Charles Darwin’s niece once told her son (the famed British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams) that: “The Bible says that God made the world in six days, Great Uncle Charles thinks it took longer: but we need not worry about it, for it is equally wonderful either way.”[1] While it is wonderful either way, since the early 20th century, what scientists have come to understand through their studies of evolution has become increasingly important to people to discuss in terms of understanding religion and creation. Literal readings of the Bible and the histories presented in Genesis underly the idea that organic evolution is not compatible with Judeo-Christianity. And, for better or worse, a literal understanding of Biblical narratives is a part of the Latter-day Saint tradition, influencing the translations and revelations that Joseph Smith produced. Yet, as the best understanding of the process by which life as we know it was created based on the evidence found in the world around us, evolution is difficult to dismiss. The doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has both features that help with the acceptance of evolution and concepts that make it difficult to embrace the scientific theory—perhaps most notably the concept of a literal Adam. In an 1838 editorial written as a series of questions and answers with Joseph Smith, the Prophet remarked that: “We are the only people under heaven” that believe the Bible, adding that Latter-day Saints…
Category: General Doctrine
“Concerning the building of mine house”
The temples of the early Latter Day Saint movement were a place where several strands of Joseph Smith’s theology and doctrine were braided together. In the summer of 1833 (in the revelations we are studying this week for “Come, Follow Me”), we can see that braiding happening. Referencing some major topics we’ve already discussed this year, we can see the idea of beholding the face of God, an endowment of power from on high, preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus the Christ, the Zion project, and some practical functions of the temples (in connection with building Zion). Each of these had become a component of how the House of the Lord in Kirtland and Zion were meant to operate. The endowment of power from on high was one area of particular concern to the early Saints. They had been promised in early 1831 that when they relocated to Kirtland, Ohio, they would be blessed with the law and an endowment of power akin to the one that the early Christians received on the day of Pentecost.[1] The law was given in a series of revelations that spring, but the endowment of power proved more elusive. Ordination to the high priesthood at a conference in 1831 and the meetings of the School of the Prophets functioned as earlier endowments of power, but the Saints continued to look forward to the construction of the House of the Lord as a place…
“That you may understand and know”
“The world is changed. … Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it. … And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the [true Gospel] passed out of all knowledge. Until, when chance came, it ensnared another bearer.” While not the same, the overall character of the opening monologue for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings is compatible with the Latter-day Saint view of the Great Apostasy. It was, after all, a time of loss and change. As B. H. Roberts summarized: “The time came when through a combination of circumstances—through the bitter and relentless persecutions which came upon the early Christians, both from the heathens and from the Jews, by which persecution, continuing through three long centuries, the servants of God were slain,” leading to a time when individuals did “engraft upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ heathen notions of God, and accepted part of the heathen mythology and blended this with fragments of Christian truth still held by them, until the plain and simple Gospel, as delivered to the people by Jesus and the Apostles, lost all semblance of its former self.”[1] As a result, “nothing remained but fragments of the gospel; here a doctrine and there a principle, like single stones fallen and rolled away from the ruined wall; but no one able to tell…
“A word of wisdom for the benefit of the Saints”
One of the paradoxes about the Word of Wisdom is that the name (drawn from the opening line of the text from the 27 February 1833 revelation) indicates that it is good advice while it’s treated as a commandment in the Church today. I’ve discussed this in detail in the past, so I’ll leave the full subject to that treatment as well as the historians of the Joseph Smith Papers Project, but the short version is that it’s not clear when the revelation became a commandment for members of the Church. It may have been intended as a commandment all along, it may have been accepted as a commandment by Church membership in general conference in the past, or it may have become a commandment at the time it began to be enforced as part of temple recommend interviews. The interesting part of the history is that all three of these versions of commandment-ification are rooted in the others. The Word of Wisdom began to be enforced during the early 20th century because Church leaders believed that it had become a commandment in the time of President Brigham Young, mostly pointing to a vote at a conference in 1851.[1] That vote was used to legitimize the belief that the Word of Wisdom had been declared to be in force as a commandment to Latter-day Saints as it became a requirement for temple recommends in the early 20th century. Yet, when…
“This is the light of Christ“
