I suspect that his brothers’ lack of understanding had less to do with their inability to grasp our simplistic Sunday School summary of the allegory of the olive tree, and much more to do with how culturally and theologically “other” this picture was compared to their own understanding.
Category: News and Politics
Politics – Current Events – Media
Theorizing the Restoration in the Sixteenth Century
I’ve written before about Sebastian Franck, a spiritualist who charted his own path through the religious turmoil of the Reformation era. As I was recently reading Franck’s letter to the Anabaptist theologian Johann Campanus, I was struck by how familiar…
Shining Light vs. Secret Charity
There’s been a lot of stories about Church activity in Houston and other places where members have stepped up to help people in the hurricane. You’ve probably seen a lot of stories. I’ve even linked to a lot myself. I’ll…
Nephi’s Abrahamic Trial – Reading Nephi – 15:1-11 part II
I think we see here an Abrahamic trial.
PRRI Poll Numbers on Mormons
I love religion polls and surveys. I think they tell us a lot about what has been a rather transformative period in American religion the past 20 years. While I’m still eagerly awaiting the next ARIS survey, PRRI came out…
Revelation’s Demand for More Revelation – Reading Nephi – 15:1-11 part I
More contrasts between Nephi and his brothers—although this passage strikes me as less political…and more intimate and personal.
The Hermeneutic of Revelation: There is Always More – Reading Nephi – 14:18-30
The end of the narrative of Nephi’s grand vision is to point beyond the vision and beyond Nephi.
Primary Sharing Time Lesson: All Are Alike unto God
This month’s Primary Sharing Time outline provides two weeks to cover the topic of the Sabbath. Because our presidency covered the topic well last week, I’ve created an alternate Sharing Time lesson plan. Given recent events in the US, I…
Future Mormon: Chapter 4
Welcome to the fourth week of the reading club for Adam Miller’s Future Mormon. For general links related to the book along with links for all the chapter discussions please go to our overview page. We’ll be trying to discuss a chapter…
Binaries of the Lamb and the Devil – Reading Nephi – 14:8-17 part II
I feel somewhat affronted by the angel’s adamant declaration and insistence on the binary nature of humanity.
The Evidential Problem of Evil
The problem of evil is a long standing issue in philosophy and theology. More or less it’s the recognition that there is something wrong if God is all loving and all powerful yet we experience all the evils of mortality.…
Thoughts on Vulnerability (in the wake of Charlottesville)
I once had a client who was a white supremacist.* The thing about being a therapist is, you quickly learn that everyone’s got a story. In this case, there was a history of domestic abuse, a parent with extreme racist…
Guest Post: Justifying Visions
Mark Bukowski got degrees in philosophy and psychology at UCLA, studying with the noted scholar of German idealism Robert Solomon and Angela Davis, a student of Marcuse. While an undergraduate he became a bit of a student radical, marxist and…
Practical Apologetics: The Doubting Elder
Time for another installment in this occasional series. As reported in the Deseret News, Elder Christofferson delivered a presentation to new mission presidents at the Provo MTC in June. He first discussed the use of the Book of Mormon as…
Did Nephi Know of the Return from Exile?
I was rereading some of Nephi’s sermons tied to his incipient Christianity. It struck me that it’s not clear Nephi knows about the 2cd temple period and restoration from Babylon. Now I’m still not 100% sure of this. So I…
Guest Post: Seminary Assessments and Americacentrism
James Holt lives in Manchester, UK and is Senior Lecturer in Religious Education* at the University of Chester. This involves training teachers to teach Religious Education in schools, as well as aspects of education for teachers training to teach in…
The (In)Consistencies of Church Employment
In 2012 a BYU religion professor named Randy Bott created a firestorm when he made fairly racist comments justifying the priesthood ban to blacks in an interview with the Washington Post. Many called for Bott’s firing. Shortly thereafter Bott took…
Future Mormon: Chapter 3
Welcome to the third week of the reading club for Adam Miller’s Future Mormon. For general links related to the book along with links for all the chapter discussions please go to our overview page. We’ll be trying to discuss…
Bad footnotes can be spiritually deadly
Over at Slate, Daniel Engber had an interesting and instructive article a while back entitled “Bad Footnotes Can Be Deadly” on how the current opioid crisis has been aggravated by the misunderstanding of a letter to the editor of a…
Personalizing Freedom of Religion or Belief
We tend to defer the responsibility of Religious Freedom to the State. But to what extent is it an individual matter as well? In this post I will guide us through some of the issues, and hope for a healthy…
Welcome to guest blogger Hans Noot
We’re happy to welcome another “international” blogger, Hans Noot from the Netherlands. During the past 36 years Johannus D. T. (Hans) Noot coordinated Religious Education in Belgium and the Netherlands for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He…
Future Mormon Reading Chapter 2
This is the second week of the reading club for Adam Miller’s Future Mormon. For general links related to the book along with links for all the chapter discussions please go to our overview page. We’ll be trying to discuss…
Be Still My Soul
When I was 19 years old and a junior at BYU, I took a volunteer opportunity teaching a semester-long “life skills” class at the Utah State Prison. Maybe it’s not apparent from that one sentence how absurd it was for…
How Pro Trump are Mormons?
Over at BCC there were a few people claiming in the comments how Mormons were for Donald Trump for President. Now I completely understand why people would say this, given that Trump won Utah in the election. However I think that…
On Silence: A Midrash of Elijah
Most of us are familiar with the story of the prophet Elijah, who is particularly famous for his dramatic confrontation with the priests of Baal. My favorite part of Elijah’s story comes after that, though, when he realizes that not…
Future Mormon Reading Club
The person who probably comes closest to my own views on many matters is Adam Miller. Back in the heyday of LDS-Herm we had tons of fantastic discussions on theology and philosophy. Ever since Adam’s last book came out I’ve…
Religion as Consumerism
We’ve talked a lot about recent LDS growth numbers here including my post on the drop in missionary numbers and Wilfried’s post on the controversial consolidation of units in Europe. Since then the Salt Lake Tribune has weighed in as…
A Witness of Kindness
I was so touched to see this bit of humanity, this respect and consideration for the stranger. It is one reason I love living in a city: where we are all so close together, we have more opportunity to exercise and witness kindness.
Uncomfortable Charity
Why does the act of charity, in this case, the transaction initiated by a beggar or panhandler, feel so uncomfortable to me? Mental recriminations if I give, guilt if I don’t. Perhaps it is because I don’t know the protocol, the expectations, and so I’m worried about an inadvertent transgression. But it isn’t that hard to act, to find a way to overcome my anxiety and hesitation to do something small.
On Those Latest Missionary Numbers
There’s been a bit of controversy in social media over the recent missionary numbers that have leaked. Deseret News has up a story about missionaries that mentions there being 68,500 missionaries out. The new numbers shocked some people but actually…