Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Prince on the Evolution of Mormon Thought

I stumbled across a Greg Prince talk giving a nice overview of Mormon thought in the past and present. It's not an approach one often sees as so few Mormons are comfortable with the thought of "evolving doctrine." It's interesting to see how Prince identifies the key doctrinal shifts as he evaluates the contributions of various LDS presidents:

Turner, Part 4: Brigham's Last Two Decades

[Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3] This last post covers Chapters 9 through 13 of John G. Turner's excellent Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard Univ. Press, 2012). This section of the book covers events from the Mormon Reformation, the Utah War, and Mountain Meadows in 1857 through the completion of the St. George Temple and Brigham's death in 1877. Those are twenty eventful years.

Chapters 9 and 10 start with the Mormon Reformation of 1856/57. Here's Turner's account of a typical sermon:

In mid-September 1856, Young delivered a fiery sermon in Salt Lake City, forcefully condemning a multitude of sins, ranging from adultery to dishonesty to a failure to tithe. Mincing no words, he complained that some Saints kept their "brains ... below their waistbands." He warned that the "whole people will be corrupted if we do not lop off those rotten branches." At the same time, he held out the prospect of forgiveness and spiritual empowerment, calling on the repentant to repeat their baptisms and "receive the Holy Ghost and then live in it continually." Sinners could choose between repentance and flight. Otherwise, they deserved excommunication and possibly death. (p. 255.)

Turner, Part 3: Brigham as Pioneer and Prophet

[Part 1 | Part 2] This post covers Chapters 5 through 8 of John G. Turner's Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard Univ. Press, 2012). This section of the book covers Brigham's assumption of leadership of the Church upon the death of Joseph Smith, his successful relocation of the main body of Mormons from Illinois to unsettled Utah, and the difficult first few years there, punctuated by the 1852 public announcement of the practice of plural marriage by the LDS Church.

Turner, Part 2: Brigham as Preacher and Polygamist

[Part 1] This post covers Chapter 2 through 4 of John G. Turner's Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard Univ. Press, 2012). Topics covered in this fast-paced section of the book are Brigham's early preaching as an LDS missionary, his call to the Twelve and mission to England, followed by his return to Nauvoo and initiation into polygamy as practiced under Joseph Smith.

Turner, Part 1: Brigham the Reformed Methodist

I'm a little late to the party for John G. Turner's Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, which has of late blazed through the Bloggernacle. I've read both Arrington's American Moses and Bringhurt's Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier, so this is familiar ground, but it's clear from other reviews that Turner uses a lot of archived letter and journal material that were either not accessible or not prominently featured in earlier books. In this post, I look at Brigham's pre-LDS religious experience as a Reformed Methodist. All quotations are from Chapter One, "A New Creature."

Turner's Book

It is hard to grasp the variety of early 19th-century sects, even within just one denomination. Brigham and his family were attracted to the Methodists but, being unhappy with the form of the Methodist Episcopal Church, gravitated toward the more congregational Reformed Methodists. Turner notes that "the Reformed Methodists exhibited several of the impulses later central to early Mormonism."

Volcanism, Mormonism, and Historical Contingency

Mormonism can pop up just about anywhere these days. I was reading through The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, From Stardust to Living Planet (Penguin Group, 2012) when I stumbled across this interesting passage:

[T]he colossal April 1815 eruption of Tambora, which produced an amazing twelve cubic miles of lava, was the deadliest of all. More than seventy thousand lives were lost, most as a consequence of agricultural failure and subsequent mass starvation. Tambora's injection of immense quantities of sun-blocking sulfur compounds into the upper atmosphere turned 1816 into the Northern Hemisphere's "year without a summer." (p. 270)

The author, a geologist, was recounting the fury of Tambora while speculating on the likelihood of a supervolcano eruption in the next few thousand years. Unlike earthquakes, which max out a little above 9 on the Richter scale, volcanic eruptions scale up almost without limit.

