“The Blob” was one of those horror movies from the 1950′s that I, as a young boy, found right on the boundary of “too scary to watch”. The blob that consumed everything you saw as safe was scary, to be sure, but at least, at the end, a young Steve McQueen could save the day. (The scariest movie, because of its utter hopelessness, was “On the Beach”.) And so the “blob has come down to us as something that is scary only to the very young. A younger Christianity once found science very scary — although history shows the conflict…
Blog Archives
Sorrowing for Korihor
Mormon Heretic’s post on forgiveness from a few weeks ago touched me deeply, but I needed time to get my thoughts together about it before I could respond. I once had the neighbor from hell. I use the expression with theological intent. Smart and relentlessly treacherous, he was somewhere on the spectrum from malignant narcissist to full-fledged sociopath, and I had no desire to observe closely enough to find out where. I do not know what horror had befallen him — if anything more significant than a stray cosmic ray hitting the genome at the wrong time — but he…
Duality and Divinity
In both theology and religion, there is a concept called “dualism”, which — to avoid confusion later — I’ll note now has nothing much to do with “duality” as understood within modern physics. The former concept involves the notion that there are two aspects of reality which may either be diametrically opposed, mutually inconsistent, balanced or unbalanced, or even complementary — but always conceptually separable such that they refer to two different things. Good or evil. Material or immaterial. Mind or matter. Spiritual or physical. Even male or female. As this article from the Jewish Virtual Library describes, many of…
Book of Mormon Geophysics
When most people use their rational faculties to test their testimonies about their religious scriptures, they tend to concentrate on things like history, archeology, or textual development. A number of writers on this site and elsewhere in the bloggernacle have far more expertise in those areas than do I. So I have to take their arguments second-hand. Instead, I like to test my scriptural canon in the disciplines where I have my own professional training in college or experience on interdisciplinary teams later in life. So rather than argue about Mesoamerican artifacts, I like to look instead at Mesoamerican volcanoes.
Pyramids-R-US
Last week I spent a supper hour (it took that long) reading an article called “America’s Ruling Class – And the Perils of Revolution” by Angelo Codevilla. The overall article is well worth reading to better understand current political debates, but that wasn’t what called my attention to it as a possible subject for Mormon Matters. Rather, the following paragraph toward the end of the Article startled me: “Nothing has set the country class apart, defined it, made it conscious of itself, given it whatever coherence it has, so much as the ruling class’s insistence that people other than themselves…
Wandering Mormons as Nephites
More than two years ago, the Holy Spirit began insisting that I re-read the Book of Mormon. Of course, I didn’t immediately recognize the impulse as anything but a good idea originating within my own intellect. That’s what I do with anything – process it intellectually first. I knew spending more time reading scriptures would be the spiritual equivalent of walking more for my heart, so I put it on my to-do-list. You know all about the to-do-list that never seems to get any shorter because of emergencies and recurring requirements. So, re-reading the Book of Mormon stayed on the…
Does God Squash ETs: How Human is Human?
Distinctly Mormon doctrines relating the physical appearance of humanity to God’s own “preferred” form grew gradually in early Restoration history rather than springing forth in full. Although there are references in the Book of Mormon to the Brother of Jared seeing the “finger” and then the full vision of Christ (the earliest recorded of Joseph Smith’s prophetic writings), even the earliest published accounts of the First Vision do not feature descriptions of two personages appearing as does the “official” version eventually recorded several years after formation of the church. This doesn’t mean that later descriptions were contradictory to the first…
After Action Report: The Community of Christ Did WHAT?
Headline in the Independence Examiner for Thursday, April 15, 2010: “Delegation Takes No Action on Human Sexuality Issues: Church Will Continue Dialogue.” Headline by John Hamer on BCC on Thursday, April 15, 2010: “Gay Rights Revelation Added to The Community of Christ D&C” ———- The two headlines above generally cover the spectrum of opinion about what happened at the Community of Christ World Conference as it completed the process of canonization of a new Section 164 for its D&C. The spectrum of opinions about whether what happened was a good thing or bad thing, of course, runs even more broadly.…
Wired World Views: Preserving the Other’s Truth
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."
The Fourth Purpose: Haiti, and Who is My Brother?
An article from the Salt Lake Tribune listed in the Mormon Matters sidebar sometime ago noted the official elevation of “care of the poor and needy” to the status of a “purpose” of the Mormon (LDS) church. Church news sources are noting how LDS resources are being mobilized from both the United States and the Dominican Republic, in coordination with partners such as Islamic Relief, CARE, Food for the Poor, and Healing Hands for Haiti. All of its missionaries are reported to be safe, and the church is using nine meeting houses to provide shelter for members and an even…
CoC to tackle Major Issues at April Conference: Gay Marriage & Baptism
This is the second guest Post from FireTag, a member of the Community of Christ (formerly known as RLDS). As he mentioned in his previous post, the Community of Christ is going through the process of canonization of a new revelation. Here’s his latest installment of the process. CofChrist Prophet: Baptism in Christ Transcends Culture “5 It is imperative to understand that when you are truly baptized into Christ you become part of a new creation. By taking on the life and mind of Christ, you increasingly view yourselves and others from a changed perspective. Former ways of defining people…
Canonizing Modern Revelation – A Tourist Guide
Over the past year or so, I’ve become blogging buddies with FireTag, a member of the Community of Christ. He has his own blog at The Fire Still Burning. Many of you should recognize FireTag, as he frequently comments here at Mormon Matters. He was part of my panel for the Interview with the Community of Christ. As some of you may know, the Community of Christ (formerly known as RLDS), canonizes revelations in their edition of the Doctrine and Covenants much more frequently than the LDS church does. There is an upcoming World Conference (similar to General Conference) coming…
Support
Subscribe
