Category: Cornucopia

The Irreconcilable Triangle of Mormon Political Values

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FOX News was on while I stood in line at McDonald’s last night. I noticed that the guy being interviewed looked distinctly Mormon (apparently we have a distinctive look), so I walked over to see what was up. The guest was Connor Boyack, and he was talking about how, of all the political ideologies, Mormonism is most compatible with Libertarianism. The Mormon-Libertarian connection is nothing new, but it fits in with something that’s been on my mind lately — competing “goods”. Or, in Elder Oaks’ words, “good, better, and best”. As I see it, there are three cardinal points of political virtue that we wrangle over in the church: (I think the role of authoritative church statements in this triangle is fascinating. Boyack reaches out to Pres. Benson for support, and others have done the same in support of Libertarianism with words from church leaders extending back to Brigham Young. But not Joseph Smith, I don’t think. Joseph’s statements are, perhaps, generally too pro-government to be used as ammunition there.) Now there might be better names for these than the ones I’ve chosen, but I think “freedom”, “purity”, and “charity” convey the point effectively. By purity, I mean those values that come down to an intrinsic sense of “rightness” — things that are not arguable, but that are right (or wrong) because God declares them to be that way. Gay marriage is as good a political issue as any to exemplify what…

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Sex as Truth

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Joseph Spencer, in his encouraging response to Taylor Petrey’s Dialogue article, “Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon theology,” makes the following claim:

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Gospel Doctrine New Testament Midterm and Final

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We’re nearing the end of our New Testament study for the year; what have we learned? Shall we assess? Back in 2006, when I was still engaged in my Sisyphian PhD pursuit, I taught an Honors Acts-Revelation class at BYU, which was a lot of fun. We learned a little Greek, read some introductory scholarship, and the New Testament in two translations. Students had an outside assignment each week, and a reading assignment for each class period on top of the New Testament passages. Generally speaking, students responded very positively. On the very first day, we learned the Greek alphabet, and they got a Greek assignment, in order to filter out the purely devotional, Seminary-type students who wouldn’t fit the class profile or rank me highly. Student reviews are king at The BYU, especially in the Religious Education department. Below are the midterm and final I gave. The midterm was take-home and open scripture, though I warned them it wouldn’t help. The final was given in class. Now, five years on, I would reword, reframe, or rethink some of these questions, they’re certainly not immune to criticism. But looking at them again, I think we struck a good balance between, faith, devotion, critical thinking, and introduction to scholarship. Enjoy.   Don’t Panic!  Instructions: As you go through, please write neatly and clearly! I can’t grade what I can’t read. Flip the test over, and write your name neatly on the…

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History of a book

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So I wrote a book. Not a Mormon book, but one in my academic field. I’ve been working on the book since just before my youngest daughter was born. She started first grade in September, and the book was published last week. The idea for the book came to me in 2005,

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Global Harmony in Microcosms

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A Japanese former ambassador to China recently offered some provocative thoughts on the global promise of America, suggesting that the American melting pot is a kind of pilot project for world peace. Could the same be true of the LDS Church?

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Korihor fought for religious freedom

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A three-part quiz: 1. Please review the account of Korihor in Alma 30. 2. True or false: Korihor was a religious freedom advocate battling an oppressive central government. 3. What does your answer in #2 say about these areas? Pick a few, and elaborate: -The role of religion in public life -The place of religious freedom claims -Free speech and its potential limitations -Popular conceptions about the proper role of government in 1830 (or in 2011) -Democracy, theocracy, and Zion -Any related topics of interest

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Interruption and Restoration

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Regular T&S readers will have noticed that our site has not been available for much of the past couple of days. Its not our fault. On Thursday morning, Bluehost.com, our now former host, shut down our site without warning and without providing any specific information that might allow us to solve whatever problem had arisen.We are not pleased and, frankly, we expected more of a company based in a heavily Mormon area. So we have taken the opportunity to switch hosts, and we are upgrading our software in the process. All of our content has been recovered and all of our old posts are still here, and over the next few days we expect to get the details of our appearance and functionality back to normal. We thank you for your patience and loyalty, and we hope you will help us spread the word that this down time was unavoidable (on our part) and temporary.  

