I adapted this post from a talk that I gave in my ward on June 24, 2018. We See the Same Things Differently I do not know what it is like to live without glasses. That’s because I have been wearing glasses for longer than I have memories. There’s a photo of me—it might be hanging up in my parents’ house—when I’m less than two years old. I’m straddling a toy horse with wheels on it, standing up, looking back at the camera, and I have prescription goggles strapped to my little baby head. The reason that the doctors knew I needed glasses when I was that young was that I had a serious infection that damaged my eyes. I had surgery at the time, back when I was a baby, but it wasn’t really successful. As a kid I needed really powerful prescriptions and even with coke-bottle glasses and bifocals it was still impossible to get my eyes to point in the same direction. I had surgery again when I was a teenager and the results were better. I’m not nearly as cross-eyed as I used to be, and my glasses aren’t as thick as they once were. But my eyes still don’t cooperate with each other. For the most part, I don’t notice or care about this, but it still bugs me when I see myself in photos and only one eye is looking at the camera or…
Year: 2018
10 Questions Interview with Devery Anderson
We’re happy to share Kurt Manwaring’s interview with Devery Anderson. Anderson is a well known historian, starting with Salt Lake School of the Prophets,The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History, and Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 1842-1845: A Documentary History. I suspect many of you have these books. His most recent book is not LDS oriented. Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement has been getting very good reviews. He works at Signature Books.
What Can Church Youth Leaders Learn from Baltimore?
For ten years, a Baltimore non-profit called Thread has been working with the youth of that city. Thread’s goal is to “foster students’ academic advancement and personal growth into self-motivated, resilient, and responsible citizens.” It does this by seeking out underperforming high school students and providing each one with a “family of committed volunteers” who coach them and connect them with other community resources. Thread is just one of hundreds of non-profits focused on youth services (Charity Navigator lists 577 such organizations ), but Thread has gotten attention recently for its effectiveness in helping youth achieve positive outcomes. Eighty-eight percent of students who have gone through Thread’s program have received a two-year or four-year college degree or certificate. Thread attributes its success to its comprehensive approach to helping students. Once a student is in the Thread program, the organization commits to supporting that student for ten years. During that ten-year span, Thread provides a “family” of up to four volunteers who commit to being available any time of the day or night, and on any day of the year, to support that student. “Resource teams” staffed by experts back up that volunteer family to help meet specific needs as they arise. While this structure of families and resource teams is important to Thread’s success so far, the real key seems to be the idea of “touchpoints.” Thread emphasizes the need for volunteers and staff to have frequent touchpoints with each…
Times & Seasons Welcomes Levi Jones
Times and Seasons hopes you will join us in welcoming our latest guest blogger, Levi Jones. Levi is an attorney with the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he handles general litigation matters. Prior to joining Commerce, Levi worked for several years as a corporate lawyer for a D.C. area firm. Levi earned his law degree from George Washington University Law School in 2009, where he was a production editor on the school’s Law Review. Before this, Levi earned Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and International Studies from the University of Utah. Levi lives in Manassas, Virginia, with his wife and two kids. Levi grew up in Utah, and served a mission in Cambodia from 2001 to 2003.
Saints, Volume 1: A Review
About a week ago, the first volume of the new official history of the Church was published. I finished reading through it this weekend, and I have to say that it is fantastic. The style of prose reads like a novel (many creative authors were employed as the writers or consultants for the book), but it is very much rooted in some of our best understandings of the events and people who lived in the early period of the Church. The combination of the two results in a very readable, but accurate history. The time frame that this volume covers is the early 1800s through 1846—the year the Latter-day Saints left Nauvoo to move west. There are a lot of controversial issues related to that period, but the book tackled most of them head on. Polygamy (including Joseph Smith’s relationship with Fanny Alger and a small amount about polyandry), seer stones, treasure seeking, Book of Mormon translation, Latter-day Saint pillaging and fighting during the Missouri Mormon War, Danites, the Council of Fifty, Joseph Smith defending himself with a gun in Carthage Jail, and teachings of theosis and a Mother in Heaven are all addressed. Joseph Smith’s character was shown in a more three-dimensional way than most official Church representations of him—his temper and his sense of humor are both shown, as are some of his struggles and missteps. Yet, the history is not one that focuses entirely on the men…
Future Mormon 8: Future of Mormon Thinking
Welcome to the eighth chapter of the not quite weekly reading club for Adam Miller’s Future Mormon. For general links related to the book along with links for all the chapter discussions please go to our overview page. Please don’t hesitate to give your thoughts on the chapter. We’re hoping for a good thoroughgoing critical engagement with the text. Such criticisms aren’t treating the text as bad or flawed so much as trying to engage with the ideas Adam brings up. Hopefully people will push back on such criticism if they disagree or even just see flaws in the logic. That’s when we tend to all learn the most.
