Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Joseph in the Land of Lincoln

I listened to Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln on CD last month, then followed it up by reading a short biography of Lincoln from the Penguin Lives series. [Remini's biography of Joseph Smith is in the same Penguin series of short biographies by notable authors.] It's worth a little reading to get a handle on what life was like in antebellum America, the world of early LDS history. And it's hard to read about young Abraham Lincoln in Illinois without reflecting on what else was going on there contemporaneously.

On the Road With Joseph Smith

Last night at Miller-Eccles, I held in my hand a copy of On the Road With Joseph Smith, the pricey "Year in the Life" diary of Richard Bushman as he toured the country from mid-2005 to mid-2006 giving lectures on Rough Stone Rolling, his celebrated biography of Joseph Smith, Jr. And when I say pricey, I mean it: the limited printing of 100 went for $150 a piece and are reselling at a significant premium in the secondary market. Wow, I haven't paid that much for a book since ... college. Even so, a buck a page. That's enough to make anyone start keeping a journal.

The Mission Decision

My prior mission post generated a lot of discussion, so I'll follow it up by relating an email I received from a reader last month who I'll call Zack. Zack is a freshman in college who joined the Church a few years ago and is now pondering whether to go on a mission in the coming year. Thousands of young LDS men and women face that big decision each year. It's easy for us to forget what a huge decision it is: When you're 19, two years is forever. So I invite readers to share a thought or experience of their own about how to approach the big mission decision.

Belief Unbracketed

For this week's online essay, go read Stephen Prothero's Belief Unbracketed: A Case for the Religion Scholar to Reveal More of Where He or She Is Coming From, posted at the Harvard Divinity School website. Hint: it's short, twenty modern paragraphs (that's about five 18th-century paragraphs; we're less patient than our ancestors). Prothero, of course, is the author of American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (2003), a penetrating work of religious cultural history that I read about half of two years ago over Christmas vacation and that I fully intend to finish someday. And I was just getting to the good part ...

In Harm's Way

No sooner do I post on LDS missionaries and their challenges than the Mother of All Challenges makes headlines in this SL Trib article: LDS Church negotiating for release of four missionaries abducted in Nigeria. As is often the case, the Church had already removed non-local missionaries (those not serving in their own country) from the troubled areas. The four kidnapped missionaries are themselves Nigerian. Let's pray for their speedy and safe release.

More on Otterson

After last week's extended discussion about the participation of Michael Otterson, the LDS Public Relations Director, at the Newsweek/Washington Post On Faith site, I traded a couple of emails with Otterson. I was interested in learning how he became involved with the site and how the site is being managed. With his permission, I will summarize and quote some of his comments for the benefit of readers who may have similar questions.

Two Years

I promised in an earlier post to try and produce some upbeat posts on Sunday. So here are some reflections on LDS missionary service prompted by remarks I heard in church a couple of weeks ago.

A recently returned missionary who served in Eastern Europe talked about her experience. Plainly the work is difficult, opposition to the LDS message and program is sometimes pointed, and LDS membership in that part of the world is small. Then a gentleman who served some years ago in an area of the United States that was experiencing remarkable success talked about how that mission at that time baptized hundreds and hundreds of individuals each month. Missionaries were so busy teaching they really had no need, and literally no time, to go tracting door-to-door to find new contacts. He said he didn't knock on a single door his entire mission. He noted what a challenge it is, but what fine work is done, by missionaries laboring in areas where the Church is young and proselyting success is a rare event. They are laying a foundation for future growth and success by those who come in later years. Yes, the LDS missionary experience covers the whole spectrum, depending on where and when one serves.

Biblical Cosmology

One problem with trying to understand the Bible is that its writers thought about the universe in much different terms than we do. This point comes out quite clearly in a couple of passages in The Future of Christianity, a modernist religious critique of conservative Christian beliefs. Here's the author's description of what we can call the biblical cosmology, although it wasn't unique to what became the books of the Bible:

The biblical view represented most clearly in the creation story in Genesis 1:1-2:4a is that of a flat earth, covered by a dome to which the sun, the moon, and the stars are attached. The waters of heaven are above that dome or firmament. In fact, it is the opening of the windows of that dome that results in the falling of rain or snow upon the earth below.