As one of Joseph Smith’s largest revelations, Doctrine and Covenants, Section 88 (or, as Joseph Smith called it, “the Olieve leaf which we have plucked from the tree of Paradise”) has a lot of different talking points. As historian Richard Lyman Bushman wrote: “Nothing in nineteenth-century literature resembles it. … The ‘Olive Leaf’ runs from the cosmological to the practical, from a description of angels blowing their trumpets to instructions for starting a school. Yet the pieces blend together into a cohesive compound of cosmology and eschatology united by the attempt to link the quotidian world of the now to the world beyond.”[1] The majority of this Olive Leaf revelation was recorded on 27-28 December 1832, with the end section being recorded as a separate revelation on 3 January 1833 that became so closely associated with the December revelation that they were eventually combined into one document. Among the topics that moved beyond the mundane world of the now is a metaphysical discussion towards the beginning of the December revelation about Jesus the Christ and light. This portion that discusses Jesus and light has given rise to the idea of an interesting entity in Latter-day Saint through—the light of Christ or Spirit of Christ. The revelation states that: “I now send upon you another comfortor, even upon you my friends; that it may abide in your hearts, even the holy spirit of promise. … This comfortor is the promise which I give unto…
“Bodies Terestrial and not bodies Celestial”
As I was working on my previous post, I had a thought I wanted to explore, but not enough space there: If we believe in eternal progression but also want to argue that there are limits to upward mobility in the eternities, we run into the question—why? Why wouldn’t it be possible to continue repenting and progressing after resurrection and judgement? While there’s a lot of potential answers (God said so, lower motivation to work on things in this life, etc.), one of the more interesting answers from Church leaders caught my attention as something to ponder. That answer was that the bodies we are resurrected with determine the level of glory in which we can dwell. During his efforts to state that God doesn’t believe in opportunities for second chances in the afterlife, Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught that: The true doctrine is that all men will be resurrected, but they will come forth in the resurrection with different kinds of bodies—some celestial, others terrestrial, others telestial, and some with bodies incapable of standing any degree of glory. The body we receive in the resurrection determines the glory we receive in the kingdoms that are prepared.[1] Thus, according to him, the type of body you receive at resurrection determines which kingdom you’re locked into forever. In teaching this doctrine, McConkie draws on the language of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. In that epistle, Paul discusses the resurrection and states…
“They cannot come worlds without end”
One of the methods that paleontologists use to understand the age of a fossil in relation to other fossils at a site is by looking at layers, or strata. The basic idea is that layers build up over time, with organisms becoming part of the sediment layers as the organisms die and get buried while the sediments continue to build up, then become fossilized over time. Since layers build upwards, older layers will generally be found lower in the strata levels, with the newer layers being superimposed on top. Thus, each layer provides a snapshot of what was living (and dying) at a given time period, with fossils found deeper in the layers coming from earlier periods and fossils found higher in the layers coming from more recent eras.[1] A question that become important in interpreting Joseph Smith’s revelations is whether we can approach studying the ideas presented in them in a similar way—with each revelation functioning as a fossilized snapshot of a dynamic and evolving theology—or whether every revelation should be treated as an individual presentation of a unified, unchanging theology. A doctrinal debate in the Church that is heavily impacted by which route you take in interpreting Joseph Smith’s revelations is the idea of progression from kingdom to kingdom in the afterlife. In other words, after resurrection and judgement, can individuals who were assigned to the Telestial Kingdom continue to progress and repent to the point that they…
“When moved upon by the Holy Ghost”
At this point in the year, we’ve finally caught back up with the context of where we began—Section 1. The conference in early November 1831 (at which Sections 1, 67 and 68 were recorded) was focused on publishing the revelations that Joseph Smith had been—a project which would come to be known as the Book of Commandments and later The Doctrine and Covenants. It is, perhaps, inevitable in a religious movement that believes in both being led by prophets and that everyone can receive revelation that there are going to be tensions about who is able to speak for the Lord. From a revelation sparked by the Hiram Page incident in September 1830, we have the statement that: “No one shall be appointed to Receive commandments & Revelations in this Church excepting my Servent Joseph for he Receiveth them even as Moses.”[1] This placed the burden of receiving revelations for the Church squarely on the shoulders of Joseph Smith as the prophet of the Church. At the November 1831 conference, however, members of the Church expressed concerns about whether the revelations were the Lord’s words or whether they were Joseph Smith’s words. Section 67 issued the challenge to “appoint him that is the most wise among you or if there be any among you that shall make one like unto it then ye are Justified in saying that ye do not know that is true” as a way to rebut those concerns.[2] Section…
Lit Come Follow Me: Easter
While no Come Follow Me lesson will be taught at church this coming Sunday, there is a lesson in the manual, meant for home study. So, I’m providing some poems to go with that lesson, which focuses on three aspects of the mission of Jesus Christ: that he was resurrected (i.e., He Lives), that because of him we will all be resurrected, and His atonement. Of course, these are not strange concepts in our poetry; they appear many times in our hymnal alone. So I’m presenting a few poems that are less familiar.
