Category: Latter-day Saint Thought
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A Review: Seven Visions: Images of Christ in the Doctrine and Covenants
The recently-published book Seven Visions: Images of Christ in the Doctrine and Covenants by Adam S. Miller and Rosalynde F. Welch is a fantastic opportunity to listen in on a conversation between two brilliant theological minds as they explore seven different sections of the Doctrine and Covenants with a Christological focus. The book is structured as…
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CFM 3/3-3/9: Poetry for “Learn of Me”
It might seem strange that the title of a lesson based on D&C 19, apparently written as Martin Harris struggled with wether to mortgage his farm to pay for the publication of the Book of Mormon, should be titled “Learn of Me.” But D&C 19 doesn’t talk about mortgages or farms, and the more I…
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When Religions Rebrand: The Community of Christ and the Nation of Islam
What happens when a leader of a faith does not actually believe in its founding precepts? Presumably this kind of situation would be rare, but 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…
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Annotated Doctrine and Covenants, 10 – 19
Continuing my series of annotated and formatted text of the Doctrine and Covenants, here are D&C 10 – D&C 19. As noted before, be aware that this is still a very rough draft based on the 1921 edition (for copyright reasons). I have a lot of work to go before I plan to look into…
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It’s bad
In polite society we treat elections as an opportunity to advance our self-interest or express policy preferences, about which reasonable people can disagree. And most of the time that may be true and we’re left to choose between various imperfect options, but in this era I think the dwindling tribe of values voters has it…
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CFM 2/24-3/2: Poetry for “The Worth of Souls Is Great”
We often hear the phrase “the worth of souls,” but I’m not sure that we focus much on the values behind the idea of ‘worth.’ Much of our modern culture is concerned with how we value each individual — and especially with how the culture values us. Are we getting a fair shake? Are we…
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CFM 2/17-2/23: Poetry for “Upon You My Fellow Servants”
I sometimes think that when we consider the visit of John the Baptist to Joseph and Oliver (the main event discussed in this lesson), we focus on the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood, but leave out the restoration of the ordinance of baptism. Yes, the ordinance can’t be performed without the priesthood, but then I…
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Tidbits from Early Church Primary Sources: John Corrill’s A Brief History of the Church of Christ and John Whitmer’s History
A series I am going to occasionally come back to on my takes on early Church primary sources that I’m reading. We have a tendency to only read secondary takes, whether a talk, book, or commonly shared anecdote, but there are often insights buried in the primary sources that don’t make it into the collective…
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Annotated Doctrine and Covenants, 1 – 9
I mentioned previously that 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…
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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…