Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Elder Holland on Love and Loyalty

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland is known for his eloquent and moving calls to repentance aimed at motivating members of the Church to live the gospel more fully. He often includes lengthy vignettes drawn from LDS and Christian history in his talks. Elder Holland followed this approach in his October 2012 Conference talk about love and loyalty, opening with a long story freely expanding John's account (John 21:1-14) of a post-resurrection encounter between Jesus and some of his apostles, who were back in Galilee — fishing.

Priesthood Session Notes

President Uchtdorf conducted the Priesthood Session. I was pleased to see President Monson speak for about 25 minutes as the concluding speaker. He looked good and sounded good. Here are my notes which were taken on the fly, so check with the actual transcripts (out in a few days) before you make any serious life changes based on these notes.

Cafeteria Conference?

There's a surprisingly prevalent view within the Church that at General Conference we should listen carefully for what we need to hear. This approach is generally presented as a form of personal revelation: if you listen closely, you will discern what God wants you to hear. That really isn't much different from a cafeteria approach to Conference: listen for what you want to hear; ignore the rest. Brethren, turn off the TV and go do your home teaching ... no, that's not it. You should be reading your scriptures daily ... no, that's not it. Let me tell you a story about when I played basketball in college ... yes, that's it! That's the piece of Conference that I'm supposed to listen to!

Parsing Elder Holland's "Safety for the Soul" Talk

The transcript of Elder Holland's talk "Safety for the Soul" has been posted at LDS.org, so it's time to take a closer look at it. By parsing, I don't mean twisting the meaning or presenting the speaker as saying something he did not say or did not intend. I simply mean reading the talk closely: the dictionary definition of "parse" is "to analyze critically." To whom was his talk addressed? What did he say? And what did he not say?

General Conference: Noticing the Little Things

With a little help from co-blogger Marc, I posted short notes on Conference sessions over at Times and Seasons. Listening closely and taking notes, there were a few little things that I noticed:

A Temple in Rome

From The Dallas Morning News: "Mormon temple planned for Rome." That's the biggest news to report from LDS General Conference. I'll review a few of the talks next week after linkable transcripts are posted at LDS.org -- the Elder Hales talk mentioning weblogs deserves a nod, as does Elder Nelson's discussion of Proposition 8 the LDS view of marriage.

Was likening marriage to shopping Elder Nelson's attempt to connect with materialistic Prop 8 voters Californians? Likening marriage to cars (Do you want a to buy a shiny new car, or a used car with who-knows-what staining the seats and floormats?) would have been even more effective.

Don't chase anyone out of the Church

At Life on Gold Plates, a summary of Michael Ash's FAIR Conference presentation on "Shaken Faith Syndrome." Seems like a nice set of suggestions for anyone whose faith is shaken, whether LDS or from some other denomination. But what I really liked was the quote from Joseph F. Smith reminding us that all are welcome in the LDS Church, not just the doctrinal purists:

Best Conference Coverage?

Alas, I was travelling over the weekend and didn't get any real-time Con-blogging in. I went online to see what happened in the sessions or parts of sessions that I missed. I'm trying to decide whether M&A, a zero-cost blog run by a non-journalist, puts up better Conference summaries than the Deseret News, whose coverage is presumably provided by several veteran journalists. You decide.

From Messenger and Advocate:

• Saturday Morning
• Saturday Afternoon
• Priesthood Session
• Sunday Morning
• Sunday Afternoon

From the Deseret News:

• New calls for Elders Eyring and Cook
• On the Saturday sessions
• New calls for Presidents of the Seventies

Sunstone Reverb

The two topics from the Sunstone Symposium that I posted on last week continue to bounce around the Bloggernacle — they obviously struck a chord with many people. Tom at 9M posted "My Inoculation," sharing his own experience and views on that topic. And M&M posted "Thoughts on the Bloggernacle Panel," suggesting that conservatives need a little more love from the B'nacle. Interesting summary. Guess I'd better go listen to it.