I know this church is true
This statement is not nonsensical or trite. It is the essence of our belief in six words. It is, in its own way, even lyrical. One occasionally hears objections to the effect that statements can be true, or friends can be true, but how can an organization be true? I started writing this post some time ago, before Michael Austin’s recent post and not in response to it, but his post can serve as a thoughtful and well-written example of the genre. Michael writes: I simply can’t comprehend what it might mean for a group of 15 million people or so to “be true”—or, for that matter, to be untrue. Statements can be true. Ideas can be true. Accounts of specific events can be true. But a Church, it seems to me, needs to have some relationship to truth other than just being it. In his post, Michael expresses his concern about the danger of asserting that the church is true. I think Michael is responding not to “I know this church is true,” but to another statement he may hear in those words: “I know this church is truth.” That would indeed be a much different claim, but it is not our claim. Fortunately our prophets have been quite open to truth wherever it may be found—“If you can find a truth in heaven, earth or hell, it belongs to our doctrine,” as Brigham Young put it. In other…
Stick With It
A couple of years ago I started a group project called the General Conference Odyssey. Along with some friends, I’m reading every General Conference that’s easily accessible on LDS.org (that means we’re starting with October 1971) and writing up my thoughts. At a rate of one session per week, it will take us about 14-15 years to get through the entire inventory. You can read more about the project, and find a mostly-complete index of every blog post to date, here. After posting my entries at Difficult Run for the first couple of years, I moved over to Meridian a few months ago. This is a better fit for the posts (since Difficult Run tends to be more about economics and politics) and I’m really happy to have them there, but a few weeks ago they opted not to publish one of my submissions. I’m perfectly fine with their decision–and I’ve continued to submit all my subsequent posts as before–but I liked the post and so I decided I’d publish it here at Times & Seasons. So, without further ado, here are my thoughts in response to the priesthood session of the October 1980 General Conference. Sometimes I read a session that I don’t love right away, but when I dig a little deeper I find something in it to keep with me. Sometimes I read a session that I don’t love right away, and digging deeper doesn’t help either.…
10 Questions Interview with Matt Grow
We’re happy to present Kurt Manwaring’s interview with Matt Grow, the editor of the Church’s new Saints volume. There’s a ton of positive response to this new official history of the Church. It appears to have hit the sweet spot of accuracy yet readability for typical members. I’m pretty impressed with it, although I’ve not yet had time to read much. I can’t wait to see the next few volumes.
Mormon Retention and the Internet
A common belief, especially by critics, is that Mormon retention has fallen primarily due to the rise of the internet. The argument goes that with the internet becoming ubiquitous that people encounter troubling historical facts. Those facts then undermine their testimony causing them to leave the Church. While I’m sure this has happened to many people, I’m very skeptical it’s the real issue people leave the Church in general.
The Last 4,000 Years
The last 4,000 years of religious history, up to and resulting in us, can be described as a series of questions and answers, with each new question arising out of the previous answer over generations or centuries as the full implications of each answer become understood.
Reasons for Following Imperfect Prophets
Last week, the Church released an official statement from President Nelson regarding the Church’s name and an accompanying update to the style guide. The Bloggernacle was unimpressed.[ref]I’m going to use “Bloggernacle” to refer to the overall Mormon social media community until somebody shows me a better name.[/ref] This isn’t really a surprise, of course. Looking cool and looking impressed are usually mutually exclusive, and since social media’s primary function is personal brand management, looking impressed is decidedly rare. Still, it got me thinking. If prophets are imperfect, why should we follow them? Before I get to that–and it’s a question I don’t ask rhetorically–I may as well get a couple of thoughts about the announcement itself out of the way. First, I draw a distinction between President Nelson’s short statement, which (in it’s entirety) states: The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of the name He has revealed for His Church, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have work before us to bring ourselves in harmony with His will. In recent weeks, various Church leaders and departments have initiated the necessary steps to do so. Additional information about this important matter will be made available in the coming months. and the new style guide which (in part) states that “the terms ‘members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ or ‘Latter-day Saints’ are preferred [to ‘Mormons’]” and that “the term ‘the restored gospel of…
“Latter-day”: time to reconsider some translations?
