Thursday, March 28, 2019

"Such ridiculous folly”

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

I’ve reading Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter, Martin Harris: Uncompromising Witness of the Book of Mormon (Provo: BYU Studies, 2018).

In March 1829, Lucy Harris having filed a legal complaint against Joseph Smith, a judicial hearing was held in Lyons, New York, and sworn witnesses for the prosecution were called.  Lucy Mack Smith provides an account of the proceedings.  Here’s a passage from her summary, dealing with a box and the claim that it contained ancient metal plates.  It is cited by Professors Black and Porter:

The first arose and testified, that Joseph Smith told him that the box which he had, contained nothing but sand; and he, Joseph Smith, said it was gold, to deceive the people.
Second witness swore, that Joseph Smith had told him that it was nothing but a box of lead, and he was determined to use it as he saw fit.

Third witness declared, that he once inquired of Joseph Smith what he had in that box, and Joseph Smith told him that there was nothing at all in the box, saying, that he had made fools of the whole of them, and all he wanted was, to get Martin Harris’s money away from him, and that he (witness) was knowing to the fact that Joseph Smith had, by his persuasion, already got two or three hundred dollars.  (126)

 Then, after an affidavit from Lucy Harris herself was entered, Martin Harris was sworn in as a witness.  Lucy Mack Smith records his testimony, in part, as follows:'

I can swear, that Joseph Smith never has got one dollar from me by persuasion since God made me.  I did once, of my own free will and accord, put fifty dollars into his hands, in the presence of many witnesses, for the purpose of doing the work of the Lord.  This, I can pointedly prove; and I can tell you, furthermore, that I have never seen, in Joseph Smith, a disposition to take any man’s money, without giving him a reasonable compensation for the same in return.  (127)

“The magistrate,” continue Black and Porter, “wasted no time in pronouncing that it would not be necessary to call other witnesses.  He ordered the court clerk to bring him ‘what had been written of the testimony already given.  This he tore in pieces before their eyes, and told them to go home about their business, and trouble him no more with such ridiculous folly.'”  (127)

It is unfortunate that we have only Lucy Smith’s account of the hearing.  But, say Black and Porter, “In spite of an intense search, none of the official court documents related to the trial appear to have survived.”  (127 note 14)

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https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/03/such-ridiculous-folly.html

Thursday, March 21, 2019

What are the Knights Templar up to now?


The Vatican's recent decision to release documents on the persecution of the Knights Templar in the 14th Century has piqued interest in the mysterious order. But what are the latter-day Templars up to?

(by Finlo Rohrer bbc.co.uk 10-19-07)

This is a story. In the Middle Ages there was a secretive organization called the Knights Templar. They were disbanded with many killed on the orders of the Pope because they knew the secret that Jesus had had a child with Mary Magdalene. Despite the killing of the order's members, societies carry on its legacy of hidden knowledge today.

There's a problem with this version of events, part-inspired by Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown and other earlier authors. It's cobblers.

TEMPLAR HISTORY
1099: Jerusalem captured by Crusaders
1118: Order formed
1129: Endorsed by church
1307: Members arrested in France
1312: Pope dissolves order
1314: Last Grand Master burned at stake
 
There are lots of organizations today that bear the Templar name, but for the most part they are in the business of charitable works inspired by the original order. Secret documents about Mary Magdalene are not the order of the day.

The original Templars were founded in the 12th Century to guard pilgrims on their way along the dangerous roads that led to Jerusalem. Its members were effectively armed monk-like knights who were granted certain legal privileges and whose status was backed by the church. They were reputed to be the possessors of great wealth and power.

But the latter-day Templars are rather like a version of the Rotary Club, with a vague religious tinge, author and broadcaster on religious history Martin Palmer says.  "It's a sort of version of the Rotarians with long cloaks and swords." The overall effect is "clubby with a slight mystical element".  The major non-Masonic, non-Catholic affiliated, ecumenical Templar organization is the Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani. Tracing its ancestry back to 1804, the group stresses that "it reclaims the spirit of, but does not assert any direct descent from the ancient Order". Full members are Christians, but non-Christians are welcomed as "friends and supporters".

Chivalric side

Its branch in England and Wales, the Grand Priory of Knights Templar, has about 140 members. Geoff Beck has the rather non-12th Century title of Webmaster of the Grand Priory and explains that it is far from a secret cult.

"We have taken the chivalric side of it. It is a good standard to live up to. We get one or two cranks trying to join particularly after the Da Vinci Code.  "Put it this way, the keys of some vault containing the wealth of Jerusalem have never been given to me. We don't have any secret ceremonies, our initiation ceremonies are in public church services. Any member of the public is free to walk in."

Perhaps the strongest link to the 12th Century Templars is the modern version's interest in the Middle East. The Grand Priory of England and Wales sponsors Medical Aid for Iraqi Children and the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East.