[Note: Having already hosted discussions on both these topics, I'm going to let readers who have additional comments go to the two linked posts at 9M and m&m for additional conversation.]

A Kinder and Gentler Sunstone?

The Sunstone Multi-Media Show rolls into Salt Lake City next week (starting Wednesday August 8), according to this informative preview in the SL Trib. The article highlights the role of "Mormon blogger and media expert John Dehlin," the new Sunstone Executive Director, in moving Sunstone in a new direction. Not being a subscriber, I can't say what the old direction was, but the article notes the magazine "hopes to expand its coverage of social issues such as depression, mental illness, addiction and body image." Seems like an upbeat topic or two wouldn't hurt either. No doubt the conference will receive wide coverage in the SLC media and on various blogs. Hint: be careful where you set up your laptops.

Sister Parkin on Service

For the Saturday afternoon session, I am highlighting newly-released RSP Sister Bonnie Parkin's talk on love, compassion, service, and all that. I will again add selected quotes from the new book Statements of the LDS First Presidency: A Topical Compendium ("FP Statements"; at Amazon here) as a way of investigating the sort of material included in that reference book.

Elder Bednar's Recipe for Spiritual Rebirth

For my Conference blogging, I'm going to highlight specific talks. In addition, I'm going to use the various topics to explore the new book Statements of the LDS First Presidency: A Topical Compendium (Signature, 2007), retailing for $23 at Amazon and which I'll refer to as "FP Statements." [The book was recently reviewed by J. Stapley at BCC.] To start things off, I'm going to look at Elder Bednar's talk on spiritual rebirth from the Saturday morning session (the pickle talk).

Sunstone West, Part 2

I'm going to touch briefly — one paragraph each — on the four sessions I didn't cover in Part 1. The topics were: biographies of Joseph Smith; the HBO series "Big Love"; the mainstreaming of Mormon Studies; and Mormon women in the Bloggernacle.

Sunstone West, Part 1

I attended the 2006 Sunstone West Symposium at Clarmont last month and attended six sessions. It was worth every penny, although with several of the sessions offering concurrent presentations, you are guaranteed to leave mildly frustrated about the speakers you missed. In this post I will summarize two of the morning sessions I heard. I'll get to the other presentations in later posts. [Click here for the full program.]

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.

Sunstone Symposium Links

The annual Sunstone symposium was held last week at the Salt Lake Sheraton. Latter-day Slant put up a couple of excellent posts summarizing the presentations. First, Matt the guest-blogger did a play-by-play of some of the sessions. Highlights from the talks he covered: Godwrestling (Israel = "wrestled with God"), new missionary discussions (likes early coverage of The Great Apostasy), Mormon Christology (strong panel), and True to the Faith as the new Mormon Doctrine (by Lavine Fielding Anderson). Then Dallas did his own summary post. Highlights: reflections on Hoffman (a packed session), a Sunstone town meeting (explaining why Martha Nibley Beck wasn't invited), and Joseph as Egyptologist (by a noted LDS apologist, suggesting Sunstone is throwing out an olive leaf of sorts). There were some SL Trib articles last week as well, but their site seems to be down. I'll add those links later if I can pull them up. PS -- I can't believe Sunstone doesn't post their own summaries at their website. Seems like it would be a great way to pull in visitors and potential subscribers.

Conference Notes - Sunday

Every speaker in the morning session was an apostle, with each including a short "welcome to the quorum" directed to Elders Uchtdorf and Bednar. Elder U has a killer Arnold accent--that's a good thing these days, and should boost his popularity among California Mormons. Elder B looks younger than any apostle I've seen called into the quorum, which of course raises the probablility that he will succeed to the presidency of the Church at some future date.

Best Moment. I'll have to go with Elder Packer's remarks in the afternoon session. Ignoring his historical misstatement (mobs didn't drive Joseph and Sidney from Kirtland, fellow Mormons unhappy with their conduct and leadership did), I was impressed with his uncharacteristically mellow counsel advising members to go easier on themselves. He essentially told people to stop beating up on themselves and avoid the reflexive judgment that one's efforts are never good enough. Great advice. This is one to read in print when it comes out. A close second for "best moment" was Elder Hales' talk describing the plight of those suffering from devastating or terminal illness as a "mystery of life": even deep and sincere faith sometimes can't add even a day. This message, like Elder Faust's on a similar theme on Saturday, will no doubt lend a sense of comfort and relief to families with loved ones presently suffering.