The requirement to use the official name of the Church is meeting with much willingness to comply. One of the challenges is the length of the words, in particular for online references. If that is the case in English, it is all the more so in many non-English languages. What about the translation of latter-day? I recognize that this topic has certainly been discussed at length in the Translation Department and I assume the option taken has been to leave well-established translations, even if inaccurate, unchanged. However, as names of websites and twitter accounts and the like are now being reconsidered, and given the challenge of the length of words, perhaps this is a good time to also adjust and standardize the translation of latter-day in some languages? The five syllables in “of Latter-day Saints” are rendered in many other languages by much longer expressions such as van de Heiligen der Laatste Dagen (Dutch), des Saints des Derniers Jours (French), a Sfintilor din Zilele din Urma (Romanian), de los Santos de los Últimos Días (Spanish), and more. All these mean literally of the Saints of the Last Days or of the Saints of the Ultimate Days. Each forms a group of consecutive prepositional phrases, also adding definite articles, while in English of latter-day Saints is just one short prepositional phrase with one adjective and one noun. What does latter-day mean? The OED — Oxford English Dictionary —, which is the most…
What’s in a Name?
Like many others I found it hard to avoid the humor in the Church’s statement downplaying the use of LDS and Mormon. This isn’t the first time the Church has tried to get people to stop using such terms. Pres. Hinckley back in 1995 changed the logo design of the Church’s name to emphasize Jesus Christ. He also in 2001 in a letter sent to all wards asked members to refer to ourselves as Latter-day Saints and to use the full name of the Church.
Three Heavens in Joseph’s Environment
We all know that revelation frequently requires study. Many of the key doctrines of the restoration came from revelations given to Joseph as he was going through and modifying the Bible by way of command. Some of these were treated as modifications of the Biblical texts (such as in our Book of Moses) while others were treated as independent visions or revelations (such as D&C 76). The key part though was studying. (See D&C 9:7-8) We even know that during the work on the New Testament that Joseph began consulting a copy of Clarke’s Bible Commentary and using some of its suggestions. (Probably more interesting than where he followed Clarke are the places where he differs greatly from him) While we know that the command to work on a Bible “translation” was the catalyst for many aspects of these revelations, there were other influences as well.
In the world
Is the world a generally wonderful place that is constantly improving and generally better today than it ever has been? Or, to restate the obvious, do we live at peril every hour in a world we must avoid becoming part of, and is this alienation from the world a fundamental part of the message of Jesus? As is usually the case with such things, the answer to both questions is: yes. And this is perhaps nowhere more clear than in Yellowstone National Park.
Future Mormon 7: Reflections on the Gift of Grace
Welcome to the oft delayed seventh chapter of the increasingly not weekly reading club for Adam Miller’s Future Mormon. For general links related to the book along with links for all the chapter discussions please go to our overview page. Please don’t hesitate to give your thoughts on the chapter. We’re hoping for a good thoroughgoing critical engagement with the text. Such criticisms aren’t treating the text as bad or flawed so much as trying to engage with the ideas Adam brings up. Hopefully people will push back on such criticism if they disagree or even just see flaws in the logic. That’s when we tend to all learn the most.
Cafeteria Mormonism vs. Cafeteria Spirituality
Jana Riess did an oft shared post this week on “cafeteria spirituality.” This in turn generated a lot of discussion. I just wanted to make a few comments. First I think we should distinguish between what some have called cafeteria Mormonism from cafeteria spirituality. I don’t think they’re really the same although Jana conflates them somewhat. Cafeteria Mormonism usually means simply picking and choosing what teachings one accepts. Cafeteria spirituality I think is largely about supplementing ones practices beyond Church, church activities, and suggested practices. They seem rather different.
Lutheran Prophets and Mormon Studies
If you spend time browsing a medium-size collection of early modern pamphlets, you’re likely to come across printed reports of a prophet receiving visions, or preaching in one town or another.
