The videos from May’s conference are now available here.
Category: Cornucopia
A gospel born in grief
It is time now to ponder, after the silence of bereavement. For me the gospel is sometimes hard to believe, often an intellectual challenge, but always a comforting presence. Things go wrong in this world (well, many things go right as well) but in our day and age the things that do go wrong seem to do that in a grand way. The downing of MZ17 was one of these. What comfort can I find in the scriptures, how does the Old Testament – as that is what we are reading at this time – relate to the afflictions that flesh is heir to? The most inspiring messages and profound notions in the Old Testament are borne out of suffering, out of deep loss and utter despair. When history goes wrong, we, together with the heavens, construct the deepest meaning in our lives. Let us see how. Reading the Old Testament this way, means that we are using the insights of the First Axial Age in order to give meaning to the Second Axial Age. The terms may not be familiar with everyone, but the notion is important, also for us Mormons. In a famous study of 1953, The Origin and Goal of History, philosopher Karl Jaspers noticed that between 800 BC and 300 BC a crucial, silent revolution in religion and ethics took place in areas very distant from each other. In 2005 religious scholar Karen Armstrong took it…
Rankings, Money, and BYU
Money magazine has just released a new ranking of U.S. universities that has received a bit of attention. BYU does quite well, landing in ninth place overall, just behind Stanford, Harvard, Harvey Mudd, and Cooper Union.
Mourning and the Gospel
At this moment The Netherlands, like many other countries, are in deep mourning, shocked by the terrible news of the downing of MZ17 in the East of Ukraine. Each of us has somewhere in his or her network people who were in that flight; my faculty lost a whole family, the dean of Liberal Arts with his wife who worked in Communication Studies, and one daughter, a brilliant student who was in my Liberal Arts class last year. At this moment the news is completely dominated by images of a charred field with wreckage, masked soldiers trying to shut off the area, and especially of a long train of cooling-wagons carrying off some of the 298 remains to a safer area, in West Ukraine. At this very moment the whole of Holland is waiting for two airplanes to land at Eindhoven airport, with whatever is left of those dear corpses. A day of nation-wide mourning, this day, a day when all of us ponder on what so suddenly happened, on the losses of that many people, unimaginable, unthinkable, unexplainable. As I am writing I glance to the right where the TV shows the planes landing. At four o’clock all church bells will ring in the country, the trains stop, the airspace is closed, the highways quiet. The Netherlands mourn. There both planes come, I will stop writing. Our king and queen, the prime minister and the whole cabinet, together with…
Literary Worship – Sacred Stones
As our one really unique Mormon holiday, Pioneer Day gives us a chance to look back and reflect on our ancestors and others who went before and made our way easier through their good lives and sacrifices. I think of it as a sort of celebration of our collective quest to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers. And because I love traveling and getting to know new places, thinking about my ancestors always involves a lot of thought about where they originally came from, and if I’m lucky, not just thought, but plane tickets and itineraries. Almost four years ago, I was living with my family in Italy. We’d gone there chasing a sort of genealogical dream, and now we were sitting in a chapel in Turin, Italy, watching live coverage of the Prophet speaking from Rome. President Monson was in Italy breaking ground for the long-awaited and prayed-for Rome Temple. With him were Church leaders from all over Italy as well as Giuseppe Ciardi, the vice-mayor of Rome, and Lucio Malan, a senator from our own northern region of Piemonte. Senator Malan had made the journey from the far north of Italy to Rome because he belongs to a minority religious group called the Valdese–a group with which we had recently become intimately familiar. The Valdese (Waldensians in English) are a small Protestant group in the Alps of Northern Italy who have a particular history with the Mormon Church. They…
Faithful priesthood narratives?
some of those who speak in opposition to women’s ecclesiastical enfranchisement do so because they can’t imagine what a faithful, coherent narrative of our dispensation could possibly look like if women’s priesthood role were restored and developed or if they did receive the Melchizedek Priesthood
James Faulconer – Making Things Harder
It seems to me that the scriptures offer two types of revelations: (1) they reveal things you didn’t already know, and (2) they reveal that you didn’t know many of the things you thought you knew. Both kinds of revelation are pivotal. And each tends to depend on the other. James Faulconer’s new series of books — The Book of Mormon Made Harder, The Doctrine and Covenants Made Harder, The Old Testament Made Harder, and The New Testament Made Harder (forthcoming) — can help on both of these fronts. Though, to be fair, they’re especially good at the latter.