Worst Moment. No doubt here--the afternoon remarks holding out one Bro. Johnson as an example of faith and obedience. Years ago, he accepted a call and obediently trooped his wife and children to Arizona, where his children were later exposed to diphtheria by a visiting traveler and four of them (the eldest son and three daughters) soon died. The parents lamented the deaths, but (as I recall the speaker's point) chalked it up to the price one sometimes pays for being obedient. The speaker held this out as a shining example of faith. Personally, I see it as a warning against exposing one's children to unreasonble risks, especially when one does so knowingly but hoping that faith will protect them.

I've seen enough banged-up, messed-up, or damaged missionaries in my day to have a keen sense of the health and safety risks faced by young missionaries serving in the field. Putting them in harm's way from time to time seems to be accepted by leaders and parents (and the missionaries themselves) as a necessary risk. When an illness or injury or death occurs, one hears language about faith and blessings and how great their joy will be in heaven, but I've never seen anyone actually accepting any responsibility for negligent or poor judgment when such is the case. It makes me wary of those who rely on faith or the goodness of leaders to suppress natural caution in the face of evident risks. So I guess draw a different lesson from Bro. Johnson's sad story than did the speaker.

[Note: Warren Johnson ran Lee's Ferry across the Colorado River in Arizona from roughly 1875 to 1895. The site is named for John D. Lee, with whom Johnson ran the ferry crossing for a few years up until the latter's execution in 1877 for his role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. See this photo site for pictures of the Johson family, home, and the gravesite of the four children, and this photo site for some striking photos of the ferry crossing site and a short writeup of the history of Lee's Ferry. Finally, one can read excerpts from an 1891 letter written by Johnson shortly after the death of his four children in a 1992 Conference talk by Pres. Faust.]

[major edit on 10/6 based on additional sources for the Warren Johnson story]

Conference Notes - Priesthood

For the benefit of those who can't attend this closed meeting, I'll touch all the bases. Elder Oaks advised us to avoid the deceptions of Satan by (1) sticking with the truth we've been taught, and (2) keeping the Holy Spirit as our guide. Carl B. Pratt spoke on fasting, Cecil O. Samuelson on perilous times, and Elder Faust on the priesthood as a key of knowledge. His story about the guy who learned to tie a tie with one arm after losing his right arm to bone cancer was one to remember.

Elder Monson, who always features a story or two, did not disappoint, offering his "tale of the one-eyed pigeon." He manages to be upbeat and cheerful on every occasion he speaks. President Hinckley closed with a long denunciation of pornography to a notably still and quiet assembly. Kind of a large-scale version of what the young men get from the Bishop once a year. No one can denounce sexual sin with more conviction than an octogenarian.

Conference Notes - Saturday

I will attempt to repeat last year's award-winning performance by giving brief notes on the October 2004 Conference sessions, again using a "best of" and "worst of" format to give everyone something to work with.

Best Moment. Calling a non-US (or Canada) apostle into the Twelve is certainly the highlight of the morning. Personally, I thought it was fun to see Pres. Faust sporting a trendy headset mic as he delivered his AM session address seated before a desk-level podium. He repeated that performance in the Saturday evening priesthood session, although without the headset mic, again looking energetic and sounding good. Pres. Faust spoke on the tough question of why there is suffering, hardship, and injustice in the world. His responses: (1) I don't know; (2) Perhaps we're not so innocent; and (3) God loves us, and somehow suffering and injustice are linked to God's plan for our eternal happiness. He cited Spencer W. Kimball for the idea that if just rewards for sinful or righteous conduct were immediate, the whole "test of faith" function of life on Earth would be undermined.