The Lost History of 1844

Just finished The Lost History of 1914: Reconsidering the Year the Great War Began (Walker and Co., 2012). It recounts a variety of episodes and events that were roiling each of the major countries in the months before they plunged into World War 1, but that were largely forgotten in the aftermath of the war. Those events were, so to speak, overshadowed by the glare of that terrible war and largely lost to the memory of those who lived after. England was dealing with near civil war over revolt in Ireland, America was preoccupied with Pancho Villa and a revolution brewing in Mexico, France was obsessed with a political scandal that derailed the career of a figure who might have argued for peace not war in 1914, and Germany's Kaiser was trying to manage a Reichstag full of feisty Social Democrats. When the heir to the Austrian crown was assassinated in Sarajevo in August, the countries tumbled into war, but it could have played out so differently. For anyone who has read Tuchman's The Guns of August, this book gives a whole different perspective on the events of 1914, both those we remember and those we have forgotten.

Old FARMS, New FARMS

It has been a few months since the folks running the Maxwell Institute decided to blow up the venerable FARMS Review and start from scratch with a new publication entitled the Mormon Studies Review.

So how's that project going?

Old FARMS

The new Mormon Studies Review remains nothing but an announcement at this point — an announcement with no visible updates in four months, as far as I can tell. One issue of the MSR was actually published under long-time FARMS Review editor Daniel Peterson, but the Maxwell Institute has since reclassified that single issue as Volume 23, No. 1 of the FARMS Review. The editor's introduction to that orphaned issue of the MSR makes interesting reading. So far the new MSR's publication score is -1, having depublished the only issue ever published but published no new issues. Makes you wonder what they're doing with all that tithing money they're still getting (it's not like the Maxwell Institute's budget was cut when the FARMS Review was axed).

Joseph Spencer's "An Other Testament: On Typology"

Here is a casual review of Joe Spencer's An Other Testament: On Typology (Salt Press, 2012). Short summary: I like Salt Press. I like Joe Spencer. I like the book. I don't like typology.

Salt Press

On its website, Salt Press describes itself as "an independent academic press dedicated to publishing books that engage Mormon texts, show familiarity with the best contemporary thinking, remain accessible to non-specialists, and foreground the continuing relevance of Mormon ideas." The editorial board is a mix of prominent LDS bloggers and LDS academics. The publisher promotes "independent and open publishing," notably by making PDF copies of books available for free download. These are the right people doing the right sort of thing to upgrade the quality of scriptural commentary and discussion available to the general LDS audience. And this is a great publishing model; I hope it continues to thrive. Christmas is coming: buy all three of their books for someone you love.

Mormons, Evangelicals, and Mockery

I was gratified to read a piece posted at Patheos last week by Timothy Dalrymple titled "Why Evangelicals Should Defend Mormons From Mockery." The argument, of course, runs both ways: neither group should employ mockery as a tactic or quietly cheer its use by third parties when directed against the other. The author is quite frank about the problem, while also noting it is getting better:

High-level evangelical-Mormon conversations are taking place even now and are clearly edifying both sides. Mormon leaders have been receptive to evangelical experts in historical theology, and have learned why the church historically has avoided some of the formulations Mormons use. The trajectory of Mormonism’s development is a positive one. Yet evangelicals have also, before and alongside these more charitable recent efforts, caricatured Mormons and perpetuated falsehoods about the official doctrines and teachings of the LDS Church.

Mormon Boundaries

So I stumbled across a short book titled Judaism's Great Debates (Jewish Publication Society, 2012) by Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz. It includes an interesting chapter on defining boundaries, an issue that is familiar to Mormons. Why do we Mormons sometimes seem so eager to push people onto the other side of a formal membership line? Why do we still have the equivalent of heresy trials, and why are they so poorly managed?

The chapter highlights the story of Baruch Spinoza, a 17th-century Jew living in Amsterdam who became one of the finest philosophers of his time. A brilliant student, Spinoza initially questioned traditional Jewish teachings. He went on to reject Mosaic authorship of the Torah and to formulate some of the earliest critical studies of the Bible. He was excommunicated from his Jewish congregation for heresy in 1656 at the age of 24.

The Mormon Generation Gap

Although the vast majority of Mormons identify themselves as Republican, the younger generation is not necessarily voting with their parents. In this election, religion is not the driving force behind at least some of the Mormon youth vote.

source: abc News

LDS historian Matthew Bowman, quoted in the article, traces the gap to the new openness to American society that emerged under President Hinckley.

