One thing I have never really understood in my short little life as a Latter-day Saint (trying to be!) is the intersection between patriotism and mormonism within the church. Does it just go back to the Utah’s long hard road to statehood? Did it come before or after the nigh-canonization of the U.S. Constitution, or is that an out-growth of the hyper-patriotism? Is it because the Gospel was restored in the US, and so the US law was the only set up where the government could prosper, or is that just after-the-fact justification for our love of country? I suspect it does relate to the Book of Mormon’s praise of this land as a “Land of Promise”, but wasn’t that Mexico/Peru/Patagonia/Panama/Wherever?(Are their other limited geography spots?) Maybe it’s because we believe in being subject to Kings/Rulers/Magistrates, and honoring and sustaining the law, but I don’t see this translating over to other nations as much.

Anyway, what do you think? Why are we so danged Patriotic?

(Happy 4th of July, don’t blow your fingers off)

My sense is that there are a lot of Mad Max Mormons in the world. Now admittedly I just made that term up, but what I mean by it is there seem to be a lot of Mormons who expect the world to get worse and worse until some massive calamity nearly wipes humanity out and just as we are in the verge of being forced to live like Mad Max in a post-apocalyptic dystopia Jesus will return and fix the world. And who could blame Mormons for such a world view? Not only are there plenty of prophesies in the Bible that seem to indicate that’s how it will come down prior to the second coming of Jesus, there are supporting modern revelations saying the same things in even more detail. The term “Latter-day” is in the official name of our church for cryin’ out loud. To most people that indicates that these are the very last days of the world. (more…)

By Kent White

This is the last installment in the series of the Plan of Salvation. Click here for previous posts in this series and why I’m writing this children’s book.

The process of becoming like Christ is called sanctification.  As the Holy Ghost sanctifies us, we receive more light, knowledge, and love for others; which makes us happy because we also enjoy God’s presence in our lives.  In order to be sanctified, God will ask us to sacrifice the temporary things of this world to choose the things of eternity.  In order to strengthen us against the temptations we will face to cling too tightly to the things of this world, Christ has outlined, through His prophets, specific habits that focus our minds on life’s purposes and invite the Spirit into our lives.

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I finally started reading that copy of Truman Madsen’s Eternal Man that has been sitting on my bookshelf for the last couple of years. Eternal Man is an interesting little set of short theology and philosophy essays aimed at laymen. It was published in 1966. In the second chapter of the book Madsen makes the following assertions about the minds/souls/intelligences/spirits of all people:

The quantity of souls is fixed and infinite.
There is no beginning to us.
Mind has no birthday.
No one is older or younger than anyone else.
We have always been separate from, and coexistent with other intelligences.
Creation is never totally original.
Immortality is not conditional – it is inevitable and universal.
Death does not destroy the self.
Suicide is just a change of scenery.
No self can change completely into another thing.
No one will ever lose their mind or consciousness.
Nothing is something we never were and never will be.

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I am trying for something devotional here. A fire and brimstone sermon to myself, if you will…

One thing I loved about my high school freshman year of Catholic History was the chapter on the Spanish Inquisition and discussing the horrible things done then. It opened up discussions of religion which I had never before considered and helped me gain an understanding of and frankly a dislike of those evils which had come before. But this acknowledgement of evil was not enough to keep me in the fold. Confessing to evil isn’t enough. It only makes you guilty.

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By Kent White

Click here for previous posts in this series and why I’m writing this children’s book.

Christ can’t force us to receive His gifts of life and joy. For us to be like Him and receive all that the Father has, it requires our participation. God can’t just make us become as He is because at the deepest level, we all have agency or free will, and that cannot ever be taken from us. Agency is the ability to choose who and what we will love and how we will use our power to pursue our desires. At our core, we have always existed with agency.

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The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is one of those books that a lot of people talk about so I figured I should get around to reading it. I finally did recently. Here is my review.

Grade: B

The Good

The book is a real page turner (even when you have it on your ipod). Weaknesses in prose notwithstanding I found myself really wanting to see what would happen next. That is a good sign with any book. It is heavy on philosophy and while others might not appreciate that I dug it.

The Bad
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I thought this was wonderful, and wanted to make sure we could all share in it. I especially loved the Covey Boys’ Madsen Impersonations, but that’s the 5 year old in me.

So many others have said so much about Madsen’s Passing, and how he impacted all our lives, I am not sure I can add anything.

