Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Myth and Ritual

Like some of you, I've been reading a book or two on the Old Testament, this year's Sunday School course of study. Most recently I read Susan Niditch's Ancient Israelite Religion (OUP, 1997), described in the jacket blurb as "a perceptive, accessible account of the religious beliefs and practices of the ancient Israelites." Too often our approach to the Old Testament is essentially cherrypicking -- highlighting passages that affirm our own beliefs and understanding while skimming over or simply ignoring everything else. We can do better.

Perceptions of Mormonism

The Deseret News posted an article ("Mormons need to work to increase favor") summarizing remarks by Gary Lawrence at the recent FAIR Conference held last week in Sandy. He addressed perceptions of Mormonism, based on data gathered by his polling firm. We've got some problems, it seems.

Ripples in History

I recently finished Victor Davis Hanson's Ripples of Battle (Doubleday, 2003), with the give-it-all-away subtitle How wars of the past still determine how we fight, how we live, and how we think. Generalizing a bit, not just wars but many major events and some small, unnoticed ones send ripples into the future, silently influencing future generations. Could the present, our present, have turned out differently?

What Did We Lose?

In 70 AD, the Romans capped their extended campaign to crush a Jewish revolt by destroying the magnificent temple in Jerusalem. The Jews lost their temple. Earlier, they had lost political autonomy and the kingship; later, in 132 AD, another Jewish revolt was suppressed and Jews were barred from living in or even entering Jerusalem. Despite this loss of temple, king, and land, the Jews adapted and Judaism endured. In the 19th century, Mormons had their own sharp if somewhat less dramatic struggle with American government and culture. What did we Mormons lose?

The End of the World

I took a stroll through the End of the World last week. Brought the wife and kids and a picnic lunch. It was beautiful, as always. But one of these days (and it won't be long) it will be gone. Maybe us too.

Inoculation Works

I finally picked up and read a copy of Simon Southerton's Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church (Signature, 2004) a couple of weeks ago. Yet I still attended church last week and have not drafted a resignation letter. Inoculation works.

Review: Losing My Religion

I admit that when approaching William Lobdell's Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America — and Found Unexpected Peace (HarperCollins, 2009), I expected the standard debunking treatment that is so familiar in news and entertainment media these days. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find a balanced and engaging narrative that mixes accounts of the stories Lobell covered while a religion reporter for the Los Angeles Times with details of his own journey into, then out of, faith.

Beliefs and Causes

Beliefs are complicated and sometimes strangely resistant to facts. I don't mean religious beliefs in particular, but everyday beliefs about how the world works and how it is that we come to hold them. That's what I took away from a recent reading of Lewis Wolpert's Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief (W. W. Norton, 2006).

Sleep, Success, and Seminary

Sleep: it's more important than you think, especially for teenagers. Here's from George Will's latest column, "How to ruin a child":

Only 5 percent of high school seniors get eight hours of sleep a night. Children get an hour less than they did 30 years ago, which subtracts IQ points and adds body weight.

Genesis and Genre

When we read Genesis, what exactly are we reading? The distinctions and categories we modern readers bring to books and narratives (fiction or nonfiction; science or folk tale; history or literature; poetry or prose; author's original text or quoted source) may not serve us well when we read the Old Testament, a collection of ancient literature. Its writers used different conventions. What were they? What exactly are we reading when we read Genesis?

Lineage: A Troubling Concept

Here's a quote from Lesson 7, "The Abrahamic Covenant," that caught my attention in Sunday School:

The great majority of those who become members of the Church are literal descendants of Abraham through Ephraim, son of Joseph. Those who are not literal descendants of Abraham and Israel must become such, and when they are baptized and confirmed they are grafted into the tree and are entitled to all the rights and privileges as heirs.

Mormons and Prosperity

The Prosperity Gospel (which the linked Wikipedia article defines as "the notion that God provides material prosperity for those he favors") is often associated with Evangelical megapreachers. [Note 1.] But we all know there is a Mormon variation of the Prosperity Gospel lurking behind the ubiquitous references to blessings and how to earn them that populate LDS books, sermons, and discourse. So when I started reading my review copy of What the Scriptures Teach Us About Prosperity (Deseret Book, 2010) by S. Michael Wilcox, I was hoping that at some point the author would distinguish the Mormon view of prosperity from the Evangelical version of the Prosperity Gospel.