The Middle Ages Templars had a reputation, used occasionally to their detriment, for being prepared to negotiate with Muslims and Jews, and the modern Templars like to see themselves in the same vein. The other major strand of latter-day Templarism in the UK is within the Freemason fraternity. The organization says it has 30,000 Knights Templar members among its 250,000 Freemasons in England and Wales. The Knights Templar, dating back to the 18th Century, are very much like other Freemasons but with a Christian ethic. Again, the (Dan) Brownites are going to be disappointed.

 "We don't claim any descent. They originated as a means of commemorating the original Templars and of exemplifying certain Masonic principles," says John Hamill, communications director of the United Grand Lodge of England.  Again charity work is the order of the day, with an eye hospital in Jerusalem being the recipient of much of the fundraising.  The third main strand of modern Templars is the lay organization of the Catholic Church, the Militia Templi, formed in 1979. Again, it claims no descent.  There are various other esoteric or semi-esoteric organizations that claim some kind of link, including a man in Hertford who says he is a direct descendant of a Templar.  All of them will be pleased at the Vatican's recent revelation that it plans to release documents from the 14th Century which will confirm that commonly held view that the Templars were not guilty of heresy and in fact succumbed to the predations of a heavily-indebted king of France who was able to bully the pope.

 Their modern legacy in England, where the 14th Century persecution was relatively light, includes the Inner and Middle Temple of the legal profession, once the English Templars' HQ, and their part, along with other religious organizations in the birth of Europe's banking system.  But the conspiracy theorists will continue looking for those elusive secret descendants, and a smattering of ambiguity will always fuel them.  "We have our own archive that will prove our own heritage but we don't need to put that in the public arena," Mr Beck mysteriously explains.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7050713.stm



On the quality of the Book of Mormon

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

When the Book of Mormon first issued appeared in an 1830 press-run of 5,000 copies, the response, particularly from the American frontier elite, was overwhelmingly negative.

It was, said one contemporary newspaper, “a bungling and stupid production.”  “We have no hesitation in saying that the whole system is erroneous. . . .  There is no redeeming feature in the whole scheme; nothing to commend it to a thinking mind.”

Contrary to what such denunciations might have led one to expect, however, E. B. Grandin wasn’t the last to publish the Book of Mormon.  In the years since 1830, it has appeared in multiple editions and in translations into more than 110 world languages.  More than 150 million copies have been printed.  It has even appeared in various forms published by such institutions as Yale University Press, the University of Illinois Press, Doubleday, and Penguin Books.


It might be particularly worthwhile to point out that the latter, Penguin Books, has for at least two or three generations “been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, providing readers with a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines.”  The value of the books that have appeared under the Penguin imprint, comments one online source, “is incalculable, and their loss or destruction would diminish us all.”

Professor Laurie Maffly-Kipp, a non-LDS academic who is Archer Alexander Distinguished Professor and Director of Religious Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, wrote the introduction to the Penguin edition of the Book of Mormon.  “However one decides to think about this book,” she says, “it is a fascinating tale well worth reading for a number of reasons.”

On 16 April 2015, the New York Times published an interview with Freeman Dyson, one of the most significant living mathematical physicists, who is now in his 96th year and who is retired after having long been associated with Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies.  In that interview, entitled “Freeman Dyson: By the Book,” he was asked “What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?”  He replied, “‘The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.’ I treasure it because some of my best friends are Mormons, and the book tells a dramatic story in a fine biblical style. The reader has to wait with growing tension almost until the end of the story to reach the final climax, when Jesus arrives in America and founds his second kingdom here.”

The late David Noel Freedman, a world-renowned non-Mormon biblical scholar (whom I was privileged to know), is reported to have observed that “Mormons are very lucky.  Their book is very beautiful.”

Stephen Prothero, a leading contemporary non-Mormon scholar of American religious history, labeled the Book of Mormon “America’s most influential homegrown scripture.”  The Library of Congress lists it among the most influential works of American literature.  The LDS scholar Terryl Givens agrees, pointing out that even those who believe that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon must grant that “he authored the most influential, widely published and read book ever written by an American.”  The Pulitzer Prize-winning non-Mormon historian Daniel Walker Howe declares that “The Book of Mormon should rank among the great achievements of American literature.”

Given its inauspicious first publication, such modern reactions to the Book of Mormon are nothing short of remarkable.  And given its claimed origin, they present a remarkable challenge to anybody wishing to write it off as a simple-minded yarn hatched by a shallow, uneducated frontier rube.

However Joseph Smith produced it, Latter-day Saint scholar Grant Hardy remarks, “the Book of Mormon is a remarkable text, one that is worthy of serious study.”

[These notes are based upon John W. Welch, et al., eds.  Knowing Why: 137 Evidences That the Book of Mormon Is True (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2017), 2-3 — an important publication from Book of Mormon Central.]

