According to Arrington and Bitton, “most individual responses of modern Mormons involve a kind of tie with the past” . History is central to the Latter-day Saint faith. Stories from Latter-day Saint history reverberate out from their local settings and have a global impact in the lives of many, for both good and ill. How and/or why does this happen?
I’ve been reading Terryl Givens book, By the Hand of Mormon. While acknowledging archaeological data isn’t as strong as other aspects of the Book of Mormon, Givens seems to feel Mormon academics have made some impressive contributions. I posted a longer version of this on my blog. Givens starts with Hugh Nibley on page 118: No one in the history of Mormon scholarship has done more to establish rational grounds for belief in the Book of Mormon than Hugh Nibley. Acquiring impressive scholarly credentials (summa cum laude from UCLA and a Berkeley Ph.D. dissertation written in three weeks in...
I just loved John Dehlin’s latest interview with Shawn McCraney. I’ve followed both of their work with great interest for years. They bring up the age-old grace vs. works issue, which always compels me to speak, because I don’t ever hear my point of view quite verbalized. I’m interested in the thoughts of this very thoughtful crowd. SHORT VERSION: If all we do is get in the boat, Christ will row us to the other side. But if we’re anxious to meet God face to face, there is an extra oar in the boat with our name on it.
I would like to use Genesis 12 (and an interesting post by Aaron B from BCC) to examine the inverse of Elder Oak’s famous talk ‘Good, Better and Best’. Simply stated Abraham was married to Sarai (who was apparently pretty hot!) and Pharoah was going to want to marry her. His choice: either die as her husband and have his wife forced into marriage (in effect raped) or live as her ‘brother’ and have his wife forced into marriage (and in effect raped). What to do?
OT SS Lesson #9 This story is so very, very familiar to us that I think it’s important to look at it with a fresh perspective. So in this post I am including some pieces from media and the arts that force us to think about Genesis 22. I promise you in advance that some of these might be disturbing to you. Probably you will disagree with the portrayal of Abraham’s sacrifice in at least one, if not all, of these pieces. I hope you will share your reactions in the comments.
In a February 2, 2008, cover story in New Scientist, Jim Giles asked whether political leanings were genetic: "Across the land, liberals and conservatives are slugging it out, trying to convince each other that their way of thinking is right. They may be wasting their breath."
Last month, one of the RS/PH lessons was about the nature of God. Since the lesson was only about a page and a half long, the discussion in RS ended up raising the question whether God is still progressing or whether, being God He has arrived and is no longer progressing. Read and and share your views.
I want to take a lead from Hawgrrrl, who recently posted on the value of Sex Education in trying to reduce the rate of unwanted pregnancies and instil values of chastity in young people, but approach it from a different avenue. I recently attended a seminar which presented results from an investigation into the relationship between self-esteem and sexual activity for people in their teens. Her results showed that having high self-esteem (perhaps to the point of being arrogant) actually serves a protective function against having sexual activity. Simply stated: having high self-esteem means that you are more likely to have sex later...
I posted a longer version of this on my blog. Last month I had the most unusual experience I have ever had in regards to home teaching.
Before I was baptized LDS, I had a college boyfriend with whom I was sexually active. At the time, I was under enormous pressure from him and my entire circle of friends to be intimate with him. My friends told me that after a year of dating, he really “deserved” more intimacy from me than he was getting. But the fact was that I wasn’t attracted to him physically. After our first physical encounter, I cried for several days. This went on for some time, until I was emotionally numb from the experience. It was pretty traumatic, but I...
Bishop Bill back with more. We’ve had fictionalized situations in the last two installments with a YW and a YM. Now, let’s have a situation with an adult.
A large problem some people have is unanswered prayer. I got to thinking about it again when Jen was writing about someone she knew and how they complained (and probably believed) that their efforts had not resulted in answers, yet Jen knew, from knowing her, things that were the real problem. So why do we have unanswered prayers?
OT SS Lesson #8 “The Genesis passage is very clear, that the sin of Sodom that brought on the destruction of the city was indeed linked to homosexuality.” (R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Seminary) “Saying that the last recorded acts of the Sodomites — the demands for same-gender sex — are proof that they were destroyed for homosexuality is like saying that a condemned man cursing his guards on the way to his execution is being executed for cursing the guards. Sodom was judged worthy of destruction before the incident with Lot and the angels.”...
My House Burned Down. I Saw The Moon. (Buddhist Poem.) Last week I asked about perspectives on suffering and how they translate into culture. This week I want to talk specifically about what can be learned from hard times. Abraham Lincoln said, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.” This sums up nicely the roll I think adversity plays in our lives. When everything around us seems to change, we are left to notice what is unchanging. Loosing everything only shows us what can’t be lost. ...
Disclaimer: This post, as you might expect, does contain some overtly sexual references to specific parts of the body that are prominent in human sexuality. If you think this might offend you then please do not continue to read. My title is taken from Levi Peterson, who has famously written about masturbation in his book the ‘Backslider’. Additionally, in his interview with John Dehlin, he states that ‘I just don’t think God cares that much about it’. Contrastingly, on January 5th 1965, Elder Spencer W. Kimball said, ‘Masturbation, a rather common indiscretion, is not approved of the Lord nor...
My father had a stroke on Wednesday. The artery in his neck is 95% blocked, and he will have surgery to try to correct that problem next Wednesday. Since my New Year’s Resolution posts on my personal blog this month are focused on charity envying not, I want to repost something that I wrote a little over two years ago when one of my nieces died unexpectedly. Much of what I know of charity envying not (and charity in totality) was learned by watching my father – particularly as he laid down his own life for the woman he...
Guest Post by Non-Arab Arab BiV’s recent post “Sod, Seed, Salvation: Abrahamic Covenant and the Claim to Palestine” brought me out of my normal lurking. Modern Palestine and what I firmly believe to be the erroneous interpretation most members of the church have regarding events there always riles me up. Usually I do the smart thing and bite my lip, but every once in a while I choose to enter the fray in full combat mode. As I’ve found on most issues of debate, it doesn’t really matter how right I think I am the noise of the argument...
“Behold, my soul delighteth in proving unto my people the truth of the coming of Christ; for, for this end hath the law of Moses been given; and all things which have been given of God from the beginning of the world, unto man, are the typifying of him.” 2 Nephi 11:4
Why Does Suffering Exist, and How Does our Understanding of Suffering Translate into Our Culture? The desire to avoid suffering is probably one of the most common of the common denominators that connect all of humanity. Most religions, philosophies, and healing practices offer theories that identify the causes and ways out of suffering. Even within one tradition, there can be a grab-bag of explanations that sometimes contradict each other. The truth is surely a complex mix, and we use what is most helpful at the time.
OT SS Lesson #7 Sod, seed, and salvation — it’s how I like to describe the Abrahamic Covenant. There were three promises in the covenant. The first was a land promise, where the Lord gave Abraham and his descendants the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. The second was the promise of a great and numerous posterity. And the third was the blessing of the everlasting Gospel: the priesthood and the promise of exaltation, to come to the world through Abraham’s lineage. (see Genesis 17) But just look at how often the covenant was renewed!