Category: Latter-day Saint Thought
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The Apostasy and Greek Philosophy: Introduction
So I’ve posted related to this topic, but I was thinking of putting up a few posts on this larger theme of Greek philosophy corrupting early Christianity. Like I said in this video, that was a common Protestant idea going back to the 1600s, very prominent in Smith’s day, and was even in a book…
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CFM 2/10-2/16: Poetry for “That You May Come Off Conqueror”
While the sections in this lesson address what to do after the loss of the 116 pages and what Hyrum Smith should do, elements of these sections and the lesson have a triumphalist element, pointing out that the Lord’s plans will not be thwarted because of opposition. However, this should not be read as some…
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“We are willing to receive all truth, from whatever source it may come”
“We believe in all truth, no matter to what subject it may refer…. We are willing to receive all truth, from whatever source it may come.” Joseph F. Smith, April Conference 1909. [1] As I see it, whatever was influencing JS was “true” if we believe Joseph Smith’s revelations were true.
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Amish and Haredi Family Sizes
I’ve written about the implications of highly fertile, highly religious groups such as the Amish and Haredi Jewish community before. While Latter-day Saint fertility is higher than average, it’s not even close to those levels, and probably won’t ever be unless we revert back to Haredi-levels of communal insularity (or reinstate polygamy), which is a…
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Joseph Smith, Plato, and the Apostasy
At a conference and later book that Jonathan and I both contributed to, Terryl Givens noted the Mormon notion of restoration was quite different than Protestants. Givens quoted Parley Pratt, “We can never understand precisely what is meant by restoration, unless we understand what is lost or taken away.” “The problems seen by other restorationists,”…
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Lost books, golden plates, and Mosaic authorship
Call it an archetype, call it folklore. Whatever you call it, the idea of finding something fantastical in an old book in a library, or in a book hidden away centuries ago, is one of those things that rattles around in our minds and has been rattling around our culture for centuries if not millennia:…
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When Religions Rebrand: The Community of Christ and the Nation of Islam
I recently finished reading a history of the Nation of Islam, and was struck by the parallels and sometimes contrasts between its recent history and that of the Community of Christ. In both cases you had a faith that was an eclectic variation on a mainstream tradition–for the Community of Christ Christianity, and for…
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CFM 2/3-2/9: Poetry for “This Is the Spirit of Revelation”
The restoration of the gospel can be seen as having two different aspects: the personal and the communitarian. While the First Vision is seen as indicating which Church to join, it is also a personal interaction between a 14-year-old boy and his God. Subsequent events in the restoration can also be seen in the same…
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Questions about Bishop Budde’s Remarks
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC has received a lot of attention for her remarks earlier this week at a prayer breakfast attended by the new occupant of the White House, which also drew a demand for her to apologize. The controversy raises a number of questions, I think, especially if…
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When is it Okay to Criticize Another Faith?
David Miscavige, the leader of Scientology Is it ever okay to criticize a faith? One can think of extreme situations that we can all agree on. The Aum Shinrikyo New Religious Movement (like most religion scholars, I bristle at the use of the term “cult,” since it disparages religions just for being small and new,…
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The Relief Society is Not the Oldest Women’s Organization in the World
It’s an old adage in Latter-day Saint circles that the Relief Society is the “oldest women’s organization in the world.” To be fair, I searched around briefly and could not find any current Church reference to it being the oldest, just “one of the oldest,” although I did find some speculation that it was the oldest.…
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Textual changes in Joseph Smith—History
My big project for the year associated with Come, Follow Me is working on an annotated Doctrine and Covenants and closely related content. For this part of the project, I am going through the assigned reading each week and comparing every major edition of the text that I can find (including those available through the Joseph…
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“But What Is Contained in the Bible”
“I sup[pose] I am not all[ow]d to go into investing[atio]n but what is cont[aine]d in the Bible & I think is so many wise men who wo[ul]d put me to death for treason,” Joseph Smith declared in the King Follett Sermon.[1] Smith then went onto make a claim about the first phrase in Genesis, a…
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A Latter-day Saint on Joe Rogan?
