Our latest guest blogger is Blake Ostler. Blake is a practicing attorney, having graduated from BYU and the U of U with a JD and a Master’s degree in philosophy. Blake, alas, has demonstrated almost no interest in writing about law and Mormonism. He has, however, been a prolific author on the philosophical basis of LDS theology. In addition to numerous articles in Dialogue, BYU Studies, Sunstone, the FARMS Review of Books and other fora, he has published the first volume of a proposed three volume philosophical study of Mormon theology, entitled Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God
Month: April 2005
A Tale of Two Revelations
Those who imagine change in the Church are fond of hanging their hat on the principle of continuing revelation, arguing that it allows us a tremendous amount of flexibility to reformulate our doctrines and practices. This is, I think, far too simplistic, a fact that is illustrated by two of the most dramatic shifts in Church policy: the end of polygamy and the end of the priesthood ban.
How did you find T & S?
An interesting threadjack began this afternoon, and I see no reason not to continue that threadjack in its own post.** Shawn Bailey asked: How did everyone here initially find Times & Seasons or the Bloggernacle in general?
Gender differences in permablogger origin?
Here’s a fun little mental exercise, which ends up with a curious result that I just noticed. First, let’s classify participants in a group blog as entering the group through either a top-down or bottom-up route. The top-down route begins with offline connections: Person A operates a blog; she offers a co-blogging position to Person B, who she knows through some in-person avenue (such as an old classmate). The bottom-up route is based on connections made through the blog itself: Person A operates a blog; she offers a co-blogging position to Person B who she knows solely through contact on the blog itself (a well-regarded commenter). We can divide T & S permabloggers into these two categories, and when we do, a strange pattern emerges.
Book Review: Back to the Well: Women’s Encounters with Jesus in the Gospels
This statement from The Blog of Happiest Fun got a lot of links from other female bloggernaclites: I would like to spend more time discussing the lives of strong women in the scriptures. Women like Hannah, Deborah, Jael, or Anna the prophetess. There are so many women that I find interesting, and I don’t hear about them enough. I’d like to study their lives some more.
The Gift of the Holy Ghost
Lately I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the gift of the Holy Ghost. In one sense, nothing profound has come from that thinking. I’ve felt that my thinking has been worth the effort it took. I have enjoyed the spirit I felt while thinking about it and feel better prepared to received the Holy Ghost, but my thinking hasn’t something that can be reproduced in an essay.
Sunday School Lesson 17
Lesson 17: Doctrine and Covenants 59:13-14, 21; Doctrine and Covenants 119; Doctrine and Covenants 120 Thought questions for D&C 59 were included in lesson 16, so I will not repeat them here.
Night Light: “Without Conscience”
This week’s New England Journal of Medicine opens with an essay by Elie Wiesel entitled “Without Conscience.” The essay asks how Nazi doctors, who played a horrifically crucial role in the organized cruelty of the Holocaust, came to betray the Hippocratic oath, their consciences, humanity.
Hau’oli la Hanau, Nate.
My esteemed co-blogger Nate often says that he considers me “older and wiser.” For the next few months, however, that description will only be half-right. That’s because today is Nate’s birthday!! (And so for a few months, we’ll be the same age). Congratulations on the big 3-0, Nate. Hau’oli la hanau. You can now officially cast your ostraka. I hope you’ll be able to escape Sidley enough to spend a bit of time with Heather and Jacob. (And if not, hey — we can always argue about chiasm some more, right? What could be more fun than that? Perhaps we can go out for some Brazilian food and split a bottle of grape juice).
Sectarianism vs. Assimilation
Which should we be more strenuously avoiding, and how? Clark Goble suggests that the Church in “the last decade and a half has focused on building on common ground. But that has also (IMO) had unfortunate doctrinal consequences on the population as well as I believe leading to the decrease in conversions the last 5 – 8 years.”
Condescension and Exaltation
For all of our insistence that we are Christians too, Mormons think about Jesus differently. I think that the two words that best capture this difference are condescension and exaltation.
