Culture is important. Cultural items not only enhance what we say and teach, making the ideas more memorable and meaningful, they also add additional information, and engage our brains on a level that enhances our learning. As a student of literature as well as the gospel, I’ve long been convinced that our modern culture has discarded much of our culture too early, leaving us without the touchstones we need to keep us grounded in the gospel. As a result, for many years I’ve tried to enhance the Sunday School curriculum (currently the Come Follow Me series) with examples of LDS poetry that fits the lesson. We certainly have the poetry to do so—I estimate that some 50,000 poems were published in LDS periodicals up to about 1970, when the current three magazine system was introduced. Undoubtedly thousands more have been published in the more than 50 years since then. But it’s rare to find members of the Church who have read or even heard of LDS poetry that doesn’t appear in our hymnals and songbooks.
Year: 2024
Old Testament Historicity 2: Differences with the Pentateuch
So as I went over my notes on the two books I wanted to discuss, I noticed that it would be good refer to a trend they both mention: that the books after the Pentateuch in the OT, especially the history books, don’t seem to know about the Pentateuch. My apologies if this is well known to other readers; both authors cite other books. This point is significant for the theme of these posts since Adler’s focus in on the Pentateuch and not the OT as a whole.
It’s not about the Christmas trees
For the last several weeks, Syria has been a rare and unlikely bright spot in a grim world.
Early Christians, Female Ordination, “The Same Organization That Existed in the Primitive Church,” and Current Offices
The 6th Article of Faith can be interpreted along a continuum. On one extreme you might have a super strict interpretation that holds that Jesus had deacons, teachers, priests, and elders quorums, the whole bit, and on the other side, which I’m more partial to, is that Article of Faith 6 is true in a general sense, with a lot of room for variation for the particulars. There are fundamental offices, like the Quorum of the 12, but beyond those basics there’s a lot of flexibility. One one hand, given that these offices and what they mean have changed quite a bit even within this dispensation (eg. the Presiding Patriarch, Stake Seventies, etc.), I’m open to a lot of variation across dispensations, so in looking for connections between the early Christians and the restored Church I don’t feel a strong obligation to try to force a square peg into a round hole if that’s what the situation is. On the other hand, I’m also fine with a particular scholarly opinion on this or that not being drawn in concrete either given that the reliable primary source data that we have on immediate post-resurrection/Pauline Christianity is so incredibly sparse by any standard. Like the myriad creative constellations you can draw from the same few points in the sky, so too can you use these few reliable data points to tell a billion different stories. It’s true that some are more plausible…
Chad Nielsen’s Favorite Reads, 2024 edition
As I did last year, in case it’s of use to anyone, I’ve prepared a list of my top 10 books that I’ve read this last year. (That can include books that were not published within the last year, though the majority of them were published in 2023 or 2024). Also, since I published 25 book reviews in 2024, I’ll include links to those reviews and relevant excerpts for the books where that is applicable.
Matthew Bowman on Joseph Fielding Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith was one of the movers and shapers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout the twentieth century. Although lacking in professional training in theology or history, his impact in those areas can still be felt today in the Church. In a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk, Matthew Bowman discussed some of Joseph Fielding Smith’s life and legacy. What follows here is a copost to the full interview.
Old Testament Historicity, Introduction
So, yes, I did want to repost this one as well, but frame it a little differently than how I had originally. This continues a series where I argue that Joseph Smith’s perennialism, I think, allows for greater flexibility to deal with biblical scholarship that seems to be increasingly calling lots of the OT historicity into question. Again, I’m not a biblical scholar, but I’ve noted this scholarly trend and I’ve seen a lot of evangelicals and Mormons express faith concerns over learning about this scholarship.
“I Shall Speak unto All Nations, and They Shall Write It”
Forgive me for reposting this, but I wanted to have this up on the blog so that I could refer to it in future posts. So here I’m continuing my posts arguing that Joseph Smith was onto something in embracing the ancient theology, or larger truth in addition to the Bible. While the Bible in certainly important in Mormon theology and historical conceptions, Mormonism rejects Protestant sola scriptura. We do so not only in have additional scripture, God goes so far as to tell Nephi in his strident rejection of sola scriptua “I shall also speak unto all nations of the earth and they shall write it.” (29:12). I like Alma 29:8 also: “For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have.”
Loud Laughter, Reality, and Gallows Humor
One of the more curious aspects of the temple ceremony was the charge to avoid “loud laughter.” [Note, I originally spoke in the present tense, but evidently it has been removed–with all the recent changes I somehow missed that]. It’s like only eating meat during the winter, one of those things that was indisputably, canonically there but virtually nobody, no matter how conservative, made a point of it. However, I get the concept even if I’m a little fuzzy on the operationalization: avoid frivolity and light mindedness because reality with all its pain and suffering–and glory–is essentially and fundamentally serious. The other day I was reading through a Wikipedia article on the Russian Famine of 1921 (good hell those people have gone through a lot), and it had a picture of human meat displays, possibly from the human meat markets that sprung up during this time (obviously huge content warning). During this and other times in their history such as the Siege of Leningrad it was a real-life Eli Roth film; you had to be careful about letting your kids out of your apartment less roving bands kidnap and eat them. (And if you were Jewish, much of history was a real-life Purge film, where people could just kill you in.a pogrom [another big CW] if they wanted). You can see why the Russians aren’t known for their comedy. Life gets so gritty that frivolity almost seems like an affront…
Crashed website, lost content
A brief PSA: the blog was having problems so we reset it and lost some content, so apologies to everybody who spent the time to comment only to have it be lost in the memory hole.
Jesus Christ as a Literary Subject
The Ascension Lately I’ve dipped into literary depictions of the Savior’s life. Unsurprisingly given the subject matter, historically responses to literary depictions of the Savior have been quite polarizing, and sometimes controversial. For example, evidently The Man Born to Be King, an early, relatively milquetoast (by today’s standards) radio depiction of the Savior’s life, was blamed for the fall of Singapore. Gradually fictional depictions of the Savior moved from being more devotional–like Ben Hur–to the more naturalistic, like the Master and the Margarita, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, Quarantine, King Jesus, and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. A funner entry in this genre is Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. In principle I’m not opposed to naturalistic depictions of the Savior. However, most cases simply fail to really capture the subtle ineffability, the quiet, almost secretive dignity of the figure that even non-believers can grasp (Albert Einstein: “No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word.”) In many cases I feel like the novelty of naturalistically depicting Jesus or some clever literary gimmick (e.g in the Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ has Jesus as a different person than Christ) carries a lot of the weight in justifying the schlog through the novel. There are also the slightly modified retellings, here Charles Dickens’ The Life of Our Lord comes to mind. Another…
Resources for Come, Follow Me, 2025
Four years ago, I brought up resources to assist in study of the Doctrine and Covenants. There were some significant books that were mentioned, but not as many as I had assumed there would be. That launched me on a path that has led to my book, Fragments of Revelation: Exploring the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. In addition, I have continued to search out relevant books and other literature about the Doctrine and Covenants. That work of seeking out resources, combined with the extensive interviewing work of the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk, is brought together in a new Come Follow Me 2025: Doctrine and Covenants Resources page.