I guess I can say that as a convert, his lectures on the presidents of the church series is what allowed me to have a testimony of each of the Presidents of the Church. I guess I can say he was one of the greatest orators I have ever heard and I have every talk I could find by him on my mp3 player, and they’ve been there for years, because no matter how many times I listen, I don’t get tired of them. I guess I can say that I believe he forever changed Mormonism, raising it to a higher state, making it better by his own personal efforts.

I guess I can say I never knew him personally, but I will miss him terribly.

God Speed, Brother Madsen.

One place I think there is a big gap in theology and religion is the place of story-telling. Why, if it is so important that we have this life, do we spend so much time reading, watching, playing, listening to stories of other lives? What is the place of fiction and fantasy in God’s great plan? Does it have a place, or is it just pointless enjoyment? Sometimes, it can be a problem, like when I almost dropped out of college when Final Fantasy VII came out and I didn’t go to school for a month. Sometimes it can be a big problem. But other times, it can be such a blessing. Like when I decided it was ok not to be an atheist while reading the Fantasy Novel “Beyond Ragnarok”.

So what role does art, and particularly fictional stories, play in our theology?

I have recently picked up a new habit. I started checking books on CD out and listening to them when I can. I figured I’d post my thoughts on some of the books I read as a new series here at the Thang. My first book was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

I was a little surprised by this book. There were parts in that book that were really funny. I was shocked when I found myself laughing out loud as Dickens amusingly described the adults surrounding young Pip (the main character) in the early parts of the book. I didn’t expect that at all going into this book written in 1861.

Grade: A-. (more…)

Our regular readers know that I have recently been teeing off on Calvinism around these parts in posts and comment threads. Of course in those discussions various Calvinists have tried to defend Calvinism in spite of the narcissistic and cruelly sadistic God it paints. After not having much logical ground to stand on in their attempts some of these Calvinism defenders have plaintively protested: “Well how do you reconcile real free will with God’s foreknowledge then?” My answer is simple: I don’t. I reject the idea of exhaustive foreknowledge because exhaustive foreknowledge requires a fixed future and a fixed future is fundamentally incompatible with real free will.
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By Kent White

Click here for previous posts in this series and why I’m writing this children’s book.

Every living person is given the Light of Christ when they are born, which is also sometimes called our conscience.  This light helps us know basic right from wrong.  When we feel we should do something kind for someone else, and choose not to do it, we sin against this Light, which diminishes our light and defeats some of our purposes of being here.  When we hurt someone else, it hurts us too and creates guilt.  The largest consequence of sin is that it hurts our relationships with others to where we can’t be trusted by others and we can’t trust ourselves.  In such a state, we wouldn’t be able to stand being with holy and clean beings like our Heavenly Father.  Heaven is not just a place, but it is rather a society in which trust abounds; trust that my tender heart will be valued as highly as I value it. My character is defined by my trustworthiness with the needs and feelings of others.

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We’re not sure what happened but for some reason the site was saying users had to be logged in to comment this morning. We found the setting in the back office and fixed it. (Hopefully we are not hacked…) In any case, we’ll keep an eye on things going forward but don’t worry — we weren’t singling anyone out.

I found it somewhat interesting tonight coming across this rather simple video of Truman Madsen frankly discussing Joseph’s Polygamy.

While I can’t speak to the historicity of the video (or the history of the video for that matter). I love me some Truman Madsen, and thought this video was fairly interesting.

Thoughts?

Try Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Since the thread over at BCC has officially been closed for a while, thought I’d give a tip to you all.

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Ok I spent about on hour on the phone with everyone’s favorite anti-Mormon, Aaron S, today. It was a follow up to my last post about his motivations for being such a zealous anti-Mormon (aka, card carrying member of the Fluffy Bunny Nice Nice Club) which have long baffled me. My goal was to try to figure out how he reconciled his anti-Mormon zeal with his Calvinism. (If you are in the mood to be bored for an hour you can listen to the discussion here.)

The obvious disconnect between Calvinism and missionary work of any kind is this: Calvinists teach that God predestines all souls to heaven or hell before He even creates them. Therefore the story of our souls is over before it starts. Therefore missionary work won’t save anyone since the outcome is determined regardless of the hard work of anyone. Therefore, why bother?

