There’s a reason why this—the return for the plates—is the first event Nephi mentions following their departure from Jerusalem. I wonder if there’s not also an inspired reason for it to come upfront. Lehi’s theophany and departure is the rupture that opens a new dispensation. The story of the retrieval of the record of Laban is the founding of Nephite history, the origin of Nephite political legitimacy, and perhaps even the founding of Nephite religion. Once again, there is a great deal going on in this story, with absences that are as revealing as what gets stated. Nephi subtly lets us know that he speaks with Lehi in confidence, that Lehi already spoke with Laman, Lemuel, and Sam, and that this meeting(s) didn’t go well. Lehi attempts to pre-empt what he assumes will be Nephi’s similar balking at the idea of returning for the record. Why do the others balk? Especially at the idea of a return trip—even temporary—to Jerusalem? Is it that taking the records is an irrevocable movement away from Jerusalem, something that makes their stint in the Valley more than a mere waiting for things to die down? Why does Lehi think Nephi will also balk? What have Nephi’s speech and actions been up to this point that cause Lehi to take preemptive measures in discussing the return? Why wasn’t Nephi with is brothers when Lehi approached them about the return? Why is Nephi getting his own…
Reading Nephi – 2:16-24
I’ve no desire to rob those who are physically large with a means of relating themselves to Nephi. But I can’t for the life of me see how we connect “large in stature” with physically large. [Note: later in the text we do get a direct connection between Nephi’s stature and physical size, so perhaps that later connection colors things here; but for all we know, these were different words all together that both came out as ‘stature’ on Joseph’s stone.] The contrast in this clause is with young—which I suppose might be intuitively connected to physical size—my children do this all the time (they can’t quite understand that mommy is older since daddy is bigger). Just yesterday they nearly came to blows over whose foot was larger, which is apparently a genetic marker of natural aristocracy and right to rule. But it’s the right to rule that matters—and as soon as I convinced my children that there was no connection between foot size and ruling, they no longer cared about it. This helps us get at another interpretation of stature that I find far more plausible: status. In Biblical Hebrew qaton means small, young, or insignificant, while gadol means large, great, or important. Although young, Nephi already had a significant community status—just what that is, I’m not sure. Perhaps Nephi was like young Joseph Smith and was well respected in his family for his ability to find lost objects with a peepstone, or…
Internationalizing Mormon Leadership: The Normal Pace
In the Salt Lake Tribune of October 5, Jana Riess regrets that the top leadership of the Mormon church is all-white and overwhelmingly American, and that the recent apostolic callings missed the chance to reflect the church’s international diversity. Others have expressed the same disappointment. I can appreciate their concern, but I wonder how many non-American Mormons would agree. Are we certain that an apostle from Brazil or Kenya would be preferred by most Mormons in 130 other countries above a seasoned leader from Utah? Or did some of those disappointed Americans perhaps react from a “white guilt / white savior complex” by coming to the rescue of the allegedly discriminated-against international membership? Besides, do we know how many non-Americans may have been considered to fill the vacant apostle positions, but none was found adequate yet at this time? Perhaps the one closest to being called was finally considered too rigid? Then many would probably be grateful that Elder Rasband or Elder Renlund were selected instead. Perhaps apostles are also chosen because they have, from deep-rooted experiences in the heart of Mormonism, a maturing perspective of church doctrine and history and are able to address its questions properly? No doubt the internationalization of the higher leadership is very much on the mind of the top. But I can understand their caution and I trust their thorough acquaintance with potential nominees, also from abroad. It took the Catholic Church 1500 years…
All the Lights Were Red: Thinking About Reform in Mormonism
A funny thing happened on the way to the conference. On Saturday morning I was driving to the final day of the SMPT Conference held on the BYU Campus. I hit the main BYU intersection near the Marriott Center. My light was red. There were cars stopped at other approaches as well. Everyone was stopped. All the lights were red. As I had been thinking Mormon thoughts while driving down Provo Canyon and onto campus, that seemed like a sign: Nothing is changing. No movement. Full stop.