Ahijah’s Prophecy of the Rending of Israel
Early Israelite prophets are not averse to a little drama! Moreover, their choice of dramatic form is often quite effective and instructive. One of the more striking and poetic moments is when Ahijah prophesies that Jeroboam will become the king of Israel. Jeroboam has a new garment he is wearing that day—perhaps a cloak. Ahijah finds Jeroboam while he is out in a field, pulls the new cloak off of him, and tears it into twelve pieces! (1 Kings 11: 29-30). How must Jeroboam be feeling as Ahijah is doing this? It is quite striking that he is willing to meekly stand there and let Ahijah pull this stunt in the first place. Jeroboam is explicitly described as “a mighty man of valour” (v. 28), and has a position of high authority in Solomon’s administration, so he is accustomed to being treated with quite a bit of deference, and he is capable of extracting deference from the unwilling when necessary. Yet here he accepts what would normally be a major affront to his dignity, bordering on assault. Evidently he knows Ahijah and respects his role quite a lot. Ahijah then hands Jeroboam back ten pieces out of the twelve—not even the whole of the original garment. The drama of watching his clothing torn apart is almost eclipsed by what Ahijah says next, however: “thus saith the Lord . . . I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of…
D&C 76 and 1 Cor 15
There’s no doubt that the three kingdoms in D&C 76 have terminology related to 1 Cor 15. However the tendency of Mormons to read 1 Cor 15 in terms of D&C 76 is unfortunate. While they’re related somewhat they’re ultimately addressing very different topics. 1 Cor 15:39-44 is about the nature of resurrected bodies. D&C 76 is about the kingdoms and who is in them. That’s somewhat tied to resurrection since one goes to a kingdom after the resurrection but we should keep the two somewhat separated.
What is Neo-Apologetics?
Over at Wheat and Tares there was an interesting post on neo-apologetics. I’ll admit that this is one of these terms, like neo-orthodoxy back in the 90’s, that just seems inherently problematic as used. Having been “accused” of being a neo-apologist before let me try and discuss what I think people mean and why it’s somewhat problematic.[1]
Missionaries and European privacy laws
The Court of Justice of the EU just ruled that Jehovah’s Witnesses must obtain consent from people before they take down their personal details during door-to-door preaching in order to comply with EU data privacy rules. See here the Reuters press note and here the more detailed European Court’s press release. It will obviously also apply to Mormon missionaries. The implementation as such seems simple: whenever missionaries make a promising contact, and want to record name, address and other data, they should ask permission. But how to record that permission since proof may be needed at a later date? On a written form with proper ID and signature? To what extent would this complication affect Mormon missionary work, since it may be assumed that the Church will obey the law, but also that many people would not want their name and address to be recorded in the data of a “sect”? The latter is precisely what triggered the lawsuit and the European Court’s decision. As a missionary, what were your experiences in tracting practices to keep track of (potential) investigators? How were such data kept and passed on to new missionaries? Would it still work under the new regulations? The new European privacy laws no doubt raise other issues with Church membership records.Under what form should they be kept? What about access and availability of all information to each person concerned? What about records of members who don’t consider themselves members anymore and the obligation to inform…
Suffer the Children
It’s my pleasure to share here a guest post from my friend Samuel Morris Brown. By inclination, I’m something of a misanthrope. I’m not sure where I came by this trait. Maybe it’s good old-fashioned nature, some mixture of a thousand different genes that makes me by default uninterested in other human beings. Maybe I’ve got something wrong with my hippocampus or superior temporal sulcus, too many or too few synapses in my brain. As a pretentious teenager, I wondered whether I was a (non-violent, non-criminal) sociopath because I felt so little engaged in the world of people. That imaginary pathology was more impressive than thinking that I was shy, self-absorbed, and socially clumsy. If I’d been born in the 90s rather than the 70s, I would have placed myself on the autism spectrum instead. With time, I came to see this alienation as a badge of honor. I was authentically alone, like Albert Camus wandering the bars of Paris, and what the world did with my alienation was no concern of mine. Nurture has a claim here, too, I’m sure. I grew up in a smoldering train wreck of a childhood. I spent over a decade pleading for a father who was more than a donor of genes and fantasizing about some modicum of financial security. I was ashamed of our poverty and weakness; I knew that other families were better than ours. We didn’t belong. I don’t really…
Fair Mormon Conference
The 20th Fair Mormon Conference will be August 1-3 at the Utah Valley Convention Center. If you’re not able to go they’ll provide streaming of the presentations.
