Author: Chad Nielsen

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 as well as in the music ministry of a Presbyterian church. Currently he is serving as a music missionary as a member of the Bells on Temple Square.

The Wagon Box Prophecy and the Temples

by Chad Nielsen • July 23, 2020 • 19 Comments

History is a fascinating world to explore, with many twists and turns along the way as we come to understand more about the narratives we have received and how they were formed. Each generation of historians has the opportunity to try and peel back the world we live in and get at the truth of what happened in the past. A fascinating example of this was discussed in a recent 10 questions interview with Gary Boatright, the operations manager for Church historic sites. What follows here is a co-post to Kurt Manwaring’s interview—a summary with some commentary and quotes from the original, but I encourage you to go read the full interview here. An important story of Church history for Latter-day Saints living in southern and eastern Idaho is known as the “Wagon Box Prophecy.” According to the most frequent rendition of the tale, in 1884, Wilford Woodruff and Heber J. Grant visited southern Idaho and comforted newly-relocated Saints that were facing difficult times there. While visiting one small group, Elder Woodruff preached from a wagon box, and said that: “The spirit of the Lord rests mightily upon me and I feel to bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.” He then went on to bless the land and prophesy of homes, schools, churches, and temples. “Yes,” he proclaimed, “as I look into the future of this great valley I can see temples. …” Now, my in-laws live in…

Zerah Pulsipher: A Pioneer Day Reflection

by Chad Nielsen • July 21, 2020 • 3 Comments

In the movie version of the popular Harry Potter series, a father-figure to the titular character tells Harry that: “The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters [henchmen of the main villain]. We’ve all got both light and dark inside of us.” While a fantasy film, there is a kernel of truth in the statement—we are all complex people, with goodness and evil in each of us. Whether intentional or not, we have failings and blind spots and we fall short being the best person we could be. Sometimes it is difficult to realize that to be true within ourselves, but it is also sometimes just as difficult to realize that the same holds true for our heroes and ancestors. With Pioneer Day this week, I’ve been thinking about this in relation to my own pioneer heritage and wanted to share my journey in coming to understand one of my ancestors in particular—a man named Zerah Pulsipher. Growing up in the Church, I saw the pioneers as spiritual heroes—unblemished saints who did brave and amazing things in the name of serving God and the Church. Among my own ancestors, Zerah Pulsipher was pointed out because, as one of the First Seven Presidents of the Seventy, his name made it into the Doctrine and Covenants (D&C 124:138) and because some of his early missionary efforts contributed to Wilford Woodruff’s conversion (a story which was featured in Our Heritage: A…

First Vision Special Edition

by Chad Nielsen • July 15, 2020 • 43 Comments

Before I move on from discussing the First Vision, I wanted to share something that I find exciting. Once in a while in Mormon studies journals, special volumes focus on the First Vision—such as the Spring 1969 issue of BYU Studies and a 1980 volume of the Journal of Mormon History. These volumes, along with a few other essays, books, and articles published from time to time form the backbone of the academic discussion about Joseph Smith’s earliest visionary experience. The latest volume of BYU Studies, as it turns out, is the next volume to focus on the topic of the First Vision, featuring papers presented at the conference “The First Vision of Joseph Smith, Jr.: 200 Years On”, held at the Huntington Library earlier this year and a few other notable articles as well. It’s a stellar issue with authors that run the gamut from general authorities to notable Latter-day Saint scholars to academic Evangelical Christians, etc., and builds upon previous scholarship to flesh out the context and our understanding of the First Vision in some interesting and satisfying ways. Many of the papers featured in the journal focus on the context of the culture in which the First Vision occurred. For example, Richard L. Bushman wrote about how Joseph Smith’s words reveal his reaction to modernism and skepticism in the cultural milieu of his time. George M. Marsden wrote about how Joseph Smith’s understanding of the Millennium fit within the various premillennial, postmillennial,…

