I had another dream, I had another life
This morning’s regularly scheduled Times And Seasons post is up. In this post, I talk about the benefits of an atheological religion, and the danger of replacing the missing religious authority with a secular one: academia. (I also make some comments about the importance of failure, hence the image of Peter sinking into the stormy waves.)
Inspired by the work of DR’s own Walker Wright and his co-author Allen Hansen, my post for Times And Seasons this morning delves into the fruitful nexus of business and theology, especially in light of Peter Drucker’s body of work. Allen suggested the post title, and I liked it. Why stop at chasing the bankers out of the temple when you can carry the offensive forward and bring the temple into the bank?
This morning’s post for Times And Seasons tackles the question Mark Oppenheimer recently raised in a piece for the New York Times: why has there been no Mormon literary renaissance? My post is divided roughly half-and-half between critiquing Oppenheimer’s unthinking dismissal of the artistic merit of so-called “genre fiction” that much of his analysis depends upon and a further exploration of the role of tragedy in art as it conflicts with Mormonism’s ruthless optimism.
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.
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.
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.
Had a busy day yesterday and wasn’t able to link to my newest post for Times And Seasons, so here it is: Peter Wiggin (that’s Ender’s older brother) as Lucifer.
I had a conversation with my mum yesterday where I mentioned this idea of “aspirational obedience” that I’d been thinking about. She said it would make a good post, and I like to do what my momma tells me to do, so today’s post at Times And Seasons is on that topic. I also threw in some related concepts, like the idea that guilt is usually a symptom of pride and the relationship between goal-setting and humility.
Comments are off on this post, but y’all can contribute to the original post at T&S if you feel so inclined.
For today’s Times And Season’s post, I talk about the meaning of the phrase “stumbling block” (using the historical use of the term “tipping point” as an example) and then outline what I think is the greatest stumbling block facing the Church today: an assumption that righteousness is closely correlated to leadership callings.
My latest piece at Times And Seasons is an rebuttal to the argument-as-explanation that religion is fundamentally an exercise in death-denial, and also a more personal piece of writing than my usual. I hope you find it interesting.