Re-reading Job by Michael Austin
Laughing with the Bible
Humor in the Scriptures? Come on! The Gospel is serious matter, isn’t it? Yet, humor is there, sometimes clear, sometimes disguised, but the ‘third voice’—the reading of the text from the viewpoint of the author—can be very funny. We saw Balaam being topped by a she-ass, very amusing, but there is a larger example, more elaborate and veiled, but definitely funny. It is the entire Book of Jonah, the prophet-in-the-fish and the most productive way to read it might well be as a satire. Why? Let us run through the story: Jonah was called by the Lord to go to preach repentance to the evil city of Nineveh. Immediately he fled to Tarshish, but the Lord called up a storm, and though Jonah kept sleeping, the sailors decided to threw the lots to know the culprit. That was shown to be Jonah, who confessed being a fleeing prophet. So, at his own suggestion they threw him overboard as a sacrifice, and the sea became calm. A big fish gobbled up Jonah, and he stayed three days inside, praying to the Lord. After being vomited on land, Jonah obeyed the Lord and went to Nineveh, preaching destruction on this huge city within 40 days. Immediately the king and whole city repented, fasting and clothing themselves in sackcloth, so the Lord relented and spared the city. That divine mercy angered Jonah to no end, he wished to die as he was ashamed…
Death and How to Live It
I recently spent time in London with the Mormon Theology Seminar. Most of our days were occupied with work, but we had a little time to play tourist. I did all of the things that a first-time visitor to London is supposed to do:
Upcoming Book Events – July 2
If you’re around and interested, Zion’s Books (274 W. Center Street, Provo) will be hosting a roundtable discussion with myself, David Bokovoy, and Joseph Spencer at 6pm on Wednesday, July 2. Janiece Johnson will moderate the discussion. Our topic: “Is Scripture Relevant?”
Comfort Those That Stand in Need
Behold, here are the waters of Mormon and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort… Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord? (Mosiah 18:8-10) This passage has been on my mind a lot over the past couple of weeks, and I wanted to share some thoughts on what it means to mourn with those who mourn in the context of recent events. I do so acutely aware that due to my skepticism of OW I am something of an outsider. And that’s my first thought: the call bear one another’s burdens is a call to cross the lines of insider and outsider. After all, if the burden is already ours, then it doesn’t make sense to ask us to share it. We already do. If we’re already mourning, then it doesn’t make sense to ask us to mourn with those who mourn. We already are. Even those who do not feel as personally affected must heed the moral imperative to offer sympathy and comfort. Otherwise, what’s the point? Think of the example of Jesus Christ outside the tomb of…
What Are the “Blessings of the Priesthood”?
Ordain Women isn’t asking to have “access to the the ordinances all need to return to God” — something both women and men clearly already have. Rather, they are asking to be ordained to the priesthood and to be allowed to administer those ordinances as men do.
David F. Holland on Women in the Church
There is no shortage of interviews, essays, rants, and diatribes that you can read on the topic of women in the LDS Church generally or on Kate Kelly’s excommunication specifically.
The Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies
What I tend to lack in quality, I hope to make up for with quantity. And what I lack in training and credentials, I hope to gather and borrow. In many ways, these maxims have guided the time I’ve invested in a project called the Mormon Theology Seminar.
