Cornucopia

Everything is a Remix, Genesis Edition: Intro

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In this recent post (which I plan to revisit in the near future) and others, I mentioned the discovery of various ancient Near Eastern texts related to Genesis, such as Enuma Elish. The relationship between these accounts and Genesis has never been definitively settled, though dominant interpretive trends have been clear. At first, German scholars such as Friedrich Delitzsch, driven largely by Protestant bias against the Hebrew Bible and a good bit of anti-Semitism, seized on them as the original sources of Genesis, assuming the relevant bits had been taken more-or-less whole cloth from the Israelites neighbors. This undermined longstanding assumptions of their originality or uniqueness, easily conflated with claims of religious and/or revelatory value. (See “Babel and Bible” controversy.) Other scholars pushed back, particularly conservative scholars. Others came to recognize that claims of direct borrowing were highly overstated, and ignored important and significant differences. It is a rare scholar today who argues that Genesis has nothing to do with these other accounts. Positions run from (paraphrasing here) the far conservative position asserting the similarities are mostly coincidental or meaningless, and the differences matter most, to the “breathing the same air” or sharing a general worldview to “the editor of Genesis was intimately familiar with these accounts, and they played a direct role in how Genesis was written.” To my knowledge, today no serious scholar thinks Genesis was a slavish copy. What then are we to make of these similarities and differences? As a prelude to further discussion, watch this…

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Mormon Studies

Socially Constructed Mormonism

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This is the second post (see first post) discussing ideas presented in the recently published memoir of retired LDS sociologist Armand Mauss, Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport: Intellectual Journeys of a Mormon Academic (Univ. of Utah Press, 2012; publisher’s page). After taking five years away from his graduate work to serve as a counselor in a bishopric, Mauss returned to his studies in 1962 at UC Berkeley, where he quickly encountered a serious challenge to his faith.

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Women in the Church

Established by Jesus Christ himself

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In a recent news article discussing the Ordain Women community and its upcoming inaugural meeting, LDS church spokeswoman Jessica Moody stated that the male-only priesthood “was established by Jesus Christ himself and is not a decision to be made by those on Earth.” Of course, there may be a few questions about whether this statement is descriptively accurate, given those pesky Phoebe and Priscilla and Junia verses and whatnot. But let’s set those issues aside for a moment. Because theologically, it does make sense that we might want to follow Jesus’s example here. And factually, a few quirky anomalies aside, the Priesthood ordination pattern during Jesus Christ’s ministry is very, very clear: Jesus only ever ordained men. Jewish men. It’s very clear, folks. No women. And no Gentiles. Zero. And so if we want to follow the pattern set out during Christ’s ministry — well, I guess we ought to do the same. Of course this might be difficult news for some people to hear. For instance, some people might argue that there are important contributions which white men could make in the church, if they were eligible for ordination. Many white men are excellent organizers, and they might potentially serve as effectively as Jewish men. The same could be said for Black men, Latino men, women, and other people who are not-Jewish-men. In addition, critics might point out that white men, Black men, Latino men, women, and other ineligible…

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Life in the Church, Sports

Twelve

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This April we begin the month looking forward to what comes from 12 men and a few more. We will watch what they do and say, perhaps learning some lessons from them. We may disagree and perhaps even be disappointed in what they do. But we will watch, and what we see will inform how we see the next six months. One of these men has already made a strong statement this week, raising our expectations for this year. Will our expectations be met?

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Cornucopia

BYU to Announce New Honor Code!

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At Times and Seasons, we’ve been given an exclusive sneak peek of the new Honor Code, and it promises exciting changes at our favorite university. Some of the changes include: 1. All men must wear a full beard at all time. Those unable to do so will be considered to be honoring the rule if they were an acceptable attire to offset the lack of beard. Such as: 2. To avoid controversy, all male/female clothing guidelines have been merged into one. Pants, tunic, and robe are required clothing at all times outside of dorm rooms. Example: 3. It has been determined that the Holy Ghost is getting old and goes to bed earlier than in the past. However, the Holy Ghost also sleeps in a lot later than was once believed. Consequently, the curfew has been moved from midnight to 9:30 and no classes will begin before 10:00am. 4. In order to more fully appreciate church history, all students will be required to adopt and go by D&C code names. Smiths, you are now Gazelam. Folks from Ogden may be Baneemy or Mahaleel. Football players are all Shalemanasseh or Shederlaomach, which should make for entertaining broadcasts. Idahoans will be called Spudleyites. No, that one’s not in the D&C, but it should have been. 5. Students must comply with the entire Word of Wisdom, not just the alcohol, coffee, tea, and tobacco restrictions. Therefore, no meat will be permitted to be…

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Cornucopia

Strands of Priesthood

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Many discussions about women and the priesthood get muddled because they don’t pay attention to the fact that “priesthood” involves multiple doctrines and practices, with different rationales, functions, and histories.  I thought it might be helpful if I separated the strands of priesthood and thought about them separately. 