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https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/03/on-the-quality-of-the-book-of-mormon.html?fbclid=IwAR1e7z0XrvjwkMk0ru5IMXMYN5LRcYyqYBtvgZhvIibuSeoPAffyiTBNMKY

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Anti-Catholicism, My Church, and I

Apostles Testify of Jesus Christ in Rome

https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/apostles-testify-jesus-christ-rome

https://www.lds.org/study/ensign/2000/04/the-living-christ-the-testimony-of-the-apostles-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints?lang=eng

And that will serve as a transition point for an issue that has been especially on my mind because of the remarkable events of this past weekend in Rome and Vatican City:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/03/anti-catholicism-my-church-and-i.html

The Ruins of a Massive Ancient City Have Been Discovered in Guatemala

With the help of lasers and drones, scientists have found that Maya civilization was more advanced and populous than previously imagined.

The ruins of an enormous Maya ‘megalopolis’ have been discovered in Guatemala with the help of the remote sensing technique LiDAR, according to a bombshell exclusive from National Geographic on Thursday. This vast lost city envelops sites like Tikal, Holmul, and Witzna—known for their temples and pyramids—but shows that these famous heritage areas are the tip of the iceberg of this lost urban network.
Hidden under the dense jungle canopies of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, more than 60,000 human-made features—homes, canals, quarries, highways, and more—have been identified in aerial imagery collected by an international collaboration of researchers headed by the PACUNAM Foundation, a Maya cultural and natural heritage organization.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywqmq7/the-ruins-of-a-massive-ancient-city-have-been-discovered-in-guatemala

Many Witnesses to a Marvelous Work

One way of explaining the Book of Mormon, assuming Joseph Smith’s own explanation is rejected, is to regard it merely as the product of Joseph’s subjective imagination — whether that imagination is judged to have been sincerely deceived or, for whatever motives, deceptive and dishonest.

The historical evidence, however, seems lethal to such theories. And it’s instructive to note that, while modern skeptics commonly assume that the golden plates never existed, many of Joseph’s earliest persecutions came because some of his neighbors were convinced that he had them.

https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/many-witnesses-to-a-marvelous-work/#sdfootnote10sym

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A Surprising non-LDS Witness of the Plates: Lucy Harris

We commonly think of Lucy Harris as a hostile critic who opposed the Church and the Book of Mormon and may have been the cause for the disappearance of the 116 pages that were entrusted to her husband, Martin Harris. But as Daniel Peterson has pointed out, it's more complicated than that. In fact, in spite of her opposition to Martin's financial support for the Book of Mormon and her later anger at the Church, she was one of several female witnesses of the reality of the plates.
The stories of these female witnesses are told by Amy Easton-Flake and Rachel Cope in "A Multiplicity of Witnesses: Women and the Translation Process," a chapter in Dennis Largey, Andrew Hedges, John Hilton III, and Kerry Hull, eds. The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon: A Marvelous Work and a Wonder (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, and Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company), 2015, pp. 133-153. The women discussed include:
  • Mary Musselman Whitmer, who saw the plates and details of the engravings on leaf after leaf, as shown to her by an angel (Daniel Peterson reviewed details of her witness in an article for The Deseret News);
  • Lucy Mack Smith, who handled the Urim and Thummim, saw the outline of the plates through a cloth covering, and was close to many aspects of the Book of Mormon work;
  • Katherine Smith, Lucy Mack Smith's daughter and mentioned briefly in the section on Lucy Mack Smith, who had the opportunity to lift the plates;
  • Emma Hale Smith, who traced the outline and shape of the plates through cloth, felt the metallic leaves of the plates and heard their metallic rustle, in addition to serving as an early scribe; and
  • Lucy Harris, wife of Martin Harris.
When Joseph sought support from his wealthy acquaintance, Martin Harris, he asked Lucy Mack Smith if she could speak with him. First, though, she chose to visit Lucy Harris. She reported that Lucy Harris was intrigued about the plates and offered to donate money to support the Book of Mormon project, and said that she would come visit the Smiths soon. When she came the following week, she wanted to see the plates and was disappointed when Joseph explained that he was not allowed to show them except to those who were called as witnesses by God. But that night, while staying with the Smiths, she had a dream in which a personage chastised her and showed her the plates in vision, and that morning she gave Joseph $28 from her own funds.

Fascinated by the witness she had received and grateful for the support, Joseph then allowed Lucy Harris and her daughter (one more female witness) to handle the wooden box containing the plates. Martin Harris later stated that they were surprised by the weight, and it was about as much as they could lift. "My wife said they were very heavy."