“The gathering of mine Elect”
Change and continuity create an interesting tension in the Church. I explored this in a previous post as the tension of believing in an everlasting, unchanging gospel that we have had restored to us and the belief in ongoing revelation and changes to adapt and evolve the Church to our current circumstances. Changes can be disconcerting with the first of those two beliefs in mind because it demonstrates that the Church’s beliefs and practices are not unchanging and static. One of the ways we minimize the perception of change, however, is to continue to use terminology that was important—words and phrases that were previously used—but to collectively change what we mean when we use that terminology. The concept of gathering the Elect to Zion is a case study in the process of shifting use of terminology. The September 1830 revelation that we are studying this week (now Section 29) demonstrates how gathering was understood in the earliest days of the Church. The revelation opens with an announcement that Jesus Christ “will gether his People even as a hen gethereth her Chickens under her wings even as many as will hearken to my voice & humble themselves before me & call upon me in mighty prayer.” It discusses missionary work and prayer, then states that the elders the revelation is addressing “are called to bring to pass the gethering of mine Elect … wherefore the decree hath gone forth from the father that they shall be gethered in…
“For he Receiveth them even as Moses”
Several years ago, I had a conversation with co-worker from outside of Utah about various Mormon churches that existed in Utah. He had been doing some research and we were discussing fundamentalist Latter-day Saint groups (ones like the FLDS or the Apostolic United Brethren that promote polygamy and other doctrines from the early Utah era) when he made the remark that those groups had stayed more true to early Mormonism. I paused for a moment, then explained that it depended on how you looked at it. They had stayed true to specific beliefs and practices from the Church from that time, while we had stayed true to others—with accepting revelations from the prophets who lead the Church (such as the one that led to the end of plural marriage) being one of the key points that our religion valued over staying the same in belief and practice. In a way, it could be said that there is a paradox at the heart of our religion that causes the tension displayed in that conversation—the belief in a restoration that has recreated the primitive Church of Christ, and the belief in ongoing revelation that leads to changes from time to time. On the one hand, we have the concept of a restoration, which leads to conservatism in how we view our religion. The term restoration, at its heart, means a return to a former condition—a recovery, a re-establishment, or a renewal of…
“All things shall be done by common consent”
Within the corpus of J. Golden Kimball folklore, there is a story of Elder Kimball getting bored during a long process of sustaining officers at a stake conference somewhere south of Provo, Utah. Noticing that most of the congregation was nodding off or had fallen asleep while mechanically raising their hands for every name read, he continued in his usual voice, stating: “It is proposed that Mount Nebo be moved into Utah Lake, all in favor manifest by the usual sign.” The majority of the people raised their hands. Then, Elder Kimball paused, looked around, and screeched in his magpie voice: “Just how in the hell do you people propose we get Mount Nebo into Utah Lake?” I enjoy the story because it does highlight some interesting things about the nature of sustaining votes in Latter-day Saint culture. By raising our hands to sustain officers or policies in conferences in the Church, we fulfil the instructions found in the July 1830 revelation (now Section 26) that “all things shall be done by common consent in the Church by much prayer & faith.”[1] At this point in our history, however, these sustaining votes are largely perfunctory and a manner of routine rather than truly seeking common consent among Church members, hence the boredom and subsequent trickery during the stake conference with Elder Kimball. In a way, that seems to have to do with a shift in the way we understand the…
“It is expedient that the church meet together often to partake of bread and wine”
If the Book of Moroni is an instruction manual to “build a church,” as Michael Austin suggests, with the “nuts-and-bolts how-to-run-a-church stuff that anybody trying to reassemble what the Nephites built will need to know,”[1] then Doctrine and Covenants Section 20 represents an effort to take that manual, adapt it and expand on it for the restored Church of Christ. Known as the Articles and Covenants, the section is something like a charter for the Church in the early 1830s, capturing how to function as a church and the basic information about the Church (with occasional updates up to the time of publishing the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835). Want to know the Church’s history? Read verses 1-12. Core doctrines and beliefs? Read verses 13-36. Requirements for baptism? Go to verse 37. Basic ecclesiastical offices, their functions and how to be ordained? See verses 38-67. Expectations for church members after joining? Verses 68-71. How to perform core ordinances? Read verses 72-79. How to handle inter-congregational gatherings and Church discipline? See verses 80-84. Several key sections in Section 20 are drawn from Moroni’s writings, including, notably, the sacrament prayers. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and the way we approach those sacrament prayers in Section 20 (and Moroni) has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. When gatherings of church members were suspended worldwide on 12 March 2020, instructions were given that “bishops should counsel with their stake presidents to determine how…
