Category Archives: Main

‘Cherubim and a flaming sword’ (a brief note)

Book of Mormon, Main

"Cherubim and a Flaming Sword" by J. Kirk Richards.

So I drove out the man, and I placed at the east of the Garden of Eden, cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way to the tree of life. (Moses 4:31; cf. Genesis 3:24)

Nephi’s vision of the Tree of Life (1 Nephi 11-15) contains imagery that ties into the description in Genesis/Moses of ‘a flaming sword…[keeping] the way to the tree of life’, but only after correcting for an apparent typographical error in the current editions of the Book of Mormon.

Royal Skousen, as part of his Book of Mormon critical text project, has reached the conclusion that 1 Nephi 12:18 in the original Book of Mormon manuscript (which still exists for that passage) says the following:

…and a great and terrible gulf divideth them yea even the sword of the justice of the eternal God…1 (emphasis added)

Note that this differs from our current edition of the Book of Mormon, which reads “word” instead of “sword”.2 This passage describes that which divides the wicked in the ‘great and spacious building’ from the Tree of Life, namely, ‘the sword of the justice of the eternal God’.

Nephi in later explaining Lehi’s (and his own) vision to his brothers Laman and Lemuel uses slightly different — but, in my opinion, related — imagery:

And I said unto them that it was an awful gulf, which separated the wicked from the tree of life, and also from the saints of God….And I said unto them that our father also saw that the justice of God did also divide the wicked from the righteous; and the brightness thereof was like unto the brightness of a flaming fire, which ascendeth up unto God forever and ever, and hath no end. (1 Nephi 15:28, 30; emphasis added)

Combining Nephi’s descriptions of his (and Lehi’s) vision of the Tree of Life, we have ‘the justice of God’ represented as both a sword and a flaming fire — combined, a flaming sword — and in both cases keeping the Tree of Life from those who choose the world (the ‘great and spacious building’) instead of coming to the Tree of Life on God’s terms.

In short, we have Genesis imagery in Nephi’s and Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life. One could argue that there is temple imagery in there as well, since the structure of the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple has been interpreted as a reversal of the fall of Adam, with the candlestick (menorah) in the Holy Place representing the Tree of Life.3

What is perhaps more interesting is that we get through this vision an interpretation of the ‘flaming sword’ mentioned in Genesis — the justice of God, which prevents us in our willful state from approaching the Tree of Life. What the rest of Nephi’s vision tells us is that it is the love and condescension of God that gives us a path (‘strait and narrow’) and a guide (‘a rod of iron’)4 by which we can come and partake of the Tree of Life and thus enter back into God’s presence. ..bruce..

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1 Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon: Part One (Title Page, Witness Statements, 1 Nephi 1 – 2 Nephi 10), Royal Skousen (FARMS/BYU, 2004), pp. 257-258.

2 On the other hand, see “The Word of God” by Leslie Taylor, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2003), pp. 52-63, for an indication that the differences between ‘sword of God’ and ‘word of God’ as used in the scriptures may not be all that great.

3 See “Garden of Eden: Prototype Sanctuary” by Donald W. Parry, Temples of the Ancient World, edited by Donald W. Parry (Deseret Book/FARM, 1994), esp. p. 129 and pp. 134-135.

4 But see Skousen (above), pp. 174-181, who argues that this should be “straight and narrow”.

The missing blessing

Book of Mormon, Main

[NOTE: I originally wrote this essay back in 1994 for Vigor, an LDS samizdat put out for several years in the 90s by Orson Scott Card. Since we’re studying the Book of Mormon in Sunday School this year, I thought it appropriate to repost it, with a few minor edits and with some links added in. It is reproduced here by permission.]