Though Lucy would later become antagonistic, she was apparently appeased for a while when she saw the 116 pages. It is not clear who took them from their home. She appeared to continue to believe in the existence of the plates, for later she tried to find them in and near Joseph's home in Harmony, Pennsylvania. Though antagonistic in the end, in a sense she remains a witness of the physical reality of the plates, or at a minimum, of the physical reality of something very heavy in a box. If we reduce her experience to merely that, it is not all that trivial. As Martin Harris said in one of the more amusing statements from Book of Mormon witnesses, "While at Mr. Smith's I hefted the plates, and I knew from the heft that they were lead or gold, and I knew that Joseph had not credit enough to buy so much lead." That quote comes from "Mormonism—No. II," Tiffany's Monthly, 5/4 (Aug. 1859), Joel Tiffany, ed., pp. 163–170, available at Wikisource.org.

There is abundant evidence for the tangible reality of the gold plates from a variety of sources, some rather surprising. And there is an intriguing mix of the miraculous and the mundane. As for the miraculous, how do you describe an experience when an angel and ancient artifacts appear before you and you hear the voice of God? This depends on your assumptions and background. Many people might call it a vision, though it occurred while wide awake in full daylight. There was an angel, a divine voice -- can such a vision possibly be entirely mundane? Can we blame Martin Harris or David Whitmer for speaking of the supernatural experience in some interviews as a vision or as something that they perceived through supernatural or spiritual means? Yet they insisted that this was not an illusion, not imaginary, but real, and that what they experienced was clear evidence of the physical reality and divinity of the Book of Mormon. It was evidence that changed their lives and would make them boldly stand for the truth of what they witnesses until their deaths, when at times life would have been much easier if they said, "Well, I was a little over-exercised, maybe a touch hypnotized, and I guess I just imagined something that wasn't exactly real."

If you want to dismiss the many witnesses, you can dismiss those who experienced angels as suffering from imagination and hallucination, lacking any tangible reality, and you can then dismiss those who saw, touched or hefted the very tangible plates in broad daylight under non-supernatural conditions as subject to deception by carefully crafted fraudulent objects of some unexplained kind. But I don't think you can credibly explain away the combined effect of witnesses seeing the plates in both supernatural and mundane conditions, and the failure of any witness to deny what they witnessed. Collectively, their accounts and their lives compel us to recognize that real plates were involved and that there is no explanation for the existence of the plates (or the occasional angel) that is more logical than that offered by Joseph and these many diverse witnesses.

https://mormanity.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-surprising-non-lds-witness-of-plates.html

“The great and abominable church of the Devil”?

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1188&context=jbms

“In 1 Nephi 13–14, Nephi describes major characteristics of the great and abominable church: it persecutes and slays the Saints of God; it seeks wealth and luxury; it is characterized by sexual immortality; it has excised plain and precious things from the scriptures; it has dominion over all the earth; and its fate is destruction by a world war. Nephi’s vision, known as an apocalyptic vision in biblical literature, corresponds well to features of Babylon as described in the apocalyptic Revelation of John (Revelation 17). Clearly, the earliest apostate church and the great and abominable church are the same. A suggested description for this phenomenon, avoiding a denominational name, is hellenized Christianity.”

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/03/the-great-and-abominable-church-of-the-devil.html

The Deeper Meaning Behind One Beautifully Profound Symbol in the Rome Temple

(by James and Judith McConkie ldsliving.com 3-9-19)

Making a pilgrimage is to undertake a journey to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion.  Anciently, pagan pilgrims sought to consult the oracles and offer sacrifices at places now familiar to us as impressive ruins. Millions of Buddhists, Muslims, and Hindus annually seek enlightenment through the very act of making a journey to sacred sites around the world—not as tourists but rather as pilgrims. The four Gospels tell us that Herod’s temple in Jerusalem was the destination for pilgrims who attended three annual pilgrimage festivals. The journeys were required for all adult Jewish men until the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. The Gospels record that Jesus, His family, and His disciples made their way to Jerusalem in obedience to tradition and to express their religious devotion. The most familiar pilgrimage was, of course, the Passover Feast, a celebration meant to commemorate the release from bondage of the Children of Israel in Egypt. For two millennia Christians have made similar pilgrimages as affirmative acts of faith in a Christ-centered life. Whether made on foot, on the back of a donkey or, in our case, stuffed into the seats of a modern jetliner, pilgrimages have always been an important part of the world’s faith traditions.

http://www.ldsliving.com/The-Deeper-Meaning-Behind-One-Symbol-in-the-Rome-Temple-That-Is-Beautifully-Profound/s/90388?utm_source=ldsliving&utm_medium=email

Thursday, March 14, 2019

New temples in Rome and in what may soon be (if it isn’t already) the world’s largest French-speaking metropolitan area

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

From the United Kingdom, Clive Glenister kindly brings this short official Catholic video to my attention:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AigNKjr0wzI&feature=youtu.be

You will notice the way the Catholic video ends on a critical note.  It’s interesting to contrast its tone with the tone of President Nelson’s remarks in the official Latter-day Saint video that’s available at the Church’s “Newsroom”:

https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/prophet-meets-pope-francis-Vatican

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https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/03/new-temples-in-rome-and-in-what-may-soon-be-if-it-isnt-already-the-worlds-largest-french-speaking-metropolitan-area.html?fbclid=IwAR0kEwDkXwad12FlDoLSxCB2Vp1FgXfldH9LXLp_sr9Nz4F9lL_WsY7A3DU

An iconic and historic photograph


(By Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

At the April 2008 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latteer-day Saints, President Boyd K. Packer of the Council of the Twelve told a remarkable story:

In 1976 an area general conference was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. Following the closing session, President Spencer W. Kimball desired to visit the Vor Frue Church, where the Thorvaldsen statues of the Christus and of the Twelve Apostles stand. He had visited there some years earlier and wanted all of us to see it, to go there.