Looking for Middle-Earth

In the New York Times travel section, "New Zealand's Hobbit Trail" recounts the unexpected surge of Middle-earth tourism that has flooded New Zealand since the Lord of the Rings movies hit the screen ten years ago. The quote that got my attention: "Movies — ephemeral, imaginary — have a way of sending fans in search of something real." Made me think of all those Book of Mormon tours that take Mormons with some money to spend off to Central and South America in search of Nephite ruins.

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!

Mormon Peacemakers

And Evangelical peacemakers, too, both discussed in Evangelicals vs. Mormons: Blessed Are the Peacemakers at First Things. The short post touches all the usual bases (How Wide the Divide, the Millet-Johnson partnership, Ravi Zacharias, politics makes strange bedfellows), then details some local activities that have promoted Evangelical-Mormon understanding in the Salt Lake City area. The LDS writer concludes:

It is a powerful thing, we discovered in each other’s churches, to be embraced by people with tears in their eyes who have connected with you as a fellow child of God after years of suspicion and presumption.

The Fate of the Earth

Where did our planet come from? Why is it here (with us, conscious intelligent beings, on it)? Where and how is it going to end? These interesting questions (I've massaged them a bit) are discussed in John Gribbin's Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique (John Wiley and Sons, 2011). Other authors have discussed the same general topic, but Gribben does the best job I've seen of reviewing the many ways in which Earth seems so terribly well positioned to favor the origin and development of life.

The Veil: Thick or Thin?

In LDS thought, the veil as a symbol of the human condition is used in at least two distinct ways: (1) "a symbol for a separation between God and man," and (2) "a God-given forgetfulness that blocks people’s memories of the premortal existence." ["Veil," Guide to the Scriptures at LDS.org.] The second veil, forgetfulness of the premortal life, appears to be impenetrable: I have never heard an officially endorsed account claiming this divinely imposed forgetfulness was lifted. But there's a general sense that the first veil seems to rise and fall almost on demand. Prayers flow upward, inspiration flows downward, the Spirit pervades our meetings.

Unchurched Mormons: Spiritual But Not Religious?

The term "spiritual but not religious" has become popular over the last decade as academics and pollsters have noted a large rise in the number of Americans who eschew affiliation with or participation in any denomination or religious institution but who nevertheless believe in God (variously defined) and often employ a variety of personal spiritual practices such as meditation, prayer, service to the poor and needy, reading sacred books, etc. To some extent this demographic overlaps with what Christians of prior eras termed "the unchurched." As is so often the case, Mormonism has its own terminology. What do we call "spiritual but not religious" Mormons or unchurched Mormons?

Walls Around Sacred Places

I just spent ten days in Japan. I'd forgotten how enlightening it is to see the places, people, and practices of a totally foreign culture, then reflect those observations back onto your own culture. In Japan, small Shinto shrines dot the urban landscape. In particular, I came across a small shrine connected to a long shopping mall in the heart of Kyoto's shopping district. Ancient and modern, side by side.

What Correlation Looks Like in Japan

I was in Tokyo on Sunday and was able to attend the full three-hour block of meetings at the Shibuya Ward -- a Japanese-language ward, not an English-language branch. I don't speak Japanese, but still had a wonderful time. Here are some reflections on what Correlation looks like from this end. It doesn't look so bad.

Getting Past the KJV

The Summer 2012 issue of Dialogue contains an article by Grant Hardy titled "The King James Bible and the Future of Missionary Work." The main point Hardy stresses in the article is that the King James Version (KJV) has become so outdated that it now creates problems for LDS missionaries using the KJV in their teaching. Recounting a missionary encounter of his own with a young woman who was reading selected scriptures in her New International Version (NIV) Bible along with the visiting LDS missionaries, Hardy comments, "The meanings did not match up. ... The elders were flustered .... In this case, our exclusive reliance on the King James Version ... had become a barrier to sharing the message of the gospel" (p. 1). Given how few denominations still rely on the KJV and the popularity of newer and better translations like the NIV and the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), I am certain similar episodes occur hundreds of times each month.