“It is not written, that there shall be no end to this torment”
Years ago, I attended a testimony meeting that began with a counselor in the bishopric talking about how grateful he was to be a part of a religion where believed that God was full of grace and would save almost every individual in one degree of glory or another. He quoted from the Vision in Section 76, and discussed how all but a very few would be saved in the Telestial, Terrestrial, or Celestial Kingdom and how grateful he was that God loved His children enough to make a plan that allows pretty much everyone into heaven in some form. What was interesting was what followed—the bulk of the remainder of the testimony meeting was dominated by adults in the ward getting up and rebutting his testimony by “clarifying” that being in a place outside of the top tier of the Celestial Kingdom is still damnation, so we need to work hard to gain eternal life instead of believing that we will have it good in the end, no matter what. In a way, that meeting captured the complicated relationship Latter-day Saints have with universalism. Joseph Smith lived in a context where Universalism was a major part of the religious discussion. Universalists argued that God is a benevolent and generous being whose attributes of love and justice were incompatible with widespread condemnation and permanent torment. They also held that God would not allow Himself to be defeated by Satan and…
“I will establish my church”
Doctrine and Covenants Section 10 is interesting in its discussion of the Lord’s church because it seems to use the term in two different ways. One definition is the institution that we’re most likely to think of when we hear the term—the one we call Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The second is what has been loosely termed the “church without walls” or the “invisible church”—the collective group of people who are in tune with the Holy Spirit and do God’s work in the world. Both definitions are important to understand and think about in our relationship to the world today. The first definition to be brought up is the institutional Church of Christ that would be established in April 1830. The revelation paraphrases an earlier revelation in stating that the Lord had said: “If this generation harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them.”[1] This seems to alluding to either an unknown revelation that we don’t have today or a revelation given to Martin Harris in March 1829 about the Three Witnesses, which proclaimed that they would receive their testimony “in this the beginning of the rising up and the coming forth of my church out of the wilderness—clear as the moon, fair as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners,” and that “their testimony shall also go forth unto the condemnation of this generation if they harden their hearts against them.”[2] …
At Home with Nothing to do? Try a Zion Project
I am currently serving as the RS president in our ward. Basically I have spent the last almost year pining and waiting for things to get back to normal, but lately I have been thinking that maybe that is not at all what I want. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait until we can leave the house without masks and can be with people without it, you know, ending in death. But I’m also realizing, what better time to shake things up a bit? Firmly believing that if you’re going to do something you might as well do it big, and in honor of this year’s study of the Doctrine and Covenants, our Relief Society is going to put forth a concerted effort this year to create a Zion community, and we want to think outside of the box to do it. For example, many people think Zion is a place where everyone can be accepted, but it’s also a place where people are not free to hurt each other. There have to be some firm boundaries of accepted behavior. How do you see boundaries being implemented while at the same time appreciating diversity? What problematic behaviors do you think are deserving of patience and what ones cannot be tolerated under any circumstances? I have a million questions and I would love to get some ideas from you all. I would truly love to know what you picture when…
“Let God Prevail”
I share here a sacrament meeting talk I delivered recently in my St Louis congregation. I suspect there have been many other such sermons on the same topic delivered in wards around the globe over the past three months. President Nelson’s October address seems to have made a powerful impression on our people in this time of spiritual hunger. I endorse President Nelson’s message and am grateful to have reflected on it at length here. In one of the most enigmatic scenes in the Old Testament, a man stands alone on the bank of the Jordan river at midnight. The man is Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, a hard-driving trader in a hurry from the moment he was born grasping his twin brother’s heel as if to drag him back into the womb. Jacob has been on the move for many years, first leaving home to escape the wrath of his twin Esau, from whom, after the failed heel-grab, he eventually did manage to take the coveted birthright blessing. Now Jacob has fled from his father-in-law Laban, from whom he has won two daughters and much property. The Lord is calling him back to Canaan, the land of his father, and Jacob is on his way home. At the threshold of return, the Jordan river, Jacob finds himself at an impasse. His family has crossed, but Jacob himself stays behind. At his back is Laban, before him is Esau; in…
