By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

Recently, I have noticed a concerning trend in the British Isles of calling Bishops who are under the age of 35 and, very often, under 30. This is concerning because these men are very often starting out in their careers and are occasionally in full-time education, because they have very young families who need their attention and because their spouses are burdened with far more than their share of the child-care and housework. These are all important concerns and they are probably common in some form to most Bishops; but I want to explore an additional concern that is, perhaps, unique to young Bishops.  Some forms of knowledge are only gained through practical experience and youth can be a significant barrier to these forms of knowledge.  Moreover, knowledge which comes through practical experience is very often vital to ministering with love and wisdom. This post is not a blanket proscription against calling those aged under 30 to be in such positions.  Rather it is a suggestion that those forms of knowledge which require time and experience to obtain are properly valued.  Calling young Bishops should be the exception rather than the rule because ‘Knowledge of the good for mankind lies through the observation of particulars’ [1]. Read the rest of this entry »

A brief exchange with Ardis on the blog got me thinking about idiosyncratic Mission rules.

In my first area, my companion fell off his bed onto his knee and damaged the ligaments.  As a result he was unable to walk for about three weeks.  During this time I tried to read voraciously but by the afternoon I became very frustrated with the lack of physical movement.  In order to alleviate this frustration I purchased a cheap skateboard and began to teach myself some basic tricks. For the next three weeks, in the late afternoon, my companion would hobble downstairs and sit on the step of our flat while he watched me pretend to do kick-flips.  Shortly thereafter, during a Zone conference, the Mission President announced, subsequent to hearing about a Missionary who owned a skateboard, that: ‘Missionaries do not use Skateboards’. Read the rest of this entry »

During each temple recommend interview the person conducting the interview has been asked to read a short statement on wearing the temple garment.  Recently the text of that statement has been altered slightly.

Part of the earlier version reads: ‘The garment should not be removed for activities which might reasonably be done with the garment worn beneath the clothing.  As members carefully follow these principles, they will be guided by the Holy Spirit in considering their personal commitment to wear the garment’.

The revised version reads: ‘The garment should not be removed, either entirely or partially to work in the yard or for other activities that can be reasonably be done with the garment worn beneath the clothing.  Members who have made covenants in the temple should be guided by the Holy Spirit to answer for themselves personal questions about wearing the garment.’ Read the rest of this entry »

“No one can ever enter the celestial kingdom unless he is strictly honest.” (attr. to Joseph Smith by Milo Andrus)

‘Are you honest in your dealings with your fellowmen?’ (Latter-day Saint Temple Recommend Question)

Earlier this year I watched an excellent French film entitled ‘Little White Lies‘ (2010). The opening sequence is a wonderful continuous shot, or so it seems, which follows Ludo (Jean Dujardin, The Artist) through a few cocaine-addled moments in a night-club. This initially dazzling sequence distracts the untrained eye (in this instance, mine) from noticing the subtle edits, learned from Hitchcocks’ ‘The Rope’. The cracks started to appear when I showed my wife the scene later that night.

This sequence is part of a broader and deftly constructed narrative leading to a tragically painful end, which serves as an illuminating precursor for the rest of the film. Guillaume Canet’s movie explores deception between friends; not blatant lies, but white lies, small lies.  The type of lie shared among friends. Read the rest of this entry »

Elder Bednar began his address in the Priesthood session with a quotation from President McKay. “If at this moment each one of you were asked to state in one sentence or phrase the most distinguishing feature of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what would be your answer?” President McKay’s response was, according to Elder Bednar, this: ‘“divine authority” of the priesthood’. This comment was especially pertinent to me because the previous weekend I had somewhat downplayed the uniqueness of LDS claims to Priesthood authority in a conversation with some of my fellow co-bloggers. Over the last few years I have come to frame the restoration in two ways: first, I see restoration and apostasy as concurrent processes occurring both within and without the Church and second, I believe that it is the particular assemblage of doctrines, ordinances and covenants that makes the prophetic restoration of Joseph Smith unique. One of the implications of this second principle is that the restoration cannot be hung on a particular doctrine or ritual as the unique feature of our religion. Rather the uniqueness follows the theological and institutional accumulation of a particular constellation of characteristics. As a result I have been in the process of rethinking Priesthood and Elder Bednar’s talk has given me impetus to hash this out in slightly more formal terms.  This post, more than anything else, in as opportunity to think through these ideas a little more in this community. Read the rest of this entry »

Romford ward building, Essex, England. 1965.

This is a transcript of a sermon given in the Romford ward, January 8th 2012.  I have only just managed to get round to writing it up .  Thanks to John Fowles for his help in preparing the transcript.

The Book of Mormon prophet Alma taught, while referring to Church his father had established: “Behold, he [God] changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God. Behold, they were in the midst of darkness; nevertheless, their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word”

To convert is to change from one status to another, and gospel conversion consists in the transformation of man from his fallen state to a state of grace.  Similarly, the word ‘repentance’ also conveys a sense of turning around or changing course. So the words ‘conversion’ and ‘repentance’ both capture a certain sense in which we need to turn (meaning to change direction) in order to be transformed.  In both repentance and conversion we turn to God, but why?  Because he calls to us.