Practical Apologetics: Defining the middle path in Mormonism

Rachel's post at Times and Seasons couple of weeks ago, The Threat of New Order Mormons, attracted so much discussion that I would like to follow up with my own discussion of middle-path Mormons. Various terms are used to describe those who self-categorize themselves as something other than fully active, fully believing Mormons: Uncorrelated Mormons, Cultural Mormons, New Order Mormons, Liahona Mormons, and so forth. My view is that there are many paths that lead away from full activity and belief, so it is wrong to expect one label to adequately describe what is actually happening. It's clear these members move away from the center of Mormonism on some items of belief or practice, but which items are the problem for any given individual varies across the population. Here are some different half-way paths.

Assessing the Optimal Degree of Religious Certainty

So I read through Terry Eagleton's Trouble With Strangers: A Study of Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). It wasn't quite what I'd hoped, as he doesn't directly engage with either classical or recent ethical theories; rather, he pursues what one might call a literary approach to a philosophical topic. That worked for his earlier short treatments, such as Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. Here, he shoehorned the entire book into Jacques Lacan's imaginary-symbolic-real paradigm and used Lacan's mirror image metaphor as a touchstone throughout the book. Some readers might find that an insightful approach to ethical issue and questions, but not me. I did enjoy the discussion of Alain Badiou and his idea of "truth events."

FAIR Jumping Over a Cliff?

The ad hominem virus may be contagious. Having killed FARMS, it has apparently jumped to FAIR. At least that's what I take away from a recent post at the FAIR Blog, "It's a Matter of Relevance." Let's vary the metaphor a bit: FARMS has driven off a cliff. FAIR walks up to the edge, surveys the wreckage below, and announces: "Let's jump." Alas, just when we need the sort of practical apologetics that FAIR has pursued so successfully over the years, they post a spirited defense of attackogetics. This is very discouraging.

How Modern Are We?

The LDS Newsroom just posted another interesting essay, "Mormon and Modern." The essay seems designed primarily as talking points for a gentle defense to secular critics who dismiss religion in general as a form of superstition unfit for the modern world and Mormonism in particular as a new and therefore even less welcome example of religion.

Practical Apologetics: Help, I want to go back to church

Seismic changes at the Maxwell Institute have prompted reflective blog posts on the fate of FARMS and Mormon apologetics in general (The Rise and Fall of FARMS | The Legacy of FARMS | Explosive Tensions within MSR). My view: the FARMS approach has become outdated. Mormon apologetics will become more decentralized and more social as people (both LDS and non-LDS) turn to Google and Facebook rather than the bookstore, the library, or journals to get answers to their Mormon questions. Apologetics will therefore become more personal and more practical. People still want answers. Mormon.org, blogs, and Mormon Stories are the shape of the future for apologetics: diverse, personal, interactive. [Disclaimer: I'm not endorsing the agenda of Mormon Stories, whatever it is, just noting the popularity of the format.]

A Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation: Idaho Falls Edition

I took the two-hour drive to Idaho Falls last night to hear Greg Johnson and Robert Millet present their friendly conversation on Mormons and Evangelicals to an audience of six or seven hundred. Johnson is an Evangelical pastor who runs the Standing Together ministry in Utah; Millet is a Professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU. Together they coauthored Bridging the Divide: The Continuing Conversation Between a Mormon and an Evangelical back in 2007. Their live presentation covers some of the same ground as the book, but also takes questions from the audience.

You and Your Righteous Religious Mind

Psychology has come a long way the last couple of decades. Instead of seeing us coming into the world with a mind like a blank slate, psychologists and cognitive scientists are discovering through cleverly designed empirical research that we are born with a preloaded mental operating system. It predisposes us to see the world like emotional, opinionated, tribal human beings rather than like rational, logical robots. You can get the whole story, with special emphasis on how moral systems and individual moral convictions are formed, in Jonathan Haidt's new book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Pantheon Books, 2012 | publisher's page | official book page).

Review: Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia

It is published as a reference work, but you can read it like a book, albeit a book of essays: Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO, 2010; publisher's page), edited by W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall. Listing at $85 ($68 on Kindle), it might not find its way onto your bookshelf until a trade paperback version comes out in a few years, but at the very least it puts a very accessible LDS history reference on the shelves of America's libraries and newsrooms, featuring 140 entries covering individuals, places, events, and issues. I stumbled across a library copy that was in the stacks and could actually be checked out rather than being secured behind the librarian's firewall (that is, placed in the reference section). If you are so lucky, do the right thing and take it home for a few weeks.

