- Coffinberry on Extreme Pacifism and the Moriori: The Anti-Nephi Lehites of the South Pacific : “As a Latter-day Saint with Mennonite ancestry, the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehites has particularly resonated with me. I personally lean toward non-resistance, and do not keep guns in my home; if asked, what would you do in a theoretical attack (the proverbial-how-would-you-defend-your-food-storage scenario), I would probably do as the Anti-Nephi-Lehis did. But at the same time, if I had young children to protect, the Mama Bear in me would probably resort to violence. I resolve the moral quandary, I guess, by looking at what im protecting and whose agency is involved. It is interesting to me that the Book of Mormon offers ethical value for both covenantal non-resistance AND self defense, that bith positions can be holy. Mormon the abridger must have felt the story of Ammon’s people to have been deeply moving and of poignant contrast to his life. Furthermore, the Book of Mormon seems to place an obligation on those who take the self-defense position to protect and defend persons who are in the position of covenental non-resistance.” Aug 6, 06:38
- on Extreme Pacifism and the Moriori: The Anti-Nephi Lehites of the South Pacific : “I’m no pacifist. I think the US military ended great evils in the Civil War and WW2, and there was no other way to do so. When I look at North and South Korea today, I’m proud of what we were able to do for the people of South Korea and wish there had been some way to do more for the people of North Korea. And yet… Killing in war or self-defense is inevitably adjacent to murder, and it is easy to cross the line. One of the minor themes of the Book of Mormon is that to use violence, even in self-defense, is to put your soul at risk. (The book also tells you how to protect it.) Leaders who order unjust wars are accountable for the blood shed. Leaders are also accountable for how a war is fought. That includes the moral environment they create: soldiers need to be clearly taught what the rules are and see that there are consequences for breaking them. It also includes the leader’s own decisions: for example, God knows to what extent the Allied “bomber barons” of WW2 really believed that deliberately killing hundreds of thousands of civilians could win the war, and to what extent they were influenced by wanting to win bureaucratic battles for resources. (No one after them can plausibly claim they thought air strikes alone can win wars.) (Needless to say I’m very concerned about the morality of our current wars.) But individuals are responsible for their own choices. I trust the Lord will take into account the adrenaline rush of fighting for your life, and the desensitization that results from long-term combat, but they can’t fully excuse murder. Given all that, I think deciding you’d rather die than take that risk is a valid choice. Letting others die is a tougher choice, but that very much depends on the circumstances. My version of just war theory includes a requirement that you have a realistic chance of winning, or at least doing some good. What the Anti-Nephi-Lehies had in common with the Jews under Roman occupation (whom Jesus told to “resist not evil”) is that they couldn’t save themselves or anyone else by fighting. For the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, dying peacefully was not really giving up their life (it was forfeit anyway), but giving up their anger, however justified. But for a Nephite in Moroni’s army, or an an American infantryman on Omaha Beach, fighting is justified, but in some ways the greater sacrifice. “Dying is easy, son, living is harder.”” Aug 5, 23:07
- on A “Great Work” in our Meetings (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 8/2: “I would absolutely love some Three Nephite stories. The endless conference address lessons and talks is killing me.” Aug 5, 22:06
- on Extreme Pacifism and the Moriori: The Anti-Nephi Lehites of the South Pacific : ““I have come to the conclusion that it is a coherent personal stance to take, and I would not force a pacifist to defend themselves, but I believe if you impose your pacifism on others without escape or alternative, you bear a heavy moral cost.” Basically my take. I’d even be fine sacrificing to provide security for pacifists that they can’t provide for themselves (e.g. tax payer-funded SWAT teams responding to active shooters in an Amish colony).” Aug 5, 20:39
- on A “Great Work” in our Meetings (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 8/2: “Another idea for possibly improving the quality of talks and lessons…. In my experience, the decision to base all of our talks and lessons around General Conference addresses has been absolutely detrimental. I have heard that the talks and lessons are supposed to be about the topic, but that has not been done in my ward. The conference address usually IS the local talk or lesson. Maybe it’s because the speakers and teachers don’t want to take a chance of saying anything that might possibly be somehow different from the general authority, but we mostly end up reading the conference talk. “I can’t say it better than Elder ____, so I’m going to read his words.” Honestly, I’d rather listen to my neighbor’s latest testimony about one of the Three Nephites saving members of her family when they did something stupid while snowmobiling. At least that’s a topic she genuinely cares about.” Aug 5, 20:31
- on Extreme Pacifism and the Moriori: The Anti-Nephi Lehites of the South Pacific : “This is interesting as I have actually been thinking about this recently after reading some Tolstoy. I wonder how moral pacifism actually is. I have come to the conclusion that it is a coherent personal stance to take, and I would not force a pacifist to defend themselves, but I believe if you impose your pacifism on others without escape or alternative, you bear a heavy moral cost.” Aug 5, 10:59
- on Extreme Pacifism and the Moriori: The Anti-Nephi Lehites of the South Pacific : ““See the lesson and the key How the one who throws down his weapon Gets more wounds And the world counts the hits coming on him.”” Aug 5, 09:45
