Dave's Mormon Inquiry

New Year Template

Happy New Year, everyone. Seems like the right time to drop autumn colors and go with the minimalist light blue template, so I switched my blog colors. The light blue has sort of a silvery, wintery feel to it I think. Somewhere down my list of New Year's Resolutions I also have items like update my list of books on the sidebar and post more than once per week, but those will take some time to deliver on. I'm also thinking of doing some sort of weekly post on this year's Sunday School curriculum (Book of Mormon), although the field is a little crowded. Any suggestions? Any requests (besides fewer posts on politics and more on Evangelicals)?

Update: I overhauled the sidebars too, dropping my "Net & 'Nacle" feature, moving all the book thumbnails to the left sidebar (I need some color to balance out all this blueness), and re-added my Greatest Hits and Book of Mormon post lists to the right sidebar along with all the other links.

The Huckabee Network

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what Huckabee's network is: Evangelical pastors. From the Religion Clause: "Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's appeal to Iowa's evangelical voters has become the center of press attention as the Iowa caucuses approach." The post quotes a Dallas Morning News story which gives some details about Huckabee's network.

Religious Pragmatism

Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote, "The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience." [1] In various writings, he expanded that claim, contrasting a natural law approach to justifying legal and ethical rules of conduct with his own more modest approach rooted in history and experience and falling under the broad perspective labeled pragmatism. Since religion in general and Mormonism in particular have many rules of conduct for which a variety of justifications grounded in natural law, experience, and history are held out, Holmes' approach may shed some light on how we do this.

Highlights I

Having been offline for a few days, there were 196 posts to review in my Google Reader (which follows 61 B'nacle blogs). Amazing how much gets posted, isn't it? I select some for my public Bloggernacle Highlights feed; when I have nothing else to blog about, I'll pick two or three recent posts from that feed for a "highlights post" like this. I try to favor solo or newer blogs, since group blogs have a fairly large group of readers to start with. Your highlights may differ from mine, but here are a few posts from recent days that I liked:

• On Romney, the Fall, and forgiveness, a talk from Ronan at BCC.
• The saga of Werner Goering, brother of Herman Goering, LDS convert, US bomber pilot in WWII, by John M. at M-Star. This was a really fascinating post.
• A couple of posts on the Garden of Eden, the Mormon view of which has been in the news lately: Joseph Smith and the Missing Garden of Eden by Jared* at LDS Science Review, and Finding the Garden by Sam at BCC.
• Reflections on the new Joseph Smith manual, by JNS at BCC.
• Haun's Mill in Mormon Memory, by guest-blogger David G. at T&S.
• I put close to a dozen B'nacle posts talking about Elder Ballard's low-key endorsement of LDS blogging in my public highlights feed. I wonder if his next Conference talk will be on the theme of Mormonism and the New Media?

Mormons Encouraged to Use New Media

As noted by Geoff at New Cool Thang, the Newsroom at LDS.org highlighted a recent talk by Elder Ballard encouraging graduating LDS students at BYU-Hawaii to participate in online conversations about the LDS Church. Here's the actual passage from Elder Ballard's talk:

Now, to you who are graduating today, along with the other students at this wonderful university, may I ask that you join the conversation by participating on the Internet, particularly the New Media, to share the gospel and to explain in simple and clear terms the message of the Restoration. Most of you already know that if you have access to the Internet you can start a blog in minutes and begin sharing what you know to be true.

JFK on the Mormons

Over at Straight and Narrow Blog, Jettboy posted the entire text of a speech JFK gave in Salt Lake City on September 26, 1963, in the Tabernacle. The photo I posted appears to be from that very event: President Kennedy in the center, LDS President David O. McKay on the left, and Utah Senator Frank Moss on the right.

The Divide is Getting Wider

An article in today's NY Times talks about Evangelical concerns over Romney's Mormonism. It features the obligatory quote from an Evangelical minister calling the LDS Church a cult. Another brainless hypocrite -- the guy runs a website, and thinks the LDS Church isn't churchy enough to be a church? The only reason the media is sucking up to Evangelicals in the Mormon stories is because it's an easy way to slam Mormons.

Pundits Respond to "The Speech"

Mitt met and mastered his Mormon moment, it seems. There are hundreds of responses (see this T&S post for a nice selection). Here are a few worth considering. Neuhaus at First Things wrote, "It was a powerful speech powerfully delivered." Yes, it made quite an impression on many viewers and readers. It sounded presidential, not a feature always on display in the rough-and-tumble primary season. Neuhaus also mentions Romney's use of the term "political religion." I reviewed a whole book on that topic a while back.

The Monolithic Myth

Much of the commentary and criticism swirling around Mitt Romney and the religion issue seems to take as its starting point the assumption that there is a single Mormon view on any particular issue, decided by LDS leaders and accepted by the LDS membership. Too bad there isn't a Mormon view on particular issues. That kind of kills the theory.

Theology and Politics

Headline of AP story: Theology Divides Mormons, Evangelicals. Journalistic confusion strikes again. Don't theological differences divide every denomination from every other denomination at some level? And the theological differences that divide Evangelicals from other Christian denominations don't seem to be a problem for a Catholic, Episcopalian, or even an atheist candidate, just for the Mormon candidate.