Dave's Mormon Inquiry

A Different Jesus?

Google "a different jesus" and you'll find that 7 of the first 10 links that come up on the first page are about Mormonism. Three of those link to predictable discussions either proclaiming that Mormons worship a different Jesus or arguing that Mormons worship the same Jesus as most other Christians. Four of those link to Robert L. Millet's A Different Jesus? The Christ of the Latter-day Saints (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005), the book that ought to be a primary reference for those engaging in the discussion, but usually isn't. Along with How Wide the Divide?, it seems like the best book to give to any Christian interested in learning about LDS beliefs concerning Christ (as opposed to what critics portray LDS beliefs to be).

Sports as Religious Experience

That's where two talented philosophers, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly, end up when they consider All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age (Free Press, 2011). It's the communal experience of being swept up with the crowd in dramatic moments or of sharing with the onlooking crowd a remarkable moment of peak performance that the authors are embracing:

The Not-So-Great Apostasy

I have seen several notices publicizing an upcoming conference at BYU, Exploring Mormon Conceptions of the Apostasy. Sounds interesting, particularly in light of the one-paragraph blurb stating goals for the conference, which challenges rank and file members of the Church as well as scholars to reconsider LDS views of "the Great Apostasy":

Blog Addiction

Addiction has become a central concept for the ills of society. Oddly, addiction has also become a keyword in modern LDS discourse, occupying a vaguely defined middle ground between sin (we don't approve of addictive behaviors) and illness (we want to cure them). So this morning I'm just a few pages into Hubert Drefus and Sean Dorrance Kelley's All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age (Free Press, 2011) when up pops this entirely unexpected critique of blogging as an addiction.

The Real World of the Book of Mormon

This is the fourth in a series of posts taking a broad look at the Book of Mormon. This post continues the discussion of the prior post, The Book of Mormon as Narrative, by considering verisimilitude. This term refers to how faithfully a text represents the real world or, to various degrees, depicts events that do not conform to the readers' view of the real world.