Religion

Monday Morning Mormonism: Children Like Ender

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ENDER'S GAME

With Ender’s Game due out in the US this week (and already showing elsewhere), I thought I’d return to the story once more. In this morning’s post, I talk about how the depiction of children in Ender’s Game resonates with my belief that, in certain very real ways, all of us living on this earth are children. Even if we are sometimes good at pretending, to ourselves and others, that we aren’t.

Monday Morning Mormonism: Metaphysics of Sealing

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2013-10-21 SLC Temple
In this morning’s post for Times And Seasons, I introduce an attempt to find middle ground between simplistic metaphysical views of ordinances and mere symbolism. It’s an idea I’ve been working on for a long time, but I think this is the first time I’ve tried it out in public. I’m looking forward to getting some feedback.

Higgs Calls Dawkins “A Fundamentalist”

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2013-10-11 Higgs Dawkins

This is an older article (Dec 2012) and at the time people figured Higgs was a contender for the Nobel. Now we know he got it. In any case, one of the greatest minds in theoretical physics points out what I’ve been saying for years: that the New Atheists (or at least Dawkins, one of their examplars) are the mirror image of the fundamentalists that they choose to focus their criticisms on. This remark came not long after Dawkins dropped another gem, saying that “Horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place.”

I imagine his fans will continue to post his quotes and parrot his arguments for quite some time, but I think his credibility with most fair-minded people is pretty well shot at this point. It should be, at any rate.

Edit: In the first version of this post, I mistakenly attributed a summary of Dawkins comment to Dawkins. The summary read: “Raising a child in the Catholic church was worse than sex abuse dished out to youngsters by priests.” The actual quote is now included in the body above. HIggs’ statement is also more qualified than the headline suggest. He actually said “Dawkins in a way is almost a kind of fundamen- talist himself.”

Monday Morning Mormonism: Miracles and Shadows

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2013-10-12 God the Father by Cima da Conegliano

Today’s post for Time And Seasons asks a simple question: does God help find lost car keys? It seems difficult to imagine a God who cares about such trivial concerns given the terrible evil and suffering that takes place in this life, but I explain why I think God might care about the little things, after all.

Fiona and Terryl Givens Discuss Uchtdorf in NYT

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2013-10-09 Gen Conf

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has two General Conferences every year (one in spring and one in fall) where the leadership of the Church address the members in a series of 2-hours sessions that are broadcast live around most of the world. In the most recent conference (just last week) Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke with compassion and honesty about the struggles many Mormons have with doubts about their faith. Uchtdorf is the Second Counselor in the Church’s governing Presidency (sort of like a vice-vice-president), and his conciliatory tone has created a big reaction among the membership of the Church.

This NYT article discusses the impact of Uchtdorf’s words and quotes several Mormon scholars, including my parents Terryl and Fiona. The text of the speech, called “Come, Join Us” is available as here (or watch or listen to it here.)

My own impression: I like Uchtdorf’s comments quite a lot. I think they lend significant credibility (though no official support, of course) to my parents’ efforts at The Temple and Observatory Group, which is a non-profit focused on addressing the doubts and concerns of Mormons. I think it’s a mistake to see any grand change in policy, however. (Dallin H. Oaks’ rather hard-hitting No Other Gods, which was given the next day, makes that pretty clear.)

The tone reflects a response to the expectations and concerns of members, but there wasn’t a single word that was new doctrine. Many people have told me in the past that the Mormonism described by me or by my parents is one they would love, but not one they recognize from their own upbringing or congregation. Uchtdorf’s “talk” (that’s Mormon for “sermon”, basically) makes it much more prominent, but it’s always been there.

Hebrew in the Book of Mormon

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The European academic publisher E.J. Brill recently released the multivolume Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics. What’s interesting about this set is that it features two articles by Mormon scholar John Tvedtnes, both of which are about the Book of Mormon:

“Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon”

“Hebrew Names in the Book of Mormon”

The articles are brief and provide a reading list of entirely LDS resources, including BYU Studies, Ensign, and publications by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS).

Check them out.