Reading Nephi – 2:8-15
This passage doesn’t seem to reflect well on Nephi. I don’t blame Nephi. To the degree that any of us have good reason to think poorly of family members who have wronged us, I think that the older man Nephi has cause to think poorly of his brothers. But how can we not also see the older, embittered Nephi projecting back on his brothers here? Our memories are inevitably colonized by our present experiences—sometimes glamorized and sometimes darkened. If I read past Nephi’s retrospectively projected interpretation, however, I am deeply moved by Lehi’s wisdom and love. There is no way to see what this family is going through as anything other than wrenching and difficult. I keenly remember feeling like my whole life was torn out from under me when as a melodramatic young teenager my family moved towns. I certainly murmured. I continue to feel my feet kicked out from under me as I move through life (and alas, I continue to murmur). I think we can see a general phenomenon in Lehi’s wrenching experience; but we can also see a particular affinity to our experiences today: we maintain very little in terms of solid, stable, long-term cultural transmission. By which I mean that time and place and identity and purpose are no longer tightly married together and stable over the course of multiple generations. When I was young, Utah was a homeland, even though I never lived there.…
Reading Nephi – 2:1-7
Here is the great rupture. Nephi acknowledges that it came in a dream—a dream that made a coherent narrative of the details of Lehi’s life. Did he feel like a failed prophet? Did his heart break? Or did he feel vindicated or at least consoled in joining that host of ancient prophets who were rejected by their people—or was that a later, literary reconciliation? Regardless, the dream tells him to leave the Land of Promise. Again, forsaking the idea that this was a dramatic overnight event, and recognizing instead that it likely took place over the course of some time—what were the conversations with Sariah (goodness, I hope he had them) and his children? Neighbors or friends? Or if not with others, what were the conversations with himself? Jeremiah (whom Nephi later extolls) had not been commanded to leave, but to stay and preach and get himself locked up in prison. Other prophets had been killed. Why was Lehi spared? Was it a sparing? Why was he commanded to leave? Also worth noting, at this point their journey is conspicuously lacking a destination or end goal. We’re so familiar with Lehi’s divinely led exodus and how it ends that it’s easy to overlook how odd and directionless this commandment is at this point in their journey. Surely Lehi felt some puzzlement and even regret (or pangs) at leaving. For as Nephi next offers us in a candid if understated way,…
The Sabbath Day: Its Meaning and Observance
This was a talk I gave a month or so ago as part of High Council Sunday. In preparation for this talk, I read through Elder Nelson’s April Conference address on the Sabbath, in which he stated, “I am intrigued by the words of Isaiah, who called the Sabbath “a delight.” Yet,” he continued, “I wonder, is the Sabbath really a delight for you and for me?”[1] Well, Joseph Smith revealed that the Lord’s day should consist of “confessing thy sins unto thy brethren, and before the Lord” (D&C 59:12), so here’s my confession: the answer to Elder Nelson’s question, for me personally and on average, is a big No. My Sabbath experience has often been far from a delight. Maybe some of you can relate to this. For one, I work every other weekend. Half of my Sabbaths each year are typical workdays. But even those I have off don’t fend much better. I end up leaving church with an Elders Quorum-induced headache (though that has decreased ever since I became finance clerk and get to skip the third hour), while the rest of the day is agreeable, if unexceptional. However, the Sunday afternoon boredom tends to be coupled with a modest level of anxiety over what we are actually allowed to do. Even growing up, I saw Sunday as the day I had to go to church and couldn’t do anything else. Despite these misgivings, I recognize that…
SMPT Teaser: A Close Reading of Alma 32
I’m presenting this Saturday at the conference in Provo. I’ve kicked some of these ideas around for a while, but only started work on them in earnest recently. I’m addressing conceptions of faith and knowledge in Alma 32 through close reading. For me, that process entails creating a bibliography to see what’s been done, and working through the chapter closely and slowly, looking for patters and connections, textual issues, and logical flow.
Reading Nephi – 1:18-20
Two contrasts strike me in verse 18: a contrast between the way that Nephi uses the word ‘marvelous’ and a contrast between the visions and prophesying he attributes to Lehi here, and what we just got in verse 14. To begin with a word on the latter, I’m heartened that Lehi’s prophesying included beautiful, affirming, psalms; I trust his public messages did too, even if Nephi didn’t note this fact. I never hear the word ‘marvelous’ used to neutrally reference a marvel. It’s always used as a synonym to ‘wonderful.’ Marvels and wonders only receive a positive valence today; but Nephi’s clearly not using it that way. Which hints at something else buried here that is easy for us to miss today: it was indeed a marvel, something that defied common reason and common sense of the day, that Jerusalem, the holy city, the Lord’s city, the house of the artifacts of Moses and Aaron and the seat of God’s presence on earth, would be destroyed and God’s people carried off. It wasn’t given to Lehi as an incredible possibility; it was given as fact (or at least given as a strong “likely” from an ultimate authority). This indeed must’ve been something to marvel at. This contrast between Lehi’s “marvelous” visions and how they would’ve sounded to a public that didn’t acknowledge their divine source helps to make sense of the public reaction. Noting that there was not then a…
Doers of the Word: SMPT Conference Next Weekend
The Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology holds its 2015 conference next Thursday-Saturday (Oct. 8-10), at BYU, on the theme, “Doers of the Word: Belief and Practice.” Speakers include Noel Reynolds, Sam Brown, David Paulsen, Jennifer Lane, and about 30 others from Minnesota to Hawaii, including T&S’s own Jim Faulconer, Rosalynde Welch, Nate Oman, Ben Spackman, Adam Miller, and Ben Huff. Session themes include analysis of Book of Mormon rhetoric, the role of choice in faith, divine foreknowledge and human freedom, renaissance thought on a Christian restoration, the role of narrative in repentance, and the social nature of the Godhead. All sessions are free and open to the public. For more information, see the conference schedule on the SMPT website.
