Posts by :
- a history of personal sacrifice
- much experience in delayed gratification.
- a set of spiritual skills and experiences.
- a set of social experiences and narratives.
Adversity as a form of the love of God
May 25th, 2009“For whom the Lord loveth, he chaseneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” (Hebrews 12:6; 6-8, 11)”
Resentment and Gratitude
May 6th, 2009Resentment and gratitude both have a role in our faith in Christ. Together they teach us a great deal.
Not only is “resentment like taking poison and expecting the other person to die” Christ warned us that if we are wronged and hold on to our resentment instead of giving forgiveness, we would have the greater sin. Compared to anything that can be done to us, resentment is a greater sin.
Why?
Reflections on a Thought Experiment
April 26th, 2009I saw a recent thought experiment. The author asked: what if you had to chose between a doctrine you disliked and results you liked (lets call them doctrine A and result B) or doctrine you liked and results you disliked (doctrine B and result A). Which would you chose?
Surprising Speculations — where can practice and theology take us?
April 19th, 2009There are some speculations I learned about by all the sermons to the contrary. When I was much, much younger, I read a lot of sermons and essays and excerpts. One thing that struck me was the number of talks by Prophets and Apostles who spent a lot of time lecturing that speculation born of the mores of the day was wrong and that women were equal to men and to be treated as equal partners in marriage, not treated as property or subservient.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve constantly run across speculation to the contrary. That proves just how dense some people are and explains why the huge mass of preaching correcting that conclusion. It is obvious that some people just don’t get the message about what the doctrine really is and what the scriptures should mean, out of all the possibilities. My thoughts, on realizing that point, were wondering what in all the sermons I had probably missed (just like those guys missed the point) and I got to wondering about my own blind spots.
Rather than leave you guessing, I am going to engage in some speculation so you won’t have to wonder where my blind spots are. Don’t worry, I’ve more than enough mistakes for a lot more posts.
Interesting Observation: Nephi the Socialist
April 12th, 2009Ever since reading Believing History, I’ve been looking at the Book of Mormon and relating what it says to what it is closest to. Which is why it becomes pretty obvious that Nephi is closest to the socialists.
Speculation and Testimonies: The good, the bad, the unique …
March 30th, 2009Recently heard, and not necessarily in order:
Logic tells us that Jesus Christ really lived. Think about it. The calendar. B.C. Before Christ. How could people have missed that?
More Unbridled Speculation — the Priesthood Ban
February 17th, 2009It seems like everyone likes to speculate about the priesthood. Who can resist?
Unbridled Speculation, the Series Begins
February 8th, 2009Thought I’d start with one by Hyrum Smith
Who needs false doctrines when you can have unbridled speculation (a new series)
February 2nd, 2009“Say nothing but repentance unto this generation” D&C 11:9. How much fun is that?
False Doctrine, the Neverending Story
January 26th, 2009I’ll get back to folk doctrines and unsubstantiated rumors in a little bit. Right now I’m going to write about one of the most enduring of the false doctrines.
Anomaly
January 18th, 2009This post edited to clear up confusion caused by careless and clueless use of language.
Some miracles seem to be reliable. As a missionary, I found that if people would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, they would feel the Spirit. However, some miracles just seem to happen, and it is, perhaps, counterproductive to generalize from those miracles. Like the dear member who invited us to teach his best friend. After we had taught a lesson and given him a Book of Mormon and encouraged him to read and pray, the member told him to ignore us — all it had taken the member was a prayer, the Spirit had fallen on him like fire and the rest of the effort was excess.
Obnoxious Folk Doctrines — the unstoppable force
January 8th, 2009There were several complaints about the false doctrine thread — about how I was slighting folk doctrines. I’ll be back to the false doctrine series soon, but thought I would take a moment out and discuss a folk doctrine or two.
Even More Annoying False Doctrines
December 26th, 2008God will not give you anything you can not handle.
Annoying False Doctrines Strike Again
December 14th, 2008We were having someone dear to us taught in our home, when the elder looked at them and said …
“You do know that you might want to think twice about the time you spend with your Asian friends, since a darker skin color means that they were less valiant in the pre-existence.”
She completely lost interest. I laid my hand on the elder’s arm and observed that as his skin was darker than mine, and he wasn’t a light blond (he had dark brown hair), he must have meant that he was very valiant …
He’d never looked at his false doctrine that way, as a way to down grade him rather than others, nor was he quite as prepared to talk about the fact that it was a false doctrine.
I’ve met the approach in a number of ways through the years. The funniest was when the group that called themselves “The Children of Ephraim” petitioned the Church for their own ward at BYU. They attributed spiritual virtue to being smarter than anyone else, though they also believed that physical height, large noses (!?) and blond hair marked them as a separate racial group. The brethren were not amused.