Memory and the First Vision

by Chad Nielsen • July 7, 2020 • 20 Comments

How do we account for differences between the various accounts we have on record of the First Vision? What role does memory play in how it was presented over time? How have we viewed those accounts since they were first recorded? These are big questions that are central to our understanding of Joseph Smith’s experience. Steven C. Harper took a look at these questions and more in his book First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins (Oxford University Press, 2019) and also sat down recently for a 10 questions interview with Kurt Manwaring to talk about his book and the First Vision more generally. What follows in this co-post is a summary of his remarks with some commentary, but I recommend taking the time to read the full interview here. Dr. Harper’s book is divided into three parts, the first of which delves into the issue of autobiographical memory. In his interview, Harper talked about how the field of memory studies needs to be taken into greater account by historians of the First Vision: There are many untested, unproved assumptions about memory that are taken for granted in scholarship about the First Vision. It’s common, for example, to see the assumption that memories decay at predictable rates. It’s a maxim that recent memories are accurate and distant memories are inaccurate. Those are reassuring things we tell ourselves, but they are unfounded. Memories are much more unpredictable than that. They are based…

All Are Alike Unto God

by Chad Nielsen • July 1, 2020 • 22 Comments

I’ve been thinking about the issue of race in the Church (and the history of the temple and priesthood ban in particular) a lot lately. As part of that thinking, I am working on a series of posts wrestling with the oft-proposed idea of an apology for the ban, but I did have something I wanted to share as a middle of the road approach before I get into the more in-depth discussions. One thing that could be done to help address the issue of both historical and ongoing racism within the Church would be to publicize a brief document treated with similar weight and importance as “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” or “The Living Christ: The Testimony of The Apostles” during general conference. The positive aspects of this approach are that: a) It doesn’t require Church leaders to say anything they haven’t already said, b) It makes it clear that they what has been said before is authoritative rather than a series of PR stunts, c) It gives members a concise resource to draw upon in understanding and representing the Church’s stance on issues of racism, and d) It sidesteps the thorny issues surrounding the idea of releasing an apology for the ban. As an exercise in curiosity, I tried to compile many of the most important statements of Church leaders and official statements of the Church on the subject into a document with a similar word…

Fundamental Principles of Mormonism

by Chad Nielsen • June 27, 2020 • 4 Comments

Today marks the 176th anniversary of the day that Joseph Smith died in an untimely fashion. As I’ve been pondering on what his legacy means to me personally, I wanted to write about three topics that were central to Joseph Smith’s ministry, at least according to his own words. As far as I am aware from the records I have searched through, he only used the term “fundamental principle” to describe aspects of our religion on three occasions. The first was in 1838, when he wrote that the “the fundamental principles of our religion” were focused on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and “all other things are only appendages to these, which pertain to our religion.”[1] The second occasion was in 1843, when he declared that, “the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to recieve thruth let it come from where it may.”[2] The third occasion was also in 1843, when the Prophet stated that “friendship is the grand fundamental principle of Mormonism.”[3] Together, these three fundamental principles form the heart of Joseph Smith’s message and, perhaps, help us to understand how Joseph Smith has done “more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it” (D&C 135:3).[4] Atonement and Resurrection The first of the three fundamental principles is the Atonement of Jesus the Christ. The full quote, written by Joseph Smith in 1838, is as follows: “The fundamental…

Touring the Kirtland Temple… In Utah

by Chad Nielsen • June 24, 2020 • 4 Comments

I finally achieved a long-term goal of mine. For years, I’ve been trying to talk my wife into going out on a Church History pilgrimage, with the Kirtland Temple being one of the highlights of the trip we’ve been talking about, but it hasn’t happened until now. Well, it kind of happened, anyway. You see, a couple days ago, I took a tour of the Kirtland Temple from the comfort of my basement via Zoom. As part of the Community of Christ’s response to the current pandemic, the Kirtland Temple has remained closed to in-person visitors, but they have started offering online tours on weekdays at 2 p.m. EST. For the small price of $10 per screen, you get as close of an experience to an in-person tour as you can without actually being there. It is possible for many people to register for each tour, but in my case, there was only one other group that had registered beforehand, and they didn’t show up, so it was just my wife and me going through the house of the Lord with the tour guide (who also happened to be the site director). The tour was a neat experience for me. We started out in the entryway space of the building (the vestibule), talked there for a minute as we got going, then worked our way through the building—going the court (or assembly hall) on the second floor, looking into the…