Joe Rogan is one of the top if not the top podcaster in the world today. He commands a huge audience. In the same way that being on Johnny Carson back in the day could make a career, so too is a spot on Rogan considered a golden ticket, especially in the comedy world. He…
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Controversial Scholarship, Audience, and Red Lines
No doubt SOME found the posts unwelcome in challenging a historical theology central to belief. That’s totally understandable, and I’m guessing that attitude would fit the vast majority of active members. A similar percentage would likely find debates over controversial topics in Mormon history unwelcome. Lots aren’t interested in delving in.
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On the inefficacy of Zoom sacraments: a note on media and religious history
A telling aspect of the Restoration is what the golden plates couldn’t do.
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OT Epistemology
Reading Stephen’s Old Testament posts I found them interesting but tended to come back to how to think about certainty. I started writing a comment but once I hit 500 words I figured it made more sense to just write a separate post. Start with a general observation: the claim “in the field of x,…
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OT Historicity 4: “Standard Views”
Before I move on, I’m feeling like we’re getting a little confused over a few issues. 1) Claiming that the more “standard views” of the books I’ve mentioned are somehow novel or unsupported. 2) That I’m somehow going out on a limb by presenting such views as “pretty standard.” 3) That I’m doing something edgy…
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It is Okay for the Church to Defend Itself
A Public Square Magazine article has been making the rounds about the history behind the Church being caught flat-footed in responding to probably the most influential piece of anti-Mormon literature of the 2010s. Not that people in the Church ecosystem didn’t have good responses, but at the time it hit the traditional institution on whom…
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OT Historicity 3: Elephantine
Okay I want to get to my bigger point about how I think Greek stuff is good, and how they developed very good stuff in line with Mormonism. But first I want to do a few more posts on OT historicity because I think it’s interesting. One of the biggest issues related when the Pentateuch…
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Old Testament Historicity 2: Differences with the Pentateuch
So as I went over my notes on the two books I wanted to discuss, I noticed that it would be good refer to a trend they both mention: that the books after the Pentateuch in the OT, especially the history books, don’t seem to know about the Pentateuch. My apologies if this is well…
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It’s not about the Christmas trees
For the last several weeks, Syria has been a rare and unlikely bright spot in a grim world.
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Early Christians, Female Ordination, “The Same Organization That Existed in the Primitive Church,” and Current Offices
The 6th Article of Faith can be interpreted along a continuum. On one extreme you might have a super strict interpretation that holds that Jesus had deacons, teachers, priests, and elders quorums, the whole bit, and on the other side, which I’m more partial to, is that Article of Faith 6 is true in a…
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Chad Nielsen’s Favorite Reads, 2024 edition
As I did last year, in case it’s of use to anyone, I’ve prepared a list of my top 10 books that I’ve read this last year. (That can include books that were not published within the last year, though the majority of them were published in 2023 or 2024). Also, since I published 25…
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Old Testament Historicity, Introduction
So, yes, I did want to repost this one as well, but frame it a little differently than how I had originally. This continues a series where I argue that Joseph Smith’s perennialism, I think, allows for greater flexibility to deal with biblical scholarship that seems to be increasingly calling lots of the OT historicity…
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“I Shall Speak unto All Nations, and They Shall Write It”
Forgive me for reposting this, but I wanted to have this up on the blog so that I could refer to it in future posts. So here I’m continuing my posts arguing that Joseph Smith was onto something in embracing the ancient theology, or larger truth in addition to the Bible. While the Bible in…
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Loud Laughter, Reality, and Gallows Humor
One of the more curious aspects of the temple ceremony was the charge to avoid “loud laughter.” [Note, I originally spoke in the present tense, but evidently it has been removed–with all the recent changes I somehow missed that]. It’s like only eating meat during the winter, one of those things that was indisputably, canonically…
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Crashed website, lost content
A brief PSA: the blog was having problems so we reset it and lost some content, so apologies to everybody who spent the time to comment only to have it be lost in the memory hole.
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Jesus Christ as a Literary Subject
The Ascension Lately I’ve dipped into literary depictions of the Savior’s life. Unsurprisingly given the subject matter, historically responses to literary depictions of the Savior have been quite polarizing, and sometimes controversial. For example, evidently The Man Born to Be King, an early, relatively milquetoast (by today’s standards) radio depiction of the Savior’s life, was…
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Resources for Come, Follow Me, 2025
Four years ago, I brought up resources to assist in study of the Doctrine and Covenants. There were some significant books that were mentioned, but not as many as I had assumed there would be. That launched me on a path that has led to my book, Fragments of Revelation: Exploring the Book of Doctrine…