Underwhelming Thoughts on Correlation

I confess that I am not a regular reader of the Church News, but I did happen to run across this recent piece, "Using proper sources." I will note a couple of quibbles I have with the piece (which, as an unsigned post in the "Viewpoints" section, I take to be essentially a staff editorial), but in the end I think I agree on the need to avoid the use of "uncorrelated" supplementary sources or materials in class.

Good Thoughts on Teaching Sunday School

My second-favorite group blog recently posted a series on what's wrong with Sunday School, showing once again that we bloggers are, if nothing else, talented complainers. So let's talk teaching and collect a few simple suggestions for improvement.

Calling All Introverts

There's hope! At least that's the message of a couple of posts I read through lately (here and here) presenting an interview with Adam McHugh, the author of Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture. By "Church" he means Evangelicals, not the LDS Church, but the discussion is still relevant to us.

Do We Need A Fifth Mission?

The news is out that LDS leaders are adding a fourth mission for the Church: caring for the poor and needy. According to an official LDS spokesman cited in the Salt Lake Tribune article, the new mission (or purpose or emphasis) will be included in the new edition of the Handbook of Instructions to be issued next year. With a publishing deadline looming, I propose that we put our collective heads together and see whether we need a fifth mission as well. Perhaps adding a fourth mission alone is not enough to fill in the gaps apparently missed by the first three missions.

What Happened in Nauvoo, Part 3: Polygamy

[See Part 1: Founding and Part 2: Flourishing] Any history of Nauvoo needs to give an account of the secret practice of polygamy between 1841 and 1846. In Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise, Glen Leonard does this in about twenty pages as part of Chapter 13, "Foes Within: The Church of the Seceders."

What Happened in Nauvoo, Part 2: Flourishing

[See Part 1: Founding] This second installment discussing Glen Leonard's Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise looks at the middle years in Nauvoo through about 1842, covered in the second section of the book (pages 123 to 269).

What Happened in Nauvoo, Part 1: Founding

A lot happened in Nauvoo that doesn't get covered in Sunday School or the one-volume treatments of LDS history. But Glen Leonard's Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise tells the story in detail from start to finish.

He Is Not in the Desert

"So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; ... do not believe it" (NIV Matt. 24:26).

Populism and the Early Church

I finally got my hands on a copy of The Democratization of American Christianity, Nathan O. Hatch's look at how the egalitarian democratic spirit that pervaded post-Revolutionary America influenced five early American religious movements: the Christians (such as the Disciples of Christ), the Methodists, the Baptists, black churches, and Mormonism.

Two Kinds of Faith

I recently read Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, Terry Eagleton's critique of the contributions to that debate by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens (who he conflates via the memorable moniker "Ditchkins"). It's less than I'd hoped for, but Chapter Three, "Faith and Reason," raises issues and questions about that most basic of First Principles, faith.

Life on the Fringe

I've seen several links but no discussion of the Slate piece on the hypothetical future role of Mormons, "The Catholic Church helped preserve Roman civilization. Can Mormonism do the same for America?" It's part of an eight-part series on the theme How is America going to end? by a Slate senior editor.

New Primary Lesson Needed

Suggested lesson topic: What to do when you are seven years old and do not want to go to church. Yes, I finally watched the video of the seven-year-old kid who drove away in the family car to avoid going to church (see posts at Get Religion or the SL Trib for details and the video). The story coyly refrains from noting which church the kid was fleeing, but the video comes courtesy of the Weber County Sheriff's Office, so I'm just guessing ...

Modernism and the Mormon Intellectual

This is the fourth and last post on Richard L. Bushman's Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2008). [See Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.] The Enlightenment and its legacy of reason applied to human affairs has been tough on religion. One would think this would apply with even more force to the LDS Church, given how recent are the founding miracles of Mormonism and how prominently they are featured in discussions of our history and practice. But most Mormons seem strangely unaffected by the modernist critique.