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Survey: The Impact of Blogging on Mormon Studies

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Patrick Mason is studying the effect of the bloggernacle on Mormon Studies, has put together a questionnaire, and is seeking responses from graduate students. Here is a preface from Dr. Mason, the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University: At the January 2012 meeting of the American Society for Church History, I’ll be on a panel called “Teaching Mormonism in a Digital Age.” In my comments I’ll be considering the impact of the “bloggernacle” on Mormon studies, specifically in regard to the current generation of graduate students. I have designed the following questionnaire to get a better handle on why people read Mormon blogs and what they get out of them. The questionnaire is for any graduate student, full or part time, LDS or non-LDS, in any academic field. The informed consent form on the first page will explain more, or you can contact me at [email protected] with any questions. Thanks for participating. To participate in the study, follow this link to the questionnaire. The questionnaire will open in your browser as a Google Document, and is submitted automatically when you click “Submit” at the end.

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Everybody Hurts

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Depression played a major role in my self-identity for a decade of my life, from about 7th grade through the end of my mission. Life is good. In fact, life is great now. I’ve worked through my demons. No, that makes it sound like I knew what I was doing. Even now I can’t say why things have turned out as well as they have. Just lucky, I guess. I remember the day I decided to be lucky. I was walking to school with a friend on one of those frigid mornings when you can see your breath. Things hadn’t been going well for me, and I felt like Murphy’s Law incarnate. But that morning I decided I was done with it. I decided to be lucky, and I’ve been lucky ever since. (How does that work? Kind of like this: For the orientation session of my MBA program, all of us students took a personality test. I like personality tests. I find it comforting to have myself quantified, conveniently understandable. But, for whatever reason, I was feeling contrary the day I took this test, and I decided to answer all the questions at random. The results came back and classified me as a “reformer”. That’s not the result I would have gotten if I had answered the questions accurately, but I liked it. I decided to own that assessment, and I’ve been a reformer ever since :) ) Being…

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If Jesus came for dinner…

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What would you serve the Savior if he came to your house for dinner? Would you give him beans and rice? Or would you buy a good steak and make a nice meal?” I sat there, thinking about this. My conclusion was that, yes, I actually would serve the Savior beans and rice if he came to my house. Especially if He came unannounced.

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A Missionary Reminiscence on Christmas

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When the mission president announced to our small group of greenies that I was going to Strasbourg, I shrugged the resigned shrug of a missionary who knew nothing about anywhere but was willing to go wherever. One of the sisters expressed jealousy; Strasbourg, she said, was one of the best cities in the mission. She was right, and it would not be a good thing. Strasbourg is and was beautiful pre-Christmas.* Several weeks passed before I fully acclimatized to the major time-change, and the schedule of missionary life, but I loved Strasbourg almost instantly. The eastern area of France bordering Germany is known as Alsace, and offers the best of both countries in terms of food, architecture, and other things. Parks are plentiful, the accent is easier to master, and doner kebab is cheap. Two wards meeting in an actual chapel with a basketball court were staffed by over a dozen hard-working missionaries who made me feel welcome as we did splits. My trainer, a stand-up guy, introduced me to the endless variety of bread, cheese, pastries, roasted chestnuts, and other delights as the weather cooled. On Saturdays, we played ultimate frisbee and soccer with other missionaries and ward members. Things were happening in the ward; we had at least one solid person we were teaching regularly, who came often and participated more than some members. Work was hard, but had enough positive things going that I felt we had…

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Aunt Em on Thanksgiving

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For Thanksgiving, I’m posting this essay, written by one of the principle figures of 19th century Mormon letters and perhaps Mormonism’s first prominent feminist. While not a particularly insightful essay, this is somewhat interesting for its understanding of the Thanksgiving holiday in the first few decades after it became popular. I suspect much of Amethyst’s understanding of the holiday’s history is wrong, but its hard to dispute her claims of what Thanksgiving was like in New England “Forty years ago”

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In Praise of Thanktimonies

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Not all targets of our reflexive contempt are well chosen. Expressions of mere gratitude in our monthly testimony meetings are dismissed as ‘thanktimonies’ because they don’t quite cover any of the things a public expression of religious conviction is supposed to be about. But I think this disdain is misplaced, like scoffing at children for riding bicycles when they could instead careen around the neighborhood in outsized cars in which they cannot work the pedals and see over the dashboard at the same time.