Where is Nephi’s blessing from Lehi? The first four chapters of 2 Nephi contain Lehi’s counsel, prophecy and blessings to the members of the group which he had led from Jerusalem to the Americas. These include remarks directed to his sons (Laman and Lemuel by implication, since he’s chastising them for their behavior up until then and pleading with them to repent); Laman, Lemuel, Sam and the sons of Ishmael; Zoram; Jacob; Joseph; the sons and daughters of Laman; the sons and daughters of Lemuel; the sons of Ishmael “and even all of his household” (it’s unclear whether that’s Ishmael’s household or Lehi’s, though context would indicate the former); and Sam again (with mention of his children). At this point, Nephi states that Lehi “had spoken unto all his household” (2 Nephi 4:12), but there is a very conspicuous absence: Nephi and his children.

It’s clear that Nephi was working from detailed sources, since he transcribed lengthy discourses by Lehi many years after the fact. And it is hard to believe that Lehi would bless and counsel every other son of his, both older and younger, as well as Zoram and the sons of Ishmael, and yet not have anything to say to Nephi. But there is no such blessing on Nephi’s small plates. Instead, Nephi follows all these other blessings with what is often known as “Nephi’s psalm”, lamenting his own weaknesses, his sins, his failings as he perceives them (2 Nephi 4:15-35). After this, he briefly chronicles his own flight (with followers) into the wilderness to escape his brethren and the subsequent history of his group, covering about 18 years in a few dozen verses. With that ends any of his own history-keeping on the small plates; the rest of 2 Nephi comprises discourses, prophecies, and quotations from Isaiah.

Nephi almost certainly had a record of the blessing(s) his father gave him; why did he omit them and instead write his soul-searching psalm? Several possible factors could account for it. Modesty is one, though Nephi has no trouble making himself the focus of the history he has recounted to that point, virtually all of which portrays him in a very good light. Avoiding duplication with the large plates is another — yet the other blessings were most likely copied from Lehi’s record on the large plates (1 Nephi 19:1-2; 2 Nephi 4:14); so if they were duplicated, then why not duplicate his own? A third could be the ultimate fate of his descendants: extinction at the hands of his brothers’ seed. Knowing that, why bother to copy the blessing, which would probably detail that yet again?

The key factor may well be pain and regret over his family’s division and his own possible role in it. Note where the lament is inserted: right between the account of Lehi’s death and his brothers getting angry with him and the account of his brothers threatening death and the subsequent family split. This is not to imply that Nephi had actually somehow failed, but that he felt all too keenly his shortcomings. Did he regretted his rather blunt and sometimes tactless chiding of his brothers and even his parents? Did he miss his brothers and all those who remained with them? Did he wondered if there was something he could have done differently that would have kept his family together? Anyone who has been through a divorce knows the pain and doubt that can linger years after the fact, even when it was for the best.

Nephi created the small plates some 30 years after he and his family left Jerusalem and some 15 years after the flight from his brothers. He crafted on them the story of his family, contrasting time and again his willingness to do the will of his father and the Lord with his brothers’ disobedience and rebellion. But when he got to his father’s last blessings and counsel, all that may have seemed like ashes in his mouth. His family was divided, his brothers still were seeking to destroy him and those he led, and he would be for the rest of his life a stranger in a strange land (cf. Jacob 7:26). Weary and heartsore, he probably looked at his own blessing, shook his head, and brought his history to a quick close, pausing only to express his pain and frustration with his own failings and to encourage himself to press on and trust in the Lord.

— Bruce F. Webster [Vigor, Issue 5, April 1994; note that up to and including that issue, Vigor published all articles anonymously. But I wrote this one; I’m sure I’ve still got the e-mail archives somewhere. 🙂]

A smart move by Obama

Main, Politics

[UPDATED 02/04/08 — Here is an LDS Church press release about Michelle Obama visiting LDS Church headquarters today and spending time with Apostles Russell Ballard and Quentin Cook. Hat tip to A Soft Answer.]

[UPDATED 01/31/08 — I’ve been getting some hits from people using search engines to see if Barack Obama is a Mormon. Answer: no, though we’d love to have him. Obama is a member of the Trinity Unity Church of Christ, though he has publicly distanced himself from a few of the actions and comments of its retiring senior pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.]