The Three Neophytes
Reading the Book of Mormon for the First Time Again
I read the Book of Mormon all the way through several times as a teenager. Between multiple readings and a knack for remembering anything that comes in the form of a story, by the time I was 19 I knew the Book of Mormon as well as any other 19 year old I met. Now I’m 34, and I routinely meet people whose familiarity with the text far, far outstrips my own. Sure, some of that comes from the fact that I know more Mormon studies folks now than I did as a teenager, but I’m not talking about the pro’s and the semi-pro’s out there who are doing great devotional and scholarly work. I mean just in terms of your average member: my command of the text is just nothing to get excited about. This isn’t surprising, because in the past 13 years since I came home from my mission, I don’t think I’ve completed a single cover-to-cover reading of the Book of Mormon. Other folks kept going. I didn’t. When I was in the MTC, I started reading the Book of Mormon with a notebook open and a pen in one hand. I jotted down notes of anything that I found interesting and also of questions that occurred to me as I read. I loved doing this, and I kept it up throughout most of my mission. I still have stacks of these notebooks in my garage, and I…
2015 Gen Conf–Sunday Afternoon
These are just my notes as I scribbled them and, considering how illegible my handwriting is (even to myself), you will not want to quote them word for word!
A 15-year-old’s Notes about Sunday Morning Gen Conf
Sunday Morning Session–October 4, 2015 Conducting–Dieter F. Utchdorf Song, Prayer, Song Thomas S. Monson Let your light so shine…be an example unto others–We let others see our light by being an example Being an example in word Being an example in conversation Charity Be an example in spirit Faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time Purity Ronald A. Rasband (new apostle!) A few days ago he was called…interesting I always think it would be awkward to quote someone in conference who is at that conference The Lord doesn’t condone sinful conduct, but he rejoices when we come to him Gary E. Stevenson (new apostle!) The Lord will qualify whom he calls I think they purposely called them close to General Conference so they would have to ad-lib a talk, just to see how well they do Dale G. Renlund (new apostle!) God has called you for what he needs you to do, not for what you done or what you can do To effectively serve others, we must look through Heavenly Father’s eyes Song Russell M. Nelson How can they just get up there not start bawling? I know I would We need women Women possess special characteristics and strength It is converted, covenant-keeping women who will combat the world, bring people to church Gregory A Schwitzer When we bear our testimony, we have his spirit with us True disciples don’t make excuses,…
A 12-year-old Takes Notes on His First Priesthood Gen Conf Session
General Priesthood Session Opening Song: Let Zion In Her Beauty Rise Invocation: Elder Johnson Song: Jesus The Very Thought Of Me
A 9-year-old Child’s Notes on Gen Conf Sat afternoon
I love the primary kids choir. They are full of adrenaline. They are about as old as me. They look cute. I like their clothes. It is funny to me that they are so wiggly, even on TV. So. Three new apostles. Wow! Pretty awesome.
The random thoughts and perspectives of a 17-year-old kid about the Sat. Morning Gen Conf session
So my mother comes into my room while I am reading a Ranger’s Apprentice novel, and says, “Hey bud! Want to write a blog post about Saturday Morning Conference session?” First thought: Zombie Apocalypse. No! There is absolutely No. Flipping. Way. I am going to write a blog that thousands of people could read, comment on, and maybe even be enlightened about. (Yeah, people sometimes do that. I can enlighten people. Occasionally.) Why am I typing this out now? Don’t ask me. Sometimes I am tempted to ask my therapist if he can crack open my head and see what really goes on inside of it.
