The holiday for late Roman deity Sol Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun, was celebrated on December 25. I say late Roman deity because it was under the influence of eastern religions in the late second and third centuries CE that Sol Invictus (aka, Elah Gabal, its Syrian name) came to prominence. To be more specific, the Hellenized Persian deity Mithras was also born this day (and sometimes conflated with Sol Invictus in this later period). Along with a series of Egyptian cults, Mithras and Sol Invictus were two of the great religious competitors to Christianity as monotheistic cults also coming from the east, spreading rapidly throughout the empire. Additionally, the Italian holiday Saturnalia, a holiday of merry-making, was celebrated at this time. It is no accident that the Christmas was celebrated on this day during the Christian imperial period beginning in the fourth century.
Continue reading “The Christmas Post: Happy Winter Solstice”
Announcement: All-Blog Symposium on “Mormonism and Modernity”
As you may know, I am an advanced student at a local VCR repair school in South Dakota. Recently, I have been listening to a number of people, and a reading a number of books, on the issue of the VCR in modern life. Representatives from a number of VCR manufacturers are examining this technology in light of the contemporary technological, informational, political, and diverse age in which we live. These questions have got me thinking in a similar way about the conditions of modernity (and post-modernity if you wish) that relate to the way that religion is conceived, including Mormonism. Therefore, I hereby convoke an all-blog symposium to address the following topics over the course of the next 45 days. Prizes will be given to the best blog posts. To enter, simply give the link to your post in the comments on this thread. If you do not have your own blog, but would like to participate, you may submit your entry in the comments on this thread. The following topics are proposed:
Continue reading “Announcement: All-Blog Symposium on “Mormonism and Modernity””
LDS Zeal for Law
While some of my fellow bloggers here at FPR conclude their probably ecstatic SBL experience, I thought I’d make a post about a topic that I’ve been musing on for the past while. A realization that I’ve had recently is connected to just how legalistic we are with respect to the attaining of salvation, even exaltation. Just a quick perusal of our modernly revealed scriptures reinforced this idea to me: the LDS salvific model (as fluid a concept as that is) has a very strong legalistic flavor to it.
Most of you probably are already tuned into the idea I’m trying to describe. In a nutshell, the attainment of salvation (and exaltation) is often described or explained in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants in legalistic terms, in terms of the fulfilling of a law set forth by God. Continue reading “LDS Zeal for Law”
The DeMcConkie-izing of the Church
Elder McConkie, I think, made large contributions to the Church. He systematized and provided the only real encyclopedic Gospel reference book in a time when computers filled rooms. I think he provided some things the Church needed at a particular time. That time appears to have passed.
The following should be taken with a grain of salt. I have sources, but most of them are shadowy people I’ve met in dark parking garages.
Mormon Doctrine, written by a member of the 70 in 1957, has outlived its usefulness. High church leadership intended The Encyclopedia of Mormonism to replace it (which has unfortunately not come to pass), and Deseret Book will not republish it after the current printing sells out.
The introduction to the Book of Mormon, penned at least in part by Elder McConkie, has recently been modified. (See discussion and links here and here.)*
New Institute manuals are being written, and for at least one volume, the writers have been instructed not to use Elder McConkie (among others) as a source.
The man’s testimony still stands, but his intellectual contributions have been surpassed.
*Frankly, I don’t see this as a tempest in a teapot, and it changes very little. The intro as written (“primary” “principal ancestors”) still allows for the presence of peoples other than those in the Book of Mormon, something Elder McConkie believed. As changed, it still allows Book of Mormon genes and descent to Native Americans whether in North or South America. It’s not doctrinal revisionism, nor is it messing with any canonized text. I don’t see much of a difference, except that it diffuses absolutist misreadings.
Which Rule is More Golden?
If All is Sacred
If all is sacred, is nothing sacred?
This is related to a previous discussion here at FPR.
The categories of “sacred” and “profane” have a long history in the study of religion. And attempts to collapse the sacred and profane can be understood many different ways. I actually find it valuable to consider “All as Sacred”; but not in the sense that “the sacred” is simply a spatial category. IMO, the sacred is a relational category contingent on how we perform within a given space. In other words the sacred is a mode of becoming involving multiple parties (us and God in most cases), rather than a state of being that exists independent of my performance and simply within a given space. In this light, everything is sacred in that there is a proper and an improper way of us performing life’s events (including the option of non-performance in cases that call for it). To perform it improperly is to desecrate a sacrality within ourselves. The sacred, IMO, need not be understood simply an external quality found in a given sphere.
Offenders for a Word
The classic Daniel Peterson/Stephen Ricks historical defense of LDS doctrine, Offenders for a Word, has been put up on the FARMS website, along with a slew of other volumes.
Curses!
A discussion I had recently with a friend of mine reminded me of one of my other favorite soap boxes that I haven’t stood on in this forum before. No, it has nothing to do with swearing (in a traditional sense at least). Today I’m more interested in the sort of curses that God lays on peoples. Like on the Lamanites and stuff. And yeah I know that there is nothing new in the ‘Nacle so I’ll just say outright that I haven’t even looked elsewhere to see who has already broached the subject and what they said. Feel free to restate and/or link. Continue reading “Curses!”
Have We Been Praying to Her All Along?
Submitted from an anonymous reader:
If “the song of the righteous is a prayer” (D&C 25:12), does singing “O My Father” constitute praying to Heavenly Mother? It does, after all, contain the line “Father, Mother, may I meet you / In your royal courts on high? / Then, at length, when I’ve completed / All you sent me forth to do / With your mutual approbation / Let me come and dwell with you.”
Jesus Christ: Inspiration and/or Aspiration
Are we morally creative agents?
A distinction that I’ve given some thought to lately is that between “Inspiration” and “Aspiration”. This isn’t to say that there necessarily has to be some deep divide between these two concepts, but it can be useful to think of them separately. I believe that most LDSs see Jesus Christ as more of an “aspiration” rather than an “inspiration”. This means that he is our model or our ambition (in the sense that we try to do as he has done), before he is our motivation to take creative action in our unique circumstances. This is not to say that we do not see him as our “inspiration”; but we tend to look at him (and “history” in general) as providing a “model”, “example”, or a “standard to attain to”; before a point of departure to help us forge our own particular paths in life. Once again, this isn’t to say that we do not already do this to some extent; but we tend to see ourselves trying to get where these examples of the past have already been more than seeing ourselves moving in a unique direction because of the inspiration they’ve been.
Continue reading “Jesus Christ: Inspiration and/or Aspiration”