According to the Beehive Standard Weekly — an LDS news source that I encountered for the first time today — the Barack Obama campaign staff is looking to reach out to moderate Latter-day Saints for the general election should McCain and/or Huckabee end up as the Republican candidate:

An important source at the highest levels of the Obama Campaign in Nevada said Thursday that the Obama Campaign is most fearful of Mitt Romney coming out as the Republican candidate as he is dynamic and has a command of economic issues. This revelation came about as the Obama Campaign was inquiring to several Mormon civic leaders about a possible Mormon cross-over vote in the Southwest to Obama if Huckabee or McCain were to be the eventual nominee. The reliable source indicated that the Obama camp is currently implementing a plan to attract Mormon Moderate Republicans to their camp as a second choice to Romney, assuming he doesn’t get the Republican nomination.

If true, this is a smart move for several reasons. First, both the Huckabee and, to a lesser extent, the McCain campaigns have already been involved in attacking or slurring the LDS faith in an effort to counter Romney. From what I can see, there are many Latter-day Saints right now who would frankly refuse to vote for either McCain or (especially) Huckabee for exactly that reason. Most US-based Latter-day Saints have dealt with a lifetime of active anti-Mormon literature and protests from the Religious Right and are largely disgusted thereby.

Second, I suspect that moderate and even liberal Latter-day Saints would be more prone to support Obama rather than Clinton due to the moral baggage that the Clintons would bring back to the White House.

Third, I suspect that many Latter-day Saints would respond to a sincere outreach effort by Obama due to the constant (and, in my opinion, largely erroneous) labeling of Latter-day Saints as racist due to the former policy regarding blacks and the priesthood. It’s interesting to note that Armand Mauss’s sociological research regarding Latter-day Saints’ attitude towards blacks in the late 1960s showed no significant difference with those evinced by white American Protestants or Catholics.1 And as has been well-documented elsewhere, the overwhelming reaction of the LDS Church membership when the policy changed in 1978 was relief and gratitude.

Fourth, while the common caricature of Mormons is as rock-ribbed Republicans, that overlooks the fact that what was the single greatest concentration of Mormons in the world — the population of the state of Utah — kept electing and re-electing Democratic governors for decades. From 1917 until 1985, the governor of Utah was a Democrat for 50 of those 68 years, including a 20-year block from 1965 until 1985. In fact, the single longest-serving Governor (Territorial or State) of Utah, and one of the most popular, was a Democrat: Calvin “Cal” Rampton (1965-1977). Likewise during that same period (1917-1985) at least one of Utah’s US Senators was a Democrat for 52 of those 68 years. Note that this all occurred during a period when Mormons made up a higher percentage of the population of Utah than they did today.

The shift of Mormons away from the Democratic Party over the past 20+ years is, I suspect, due largely to the ‘radicalization’ of the Democratic Party during that time. However, the rise of the Religious Right as a major power base within the Republican Party, particularly with Huckabee’s candidacy, leaves many Mormons uneasy due to the pervasiveness of anti-Mormon literature and attitudes among Evangelical Christians. If the Presidential contest this fall is between a Democratic ticket starring Obama and a Republican ticket with Huckabee and/or McCain, Obama could well be very successful in getting a significant portion of the LDS vote in the Western US. ..bruce..

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1 See Mauss, Armand L. All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (University of Illinois Press, 2003), esp. Chapters 8 and 9.

Mitt Romney’s new ward? [UPDATED]

Humor, LDS Society, Main, Politics

[UPDATE 01/14/07] A reader kindly pointed out to me that if you go to the “Worship With Us” section on Mormon.org and type in the White House address, it shows that Romney would attend DC 3rd Ward (there have obviously been some changes since I left DC back in 2005). I’ve updated some of my comments below appropriately.