- on A “Great Work” in our Meetings (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 8/2: “Kent, I did in fact read your post, quite carefully in fact, and I stand by what I wrote. Blaming the audience for being raised in a culture that doesn’t prepare them to digest a talk from an ill-prepared speaker is just not a useful criticism. You have to take your audience as you find them. As to what I mean by boring, while I don’t think it’s critical to define something we’ve all experienced, I’ll attempt to define it. Boring meetings are often (though not always) characterized by lack of preparation, often relying on simply regurgitating conference talks or other sermons from General Authorities. Even when you can tell a speaker prepared long and hard on a topic, you can also tell that preparation was on learning the topic and not on how to most effectively convey it. Boring speakers display a lack of enthusiasm for either speaking itself (the oft-used trope of explaining how a member of the bishopric how to browbeat them into speaking) or for the topic being presented. The speaker plods along through the written talk in a largely monotone voice, ignoring any cues from the audience and often doesn’t even look up from the paper/device (they aren’t lively, they aren’t engaging). The speaker doesn’t attempt to introduce any novelty to the topic or approach the topic from a different perspective, but rather re-treads the same ground trodden by centuries of Latter-day Saint speakers and quotes the same scriptures and stories everyone else has used (if I have to hear one more talk about the tithing and the windows of heaven…). Boring speakers also fail to respect the time allotted ot them, somehow believing that the sheer length of the talk will somehow make it better. I’m sure there are many more characteristics I could name, but that’s a sufficient list with which to start. Now, as to who’s fault it is, do we blame the leadership? Absolutely. How often and how seriously do our leaders at the Church, area, stake or ward level take training the membership in how to give a talk? It’s something we literally spend a quarter of our time on Sundays doing and yet I struggle to recall much of anything our leaders have done to try to improve the quality of our talks (I’m sure we could dig something up from a talk in the past but the fact that it’s not coming to mind, unlike say training on home teaching/ministering, suggests it has never been much of a priority). I suppose the leadership largely relies on modeling what a talk should look like in General Conference, but then many General Authorities aren’t very engaging either so I’d argue it’s a less than effective way to teach us. As to how to hold training on talks, it would not be that hard to arrange at least one 5th Sunday Lesson a year on effective approaches to giving a talk as well as arranging for feedback after someone gives a talk. Could that lead to offense if the feedback is too harsh or be ineffective if the speaker is given nothing but praise, sure, but with support and imprimatur from the leadership, I believe it’s possible to do. It takes effort, but given how much time we spend together listening to someone else talk, wouldn’t that be time and energy well spent? As to the audience, again, I understand that you want to put much of the burden on them to find something meaningful in any talk, but, I’m sorry, you’re asking too much. Sure, the Kents of the Church can absolutely do that, but most of those in the pews are not Kents. They are children and youth. They are adults who are there simply because their spouse wants them to be there. They are adults who are easily distracted and just looking for a reason to whip out their phone and ignore the speaker. Do we ignore those people and cater only to those able or willing to pay attention to a boring talk? Should the majority of our talks only be an acquired taste that require above average patience, concentration, and contemplation to access? I think not, and I also think that we can and should do better. That said, because we rely on the congregation for the majority of our speakers, there’s always going to be an upper limit to what you can expect, but don’t you think most of the talks we hear could be improved with a little more preparation and training? I certainly do.” Aug 5, 08:20
- on A “Great Work” in our Meetings (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 8/2: ““Not a Cougar” You are reading more into what I said than is actually there. I never said that “boring meetings are obviously good”. I am saying that I don’t think that whether or not meetings are boring is necessarily the point. We go to church for many reasons, and things happen in church for many reasons. Whether or not you enjoyed the talks isn’t necessarily among those reasons. Please re-read the original post!! You are missing the important point. I have repeatedly said things like “Under the influence of the surrounding culture, we make assumptions about what is important and what makes our experience at church good. And when that doesn’t happen, we assume that the talks or classes are “bad.” Let me challenge you a bit. What do you mean by boring? Or engaging? Is your definition of boring, or engaging something that comes from the gospel or is it from what you see on television or other entertainment venues? Is it possible that what you find boring and what someone else finds boring are different? Why does that happen? If it does happen, what does that mean for how we define “boring”? I’m NOT saying that there isn’t such a thing as boring or engaging. I AM saying that we need to be careful and make sure we have defined what we are talking about. I’m also asking where the responsibility for avoiding “boring” meetings lies? Does it lie with the speaker? With the audience? With those planning the meetings? With those who have trained or failed to train the speaker? If we avoid untrained speakers, how do we get trained speaker? In addition, are we being charitable when we make these claims? Sorry, but you will need to do much better than simply claiming that many talks or classes are “boring” — I need to know why and how they are boring and what should be done to change that.” Aug 4, 23:49
- on A Review: Nourishing the Roots: Seeking the Foundations of Latter-day Testimony: “I love those illustrations. And I love the Book of Mormon as someone that believes the BOM is evidence of revelation. That doesn’t make me fit in the sceptic camp and I can wave or enjoy the historicity camp but don’t think I’m fully there with examples that may stretch things a little too much. I’ll add this book to the list so not to judge it based on its cover. Thank you.” Aug 4, 22:02