My paraphrase of the answer from Aaron: God made me do it. (more…)

My favorite evangelical anti-Mormon, Aaron Shafovaloff, recently published the following explanation of his zealous anti-Mormonism (I have replaced his bullets with numbers for easier reference):

Some of you might wonder why those of us in the countercult ministry keep on keeping on. We persist because:

1. we love the Mormon people
2. we want our Mormon neighbors to have a warranted assurance of permanent and comprehensive forgiveness and secured eternal life
3. we are not of this world. Jesus prepared us (read John 15) for a negative response from those who are of this world

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Apparently my first grader had to write about what he did for spring break. Yesterday he brought the following paper home in a pile of completed school work, sealing my position as worst parent ever:

By now surely you’ve heard the term wingnut. It is the snarky term for people with hard line right wing political views. (I was interested to learn that the left wing equivalent of a wingnut is called a moonbat). Anyhow, Mormons more often than not lean to the right politically and with millions of us in America it should be no surprise that there are plenty of wingnuts in our ranks. Heck, in the last 50 years we’ve even had some serious wingnuts in our top leadership at times.
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By Kent White

Click here for previous posts in this series and why I’m writing this children’s book.

During the last period of creation, God created human bodies for our spirits to inhabit, and we recognize our first parents as Adam and Eve.  They were two of Heavenly Father’s very valiant spirit children and they were married and lived in a beautiful place called the Garden of Eden.  When they received their bodies, the veil was placed over their minds and they forgot their pre-earth life.  Even though they were grown-ups, they were like children and didn’t know much about right or wrong choices.  Heavenly Father and Jesus came to the Garden to teach them and gave them two commandments.  The first was that they should have children and begin a family.  The second was that they should eat fruit from any plant except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  It was their choice what to eat, but God warned them that they would die if they ate from that tree.  This was the first decision they would be accountable for.  In their childlike and innocent state, they hadn’t learned how to be parents yet.  They had no knowledge, so they were taught a little at a time, just like children are.

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We need to be very careful when we read the scriptures and use them to take a stance on issues in the church. It is not wrong to do this, per se, but cherry picking a single line can end up with incorrect conclusions.

For example, In D&C 76, when talking of those who live in the terrestrial world, we are taught:

72 Behold, these are they who died without law;
73 And also they who are the spirits of men kept in prison, whom the Son visited, and preached the gospel unto them, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh;
74 Who received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards received it.

A plain reading of this notes that those who do not receive the Gospel in this life don’t go to the celestial Kingdom. This was February 16, 1832. Years later on January 21, 1836, Joseph was given further Revelation: (more…)

I just got called by the NRA about two minutes ago. The nice lady on the phone asked me to listen to a brief recorded message and stay on the line for a quick survey afterwords. Within a few seconds I was listening to a recorded message by the NRA’s ever-so-even-handed current leader (Wayne Hoofenhafen or something) about some kind of horrifying gun-related bill being proposed in congress that apparently should cause us all to run around screaming as if our hair were on fire.

After the recorded message a somewhat aggressive sounding dude came on line to survey me.

Survey guy: “Do you trust the gun-hating congress to protect your constitutional rights?” (I kid you not. That was the question.)
Me: (After a mildly stunned pause…) “Yes”
Survey guy: “Ok I thank you for your time”
Me: “Have a good evening”

I like short telemarketing calls, don’t you?

Hey don’t get me wrong — I’m all for the Second Amendment. However I am decidedly against sucky survey questions.

Jacob J and I have been l somewhat half-heartedly putting together this post for over a month now. Seeing J. Stapley’s excellent post over at BCC, I thought I’d dust it off a bit and post it. The scope of this post is not to put forth any foundational doctrine or all encompassing concept of theology, but it is merely our hope to establish a few concepts regarding Joseph’s beliefs regarding spirits, and specifically his understanding that pre-mortal human spirits were in human form, which some would term a spirit body. We readily acknowledge that Joseph’s thoughts on this matter are disputed and the sources we have are ambiguous enough to support multiple readings.  With that in mind, it seems prudent to survey as many quotes as possible and look for points on which they seem to converge. While one, two, or even three quotes may be disputed, we believe the combined evidence of these statements puts forward a strong case for what Joseph may have believed on the subject. We provide or reference all the statements and sermons we think are pertinent to the subject below. Please feel free to add to these in the comments, if you know of any statements on the subject (for or against) that we may have missed. (more…)

Easter means different things to different people. For some people Easter seems to be inextricably connected to their preferred theory about the atonement. But for me the good news is much more basic and universal than any specific atonement theory. The dead who I love and miss are alive elsewhere. They persist. That is more than enough good news for me.