Troubling Dreams

I keep my visions to myself.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?

Mormons tend not to keep their visions to themselves. In his recent General Conference talk "How to Obtain Revelation and Inspiration for Your Personal Life," Elder Richard G. Scott seems to be inviting Mormons to do the same with their dreams.

Polygamy 2012

Once upon a time, family law was a marginal legal topic that didn't make many headlines the way constitutional law or criminal law so often do. But gay marriage and Prop 8 have propelled family law and marriage to the legal center stage. In an odd parallel development, "the family" has, over the last few years, moved to the center of LDS doctrine and practice as well, with "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" being the most visible evidence of that change. We are living in an intersecting perfect storm of changing family law, family doctrine, and family practice. So we should learn some family law before the cyclone hits. Let's start with a current case.

Esoteric Mormonism: Marginal or Mainstream?

I recently finished reading Samuel Brown's In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death (Oxford University Press, 2012; publisher's page). It's an impressive book, although I disagree with the implicit argument of the book that the esoteric branch of Joseph Smith's eclectic and diverse theology is central to his thinking and, by extension, should be central to present-day Mormonism. It is a book anyone interested in Mormon Studies should read (twice), but probably not the first or even second book on Joseph Smith that a practicing Mormon should read.

Mormon Doctrine: Confusion or Clarity?

Mormon doctrine is showing up in unlikely places lately, including the campaign trail, where earlier this week Mitt Romney squelched a questioner's short speech that started off quoting from the Pearl of Great Price. I suspect that will not be the last doctrinal question of this campaign. But the glare of heightened publicity and attention that comes with having an LDS candidate on the presidential ticket is making it evident that Mormon doctrine — simply what it is and what it isn't — is just not all that clear.

Mormonism: A Religion of the Head or of the Heart?

That question is not as straightforward as you might think. Garry Wills' Head and Heart: American Christianities (Penguin Press, 2007) reviews these two different approaches and uses them to structure his history of Christianity in America. It is an effective format that helps the reader follow developments, in contrast to most histories of religion in America which are often overloaded with doctrinal and denominational details that have little interest for most contemporary readers.

Review: The Book of Mormon Girl

Joanna Brooks is the Chair of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University. She is the author of several books, most recently The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories From an American Faith (2012). The book is available at Amazon and at the author's website. A short couple of hundred pages, the book is at various turns both enjoyable and troubling, as the author recounts growing up LDS in Southern California, informally leaving the LDS Church then returning to activity, then rather suddenly emerging as a leading voice of what might be termed the progressive Mormon agenda which takes issue with traditional Mormon positions on race and gender. As such, she is on her way to becoming controversial (not generally a compliment in Mormon circles), so I need to start out with a couple of disclaimers.

The Bott Affair: Winners and Losers

It has been only one week since the initial Washington Post article quoting BYU Professor Randy Bott's controversial statements was published. [See Kent's very helpful ongoing chronology of events and published stories.] But a week is a lifetime online. While official and unofficial reactions will continue to play out over coming weeks and months, we can already see who the winners and losers are among the main players. Briefly, the winners are the LDS Church, LDS Public Affairs, LDS bloggers and columnists, the mainstream media, and the rank and file members of the Church. The losers are BYU and the BYU College of Religious Education. Professor Bott gets a category of his own.

A Different Jesus?

Google "a different jesus" and you'll find that 7 of the first 10 links that come up on the first page are about Mormonism. Three of those link to predictable discussions either proclaiming that Mormons worship a different Jesus or arguing that Mormons worship the same Jesus as most other Christians. Four of those link to Robert L. Millet's A Different Jesus? The Christ of the Latter-day Saints (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005), the book that ought to be a primary reference for those engaging in the discussion, but usually isn't. Along with How Wide the Divide?, it seems like the best book to give to any Christian interested in learning about LDS beliefs concerning Christ (as opposed to what critics portray LDS beliefs to be).

Sports as Religious Experience

That's where two talented philosophers, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly, end up when they consider All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age (Free Press, 2011). It's the communal experience of being swept up with the crowd in dramatic moments or of sharing with the onlooking crowd a remarkable moment of peak performance that the authors are embracing: