Dave's Mormon Inquiry

It Comes, It Goes

The desire and ability to blog: it comes, it goes. Sometimes you're busy and there's no time; other times you're tired or there's just nothing ... to ... say. So I finally log on tonight and what do I see? Not popcorn popping, but five ugly spammish comments posted to the strangely irresistable post Stupid Things. I don't know what it is about that title, but it still brings in a dozen hits a week, generally under searches like "Mormon stupid." Maybe I need to do a post titled "Brilliant Things" and see what happens.

This Divided Campus

When there's nothing else to blog about, BYU always comes through. The latest: a student showed a film for a class project without administration permission! The film: This Divided State. You'd think that documentaries would be broadly acceptable at BYU under some sort of education exception ... but no. The story reports, "As for the film, profanity in some scenes made it inappropriate for BYU unless it was edited." It doesn't sound like there are any disciplinary consequences in the works for this episode — it wasn't like they showed a documentary in a religion class, which would probably qualify as blasphemy. It's the fact that "administrators wouldn't allow an unedited version to air on campus" that is the puzzle to me. It was a documentary. About politics. At some point this sort of thinking must start to (already has?) compromise the ability of faculty members to offer a standard university education.

Mormon Militarism?

This will wind up last week's topic (see here and here) by reviewing the recent remarks of BYU professor Richard Bennett (to a gathering in Southern California) on militias in pre-Civil War America and the significance of militias in understanding the LDS experience in Missouri, Illinois, and Utah in the 19th century. He did an earlier book, Mormons at the Missouri: Winter Quarters, 1846-52 (U. of Oklahoma Press, 2004). His more recent research on militias, to be published in an upcoming book, goes a long way toward making several messy episodes (Zion's Camp, the Missouri War of 1838 and the Danites, the Nauvoo Legion, and the Utah War of 1857 and Mountain Meadows) more understandable. It also helps to counter the occasional characterizations of LDS attempts at self-defense as evidence of Mormon militarism.

Nauvoo Legion

As this week's online essay (and as a follow-up to yesterday's post) go read the Nauvoo Legion article from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. It notes:

As part of the state militia, the Nauvoo Legion was at the disposal of the governor of Illinois "for the public defense, and the execution of the laws of the State or of the United States." Significantly, it was also at the disposal of the mayor of Nauvoo for "executing the laws and ordinances of the city corporation" (HC 4:244).

Not an ideal arrangement, but at least the Nauvoo Legion was an offically organized unit of the Illinois militia.

Weekend Warriors

It's not hard to find something mildly relevant when Googling a topic of interest, but every once in a while you strike gold. Here's a gem I just stumbled across: the Utah Army National Guard history page. It starts: The Utah National Guard was formally organized March 24, 1894, however its predecessor, the Nauvoo Legion, dates back to 1849. I wouldn't have expected the Utah National Guard to claim the Nauvoo Legion as its official predecessor. And it gets more interesting from there.

Authors and Readers

On the way back from the library a couple of days ago, I was explaining to my daughter that there's something special about reading a book. It forms a link or bond between the reader and the author. She was just getting started with The Little Prince, and I explained that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author, actually was a pilot and really did crash a plane in the Sahara desert (as recounted in the opening pages of The Little Prince). His earlier book Wind, Sand, and Stars is one of my favorites.

Anyway, while blabbing about what it means to authors to have people actually read their books, my mind turned to blogging, which I didn't have in mind at first (honest). I haven't written any books (yet), but my site meter has counted 129,000 visits, with roughly half of those unique, based on what I've heard from other people who run blogs and on the fact that about half my visitors come in through Google searches. So I'm guessing I've got roughly 65,000 readers, people who have read part or all of at least one post. Wow. That got my attention, and eventually led me (out of a mixture of gratitude and curiosity) to put up my 1000 Comments post.

A Thousand Comment Thread

All visitors are hereby invited to make one short entry in the comments to this post. I get over 6000 visits per month at this site, of which about 3000 are unique visitors as opposed to repeats. I want to know: Who are all of you? Here's your chance to say, "I was here." In a short comment to this post, please share the following: (1) What brought you here to this site; (2) what post(s) you read; (3) your religious affiliation [practicing Mormon, cultural Mormon, former Mormon, anti-Mormon, Protestant, Evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox, UU, Buddhist, Hindu, Islam, French, Scientologist, Wiccan, agnostic, or atheist]; and (4) any comments you'd like to add about yourself, this blog, or the post you read here.

I will leave the comments open until exactly 1000 comments are logged, then close it. Limit one comment per visitor.