Statues in the Balance

by Chad Nielsen • June 19, 2020 • 41 Comments

One of my favorite episodes of the science fiction TV series Firefly is the “Jaynestown” episode. In it, a self-serving mercenary of questionable moral character ends up visiting a planet he has been to before. In the past, he’d attempted to rob the local aristocrat, but in the process of making a get-away, he had to jettison the money, dropping it over a village of oppressed laborers in the process. The villagers didn’t know, however, that it was an accident or that Jayne had fully intended to keep the money for himself rather than sharing it with them, so by the time the Firefly crew visits the town, Jayne had become a local hero, a Robin Hood figure honored by a statue. Distressed by this undeserved adulation, Jayne tries to convince the local folks that they shouldn’t look up to him, but they refuse to accept that he is not the legend they have made him out to be, with one of the villagers even sacrificing his life to save Jayne’s life. At the end of the episode, once the crew has left the planet, Jayne discusses his distress with the captain, Mal, who tells him that: “It’s my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another.” These days aren’t particularly good times to be a statue. With the recent renaissance of the civil rights movement working to root out…

A Lake of Fire and the Problem of Evil

by Chad Nielsen • June 17, 2020 • 21 Comments

I remember talking to an atheist on the riverfront walk in Dubuque, Iowa one day while serving my mission. He told my companion and me that he couldn’t believe in God after some of the things he had seen, and went on to describe (in a fair amount of gruesome detail) visiting a Catholic church in South America in the aftermath of an attack by a militant group of some sort and seeing the mutilated bodies of the Christians laying scattered about. If God existed, he reasoned, God would have not allowed such horrific act to take place. I was taken aback and was uncertain how to respond to his expression of disbelief rooted in such deep trauma. We talked with the man for a little while longer and moved on in with the day. His comments got at one of the most difficult and complex philosophical issues of Christian religion—the theodicy, the question of why evil exists if God exists, is good, and is all-powerful. That evening, I remember talking about the incident with my companion and thinking (somewhat naïvely): “I should have just opened up the Book of Mormon to Alma 14, where Alma and Amulek watch their converts burn and discuss why they can’t do anything about it. That would have shown him how we have all the answers.” Looking back, however, I’m grateful we didn’t turn to that section of the Book of Mormon during our…

Review: 2nd Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction

by Chad Nielsen • June 8, 2020 • 2 Comments

I think one of the most repeated refrains I see in comment threads in the bloggernacle is that our Church meetings generally lack the vibrancy and ability to deeply engage with the scriptures and ideas in ways that can stimulate interest and growth. As Terryl L. Givens put it in a recent interview, “one of the main reasons we’re losing people is that we’re boring them to death.”[1] The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship is one organization that is working to provide resources that provide thought-provoking discussions, deep thought, and spiritual growth to members of the Church. One of their most ambitious projects this year has been the production of a series of short books discussing the Book of Mormon—the Brief Theological Introductions to the Book of Mormon series. I recently finished Terryl Givens’s 2nd Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction, and really enjoyed the experience of reading it. I suspect that the purpose of the series is partly two-fold—to excite people about the richness of our scriptural cannon and to introduce the work of some of the great minds at the Institute’s disposal to a broader audience. (Though certainly not all of those great minds—I was disappointed to realize that Philip Barlow would not, in fact, be giving us a 467 page discussion of Amaleki’s 18 verses, for example.)[2] Terryl Givens is certainly a heavy-weight hitter in that category, having published significant volumes about both the Book of…

Hasten to Prepare

by Chad Nielsen • June 5, 2020 • 43 Comments

At the “Be One” celebration in 2018, President Dallin H. Oaks discussed the frustration he experienced as a member of the Church before the ban on individuals of black African descent holding the priesthood or receiving saving temple ordinances was lifted. He said that he “observed the pain and frustration experienced by those who suffered these restrictions and those who criticized them and sought for reasons. I studied the reasons then being given and could not feel confirmation of the truth of any of them.” As he “witnessed the pain of black brothers and sisters,” he “longed for their relief.” When that restriction was lifted in 1978, he wept for joy. At the “Be One” celebration, he acknowledged that “the hearts and practices of individual members did not come suddenly and universally,” with some embracing the revelation and its implications of racial equality while others, to this day, have “continued the attitudes of racism that have been painful to so many throughout the world.” He went on to state that, “as we look to the future, one of the most important effects of the revelation on the priesthood is its divine call to abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of God’s children. … As servants of God … we should hasten to prepare our attitudes and our actions—institutionally and personally—to abandon all personal prejudices.”[1] This was (and is) a weighty and important call to both members of the Church…