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I belong to an “LDS/National Security” e-mail list (and the fact that such a listserv exits should give this author some pause for thought). Most discussions are serious, but some occasional humorous bits come through. I found this one particularly funny since I lived for six years in the ward (Chevy Chase Ward, Washington DC Stake) that Mitt Romney and his family might well attend were he elected, including a few years in the bishopric (congregational leadeship) of that ward. I’ve stuck in a few notes based on my experience there. ..bruce..
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Mitt Romney’s new ward?

So….if Mitt Romney became President of the US (from this point forward referred to as POTUS), won’t we have something we’ve never had before – a president who goes to a specific church? All other presidents belonged to religions that didn’t have tight congregational boundaries. Now, think about that: What Ward would POTUS be in? [See above.] If you are his new Bishop, here are your top 10 questions:

1. Will you allow an inaugural ball to be held in the cultural hall? Do you mount security cameras on top of each basketball rim and have a secret service detail stationed on the stage?

2. Can you call Mitt and Ann as the Nursery leaders… even if you really feel inspired?

3. Who is going to home teach them? Will you call someone who needs activation but may not pass the vetting and national security screening?

4. If Harry Reid [who is in the Chevy Chase Ward] and Mitt Romney are in the same High Priest group, will you need to be there to keep order?

5. Exactly how will tithing settlement work? Will the Secretary of the Treasury come, too?

6. Will you be inviting the new Romney family to speak in Sacrament Meeting… and if they go a little over, at what point do you ask them to sit down?

7. Will the Secret Service do a sweep of the building before each meeting? And if the Romney’s always leave before Sunday School, will the Sunday School president need to interview them? If they stay, where will you hold the class?

8. Can you call the Secret Service agents to help out in Primary?

9. If you give Mitt a calling and the two Democrats in the Ward [NOTE: there’s a lot more than just two Democrats in any of the DC wards and branches] raise their hand AGAINST sustaining him – partly out of habit – does the Supreme Court need to be involved?

10. If you can’t give them a calling (job), and they don’t attend very often (for presidential stuff), will that mean they’re ‘inactive?’ If they’re not active, can you give them a Temple Recommend? And if you do, can they go? Will the Secret Service have to screen the temple too?

11. If the President wants to hold Sacrament Meeting at Camp David or the White House for security reasons, is that a conflict of Church and State?

If you’re assigned to be the Romney’s home teacher:

1. Can you just drop by, no appointment?

2. Can you even call them for an appointment, or do you have to go through the Chief of Staff?

3. Can you bring by Christmas sweets and cookies? Will they be analyzed? And for how many people – family, secret service details?

4. If you don’t come, can the IRS do an audit on you?

5. Will they want to do a national security background check?

6. Do you have to have a permanent companion who has been vetted? Can you just grab any teacher or priest to come with you? And what if that priest has been a little wayward? Do you need to search him first?

7. Do you have to help him move in and out of the White House?

8. If Ann Romney gets sick, are you allowed to bring in meals or at least tell the Relief Society about it?

9. What can you share with the Bishop about the Romneys?

10. Do you have to ask them about their year’s supply?

11. If you get a late night call for a blessing, will reporters follow you around wanting to know what was wrong and what you said?

If Mitt Romney is assigned to be YOUR home teacher,

1. Is telling the group leader you haven’t been home taught a national security breech?

2. If he wants to come at the end of the month, do you accept his reason, ‘I’ve been out of town’?

3. Will he drop by unannounced, or will the media crews give him away?

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Heh. The good news is that if Romney were to attend the Chevy Chase Ward, the Washington DC Stake would probably finally buy the property next door to the Chevy Chase Ward building and put in some decent parking — which the Chevy Chase residents in that neighborhood would probably be very grateful for, given all the street parking that gets taken up every Sunday. ..bruce..

What a wonderful opening paragraph!

Belief systems, LDS History, Main, Politics

I found the following article on-line thanks to Google News:

How corrupt are the Democrats with the Mormon Mafia/CIA?