Literary Worship – Miracle
I find the story of the woman with the issue of blood, found in all three Synoptic Gospels, both odd and beautiful. Like most of the recipients of Christ’s miracles, she excites sympathy within me. Twelve years is a long time to be sick, especially with an illness that renders you and anyone who touches you perpetually unclean. She must have been lonely. It makes me wonder how many times she did get touched during those years–how many people braved the social and religious taboo to offer her a bit of human care or comfort. Did she have a family? Was she abandoned because of her affliction? Did her ritual uncleanness make her feel personally and spiritually unworthy? The Scriptures tell us that she had spent “all her living” on whatever passed for medical treatment in her day. Not only did the treatment fail to heal her, but she actually grew worse. The resultant poverty must have added to her sense of social isolation. Her condition, serious enough as it was to warrant her spending everything she had in an attempt to cure it, probably also kept her from many of the normal tasks of everyday life. How did she live? Was she able to care for herself and her needs? Did someone else allow her a place to stay, despite her chronic ritual impurity? Did some spiritual progenitor of Mother Teresa see beyond her untouchable state and reach out…
Discussion, Advocacy, and Some Thoughts on Practical Reasoning
I am saddened by Kate Kelly’s excommunication. I wish that events had played out differently. Excommunication in this case strikes me as the worst outcome for all concerned, although obviously my opinion on this matter does not – and should not – matter. I believe her when she says that the decision is extremely painful for her and her family. They have my sympathy and my prayers. I do worry that part of the public meaning that she and her supporters are assigning to her excommunication is both inaccurate and potentially destructive. In her letter to her bishop, she wrote: Please keep in mind that if you choose to punish me today, you are not only punishing me. You are punishing hundreds of women and men who have questions about female ordination, and have publicly stated them. You are punishing thousands of Mormons who have questions and concerns with gender inequality in the church and want a place to voice those concerns in safety. You are punishing anyone with a question in their heart who wants to ask that question vocally, openly and publicly. This is not true, and to the extent that others believe it is true, Mormon discussions, the Church, and the community of the saints will be harmed. Unfortunately, the letter from Kelly’s stake president seemed to state that the only appropriate discussion of feminist concerns was in private or confined to private meetings with priesthood leaders.…
Nephi’s Strategy
Consider the structure of 1 Nephi 1:
It always starts with a book
When the Lord wants to ‘refresh’ the gospel, He brings forth a book, it seems. The Restoration was triggered with the Book of Mormon, for the Reformation the first printing of the bible in German was indispensable and Christianity became something else than a Jewish sect the moment Paul’s letters and the early gospels came together as the core of what later would become the New Testament. We as LDS are a Religion of the Books, and that plural irks our fellow Christians to no end: it should be one Book. However, if they would read their own Book well, i.c. the Old Testament, listening to its ‘third voice’ – what it meant to the people for whom the book was produced, focusing on the authors – they would recognize that the appearance of a new book inside a scriptural tradition is not new at all. On the contrary, it is very old, as it is the way the Lord appears to work. We read about it in our Sunday School class, but there the gist of the story is muted. The year is about 622 BC, the city is Jerusalem, and the hero of the tale is Josiah, king of Judah. The small kingdom is in dire straits; its larger brother-state Israel has been demolished in 720 BC by the Assyrians, and the young king has managed to keep the mini-kingdom afloat by turning away the Assyrians with great…
A House of Order? Serious Problems of Notice in Kate Kelly Excommunication
The disciplinary council for Sister Kate Kelly met yesterday. Today, the council announced that they had decided to excommunicate her, for “conduct contrary to the laws and order of the Church.” This result is very troubling. I have serious doubts about the substantive result here. I will set them aside for this post and instead focus on an important procedural matter: Sister Kelly was never informed that she was to be tried for “conduct contrary to the laws and order of the Church,” was never given a chance to defend herself from that charge, and was ultimately excommunicated for an offense to which she had no way of responding. This is astounding. As noted on her website and in the media, Sister Kelly was informed by e-mail, on June 8th, that the bishopric was considering church discipline “on grounds of apostasy.” In response, she submitted a letter explaining that she had not committed apostasy. This was necessary as the court was scheduled after she had left the state, so she could not attend in person. In addition, Nadine Hansen wrote an excellent brief, examining the question in detail and concluding that Sister Kelly did not commit “apostasy” as defined in the church handbook. The brief may have been persuasive, since the bishopric did not in fact find Sister Kelly guilty of apostasy. However, they ruled that she should be excommunicated for “conduct contrary to the laws and order of the…
Why is the Church Handbook of Instructions not Public?