Worst Moment. Probably the comments in the afternoon session proclaiming that LDS testimony makes the Church unique among denominations. Mormons seem to embrace the idea that Mormon religious convictions are authentic, sincere, and truly divine in origin, whereas the religious convictions of fellow Christians are some phony put-on or even due to Satanic influence. Coming to grips with authentic religious experience in other denominations and in the life of other Christians seems like a necessary precondition to developing a more tolerant, ecumenical LDS attitude toward other denominations. The afternoon remarks continued, suggesting fewer "I am thankfuls" and more "I knows" in LDS testimony meeting remarks, emphasizing short, direct statements affirming the simple truths of the restored gospel. Why don't they just tape a pro forma paragraph to the podium and have everyone it verbatim? It will be interesting to see whether these remarks have an actual effect on the form or content of LDS testimonies offered in the monthly F&T meetings.

Conference Notes - Sunday

The whole tone of this Conference surprised me: it was quiet, reassuring, and encouraging. There were no "tough love" talks and precious little about The Passion or same-sex marriages. Instead, several speakers went out of their way to actually make members feel good!!! about being LDS despite life's challenges and imperfections. The highlight of the day was definitely Elder Packer repeating a grandchild's "Gwampa" and talking about the benefits of having a sense of humor. Oh, and the Brazilian diva was a real show-stopper too. I thought the best talks of the day were by three 70s:

Dennis E. Simmons gave the "But If Not" talk. By halfway through it I had the kids chiming in with the punch line, "but if not . . ." And what a voice! This guy should be on television (well, I guess he was). This one's a keeper.

Clate W. Mask, Jr. gave the "Missionaries in the Mud" talk. Fun guy, big smile, radiates happiness. Will probably be responsible for setting off a "painting scriptures on the wall of the family room" craze among the Utah faithful.

Bruce C. Hafen, one of my favorites, gave probably the sharpest talk of the conference, on the Atonement and grace. I think that I may disagree with some of his detailed detailed comments on grace and the Fall when I get a chance to read a hardcopy, but it was nice to hear a doctrinal talk that treated a doctrinal topic head-on, with no tearful pseudo-weeping to enhance the message.

I first ran across Hafen's name some years ago when I was leafing through a large stack of old Ensigns in the corner of a missionary apartment (there isn't much you can read as a missionary). I came across an article he wrote called Dealing With Uncertainty (Ensign, August 1979--available at LDS.org, but I can't get a link). It taught me to not be a bubble-popper. Here's the paragraph I remember, surprisingly relevant even now:

I found myself wanting to tell our third-year law students that those who take too much delight in their finely honed tools of skepticism and dispassionate analysis will limit their effectiveness, in the church and elsewhere, because they can become contentious, standoffish, arrogant, and unwilling to commit themselves. I have seen some of these try out their new intellectual tools in some context like a priesthood quorum or a Sunday School class. A well-meaning teacher will make a point they think is a little silly, and they will feel an irresistible urge to leap to their feet and pop the teacher’s bubble. If they are successful, they begin looking for other opportunities to point out the exception to any rule anybody can state. They begin to delight in cross-examination of the unsuspecting, just looking for somebody’s bubble up there floating around so that they can pop it with their shiny new pin of skepticism. And in all that, they fail to realize that when some of those bubbles pop, out goes the air, and with it goes much of the feeling of trust, loyalty, harmony, and sincerity so essential to preserving the Spirit of the Lord.

Conference Notes - Priesthood

It was rather mellow as Priesthood sessions go. The Young Men's Chorus (I missed their official name) sounded very nice--initially I thought it was just a bunch of missionaries bussed up from Provo, but once they started singing I realized that was not the case, they were too good. I'll stick with my "best of" and "worst of" summary for the talks, with a twist.

Conference Notes - Saturday

Here are my obligatory-for-a-Mormon-weblog comments on Conference. To avoid getting carried away (I don't want to end up sounding like a whining liberal Mormon) I'll keep my comments brief and give everyone something they can be happy with by using a "best of" and "worst of" format.