I was so touched to see this bit of humanity, this respect and consideration for the stranger. It is one reason I love living in a city: where we are all so close together, we have more opportunity to exercise and witness kindness.
Year: 2017
Uncomfortable Charity
Why does the act of charity, in this case, the transaction initiated by a beggar or panhandler, feel so uncomfortable to me? Mental recriminations if I give, guilt if I don’t. Perhaps it is because I don’t know the protocol, the expectations, and so I’m worried about an inadvertent transgression. But it isn’t that hard to act, to find a way to overcome my anxiety and hesitation to do something small.
New “Official” Church History Volumes Forthcoming
Ten years ago, I posted one of my very first pieces at T&S, “Missing Essentials,” noting the decline of familiarity with LDS history by the average member of the Church and suggesting this was due, in part, to the lack of a replacement volume for Essentials in Church History. In the intervening ten years, the problem has deepened. What was once simple historical ignorance has become, for some Latter-day Saints, a faith crisis, as they encounter online accounts of troubling LDS historical events. Local leaders are generally no more conversant in the details of LDS history than the membership and don’t have much to offer troubled members who share their concerns. The Gospel Topics essays are one response to this challenging development. Now we have official word that book-length treatments of LDS history will soon be published by the Church, finally filling the role once occupied by Essentials.
On Those Latest Missionary Numbers
There’s been a bit of controversy in social media over the recent missionary numbers that have leaked. Deseret News has up a story about missionaries that mentions there being 68,500 missionaries out. The new numbers shocked some people but actually are much more in keeping with what we should have expected. It’s just that some expected higher numbers based upon the surge numbers from around 2013.
The Problem of Mormon Art
I’ve long been a critic of Mormon artwork. The main problem is that artists tend to portray a superficial connection to the events they are portraying. That’s perhaps somewhat understandable except for the problem that people have a habit of remembering the art rather than the details of what the art was about. We saw that a few years ago with the renewed interest in the seer stones and the method of translating the Book of Mormon. People remember paintings that had Joseph with gold plates, indicating he read them. People didn’t remember all the lessons that he translated them by looking at the Urim & Thummim.[1] Critics complained that they were never taught in church that Joseph translated by looking at stones in a hat. This wasn’t typically true. But what they remembered was the misleading art.
How Do We Tell Doctrine?
“Doctrine” is one of those funny words where it seems inevitably to shift in meaning even within a single discussion. I’ll confess whenever I hear it spoken of I often put myself on guard. Not because I don’t have a fair bit of confidence in doctrine but because I suspect the discussion will inevitably equivocate between idealized doctrine as what we’ll one day believe and what is normatively taught at any particular time. Throw in the disagreements about what constitutes doctrine in either category and things get confusing quickly.
What can LGBT Mormons Hope For? A response
John Gustav-Wrathall asks, “What can LGBT Mormons hope for?” As an answer, John offers his own experience as a guide, and there is much about it that is commendable. Optimism, faith, relying on God, and a commitment to the Church are all far superior to their alternatives, and John’s generosity and positive approach is a welcome contribution to what has too often been a toxic and polarizing debate. Mormons can fully share in much that John hopes for. But John has also chosen a path that is in some important points incompatible with Mormon belief.
Guest Post: What Can LGBT Mormons Hope For?
A year and a half ago, I invited John Gustav-Wrathall, president of the support group Affirmation: LGBT Mormons, Families & Friends, to share his thoughts on the Church’s new policy affecting LGBT members and their children (see All Flesh from December 2015). Diverging responses to this post gave rise to the idea of hosting a conversation on the blog about what it is reasonable for LGBT members of the Church to hope for and why. To facilitate such a back-and-forth, Gustav-Wrathall offered to share his thoughts on his experience as a gay man raised in the Church, his “abundance” of hope, and the sources of his religious optimism. These reflections constitute the first part of a conversation exploring the question: “What can LGBT members of the Church hope for?” Jonathan Green’s response to Gustav-Wrathall, which includes Gustav-Wrathall’s subsequent reply, represents the second part of the conversation. Readers are invited to comment below or contribute to the conversation in the comments to Jonathan Green’s forthcoming post, but should ensure that any comments posted mirror the graciousness and respect shown by each author and are in line with our comment policy. What Can LGBT Mormons Hope For? John Gustav-Wrathall I have frequently been accused of optimism, both by people who think that’s a bad thing, and by people who think it’s a good thing. Some, both in and out of the Church, say my optimism amounts to false hope, that it’s wrong, maybe even a sin to encourage false hope. Others, also both in and out of the…
How can I, as a woman, support the priesthood?
