Over my lifetime, I have offered all manner of prayers. These range from earnest, well-intended pleas on behalf of others (“please comfort my sister as she deals with her MS diagnosis”) to mundane requests for undeserved assistance (“please help me pass my Spanish pop quiz”) to the downright inappropriate (“oh Lord, please let me be able to hold it until I get off this bus!”)*
But now, after 36 years of practice, I’m rethinking prayer. In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I’m not a “lose the keys, pray for keys, find the keys” sort of guy by nature. When I hear those sorts of stories, I am more likely to roll my eyes than dab with a Kleenex. Nevertheless, I have a confession to make: I suffer from Enos Envy (E.E., for short).
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OK Paul technically isn’t exactly an international DJ, not unless you consider that you can listen to his interviews on line.
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The mission of the church is to bring people to Christ (it is not the tri-fold mission of proclaim the gospel, perfect the saints and redeem the dead). Yet many members feel that the focus on Christ is missing in our weekly worship. So, what’s the best way to bring Christ back to the center of our Sundays? Continue reading…
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The tragedy of 9/11 had a big impact on my views about the relationship between faith and reason. As I watched the video footage of the jumbo jets flying into the World Trade Center towers over and over again, it dawned on me that I was witnessing the destructive power of faith unchecked by reason. Consider for a moment the faith proposition that motivated the 9/11 hijackers: “If you slit a few throats to hijack a plane and then fly that plane into a skyscraper, killing yourself and all your comrades along with thousands of civilian men, women, and children, then God will reward you in Heaven with 72 virgins who will provide you more sensual delights than you could ever have hoped to enjoy during mortality.” Viewing the fruits of the hijackers’ faith — the twisted steel and endless ash, the homemade “Missing” flyers plastered everywhere, the sobbing relatives of the victims — I couldn’t help wishing the hijackers would have run that faith proposition through the wringer of reason before deciding to act upon it.
Faith needs reason because faith unchecked by reason can be just as deadly as reason unchecked by faith proved to be in the gulags of Soviet Russia, the Cultural Revolutions of Maoist China, and the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia. (Would Stalin, Mao, and Pot have ordered the killings of millions if they had had faith in an afterlife and final judgment?)
We Mormons are certainly not immune to the potential dangers of unquestioning faith. Continue reading…
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I’d like to start a new feature showcasing stuff I read in the scriptures and getting your opinions on what the heck you think it means. Hope you like it. I just read D&C 88 and ran across an interesting passage we’ve all heard/read before in vv. 64 and 65 that begs the question: What’s expedient? Continue reading…
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When I served a mission in eastern Canada in the early 90s, there were many things I was grateful for (warm boots, wool suits, fairly normal food). But above all, I was grateful that I was sent to a region with very few black people, as I was not looking forward to having to defend something in the Church’s past that had deeply troubled even a relatively immature teenager with a limited knowledge of Church history and doctrine.
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I was sick over the bitterest month of the winter. It was just one grueling, annoying, or depressing illness after another. First it was a flu, which turned into a sinus infection, and then an awful throat infection, followed by a cold. I was miserable, and, no doubt, miserable to be around.
Late one night in the middle of it all, I considered my roommate. He was a friend of mine and also the Elders Quorum President. It came to my mind to ask him for a blessing, using consecrated oil. I desperately wanted to be healed from this chain of horrible sicknesses, and the prayer in my heart went something like this: “Lord, I know when I get blessings for these things, they usually don’t work, and I might be selfish to ask. But could you just do me a solid this one time? People got healed constantly of much worse than this in the Scriptures. I’m not testing you, I think. I just want to get better.” My roommate then administered the blessing, and, much to my dismay and anger, it didn’t work.
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I’ve been thinking about Levi Peterson’s The Backslider lately (SPOILERS AHEAD). Continue reading…
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A recent article in Time discusses several studies about the correlation between faith and health. Does church attendance contribute to a healthier, longer life? Is Mormon culture more or less health-promoting than other faiths? Continue reading…
NOTE: This post is a combination (with minor edits) of two posts that I wrote on my own blog this month, as I contemplated Matthew 6:5-13. If anyone is interested in the foundation post on those verses, it is titled, “Resolved to Pray: KISS“.
I always have struggled to pray formally and daily on a personal level. For as long as I can remember, I have had a hard time kneeling alone and praying vocally. For most of my life I didn’t understand why, and, although I tried to recommit numerous times, I never could “conquer” that particular habit. My struggle continued through various church callings, including stints in a Stake Mission Presidency, as a Ward Mission Leader, in a Bishopric and to this day as a High Councilor. I still have a hard time, but now, at least, I understand why a little better. Continue reading…
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When it comes to religion – can everyone know truth? Can anyone? Today’s guest post is from Justin Perry. Continue reading…
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Today’s post comes from The Teacher. Section 8 of the Doctrine & Covenants refers to “another gift” Olivery Cowdery had, called at different times “the gift of Aaron” or “the rod of nature.” Several commentators recognize this gift as related to Oliver’s use of a divining rod. Continue reading…
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When you hear the name Oliver Cowdery, you probably think of the story that culminates in the revelation that became Section 9 of the Doctrine & Covenants. This section uses Oliver as a (bad) example of how to seek and receive personal revelation. Today’s guest post is from The Teacher. Come visit The Teacher here. Continue reading…
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We should gather all the good and true principles in the world and treasure them up, or we shall not come out true Mormons. Joseph Smith
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“We thought that we had the answers.
It was the questions we had wrong.”
-U2, 11 O’Clock Tick Tock
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the dilemmas God must encounter on an almost daily basis when His children ask Him questions that are based on a host of false assumptions and man-made concepts. I’m sure God wants to answer everyone’s prayers, but what’s a good Father to do when He’s constantly being asked the wrong questions? Continue reading…
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