First, a reminder that I’m part of an event in Provo on April 3, sponsored by Uplift (which only exists on Facebook). The format (left, high res here) is a little different, starting with a roundtable discussion of questions submitted by attendees. (Although space isn’t an issue, we do need people to register, and that’s where you can submit a question.) Continue reading “The Most Important Question I’ve Been Asked, and Public Speaking Updates”
Category LDS Church History
Inerrancy among Church Employees about Church Materials
I recently had a conversation in a public Facebook group (since deleted by an admin) about the “printing error” in the 2020 Book of Mormon manual. I raised some substantial concerns, filled out with a number of links to my own research and posts about cursing in scripture (e.g. here and in my forthcoming posts on 2 Nephi 1-5). Two S&I (Seminaries and Institute) /COB (Church Office Building) employees responded by bearing testimony of the Curriculum and Correlation process and berating anyone who dared hold any other opinion.
These testimonies constituted de facto witnessing of inerrancy (not the first I’ve seen) and also violated Elder Ballard’s directive specifically to S&I teachers; “Gone are the days when a student raised a sincere concern and a teacher bore his or her testimony as a response intended to avoid the issue.” I even called them out on avoiding the central issues, which received no response. Continue reading “Inerrancy among Church Employees about Church Materials”
Mormon History Association Conference 2020: Scripture, Science, Interpretation, and Fundamentalism
Notices are going out for the MHA Conference this year, to be held in Rochester NY, June 4-7. The schedule is not up yet, but a panel I organized has been accepted, entitled “Developing LDS Exegesis, Hermeneutics, and Epistemology from 1876-1980: Trends and Influences.” Continue reading “Mormon History Association Conference 2020: Scripture, Science, Interpretation, and Fundamentalism”
Old Manuals, Unintended Consequences, and the Optimistic Turn of “Come Follow Me”
At an amazing S&I address a few years ago, Elder Ballard described past curriculum as well-meaning, but inadequate.
It was only a generation ago that our young people’s access to information about our history, doctrine, and practices was basically limited to materials printed by the Church. Few students came in contact with alternative interpretations. Mostly, our young people lived a sheltered life. Our curriculum at that time, though well-meaning, did not prepare students for today
Continue reading “Old Manuals, Unintended Consequences, and the Optimistic Turn of “Come Follow Me””
The Temple and Genre, part 2: Presidents Lee and McKay on History and Temple Preparation
Remnants of the Jerusalem temple
BYU has published a short piece by Judge Thomas Griffiths, called “Imagination and the Temple.” Continue reading “The Temple and Genre, part 2: Presidents Lee and McKay on History and Temple Preparation”
A Paradoxical Preservation of Faith: LDS Creation Accounts and the Composite Nature of Revelation
Creation of the Sun, Sistine Chapel
My 2019 FAIRMormon Conference presentation is up now, here. There’s a lot in the footnotes as well.
The takeaway is this: Many LDS have unsustainably fundamentalist assumptions about the nature of revelation, prophets, and scripture. The conflict these cause sometimes leads to a loss of faith, instead of recognizing and reexamining the assumptions.
I draw on a variety of things to argue against these assumptions, to argue that revelation is composite, that is, always contains divine and human aspects, and we should expect those. It’s ok, though, because it’s a progressive, iterative process. As time goes on, the human progresses towards the divine until the categories overlap completely. But we’re not there yet and won’t be for a long time.
So I take Acts 15:28 as my paradigm for understanding Church leadership. “It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.”
Paradoxically, it is by recognizing and understanding the presence of the human that my faith in the divine is preserved.
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Revelation, Adaptation, and the Temple: “Everything is a Remix”
Red brick store in Nauvoo, where the first endowments were done on May 4, 1842.
However the divine inspiration or divine origin of the Torah might have worked, it apparently did not involve starting with an absolutely clean slate.– James Kugel
Continue reading “Revelation, Adaptation, and the Temple: “Everything is a Remix””
“Absolutist” Revelation and Creation Accounts in Moses, Abraham, and the Temple
I presented a short paper at the Joseph Smith Papers conference a few weeks ago, a spin-off from my Genesis 1 manuscript. (I presented an expanded version at the 2019 FAIR Conference.)
My basic argument was this. Certain common conceptions of revelation, which I term “absolutist,” cannot account for the major textual, doctrinal, and other differences between Genesis, Moses, Abraham, and the temple; this suggests we need to think and teach about revelation differently and in more depth. Continue reading ““Absolutist” Revelation and Creation Accounts in Moses, Abraham, and the Temple”
What Prophets Know: A Short Follow-up
This post is a follow-up to my essay on the nature of nature of prophetic knowledge. Although I’ve quoted Stephen L. Richards at length before, it turns out I’ve never posted this important excerpt. Continue reading “What Prophets Know: A Short Follow-up”
The Scientific Deformation and Reformation of Genesis: How “Science” Messed It Up, but Also Fixes It
Ben contemplating his words at Petra.
I was grateful for the invitation to speak at UVU’s Mormon Studies Conference on Mormonism and the Challenges of Science, Revelation, and Faith in February 2018. I spoke about how and why we’ve come to understand the creation chapters of Genesis certain ways, and then participated in a panel on evolution with two BYU biologists. You can watch my presentation here (scroll to the bottom and click on my name to launch the video.) My slides aren’t visible, but you can download them here (pdf) to follow along. Continue reading “The Scientific Deformation and Reformation of Genesis: How “Science” Messed It Up, but Also Fixes It”