A few months ago, I was asked to speak on the topic “How do I support the Priesthood in my home?” I am posting the talk now because the Young Women’s lessons in June are about the Priesthood and Priesthood Keys. This is one of the topics that caused me so much uneasiness that I all but stopped blogging for a long period of time.
Mormon Humanities Conference, May 26-27, Boston University
Attention Eastern Seaboard! The annual conference of the Mormon Scholars in the Humanities will take place this week, May 26-27, at Boston University. The conference is open to the public and all are welcome to attend. The keynote address will be given by Terryl Givens, Friday at 9 AM. Tickets are available for the Friday evening banquet. For more information, including the preliminary program, visit www.mormonscholars.net or contact Jenny Webb at [email protected]. I’ll be there and hope to see many of you.
Some Thoughts on Nephite Baptism
Nephite baptism is to me quite mysterious. We know they do it but the practice seems to evolve over time a fair bit. It’s worth noting the differences between baptism in Palestine and among the Nephites. First, the baptism of John the Baptist is quite mysterious. While the common assumption is that it arises out of the form of Judaism the Essenes practiced, the details are controversial. Ritual immersions were actually quite common in Judaism but, unlike in Christianity, were not just for conversion. Indeed baptism for conversion seems a rather late development. As late as the Maccabee era circumcision was the the token of the covenant and required for conversion. Many scholars argue that before period of the exile there wasn’t any real conversion at all within Judaism.[1] Later during the rabbinical period a type of mikveh (ritual washing by immersion in special fonts) became part of the conversion process. While there really is a paucity of data for pre-exilic Jewish conversion, Nephite baptism does appear out of character.
Which are the most influential General Conference talks?
After most General Conferences, there are one or two talks that really stay with me. Some of those talks enter the language of many members, such as Elder Oaks’s framing of choices that are “good, better, best.” Is there any way to identify the most influential talks? We could begin with who influences the influencers. A simple way to measure that would be to count how often a talk is quoted by other leaders of the Church in their own conference talks. (Obviously this is just one indicator of influence. I’ll talk about limitations and alternatives at the end of the post.) I went through every conference talk from the last 5 years (October 2012 – April 2017) and identified those conference talks that were quoted most frequently by other speakers. Below are the 12 talks that were most frequently quoted. Are there talks that you would have expected to be there but aren’t? How do you think the list would change if we extended the sample to the last 20 years? How would you measure influence differently? The 12 Most Influential General Conference Talks (as measured by quotes in the last 5 years) Who? What? Sample quotes President Thomas S. Monson “The Holy Temple – A Beacon to the World” April 2011 Quoted 6 times “The world can be a challenging and difficult place in which to live. … As you and I go to the holy houses of God,…
Consolidation of Church units: some reflections
Last month more than half of the Church units in Flanders were closed (Flanders is the Dutch-speaking, northern part of Belgium, with a population of 6.5 million). We shrank from 9 wards and branches to just 4. Historic cities like Bruges and Louvain lost their Mormon meeting place. It’s part of the major “contraction” of the Church in Europe, rumored to dismantle 800 of the some 1200 units. If what happened in Flanders is symptomatic for the rest, the proportion is confirmed. These original 9 units in Flanders are part of a stake, the Antwerp Belgium Stake, that also covers a southern area of the Netherlands, with 5 units, of which only one was closed. For the whole stake, it means that of its 14 original units (9 in Flanders and 5 in the Netherlands), 8 remain (4 in Flanders and 4 in the Netherlands). This post is not going to argue about the appropriateness of decisions made at the top. However, the historic dimension of this change deserves some reflections. Is it consolidation or contraction? What about the why and the how? What are implications and consequences? And at the end: What is painfully missing in the whole process of consolidation? Consolidation or contraction? The term consolidation is very Mormonspeak to express firming up what was scattered, and also bringing together under central control. It defined the centralization of Welfare projects in the 1950s. It characterized the correlation…
A Food Storage Wimp Ponders the End of the World
It’s good to ponder the end of the world from time to time. Now I’m not really a food storage guy. That has never troubled me much. Until lately. My new approach: Every time North Korea fires a missile, I buy another flat of drinking water and put it in the garage, along with one of those big 2.5 gallon water containers. If the Koreans plunk one in the ocean near Hawaii, I’ll double it. Anyone else feeling a little less secure these days?