Read the rest of this entry »

An anonymous Latter-day Saint in Arizona has reignited the debate surrounding baptism for the dead and victims of the Holocaust.  This unfortunate incident raises, once again, questions around whether and how Mormons should practice these ordinances and I think it is time for a change, but perhaps not the one Rabbi Cooper was calling for.

This type of offense has happened too often to ignore the evident implications.  As long as the LDS Church continues to pursue a wholesale approach to processing and performing baptisms for the dead lay members of the Church, intentionally or not, will continue to cause hurt to members of other faiths. Is there scope for change without altering what is at the heart of these ordinances.  I believe there is. Read the rest of this entry »

During the Church’s relatively short life, it has excommunicated many people; unfortunately very few of them ever return to the Church. Read the rest of this entry »

Gerhard Richter, Annunciation after Titian, oil on linen, 1973.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I have begun reading the Book of Mormon again using Grant Hardy’s Reader’s Edition.  The other night as I sat in my parent’s house to read, my step-father and I began discussing the problem of giving copies of the Book of Mormon to people.  For us there were a number of considerations: the cost of the copy, the size of the copy (physically), the size of copy (selections vs. entire text) and the readability (versification, footnotes, structure etc.).  The question I pose, therefore, is: which copy of the Book of Mormon would you give to a friend? Read the rest of this entry »

BCC has been invited to participate in a conference call discussing the latest results from the Pew Forum study ‘Mormons in America‘.  I will be live blogging the conversation.  Thank you to the Pew Forum for allowing us to participate. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is written off advanced word and may be inaccurate. The full results will be published tomorrow and this post will be updated as more details are available.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is about to be published. Like previous years, the researchers have tried to untangle some of the complexities of the Mormon experience, and this year in particular the questions have a special importance. In this latest iteration of the survey, 1,019 Mormons were interviewed and some of this data captures interesting trends among the Latter-day Saints. As a caveat, part of the problem with this data, as always, is a lack of appropriate nuance in the questions.

According to the survey, less than half of Mormon respondents believe that abstaining from caffeine is necessary to continue to be a ‘good’ member of the Church. It is difficult to draw anything substantive about this particular question except that it is clearly trying to tap into something latent concerning the Word of Wisdom. If anything it seems surprisingly high, especially because it is not clearly proscribed by D&C 89.
Read the rest of this entry »

Belatedly, another edition of Best Comment of the Week. Rules for nomination are the same.

Mark B. on avoiding MoTab

It’s really pretty easy to avoid listening to the MoTabs. It’s like avoiding porn–don’t buy it, don’t click on those links, and if it pops up unbidden on your computer or TV, turn it off.

Keeps my blood pressure in the range my doctor likes, and saves my friends and family from hearing me complain. Read the rest of this entry »

According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, true fellowship requires that we must not only live together as believers but also ‘as the undevout, as sinners’.[1]  Lynette, at ZD, recently described a Church where we fail to see ourselves as a hospital but rather focus on projecting sainthood.  Additionally, Scott’s excellent post on worthiness and repentance has outlined very clearly why we are in the position Lynette discussed. In the comments of Lynette’s post, Kristine shared a beautiful post articulating the emotional necessity of being able to avoid the intensely raw suffering of others in our community while recognising that there are moments when grief and pain need to rupture the procedural fabric of our Worship services.  These ruptures are very often difficult to respond to.  Over the summer I read a wonderful account of a teacher who tried to develop classes where children could share difficult experiences and at the same time I was reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  These two texts have helped me see that confession is still a form of spiritual practice but that confessing in private, to people other than our close friends, is one way of extending a particular conception of repentance. Read the rest of this entry »

Instead of selecting a winner from among the nominations, the powers that be wanted to share them all so that we can reminisce together.  The original rules for Best Comment of the Week are the same and a number of excellent comments were not eligible, sorry John F.

Here are the nominations, simply for your reading pleasure:  Read the rest of this entry »

Titles in the Church have often bothered me, and probably not for very good reasons.  A somewhat recent link in the BCC sidebar noted, according to Judith Dushku, Governor Romney’s preference for being called by his ecclesiastical titles.  Reading this made me uncomfortable, and not because I do not use ecclesiastical titles.  It just feels unseemly.  I remember hearing a Bishop being told that one of the reasons he might be struggling to motivate people in the Ward is because he did not refer to himself enough by his official title and that he should request this from other members.  Similarly I know of Stake Presidents who insist on using proper titles, even referring to the deacon’s quorum president as President X.  All this strikes me as peculiar or did until I recently re-watched The West Wing.  Specifically, this TV show prompted me to question the extent to which the status of Bishop is governed by a different set of dialogic parameters than other types of conversation? Read the rest of this entry »

Michaelango Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), Doubting Thomas, Oil on canvas, (1602-3).