Anonymity as Virtue or Vice

Online anonymity is a topic that comes up regularly. Does if facilitate public discussion of controversial issues or just allow anonymous commenters to spread rumor and innuendo with no accountability? Does real-name posting or commenting improve quality via reputation effects or lead to self-censoring? These are valid questions for all online forums, not just blogs or the Bloggernacle.

AWOL: The Threefold Mission of the Church

I was cleaning up my blogroll yesterday and came across this post at Intelligent Life that prominently displays the threefold mission of the Church: preach the gospel, redeem the dead, perfect the Saints. It occurs to me I rarely hear this once-prevalent formulation in current LDS discourse. Where did it go?

God and Robots

They're coming. Even if you don't own a robot vacuum cleaner or lawnmower, you've been dealing with robots for many years now without realizing it: ATMs, kiosks that vend DVDs, the scan-it-yourself devices at the grocery store that greet you with a friendly "Welcome, valued customer!" and conclude with a brisk "Your receipt is printing. Don't forget to pick up your change!" How long before the Church starts using robots for some functions? Please, no snarky comments. This is a serious topic.

Reflections on the Mormon Trail

On a recent corner-to-corner drive across the state of Wyoming, I parallelled the Mormon Trail for about 200 miles: from where the trail intersects I-25 (about 80 miles north of Cheyenne), through Casper (site of the first Mormon Ferry), along Wyoming 220 past Independence Rock, Devil's Gate, and Martin's Cove, then up US 287 past Split Rock to the Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater River. I've never been much for pioneer tales, but I enjoyed taking in the landscape that was the common experience of the first twenty thousand Mormons who made the overland trek to Utah.

Upbeat Reflections on BYU

I recently spent a day on the BYU campus as part of an informal reunion with several old dorm-floor roommates and family members. It was a nice visit, and made me recognize something that often gets forgotten in online discussions about BYU: It is a great place for LDS kids to go to college.

Mormonism, Fundamentalism, and Absolute Truth

I recently read Terry Eagleton's After Theory (Basic Books, 2003), in which Eagleton manages (in a very entertaining way) to be critical of just about everything, including fundamentalism and "Utah" (a term he seems to be using as a proxy for Mormonism). He makes an interesting argument about fundamentalism, suggesting that it is rooted in how certain people ("fundamentalists") read texts. His references to "Utah" suggest he sees Mormonism as practicing a fundamentalist approach to truth. I think I disagree with both points. Some fundamentalist movements might be based on how certain texts are read, but not all, and Mormons don't really employ the fundamentalist approach that Eagleton seems to attribute to us.

A New Mormon Gateway

A website with answers. That's what Time Magazine calls the new religion website Patheos.com in "What Do Religions Believe? A Website with Answers." The Time article describes the new site as one "that sets out to explain the differences among religions as well as illuminate the areas of common ground." Just today the site unveiled its Mormon Gateway section, a menu of resources designed to complement the more detailed information presented in the Library section of the site.

Theology in the Wake of Evolution

It's not easy being a theologian in the 21st century. One of the main reasons is that science provides credible, non-theistic explanations for many of those "where did we come from?" questions that religion once had all to itself. Evolution seems to pose a particular challenge. John Haught, a professor of theology at Georgetown, tries to tackle the problem head-on in his book God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (Westview, 2000).

History and Identity

I recently read a short essay by Eric Hobsbawm, "Identity History Is Not Enough." I came across it in his book On History, a collection of essays, but fortunately for you it is available online at the above link (except for the last page, for some reason). Mormonism is not mentioned, but the discussion seems to bear directly on the writing and reading of Mormon history.

The Future of Religious Liberty

Does it have a future? Some people view religious liberty as a civil and constitutional right; increasingly, others see it as a problem to be dealt with. The Mirror of Justice post "Securing Religious Liberty in an Age of Growing Intolerance" is a short reflection on what this means for the future of religious liberty.