I don’t know the answer to this question. Let me suggest some possibilities: Perhaps the Brethren are worried that publishing the Handbook will encourage people to treat it as a legal text. There are two possible problems with this. It might then encourage people to use deviation from the Handbook to attack priesthood leaders, when the Handbook is merely intended to orient them in particular ways not necessarily limit their ability to deviate. Alternatively, treating the Handbook as a legal text might discourage members from approaching issues prayerfully and flexibly rather than legalistically. By keeping it private, the thinking might go, we limit its public authority as a text and thus limit legalism. The problem, it seems to me, is that it tends to function as a legal text anyway, just a problematic one because it is not public. Perhaps the Brethren are worried that the deep secrets of the Church will be revealed if the Handbook is made public and deeply embarrassing things will come to light. The problem with this is that there just isn’t anything particularly scandalous in the Handbook. I’ve read it. There’s no deep secrets in it. Furthermore, copies of it are available in various research libraries — including BYU Special Collections — to say nothing of the Internet. If it contains deep secrets they are already out of the bag. Remember all of those breathless investigative reports in the NYT exposing the way that…
Knocking With My Sisters
One of my most recent posts was an attempt to honestly explore (or at least ask) the question: “How do faithful members collectively petition our prophets to petition the heavens?” The scriptures and the early days of our church are replete with faith-inspiring examples. How do we do it now that we’re millions strong? The answer – as the events of the last two weeks have thrown in dramatic relief – is that we don’t have one.[1] Many others have noted the fact of Kate Kelly’s disciplinary council arising from (as many think) her aggressive tactics courting media and engaging non-Mormons on this issue. She has done so (many think) because it’s the only way she was able to actually engage Church leadership. Again, if staying quiet or staying local is not a practically effective means of knocking (and it’s not), and if going public is effective but off-limits (as tonight’s council seems to say), then how do we collectively knock and gain further light on these huge issues? We do not have an institutional answer. I don’t know if tonight’s vigil was an answer, or if it will ultimately become a kind of solution to our current institutional lack, but it was beautiful. And it was beautifully Mormon. We collectively gathered – an incredibly diverse mix of folks, a poster event of “Big Tent” Mormonism – on the lawn outside of the stake center where Kate Kelly’s membership was being reviewed. Like…
Some Thoughts on Church Courts
Karen Hall has an interesting post on church courts that’s worth reading. Her basic point is that church courts fail to comply with some rule of law norms. I would quibble with some of her points. For example I think she slips from the idea of rule of law to the narrower idea of an adversarial judicial process involving juries. Most of the world, however, uses the civil law system which has no juries and uses an inquisitorial rather than adversarial structure. (I do not mean inquisitorial to be pejorative. It simply means a system where the judge actively inquires into the case rather than passively judging a contest.) Still, I think that she makes some valid points about how procedures might be improved. In some important ways, however, I think it misses some key issues. The kind of process Karen lauds serves two functions. First, it generates legitimacy for judicial outcomes. Second, it improves the quality of judicial determinations. In the context of church courts, however, I am not convinced that greater due process of the kind that Karen calls for would do either. First, for most Latter-day Saints, the legitimacy of church courts arises from the belief that the decision makers are guided by revelation and motivated by love and concern. Furthermore, because much of the structure of the church judiciary comes from canonized revelations, its legitimacy also flows from the idea that the system has a divine…
Scriptural Meanderings
Last week I started reading the Book of Mormon again from the beginning. The first day, I made it through 1 Nephi 1. The second day, I made it through 1 Nephi 2:1. For behold, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto my father, yea, even in a dream, and said unto him: Blessed art thou Lehi, because of the things which thou hast done; and because thou hast been faithful and declared unto this people the things which I commanded thee, behold, they seek to take away thy life (1 Nephi 2:1) “Behold,” says The Lord, “They seek to take away thy life.” This phrase really stuck out to me. It’s not like the Lord is likely telling Lehi anything that he doesn’t already know, is he? After all, this is how Nephi ended the last chapter: And when the Jews heard these things they were angry with him; yea, even as with the prophets of old, whom they had cast out, and stoned, and slain; and they also sought his life, that they might take it away. (1 Nephi 1:20) Then again, Nephi is writing this retrospectively. He wasn’t there (as far as we know) while his father preached to see the crowd’s reaction. Or even if there really was much of a crowd. By the time he writes these words, he has faced the deadly violence of his brothers on more than one occasion, but…