Links to this post from other sites:

• Only 945 Comments Shy of Success! (April 18, 2006, comparing Dave to an infamous overachiever)
• Dave Slays A Thousand Commenters With The Jawbone of an Ass (April 18, 2006, a highly edited link in Notes From All Over)

Tricky Diversity Standard

BYU NewsNet posted a story on a combined effort of BYU and several other universities with religious affiliations (e.g., Notre Dame and Pepperdine) to head off diversity attacks. Secular accrediting bodies apparently want to see full diversity at every campus, and are unhappy that religious schools disfavor stridently anti-religious views. It doesn't seem to occur to the secular accreditors that they are enforcing uniformity by prohibiting (to the extent their influence makes a difference) universities from deviating from the accreditors' one-size-fits-all view of diversity.

They should put an economist on their accreditation council, who will perhaps explain that a free market in universities will foster differentiation across campuses (diverse types of university environment), with students and faculty then self-selecting according to their own preferences. That's obvious at BYU, which works hard to explain to prospective student what values and views are important to the BYU community, and the expected self-selection occurs. It seems to be working — the students who go there are happy and there is no shortage of applicants. Define yourself poorly, of course, and no one will want to attend — that's market discipline. Accreditation councils that actually act to squelch diverse university models (those that depart from their defined norm) are obviously promoting their own uniformity agenda, not diversity at all. Don't expect the diversity police to really grasp this concept on the first hearing. Or the second. Or the third ...

The Selfish Meme

For a particularly interesting online essay, go read The Spell of the Meme (click here for a nicer pdf version). The essay is by lapsed atheist and professor of historical theology Alister McGrath, offering a pointed critique of Daniel Dennett's latest book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006). He takes Dennett to task for his rather liberal use of the problematic concept of the meme in his "natural" explanation of religion. For several interesting posts on Dennett's book, see entries at Issues in Mormon Doctrine (first entry here).

Note: I've been getting increased spam and troll comments lately, so I turned the comment queue ON for a few days. Expect short delays before your comments post publicly. On the bright side, some comment typos will now magically disappear before posting.

Postmodern Mormonism, Take 2

The concept of postmodernity derives from Jean-Francois Lyotard. Here's what Alex Callinicos says in Social Theory: A Historical Introduction (1999):

[Lyotard] defines 'postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives,' contrasting it with the modern, that is, with 'any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse ... making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, ... or the creation of wealth.' A grand narrative for Lyotard is an attempt to make sense of the totality of human history.

[p. 2; italics and first ellipsis in original.] You would think religion, and especially Mormonism, is necessarily a "grand narrative" and could not therefore go very far down the postmodern path. I will summarize a recent essay by Armand Mauss to suggest otherwise. The times they are a-changin'.

Postmodern Mormonism?

Modernity is a concept that social theorists grapple with. It is often contrasted with postmodernism, which the linked entry notes "generally refers to the criticism of absolute truths or identities and 'grand narratives.'" While this is already a postmodern world in some respects, religion tends to trail social trends by a few decades. But maybe it is catching up: postmodern religion may be just over the horizon.

This is clear, for example, in reading about the Emerging Church (EC), the latest trend in Christianity. Some see the EC as nothing less than postmodern religion: non-institutional, narrative rather than rational, immersed in media and technology, and largely unconcerned with traditional religious concepts like denominational identity, theology, or creeds. It could be just another religious fad or it could be a glimpse of the future of Christianity. Here's my question: Is there a parallel in Mormonism? What would a postmodern LDS Church look like?

You Saw It Here First

I think I have a Bloggernacle first to report: The first official LDS Google Ad appeared in the ad box on my right sidebar today. The link was to mormon.org, an official LDS website, so I think it was the real thing. Here is the entire ad copy: "Free Book of Mormon. It's about God's plan. It's about Jesus Christ. It's about you. www.mormon.org". The ads rotate, so it's probably not one of the five ads you see when reading this post, but it might be.

The selection of ads appearing in the ad box has changed over the last year or so. When I first started, there were plenty of "Christians saving Mormons" ads. More recently, LDS-themed merchandise and services, including Deseret Book ads, have been appearing. But never before today have I seen an officially sponsored LDS ad. So when you visit other religious websites or blogs, keep an eye out for what pops up in the ad bar and you might get a surprise. I wonder, will there be an LDS Associates program next?

Lingering Discontent

The BYU student newspaper published a story on the lingering discontent among some students at BYU. The issue is last week's firing of a BYU employee over a letter he wrote to the Daily Universe alleging ineffective supervision of BYU student elections. [For more background, see this article at DN and this earlier post at BT.] The letter got published, the employee got canned, and now students are wearing T-shirts protesting the firing. I wonder, will the T-shirt movement generate more interest than the student elections? The quote from the present BYUSA President is a classic: "Somebody got fired. Let's move on." He's certainly not going to rock the boat. I think he has a future in politics.

Priesthood Session Notes - April 2006

[Note: For excellent notes on the April 2007 Priesthood Session, go here.]

For the benefit of those persons not invited, here are quick notes on a fine Priesthood Session. The six speakers were Elders Uchtdorf, Rasband, Hinckley fils, and Presidents Faust, Monson, and Hinckley. I'll give brief notes on the first five, then extended notes on Pres. Hinckley's remarks.