I've Seen All Good People

We know there are good times and bad times, but are there good people and bad people? Common sense says yes, as does virtue ethics, a branch of philosophical ethics that attempts to identify virtues worth having and tell good people how to get them. Alas, the story is not quite so simple.

The Mormon Sort

After seeing a reference or two, I noticed a copy of The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart at the library and gave it a quick read. The thesis is simple: increased income and mobility over the last five decades has enabled Americans to self-sort geographically into communities surrounded by people they are most comfortable with, namely people like themselves.

One Last Book Before I Go

So your mission call finally arrived (see here, here, or here) and you suddenly realize that it starts in 44 days but you don't know that much about Mormonism or what it is you are supposed to teach for two long years. You are suddenly serious about "missionary prep." What book should you read?

Confronting Modernity

I recently finished up Hans Kung's Great Christian Thinkers, which reviews the work of seven theologians (Paul, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, and Barth). From an LDS perspective, the most interesting of the bunch is Friedrich Schleiermacher, who Kung terms "the paradigmatic theologian of modernity." The question he presents to LDS readers is how our approach to religion and doctrine deals with modernity. Is our approach premodern, modern, or postmodern (which in theology generally means some version of neo-orthodoxy)?

Forgetting, and History

From Ernest Renan, a French 19th-century philosopher:

Forgetting, and I would say even historical error, is an essential element in the creation of a nation, and that is why the progress of historical studies is often a danger for the nation itself.

Being Orthodox in the Modern World

A couple of years ago, Noah Feldman published "Orthodox Paradox," an essay in which he recounted some of the tensions of being an Orthodox Jew in the modern world (I ran across it reading The Best American Spiritual Writing 2008). Increasingly, being an orthodox anything in the modern world raises some of the same tensions.

Theology and Conversation

It's hard for Mormons to find an accessible doorway into theology. David F. Ford's short book Theology: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 1999) is the first I've found to really give me some traction with this elusive subject.

Politics versus Sectarianism

I recently finished The Theocons: Secular America Under Seige and put up a short post on it elsewhere. But as I continue to mull it over I have a different idea to float than I discussed in the other post, namely that the rejection of Mitt Romney as a presidential candidate by religious conservatives in the Republican Party marks a triumph of sectarianism over politics that will undermine (or already has) the political influence of the theocons, to whatever extent you grant they have had influence.

Too Much Truth?

Blogger and journalist Rod Dreher posted an op-ed piece at USA Today, "How much 'truth' is too much?" It reviews in passing the author's personal journey from faithful Catholic journalist reporting on the abuse scandals in the Catholic Church to Orthodox Christian who prefers to avoid repeating that experience a second time in his new church.

Why Are the Faithful Fleeing?

At the blog Text Messages, an interview with Julia Duin, who is the religion editor at the Washington Times and author of the book Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What To Do About It. Here are a couple of highlights from the interview.

The Mormon Index

A comprehensive bibliography? A portfolio of LDS-owned companies? No, it's a measure of food-storage activity by preparedness-minded Mormons, as revealed in a feature at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "The Mormon Index is a rising sign of troubled economy."

Pioneers and Indians in Utah Valley

Just last week I heard a familiar comment at church: Brigham Young's policy was to feed the Indians rather than fight them. The actual record of relations between Pioneers and Indians was a bit more complicated, especially in Utah Valley, the watery jewel of early Utah.

"Mothers Who Know" Still Spurring Debate

Georgia isn't the only place with skirmishing this weekend: "LDS leader's address still causing controversy," a long article at the Deseret News, recounts the comments of five Sunstone panelists (and one unfortunate commenter) to LDS Relief Society President Julie B. Beck's October 2007 Conference talk "Mothers Who Know."

Christianity by Continent

I recently read Martin Marty's The Christian World: A Global History (2007). The subtitle is slightly misleading, as Marty recounts Christian history on a continent-by-continent basis. The last two chapters, covering the modern return of Christianity to Africa and Asia, raise issues of particular interest to the LDS experience: correlation and assimilation.

Massacre is Just Around the Corner

The Deseret News just ran a lengthy article giving some details on the long-awaited but soon-to-be-released book Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by three LDS historians.