A Prophet for President

by Chad Nielsen • June 1, 2020 • 7 Comments

Imagine that when you check the news tomorrow morning you see that Russell M. Nelson has announced that he is running for the office of the President of the United States. Now imagine that later the same day, you receive a call from your bishop, and he extends a calling to you to serve as a missionary—specifically for the purpose of campaigning for President Nelson across the country. What would your thoughts be? How would you react? While the idea might seem a bit farfetched today, there was a time when Joseph Smith did start a campaign to become President of the United States and used missionaries to campaign for him. Derek Sainsbury spent years working to uncover the details of Joseph Smith’s campaign and the 600-plus political missionaries who answered the call to canvass the nation, resulting in the book Storming the Nation: The Unknown Contributions of Joseph Smith’s Political Missionaries (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, 2020). Sainsbury recently sat down with Kurt Manwaring for a 10 questions interview and shared many interesting insights from his research. What follows here is a brief summary of the interview with quotes and commentary, but I encourage you to go read the full interview here. It’s a fascinating glimpse into an oft-overlooked part of our history and how it impacted the Church for years to come. In the interview, Sainsbury explained a bit about why Joseph Smith ran for president. He said:…

Saving Alvin

by Chad Nielsen • May 29, 2020 • 31 Comments

How we approach the scriptures affects what we see in them. In other words, our assumptions, our traditions, our cultural baggage that we carry with us as we enter the world of scriptural texts are lenses that give meaning and shape to what we find inside those scriptures. Two approaches that I would like to examine today are looking at the scriptures and the teachings of the prophets as a unified, static monolith of doctrine vs looking at them as a dynamic collection of texts written by individuals who each had their own limited view. I intend to look at those views using the doctrine of salvation for the dead as the focal point. In 1823, Alvin Smith (Joseph Smith’s oldest brother) suddenly became ill. He died a short time later in great pain. Alvin seems to have been considered the brightest and best of the Smith brothers, even within his own family.[1] Yet, according to William Smith, at Alvin’s funeral, a local Presbyterian minister “intimated very strongly that [Alvin] had gone to hell, for Alvin was not a church member, but he was a good boy and my father did not like it.”[2] Apparently, this did not sit well with Joseph Smith, Jr. either. Throughout his life, he grappled with the question of what became of people like Alvin—uncatechized and unbaptized individuals who were good people. Grappling with the question resulted in an evolution of theology concerning redemption of…

When You Believe: An EP Review

by Chad Nielsen • May 26, 2020 • 5 Comments

Last Friday, the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square released a new extended play record (EP), “When You Believe: A Night at the Movies.” I bought and downloaded the music this weekend and I have listened to it several times since then. The EP is short (totaling five tracks and about 23 minutes), but it is a lot of fun and displays a high quality of performance. My biggest complaint is that there isn’t more. One of my first thoughts with the idea of the Tabernacle Choir recording soundtrack pieces was the question of whether the choir can bring something to the pieces that the original soundtrack recordings do not have. With the two pieces from blockbuster sci-fi films featured on the EP (Avengers and Star Wars), it feels like having a 300+ member choir combined with a virtuosic performance by the Orchestra at Temple Square packs a punch that added something extra to the tracks. While I enjoy the originals, I think I enjoy these recordings more because of that added umpf. The choir has also cultivated a lighter, younger sound in recent years that worked well for a softer, angelic tone at the start of “I’ll Fly Away” (though I felt like they had a difficult time making the transition to the rowdier, gospel-style singing I that I feel like the piece asks for later on in the arrangement) and makes for a pleasant rendition of “When You Believe.” …

Reflections on Meetings in the Church of Christ

by Chad Nielsen • May 19, 2020 • 34 Comments

One of my favorite quotes of all time about Mormonism focuses on the concept of Zion. “Zion-building is not preparation for heaven. It is heaven, in embryo. The process of sanctifying disciples of Christ, constituting them into a community of love and harmony, does not qualify individuals for heaven; sanctification and celestial relationality are the essence of heaven. Zion, in this conception, is both an ideal and a transitional stage into the salvation toward which all Christians strive.”[1] Fiona and Terryl Givens have captured here what I find to be one of the most essential parts of my religion—the development of a community based on love and discipleship to Christ. That, to me, is one of the core reasons for the Church—to provide a place where we can begin to learn and practice the things that are necessary for us to live in a heavenly community, even though the lived experience often falls short of that goal. Now, there was something profoundly ironic about studying the founding of the Nephite Christian church during a time that we are unable to attend worship services in the modern Church in last week’s “Come, Follow Me” curriculum. I was grateful for the chance to do so, however, since there will come a time, sooner or later, that the current situation stabilizes enough to return to regular Church meetings and each of us will need to make the decision about returning to those meetings. …