To the front of the church, behind the altar, stands the familiar statue of the Christus with His arms turned forward and somewhat outstretched, the hands showing the imprint of the nails, and the wound in His side very clearly visible. Along each side stand the statues of the Apostles, Peter at the front to the right and the other Apostles in order.

Most of our group was near the rear of the chapel with the custodian. I stood up front with President Kimball before the statue of Peter with Elder Rex D. Pinegar and Johan Helge Benthin, president of the Copenhagen stake.
In Peter’s hand, depicted in marble, is a set of heavy keys. President Kimball pointed to those keys and explained what they symbolized. Then, in an act I shall never forget, he turned to President Benthin and with unaccustomed firmness pointed his finger at him and said, “I want you to tell everyone in Denmark that I hold the keys! We hold the real keys, and we use them every day.”
I will never forget that declaration, that testimony from the prophet. The influence was spiritually powerful; the impression was physical in its impact.

We walked to the back of the chapel where the rest of the group was standing. Pointing to the statues, President Kimball said to the kind custodian, “These are the dead Apostles.” Pointing to me, he said, “Here we have the living Apostles. Elder Packer is an Apostle. Elder Thomas S. Monson and Elder L. Tom Perry are Apostles, and I am an Apostle. We are the living Apostles.
“You read about the Seventies in the New Testament, and here are two of the living Seventies, Elder Rex D. Pinegar and Elder Robert D. Hales.”
The custodian, who up to that time had shown no emotion, suddenly was in tears.
I felt I had had an experience of a lifetime.

(From Boyd K. Packer, “The Twelve” [April 2008 General Conference]:  https://churchofjesuschrist.org/general-conference/2008/04/the-twelve?lang=eng.)

Here’s something that I wrote roughly four years ago:

Significantly, I think, the Visitors’ Center currently being constructed along with a temple outside of Rome will feature marble replicas not only of the Christus, which appears in several temple visitors centers elsewhere, but, flanking that statue, of Thorvaldsen’s Twelve Apostles, including Peter with the keys. The implicit challenge to the claimed Petrine authority and keys associated with St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City is too obvious to overlook.

(“Seeing Ourselves Through the Eyes of a Friendly and Thoughtful Evangelical”  in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 15 (2015), note 9.)

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https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/03/an-iconic-and-historic-photograph.html?fbclid=IwAR2zz6Cs8VcZp93bWlNVSBld2QkciWcOlrvWPoi_Wbp3UF4KQwb6kjtew6o

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Read Primary Sources on the Origin of the Book of Mormon in One Volume


(by Stephen Smoot bookormormoncentral.org 2-20-19)

Oxford University Press has recently published A Documentary History of the Book of Mormon, the first “single-volume collection of documents to focus exclusively on the origin of the Book of Mormon.” Compiled and edited by Larry E. Morris, a writer and historian living in Salt Lake City, Utah and formerly an editor with the Joseph Smith Papers Project, this new volume features a “compilation of both first- and secondhand accounts relevant to the inception of the Book of Mormon,” including accounts about the visitation of Moroni, Martin Harris’s visit to scholars in New York, the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon, and the Three and Eight Witnesses.

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/node/63011

Most churches are losing members fast — but not the Mormons. Here’s why.

In an era of declining faith, Mormon membership is holding steady.

(by Daniel Cox vox.com 3-6-19)

Jennifer, a young mother and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in northern Virginia, is honest about the challenges of being Mormon in America today. “It’s not an easy gig,” she says. It’s not just the expectation that you will adhere to strict religious standards when it comes to dating and sex. Or the 10 percent tithing requirement. The prohibition on tea, coffee or alcohol. It’s the time, she says. “My husband and I teach Sunday school to 14- and 15-year-old teenagers. On a Saturday night, we might not be kicking back and watching a movie or bingeing Netflix; we’re planning our Sunday school lesson.”

While the structure of the LDS Church, which relies on volunteer leadership at the local level, requires an active membership, there is an upside to the obligations of religious community. In an era marked by unprecedented religious decline, Mormons appear to be holding their own.