In Defense of Checklist Mormons
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8) I think a common self-criticism we make within the Church is the valid concern that people get so caught up in trying to be perfect that we miss the forest for the trees with respect to the atonement. People do things just because it’s on some idealized checklist. Frequently because so many checklist items are incomplete they become depressed or at least discouraged. Some even throw up their hands saying they just can’t live the gospel and fall away.
Church is Partially Pulling Out of Scouts
The Church announced today that it’s pulling out of scouts for all the 14 and older boys. So no more Eagle Scout projects. Overall I think that a positive thing. Trying to do both young men [i]and[/i] scouts is pretty hard. Plus my son admittedly doesn’t like scouts too much. I have to drag him to scouts every week. (He’s 12 so this doesn’t affect him yet)
Soccer and Sunday
General Conference seems to come and go so quickly now. This must have something to do with the ease of streaming it live into every home — 10 hours of Conference in one weekend is more than enough for most of us. Once upon a time getting the Conference Ensign was a treat. Not so much anymore. The Conference cycle seems to have been compressed into just a few days, like binge-watching a TV series on Netflix. That’s not really what I’m going to talk about, just something I have particularly noticed this Conference cycle. Anyone else feel this way?
Mormon Knowing
When I first got invited to blog I had several topics I was really excited about. Then life came at me fast and most of those projects fell between the cracks. What I want to do is return to them but cut to the chase a little more swiftly. I’ve talked about knowledge quite a bit. Especially with posts like Pragmatism as Mormon Epistemology Part 1 and Part 2. Here’s my theory about a way of Mormon knowing that can deal both with the typical lay member as well as explain how an informed member can claim to know religious truths.
Contributor Anxiety: Baring Witness
As I read the women’s stories in Baring Witness, I was filled with love and sorrow and hope for all of these sisters. I want to sit with them over a long lunch, laughing and crying together. These are women who have shared their vulnerabilities, who have opened their lives to me: how can I not love them? And the great strength of this collection is that Welker has gathered together Mormon-y women who have a wide variety of experiences with marriage, including even standard Mormon marriages that work according to plan with those relationships that encounter all sorts of unexpected challenges.
Calling all callings
I’ve been thinking about the different callings I have been given over the years. To that end, I present to you Rachel’s Church Callings, an incomplete list:
The False Dichotomies of Membership
One thing I’ve noticed a lot is people creating simple divisions of people within the church. I’m sure you’ve heard many of them. Liahona Members vs. Iron Rod Members. Chapel Mormons vs. Internet Mormons. Intellectuals vs. Fundamentalists. I’m sure there’s some out there that I somehow missed. I’ll confess these have always bothered me for a lot of reasons.
Easter Traditions
Back home Easter was nearly as big a holiday as Christmas. I was quite shocked when first moving to Utah to attend BYU at just how marginalized Easter was here. Part of that I figured was due to it typically coming near finals when no student had a lot of free time. Part was Conference Weekend so often falling on or near Easter. Once I graduated I realized that wasn’t the cause at all. I still can’t quite understand why Easter is so minor in Utah. It’s not even a holiday! Schools could put spring break the week of Easter but rarely do. (Ours was last week) There are activities of course such as easter egg hunts. But by and large it doesn’t quite have the emphasis that Christmas does. While I love Christmas this seems quite wrong. After all while Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, Easter commemorates the act Christ came to do. It was so important that prior to his coming the Law of Moses made it the most important day of the Jewish calendar: the Day of Atonement.
