Havelock Ellis said, “It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.” I think the word “obscene” here denotes not mere prurience or crudeness, but more generally the will to defy social expectations. It is in this sense that the title character in Cool Hand Luke is obscene, with his Nietzschean will to power.
When asked why life is hard, the Sunday school teachers of my youth replied, “Life is a test. It’s supposed to be hard.” The scriptures support the life-as-test perspective — a “probationary state” where we “prove” ourselves. Of course, if life is a test, then that means it’s designed to prepare us for what comes next. We test medical students on anatomy (as opposed to, say, Russian grammar) because knowing anatomy will help them after they’ve graduated. So if I can be justified in taking the life-as-test perspective seriously, perhaps I can draw some inferences about the next life by our experiences in this life. What are we being tested on here? In other words, what kinds of hardships do we experience in life, and how can they prepare us for what is to come? Here are the major ones that come to mind for me, and the ways we address them: Want — managing limited resources to meet needs effectively Contention and Loneliness — building constructive relationships through kindness, patience, wisdom, love, and effective communication Pain — learning to avoid suffering through preparation and wise decision making Ignorance — planning for the unknown future by extrapolating based on our limited knowledge and experience Emptiness and Fruitlessness — finding meaning by coming to know God, engaging in rewarding work, and living in accordance with eternal principles Confusion — understanding the world through study, experience, reflection, and analysis So if want,…
I’m sitting in my organizational management class right now. That (combined with having just finally finished Lengthen Your Stride, which opened my eyes to the challenge of managing a global organization) has got me thinking about why the church is structured the way it is. Many attributes of the church that we like to complain about here in the bloggernacle serve very useful purposes in maintaining cohesion across dozens of nations and millions of people. Here are some ponderings, none of which are grounded in anything other than my teacher’s lecturing and my own mental meanderings, so take them for what they’re worth. Why is the church conservative? I don’t mean politically conservative, but conservative in its sense of “resistant to change”. Change is risky, short-term loss with no guarantee of long-term gains. Members who disapprove of the change are more likely to leave that non-members who approve of the change are to join. It’s kind of like speaking in general conference — there’s nothing you can say that will get people to join the church, but there’s a lot you can say to get people to leave the church. In other words, people join a volunteer organization for what it is, not for what it’s not — and that means the current membership of an organization is going to tend to be satisfied with the way that organization is. (Of course, that ignores the issue of those who were…
Well known LDS political pundit Glenn Beck recently told his radio listeners that they should leave churches with the words “social justice” or “economic justice” on their websites: I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!” This overheated rhetoric has already drawn fire from Catholics and Protestants. But it’s not just Protestants and Catholics who are in trouble. In fact, if Glenn followed his own instructions, he’d be an ex-Mormon. Let’s try it out, shall we? Step one: Look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. This is easily enough accomplished with the handy search function at LDS.org. Among the results is this 1986 Ensign article by Elder James E. Faust of the Quorum of the Twelve. It very clearly contains the words economic justice — and they are described in a good way, by an apostle — and it is indeed on the church’s website: It is unfortunate that it is taking so long to bring full economic justice to women. The feminization of poverty is both real and tragic. That is why you should work very hard to prepare for your future by gaining some marketable skills. Step two, of course, is If you…
I love General Conference. And not just because I get to have Couch Church. I love everything about it. We generally spend a couple of weeks in our family revving up for the semi-annual event. We’ve found lots of ways to make General Conference memorable. I love holidays. Every single one. Even Labor Day. I love the traditions and food and fun and family and music and memories. And Easter is a holiday that is filled with good things. One of my favorites was dreamed up by my mom when I was in late elementary school. She “decorated” our house for Easter by gathering gorgeous reproductions of events in Christ’s life, mounting them carefully, and placing them around the house in sort of a timeline — after our family night lesson explaining each story. Once again this year, Easter and General Conference collide. It’s always a downer for me because a big part of Easter is the act of attending church. From what I understand, Christmas (week) and Easter are the two most attended days in Christian churches — a time when even non-regulars make the effort to show up. And even though we attend every week, it’s part of the whole feel of Easter Sunday to me. Before we broke down and bought a home satellite dish (which, completely coincidentally, happened one day before a General Conference Sunday), we sat in the chapel one Easter Sunday in Boca Raton…