Symbols of Faith
President Hinckley’s home teaching message for April is about symbols. It was prompted by that well-worn question: why don’t Mormons use the symbol of the cross?
Placement of Christ’s name in prayer
On another thread, commenter Benyamin Abrams asks: Most prayers are addressed to Heavenly Father and closed in the name of Jesus Christ. The Sacrament prayer has both the opening and closing in the opening. I asked some members of my Ward if there were any other prayers with the same format. It’s an interesting question. After all, the phrase “in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen” is practically synonymous with LDS prayer. But does the name of Christ really have to come at the end of the prayer, rather than (for example) at the beginning?
God on Times & Seasons
As I was reading the Doctrine & Covenants on my way into work the other day, I learned (not to my complete surprise, I will confess) that God has already condemned this blog.
Bloggernacking and Man-dates
There’s been quite a bit of buzz in the blogosphere at large about Jennifer 8. Lee’s New York Times piece on “man-dates.” Lee suggests that it is socially perilous for two heterosexual men to meet for dinner, without sports, business, or a bar to defuse the date-like-ness of the meeting. I don’t know how valid Lee’s thesis is in the broader spectrum (and there is some doubt being expressed on other blogs). But even if Lee is right, I think that the phenomenon may be one to which bloggernackers are immune. Or at least, to which I’m immune.
Reminders to Frank about Teaching
We have a lot of teachers around here. I am guessing that at least half of our perma-bloggers are somehow involved in teaching and probably huge chunks of our readership are or will be.
Further musings of a chiasm doubter, or, “Doubting chiasm, musing further”
We’ve all heard of chiasm, that Hebrew literary device of repeating elements in reverse order. Since 1969, when Jack Welch first suggested that the Book of Mormon contained chiasm, some Mormon apologists have argued that the presence of chiasm in the Book of Mormon is evidence of its ancient origins. Numerous chiasm articles have appeared in popular LDS magazines as well as under the imprint of FARMS, among others. Meanwhile, opponents have said, more or less, “you’re nuts.” I’m a skeptic. I’ve always thought that the alleged chiastic patterns were simply too susceptible to cherry-picking. Today, I stumbled across another piece of evidence that buttresses my own skeptical views on chiasm. It comes from an unusual source — the small non-Brighamite Mormon sect often called the Strangites.
The Blogging Advantages of Murmuring
By and large, the bloggernacle is can be a pretty whiney, carping
Of Popes, Post-Mortal and Otherwise
John Fowles’s comment on the Pope (namely, that he “has been a true Christian his whole life and a marvelous example of Christian charity and love to the whole world….I am confident that he will make the right choices in the spirit world”), made at By Common Consent and picked up (out of context) by the Salt Lake Tribune, has inspired a series of sharp exchanges at BCC. The argument there (which is a good one to read through) basically boils down to whether or not the belief that the spirit of Pope John Paul II, now presumably in the spirit world, will or ought to embrace the fulness of the restored gospel and accept vicariously the LDS ordinances of baptism, etc., in order to receive exaltation, exhibits “presumption, arrogance, myopia, and ignorance” (to quote one Sally M.). That is, it’s an argument about the quality and standing of our beliefs. That’s a discussion worth having. But I’d rather have one about whether or not the presumption it makes about our doctrine is, in fact, true. That is, do we really affirm that the Pope needs to be baptized vicariously and become “converted” in order to achieve exaltation? Because I’m…
Regex question
UPDATE: It’s working! Thanks to everyone who made suggestions. Also, as with any change to our filters, we’ve tried to be as careful as we can not to block innocent posts. But it’s always possible that I didn’t design or implement this quite right, and that it will inadvertently catch your innocent post. If it does, please let us know, as soon as possible. Thanks!