One-quarter of Americans are religiously unaffiliated today, a roughly fourfold increase from a couple of decades earlier. Christian denominations around the country are contending with massive defections. White Christian groups have experienced the most dramatic losses over the past decade. Today, white evangelical Protestants account for 15 percent of the adult population, down from nearly one-quarter a decade earlier. By contrast, Mormons have held steady at roughly 2 percent of the US population for the past several years. And perhaps as importantly, Mormons are far younger than members of white Christian traditions.

At one time, sociologists and religion scholars argued that theologically conservative churches, which demanded more of their members, were successful because they ultimately provided more rewarding religious and spiritual experiences. This theory has since fallen out of favor as the tide of disaffiliation appears to be washing over conservative and liberal denominations alike. The Southern Baptist Convention, the heart of conservative Protestantism, has sustained 12 straight years of membership loses. Since 2007, the denomination has shed 1.2 million members.

But more than the rules, rituals, and rigorous theology, the success of the Mormon Church may have to do with their unrelenting focus on the family. Few religious communities have made the development and maintenance of traditional family structures such a central priority. Eighty-one percent of Mormons say being a good parent is one of their central life goals. Nearly three-quarters say having a good marriage is one of their most important priorities in life, and a majority of Mormons — including nearly equal numbers of men and women — believe that the most satisfying type of marriage is one in which the husband provides and the wife stays home.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/3/6/18252231/mormons-mormonism-church-of-latter-day-saints

All 15 Latter-day Saint Apostles Make "Powerful" Statement Following the Rome Italy Temple Dedication

In a major capital of Christianity on Monday, all 15 apostle-leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered together for the first time outside the United States in what some called a powerful statement about the church's role as a world religion.

The moment was captured in photos of them in front of the statues of Jesus Christ and his ancient apostles in the church's visitors' center at the new Rome Italy Temple. Their senior leader, President Russell M. Nelson, called "a modern Peter" by one of the faith's apostles and regarded as a prophet by members who believe the faith to be literally Christ's restored church, tweeted the group photo and a second of him alone next to a statue of Peter holding the priesthood keys to lead Christ's church.

http://www.ldsliving.com/All-15-Latter-day-Saint-Apostles-Make-Powerful-Statement-Following-the-Rome-Italy-Temple-Dedication/s/90431

The "Haunting" Arabian Phenomenon That Can Change How You Think of Lehi's Dream in the Book of Mormon

byJohn Bytheway, excerpted from "Finding Your Path in Lehi's Dream"

And it came to pass that they did come forth, and commence in the path which led to the tree. And it came to pass that there arose a mist of darkness; yea, even an exceedingly great mist of darkness, insomuch that they who had commenced in the path did lose their way, that they wandered off and were lost. —1 Nephi 8:22–23 It's only 32 verses, but it's a life-changer—an unforgettable and highly applicable metaphor. We call it Lehi's dream. The basic elements of the dream are: the tree of life, the rod of iron, the mists of darkness, and the ominious great and spacious building. With very little effort, we can identify things that happen to us every day that remind us of the dream—light and darkness, love and contention, agency and bondage, purity and filthiness, peer pressure and steadfastness, happiness and misery. It's all here. All of life fits into this metaphor. Here are a few thoughts about the mist of darkness and how we can navigate it in our lives today.

http://www.ldsliving.com/The-Mist-of-Darkness-Insights-from-John-Bytheway/s/89137

Thursday, March 7, 2019

President Russell M. Nelson tells 65,000 of the faith's 'Arizona battalion' to strengthen themselves and others




(by Tad Walch deseretnews.com 2-10-19)

Not far from the Mormon Battalion Trail on Sunday night, President Russell M. Nelson spoke to about 65,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Valley of the Sun and called them the faith's Arizona battalion.

Speaking from a podium set up about 20 yards behind what normally is the south end zone at State Farm Stadium — home of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals — the president of the church invited its members, who make up 6 percent of the state's population, to spiritually strengthen themselves and God's children everywhere.

President Nelson and President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, and their wives asked church members to live the commandments more exactly and to stand out as "much different" from the modern world. They promised peace, spiritual healing and growth to those who do.

"To be faithful to our temple covenants means we are willing to be different — much different — from men and women of the world," President Nelson said. "As covenant keepers, our thoughts, behavior, language, entertainment, fashion, grooming and time on the internet — to name a few things — are to be distinct from patterns and habits considered as normal by the world."

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey met with President Nelson before the Greater Phoenix Area Devotional, as did other government, religious, education and civic leaders, including Phoeniz Mayor Thelda Williams, Arizona State University President Michael Crow and the Most Reverend Thomas J. Olmstead, who is the Catholic bishop of Phoenix.

Several state leaders commended President Nelson for the viewpoint column he wrote that was published Sunday in the Arizona Republic and thanked him for Latter-day Saint contributions in Arizona and around the world.

Gov. Ducey pointed out that the Latter-day Saint presence in Arizona predates statehood by 65 years, with the Mormon Battalion's march in the winter of 1846-47. He expressed gratitude for President Nelson's visit to the state.