For many years I have warned members of the Mormon Church about secret operations the CIA uses through foreign returned LDS missionaries in controlling every day life throughout the world. The only location not under the control of the Mormon Mafia is the US general public. Americans still believe Mormons are a cult. Since the days of Brigham Young and the announced “Utah War” in 1857 after Albert Pike and the Freemasons (including Heber C. Kimball and BYoung) murdered Mormon Apostle Parley P. Pratt near Fort Smith, Arkansas (9/11/1857 Mountain Massacre beginning event) the One World Order group has (money-changers) failed to destroy the US of A. The following special question given to the three leading Democrat candidates in New Hampshire, plus a recent exposed Democrat letter reflect how corrupt politics has become…

Each time I re-read this paragraph, I keep thinking: there’s a wonderful alternative-history novel in there somewhere. There may even be a coherent and logical train of thought in there, though I have less hope of that; as far as I can tell, just about every sentence (and the occasional individual clause) is a non sequitur to all that precedes it, which itself is a pretty amazing accomplishment.

However, the truly remarkable thing is that the rest of the article, which is quite lengthy, never again mentions Mormons or the LDS Church, which makes the title and opening paragraph even more mystifying — but not as mystifying as to why Google News accepts that web site as a news source. YMMV. ..bruce..

[Note for puzzled readers: “YMMV” is not the Mormon Tetragrammaton. It’s a well-known ‘net acronym for “Your mileage may vary.”]

[And just because I like it so much, I’m putting up this picture again:

Now I'm worried

The photo originally came from here. ..b..]

Stewardship, accountability, and community response

LDS Organization, LDS Society, Main

[NOTE: I originally wrote this essay back in 1994 for Vigor, an LDS samizdat put out for several years in the 90s by Orson Scott Card. Given some of the discussions making the rounds in LDS blogs, I felt it’s still as timely now as it was back then. It is reproduced here — with just a few additions, all in brackets and italics — by permission.]

I’ve followed with interest and not a little dismay the increasingly strident discussions in various forums of how to deal with the imperfections of Church leaders. On one side are those who claim for Church leaders an infallibility and wisdom which they do not claim for themselves. On another side are those who feel that a “community response” — full-page newspaper ads, press conferences, public seminars and printed articles (often with scathing criticism) — is right and necessary. [I might add “LDS blogs” in here as well.]

When you have two (or more) sides of an argument going around and around without resolution, it’s usually due to conflicting unstated premises. The key issue, largely unvoiced, is this discussion: to whom is a person with a given stewardship accountable? Is it the people over whom he or she (“he” hereafter, just to save typing and since we’re mostly focusing on priesthood leaders) has a stewardship? Is it the person or group of people for whom he is a steward? Is it both, and if so, how does he resolve conflicts between the two demands?

My personal belief is that someone with a stewardship is accountable solely to the person or people for whom he is a steward. In some contexts, that may well be the people over whom he has a stewardship, for example, an elected official is accountable to those who elected him. In the context of the Gospel and the Church, that is rarely the case; none spring to mind, but I won’t flatly exclude the possibility. The bishop of my ward is responsible for the welfare of its members, but is not accountable to them (myself included). He is accountable to the one who gave him his stewardship, namely the Savior, and to any of Christ’s representatives who have stewardship over him, such as the stake president. That stewardship moves up the priesthood line authority to the general authorities, who are all directly or indirectly accountable to the First Presidency; the First President’ counselors are accountable to him, and the First President is accountable only to Christ.

Given my stated premise about stewardship, we can now look at the key issue: if I think someone with stewardship over me (or even not over me) is in error, how do I handle it?