Beneath the earth are the waters upon which the earth rests and the underworld, basically a tunnel through which the sun travels on its nightly journey from the west, where it sets, to return to the east in time for the next sunrise. The heavens are beyond the dome of the sky and serve as the permanent abode of God and his angels.

This biblical cosmology raises some interesting questions for modern believers.

Evolution Sunday

Today is Evolution Sunday. I didn't hear an evolution sermon in my LDS congregation this morning and I'm guessing you didn't either, but if you need one there's a list of thirty of forty evolution sermons posted online. LDS resources you might consult should you prefer something less sermon-like: the BYU Evolutionary Biology page; the article Seers, Savants and Evolution: The Uncomfortable Interface by Duane Jeffery; and, at All About Mormons, several articles drawn from McConkie's Mormon Doctrine and from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism.

The Future of Christianity

I'm reading The Future of Christianity: Can It Survive? (Prometheus, 2006) by Arthur J. Bellinzoni. The author is a retired professor of religion, and he's not very optimistic about that future: "It would be presumptuous for anyone to try to envision what Christianity might look like at the end of the third millennium in the year 3000. Frankly, I am not even sure that Christianity will survive for another thousand years. Neither am I convinced that Christianity deserves to survive ...." Of course, his suggestions for improvement amount to making all of Christianity more like the slowly dying liberal wing of Protestantism. Some solution.

Romney Gets Serious

There's a nice article at the Deseret News titled "Romney tackling issue of his religion head-on" (by a couple of New York Times reporters). Looks like Romney wants to hit the issue early and get it out of the way if he can. That's an obvious strategy, of course; the trick is pulling it off. He's courting Evangelical leaders: "He has set up a meeting later this month in Florida with 100 ministers and religious broadcasters. That gathering follows what was by all accounts a successful meeting at his home last fall with evangelical leaders, including Jerry Falwell; Franklin Graham, who is a son of the Rev. Billy Graham; and Paula White, a popular preacher." I think he's probably got more to fear from other Republican candidates exploiting the issue than from any statements by Evangelicals themselves.

Otterson Stands Tall

The LDS public relations machine doesn't always get a lot of respect from bloggers. But I've been watching the steady and reasonable performance by Michael Otterson, the LDS Public Relations Director, over at the new On Faith site and feel compelled to compliment the man publicly. He deserves an award. Anyone who has to put up with that much crap from "commenters" (I used a more colorful description in my first draft) — and can maintain a pleasant and friendly demeanor at the same time — deserves more than an award. Do COB employees get performance bonuses?

Wikipedia and Me

How quickly a handy online app becomes a fixture in our increasingly web-oriented popular culture. One of the most popular: Wikipedia. But how reliable is the information one finds in Wikipedia? This is suddenly a hot topic, as discussed in the post Citing Wikipedia, discussing a New York Times story about the rising number of judicial opinions that include a citation to a Wikipedia entry. This makes some people nervous, but actual sampling of the info at Wikipedia suggests it is as reliable as what can be had from more traditional reference materials. And everyone loves Wikipedia because it is a linkable and immediately available resource giving pretty good information on almost any conceivable topic. If you want a full discussion, there's a second post at the same site giving links to posts at other sites that pick up the discussion. But I have a more personal way to assess Wikipedia's accuracy.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

[Update: The polygamy site is back up again. You can't keep a good site down.] Under the tagline "quick divorce," the SL Trib ran a story about a short-lived website on polygamy that was ever-so-briefly set up under the BYU domain, at polygamy.byu.edu. Evidently the precipitating event in the site's demise was an eight-word link to the site posted at By Common Consent's sideblog. Sheesh, imagine what would have happened had BCC run a whole post on it! The site's proprietor, a BYU employee at the Marriott School, has removed the site (but it looked something like this). Hey, everyone makes mistakes. Even so, if I were him I think I'd take a few days of sick leave. And maybe a vacation. Somewhere remote. Australia maybe.

Deadly Combos

Sometimes a good illustration can rescue a bad story. So it is with this forgettable GR post about a stunt by an Italian journalist. But the graphic on the index card is really clever. Seven deadly sins mapped onto twenty-one perilous pairs. Sometimes mixing familiar concepts brings out entirely new perspectives.