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Priesthood/RS Lesson - Lorenzo Snow

Literary Lorenzo Snow #7: Since Mother Went Away

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In Mormonism we talk a lot about concepts like “enduring to the end” and “faithfulness in times of trial” (the subject of the current lesson in the Lorenzo Snow manual). We teach that trials are a necessary part of life, burdens that we need to pass through in order to learn the lessons of life and build our abilities for the next life. Children face these same lessons as they become independent of their mothers (and fathers), as Mormon poet Coral J. Black explores in the following poem.

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SS Lesson - Doctrine and Covenants

Literary DCGD #14: The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo

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What does it mean to consecrate? What are the kinds of things we must do, the attitudes and priorities we must have when we consecrate all that we have and that we are to the Lord? Doctrine and Covenants Gospel Doctrine lesson 14 explores the Law of Consecration, focusing on these attitudes and priorities and little on the practical effects of those attitudes. I believe that when we actually do live the law of consecration, our actions will be more like the ideal described by Eliza R. Snow in her poetic description of the Relief Society:

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Cornucopia

And when they had sung an hymn…

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Mark 14:26 records “And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.” Sometimes people have asked, did they have a hymn book? What did they sing? Israelites did indeed have a hymn book; it was called the Book of Psalms, and certain Psalms were sung on different occasions. Some were sung as one ascended to Jerusalem for certain feasts and holy days, others at the crowning of a new king, others in the temple/tabernacle to accompany certain sacrifices. Notably, the Psalms for Passover were referred to as The Hallel, Psalms 113-118. Hallel should look familiar, as it’s the first half of hallelujah, or hallelu-yah, meaning “praise (a plural command) Yahweh” i.e. the Lord. Psalm 113 embodies this faithful praise, repeated elsewhere thought the Hallel. hallelu yah, hallelu ‘avdey Yahweh, hallelu ‘et shem yahweh. Praise The Lord, praise, o servants of The Lord, praise the name of Yahweh. As he surely knew what was shortly to come, the words of Psalm 116 in Jesus’ mouth may have tasted just as bitter as the Passover herbs they were eating. I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the…

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Cornucopia

Why I wear a tie to church

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Not long ago, on the way to church one Sunday, my son, recently turned twelve, asked me, “Why do I have to wear a tie to church?” Instead of directly answering that question, which would reveal his parents’ rather curtailed ability to compel behavior in their almost-teenage children much earlier than I’d like and short-circuit the altogether salutary process of his exploring those limits in person, I told him why I wear a tie to church.

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Life in the Church

How do you celebrate Easter?

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What do you do to commemorate Christ’s resurrection? Modern culture, at least publicly, outside of Christian churches, doesn’t celebrate Easter as much as many other holidays or commemorations. Christmas, Halloween, Independence Day, Memorial Day and Valentines Day all seem to get more attention. I suspect that this is, at least in part, because they have become more commercial, and in doing so have captured the imagination of the public. And to a degree this happens for Easter also, but for some reason the commercialization is not nearly as strong as Christmas, for example. The Easter Bunny just isn’t as popular as Santa Claus.

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Cornucopia

Reproaching Jesus

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It was the women who loved him who were willing to reproach him. First it was his mother: “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing” (Luke 2:48-54). She did not understand his actions, this little twelve-year old son of hers. And he didn’t seem to understand her distress. Was he preoccupied in his work, his private calling? Was he unaware of how his actions would make her feel, as emotionally obtuse as only a confident child can be? There was no apology, but his words certainly gave his mother something to think about. The text says he “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” I have to assume that along the way, he also increased in compassion. Later (John 11) he sounded so casual, talking about his friend Lazarus sleeping, that the disciples thought Lazarus was just snoozing. “No, no,” he corrected, “Lazarus is dead, and I’m so glad, because now I can show you something that will really make you believe.” Time for a field trip. So they went, and when he arrived, Martha, the responsible sister came out. “If thou hadst been here,” she stated, “my brother had not died.” Stating that simple fact, based on the faith that he could indeed had saved her brother, was a gentle reproach. After all, she had sent word that her brother was sick, and Jesus had…