Happy Easter everyone.

That Elder Holland had taught that Heavenly Father had hidden in the dark corners of the Universe while Jesus was crucified:

 

With all the conviction of my soul I testify that He did please His Father perfectly and that a perfect Father did not forsake His Son in that hour. Indeed, it is my personal belief that in all of Christ’s mortal ministry the Father may never have been closer to His Son than in these agonizing final moments of suffering. Nevertheless, that the supreme sacrifice of His Son might be as complete as it was voluntary and solitary, the Father briefly withdrew from Jesus the comfort of His Spirit, the support of His personal presence. It was required; indeed it was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind—us, all of us—would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.

Yeah, it was 10 years ago, but neener neener neener.

On a more serious note, Elder Holland points to the “aloneness” of Christ as a central component of the atonement, so that he could learn what he needed to know to help us when we are seperated from God by sin, and thus also spiritually alone. 

I can say I felt the spirit very strongly while Elder Holland spoke, but am still thinking through what if any theological implications this may have on the compassionate royal infussion exemplar judge theory of the atonement.  lately, I have sort of been drawn toward this crucifixion being a single instant in an infinite process of atonement where Jesus and Heavenly Father are continually suffering us.  But this aloneness would not be an infinite and eternal aloneness, so there seem to be definite aspects of the atonement which, atleast in terms of time, have a definite beginning and end. 

Thoughts?

Updated:

In 1980, Elder Holland quoted Melvin J. Ballard (see comment #1 below for the quote) here.

Is this a change in doctrine for the church? (doctrine with a lower case d, that is)

In any case, sorry for the neeners, you were right, but things have changed…

One of our readers emailed me recently with an interesting question. Here it is:

I have a question that has been percolating in my mind for several years. It seems to me that we have witnessed the birth of a new doctrine in General Conference over the last couple of decades. The doctrine states that by taking the sacrament we are renewing the covenants we make at baptism. From this, there has come the logical extension, articulated quite forcefully by Elder Jay Jensen in the Priesthood session of October 2008, that taking the sacrament properly results in a re-remission of our sins.

In my studies of the scriptures, the teachings of Joseph Smith, or any earlier prophets, I can’t find anything about this doctrine. The article on the Sacrament in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism refers to it, but only cites Mosiah 18, Jesus the Christ, and Articles of Faith. In my opinion, these citations are underwhelming as support for the doctrine. A simple search of Conference addresses seems to show the doctrine originating with Bruce R. McConkie and/or Marion G. Romney in the early 1950’s. Earlier references to “renewing our covenants” through the sacrament seem to be talking about the sacramental covenants of taking upon us his name, always remembering him and keeping his commandments.

I would be interested in an online discussion of this topic. Or, perhaps you are aware of a place where it has already been discussed. If so, please let me know.

What say ye?

There was an interesting article over at USA Today this week about how The Church currently deals with undocumented immigrants in our congregations and in our missionary efforts.

Discuss.

By Kent White

Click here for previous posts in this series and why I’m writing this children’s book.

Chapter 3 - The Creation

Under Heavenly Father’s direction, Christ created and organized the earth, putting natural forces in order and making sure that all types of plants and animals would grow on it.  God made this beautiful earth and all its marvelous creations for His children, where we could experience life with mortal bodies and exercise our agency (D&C 88:19, 25).  Because the earth was created for God’s children to live on, it will be renewed to its paradisiacal glory after Christ comes again and will be the home to those who choose righteousness and who follow Christ.

I actually do believe in evolution, so maybe that is tempering what I have to say in my paragraph. Maybe with less to say, there will be more room for illustrations. It seems a little odd to me that with so much time spent in the scriptures and in the temple about the creation, I have so little to say about it here. If you have more that you think I should add, please tell me.

As the prophets have condensed the presentation of the endowment, they haven’t trimmed down the creation that much, which makes me curious as to what insights you may have on why that may be. Why do you suppose that so much time is spent on the creation when the purpose of it is so straight-forward in the plan of salvation? Am I missing something here?

Sterling McMurrin said in his classic little Mormon theology book that the the Mormon view of reality has a “humanistic quality unusual in theistic philosophy”. Humanism and Theism do indeed seem to be unusual companions — especially in recent centuries. But in the early days of the the humanism movement it was not so unusual to combine the two.
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