A Mormon Image
Philosophy and Theology
Alienated in Zion
“I say unto you, be one; and if you are not one ye are not mine (D&C 38:27).” And then comes the uncomfortable experience of sitting in Sunday School (or in the midst of some other group of Mormons) with the persistent, anxious thought, “I really don’t fit in here…” 0 people like... Read More »
The Evolution of Excommunication
I recently went through every version of the Church Handbook of Instructions, looking at what they have to say about the operation of church courts and how it has changed over time. 1 people like this post.Like Read More »
The New “Opiate of the Masses”
In 1844 Karl Marx said that “Religion is the opium of the people,” and seemed to suggest that its abolition would bring true happiness. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
January 1 of the year 40
Happy Moonlanding Day! When I was a youth, I read a science fiction book in which dates in the future were figured from the day that Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, apparently because the date had such significance in the history of man. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
The Question of Pacifism
I’m not, by nature, a pacifist. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Grassroots-Style Dispensations
Are Mormons exclusivists or universalists? 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Political Sentiments and Religious Sentiments
My own politics ocillate between liberalism (in the grand historical sense) and conservatism. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Theology in the Wake of Evolution
It’s not easy being a theologian in the 21st century. One of the main reasons is that science provides credible, non-theistic explanations for many of those “where did we come from?” questions that religion once had all to itself. Evolution seems to pose a particular challenge. John Haught, a professor of theology at Georgetown,... Read More »
Conscience in the Obama Era
I linked yesterday on the sidebar to Stanley Fish’s latest editorial in the New York Times, which takes as its occasion the possibility that President Obama will revoke the “conscience clause” allowing health care providers the right to refuse to provide certain services. I thought I’d add a few thoughts here.* 0 people like... Read More »
Confronting Modernity
I recently finished up Hans Kung’s Great Christian Thinkers, which reviews the work of seven theologians (Paul, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, and Barth). From an LDS perspective, the most interesting of the bunch is Friedrich Schleiermacher, who Kung terms “the paradigmatic theologian of modernity.” The question he presents to LDS readers is how... Read More »
Theology and Conversation
It’s hard for Mormons to find an accessible doorway into theology. David F. Ford’s short book Theology: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 1999) is the first I’ve found to really give me some traction with this elusive subject. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
A New Book for the Mormon Canon
There are a number of Mormon pamphlets and books that have achieved a kind of semi-canonical status within Mormon studies. Everyone agrees, for example, that Parley P. Pratt’s Key to the Science of Theology or John Taylor’s Mediation and Atonement are key texts for understanding nineteenth Mormon thought. If any evidence is needed, both... Read More »
Intellectual Conversion
Seven Storey Mountain is Thomas Merton’s autobiographical account of his increasing restlessness with a worldly life. He converts to Catholicism and eventually enters one of the most strict (the strictest?) Catholic orders: a Trappist monastery. What has fascinated me 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
The Totality of Mortality
When I picked up my manual to prepare to teach Gospel Doctrine this Sunday, I figured it would be a lesson about the spirit of Elijah (second week = section 2 = turning hearts, etc). I was surprised and delighted to find that Lesson 2 is instead about the atonement, highlighting powerhouse passages in... Read More »
Call for Papers: SMPT at Claremont, 2009
The Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology’s 2009 conference will be held at Claremont Graduate University, May 21-23, in cooperation with the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies and the Claremont Mormon Studies Student Association. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Rhetoric, Ideology and Prop 8
In the run up to and in the wake of Prop 8, Latter-day Saint proponents of the measure have often tried to parse their words carefully when discussing their support for it in order to avoid charges of bigotry and hate for opposing the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry. Echoing a... Read More »
Teaching the Reformation
Just as I went to publish this post, I saw Ben’s post about the conference on Mormons and Evangelicals. It’s a nice coincidence. As are the recent posts by Kent and Marc on labeling and categorizing. I was already scheduled to attend another conference this week, an annual conference for historians of the Reformation (surely... Read More »
The Difficulty of Theological Interpretations of Mormon History
Providing a theological interpretation of Mormon history is tricky. I’ve argued elsewhere that one of the reasons that Mormons care so much about history is that in some sense they regard it has having a normative force. Part of how we understand God’s will is by offering an interpretation of our past... Read More »
Questions about Personal Responsibility and the Economic Bailout
How should we think about personal responsibility in light of the financial bailout currently being debated in Washington, D.C.? 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Death and Doctrine
I have an uneasy relationship with death. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Modern Responses to the Problem of Evil
In a previous post I summarized biblical explanations for the problem of evil or the existence of suffering in the world as presented in Bart Ehrman’s latest book, God’s Problem. In this post I’ll continue with additional explanations from modern and LDS sources. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Why We Suffer
I recently finished Bart D. Ehrman’s latest book, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question–Why We Suffer (HarperCollins, 2008). Like all Ehrman’s books, it is both informative and troubling. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Religious Pragmatism
Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote, “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” In various writings, he expanded that claim, contrasting a natural law approach to justifying legal and ethical rules of conduct with his own more modest approach rooted in history and experience and falling under... Read More »
Summer Seminar update
For those interested in the BYU summer seminar, I’ve revised the post, adding the titles of and abstracts for the papers. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
BYU Summer Seminar
The annual summer symposium, this year “Joseph Smith and His Times,” will be held on Thursday, August 9, 2007. The symposium will feature papers by twelve summer seminar fellows on the theme “Mormon Thinkers, 1890-1930,” covering topics ranging from the influence of Herbert Spencer on Mormon thought to Mormonism and Modernity. ... Read More »
Why a Second Coming?
It might seem that there are few Hegelians in the world today. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Preserving the Veil from Survey Data
Suppose I find that being Mormon raises income, makes your children nicer, and does all sorts of wonderful things. In fact, suppose God blessed every person who converted instantly and spectacularly with beautiful hair and perfect teeth. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Science and Nihilism
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Santa-god and the Second Naivete
I spent all of September and a good part of October finishing an essay on community for a journal on the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and it nearly killed me. 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Who took the LD out of LDS?
-or- What ever happened to the good ol’ last days? -or- Where have all the millennialists gone? 0 people like this post.Like Read More »
Links
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Conferences and Events
- - SVU Education Conference (Jun 4, 2010)
- - BYU Women's Conference (Apr 29, 2010)
- - Utah State History Annual Conference (Sep 9, 2010)
- - Marilyn Arnold: "Nibley on the Book of Mormon" (Mar 25, 2010)
- - John W. Welch: "The Lasting Legacies of Hugh W. Nibley" (Mar 11, 2010)
- - Helen Whitney's "The Mormons": Reflections and Analysis on Religion and Film (Feb 12, 2010)
- - Grant Hardy: "Reading the Book of Mormon" (Feb 19, 2010)
- - Eric Huntsman: "Nibley and Classical Scholarship" (Mar 18, 2010)
- - Daniel Walker Howe: "The Transformation of America, 1815-1848" (Jan 30, 2010)
- - Daniel Peterson: "Nibley as Apologist" (Feb 4, 2010)
- - Church History Symposium (Feb 26, 2010)
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