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Mormonism: The Everything Religion

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I’m impressed at how frequently I hear parallels drawn between our church and the many other religions out there. Apparently, we are similar to… the Catholics, due to our shared focus on a formally ordained lineage-based priesthood, strong church hierarchical organization, conservative moral politics, family focus with traditional gender roles, the need for works in addition to faith, and the role of priesthood ordinances in obtaining salvation. the Evangelicals, with our conservative moral politics, family focus with traditional gender roles, claim to spiritual gifts, 19th-century scriptural interpretations, and renewed focus on salvation only being available through faith in Jesus Christ. Islam, since we both have post-biblical prophetic foundings, accept additional scripture that adds to the Bible, prohibit alcohol consumption, and share conservative moral politics, family focus with traditional gender roles,and marginalized American social status. Biblical Judaism, due to our establishment of ritual temple worship, engaging in covenants with God, formally ordained lineage-based priesthood, and our self-identification with the tribes of Israel. Modern Paganism, from our various hagiographa supporting a feminine divine, a plurality of gods, and the earth as an ensouled being. Buddhism, specifically with regards to ancestor veneration (sealing the human family from generation to generation, baptism for the dead, that sort of thing). the Protestants, due to…hmm…I’ll have to come back to that one. Other than both being Christian religions, maybe we really don’t have too much in common. I’ve also heard comparisons made with Taoism, Hinduism, and…

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Why Bloom, et al are wrong

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Harold Bloom’s recent NY Times article on Mormonism & politics was tremendously disappointing. The sheer volume of poorly (or dishonestly) researched writing on Mormonism this season is exhausting; and to get this sort of long worn-out, conspiracy minded expression of clichés from someone as well educated as Bloom is downright disheartening[1] (though to be fair, we’ve gotten a good deal of serious journalism as well). But I’m actually not much interested in that side of Bloom’s article. Let me quickly bring up two other points from the article. First, Bloom states this: The founding prophet Joseph Smith[’s]…highly original revelation was as much a departure from historical Christianity as Islam was and is. But then, so in fact are most manifestations of what is now called religion in the United States, including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Assemblies of God Pentecostalists and even our mainline Protestant denominations. We could take note here – it’s a succinct and accurate response to those who criticize us in this vein. Next, I’d like to use Bloom as a way into a much more worrisome point – that is, a point that I worry a good deal about. He writes: However, should Mr. Romney be elected president, Smith’s dream of a Mormon Kingdom of God in America would not be fulfilled, since the 21st-century Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has little resemblance to its 19th-century precursor. The current head of the Mormon Church,…

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Church and the Value of Girlie Things

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Often in the quest for equality in the church programs for girls and boys, women talk about how much they would have loved to do all the scout activities. As I said in the Boy Scout Redux, I was very envious of many parts of scouting. I love rafting, I pitched in the first girls’ little league in Orem, I ran a marathon to “celebrate” my 40th birthday, and I played intramural flag football and co-ed softball at BYU up until I was past my due date with my second pregnancy. But I don’t love everything “boyish.” I was a ballroom dancer and put myself through college, in part, with pageant winnings. So I’ve got a serious girlie side, too. So what do girls want? They don’t necessarily want a Boy Scout clone with their gender inserted. But they do want something that’s in the ballpark with regard to resources and recognition. When my brother was at the Jamboree, my big summer church activity was to crochet a hot pad. Seriously. Personally, I don’t care if the girls want to rough it in the mountains, or have an enormous beauty shop makeover, I just think they should have resources and support to do some things they enjoy — whatever they are — and to be recognized for their accomplishemnts. It seems that part of the problem is an underlying feeling that “girlie” things are frivolous, while “boyish” things are crucial survival…

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Meditation

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This world is not conducive to contemplation, to meditation. We are encouraged to read the scriptures, fast, pray and meditate. But how do we meditate? There are some simple steps we can take on a regular basis to clear our minds. Some of these meditation techniques are borrowed from other traditions.

