julie M. Smith • April 11, 2016 • 19 Comments

This pamphlet contains advice about adjusting to missionary life. And while I am sure it would be particularly helpful for missionaries, it covers things everyone needs to know. It is humane and gentle, based in gospel principles, and reflects sound thinking about mental health.

Abraham, the legend

by Walter van Beek • April 11, 2016 • 37 Comments

Right now in the Netherlands a man stands trial for the murder of former Health Secretary, Els Borst. The culprit has confessed, stating in his defence that God commanded him to kill dr. Borst as she was responsible for the new euthanasia laws. The immediate reaction of the Dutch public is that he is insane; also the court does not take his claim seriously. Now, such a claim in a murder case is rather new for the Netherlands, but in the USA this kind of delusion may sound familiar, like in attacks on abortion clinics. Claims on God’s command can be used for all purposes, also the most nefarious. The interpretation of a story’s message depends on who is telling it and what is the hidden agenda of the story teller. In my earlier blog we were wondering about Abraham’s intended sacrifice of his son, our basic conundrum, and now let us view Abraham not as a historical person but as a legendary figure about whom tales are told. Who tells the tale in Genesis 22 and to what end? According to the Documentary Hypotheses, Genesis stems from four sources: the Elohist (E), the Jahwist (J), the Deuteronomist (D), and the youngest one (P), the Priestly source, which is postexilic. The general notion of multiple authorship of the Torah is almost standard these days, and does throw new light upon our Abraham problem. Abraham’s life is a mix of J…

Enchantment and Disenchantment: Secular Age Round 3

by Rachael Givens Johnson • April 6, 2016 • 22 Comments

(Links to Rounds 1 and 2) These next several posts will cover chapters in Parts I-III, which comprise Taylor’s account of the western historical trajectory towards secularity, from the enchanted world of 1500 AD to the disenchanted and pluralistic one of 2000 AD. Overall, Taylor’s historical account challenges the “subtraction” stories that explain the road to modernity as one in which human beings have “lost, or sloughed off, or liberated themselves from certain earlier, confining horizons, or illusions, or limitations of knowledge” [1]. According to Taylor, this naive and selective view fails to account for the “positive” developments and changes in sensibility, meaning, and social imaginaries that made alternatives (like secular humanism) possible. The “subtraction” of God from the social and cosmic imaginary was merely one element, thought it was not linear or even, and certainly not inevitable. Taylor begins the historical trajectory in chapter 1, the “Bulwarks of Belief,” describing the major elements of the early modern imaginary that had to be removed for exclusive humanism to emerge. One was the belief that the natural world was divinely orchestrated—part of a semiotic cosmos that pointed beyond to an order and force beyond itself (God). Secondly, society was embedded in a higher time and higher reality: collective rituals, holy days, and other practices brought society into contact with the “higher” dimension of time or existence, as well as protected them from malevolent forces. The “higher reality” —the Kingdom of God— made…

Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, April 9, Provo City Library

by Rosalynde Welch • April 5, 2016 • 14 Comments

I was a radical feminist for about 48 hours in 1995. Sitting in the Marriott Center as a 20-year-old BYU student, I listened to President Hinckley read the Proclamation on the Family for the first time to the assembled masses. And oh how I seethed! It felt intolerable to be defined from outside, to be told who I am and why and what that meant. I remember walking directly to the library afterward, sitting at a carrel and furiously scribbling my objections on the back cover of the packet of readings for my feminist literary theory seminar. Gender was a social construct! A performance! I get to choose what it means for me to be a woman! The packet told me so! Time passed, the anger ebbed. But the Proclamation has persisted, indeed grown in prominence over the years. Despite my initial recoil, the Proclamation is the future of gender for Mormonism. It makes a provocative, challenging, and internally tense set of claims about gender, claims that defy both conservative and progressive wisdom. Boiled down to its essence, the Proc makes two related but orthogonal philosophical claims (as opposed to sociological claims) about gender: 1) “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” And 2) “Fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.” In other words: sexual difference is real, and sexual equality is real. It’s not at all obvious how both claims can be fully…

Conference Theme: No Trouble Here, Move Along

by Dave Banack • April 4, 2016 • 91 Comments

After a turbulent six months, many were expecting some bold declarations at this weekend’s General Conference. That did not come to pass. Just a few weeks ago, Elder Ballard directed CES teachers to stop teaching folklore, stop evading tough questions from students, and start reading publications by faithful LDS scholars. In his Saturday afternoon Conference talk, Elder Ballard talked about … family councils. Late last year, President Nelson announced that what has become known as “the Exclusion Policy” was not a policy, it was a revelation and is here to stay. In his Priesthood session talk, President Nelson talked about … the role of men in the Church. Elder Steven E. Snow, the Church Historian, talked not about one of the Gospel Topics essays that addresses a key issue in LDS history but about the LDS hymnal and humility. The theme for this Conference seems to be: Don’t rock the boat. Nothing controversial here. Perhaps it is a good time for a quiet, reflective Conference.