I just gently bedeviled those I knew, who were no where near as smart as they thought they were, and obviously not as smart as I was. My wife doesn’t remember it as being as gentle as I thought I was being.
But racial and racist types of doctrines really offend me. My grandfather quit his first church over them, so it just might be in the blood (did I just buy into something like the false doctrines I’m picking at?).
I try to laugh at the times I’ve encountered that sort of thing, but I’d think it was a lot more humorous if the friend had joined the Church later.
Annoying False Doctrines — the Series
December 10th, 2008Ok, some false doctrines are just pathetic, some are disgusting, some are bizarre and some are merely annoying.
I was going to post about Anomoly (may still get that post up in the rotation), but for the present, I’m addressing annoying false doctrines.
If your heart is turned …
November 28th, 2008Before the fall, Eve was a “help meet” to Adam. The term means a “companion equal.” While the account is figurative as far as humanity is concerned, it is also instructive as to what goes on in an idealized or perfect world. In such a world, women are equal companions to men and are not ruled over or presided over by men. That is the celestial law that we lost.
Bathos — sometimes the worst of the false spirits
November 20th, 2008The first talk of the Priesthood session reminded me of a man I met on my mission. His wife had died and he told us of all the things he had done in worship and prayer to seek God’s help. He complained of how he had come up so empty. The list he gave us consisted of various forms of emotionalism.
He was Catholic, but obviously had gone somewhere else for comfort (and, bless his heart, seemed to be blaming his priest). I was struck by how he was substituting emotional processes for spiritual ones. I have seen that process many, many times since. I consider it a terrible mistake.
Are we having the wrong argument?
November 14th, 2008Something I have noticed on the Gay Marriage debates is what causes people to change their minds, and it is generally social proof. More, what I am seeing has caused me to think that arguing over gay marriage may be the wrong argument to be having.
Read the rest of this entry “
Adventures with the Bible Dictionary
October 14th, 2008The LDS Bible Dictionary has its roots in a “freebie” from the publisher. Many of the entries are almost as old as the LDS Church. While the “new” scriptures updated the dictionary so that the doctrine is closer to ours, it is still filled with survivors.
For example, Baal rides the heavens, has two hammers (thunder and lightening), is vanquished by drought, has the god of irrigation as the pretender to his throne and brings the rain. He is a classic indo-european storm-god. And the Bible Dictionary says …
Deconstructing the Book of Mormon — the four things to never do
October 6th, 2008The Book of Mormon states:
2 Nephi 27:31 For assuredly as the Lord liveth they shall see that the terrible one is brought to naught, and the scorner is consumed,and all that watch for iniquity are cut off;
In context, there are four things you should never do, and this scripture is at the heart of a warning. Read the rest of this entry “
Examples of seeing the world through a poor mirror’s reflection
September 29th, 2008When Paul writes of “through a glass, darkly” he is writing about seeing the world in a mirror, rather than seeing it through a dirty or occluded windowpane. “The original Greek text has dia spektrou, or by means of a mirror, but Greek mirrors were made of highly polished brass which have a weak and imperfect mirror-image … “
I thought I would write about how it is possible that that we fail to get very far in thinking about spiritual things because we stop at the surface much too often.
Through a Glass, Darkly
September 23rd, 2008Following Running on Empty, I am going to write about how even with the Spirit and everything else, we still see “through a glass, darkly.” The reasons that even when we hear God, we do not have as clear an understanding as we think are many. An example from my own life might help.
Running on Empty
September 20th, 2008Relying on, seeking, finding and responding to the Spirit is much like weightlifting. Not only is it a process that takes a great deal of effort and practice to learn and strengthen in, it also appears to exhaust people, much like hard physical labor exhausts the physical body, or hard mental work exhausts the mind.
Most people have limits to the Spiritual strength and energy they can bring to bear and the amount of time they can bring that energy to bear. This process and a lack of appreciation for it leads to issues and habits:
Living in Post Christian World
September 13th, 2008Greece is a wonderful country. Athens is a great city. In many ways it is the archetype of a polis. At the center is a hill, at the top of the hill a temple that remains the heart of the city and the soul of Athen’s history. The citizens take immense pride in the Parthenon and millions come each year in tribute to it.
But no one worships there. No one has for over a thousand years. Athena’s day is long past. The same effect is slowly overtaking many great cathedrals in Europe. The flood of tourists often seems to wash everything else away.
Lest anyone miss the point, Salt Lake City is less than 40% LDS. The Tabernacle is subsumed into a tourist stop. How long before Temple Square goes the way of the Acropolis?
Understanding General Authorities
August 31st, 2008
Most people who are aware of the LDS Church are aware that we have “general authorities” and that they share some characteristics, but in my experience, they don’t really understand what General Authorities are or what the term means. I’m going to skip what the phrase means and discuss what they are.
General Authorities (”G.A.”s) tend to share the following characteristics:
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