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Finally, Family Scripture Study that Works for Us

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My family is not very large (C and, uh, me. Not even a cat), so schedules aren’t hard to coordinate. We’re both active in the Church, and bibliophiles who regularly read and study our own scriptures,  and yet we’ve never been able to have productive scripture study together. I am largely to blame for that, since our questions and interests tend to not overlap very much and mine are too arcane and rabbit-hole-ish to be productive for her. In spite of trying several times, it’s never lasted long. I have memories of my teens, bleary-eyed hot breakfast at 5:15, slogging through Alma, taking turns reading in between bites of Hutterite pancake with cream and bananas. We read every day, but I never felt conscious enough to really pay attention, especially since I was competing with three brothers for pancakes. (My older sister wasn’t very competitive in the pancake horking department.) Somehow between hearing it at breakfast and sleeping through four years of Seminary (6:00-6:45), I learned enough through osmosis that my MTC group designated me the “scriptorian” of the group, thoroughly dismaying me as to how little one needed to know to be thus branded. Regardless, I was convinced at that point that group scripture study had value. If I with so little grey matter devoted to paying attention, could learn simply by being there, what could you accomplish if you actively engaged with the text and co-reader? This week, with…

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Ben S. Joins the Team

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Times and Seasons is pleased to announce that — after a very long stint as a guest blogger — Ben S. has agreed to come onboard as a permanent contributor. I certainly look forward to many interesting posts. Welcome Ben!

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The Manner In Which I’m Mormon: Dealing With Difficult Doctrines

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Each church member responds to problematic issues in church history, doctrine, and culture in their own way. Some people ignore them, some engage in apologetics, and some leave the church entirely.

As for me, I’m a categorizer. I categorize them away.

I separate human knowledge and experience into two overarching spheres — science and religion. For this to make sense, let me start with my definitions of those two spheres.

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Quotes of Note: Elder Hafen on Independence

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Quotes of Note will be a recurring series of lesser-known General Authority statements of interest, as conversation starters. I’m starting with a favorite. “We need to develop the capacity to form judgments of our own about the value of ideas, opportunities, or people who may come into our lives. We won’t always have the security of knowing whether a certain idea is “Church approved,” because new ideas don’t always come along with little tags attached to them saying whether they have been reviewed at Church headquarters. Whether in the form of music, books, friends, or opportunities to serve, there is much that is lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy that is not the subject of detailed discussion in Church manuals or courses of instruction. Those who will not risk exposure to experiences that are not obviously related to some Church word or program will, I believe, live less abundant and meaningful lives than the Lord intends. We must develop sufficient independence of judgment and maturity of perspective that we are prepared to handle the shafts and whirlwinds of adversity and contradiction that may come to us. When those times come, we cannot be living on borrowed light. We should not be deceived by the clear-cut labels others may use to describe circumstances that are, in fact, not so clear. Our encounters with reality and disappointment are, actually, vital stages in the development of our maturity and understanding.” Elder Bruce Hafen,…

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Why Do You Read Times & Seasons?

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It’s that time again — reader participation day, so come join in and let yourself be heard! Back in January, I asked what brings you to the bloggernacle. Today, I want to narrow the question down to Times & Seasons in particular. Several of you are new here in the past six months, and there are a few old friends that I haven’t seen in a while (Bill of Wasilla, where’d you go?) I want to know what keeps you guys coming back here, week after week, month after month. Feel free to take the discussion in any direction you’d like, but I’m particularly interested in: When did you start reading Times & Seasons? How often do you check Times & Seasons? What do you enjoy about the site that keeps you coming here? What would you like to see more (or less) of on the site? So, with those general guidelines, take it away.

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