Genesis 34 What was the sin of Dinah’s brothers? Was it that they took vengeance? Reread the Abrahamic covenant to see what it promises, and think about that covenant as it relates to this event. Did they violate that covenant? How does this chapter portray Jacob? Beyond the rape, what does Shechem do, through his father, that is an affront to Jacob and his sons? For an excellent discussion of this chapter, read Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative 445-475. Chapters 37-47 It is obvious that, like we who try to study and teach the large amounts of material assigned for each lesson, those who created these Sunday School lessons have struggled to deal with the amount of material to be covered. They have had to divide the story of Joseph in two, chapters 37-39 in this lesson and chapters 40-45 in lesson 12, and they have had to omit the denouement of Joseph’s story, chapters 46-47 as well Jacob’s deathbed blessing of his sons and Joseph’s death (48-50). The result forces us to focus on parts of the story and, perhaps, to overlook the story as a whole—which is likely to change our understanding of the parts. However, to understand the story of Joseph, I think that we need to read it as a whole. We can understand the story as having these parts (Word Biblical Commentary 2:344): Joseph is sold into Egypt 37:2-36 Tamar and…
Chapter Five: The Creation
I will concentrate my questions on Genesis 25:19-34 and 27:1-45, and I will add Genesis 33:1-20 to the reading because I think it rounds out the story of Genesis 27. Chapter 25 Verse 19: We expect a genealogy to follow when we are told, “these are the generations of so-and-so,” but here none follows. What meaning does the word “generations” have in this verse? Does that tell us anything about the usual meaning of genealogy? Does it add any depth to our understanding of genealogy? The form of this genealogy is unusual in that it first mentions Isaac and then goes back to Abraham, his father, rather than going immediately to Isaac’s descendants. How would you explain this unusual form? Verse 20: Why do you think the writer mentions Isaac’s age when he married? Why is it important that we know the ethnic identify of Bethuel—and therefore also Rebekah and Laban? (See also Deuteronomy 26:5.) Most modern translations identify Bethuel and Laban as Aramean rather than Syrian. Verse 22: Why do you think the writer makes a point of what seemed to Rebekah like a fight between the twins she is carrying? Rebekah is having a difficult pregnancy and asks, “If this is the way it is, why am I here?” In other words, “Why do I continue to live?” Though many pregnant women have asked this question, perhaps all and especially those with multiple babies, her case is different:…
Sleep: it’s more important than you think, especially for teenagers. Here’s from George Will’s latest column, “How to ruin a child“: Only 5 percent of high school seniors get eight hours of sleep a night. Children get an hour less than they did 30 years ago, which subtracts IQ points and adds body weight.
I fell in love almost simultaneously, as a junior in high school, with historical linguistics and Hugh Nibley.
I have been researching Reynolds v. United States (1879), the Supreme Court’s first polygamy case, on and off for several years. For those who are interested, my paper on the topic is now available for download at SSRN. Reynolds is an important case in American constitutional history, because was the first time the U.S. Supreme Court ever passed on the meaning of the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of religion. Historians have generally situated the case within the context of the post-Civil War politics of Reconstruction. The anti-polygamy crusade kicked off by Reynolds is seen as an extension of Reconstruction into the West. I offer a new interpretation.
“Once upon a time, numberless spirits inhabited the vast chaos of space and unorganized matter. They exercised their minuscule powers to organize little creations, but these quickly vanished in the swirling chaos, like sand castles against the tide. Having spent an eternity without achieving any lasting accomplishments, these spirits mostly just despaired and drifted.
One of these spirits, however, discovered the skill (perhaps through ingenuity, or perhaps just through persistence and luck) to build works that could endure the chaos. So, with much effort and with limited power, he began to build a habitation from the unorganized matter around him. This new dwelling attracted the attention of the other spirits, who desired to take shelter from the constant chaos.
