Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Polygamy: The View From England

From RNB, a repost of a nice Guardian article on the seamy side of modern polygamy, entitled Hellfire and sexual coercion: the darkside of American polygamist sects. It's good therapy for Mormons who still harbor the idea that there can be a blessed side to modern polygamy. Sorry — it's all pretty seamy. English journalists write with more wit and irony than most US journalists can muster, so you'll encounter some choice quotes. The article ends with reference to an escapee: "But the first item on her to-do list is 'Get out of Utah.'" Ouch!

Wanted: A Few Good Nihilists

Earlier today I was browsing at one of my favorite group blogs when I ran across a post that made the following claim: “Without transcendence of some kind, however, it is difficult to see how to avoid nihilism: there is no source of meaning if there is no transcendence.” The claim is that materialism lacks “a coherent notion of transcendence” and thus any adequate ground for meaning. The problem with this claim is that there are plenty of materialists around but not many that are card-carrying nihilists. People seem quite capable of attributing meaning to life and adopting values to live by with complete disregard for the lack of transcendence they ascribe to the Universe. How can they do this?

Quorum of the Anointed

I just finished reading through my advance reading copy ("ARC") of Joseph Smith's Quorum of the Anointed, 1842-1845: A Documentary History (Signature, 2005), edited by Devery S. Anderson and Gary James Bergera. The book doesn't use a standard narrative treatment, but instead presents a chronological arrangement of quotations from all available sources relating statements about the Quorum of the Anointed ("QA"), the select group of about ninety individuals who received the higher LDS ordinances under the direction of Joseph Smith before his death in June 1844. A foreward by Todd Compton and a summary introduction by the editors provide context and a framework to the source material that forms the body of the book. There is also a handy section giving short biographies of all QA members. I'll touch on a few of the highlights.

Saving Brother Ryan

I just finished a DVD viewing of Saving Private Ryan, one of the more intense movies of recent years. It takes a second or third viewing to really capture the institutional cynicism of the movie: The war was not about freedom or liberation; it was about brothers. The mission wasn't the defeat of fascism; it really was a man, or a few good men.

The same theme is sounded in Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers: soldiers fight for their comrades in arms, not with any eye to the stated goals or war aims of politicians or chiefs of staff. At ground level, those larger aims lose their relevance and come to be seen as irrational, counterproductive, or even messed up beyond all recognition (MUBAR).

Legal Guide for Bloggers

The Electronic Frontier Foundation posted its Legal Guide for Bloggers, giving general advice on everything you wanted to know about blogging (but were afraid to ask). The sections are presented in an FAQ format. This seems like a document every blogger should read. The introductory post gives the following comments:

There is still a lot of confusion about the legal status of bloggers. Are they journalists, due the protections of the reporters' privilege and heightened First Amendment analysis? Are they online service providers, who are generally exempt from liability for the postings of others? EFF's guide explores all of these roles and explains how the law may be interpreted in particular instances.

Comment Fatigue

My thanks to all who have contributed comments since March 2004, when I first migrated to Typepad and enabled comments. However, managing comments has become more of a challenge the last couple of months, so I'm moving to trackbacks rather than comments for most posts. You still have three good options for commenting on posts: (1) Comment as a post on your own weblog, with or without a trackback to my post; (2) Email me your comment and get a personal reply; or (3) Just grasp your monitor with both hands and shout at the screen. No, I won't hear you, but you'll feel much better when you're done. It works great for driving anyway.

Band of Historians on the Run

The JF Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History is closing its doors soon, per the Deseret News (see also Justin's post). The historians presently housed at the Institute will be transferred to a minimum security facility in the Salt Lake area. The new Church Historian is quoted as saying this move "doesn't preclude other LDS historical research that will still take place in several academic departments at BYU." No, it's not precluded ... if you are really careful and don't get caught. The present Institute Director, seemingly oblivious to the fact that her job was essentially just eliminated, says "I don't see this move as any effort to suppress information. That would destroy the whole purpose in doing the papers, which is to make all the documents available." Who said anything about suppressing information? Where would she get an idea like that?

Stupid Things

I generally avoid controversial topics, but here I will bow to the request of several commenters and start a new thread on a topic that came in the comments to an earlier post. Here is the interesting statement that started the ball rolling:

There's a lot of scriptural precedent for being asked to do stupid things by Church authorities and being blessed for it.

I think there are sound arguments on both sides of this interesting claim. I'll try and give a fair hearing to both sides, then let the comments do the choosing. To soften the discussion a bit, I'll talk more about the general question of why we do stupid things in any organization.

The Joseph Smith Project

The way things are going, this could be bigger than The Alan Parsons Project. BYU Newsnet published a short article giving a welcome overview of this ongoing effort to publish all of Joseph Smith's writings, every last document. It is a great way to get documents out of musty, inaccessible archives and into the hands of interested readers like you and me. Not that we'll ever read even a fraction of the 5000+ documents they are compiling, but it's nice to know we could if we wanted to! See also recent posts on the project at Mormon Wasp, here and here.