If the bishop acts in a manner which I feel significantly conflicts with his stewardship, my first responsibility is to approach him directly and privately discuss it. If that doesn’t resolve things, I have the opportunity — and, in some cases, the responsibility — to inform the stake president. Likewise, if I judge my stake president to be in error, I can deal with him directly, and if that doesn’t resolve things, inform the general authorities of the Church; the exact channel may depend upon the issue. If I judge a general authority to be in error, I can address my concerns directly to him; lacking satisfaction, I can then go to the First Presidency. And if I think they’re messing up, I can take things right to God. (Actually, I can do that in any situation, but since He’s appointed earthly stewards at all other levels, I figure He expects me to use them when appropriate.)

In this context, it’s interesting to note that we have the Lord’s promise that He will never let the President of the Church lead us astray; we have no such promise for any other church leadership position, so obviously the Lord expects us to use these checks as needed

What is critical in this process is that it should be done with the same confidentiality, sensitivity, understanding, patience and forgiveness — in short, the same Christ-like behavior — with which we would desire our own imperfections and errors to be handled. The Savior taught that “if they brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone; if he shall hear thee, thou has gained thy brother.” (Matt 18:15) The Savior goes on to say that if that brings no results, we should inform the Church — which I would interpret as meaning the appropriate divinely-appointed stewards, not our circle of friends, the members of our ward, or the readership of Sunstone and Dialogue [not to mention the entire Internet]. We would probably be outraged, and rightly so, if we found that a church member — much less a church leader — was publicly criticizing our performance in our church duties; we’d even be upset over private criticism, if it was shared with those not involved in the situation. Yet all too often, we feel little compunction — and, worse yet, a great deal of self-righteous satisfaction — about doing the same, whether privately, over the net, in print, or even over the pulpit or lectern.

Given the above, the idea of a “community response” to the statements, decisions and actions of church leaders is as appalling and inappropriate as would be a “community response” — complete with private discussion and correspondence, newspaper ads, public lectures and published articles — as to how well any one of us is carrying out his or her stewardships within the Church and within his or her family. It ignores the dignity of the individual, and commandments toward charity, tolerance and forgiveness, and the channels which the Lord set up to deal with these issues. I suspect the Lord will not justify us in such a course, and that — whatever the errors of those we criticize — upon us will remain the greater condemnation.

— Bruce F. Webster [Vigor, Issue 5, August 1994]

Ignorance at work

Belief systems, LDS Doctrine, Main, Media, Politics, Press

UPDATED 01/12/07: A more general critique of Feldman’s article can be found over at GetReligion.

Noah Feldman, in today’s New York Times Magazine, puts forth a thesis about “Mormon secrecy” that just is ill-informed. Feldman clearly has access to certain bits of historical information about the Church, but in his effort to establish his main thesis — that the LDS Church is committed to “secrecy” regarding its beliefs — he displays a significant lack of knowledge about the Church itself. To wit:

Like Mormon ritual, much of Mormon theology remains relatively inaccessible to outsiders. The text of the Book of Mormon has always been spread to a broad audience, but the text is not a sufficient guide to understanding the details of Mormon teaching. Joseph Smith received extensive further revelation in the nature of sacred secrets to be shared with only a handful of close associates and initiates within the newly forming church.

First, of course, is the long-standing issue (within LDS circles) as to whether a “Mormon theology” even exists (since, for the most part, there are no “Mormon theologians” nor a “school of Mormon theology”). But setting that aside, I would suspect that Feldman has not spent much time inside an LDS church or a Deseret Book bookstore; I suspect that he has not searched the online “Gospel Topics” section at LDS.org, nor its on-line “Gospel Library“, including archives of LDS General Conference Addresses, various current lesson manuals, and the online version of The Encyclopedia of Mormonism. All these are freely and publicly available to anyone; indeed, the Church works very hard to promote all these sections. In short, while claiming an LDS effort at doctrinal secrecy, he appears to have failed to actually reviewed what the LDS Church says and promotes about its own doctrine.

He also appears to gloss over the fact that the LDS Church has sent out over one million missionaries to preach its message of the Restoration since its founding in 1830, with over 50,000 serving worldwide currently. My experience is that most people outside of the LDS Church complain that we try to tell them too much about our religion, rather than too little.