"He certainly strikes me as a man of peace and you can just see it in his presence and the strength of his words," the governor said. "The sheer number of people of the faith that are in leadership positions in the state — local, city, county, municipal and federal — has changed Arizona for the better. The strength and energy of the young missionaries when they tackle a problem or an issue has been positive for the state of Arizona."

Bishop Olmstead, leader of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, thanked President Nelson for the collaboration of the two churches around the world on a large number of projects.

"I'm so grateful for those opportunities," he said, "especially addressing issues like the dignity of every human person and religious liberty, which are really important questions in society today."

Crow said Latter-day Saints are foundational to Arizona's identity.

"It's tremendously important to be able to meet with the president of the faith," he said, "and hear his words of wisdom and his insights and his perspective, at the moment of his life, age 94, where he's at the peak of his wisdom."

Afterword, during the devotional, President Nelson asked church members to remodel their homes into sanctuaries of faith and to join efforts to alleviate suffering while President Oaks said ancient truths maintain their strength in the modern world.

"Right is still right, and wrong is still wrong," President Oaks said, "regardless of what is said or done by movie idols, TV personalities or sports stars." He repeated the church's position on avoiding tattoos, piercings, immodesty and pornography, calling such things "grafitti on your personal temple."

The devotional was the largest meeting of Latter-day Saints in Arizona history with the 65,000 figure an unofficial count. It continued the global travels of President Nelson, who became the church's leader 13 months ago, to reach members of the faith around the world.

He spoke to 49,000 at Safeco Field — home of baseball's Seattle Mariners — in September and to 24,000 at the Alamodome — home of the NBA's San Antonio Spurs — in November.

In between, in October, he traveled to five South American countries and spoke to more than 10,000 people at multiple venues. In all, he visited 15 countries last year.

In a television interview with the local CBS affiliate before the devotional, President Nelson made news when he said he has plans for additional travels this year.

President Nelson's Arizona Republic piece on Sunday morning set up a theme of the talks during Sunday night's devotional about the gospel of Jesus Christ as a salve in the face of difficulty and tragedy. He said he's found nothing "to compare with the refining, ennobling strength and meaning that come into the life of a devoted believer and servant."

"It is my conviction," he added, "that our Savior can strengthen and enable us to reach our highest highs and be able to cope with our lowest lows. As an ordained apostle of Jesus Christ, I invite you to seek to know for yourself that he is the master healer. He has the capacity to heal you from sin and sadness, from despair and heartache. I saw this healing balm among the people of Paradise, California, and I have felt it personally again and again, including recently in the passing of our precious daughter."

Sunday night he shared a story about a young cousin of his wife, Sister Wendy Nelson, who was paralyzed two weeks ago in a skiing accident. He said he has blessed the young Brigham Young University student but does not know what miracle God will work in his life.

"God gives His faithful children exactly the miracles needed to further God’s work here on earth," he said.

President Nelson said God promised Abraham that the nations of the world would be blessed through his seed. He called it the gathering of Israel, described how it happens today and invited the Arizona battalion "to help gather Israel on both sides of the veil."

"It happens as missionaries take the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world," he said. "It happens as the light of the gospel and the love of the Savior infuse the lives of people in all nations. They are seen as distinct and different from others in happy ways. It happens as worthy men in all nations are ordained to the priesthood and as worthy women are endowed with priesthood power in the house of the Lord. And it happens as temples dot the earth — as men, women, and children of the covenant worship there and bring temple blessings to their departed ancestors."

It also happens, he added, "as you help to strengthen the testimonies of others; as you repent and help others to repent; as you reach out in your communities and participate in worthy efforts to alleviate suffering."
President Oaks also called on church members to strengthen themselves through gospel living.

"A commitment to put the Lord first and to keep his commandments brings a constancy to our lives that gives us direction and peace, whatever happens," he said. "Then it does not matter whether we are married or single, what we are or are not called to do, or even whether we die tomorrow. We just do our best and trust in the Lord and his timing."

"Don’t define yourself by some temporary quality," he said. "Our single-best quality to characterize ourselves is that we are a son or daughter of God. That fact overrides all other labels, including race, occupation, physical characteristics, honors or even religious affiliation."

Sister Wendy Nelson suggested that Arizona church members could give a Valentine gift to God by humbling themselves, keeping his commandments with increasing exactness and opening their hearts to receive his love.

Sister Kristen Oaks called Arizona "the land of delicious Christmas oranges," then held up as an example a Chicago woman whom she said exemplified "the power of the Atonement (of Jesus Christ) in action." The woman's faith, large spirit, gratitude and enthusiasm impressed Sister Oaks before she learned the woman was plagued by cancer and cancer treatments.

President Oaks said a visit to Arizona was a priority because of the size of the Latter-day Saint population here, 428,000 people in 895 congregations. Alexandria Griffin, a doctoral candidate in religious studies at ASU, called Arizona "Utah Junior" because it has the fourth-largest concentration of Latter-day Saints after Utah, California and Idaho.