Entitled

by Frank McIntyre • April 2, 2016 • 25 Comments

I very much enjoyed Elder Renlund’s comments on entitlement. First, because he made clear one of the reasons why we should be very conscientious about how we give help. It affects the receiver’s spiritual progression. Second, the King Benjamin-esque tie-in to all of us who, like any Church welfare recipient, are beggars before God. Lastly, because while he laid into bad attitudes, whining, and murmuring, his central story was about someone missing the sacrament. A story whose happy ending relied upon a saint telling the Branch President, one hopes charitably, that a priesthood holder, a deacon in this case, made a mistake in performing his calling. And a Branch President who took care to see that mistake corrected. Because people do make mistakes. I think there was an implicit lesson, secondary to the main one about the Sacrament and the Savior, that we can and should give leaders information to help them correct mistakes. We just need to do it with the right attitude. “Don’t be whiners” does not mean “never speak up”. It means speak up with humility and charity and for the right reasons. Keeping all this in mind would probably help ease a lot of the friction for people who feel that leaders don’t listen to them. Or for those leaders who (incorrectly) think they should not be ever told about their potential mistakes. And nobody should feel entitled. Because that makes you act like a jerk.

Review: Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings

by Dave Banack • March 31, 2016 • 4 Comments

I enjoyed reading Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings (OUP, 2016), a 300-page collection of articles and essays on Mormon feminism spanning the 1970s to the present. That I enjoyed it says a lot, as feminism isn’t really my thing. The editors (Joanna Brooks, Rachel Hunt Steenblik, and Hannah Wheelwright) did a great job not only selecting the articles and essays to include in the volume but also paring down the size of the excerpts of longer articles so more pieces could be included in the volume. They also penned very helpful introductions to each piece. Consequently, a reader like myself who has not really lived the LDS feminist drama of the last two generation or two can still appreciate the context and contribution of each of the 60 or so articles. Joanna’s 20-page introduction heading the volume also helps bring every reader up to speed. This is truly a volume that everyone should read — this issue is going to be around for another century (my sense of how long it will take the Church to catch up with the rest of society) and you want to be one of the informed people, not one of the blissfully ignorant.

Guest Post: Returning Early with Honor

by Julie M. Smith • March 29, 2016 • 10 Comments

This guest post was written by Lauren Baldwin, based on the paper she presented at the recent Association for Mormon Letters conference. Lauren is a professional writing student at BYU-I. After the 2012 mission age change, she was part of the first group of nineteen-year-old sister missionaries to serve in the Kentucky Louisville Mission. She works in technical communication and sometimes writes creative non-fiction on rainy days.

Free conference, April 14, at Christ Church, Oxford: Temporality and the Sacred in Religious Practice

by Rosalynde Welch • March 28, 2016 • 4 Comments

Former T&S blogger (and permanent T&S friend) Jim Faulconer and philosopher Marc Wrathall, currently at UC Riverside, are co-sponsoring a free conference on the character of religious existence, with particular emphasis on the experience of the sacred and the temporality of religious practice. The one-day even will take place on April 14 at Christ Church, Oxford. The event is free of charge, but registration is required. To register, please write to Britni Exton: [email protected] It looks like an impressive slate of speakers. Plus, Oxford! Please spread the word to interested friends and acquaintances in the UK. Browse the program below:

He Has Been Raised

by Julie M. Smith • March 27, 2016 • 7 Comments

I’ve been studying the Gospel of Mark on and off for my entire adult life.

Abraham: the problem

by Walter van Beek • March 25, 2016 • 51 Comments

At the moment I am teaching a course on ‘Religion and Violence’ for Leiden University in the Netherlands. The topic is all too obvious these days, especially after the last brutal terrorist attacks in Brussels. As a text we use Karen Armstrong’s Fields of Blood. Religion and the History of Violence, a book in which she in fact defends the right of existence of religion as such, a defence which is called for indeed. All through the western world, religion sits in the dock, accused of instigating violence, and by increasing popular consent is found guilty as charged. Would the world be better off without religion? The question was raised during Enlightenment and but now roams larger, wider and much louder. Increasingly the answer is a resounding ‘yes!’. Of course this is triggered by excesses, such as we just suffered in Brussels. Forgotten for the moment the manifold contributions to our society and to western civilization by Christianity; or by Islam to the Moslem as well as the Western world, for that matter. But all religions are under scrutiny, especially ‘strong religions’, as Scott and Appleby call them, high-investment religions with clear and strong claims. Such as ours. Here I do not want to delve into Mormon history – not without its violent episodes – but into a much more fundamental issue, one we share as Christians with Jews and Moslems: the legacy of Abraham. So let us have a…