Beyond that, Feldman’s particulars regarding “Mormon secrecy” — a concept that comes straight out of evangelical anti-Mormon literature — are wrong and could have been easily refuted had he bothered to do a modicum of research. For example, he states:

The course was set for the Mormon religious practice of the 20th century: a process of mainstreaming, both political and theological. The less said the better about the particular teachings of the church, including such practices as the baptism of the dead and the doctrine of the perfectibility of mankind into divine form.

Actually, those two “particular teachings” have always been a key part of the missionary discussions (under “Plan of Salvation”), at least since I served my own full-time mission back in 1972-74. If Feldman had actually looked through Preach My Gospel, the standard LDS missionary discussion guide used by 50,000+ LDS missionaries in teaching investigators worldwide — publicly and cheaply ($6-$9) available via LDS Distribution Services, Deseret Book, and the BYU Bookstore, as well as downloadable as a free PDF file — he would have found the following:

The Savior loves all people and desires their salvation. Yet millions of people have died without having any opportunity to hear the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ or receive saving ordinances. Through His loving grace and mercy the Lord makes salvation possible for everyone who did not have the opportunity to receive, understand, and obey the gospel during their mortal lives. The gospel is preached to those deceased people in the spirit world. Members of the Church on earth perform the saving ordinances in behalf of their deceased ancestors and others. Deceased persons living in the spirit world have the opportunity to accept or reject the gospel and the ordinances performed in their behalf.

For this reason, Church members search for information about their ancestors. They complete pedigree charts and family group records and submit the names of deceased relatives who need to have saving ordinances performed on their behalf in sacred temples, This is family history work. Worthy members ages 12 and over, including new members, may receive from their bishop a recommend to perform baptisms for the dead. (p. 86)

And again:

Those who have repented of their sins and received the ordinances of the gosepl and kept the associated covenants will be cleansed by the Atonement of Christ. They will receive exaltation in the highest kingdom, also known as the celestial kingdom. They will live in God’s presence, become like Him, and receive a fullness of joy. (p. 53)

* Exaltation: Eternal life in God’s presence; to become like our Father in Heaven and live in His presence. The greatest of all the gifts of God. Exaltation comes through the Atonement of Christ and through obedience to all the laws and ordinances of the gospel. (p. 58)

So much for the “secret” doctrines.

Beyond that, Feldman appears to commit a version of the Pauline Kael fallacy (“How could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him!”). He assumes LDS secrecy, probably because he — unlike literally millions and millions of people worldwide — has never actually had the missionary discussions, and he probably doesn’t know anyone who has, so he just doesn’t know what LDS missionaries actually teach. He takes the one area of LDS sacred ritual, the temple, and attempts to conflate it — without any real evidence or justification — into a general Mormon tendency towards secrecy. His unsupported (and unsupportable) thesis drives his article, when instead he should have done actual research first and spared himself some embarrassment.

I would recommend that Feldman pick up Preach My Gospel (or download the PDF version) as well as this year’s LDS Relief Society/Priesthood Study Guide, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith (also available on-line), and read them both. Then maybe he’ll be a bit more qualified to talk about LDS doctrine and its public availability. ..bruce..

[UPDATED 01/06/08 1922 MST — Welcome visitors from the Deseret News LDS Newsline! Feel free to look around. ]

Grading press coverage

Main, Media, Politics, Press

Joel Campbell — an assistant professor of journalism at BYU, who blogs at the LDS Newsline site — has graded (A-F) some recent efforts at press coverage of the LDS Church and its beliefs. He’s pretty blunt and not afraid to name names:

“D” Work: In news reporting classes that I teach I talk a lot about “relevance” and a “news peg.” I couldn’t find much of either in this very long piece about Mitt Romney’s involvement in the building of the Boston Temple in Belmont, Mass. Based on the article’s sheer verbosity, you would think Romney played some leading role in building the temple and selecting the site. Although it is framed with the sinister headline, “Mormon Temple Casts a Shadow,” the article doesn’t make that case. It was written by WaPo Style writer Sridhar Pappu, who appears to be assigned to provide some meaningful narratives on the candidates. This one is a dull story and not too meaningful at that. Maybe Pappu felt like he had more to write after his novella on Romney ran in the September 2005 Atlantic, in which he asked Romney “How Mormon are you?” and then quizzed him about his undergarments. It was certainly one of the low points of the coverage of the presidential campaign.