"Arizona is part of the Book of Mormon Belt or the Jello Belt stretching from Idaho to Arizona and across Nevada into Southern California," she said. "A meeting of this size really does tell you the church has a significant presence in Arizona."
In fact, tens of thousands of additional Latter-day Saints watched the devotional from meetinghouses across the state. Derek Wilcock was at the stadium with his family, but he was told 500 people were at his meetinghouse in nearby Mesa.
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Wednesday, March 6, 2019

A milestone in Latter-day Saint biblical scholarship

(by Daniel Peterson deseretnews.com 2-7-19)

For several years when I was involved with the old Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, known as FARMS, and its successor, BYU’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, we sponsored a booth at the largest annual academic gathering for scholars of the Bible, comparative religion, Near Eastern archaeology and related subjects. In it, we displayed our recent publications, which focused principally on the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham, as well as on medieval Islamic, eastern Christian and Jewish texts.

Once, while I was sitting at the booth, a professor who had been examining our display asked me a question that has haunted me since: “Aren’t you interested in the Bible?”

The undeniable fact was that our booth featured few if any examples of Latter-day Saint biblical scholarship. Why? Not because we weren’t interested — our exhibit was unwittingly sending an unintended and misleading message — but because, at that time, we effectively tended to “outsource” the production of biblical scholarship. Our limited energy and resources were focused, not unreasonably, on scholarly work that non-Latter-day Saint academics were unlikely to do.

The situation, however, is changing. Genuine Latter-day Saint biblical scholarship is coming into its own.

A prominent example is furnished by Thomas Wayment’s annotated “The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints.” I discussed it in my previous column (see "A major new Latter-day Saint resource for New Testament study," published Jan. 24, on deseretnews.com).

Another example is the project to create a Brigham Young University New Testament Commentary (see byunewtestamentcommentary.com for information), which has just published its latest volume, Julie M. Smith’s “The Gospel according to Mark” (see byustudies.byu.edu/content/new-testament-commentary-gospel-according-mark). Previous publications include “Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians” and “The Revelation of John the Apostle,” both by Richard D. Draper and Michael D. Rhodes; “The Testimony of Luke,” by S. Kent Brown; and a companion volume by Brent J. Schmidt titled “Relational Grace: The Reciprocal and Binding Covenant of Charis.”

Each commentary volume includes a substantial introduction, followed by the King James Version translation, a fresh “New Rendition” from the original Greek in a parallel column, and detailed notes drawing on both mainstream modern biblical scholarship and uniquely Latter-day Saint sources.

Smith’s newly published commentary on Mark’s gospel weighs in at nearly 1,000 pages, with extensive explanations covering the entire text. Although it cannot be dismissed as a work of merely feminist scholarship, one of its welcome contributions is to provide a woman’s perspective on Mark and, thereby, on Jesus.

A case in point comes in a section titled “Jesus Heals a Woman and Raises a Girl” (pages 336-370) where Smith gives insightful and sensitive attention to the famous account in Mark 5:25-34 of the woman with “an issue of blood,” a story that, as she points out, “requires male audience members to relate to and sympathize with uniquely female concerns” and “suggests that Jesus shared these concerns.” Moreover, she says, “The intertwined stories of the bleeding woman and Jairus’s daughter may be Mark’s most intricately plotted and symbolically rich text.”

According to Jewish law, the bleeding woman’s touch should have made Jesus ritually unclean. However, it doesn’t. Or, if it does, he appears not to care. This, says Smith, “is a commentary about Jesus’ relationship to the law of Moses.” Moreover, discussing Jesus’ question about who had touched his clothes, Smith remarks that “A Jewish audience may have thought that Jesus wanted to know who had touched him so that she could be rebuked for transmitting impurity.” But “the story plays out very differently.”

“Mark,” Smith observes, “had introduced the woman by calling her a woman with ‘an issue of blood.'” She had no name, no relationships, no geographical location; her disease is the sole marker of her identity. But in this verse (5:34), Jesus gives her a new identity marker: she is his daughter.
I cannot begin to summarize or even outline the richness of Smith’s discussion of this episode, which includes fascinating parallels and contrasts with Zechariah 8:23, 1 Samuel 1, Jeremiah 8 and, intriguingly, Genesis 3.

And space permits me only to hint at the intriguing suggestions that Smith offers about the women witnesses of Christ’s Resurrection and the possible role of women in the transmission of Mark’s gospel itself. Read the book! Or its e-book!

For an earlier example of Smith’s approach to the story of the bleeding woman that is accessible at no charge online, see her article “A Redemptive Reading of Mark 5:25-34,” in “Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship” 14 (2015): 95-105; online at mormoninterpreter.com/a-redemptive-reading-of-mark-525-34/.

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https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900054472/daniel-peterson-a-milestone-in-latter-day-saint-biblical-scholarship.html