The most recent issue of Dialogue reprinted a post from this blog — “An Open Letter to the Dialogue Board” — noting that the online discussion created by the post generated more than 130 comments. I hope that the mention in Dialogue created some interest in the Bloggernacle among its readers. I am also flagging the original thread once again for those Dialogue readers who might be interested in reading or continuing the discussion. Welcome to the Bloggernacle! (more…)
Author: Nate Oman
I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah (autobiographical blogging here), and attended Brigham Young University from 1993 to 1999. Between 1994 and 1996, I served in the Korea Pusan Mission. While at BYU, I mainly studied political science and philosophy. (I was lucky enough to take several classes from T&S's Jim Faulconer.) I also took just enough economics to get myself in trouble. After graduation, I married the fabulous and incredible Heather Bennett (now Oman) and worked on Capitol Hill for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) while Heather finished graduate school at George Washington University. Beginning in 2000, I attended Harvard Law School, escaping with my JD in June, 2003. After practicing law for awhile, I became a law professor at William & Mary Law School. Somewhere along the line, Heather and I managed to have a son and a daughter.
RSR: What Hath Bushman Wrought?
Richard Bushman has written a fabulous book, and in so doing he tells us a great deal about the limits and possibilities of Mormon studies.
Lessons on Suing the Church from Commodity Traders
People often get upset with members who sue the Church. Why? As you might expect, I think that the answer lies in contract disputes between commodity traders.
Mark Your Calenders!
The Third Annual LDS Law Students conference is coming up. The organizers have already put together a very slick looking website with lots of information about the conference. The scheduled speakers include Harry Reid (Senate Minority Leader), Thomas B. Griffith (U.S. Court of Appeals Judge), Robert F. Drinan, S.J. (Professor of Law at Georgetown and ordained Jesuit priest), Richard Bushman (Professor emeritus of History at Columbia), and others. There will also be panels on corporate law, public interest law, women and the law, and much much more. I attended the conference last year at Columbia and loved it. Interesting presenters, smart students, good times. The conference will be held February 17th & 18th at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC.
The Geography of Mormon Monotheism
I don’t think that it is an accident that monotheism first come out of the desert. It is, I think, an issue of scale.
Hugh Nibley’s Secret Identity
I think that I have discovered Hugh Nibley’s secret identity.
A Decent Man
During my second year of law school I met Samuel Alito, who President Bush has nominated to the Supreme Court.
Crisis and Compost
You will be happy to hear that the Oman marriage has weathered a massive marital crisis. It was tough for a while, but we are doing well now. As you might expect, the dispute centered on compost.
Blogging and Lying
Imagine that you and a couple of friends started a group blog — called it Heaven’s Banner — in which you all pretended to be fictional people having really bizarre conversations (OK, so perhaps this wouldn’t take too much pretending). You and your friends work to create a semblance of warped verisimilitude, and then watch the show. Here is an interesting question: Are you liars?
Influence in all the wrong places…
From time to time Mormons face various forms of legal and political harassment. Sometimes this happens in the United States, but as events in Venezuela dramatically illustrate the legal challenges that the Church faces abroad are generally much more extreme than those that it faces in the U.S. One result is that there is a real mismatch between the Church’s challenges and its resources.
The Inevitability of Pain in Mormon Intellectual Life
Twenty years ago, there was an interesting debate between two political philosophers at Harvard that ultimately does a lot to explain the inevitability of pain for Mormons who embark on intellectual discussions of their religion.
The Fortunate Failure of the Doctrine & Covenants
In many ways, the Doctrine & Covenants is my favorite book of scripture, and as it now stands it is the result of a failure.
The Deep Meaning of the Bloggernacle (Abridged)
It seems to have been a bicoastal weekend for real-world discussions of the bloggernacle. John Dehlin gave a great talk on blogs at the Seattle Sunstone Symposium (pod cast here), and I gave a brief presentation to Naomi Frandsen’s “Saturday Night Discussion Group” (a name that carries all sorts of unfortunate disco connotations for me.) Lacking the technical sophistication do a podcast, here is a shortened version of what I said:
The Romantic Usefulness of Military History
Ronan has a thoughtful post about his trip to Gettysburg and the meaning of war. For my part, I will always think of Gettysburg as the sacred soil on which I successfully wooed my wife.
A Paradox of Our Own
One of the more prominent strands of modern political philosophy is what has been called “luck egalitarianism,” which of course raises basic questions for Mormon theology.
Are we mainstream?
Slate has an interesting photo-essay on the architecture of mega-churches. One of the featured buildings is the Conference Center in Salt Lake City (known among Church Historical Department employees as the “meganacle”). I was struck by the following bit of commentary from the essay: The approach of the architects, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca of Portland, Ore., shows the influence megachurches have had on mainstream religions. I’ve tried parsing this several ways, but it seems to me that the only way of reading it is as claiming that Mormons are a mainstream religion, as opposed to the evangelical megachurches.
Intelligences: Neo-platonic and Cartesian
“Intelligence” is one of those wonderfully ambiguous words in the scriptures.
A Note of Grief (With a Thought on the Law)
This morning I attended the funeral of a young man, much too young to die.
Deer are Evil
Deer, as far as I am concerned, are the spawn of Satan.
The Jurisprudence of Seer Stones
It is time for the long-anticipated post on the law, Mormonism, and seer stones.
From the Archives: Chastity and Terrorism
What are the root causes of terrorism? Poverty (problem: most terrorists seem to come from middle class or upper middle class Middle Eastern families). U.S. hegemony (at least in part). Embarrassment and rage at the decline of Islamic civilization (almost certainly). Another recent candidate has emerged: Chastity. (more…)
A Book Suggestion from George Q. Cannon
I am currently reading a book suggested to me by President George Q. Cannon.
The Whitest Law School
Despite what you might think, BYU is not the whitest law school in the country — it is not even in the list of ten whitest schools.
The Promethean Comedy
Prometheus would have loved Joseph Smith.
Implications of Not Answering the Big Question?
Mormonism rather spectacularly refuses to answer one of the big questions that has kept philosophers and theologians busy for the last couple of millennia.
The Very Model of a Mormon Intellectual (with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan)
As some readers of this blog may have guessed, comic operetta is a staple in the Oman home,
A Response to Kaimi
I like Kaimi, but I am afraid that he is just wrong.
The Taste of Salvation
I wish that we didn’t use white bread for the sacrament.
Against Theodicy on the Road to Jericho
Natural disasters often lead people to think about the problem of evil and theodicy. This is, I think, probably a bad idea.
The Metaphysics of Mormon Art
Grant me a simple premise: How one thinks about the nature of reality has an impact on how one thinks about art.