Art and Christ in Church Buildings

by Chad Nielsen • May 12, 2020 • 13 Comments

Yesterday, the Church released new guidelines about the appearance church meetinghouse. The latest in the series of Christocentric reforms during President Nelson’s tenure, the intent of the guidelines is to help “create a feeling of reverence and dignity” in the spaces that “establish the first impression and feelings that individuals receive when entering a meetinghouse.” In line with the recent strong emphasis on Jesus the Christ’s role in the Church that began with insistence on using the Church’s full name and continued with the shift from using the Angel Moroni to the Christus statue as the Church’s primary symbol, “framed artwork that focuses on the Savior should always be displayed” in these meetinghouse spaces. Steps are to be taken to remove artwork, furniture, display cases, etc. that do not fall in line with these requirements (either to other parts of the building or from the building altogether) and a list of approved artwork has been issued. In many ways, I feel that this is a good move on the Church’s part. As indicated in the First Presidency letter, the entrances and foyers are the first impression people have of the meetinghouse interior and set the tone as they come in. Removing some of the clutter provides a neater appearance. The artwork will help focus attention on Jesus Christ. Those will both be a good thing as we enter the building and are mentally preparing ourselves for the sacrament and other…

Monotheism and Mormonism

by Chad Nielsen • May 6, 2020 • 82 Comments

One of the most central and difficult issues of Christian theology is how to fit together a commitment to monotheism with a belief that Jesus is a divine being. While we, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have resolved some aspects of this in our own ways, we still have areas that are unclear when it comes to working out this theological knot. While I’m aware that we are looking at scriptures and doctrines that represent ideas that have evolved over time, my hope today is to muse on what we currently believe as a community based on the scriptures and the teachings of Church leaders and try to work towards a better understanding of the issue (as much for myself as for any readers). We have several competing commitments in our doctrine that complicate the issue of the Godhead and Jesus’s status in our theology, including a commitment to monotheism. We are part of the Judeo-Christian religious family and Israelite theology committed itself to belief that there only existed one God—their God—known at various times as Yahweh/Jehovah/the Lord, Elohim, El Shaddai, and a few other names as well. Think, for example, of the proclamation: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.”[1] This commitment to believing that there was one God passed on to Christianity, as indicated when Paul wrote that: “Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in…

Seer Stones and Grammar

by Chad Nielsen • April 28, 2020 • 18 Comments

Book of Mormon translation is one of those interesting subjects that is central to the ongoing Book of Mormon wars. As well, to me, one interesting aspect about the Book of Mormon is how self-aware of its own creation it is. For example, in Mosiah 8 (part of this week’s “Come, Follow Me” discussion), there is a discussion about seership and the use of “interpreters” that allow the owner to “look, and translate all records that are of an ancient date” (Mosiah 8:13). In the case discussed in the scriptures, the seer is King Mosiah II and the record is the Jaradite plates that Zeniff’s colony discovered. While it doesn’t explicitly link this to the future translation of the Book of Mormon, it is interesting to be given a glimpse into the same method that Joseph Smith said he used to produce the Book of Mormon being used within the Book of Mormon. Ultimately, we don’t know much about the process by which the Book of Mormon was brought to us or the role of seer stones (interpreters) in that process. There is a mountain of conflicting evidence to sift through in trying to pin down a viable theory of translation. As Grant Hardy wrote: “There is still no consensus among LDS scholars as to how the translation process worked. Some think that Joseph received spiritual impressions through the seer stone that he then put into his own words, while…

