- Chad Nielsen on A Schism of Loyalty: Aidan and Tristan Caplan on the Third Convention: “TexasAbuelo, I’m glad to hear that! I have loved learning about the history of the church with Mexicans. Currently, I’m writing a biography of Rey L. Pratt, so there’s a good chance more stuff will appear here at T&S over the next little while.” Aug 31, 11:23
- on Seeing Responsibility in our Meetings (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 8/30: “Here’s a few of my thoughts in reaction to what I recently experienced in Church: One member of our congregation has trouble sitting still in meetings. He is in church every Sunday, and his movement and talking to others during the meeting likely distracts many people frequently. But I don’t think anyone should speak to him about it. I don’t think it’s intentional (likely part of his neurological and mental differences), and I think it’s probably also good practice for the rest of us. We get to learn when to allow things to distract us, and when to let it go. A comment in class suggested that we often outsource our responsibilities to others and vice versa. But in thinking about it, I realized that often ‘outsourcing responsibility’ is more about the social relationships between people than it is about the responsibility. We may shift responsibility not because that’s where it belongs, but because the other party demands it, or the group expects the responsibility to be there. Talking in class about an example in the scriptures, someone observed that “he changed, but maybe not for the good”. That’s an underlying assumption we make, isn’t it, that changes are either for the better or the worse. Apparently no change can be neutral? A speaker here in New York talked about arriving at the Temple through the hustle and bustle of the city and feeling a sense of sacredness there. As a result, I’m wondering about how much of the sacredness of a place is about our psychological attitudes and perceptions, and how much is a gift of God. Personally, I have times when hustle and bustle feels spiritual, a way of connecting to the vast number of children of our Heavenly Parents around me. Does that not also count as a sacred place?” Aug 30, 13:47
- on Anti-Mormon Depictions So Bad They’re Good: “I think that the average viewer of American Primeval will internalize it as a close enough to history retelling that it will prevent their interest in the church in the future. No one will think that its history and not overly dramatized, but assume that it’s not far off of the mark either. Many, many posts on the American Primeval subreddit were people going “I didn’t know that Mormons were that bad”.” Aug 28, 23:11
- on Everything wrong with the new hymn book (1799 edition, colorized): “I don’t know about stake conferences, but it seems like a lot of the new hymns were sung by the choir in General Conference before being selected for the hymn book. Something that’s helped a lot in my ward and has been very well received is the musical sacrament meeting where everyone is invited to pick their favorite hymn, briefly introduce it, and then the congregation sings a verse from it. You need a good organist, but it seems to help engagement with the hymns.” Aug 28, 18:47
- on Everything wrong with the new hymn book (1799 edition, colorized): “The reason they pick only the very most familiar hymns for general conferences and stake conferences (where I have experience choosing hymns) is that the congregation doesn’t all have hymnbooks in those meetings. If the Church wanted us to imitate that selection in our sacrament meetings, then the new hymnbook would be a very different and much simpler project. But I promise you’d be sick of those very familiar hymns within a year or two. If a hymn is repeated so often that we stop paying attention to it, it cannot accomplish its spiritual purposes. I endorse everything Lisa said. I think my ward’s learning of the new hymns is going fairly well, but we could use more repetition. I’d love to see an intentional approach where the person in charge prayerfully chooses 2-3 new hymns for the congregation to learn and they get sung once a month for six months. Then they’d become familiar and the congregation would be comfortable singing them. And I think in most cases the congregation would learn to love them. I’m not sure there’s a decline in musicality in the Church, but I do see a decline in willingness to participate in music. Sometimes that translates to leadership not giving music the support it deserves, but just as often it translates to leadership trying to make music happen and the ward members just aren’t interested. Yes, it frustrates me–we’re missing out on what music can do for us spiritually.” Aug 28, 13:12
- on Everything wrong with the new hymn book (1799 edition, colorized): “I’ve been trying hard to use the ward choir to teach the new songs. The problem is, the bishopbric keeps trying to gradually kill the choir program. At this point, we sing four songs a year, and only have 20 minute rehearsals after church, before the next ward comes and takes over the young women’s room. So, that makes it tricky to introduce new hymns on a regular basis through that. Plus, once the choir learns the hymns, it’s only effective if they get incorporated into regular use to build on that core group of people. That hasn’t happened, since we rarely sing the new hymns.” Aug 28, 13:04
- on Anti-Mormon Depictions So Bad They’re Good: “Honestly, I’m so fatiqued by the never ending drum beat of LDS Church ramblings, blatherings, chaos and banal repetitions – I’ll take ANYTHING that breaks up the monotony of it all. I LOVED American Primeval; just for the shear entertainment value of it!” Aug 28, 07:47
- on Everything wrong with the new hymn book (1799 edition, colorized): “To be clear, I’m not bagging on the new hymns, per se. The church shows us which hymns are sung in conference. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/music/music-from-general-conference?lang=eng Dig through there and look at the patterns. Obviously, there’s no clear hard and fast rule here (although I did sit in a meeting where some words similar to what I’m saying came through a GA from Pres. Packer). I could imagine an ideal balance being among the ~12 hymns sung each month that aren’t a sacrament hymn, 8 of them are the familiar ones nearly everyone can sing from that GC list. The rest are others from the hymnbook that fit the theme or to be learned etc. Seems reasonable to me. I agree most wards are to be ashamed of themselves when it comes to the choir. My previous ward had such an amazing choir director (she didn’t pick the hymns though) that when she substituted in primary for a couple weeks, the kids brought me to the tears with how she got them to sing. Incidentally, it was one of the new hymns. Bishops need to take music seriously. It’s more important than the speakers and topics they select.” Aug 27, 23:37
- on Coduction (learning together) in our Meetings (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 8/23: “John, great words. I don’t know all the repercussions of the changes, but I think you’re right that in some cases the shorter time will inhibit good conversation. In other cases it might be a blessing. And, like the youngest member of your quorum, I think we are all learning about new burdens. Perhaps the older members of your quorum would observe that aging is a burden—as the poet says, “it’s a dirty trick, this getting old.” I’m feeling that a lot lately.” Aug 27, 21:27
- on Everything wrong with the new hymn book (1799 edition, colorized): “Last L.: To clarify, the hymnal itself was printed in Dresden. It’s only the anonymous critique that was printed in Strasbourg. For what it’s worth, my ward is doing pretty well with incorporating at least some of the new hymns. Probably two weeks out of three, one of them is on the schedule, usually as an intermediate hymn. A lot depends on who picks the hymns. In my ward, the organists do, and at least a couple of them are highly invested in the new hymns.” Aug 27, 16:35