Through faith and doubt, I’ll walk with you
I was invited to speak at a recent Relief Society conference on the topic of nurturing relationships through faith and testimony transitions. I post my remarks here by request, and because I haven’t blogged in forever. About ten years ago my sister Gabrielle looked like a typical young Mormon mom. She had a three little boys, a knack for home renovation and photography, and had recently returned to running after her last baby. One morning on her run, she tripped and fell. Clear sidewalk, no debris: strange, but she didn’t think much about it. Then it happened again a few days later. Suddenly something she had taken for granted every day of her life, so fundamental most of us never even notice it — the body’s ability to orient itself in space — was no longer a given. Simple tasks got exponentially harder: she questioned every movement, never sure which steps were sound and which would trip her up. The most painful bruises were psychological. She lost trust in her ability to navigate the basics of her life, and with it went the capacity to plan for the future. Fear surged. What would she lose next? Where would this end? How would her family be affected? Who was she now? It turned out that my sister was in the first stages of an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis. After years of fighting, she’s now stable, raising her sons and…
Certain Women
Last week at General Conference, President Burton delivered a talk titled “Certain Women.”
The Hugh of St. Victor option
I have never read Rod Dreher and have no particular insight on how American conservative Christianity should respond to secularism. If Mormons look to medieval clergy for a model of forming intentional communities, however, I think a better option than Benedictine monasticism is that of the Canons Regular.
Converts per missionary revisited
Last year around this time I had one of my first posts here at T&S on an analysis of the number of converts per missionary. I thought, given the latest data from the Church, it would be worth revisiting the topic. I had noted a huge drop in missionary productivity first around 1989 after an unexpected leap. The next big drop was between 2011 and 2012 which was somewhat tied to some birth rate demographics but also the shifting of the age for missionaries to 18 years old. I won’t repeat everything I said there so I’d advise checking out the original if you are interested.
Conference Predictions & Discussion
Any conference predictions out there? I’m pretty bad with predictions but here are a few of mine.
Let’s Talk About Sorcery
Borrowing the title from my good friends at BCC, let’s talk about sorcery, another interesting topic that is discussed in the April 2017 Ensign article “The War Goes On.” The central claim of the article is that gay marriage is Satan’s counterfeit version of “marriage between a man and a woman” that is “ordained of God,” because gay marriage “brings neither posterity nor exaltation.” But the article also addresses counterfeit faith, counterfeit love, counterfeit priesthood, and counterfeit miracles: One of Satan’s counterfeits for faith is superstition. His counterfeit for love is lust. He counterfeits the priesthood by introducing priestcraft, and he imitates God’s miracles by means of sorcery.
Utah Keeping the The American Dream Alive
There was a gushing story about Utah and particularly the Mormon influence there in today’s Bloomberg. The issue was how Utah deals with poverty. Particularly how Utah is near Denmark in economic mobility figures. It’s not the first time Utah has been singled out. A couple of years ago Newsweek did a similar story. I think the question is how much we should trust the gushing. Certainly I think we’re doing some things right here. However I know we have a tendency to notice the things we do right and ignore some of the problems. There is a bit more complexity here I think. Reading the Bloomberg story I found only a few criticisms and then one major worry. I’m curious as to all of your takes.
Shape of Agency Part 2
In my last post I went through the foundational metaphor for agency in the scriptures. I argued it was a space that was cleared or opened so that people could be free. I want to continue this investigation a little by looking at early Hebrew creation accounts. One of the most interesting books on what we might term the “basic ideas of early Israelite religion” is Jon Levinson’s Creation and the Persistence of Evil.[1] Levinson is Jewish but I think few Mormons could read it without noticing a strong parallel between what Levinson describes as ancient Israelite religion and certain tendencies in Mormon thought. Part of the book involves a critique of the very notion of creation ex nihilo. But if the “beginning” of Genesis 1:1 isn’t an absolute start to existence, what is it? He argues for a “primordial” existence not only of chaos, but of other divine beings.