- Michelle on The Glasses of Twenty Five Years: ““The reality is that, like it or not, you are already seeing things from some perspective, even if you haven’t defined it or examined its morality (or lack thereof).”… “We are asked to evaluate what we do from the perspective of our relationship with our Heavenly Parents. We are taught there, I think, that the most important perspective we can take in this life is that of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “If there is a universal perspective for how to look at literature, Mormon or not, or at the world and at life, I think that’s where I will find it.” Thoughtful post. Thanks, Kent. For me, I think the question may be more about what Joseph talked about in Lectures on Faith — about an accurate understanding of God’s nature and attributes. It’s hard to ask the question about what Jesus would do without knowing who He is at the level of character and perfect love.” Sep 14, 01:26
- on Constructing in our Meetings (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 9/6: “Ji: Well, I guess I wasn’t too careful in how I worded that. You are correct that there is a vast difference between the Nazi guards and church leaders — and that is NOT at all what I wanted to imply. [And, I could argue that I didn’t, that you’re seeing a 2nd order inference that I didn’t intend. But, it is there…]. As for Frankl, I should have used the word “meaning” instead of the word “happy.” Regardless, Frankl’s overall point is that we can find meaning in what happens to us if we change our perspective — how we see the events in our lives. Ultimately we DO have control over at least one part of our lives: how we think. What I’m trying to tell “Old Man” is that he does have that control. He doesn’t have to think in a way that is critical of what is wrong at church. And he will probably be happier if he takes that control. rogerdhansen: 1) This post (and the others like it) is not the venue for criticizing how church is run. There are plenty of other places where you and anyone else can make those criticisms. As I just wrote above, this series of posts is about HOW WE THINK in church and how that can be better — not about how the church is run. Perhaps I have by accident implied somewhere that I’m looking for suggestions on how the Church should change — if I did so, I apologize. That’s not wanted here, and that’s why the original post has a paragraph near the end that says “ Let me emphasize that this is NOT a place to criticize what is wrong with church or your fellow congregants.“ 2) Your recommendations are all about how you want church to be — that’s how they “help” you, they give you what you want. You are assuming that others want that also. Perhaps you are right, and your suggestions have a certain attraction to me. But how do we actually know that they would be better? How do you know? [That’s rhetorical, don’t actually tell me since its outside of the scope of this post.]” Sep 13, 22:02
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “Stephen C! “My great-grandfather was a U of Chicago Zoology PhD” I can’t help but be interested in this story, and any journals or correspondence that might have stuck around decades later :)” Sep 13, 21:33
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “For those who want to test this historical hypothesis, President Ernest Wilkinson had BYU publish an annual *Directory of Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Higher Education and School Administration* between the mid-1950s and the mid-1960s. It might provide a window into how LDS members spread throughout academia and across the U.S. during a period of growth for both the church and higher education.” Sep 13, 19:46
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “To try to answer jader3d’s question, and to agree with Stephen C and Jonathan, in most social science and humanities departments there is a very strong consensus that it is harmful to treat men and women differently, or to treat same-sex and opposite-sex relationships differently. Also, that if someone has strong and persistent gender dysphoria, the best treatment is for them to transition to the gender they identify with, and society has an obligation to treat them as belonging to that gender. So a church that doesn’t ordain women to the priesthood and excludes them from many positions of authority, does not perform or recognize same-sex marriages, and refuses to recognize gender transitions is, depending on the temperament of the individual, an unfortunate reality to tolerate, a problem to solve, or an enemy to defeat. In those departments, but really only in those departments, these issues are regular topics of discussion. The Church doesn’t come up all that often, but papers providing evidence (of varying quality) of the harm done by practices like the Church’s are plentiful. Stephen C’s roundups give you a flavor, but keep in mind those are only the ones that talk about the Church itself. Setting aside the evidence, humans are wired to agree with their community so they fit in. Some members do just fine despite all this; others don’t. The R1s indeed tend to set the agenda for the rest of academia, in part because we train so many of the faculty. (A lot of BYU professors are former members of my ward.) But at an R1, both size and power flow from research grant money, and the social sciences and humanities don’t get much of that. So the part of the university that’s hostile to the Church is fairly small. Yes, HR policies tend to reflect the propositions I started with. If someone can’t stand to work alongside a trans person, an out-and-proud homosexual, or a woman, academia is probably not for them. But I could send them a collection of quotes and speeches from President Oaks suggesting they should have more of a live-and-let-live attitude and be grateful we live in a pluralistic society. The same pluralism (or religious freedom, if you prefer) that lets them live the life they choose lets us live our faith even when we lose culture wars. Gender and sexuality are not the only issues where parts of the academy disagree with the church, though they’re by far the biggest. We’ve seen on the blog recently how anti-colonialist thought would recast the pioneers as villains, but that’s pretty niche. Economics is interesting in that it leans right rather than left. Studies have suggested that studying economics tends to make people more accepting of economic inequality, and if we take our scriptures seriously (D&C 70:14, for example, or 104:16), that’s a problem. But given Church culture, I don’t think many economists see a conflict between their field and the Church. (My degrees are in Economics, though in practice I’m basically a free-range social science data geek.)” Sep 13, 14:20
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “Jader3d: Overton windows. It’s not as bald faced as some “God’s not Dead” professor challenging your faith, but the operating background software is that if your institution is heteronormative or has gender roles that it’s damaging.” Sep 13, 08:55
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “As an aside, this goes back a while. My great-grandfather was a U of Chicago Zoology PhD back in the early 20th century, and when reading over his materials on FamilySearch he mentioned that Mormons had a reputation for wanting to get back West after getting their degrees (he ended up teaching at some college in Idaho and stopped believing, this was back when there was less space for LDS evolutionists, but he let my great-grandmother raise the family LDS, so here I am). So the coastal-degree-to-Mormon-Corridor pipeline has an old history.” Sep 13, 08:51
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “Why would church members struggle more in the social sciences and humanities?” Sep 12, 21:22
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “Thanks, RLD. I was wondering what your perspective would be. When we first started grad school, my wife felt like some ward members didn’t know quite what to make of her, as both of us were pursuing degrees. Then when we had our first kid, it was easier to fit in, but she sometimes felt more slotted into a box than understood. But that was 30 years ago. I agree that the representation of academic politicization has been badly distorted – what happens at some high-priced SLACs and R1s is not what happens elsewhere, where most faculty just want to teach and research. Then again, those are influential departments, and other departments hire their graduates and sometimes want some of that activist glamour for themselves. And the leftward lean of some disciplines is quite real, which can have unintended consequences even with the best of intentions (like the institutionalization of land acknowledgments that can be off-putting to some conservatives, and things of that nature). It’s been striking how often Stephen C.’s research roundups include articles that are quite comfortable treating the Church less as an object of study than as a disease to be cured, or a hostile entity to be resisted. And since a lot of largely apolitical departments are in colleges of arts and sciences, they can’t escape decisions made in the dean’s office.” Sep 12, 14:56
- on Kingdoms of Glory and Astronomical Apparent Magnitude: “Kent Larsen, I agree with you–that luminosity is a symbol for glory. But in the OP’s defense I think the math becomes typological if we “read” it is a language. In other words, looking at the differences in magnitude as measured by math can also serve as a rough analog to heavenly things–much like the sun, moon, and stars do.” Sep 12, 00:17