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste: title page
The first non-English Latter-day Saint work, Orson Hyde’s Ein Ruf aus der Wüste, was published in 1842 in Frankfurt. The section recounting the life of Joseph Smith and the translation of the Book of Mormon has been translated multiple times and is available at the Joseph Smith Papers Project, in Dean Jessee’s 1989 The Papers of Joseph Smith: Autobiographical and Historical Writings vol. 1, and in Dan Vogel’s Early Mormon Documents vol. 1. That leaves around 100 of the 115 total pages still untranslated. As a first step toward making this source more widely available, a translation of the title page and a few notes follow. To accompany this year’s “Come Follow Me” focus on the Doctrine and Covenants and church history, I’m planning to post additional sections in English translation as a way to look at how an early church member understood the restored gospel and presented it to others. * * * A Cry in the Wilderness, a Voice from the Bowels of the Earth. A short overview of the origin and doctrine of the church of “Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” in America, known to many by the designation: “The Mormons.” By Orson Hyde, a priest of this church. Read, reflect, pray and act! Frankfurt, 1842. Self published by the author. * * * One thing that immediately sticks out is that Ein Ruf aus der Wüste provides an early example of using the First Vision…
The Most Significant General Conference Addresses of the 2010s: A Tentative List
With the 2010s a year behind us now, I thought it might be a good time to look back at general conference in the 2010s and consider which of the talks were some of the most significant addresses given during that period. I suspect that the Gospel Topics Essays will be the most significant documents from that decade in their long-term impact on the Church, but there are still a few memorable and significant general conference talks worth discussing. Glancing through, here were some of the ones that stood out to me as significant for reinforcing, articulating, or developing the doctrine of the Church in notable ways; for the policies they announced or defended; or for the historical initiatives, moments, or controversies to which they were tied. Together, they also give us a glimpse into the history of the Church in the 2010s. Without further ado, here is my list: Todd Christofferson, “The Doctrine of Christ,” CR April 2012 This talk was likely written specifically for the “Mormon Moment” that accompanied Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign in mind as a way to deal with the fact that things Church leaders had said in the past that didn’t reflect well on the Church today were being dredged up in the news. Most memorably, we had the Randy Bott interview that discussed some of the awful rationales we used to give for the priesthood and temple ban against individuals of black African…
Pondering on Isaiah and the Abrahamic Covenant
For the past few years, I’ve tried to take some time each year to focus in on a specific subject related to the section of scriptures covered in Sunday School. Last year, for example, I tried to scratch the surface of understanding Paul in the New Testament and look at some of how scholars approach him. This year, I focused on understanding how the Isaiah texts are used within the Book of Mormon—particularly in Nephi’s writings. I shared some very preliminary thoughts from studying Isaiah in 1 Nephi earlier this year, but since then I’ve done a lot more reading and thinking. I think the most insightful book I read was Joseph Spencer’s The Vision of All, but I also enjoyed pondering on a few other books too. One issue that came up over and over in literature about Nephi’s use of Isaiah was his efforts to reaffirm the Abrahamic Covenant. Nephi does say, after all, that the “marvelous work” of the Lord in the Latter-days shall be of worth “unto the making known of the covenants of the Father of heaven unto Abraham,” while he explained his interpretation of Isaiah’s words to his brothers. He also stated that his “soul delighteth in the covenants of the Lord which he hath made to our fathers” as part of his explanation for including the large block of Isaiah text in 2 Nephi.[1] What is interesting to me, however, is that while…
President Nelson’s Favorite Topics and Statements, Part 4: The Plan of Salvation