Mormon Theology Seminar Conference
For anyone in or near London this Friday:
Literary Worship: Eve
Two of the most inspiring parts of life to me are seeing new places and learning new things. So it’s no surprise that I’ve long been fascinated with the story of Eve, the woman who lived in Paradise and gave it up to see and experience things she could never have imagined, and learn things that would change her forever. The traditional religious line has been to condemn Eve for her fateful choice and blame her for the evils of our fallen world. But as Mormons, we think differently. As Orson F. Whitney described it, the Fall was a fall forward as well as a fall downward. It was a difficult choice, but a good one, and to Eve we owe the gift of our own ability to discern and choose between good and evil. Imagine her in Paradise, surrounded by every beautiful and needful thing, happy and contented in her perfect life. And yet wanting more. I think I’ve felt a similar sensation walking into the streets of a new city in a foreign land, or when the wind changes in autumn, or standing on the rim of the endless ocean–the feeling that there is something more, and the urge to know it, to experience it, to become it. In this poem, I tried to capture that moment of decision, and the sudden thrill of stepping into the unknown with only her inner voice to tell her it was…
Priors
In statistics, a popular approach is to think of the statistician as having a set of views (“priors” or “prior distributions”) that are based on past evidence and when new evidence comes in, one integrates that information in and forms a new set of beliefs (“update your priors”). So, for example, if I think I am brilliant in math, a series of poor math test grades even after studying might convince me to reassess that belief. Alternately, I could stick with my priors and treat the new evidence as flawed or not informative because I am mad or upset. This is especially applicable on days when new, perhaps startling or emotional, information comes out and everyone, or at least a bunch of bloggers, jump in to say what they think is really going on. In many cases I think they are largely working off their priors, rather than off the new information. In light of that, it is often best to avoid making strong claims about who did what and why when so little is known. One should not presume motives are fully understood when there may have simply been a miscommunication or just standard human error. One should be charitable when filling in the blanks. Especially when most things are blanks.
Will No One Rid Me of This Turbulent Priest?
“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” According to popular tradition, this is the line that King Henry II blurted out after repeated disagreements with Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. (There are several variations, such as “who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?”) Four of Henry’s knights interpreted this as a royal command and set off for Canterbury, where they slew Becket while he prayed at the altar. How should we understand the knights’ actions? Should we view them as following orders, or as acting on their own initiative? There are multiple possible interpretations. For instance, if we take an approach that “whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same,” we might attribute the knights’ actions to Henry, whose actions set the events in motion. However, an official press release states that all decisions were made by local knights and not directed or coordinated by King Henry. And who are we to question an official press release? == EDIT: A few folks have asked for clarification. So, let’s clarify what I’m saying, and not saying, in this post. First, as hopefully an obvious point, I don’t think that church leaders are murderers. I’m making a historical comparison to elements of the history of Henry, but that doesn’t include the entire history. We can (and regularly do) compare people with historical figures without including all aspects of the figure in…
Mourning with those that mourn
Job 1: 20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, 21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. 22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. Job 2: 11 ¶Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. 12 And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. 13 So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great. I do not have or expect answers. I acknowledge and feel the tragedy and sit in silence – for the grief is very great.
He was naked, and not ashamed
I leaned into the aisle and looked back. And all the way at the back of the chapel, I saw my 3 year old strolling down the aisle, wearing nothing but a Curious George t-shirt and his glory be.