Punctuation Matters

The original 1830 "as dictated" English text of the Book of Mormon was entirely devoid of punctuation, it seems. That is sort of odd: punctuation is not some optional decoration, it is an essential component of clear written text, establishing the proper relations between various sentences, clauses, phrases, and words that make up the text. If the Urim and Thummim didn't do punctuation, it was a faulty or incomplete translation instrument. So where did the punctuation come from? Meet John H. Gilbert, punctuator and thus unacknowledged "co-translator" of the Book of Mormon.

Our Man Paul

An offhand comment of mine on the recent Word of Wisdom thread prompted a request from a BCC reader for more on Paul H. Dunn. No problem—I can whip up a good Paul Dunn story on the spot! But seriously, does anyone else miss him? Can you think of a Conference session you’ve seen in the last ten years that wouldn’t have been given a badly needed shot in the arm by a talk from a storyteller-entertainer like Elder Dunn?

Mr. Living Bible Dies

RNB reposts that Kenneth Taylor, the author of The Living Bible, died last week. The Living Bible was the first plain language Bible to really hit it big; it was wildly popular with the Bible-reading public from its first appearance in 1971, especially among youth. The LDS Church never embraced this movement; instead, the Church regularly rededicates itself to archaic language in the King James Bible and the Book of Mormon; in the thee's and thou's of our prayer language; even in our titles, such as the Relief Society or the Mutual Improvement Association. If you just can't shake the idea of a Living Book of Mormon, go find a copy of the Easy-to-Read Book of Mormon (see this FARMS review of the book for a few sample excerpts). It will give hours of fun to the entire family.

Sidebar Shuffle

I felt the urge to tinker with the blog template, and shuffling the sidebar material was the easiest thing to play with. Besides, I missed my books, which now fill the left sidebar top to bottom. On the right, I snipped the Recent Comments scroll to eight entries, which keeps my Sideblog (now nestled below the Recent Comments list) visible "above the fold" on the main page. I also added my Group Blogs and Solo Blogs lists, which show a healthy selection of Bloggernacle sites, back to the sidebar, and did some clean-up work on those lists. Whaddya think?

The Prophet Puzzle, Part 2

[See Part 1] Here is my second post on The Prophet Puzzle: Interpretive Essays on Joseph Smith, my current Book of the Month. I will make brief comments on several of the more challenging essays. The "puzzle," quoting from my Part 1, is to come up with "a more integrated, comprehensive portrait of Joseph Smith than the one-sided narratives that then existed." The essays (most of which were previously published in Dialogue) do a fair job of highlighting some of the less appreciated features of Joseph Smith's life and personality that require consideration in such an integrated biography.

More From Bednar

Everyone seemed to enjoy the discussion here of the earrings issue from Elder Bednar's BYU devotional last week, so I thought I'd put up his entire talk, titled "Quick to Observe," and see what else we can kick around. I disliked the talk as much as I disliked the earrings illustration, but I'll try to find something nice to say about it anyway.

Deep Mormon Bench

Where do they keep finding these overachievers? First, they pull the dean of the HBS to run BYU-I. Then they pull another all-star CEO off the shelf to run an LDS mission in New England. Well, it's nice to be in a church that knows how to recruit, train, and deploy talent.

Tax Deductible Tithing

For this week's short online essay of the week, go read the Daily Herald's interesting editorial on tax reform proposals being discussed in the Utah legislature. The editorial notes: "The Legislature's Tax Reform Task Force is considering the idea of creating a flat income tax in Utah with a single standard deduction. The plan ... would eliminate deductions for children and for charitable contributions." One might expect the Church to be opposed to such a move, but here is the editorial's summary of the actual LDS position: "But the church said it's not worried about reducing the amount of tithing from Utah members. It is other charitable groups the church is worried about" (grammar corrected). Right. I'm not sure what bothers me more: That some LDS spokesperson could make that statement with a straight face, or that there are a good many Utah LDS who will accept it as a sincere statement.

Bednar at BYU

Elder Bednar gave a devotional at BYU last month. The advice to BYU students was to treasure the gift of "being quick to observe," which he presents as a gloss for being obedient. One example he gives is a righteous fellow who dumps a girl friend because she sports more than one earring per ear. thus showing her disregard for prophetic counsel. Yes, BYU students learn to focus on the really important things in their quest for an eternal mate: earrings. Earrings in the number of two, as in: "Two, no more, no less. Two shalt be the number of thy earrings; three thou shalt not sport, neither two in one ear, but one per ear shall be the number thou shalt count." (Go here for the script, about halfway down.)