For forty years before his call to the Quorum of the Twelve, Russel M. Nelson spent his career as a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon. One aspect of his work that had a profound impact on him was that it “brought me into contact almost daily with seriously ill patients who faced the real prospect of death.” While he saw death as a foe to fight against while he was a doctor, his later time in the ministry led him to “no longer feel that death is always that foe to be feared. Instead,” he wrote, “I view it as a potential friend to be understood.” And with that perspective, he came to feel that the Lord’s “gospel will help us to prepare for that great day of judgment. His gifts will assuage the grief of the bereaved and bring joy to those who love him. He will help them to fulfill their noblest purposes in life.”[1] With that background in mind, it’s not very surprising to find that aspects of human existence, including the purpose of life and preparation for life after death, are central topics in President Nelson’s conference addresses. This is the final post of the second part of my analysis of President Russell M. Nelson’s general conference addresses. In the overall scheme of things, this puts us here: Introductory Thoughts President Nelson’s Favorite Topics and Phrases God and Power The Church, Priesthood, and Gathering Israel Family Plan of Salvation Examining the Sources…
President Nelson’s Favorite Topics and Statements, Part 3: The Family
Throughout my time studying President Nelson’s conference addresses, I observed that one topic that he came back to over and over is families. Whether it be decrying the fragmentation of families, encouraging men to pay more attention to their wives, or offering encouragement to women who are mothers, Russell M. Nelson has had a lot to say about families over the years. In discussing this topic, this puts us here in the overall scheme of thing: Introductory Thoughts President Nelson’s Favorite Topics and Phrases God and Power The Church, Priesthood, and Gathering Israel Family Plan of Salvation Examining the Sources in President Nelson’s Talks Potential Long-Term Impact of President Nelson’s Addresses The Family Two of the most frequently repeated statements from Russell M. Nelson are focused on families. The first is: “The home is the great laboratory of love. There the raw chemicals of selfishness and greed are melded in the crucible of cooperation to yield compassionate concern and love one for another.”[1] He sees families as an important training ground for individuals to learn to love, echoing the statement attributed to the Protestant reformer Martin Luther that “marriage is the school of love.”[2] The second is that: “While salvation is an individual matter, exaltation is a family matter,”[3] with temple covenants being essential to exaltation. Together, these statements about families being essential to exaltation display a frequent focus in his talks and may be remembered as short Nelson-isms…
President Nelson’s Favorite Topics and Statements, Part 2: The Church
Last year, the Church released the guidelines by which a committee was evaluating hymns and songs for inclusion in the next hymnbook and children’s songbook and a list of topics they wanted to see more hymns about. What surprised me as I studied President Russell M. Nelson’s general conference talks was how frequently the list of topics the hymnbook committee wanted to see more hymn submissions focus on lined up with what seemed to be President Nelson’s favorite topics: “Praise and Worship”, “The Atonement of Jesus Christ”, “The Plan of Happiness”, “Gospel Learning and Revelation”, “The Family of God”, “Our Families”, “Priesthood Power and Authority”, “The Restoration of the Gospel”, “The Gathering of Israel”, “The Sabbath Day”, and “The Second Coming.”[1] Perhaps it’s coincidental, perhaps it’s just the general waters of the Church’s headquarters, but given that the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve are officially the ones compiling the new hymnbook and songbook (with input and suggestions from the committee), the fact that the initiative was announced shortly after President Nelson’s became president of the Church, and the level of interest that President Nelson has displayed towards hymns in his talks, there is a good chance that President Nelson had some input there. This is the second part of the second part of my analysis of President Russell M. Nelson’s General Conference addresses. In the previous post, I discussed some of the more Godhead-focused topics of interest in…
President Nelson’s Favorite Topics and Statements, Part 1: God and Power
This is the beginning of the second part of my analysis of President Russell M. Nelson’s general conference talks, focusing on his favorite topics and statements. In looking at what President Nelson talks about, I tried to take a few approaches to understand his favorite topics objectively. Approaches included word count analysis of his talks and the titles of his talks, noting topics that come up frequently across his talks as I read them, looking at the focus of initiatives that have come out under his administration, and observing key phrases that come up on a repeated basis. For the sake of post size, I intend to cover these topics in a series of groups, making the overall game plan as follows: Introductory Thoughts President Nelson’s Favorite Topics and Phrases God and Power The Church, Priesthood, and Gathering Israel The Family Plan of Salvation Examining the Sources in President Nelson’s Talks Potential Long-Term Impact of President Nelson’s Addresses Today’s post will focus on his comments about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and how we can draw access their power in our lives. As for the analysis, one approach I took was to create two word clouds to identify the words that come up most frequently in President Nelson’s general conference talks and the titles of his talks. A word cloud is an image that shows words used in a text or series of texts where the words are different…
Perils on every side
Our unhappy political moment has unfortunately corrected a longstanding asymmetry in ideologically-driven exit options.