Even today there is something quite shocking about Caravaggio’s ‘Doubting Thomas’.  For me, it is disturbingly literal.  The ragged apostles, perhaps even a little ugly, are crudely observing Thomas put his finger inside the wound of Jesus.  It is both invasive and a little mundane; yet these qualities suggest something profound about our relationship with Christ. Read the rest of this entry »

Figures in a Landscape (1972-3) by Sidney Goodman

My father and mother were sealed in the London temple but subsequently their sealing was cancelled and my father was excommunicated. I have not seen him for over 10 years. Since my mother’s divorce she remarried and has been sealed again in the temple. Currently, according to the Church Handbook of Instructions, ‘After a husband and wife have been sealed in a temple, if one of them is excommunicated or has his or her name removed from Church membership records, his or her temple blessings are revoked. However, the sealing blessings of the innocent spouse and of children born in the covenant are not affected’.[1]  Although I find some solace in the continued validity of the sealing to my mother, I am still spiritually fatherless, an orphan of sorts.

Yet, in another sense, I am not. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Sunday, I was walking down the hallway toward Sunday School right at the end of the allotted hour; as I neared the foyer where the class is given I heard a lady giving the closing prayer. As she prayed for the Conference speakers in preparing their talks I was moved by her expression of faith. Read the rest of this entry »

Giovanni Franceso (Guercino) Barbieri (1591-1666), ‘Saint Peter weeping before the Virgin’, oil on canvas, 1647.

Having previously seen a print of this painting, I was surprised at my immediate response to the original when I visited the Louvre earlier this year. I have not experienced real grief in my life and as I stood before this masterpiece there was an unexpected sense that this image articulated something that I knew I would one day have to feel. It was almost prophetic but also, in one sense, surprisingly un-Christian.

Read the rest of this entry »

If anyone has ever doubted the awesome institutional power of BCC, then the last few days have brushed all doubters aside.

Barely five months have passed since Ronan suggested that young men from the UK should be allowed to serve LDS missions at the age of 18. As from today, young men will have that right without any special permission. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I presented a paper at the EMSA conference.  Time constraints, and also a sense of their devotional rather than scholarly nature, required that I remove some of the comments I wanted to make.  As such I have tried to describe them below.

At the conclusion of his recent book, Douglas Davies offers the reader a ‘glance’ at the sacrificial spirituality of Mormonism by connecting specific themes in Joseph Smith’s theology with Richard Hutch’s view of saintliness and the ‘ongoing human sacrifice’ from which it is formed. Read the rest of this entry »

After thinking about how ‘taking care‘ is a sign of sacred space I want to examine another feature of the sacred, namely revelation. Read the rest of this entry »

A few days ago, in a summary of his excellent article on Mormon Environmental Theology, Jason Brown asked ‘Must nature be a separate domain for its sacredness to be apparent?’ Steve Evans responded that ‘Sacredness is a human concept, attributed by humans (through God, one assumes).’ For sacredness to become ‘apparent’ it must already be present prior to becoming recognisable. Jason responds that he wants to think about how ‘to take a concept like sacredness which does imply a sort of separation (think temple) and expand it to the forest as a space where people can both pray and work.’ Read the rest of this entry »

A few months ago, Jim F. wrote a post considering both references to fear and perfect love in LDS scripture (the First Epistle of John and an Epistle of Mormon).  Jim argued that each injunction invokes two different scenarios: one which pertains to the Final Judgement and our relationship with God and the other refers to our relationship with other people.  Jesus’ anxiety in Gethsemane, prior to the trial/temptation (gr. Peirasmos)[1], is related to John’s and Mormon’s insight[2] and I want to explore this briefly. Read the rest of this entry »

Between February 23^rd 2002 and July 2^nd 2008, Ingrid Betancourt was a political prisoner.  An activist, anticorruption campaigner and a senator, Betancourt was held captive by leftist guerrillas.  Her remarkable rescue brought worldwide media attention.  As she left the plane she held in her hand a rosary and a crucifix that she had made from the same thread that her captors used to weave their gun belts.

Her rosary was still with her as she visited sacred Catholic sites and worshipped there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Terryl Givens’ ‘People of Paradox’ is an important attempt to develop a theoretical and empirical account of Mormon Culture. In this post, I want to take issue with his exploration of the transition in Theatre.  In short I believe Givens has failed to situate Mormonism’s approach to Theatre within the broader context of changes in class and highbrow culture in America.

Givens argues that the theatre was important for early Mormons, even though very little original work was published.  This interest has diminished.  However, his account fails to develop the association between changing Mormon interests and practices and the rise of the ‘highbrow’ in America.  Consequently, he misses how the legitimation of the Theatre and the move toward middle-class assimilation shifted the cultural landscape of the Latter-day Saints.  Moreover, in trying to provide a ‘cultural history’ of Mormonism he seems to have adopted too readily a contemporary frame of American culture which has invariably shaped that history.  As a result, the data Givens pulls together suggest that his argument is a series of holes held together by string. Read the rest of this entry »