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Cornucopia

Giving Up On The Feminine Divine

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Not long ago I wrote a piece about mommy blogs, feminism, and the publishing industry. My basic thesis was that if you believe in the reality of historical oppression of women, you ought to be deeply skeptical of the current trend to define gender equality as equal representation of men and women in institutions which are inextricably connected to the historical oppression. To the extent that women have to conform to the expectations of those institutions, our haste to create a better world for women may in some cases be doing the exact opposite. I realize that part of the argument is often that the institutions need to change, but in practice the benchmark one hears is simply “how many women CEOs are there?” and not “how successfully have we reformed corporate culture to be accepting of women?” The benchmarks don’t matter if they aren’t measuring the right thing. It turns out that there’s some solid research to back the theory that looking for equal representation in all institutions may actually be anti-feminist. In a paper for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers conducting a cross-cultural study of 55 nations found that: Overall, higher levels of human development–including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth–were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. The researchers proposed that this “unintuitive result” could be explained by “personality traits of men and women…

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Cornucopia

The Case Against Scouting

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I think that the Church should end its relationship with the Scouting program, but not for the reasons you might think. No, this isn’t a post about homosexuality or even about gender equity, or at least about gender equity as it usually gets discussed on this issue. Indeed, in many ways, I think that girls are served better by the Church than are boys. This is because I think that in many ways that YW program is superior to the YM program. It is true that in some units more gets spent per young men than per young women. This issue is actually extremely complicated and varies from unit to unit. The complexity comes from the fact that youth spending comes from a variety of budgets at both the ward and the stake level and you need to include all sources of funding to get a clear sense of per capita budgeting. (Yes, I have got many headaches tying to figure out exactly how much got budgeted per young man or young woman in my ward and then trying to insure that the budgets are pretty much equal.) Still, in many – perhaps most – units Scouting causes more money to be spent per young man than per young woman. However, I am not convinced that this means that young men are getting a better deal than young women. In fact, I think the opposite is true. I think it…

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SS Lesson - Doctrine and Covenants

Literary DCGD #13: Inspired Writings

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Lesson 13 of this year’s Gospel Doctrine manual reviews some of the most important contributions of Joseph Smith—the scriptures he brought forth. Through Joseph Smith we have not only the Book of Mormon, but also the Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price and the inspired version of the Bible. In addition, Joseph Smith provided important clarifications of doctrine upon which much of Mormon doctrine is founded. The following poem addresses Smith’s inspired writings.

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Cornucopia

Study Genesis and the Gospels through Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, this weekend only (updated)

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One issue that appears repeatedly when studying scripture is dealing with conflicting accounts and multiple perspectives. We have four Gospels that vary in detail, several creation stories, both inside the Bible (Gen 1-2:4, 2:4ff, and the scattered watery Chaoskampf account), and outside (Genesis accounts, Book of Moses, Book of Abraham, Temple), as well as two conflicting accounts of Israelite history (Samuel-Kings vs. Chronicles), and two interpretations of the destruction of Ammonihah (Alma 16-17 vs 25, see Grant Hardy’s article). Our modern tendency is to treat all of these, and indeed nearly all scripture, strictly as history, although bad or inaccurate history, and since we really don’t like multiple accounts, we then wrest ahem… harmonize them. To some extent, that misses the point; none of these were written as history as the modern person would understand it, as a dispassionate, journalistic wie-es-eigentlich-gewesen how-it-really-happened neutral account written down by an eyewitness clerk. Perhaps that’s a bit exaggerated.

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Cornucopia

A Very Short History of Gender and Participation at Times and Seasons

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Times and Seasons began life, in November 2003, as an institution where men held all leadership and speaking positions. Really! There were four of us: Adam, Matt, Nate, and me; the first post was by Adam. And we men all felt very important in our roles as T&S bloggers. In fact, we felt so important that we added four more men to the group in quick succession: Greg, Gordon, Jim and Russell. You will note the distinct lack of women’s voices. It was a male-only Permabloggerhood, so to speak. Men and women are different, you know: Men blog, and women pinterest! It’s like two complementary shrubs with slightly different roles. Alas, our well-tended shrubbery came crashing to a halt when Kristine joined the group in February of 2004. And while Kristine eventually embarked for parts unknown, Julie and other women continued to brazenly seek — and receive! — ordination to the previously-all-male Permabloggerhood. Against all historical precedent, too. And as you can see, this shift has had nothing short of a devastating effect on male participation at T&S. Indeed, since that fateful day in 2004, the men of T&S have been forever silent.