Reconsidering the Curse of Ham
In a candid moment in January 1858, an early Church leader named Zerah Pulsipher told his family that: “Most of you are young therefore you have the advantage of me because [yo]u have less Gentile Traditions to over com[e].”[1] This is an interesting observation from Pulsipher—all of the early Church members (including leaders) were converts to the Church and they brought much of their previous beliefs and traditions with them into the Church, including many good and correct beliefs, but also some incorrect beliefs as well. In the latest volume of the official history of the Church, an example of the latter is brought up in a discussion about the position early converts to the Church that were Black, such as Jane Manning James, found themselves in. We read: “Jane … knew that white Saints generally accepted black people into the fold. Like other groups of Christians at this time, however, many white Saints wrongly viewed black people as inferior, believing that black skin was the result of God’s curse on the biblical figures Cain and Ham. … Brigham Young shared some of these views.”[2] It is significant that this Church publication brings this issue up and to state, point-blank, that the early Saints (Brigham Young included) were wrong to believe this traditional idea. Likewise, Elder Quentin L. Cook recently stated that Brigham Young “said things about race that fall short of our standards today.”[3] I have discussed one part…
Joseph Smith’s Studies and Translations
It has been a big year for volumes that discuss Joseph Smith’s translation projects, with contributions ranging from Terryl Givens and Brian Hauglid’s The Pearl of Great Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture last October, to William L. Davis’s Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon this April, to Samuel Brown’s Joseph Smith’s Translation: The Words and Worlds of Early Mormonism in May, and a few other notable works. One book in particular, however, has recently been billed as groundbreaking and potentially one of the most foundational contributions to the subject: Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity, ed. Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee and Brian M. Hauglid. The volume is a collection of chapters written by many notable scholars of Mormonism, discussing a variety of topics related to Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Book of Abraham. Recently, Kurt Manwaring sat down to interview Michael Hubbard MacKay and Mark Ashurst-McGee (two of the general editors of the book). What follows here is a co-post to that interview, a summary with quotes and commentary on the interview, but to get the full treatment, I recommend going to read the interview here. It is relatively common to describe Joseph Smith’s translations as being revelations. For example, at the most recent general conference, Elder Ulisses Soares stated that the Book of Mormon “was…
Reconsidering the Curse of Cain
Eugene England once shared an experience he had with the prominent Latter-day Saint Church leader, scriptorian, and doctrinaire Joseph Fielding Smith. President Smith had written extensively on the subject of the priesthood and temple ban against individuals of black African ancestry, offering rationales for the ban that have since been disavowed by the Church. During that time, England sought out the opportunity to meet with President Smith and recorded that: I told President Smith about my experiences with the issue of blacks and the priesthood and asked him whether I must believe in the pre-existence doctrine to have good standing in the Church. His answer was, “Yes, because that is the teaching of the Scriptures.” I asked President Smith if he would show me the teaching in the Scriptures (with some trepidation, because I was convinced that if anyone in the world could show me he could). He read over with me the modern scriptural sources and then, after some reflection, said something to me that fully revealed the formidable integrity which characterized his whole life: “No, you do not have to believe that Negroes are denied the priesthood because of the pre-existence. I have always assumed that because it was what I was taught, and it made sense, but you don’t have to to be in good standing because it is not definitely stated in the scriptures. And I have received no revelation on the matter.”[1] The story is…
It Matters Why the Church is Pro-Life
Edited with author’s note on the comments at end of post. Abortion is a hot-button issue. Maybe the hot-button issue. That’s why–after finishing a draft of this post in November of 2019–I sat on it for almost a year. I’ve rewritten it and am posting it because I’ve realized it’s important to understand not only the what of the Church’s position, but also the why. This is tough, since the Church has a publicly available policy on abortion but no single, authoritative theological rationale for the policy. This provides a certain amount of leeway in interpreting and applying the Church’s policy, although not nearly as much as some Latter-day Saints would like to believe. Let’s begin with the Church’s official position on abortion: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes in the sanctity of human life. Therefore, the Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience, and counsels its members not to submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for such abortions. The Church allows for possible exceptions for its members when: Pregnancy results from rape or incest, or A competent physician determines that the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy, or A competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth. The Church teaches its members that even these rare exceptions do not justify abortion automatically. Abortion is a most serious…
All Are Alike Unto God
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…