Review: Buried Treasures: Reading the Book of Mormon Again for the First Time

by Chad Nielsen • April 24, 2020 • Comments Off

Michael Austin’s book, Buried Treasures: Reading the Book of Mormon Again for the First Time is a quick, insightful and though-provoking read about the Book of Mormon. The book began its life as a series of blog posts at By Common Consent, documenting some of Austin’s thoughts as he read the Book of Mormon in-depth for the first time in decades (after spending a significant amount of time during those decades focused on literary criticism and Biblical studies). The book, published by the By Common Consent Press earlier this year, takes the form of a collection of short essays that, as put by the author, are “not scholarly articles, or even well-thought-out personal essays; rather, they are the record of a deeply personal experiment upon the word.”[1] A bit of background on the author: Michael Austin is a former English professor who currently serves as an academic administrator in Evansville, Indiana. He has published several books and articles, with the subjects of political discourse in the United States of America and literary criticism of the Bible and Mormon Literature being some of the notable topics. A few of his published books include Re-reading Job: Understanding the Ancient World’s Greatest Poem (Greg Kofford Books, Inc., 2014), That’s Not What They Meant!: Reclaiming the Founding Fathers from America’s Right Wing (Prometheus, 2012), and Reading the World: Ideas that Matter (W. W. Norton & Company). He also has written for the By Common…

Race and Lineage among early Latter-day Saints

by Chad Nielsen • April 21, 2020 • 27 Comments

Race is an incredibly sensitive topic, but it is also an incredibly important topic to discuss and understand. A number of important books have been published about the racial narratives that were adopted by early members of the Church in recent years, including Max Perry Mueller’s Race and the Making of the Mormon People (The University of North Carolina Press, 2017). Kurt Manwaring recently sat down with Max Mueller to discuss the book in a 10 questions interview. What follows here is a summary of the interview, but I encourage you to go read the full interview here. Max Perry Mueller is an assistant professor of religious studies at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a fellow at the Center for Great Plains Studies. He describes himself as “a theorist and historian of race and religion in American history, with particular interest in indigenous and African-American religious experiences, epistemologies, and cosmologies.” He turned his interest to the Latter-day Saint experience because of the “insider/outsider paradox” that is a part of our culture and the fact that while “Latter-day Saints have been stand-ins for ‘American,’ … in their exceptional-ness, they remain set apart.” As he went on to say: Race, of course, factures heavily into these historical and cultural understandings of Latter-day Saints. Non-Mormon Americans have projected their own anxieties about race, religion, and gender onto Latter-day Saints since the Church’s founding. And at the same time, Latter-day Saints have responded by projecting…

Seek After These Things

by Chad Nielsen • April 17, 2020 • 12 Comments

There is a part of me that is deeply drawn to the Christian religions that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years. Perhaps that comes from my fascination with history (particularly the Byzantine Empire), perhaps from beautiful experiences with choral music written by Christians from the Renaissance up through our own day. Perhaps some comes from spending the better part of a decade involved in the music ministry of a small Presbyterian Church in northern Utah. And perhaps some comes from my fascination with theology and learning how different people have addressed the difficulties associated with the subject over the centuries. Whatever the case, there is something in me that longs for the best that Christianity has to offer in transcending this world and bringing humankind into God’s presence. Yet, on the other hand I feel cut off from that tradition because of my belief in the Great Apostasy. It is one of the ironies of our religion that we seek to be recognized as Christian while simultaneously dismissing Christian religions as apostate. It is also one of my personal mental tensions to feel drawn to the past and to the best that other religions offer, but to feel unable to fully embrace those things at church without worrying about betraying my own community to some degree. Perhaps Joseph Smith felt something of that same tug-of-war. On the one hand, he believed that “<mankind> did not come unto the…

Revisiting Sherem

by Chad Nielsen • April 14, 2020 • 12 Comments

Many of my choices in books this year have been influenced by a decision to try and catch up on literature about the Book of Mormon. I feel a bit overwhelmed, to be honest, since there’s a lot out there and I have been more focused on the New Testament in recent years. I recently finished reading Christ and the Antichrist: Reading Jacob 7, a collection of essays on Jacob 7 that resulted from a two-week gathering of the Mormon Theology Seminar. There are both a published book version and a free PDF version offered through the Maxwell Institute. It’s a good read, and I felt like there some interesting takeaways that have changed how I see Sherem (the titular antichrist). Sherem is an interesting character. We don’t know where he comes from, but Jacob portrays him as a no-good, trouble-causing vagabond that shows up on the scene and disrupts Jacob’s congregation and people. Jacob even goes as far as telling Sherem to his face that: “thou art of the devil,” and still refers to him as a “wicked man” after his repentance and death.[1] Jacob also structures his telling of the story to present Sherem as a sort of anti-prophet, inverting a trope from the Hebrew Bible where “there came a man of God” who delivers a message to someone in authority, often followed by showing a sign that God’s power is behind him.[2] Instead, Sherem’s coming is noted…