Statements on Heavenly Mother
I appreciated the loving tribute Elder Holland just gave to all mothers, and in particular to our Heavenly Mother. In the wake of that talk, I’m reposting[1] some of the quotes on Heavenly Mother collected in Paulsen’s & Pulido’s BYU Studies article, “A Mother There.” [2] It’s a valuable resource to actually have before us a sampling of what church authorities have said over the years, and is one way to express the love and gratitude in my own heart. And now the quotes: “All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” (“The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Ensign Nov. 1995: 102) “We were created . . . in the image of our father and our mother, the image of our God.” (Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, ed. John A. Widtsoe, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1954: 51) “God is a married Being, has a wife . . . [and] we are the offspring of Him and His wife.” (George Q. Cannon, “Mr. Canon’s [sic] Lecture,” Salt Lake Daily Herald 14, April 15, 1884, 8.) “Our theology begins with heavenly parents. Our highest aspiration is to be like them.” (Dallin H. Oaks, “Apostasy and Restoration,” Ensign 25 (May 1995): 84) “There is radiant warmth [in…
Saul Callings
Saturday Morning conference referenced how Samuel was unsure that Saul was the right man to lead Israel. With the benefits of hindsight, one indeed wonders about the choice. Saul, in the end, had some serious problems as King. Does God call people knowing that they will, to a significant degree, fail? Yes, I think he does. I think he does it all the time. Yet sometimes I think people see someone called to a calling and, if it does not work out well, they question if the calling was inspired. Now, I don’t think that all callings are perfect. But nor do I think that just because things don’t work out storybook perfect does it mean the calling was not inspired. And to layer it on, I think a calling can be inspired even if God knows the person will not accept it. I even think a calling can be inspired even if the person shouldn’t accept it. A calling, even one not accepted, can do something for a person or get them thinking about something God wants them to think about. He is playing the long game, after all.
Reading Nephi – 1:7-17
Joseph Smith remarked on visions that they are something that overcomes the visionary—that is, they’re physically exhausting. After the famous vision he shared with Sidney Rigdon (D&C 76), Sidney was apparently quite overcome, and Joseph quipped, “He’s not as used to this as I am” (or something to that effect, a la Truman Madsen). Thus it appears to have been the case with Lehi—overcome after his experience in the presence of God (a pillar of fire being a typological Old Testament symbol for the presence of God), he casts himself upon his bed. But God wasn’t yet done with him. Hardy points out that this appears to be something of a cover-up, that Nephi appears to be intentionally blurring the lines between visions (note that Nephi’s narrative begins with what is clearly denoted as a conscious, daytime vision) and dreams, which Nephi often parenthesizes as a “vision.” Hardy sees Nephi as responding to the criticism lodged by Jeremiah that dreams are the least trustworthy of spiritual experiences. This seems quite plausible, and it does read to me as though Nephi is responding here, taking cues from other discussions, likely criticism of Lehi (perhaps a later Laman-ish/sons-of-Ishmael-ish criticism; or perhaps more likely the criticism of the inhabitants of Jerusalem that might have later been repeated by critics in the family). In addition, however, Nephi is positively painting a picture of his father as being in constant communion with the heavens. He’s…
My Life as a Mama Dragon
Today I am pleased to share a guest post by my mother, Christie Frandsen. Christie is a gifted teacher, leader and speaker, and has taught early morning seminary, Institute, and adult scripture classes for many years in Southern California. She has also been involved in Girl Scouting for decades in many significant leadership capacities. She is the mother of eleven children and grandmother of eighteen. Last weekend in Provo, Utah, I attended the Annual International Conference of Affirmation, a support organization for LGBT Mormons, family and friends. This was my second conference, so I already knew it would be a weekend filled with an abundance of informative workshops, deeply inspirational stories, great music (you haven’t lived until you have sung Come, Come, Ye Saints with an auditorium filled with gay Mormons), too much delicious food, and not enough sleep. I knew I would be creating and renewing friendships with good people from all over the country who find ourselves in this community none of us asked to join, sharing a journey none of us expected to take. What I was NOT expecting was the feeling which overwhelmed me as I received my conference name tag, with an attached turquoise ribbon boldly identifying me as a “MAMA DRAGON”.* The “Mama Dragons” is a name taken by a group of mothers of LGBT sons and daughters who, in their short history, have already become legendary for their courageous work in rescuing at-risk…
Reading Nephi – 1:1-6
‘I, Nephi’ begins his record in a remarkable manner, and I’m tempted to write long-windedly exploring the labyrinth of the first verse. I’m grateful that he acknowledges goodly parents and not just a goodly father. Some have certainly had only goodly fathers and not goodly mothers (Disney loves this scenario), but as written, I see a reflection of my own life in the first line of the Book of Mormon—of all of our lives. We have goodly Parents — Heavenly Parents. And, accordingly as Nephi notes, we have been taught somewhat in all of their learning, and are continuing to be so taught, which is the purpose of our sojourn. Indistinguishable from this learning is Nephi’s frank admission of affliction being integral to the whole process. And too often this can come to dominate our view of life. Nevertheless, there is goodness. And how these things are able to comingle in a divine setting is itself the substance of the mysteries of God—whether it’s God in Christ to which we refer or a God-created cosmos with evil in it or a garden with life and death in it or Nephi’s or my own experience. However intimate and outsized I might think of my own pains and afflictions, however irrevocably tainted with suffering and injustice the world appears, I deeply want to affirm with Nephi and with God: it is good. Toward that end, I remember something that my wife taught…
Reading Nephi – Headnote
What would I write now if I were to give an account of some stretch of nine formative years of my life in a paragraph, serving as the key markers of a short bio I’d then write