Elder Ballard on Building a Better Boat

by Dave Banack • March 23, 2016 • 28 Comments

In October 2014, Elder Ballard delivered his “Stay in the Boat” talk at General Conference, highlighting “faith crisis” as an emerging problem for members of the Church and likening it to white-water rapids. In October 2015, he followed up with “God Is at the Helm,” extending his metaphor and providing sage advice for how to stay in the Old Ship Zion. Most recently, he delivered a talk to CES religious educators on February 26, 2016, now posted at LDS.org under the rather bland title “The Opportunities and Responsibilities of CES Teachers in the 21st Century.” I think he should have stuck with his winning theme and called it: “Building a Better Boat.” Highlights Everyone ought to read it. Twice. He announced that business as usual in CES just isn’t working anymore: “Gone are the days when a student raised a sincere concern and a teacher bore his or her testimony as a response intended to avoid the issue.” The problem is the Internet, which gives students [and all Church members] “instant access to virtually everything about the Church from every possible point of view.” In a rather dramatic departure from business as usual, Elder Ballard directed CES teachers to “understand the doctrinal and historical content and context of the scriptures and our history” by accessing “the best LDS scholarship available.” He specifically told CES teachers to get familiar with the Gospel Topics Essays at LDS.org: “It is important that you…

“A Supreme Act of Love”

by Walker Wright • March 19, 2016 • 1 Comment

This past Sunday, we covered chapter 6 of the Howard W. Hunter manual titled “The Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The lesson quotes President Hunter as saying that the Atonement “was an act of love by our Heavenly Father to permit his Only Begotten to make an atoning sacrifice. And it was a supreme act of love by his beloved Son to carry out the Atonement.” We lingered on this section for a while, which prompted me to comment. I recalled how I had been asked before, “What does the Atonement mean to you personally?” (Or something along those lines.) This is obviously a deep and rather broad question, but for me, the Atonement sends at least one major message: I’m worth something. I rest this largely on the evangelical favorite John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” In an ancient world full of mischievous, flawed, and often indifferent gods, the idea of deity sacrificing on behalf of mortals (not the other way around) could be seen as somewhat jarring. As New Testament scholar Craig Keener explains, Although John’s portrait of divine love expressed self-sacrificially is a distinctly Christian concept, it would not have been completely unintelligible to his non-Christian contemporaries. Traditional Platonism associated love with desire, hence would not associate it with deity. Most Greek religion was based more on barter and obligation…

Transformation and Flourishing: A Secular Age, Round 2

by Rachael Givens Johnson • March 18, 2016 • 39 Comments

(Link to Round 1) This post revisits the theme of fullness from Taylor’s introduction that I mentioned briefly in the last post. In the universal quest for the “good life”—the telos that determines what makes life valuable and what is the normative way to live— Taylor distinguishes the believer and the unbeliever by where they locate this fullness (the transcendent or the immanent frame), and what fullness entails (transformation or flourishing). What does Taylor mean by “transformation” and “flourishing”? In short, flourishing is the perfection or fulfillment of our “human material” (i.e. sexual fulfillment, security and success, health and prosperity, etc.), while transformation entails a “radical change in identity” that “takes us beyond merely human perfection”—or requires its very renunciation– in the name of a higher good. More specifically, “the believer or devout person is called on to make a profound inner break with the goals of flourishing in their own case…to the point of the extinction of self in one case [Buddhism], or to that of renunciation of human fulfillment to serve God in the other [Christianity].” But what does “serving God” mean? Doesn’t the Judeo-Christian God desire our flourishing? (Yes, Taylor affirms). Might not its renunciation simply be instrumental to greater flourishing, some kind of “unnecessary ballast on the journey of life”? Taylor argues this negates the sacrificial power of the “renunciation”; the transformative power stems from this very act of affirming and surrendering the “unsubstitutable good” of our own flourishing.…

By Study and Faith, Part I

by Julie M. Smith • March 17, 2016 • 62 Comments

Elder Ballard recently spoke to seminary and institute teachers in what I expect will be regarded as a landmark address.

Thank you Brother Ward, Sister Ward (no relation), Elder Mantz, and Coach Mostert (probably)

by Jonathan Green • March 17, 2016 • 12 Comments

Without much fanfare, Utah has emerged as a per-capita standout in distance running. For a state with a population just under 3 million, Utah regularly produces strong teams and individual runners at the NXN and Footlocker national cross country championships at the high school level, competitive collegians, and a surprising number of postcollegiate standouts. This isn’t entirely surprising: if you give 3 million people the chance to live and train at altitude year-round, good things can happen.

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