Read the whole thing. ..bruce..

A Mormon lullaby

Main, Media, Music

My former wife, Marla, bought me two Marvin Payne CDs for Christmas this year: “Ships of Dust” (1971) and “Houses and Towns” (1973). Back when we were both undergrads at BYU, Marvin used to go door-to-door through the Provo student apartment complexes with his guitar and a backpack full of albums for sale — which is how Marla bought her original copy of “Ships of Dust”.

I used to sing the title song “Ships of Dust” as a lullaby to our daughters, Jacqui and Bethan, when they were about 8 and 5, respectively. I sang it again tonight as a lullaby for my 5-year-old granddaughter, Sydney. Here are the lyrics:

We wandered through the shipyards,
through the timber and the rope,
and the wise men saw the longing in our eyes.
So they made for each of us
a ship of dust, with sails of trust,
and the sun behind us vanished from the skies.

Now it’s a long time since the sunset,
and the time we raised the sails,
and the time the old shipbuilders waited for.
There are wonders in the night;
there are strange and dangerous shades of light,
but the dawn is gonna see me on that shore.

Sweet stars, mark the night.
Fair winds, arc the right waves over my prow—
I am homeward.

Wooden wheels and oaken rudders
bend like grass against the sea,
and the canvas fails and falls against our hope.
I am climbing on the mast
and I see a trace of dawn at last
and I feel a strange new feeling in the rope.

Now the sun splits the horizon
where I thought the beach to be,
and the graveyard for the ships done with the sea
But I’m on a sea of glass
and the light is more than sun can pass
and the deck is turning silver under me.

Sweet stars, mark my mind.
Fair winds, you can find me sailing your source—
I am homeward.

Words and music © 1971, Marvin Payne

Sydney fell sweetly asleep while I sang. ..bruce..

Current votes for the Anti-Christ

Main, Politics, Preparedness, World Religions

OK, so I’m finishing my preparations this morning for teaching my Sunday School lesson (on the book of Revelation), and the thought strikes me: how many folks out there (and by “folks”, I mean evangelical Christians) believe, fear, or suspect that Mitt Romney may be the ‘Anti-Christ’ alluded to in Revelation by John?

Well, a very simple Google search (Mitt Romney AntiChrist) turns up about 26,000 hits. But, as it turns out, Romney is dead last on the list of major presidential contenders. Here are some searches for the other candidates as well as the current and immediate past Presidents and Vice-Presidents:

  • Mike Huckabee: 156,000 hits
  • Fred Thompson: 108,000 hits
  • Bill Clinton: 84,900 hits
  • Rudi Giuliani: 84,800 hits
  • Ron Paul: 82,700 hits
  • George W. Bush: 64,800 hits
  • Hillary Clinton: 63,500 hits
  • Al Gore: 62,500 hits
  • John Edwards: 61,200 hits
  • Dick Cheney: 40,800
  • Barack Obama: 31,700 hits
  • John McCain: 28,500 hits
  • Mitt Romney: 26,000 hits

Admittedly, this is a crude and inaccurate measure — all I’m checking for is the presence of the word ‘AntiChrist’ along with the candidate’s first and last name. But the results certainly are counter-intuitive: not only is Mitt Romney the lowest on the list, but almost all the other major Republican candidates are ahead of all the major Democratic candidates, John McCain being the exception — but he’s still ahead of Romney.

I may do more refined searches later. ..bruce..