“Saints, Slaves, & Blacks”: A Review
This past May, I went to see Jana Riess present her recent research on Mormon Millennials at the Miller Eccles Study Group here in Texas. One of the most interesting (and disturbing) bits of information was her finding regarding Mormons’ opinions about the priesthood/temple ban. As she summarizes online, The 2016 NMS asked whether respondents felt that the ban on members of African descent was “inspired of God and was God’s will for the Church until 1978.” Respondents were given a five-point scale of possible responses, with the upshot being that nearly two-thirds of self-identified Latter-day Saints say they either know (37 percent) or believe (25.5 percent) that the ban was God’s will. Another 17 percent think it might be true, and 22 percent say they know or believe it is false. Overall, then, a majority of Mormons still support the idea that the priesthood/temple ban was inspired by God. Only about one in five say they know or believe the ban to have been wrong. One major surprise in the data was that Mormons of color were actually more likely to say they knew or believed the ban was God’s will than white Mormons were. 70 percent of non-whites affirmed this, compared to 61 percent of whites. That also remains true when we consider only African American respondents in a group by themselves: 67 percent of African Americans know or believe the priesthood/temple ban was God’s will, which is six points higher…
Contract vs. Covenant
As a first order approximation, we frequently describe a covenant as a two way promise often with consequences attached if one breaks ones promise. That almost sounds like a contract. So what exactly is the difference between a contract and covenant?
The New LDS Hymnbook: Changes and Possibilities
Recently, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that they were going to prepare a new hymnbook and children’s songbook for use in the worldwide Church. Specifically, the goal is to create unity in hymn numbers and selections that reflect the needs of a global organization. This is the first time in over thirty years that the official hymnbook for the Church has changed, and it is a matter of no small excitement for Mormon musicians and general membership. The current hymnbook is wonderful, but change can always bring new opportunities and improvements. Part of the excitement is that there is an unprecedented amount of involvement of general membership being made possible through online surveys and song submission opportunities. Based on trends within the Church, the history of hymnbooks in Mormonism, and the statements that have been made about the forthcoming books, what might the new hymn and song books look like? There are a number of faucets to examine in considering this question, including continuity with past hymnals, new LDS music available for use, what might be removed and changed, and the hymnbook and songbook’s relationships to the general Christian tradition of music, and the tunes being used. Let’s look at each of these in turn. Continuity During the latter half of the twentieth century, hymnbooks in the LDS tradition have been kept around the same physical size. The major consideration has been the size of hymnbook…
Welcome Guest Blogger Chad Nielsen
We are delighted to welcome guest blogger Chad Nielsen to Times and Seasons. Chad’s three great intellectual passions in life are science, history/religious studies, and music. He has pursued a career in biotechnology, but maintains an active interest in both of his other passions on the side. Chad is a four-time winning contestant in the Arrington Writing Award competition held at Utah State University for his essays on Mormon history and has presented at the Logan Institute of Religion scholar’s forum and the annual meeting of the Society of Mormon Philosophy and Theology. He is a faithful Latter-day Saint who has served in a variety of music, teaching, and clerical callings at his church, but is also involved in the local Presbyterian church’s music ministry as a part of their English bell choir. Welcome!
Women in the New Kingdom
Some of the places I love the most in the Holy Land are the churches dedicated to women. My favorite is the Duc In Altum in Magdala on the shore of Galilee. It is a lovely Catholic chapel overlooking the Galilee and dedicated to the women of the New Testament. In one room is a particularly magnificent painting of the woman touching the hem of Jesus’s robe, and this may be my favorite place in all the Holy Land. I can’t think of a place more suited for pondering on what it means to be a daughter of God. I find the treatment of women in the New Testament deeply empowering, even more when one considers it in context with the society of the time. One of the heritages of Hellenization was a deeply imposed misogyny, and though there is evidence of a certain degree of egalitarianism in earliest Israel, by the time of Jesus, Jewish society generally reflected much of the attitudes toward women commonly found in the Hellenized world. With some exceptions, the vast majority of women in 1st century Palestine were largely denied education, work, and any kind of leadership role in religious or political life. Put in this context many of the stories of women in the New Testament have powerfully radical messages. Stories like that of Elizabeth understanding and witnessing to truths that her husband, a man and priest, did not yet comprehend. Of the…