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Cornucopia

Dealing With the Problem of Men’s Participation

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One issue that people seem to raise against extending priesthood to women is its effect on men. Men, the argument goes, will be less engaged in the Church if priesthood is not a male-only domain. Because this is a practical, rather than a normative, claim, it doesn’t call for a revelatory solution. Moreover, to the extent male engagement is a real problem, the problem continues even if and after the prophet receives a revelation making priesthood available to men and women. And if it’s a real problem, we need to deal with it. Keeping men engaged at the expense of women is not a justifiable goal, but keeping men engaged is. As Julie points out on another thread, we “need to consider how to keep a generation raised on ‘yours is a sacred duty . . .’ rhetoric active after they aren’t unique any more.” The good new is, I don’t think it would be that hard to continue male engagement even in a world where all members could hold the priesthood. I assume, of course, that it isn’t exclusivity in holding the priesthood that encourages male engagement; rather, it is the ability to exercise that priesthood by, among other things, serving in callings that demand the use of priesthood.[fn1] If I’m right in my assumption, the easy solution is this: smaller wards. In my Chicago ward, we’ve been blessed with very active, engaged members. But not a whole lot of them.…

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Cornucopia

Dumb Reasons for Exclusively Male Priesthood

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This post is a follow up to Kaimi’s thoughtful post I’m a Mormon, and I believe that women… For the record, I don’t actually “believe that women should be eligible for Priesthood ordination.” Rather, I think it would be helpful and I see no overriding reason why it shouldn’t happen. Neither do I see scriptural/doctrinal evidence to show that the scriptural “man” means “mankind” most of the time — but only males when it pertains to the priesthood. I do not believe the issue has been addressed completely. Authoritative statements seem to indicate a long-term acceptance of cultural patriarchy rather than any attempt to address how it contrasts with our more inclusive culture or to see if changes can, indeed, be made to include women. My hope is for divine clarification on the matter of gender in the church as well as eternally. Below I will address a number of statements I have heard over the years with regard to women and the priesthood. These are actual quotes and most are common. I think they are dumb. That doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons that aren’t dumb. There are. (I think.) But I hope we can move past the dumb objections and start dealing in the realm of the reasonable. 

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Cornucopia

I’m a Mormon Easy Chair and I believe that women

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Not an easy job.

… should not get ordained to the priesthood. I know that reasonable chairs can disagree, but as Frank’s easy chair, I know what to expect once women are ordained. Frank is going to spend a lot more time sitting on me. Probably asleep. Sure, it will start with a little story time to the kids, but the end is both obvious and predictable. Naptime. Admittedly, I have a steel reinforced frame and ample cushioning, but Frank is not a light guy. Nor, to put it frankly, is he getting any lighter as the years pass. So if you care about more than just people and consider all the world’s marvels, please don’t forget us — the oppressed easy chairs of the world. The downtrodden. Keep Frank off of me. And that will be a fantastic step forward for the community, and a cause to rejoice. Hi, I’m Frank’s easy chair and I have no idea what the Church should do about priesthood ordination, but I’m pretty sure that ordaining women is going to make my life worse.

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Women in the Church

I’m a Mormon, and I believe that women

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. . . should be eligible for Priesthood ordination. So do these other lovely people. Please check out some of the profiles, if it’s a topic that interests you, or visit our facebook page for more discussion. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and I know that reasonable people can disagree here. But I do think that one can very much believe in female ordination within the Mormon framework. It fits well into the narrative of ever-expanding Priesthood eligibility in LDS theology, I think (ever-expanding circles from Levites to Israelites to Gentiles, and finally to all men in 1978). It also fits well into many LDS ideas on gender — if men and women are fundamentally different as church leaders suggest, then men may not be able to adequately represent women’s interests. It meshes well with statements from LDS history, such as Joseph Smith’s prophecy that the Relief Society would be a “kingdom of priests.” It engages President Hinckley’s public suggestion that members interested in ordination should agitate a little. Heck, it even dovetails nicely with a Harvard study or two. But most importantly of all, it matters a lot to many LDS women about whom I care deeply. The relative invisibility of women in so many spheres causes great pain to many of our sisters. And I mourn with those who mourn; and it is for them that I look forward to the long-awaited day when every…

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