Half a million bloggernackers can’t be wrong
Well, they can, perhaps, but we’d like to think that they aren’t. Lost in the technical issues last week was the fact that we registered our half-millionth visitor. I’m still often amazed at how much we’ve grown since we first started, in November 2003, with just four bloggers and a handful of readers. Not only has this site grown, but the rest of the bloggernacle has grown around us as well. It’s been a fun journey. And it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun without you, our readers and commenters. So thanks for reading. Thanks for your comments. And hopefully we can continue whatever it is we’ve been doing that’s drawn you here, for another half-million readers, and beyond.
Hearsay
We’re told that we need to have a testimony of the gospel. And we’re told that we can’t rely on anyone else’e testimony — we must develop our own witness of the truth. It’s a formulation which is surprisingly consistent with the legal guidelines on testimony that one gives in a court case. Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 802 is clear: “Hearsay is not admissible.” [subject to certain specified exceptions].
Love and a fence
They were all to their love. A silent, suffering love, eyes staring into eyes. Standing at a few inches from each other, the fence between them. A huge fence, of strong wire-netting that would not let a hand get through. Both were barely twenty years old.
Pope’s Personal Papers
I just heard that John Paul II requested that his personal papers be burned. I don’t know if it’s the historian in me or just the fact that I’m a Mormon, but I gasped at this news. I couldn’t help being curious about why he would have wanted this record destroyed. As a self-consciously journaling people would it ever cross any Latter-day Saint’s mind to make such a request? This got me thinking about the nature of our journaling. Knowing that what we write will be viewed by posterity, do we, consciously or not, write for an audience? If so, does it influence what we say and how we choose to say it? If we thought that burning our personal papers at the end were an option, would our journals be different? I wonder how many people blog instead of journaling now? If blogging has become a substitute for journaling for some has the substance and style of their personal reflection changed or not?
A Numbers Game
I think our Stake Executive Council must be scheduling its meetings right after the TV show “Numb3rs.” Either that or tax season is getting to everyone.
Time for a Link War
In a blog comment at BCC, Ronan points out a disturbing fact. A google search for “Mormon Temple” is likely to be one of the first things a curious non-member does; but when you google the term Mormon Temple, the first site that comes up on the list is an ex-Mormon site. In fact, the first four sites listed on the front page are ex-Mormon sites. Of the 10 sites on the front page, five are ex-Mormon, two are links to LDS.org, one is apologetic and two are neutral. So the first page for Mormon Temple is 5-to-2 anti. Exacerbating the issue, the particular lds.org links that google gives for Mormon Temple are likely to be confusing or unhelpful to a nonmember. This is particularly aggravating since there’s already an easily accessible online resource for non-members. The site http://www.ldstemple.com is church-owned and redirects to a page at the also church-owned mormon.org. It will almost certainly be a redirect to the appropriate church site for the foreseeable future. (And it’s not even in the first 100 results for the google search Mormon Temple!). What to do? Well, google builds its database by noting which websites are linked by other websites. So…
Teaching Modesty to Children
I posted the following you-know-where: I don’t have girl children, but I don’t let my boys wear tank tops or shorts above the knee.
Happy Birthday to Us, and to Jesus.
The church is 175 years old. (The technical term is “terquasquicentennial,” in case you were wondering). And we also believe that Jesus was born on April 6th. (Don’t we?) (And is that a Julian April 6th? A Gregorian? An April 6th in some cosmic, platonic form? I’m not really sure.) Happy birthday to all.
Yet another technical update
We haven’t had any resource problems for the past several hours. I’m cautiously bringing the main index back online. If it starts to flare up again, I may have to go back to the barebones index.
Dumb (Technical) Question
Is there a program or utility that will tell me what parts of T & S are using server resources? Right now, I’ve got cpanel, and that’s it. So I can watch our resource use spike, and I can turn off plugins. And I can pull the index offline. And see if that helps any. But it would be nice if I could get a more exact picture. (i.e., “server use – 10. Breakdown: 2.0 for index.php, 1.0 for wp-comments-post.php, and 7.0 for blacklist.php” which would tell me “aha, the blacklist is what’s tying up resources”). Suggestions?