A new issue of The Mormon Review is available, with David K. Jones’s review of You’ll Never Walk Alone by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. The article is available at: David K. Jones, “You’ll Never Walk Alone: The Mormon Church, Proposition 8, and British Soccer,” The Mormon Review, vol.2 no. 1 [HTML] [PDF] For more information about MR, please take a look at the prospectus by our editor-in-chief Richard Bushman (“Out of the Best Books: Introducing The Mormon Review,” The Mormon Review, vol.1 no.1 [HTML][PDF]). In addition to our website, you can have The Mormon Review delivered to your inbox. Finally, please consider submitting an article to MR.
When we read Genesis, what exactly are we reading? The distinctions and categories we modern readers bring to books and narratives (fiction or nonfiction; science or folk tale; history or literature; poetry or prose; author’s original text or quoted source) may not serve us well when we read the Old Testament, a collection of ancient literature. Its writers used different conventions. What were they? What exactly are we reading when we read Genesis?
I repeat the reminder: these are notes for study rather than notes for a lesson. Of course study notes can help one prepare a lesson, but my intention is less to help teachers prepare lessons (though I have no objection whatever to them finding my notes useful for that purpose, if they do) than it is not help class members prepare to participate in the lessons taught. Those who use these notes should feel free to add to them with their own comments and observations—and, of course, corrections. Because there is so much material to cover I’m going to abbreviate some of what I do. I’ll feel guilty about skipping over Abraham 1 and try to get it into these notes the next time around. I’ll deal with Genesis 15-17 and 21 relatively briefly and then concentrate on Genesis 22. As you can well imagine, the scholarly literature on Genesis 22 is enormous, thousands and thousands of pages. I don’t pretend even to have dipped into that literature. At the most I’ve wetted the tip of my finger, so I cannot pretend to do justice to the chapters assigned. Genesis 15 Synopsis: The chapter begins with Abram’s complaint to the Lord: You’ve not provided me with an heir, so my servant will inherit my estate. The Lord responds with a promise that Abram will have an heir and that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars. The Lord…
I love my God. He loves me. Sometimes I suffer, and sometimes there is nothing He can do about it, and I love that. I love my God because He is limited, like me. He prepares my way to eternal joy, but He does not put me there. Why not? Is it because He chooses not to? How disgusting would that be? An almighty God who could obviate suffering by obviating the need for suffering, but who chooses not to? An almighty God who could save all His children, but allows some to burn in hell? What a horrible God is that. If my God does not save me, it is because He cannot. If He cries for my sins, it is because that is all He can do. He has prepared the way, but it is I who choose to walk the path. And so, when He reaches down to hold my hand, I reach up to hold His, and together we are comforted.
We human beings don’t handle technological progress very gracefully. Those of us who have spent years doing things “the hard way” can feel cheated when suddenly someone invents an easy way. Take, for example, the ballpoint pen. This little invention (and its immediate predecessors) essentially obsoleted centuries of tradition in penmanship, calligraphy, and pen care. And it’s not just pens. The same thing happened with the advent of painkillers. Or television. Or typewriters. This sort of change leads to all kinds of post hoc justifications for why the old way is better. We don’t like to feel like suckers. We don’t like to feel that our sufferings have been needless, and we especially don’t like to feel that skills we’ve obtained “the hard way” are suddenly invalid and irrelevant. So we create narratives whereby “the hard way” is recast as “the right way”. Problems come when we introduce this moral element of “rightness” to technological advances. These narratives discourage us from improving our situation by claiming that our suboptimal way is, in fact, the ideal way. That’s when we really become suckers. We’re not suckers for having gone through the hard way when the hard way was the only way. We’re suckers for sticking with the old hard way when we see there are better ways to be tread. Once we’ve become suckers by morally obligating “the hard way” to ourselves, we become monsters when we apply our self-defined lens…
Many Mormons find that many Christian discussions are compatible with Mormon belief. We cheerfully borrow from C.S. Lewis, for instance, simply adding a Mormon gloss to Lewis’s statements; we happily listen to Switchfoot or Joy Williams. The idea of adding upon a Christian foundation has become popular in missionary discussion, as well. President Hinckley said, “To people everywhere we simply say, You bring with you all the good that you have and let us add to it.” This approach is a popular one, and is often viewed as a friendly gesture, a recognition that Christian belief is foundational in Mormonism. The idea has been criticized by some non-Mormon interlocutors. Recently, Evangelical Sarah pointed out some concerns at her blog, writing: Being on the receiving end of the comment “You wouldn’t lose anything…” is frustrating, as it takes but a moment of real reflection to realize that I would lose some beliefs that are very precious to me if I were to join the LDS Church. That’s not necessarily a valid reason not to join; it just makes the statement untrue. I cannot be Mormon and believe that God is a Trinity, I cannot be Mormon and believe that the one true church is the invisible body of all the redeemed regardless of official church affiliation or lack thereof, I cannot be Mormon and believe that God has faithfully sustained all the truth his Church needed throughout the centuries, and I…
The sweaters that these penguins are wearing are designed to save their lives after oil spills off of the Australian coast. They were knitted by Aussie Relief Society sisters. Who says that LDS service projects aren’t fun? (And as Nate asked last time: Who got to put them on the penguins?) (Picture courtesy of LDS Newroom; originally linked in this prior T&S post.) This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions, including submissions guidelines, can be found here.
Here’s a quote from Lesson 7, “The Abrahamic Covenant,” that caught my attention in Sunday School: The great majority of those who become members of the Church are literal descendants of Abraham through Ephraim, son of Joseph. Those who are not literal descendants of Abraham and Israel must become such, and when they are baptized and confirmed they are grafted into the tree and are entitled to all the rights and privileges as heirs.
An oft-quoted passage from our Bible Dictionary states that “only the home can compare with the temple in sacredness.” This statement has been concretely validated in the birth of our children. No experience I have ever had has compared in holiness with our experiences of welcoming our children into this world and into our home. For me, this picture captures a great deal of what my faith is. The baby, a few minutes old, is being weighed. In the mirror you see my wife (taking the picture), myself, our baby, and the midwife mediator who helped us bring our daughter into the world. It very much reminds me of the temple and our covenants. My own pose is for me a visual demonstration of what I hope I am doing as a father. In this picture, as in my life, there is no separation between my religion and my family, my God and family, my home and the sacred, our raising a family and our worship. Perhaps this is a luxury, even within Mormonism. But even without our fantastically blessed experiences, I think this would remain my ideal. by James Olsen This photograph is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series. Other images in the series can be found here. Rules and instructions,…
While discussing the development of Mormon culture at the recent Brazilian Mormon Studies Conference in São Paulo, Brazil, one friend told me that Mormon culture would really develop when there was an LDS University for members in Brazil to attend.
I love the interactive nature of blogging. I had planned to close this series with a post neatly tying everything together, but all of your contributions have challenged my premises and preconceptions to the point that I can’t do it. I started this series with some really good ideas, as well as some very naive ones. In a year or so, as I’ve been able to sort between the two, perhaps I’ll come back with a follow-up series. In the meantime, let me close this series by touching on friendship.
Chapter 13 Verses 1-2: Are there elements in Abram’s journey to Canaan that typify Israel’s later exodus from Egypt? If there are, what would be the point of that parallel? Verse 1: Notice the difference in the way the families are described in Genesis 12:5 and here. Does anything in these verses suggest a change in the family situation? If yes, of what sort? Journeys from Egypt to Canaan are said to be “up” and journeys from Canaan to Egypt are said to be “down.” We might use the same metaphors because of the way we have constructed the map of the world, with Canaan to the north of Egypt, but that similarity is misleading since they didn’t have maps or use the points of the compass as we do. So why would ancient people have used that language of up and down? Verse 2: What is the point of this detail? Does the comment about their wealth in verse 6 explain it, or is it here for some other reason? The word used for “rich” in Hebrew means “heavy.” It is used to describe Abram’s wealth and also the famine (Genesis 12:1). Any wealth that a nomad had beyond his flocks would have to be carried by camel and it would be a heavy for them, so the word makes sense. Was Abram’s wealth a burden to him in any other sense? Verse 3-4: Why does Abram go back…