Resurrection and the Timing of Healing

by Chad Nielsen • April 11, 2020 • 11 Comments

Bear with me as I go out into the theological weeds to explore an obscure doctrinal debate about the resurrection. As my wife and I studied the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum section on Easter, we discussed Amulek statements about the resurrection in Alma 11. Our question was: What exactly does it mean to “restored to its perfect frame, as it is now, or in the body” (Alma 11:44)? Does it mean that the body is perfectly brought back to the condition it was when it died (“as we now are at this time”) and may undergo further healing and development or that it is brought back in a perfected, ideal state (“its perfect frame”)? Decades ago, the same question was asked by a priesthood quorum. According to a Church periodical: It was the opinion of some members of the class that when the body comes forth it will be just as it was when it was laid down. That is to say, if an arm or a leg were missing or the person otherwise maimed, the body would come forth as it was laid down and the restoration of any missing part would be added later. Others thought that it would come forth in physical and mental perfection. When they turned to the then-apostle Joseph Fielding Smith for clarification, he wrote that: “There would be no purpose whatsoever in having the body of any individual come forth from the dead…

A Tale of Two Statues

by Chad Nielsen • April 7, 2020 • 28 Comments

There are several statues that exist at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, but two stand out as the most well-known and prominent. The first is the Angel Moroni, standing at the highest spire of the Salt Lake Temple. Created by Cyrus E. Dallin, the statue of the angel represents the Book of Mormon prophet who finished the record and later delivered it to Joseph Smith. Regarded as a fulfillment of the apocalyptic prophecy of an “angel flying in midheaven, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth,”[1] replicas or variations of the statue have been placed on most Latter-day Saint temples as a symbol of the Restoration of the gospel.[2] The second is the Christus statue held in the northwest visitor’s center, overlooking a green area and the historic Tabernacle. A copy of the original sculpture held at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen, Denmark, created by Danish sculpture Bertel Thorvaldsen, the Christus statue replica has been located at Temple Square since 1966. Other replicas have since been used by the Church at the World’s Fair and at visitors’ centers near 16 temples as well as two other locations as a symbol of our commitment to Jesus Christ. Together, these two powerful statues represent different aspects of our history and belief—the one focusing on the legacy of Joseph Smith, the second on the legacy of Jesus of Nazareth. While the two…

COVID, Conference, and Choir

by Chad Nielsen • April 4, 2020 • 8 Comments

The world is facing extraordinary times. With the COVID-19 pandemic raging worldwide, everyone is (or soon will be) feeling an impact from it in one way or another. It will likely leave some lasting changes on our society. Within the Church, it provides us with an extraordinary opportunity to reflect on how we have been doing things and to consider how we can change and possibly improve. In the age of technology that we live in, there are plenty of opportunities available, such as the has been shown with how the Church is handling general conference. In the past, pandemics and epidemics have changed how the Church has done things. Towards the end of WWI, a the most severe pandemic in recent history spread across the world, infecting nearly a quarter of the world’s population, shutting down many countries for a time, and killing somewhere between 17 million to 50 million people between January 1918 and December 1920. During the ongoing battle with this H1N1 influenza virus, the spring 1919 General Conference was delayed from April until June. Beyond the impact on the timing of general conference, the Spanish flu influenced a few other events and policies in the Church. It was that pandemic that spurred the Church to change the Sacramental water from being partaken from a shared cup to using separate cups.[1] It was also in this era of massive death due to the Great War and the…

The Way and the Ancient Gospel

by Chad Nielsen • March 29, 2020 • 5 Comments

Along with “baby Yoda” memes, Disney’s Mandalorian made two phrases trendy: “This is the way,” and “I have spoken.” Being a Star Wars fan, the phrases quickly made their way into the lexicon of my household. So, it was humorous to me to find an entire lesson in “Come, Follow Me” this year entitled “This is the Way,” even though it makes sense in context. Towards the end of his record, Nephi lays out the Doctrine of Christ in detail and concludes that: “This is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God” (2 Nephi 31:21), which was the focus of the lesson. All Star Wars humor aside, I find it interesting that Nephi concludes his discussion of the Doctrine of Christ with the statement “this is the way.” The reason why I find that interesting is that early disciples of the Lord in the eastern hemisphere didn’t think of their religion as “Christianity” or call themselves “Christians” at first. If we believe the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament, “it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians,’” and the term may have initially been a term of reproach (something like calling a Latter-day Saint a “Mormon” or “Mormonite”).[1] Before then, their religion seems to have simply been called “the Way,” which is how it is referred to throughout Acts.[2] …

