I recently posted something of a bleg for suggestions on lesson topics and materials for a Gospel Essentials course which I have occasion to teach in my local ward. I made a couple of mistakes in the post and comments, and consequently the thread never really took the direction I had hoped, and instead resulted in (mostly) comments on gospel instruction generally in the LDS Church. The point of the post was to seek ideas for 5-6 lessons which could be taught at any given moment with little advance notice as the need arises. The basic issue at hand is that, on many Sundays, we don’t have any actual investigators or new members attending, and the course is made up primarily of recently reactivated folks, the missionaries, and a handful of others who attend for reasons I’ve never been quite certain of. On those Sundays, I don’t really have a preference for lesson topics, since the attendees have enough experience in the gospel and the Church to handle about any lesson they’re given.

However, from time to time, we do have actual investigators, and on those Sundays, I feel the need to accomplish a few main goals: First, I want to knock their socks off, so to speak–I want them to come away from Sunday school uplifted, inspired, and feeling like they had a meaningful experience in a Mormon meeting. Read more…

An email exchange between myself, a Mormon Utah State Aggie, and an ex-Mormon Texas A&M Aggie discussing the theological implications of today’s wonderful result.

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From a comment thread a couple of weeks ago on MormonMatters regarding the lifting of the Priesthood ban:

• 137 Ray
  Feb 20th, 2009 at 12:31 am

  To add one more factor to MH’s summary:

  After Pres. McKay died, Pres. Smith only served for two years – then Pres. Lee served for less than two years (dying of an unexpected heart attack even though he was the youngest president to take office in decades at 73). I don’t think lifting the ban was a priority for either of them, especially since Hugh B Brown (one of the strongest proponents of lifting the ban) was not kept in the presidency of either President Smith or President Lee after Pres. McKay passed away.

• 138 Scott
  Feb 20th, 2009 at 4:57 pm

  I don’t think lifting the ban was a priority for either of them, especially since Hugh B Brown (one of the strongest proponents of lifting the ban) was not kept in the presidency of either President Smith or President Lee after Pres. McKay passed away.

  Not disagreeing, but…correlation = causation? Hmm…

  Although I suppose in the case of the latter, President Lee = causation for correlation

  Just a little correlation committee humor for you, folks. I’ll be here all week.

(UPDATE: If you don’t get or like the joke, then don’t feel bad. As I note in the comment section, you’re not alone.)

Recently I read this post on New Cool Thang about whether or not Jesus could have failed. In particular, the following bit caught my attention:

“[Could] Jesus have not lived a perfect life and brought forth the atonement? If he couldn’t fail, then is Jesus different than us, and our trying to be like Jesus is merely vanity, something we cannot accomplish?”

The second question–is Jesus different than us?–was the real kicker to me, because it had never even occurred to me that He was possibly the same as everybody else, and it actually struck me as odd that such a difference between Savior and Saved would be troubling to someone. I don’t mean that condescendingly–I am not intelligent enough to be condescending toward anyone–but rather in kind of a “Huh. Wow. Never thought about that before. Weird.” sort of way. In any case, a C.S. Lewis quote popped into my head, and I wanted to relate it in the thread, but elected not too because I was late to the conversation and I’m sure someone else already said something far more profound, so I’ll post it here instead: Read more…

[NOTE: This post is my response to a guest post about whether or not a "Libertarian Mormon" is an Oxymoron. In particular, one of the arguments the author--Dan Weston--has made is that capitalism is an anti-Biblical philosophy. One assumption throughout is that libertarians subscribe to such a philosophy out of a love for capitalism. I addressed this point as a comment, but decided it is best to start a new thread. Thus, I re-post my comment below, with a few minor modifications.]

One important point of conflict here is that I think many people might be mistaken about why LDS people–if they are–might be drawn to libertarianism in the first place. If you have taken your understanding of “Mormon Libertarianism” from me, then the fault for this confusion lies with me–as I looked back over my older posts, I embarrassed to realize that I’ve never talked about this to begin with. In short, it has nothing to do with anything Jesus said or didn’t say–or Bible-based doctrinal circles that Joseph Smith “squared” via modern revelation.
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If you had 1 hour to prep a bunch of teenagers for a field trip to see the Mormons, what would you talk about?