The Olive Tree Restoration

by Chad Nielsen • March 23, 2020 • 12 Comments

There have been some common underlying themes to several Times and Seasons posts these past few months. The three themes or questions that I have in mind at the moment are: “What is the nature of the Great Apostasy?”, “What is the nature of the Restoration?”, and “What is the relationship of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with the broader tradition of Abrahamic faiths?” I’ve posted about the Church’s Interfaith efforts, about B.H. Robert’s understanding of the Church of the Devil and the Church of the Lamb of God, and an attempt on my part to understand the First Vision based on what is presented in the textual accounts of the event. Steven Smith discussed the comparisons of the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed and to yeast in the post The humbling of the kingdom?, asked what it means to be the True Church in the form of a conversation, discussed an alternative approach to understanding restoring the church, and also brought up the ideas of the Christian story and the Mormon story as ways to approach our own self-understanding. While the continuing focus on these topics hasn’t been premeditated or coordinated between us, they are apparently weighing on our minds. And they apparently continue to do so, since I have a few thoughts to share on the subject based on my study of Zenos’s allegory of the olive tree in Jacob 5 this week.…

Embracing Jacob’s Sermon

by Chad Nielsen • March 17, 2020 • 25 Comments

One of the more awkward moments of my time in graduate school came when I was reading a book about Mormon polygamy while taking a break in the lab. A visiting scientist from Pakistan who was doing research in the same lab saw me reading the book and asked me: “That looks like an interesting book. Are you preparing to take a second wife?”, then joked about taking a second wife himself. A bit flustered, I explained that my wife and I weren’t interested in expanding our family that way, that my church had stopped practicing plural marriage over a century ago, and that I was reading the book to better understand my ancestor’s decisions. It was an interesting conversation, needless to say. The previous week’s reading in the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum includes Jacob 2, the epicenter for discussing polygamy in the Book of Mormon. Recently, a good friend who has chosen to leave the Church asked me: “Do you think the church will eventually disavow the polygamous teachings in the Book of Mormon?” I was somewhat surprised at the question, since the section in the Book of Mormon in question already disavows polygamy, calling the practice “an abomination” that causes “sorrow … [and] mourning” for the women involved. It also forcefully states that the word of the Lord is that “there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have…

Sacrament Prayers and the Doctrine of Christ

by Chad Nielsen • March 9, 2020 • 5 Comments

I am always interested in seeing how ideas grow, develop, and take shape of the years. I suppose that is part of why I find the study of theology so interesting. As I was studying the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum this last week, it struck me how the sacrament prayers seem to have developed and formulated alongside the Doctrine of Christ in the Book of Mormon. Early in the Book of Mormon, the prophetic triumvirate of Lehi, Nephi, and Jacob propose a controversial change to the traditional Hebrew religion, a change based on their revelations and their understanding of Isaiah that they called the Doctrine of Christ. Towards the end of his record, Nephi summarizes this doctrine as follows: Wherefore, my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father? … Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel.[1] There is the nucleus of the future sacrament…

Resources for Ward Choirs

by Chad Nielsen • March 2, 2020 • 17 Comments

This week, the American Choral Directors Association is meeting in Salt Lake City, so choral music is on my mind. While my career isn’t in music, it’s an art form that plays an important role in my life. I have some training in piano, choral performance, and organ while my wife was trained in vocal performance. We’ve spent most of our married life in music-related callings as a result. It’s not a stretch to say that leading a ward choir is, perhaps, the most rewarding and most difficult of the music callings we’ve been involved in. Few people want to put in the extra time at Church or (especially if young children are involved) feel like they can do so, which means that ward choirs are often small. Budgets are limited, so finding music that is usable in sacrament meetings can be difficult. Luckily, however, there is an ever-growing corpus of free or inexpensive choir music available for Latter-day Saint ward choirs online, and my goal here is to gather a good list of those resources into one place here.[1] One of the newest sites to join this list is Ronald Staheli’s sheet music site. Staheli is an internationally known and respected choral conductor who retired a few years ago from leading choirs at Brigham Young University. Apparently, he’s spent a fair amount of time during retirement focusing on writing music for ward choirs. Launched just a few months ago,…

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