A friend of mine is a youth instructor in a Unitarian Universalist congregation. One of the (many) admirable things U.U. congregations do is provide an introduction to different religions, including the LDS Church. For a given religion, this takes place over a few weeks–first a lesson, then a field trip to a meeting house for worship meetings, and lastly a follow up discussion.

(They will be attending the local Mormon ward next Fast Sunday. Yeah. I know. Bad breath and crazy people, all at the same time. Read more…

[Updated]
I got an informal email questionaire today from a member of my ward asking the following:

What are the 10 most important LDS books members should have as the foundation of their LDS library?

There were a couple of ground rules: Multi-volume books are treated as one (Doctrines of Salvation), with the exceptions of the Journal of Discourses and History of the Church, as those are excluded. Obviously, the Standard Works are also excluded (as I assume you all have those already and are feasting upon them for a minimum of 30 minutes, every day. Right?).

My quick response was the following (not in any order): Read more…

In the LDS Church, it is customary to give a newborn a blessing and “name” (just their, uhh, name) before the congregation* on or about the first Sunday of the month (Fast Sunday) after the baby is born. Typically, the father of the child performs this blessing, with the Bishop, as well as other individuals the family invites–perhaps relatives, close friends, etc.

I am blessing our baby girl this coming Sunday, and so I’ve been thinking about this issue a fair amount lately.

–I am a very private person, as is my wife, when it comes to family issues, and so a large part of me wants to do the blessing quietly in my home with no one else around.
–Even if the blessing is public, I still prefer less to more–how do you make a cut without offending people? (Mormons are so competitive…seriously)
–Home Teachers are common invitees, but not automatic. What if you dislike one of them (we love ours)? Can you invite one, but not the other?
–What about asymmetric relationships? In other words, what about those folks who think they’ll be asked, but are not? What if someone asked you to be in their baby blessing? Are you obligated to return the request?
–What about the post-blessing lunch? Are all folks invited? Or just those who traveled great distances (which means what, exactly? From outside the congregation? The State? The Religion itself!?!)?

When I blessed our first child, we were moving out of the congregation the following week, and since we were more or less the senior citizens of a student ward (very high turnover), there were only about 4 people we knew anyway. So, with Dad & Brother in tow, I invited all men with a name starting with “J” to participate–John, Jory, Jason, Jerome, etc**.

Since there is no set criteria–outside of holding the Priesthood and being “worthy” (no secret drug or porn habits, pay tithing, etc…), I’ve decided to create my own list of musts for anyone to be included in my blessing circle:

1. You never attended BYU, and neither will your children. Ever. Ever, ever, ever.
2. If you did attend BYU, then you must repent now, and actively cheer against BYU with all your heart, might, mind and soul. Forever. And ever. And ever.
3. You did not vote for Mitt Romney for President***
4. You did not harbor secret hopes and dreams that Mitt would be the VP selection
5. You know the capital of Finland
6. You can properly pronounce the first and middle names of my wife and two children
7. You confess that D-Will could run silly circles around CP3–any time, any place.

Meet these requirements, and consider yourself welcome!

*Sometimes this is done at home or in the congregation of a relative–say, for example, the congregation a person group up in and in which several family members still live.
**And my friend Dan, but it made for a better story to omit him above. I actually only know one person named Jerome. He lives in Finland, and his dad is a spy. Seriously.
***I’ll make an exception to this one if you can provide documentation proving that you actually–truly, deep down in your heart–liked his political agenda and weren’t just giddy about the idea of a Mormon in the White House.

The Encyclopedia of Mormonism is now available online for free. I’m excited about this, because it is one of the greatest resources for information regarding the doctrines, beliefs, practices, and culture of Mormons, and has always been one of those really expensive, out of print, hard to find books. It is intended to appeal to both LDS folks and others not of that faith. There are hundreds and hundreds of articles, all in alphabetical order and hyperlinked to each other wiki-style.
The book doesn’t necessarily represent the official views of the LDS Church.

1. No more Sunday meetings filled with pointless name-dropping and gushy tales from the campaign.
2. No more Sunday meetings filled with pointless snarky anti-Romney comments given in response to said pointless name-dropping and gushy tales.
3. No more emails sent out by ward members asking for donations (or a boycott of donations) to the Romney campaign.
4. No more invites to join (or boycott) “One Million Strong for Mitt Romney” on Facebook.