Continuing to wind our way through the True to the Faith doctrinal booklet published by the Church in 2004 (earlier posts here), I settled on Family from the long list of F-words covered in the book. There’s nothing in the entry you haven’t heard before, as after a five-line introduction it simply repeats (in full) the Proclamation, described as an “inspired proclamation” that is now “the Church’s definitive statement on the family.”

I know better than to argue with the Family. I’m not even up for needling the Proclamation. So let’s ask a different question: Is there such a thing as too much emphasis on the family? If there is, we’re there. What’s the downside? Certainly those adults not married feel a little left out when Family is discussed, and those from nontraditional or failed families are probably a little sensitive when the Ideal Family is incessantly praised. At least there is some recognition that the Church needs to broaden its program beyond family-based counsel and activities, judging from talks and the like. “We’re all part of a family” is not the answer for most people, I imagine, but it’s a start.

Could the Family displace the Gospel? In some ways it already has. Granted, there was a Proclamation on the Christ that came out five years after the Proclamation on the Family, but you don’t hear about it much. At the Joseph Smith Memorial Building there’s a whole floor dedicated to preaching Family History to visitors and nonmembers. Family Home Evening. Family History. Family Councils. There’s even an offical Family Guidebook in case you need some pointers. It starts: “The family is the most important unit in time and eternity.”

Of course, for many of us it is the most important of our units. I saw a striking illustration of this when I was reading a revealing post by one of the B’nacle’s more notorious cynics this morning, and it turns out … he’s a family man. And a good one. Who can argue with that? Not me.

It has been a tough couple of months for LDS missionaries (see here and here and here). In response, Elder Ballard met with members of the media on Friday to discuss the topic of missionary safety, as reported in an online Deseret News article Safety of Missionaries is Priority, LDS Leader Says. We all sympathize, of course, with family and friends of these (or any) missionaries who die or are injured while serving in the field. Few tragedies go deeper than the death of a loved one, whatever the circumstances. But this post is about the policy side of the issue, not the personal side. How exactly does LDS policy treat the issue of missionary safety?

Elder Ballard said, “An accident is an accident, and we have to accept it for that.” I’m not sure we really have to accept fatal accidents as inevitable. We get very upset if an executive of, for example, a mining company reacts to a workplace accident that results in the death of workers with a statement like “Accidents happen.” I would be much happier if he had said something like this: “We regard the death of any missionary as a serious issue as well as a personal tragedy. We accept responsibility for the health and safety of missionaries serving under the direction and supervision of LDS leaders, and we thoroughly investigate each and every death or serious injury. We change our procedures to whatever extent necessary to avoid similar recurrences in the future, including changing personnel where that is required to keep missionary safety our highest priority. Not all accidents are preventable, but we do everything in our power to prevent avoidable accidents.” I didn’t really sense that level of concern in the statements quoted in the article. There’s a difference, I think, between saying missionary safety is a priority and saying it is the highest priority.

Other statements in the article include: “The safest place in the world for 19-to-21-year-old men is in the service of the Lord.” That sounds like: “We don’t really have a safety issue here.” If you call a news conference to talk about missionary safety, you have a safety issue. That’s certainly evident from the spate of recent news stories on the issue.

The article mentioned the following as safety policies of the Church: (1) “A mission president and his wife are assigned to each mission to instruct missionaries how to take care of themselves and supervise their proselytizing.” (2) “In the church’s missionary training centers around the world, missionaries learn basic safety precautions, such as staying with their assigned companions at all times.” (3) “Mission presidents meet every four to six weeks with missionaries in zone conferences to discuss concerns.”

A related article appeared in the Deseret News last week, giving summarized information regarding 17 missionary deaths over the last seven years (unfortunately, it would now be up to 19). The majority of the incidents involved auto accidents, not violent crime. Interestingly, all the information was based on the Deseret News archives; no information was provided by the Church, apparently. I’m sure the Church maintains such information, which likely includes some incidents not found in the Deseret News archives.

The second article included this statement: “The Utah-based LDS Church declined, however, to comment for this story about what steps [to protect missionaries] it takes.” Elder Ballard’s statements to the media are a step in the right direction but leave some questions unanswered. It would be nice if additional information were forthcoming on this sadly relevant topic.

Okay, here are some of the best posts (selected from the MA boxes) for the last couple of weeks, plus a couple of links to new or up-and-coming blogs. Make sure you’re not missing out on the fun.

Top line. LDSLF hits it big with a post on someone’s taped tour of the Beehive House. The comment firestorm has burned itself out by now. From the big blogs, T&S gets the nod for hosting not just a post but an entire online symposium on RSR, complete with comments by the author. Another fine accomplishment for everyone’s favorite onymous blog.

Middle line. At Mormon Metaphysics, try The Big Questions (in Mormon theology), plus a reposted book review of Stark’s new book The Rise of Mormonism. For a little fun, read Handyman Ned and you’ll come away feeling like Tim the Toolman.

Bottom line. Godwrestling.

Moving up. Not much shelf space left on most B’nacle lists, so it’s fair to highlight newer blogs or maybe older ones that turn a corner. MoBlo has been running a series on a book titled In Gods We Trust with some interesting discussion (with some additional notes on the book here). Another I’ve noticed is Unofficial Manifesto, which seems to have found its voice the last month or two. Make sure they’re on your blogroll!

Here’s the first WordPress Best of the Box selections, drawn from the list of posts at Mormon Archipelago. For variety, I’ll start with the lower boxes and work up to the top this time.

Even More Islands – Go view Why People Leave the LDS Church at Mormon Stories, and learn a new word: “screencast.” A screencast is basically a podcast with pictures and a soundtrack, I’m told. It might be the Next Big Thing.

More Islands – You Know They’re Just Trying to Convert You, Right? An in-your-face post by D-Train takes on the problem of Mormons who find any official contact with other Christian denominations threatening as just a sneaky campaign to convert Mormons. But these same people think it’s just great to invite Christians over for FHE, or to the ward house for a potluck, or to send the missionaries to visit them in their own home. Maybe we need to open up a little. PS: What do you think of the inverted color scheme at Unofficial Manifesto? I hate it.

Isles of the Sea – Go read The Idiot’s Guide to Orthodox Christianity, Part 1, a post designed to teach Mormons some simple differences between LDS vocabulary and standard Christian terms. Sometimes the same word means something much different. The poster is a Protestant blogging on an LDS blog, so he’s had some hands-on experience communicating with Mormons.

The Mainland – Always a challenge with so many interesting posts. I’ll go with Nate’s post on relationship-maintaining norms versus end-game norms, which he applies to explain the distaste most people feel when a Mormon somehow ends up suing the Church. Sounds like repeated games versus one-shot games from game theory to me, with repeated interactions giving more incentive for cooperative outcomes. It’s a thought-provoking post: What do we expect from the Church? How do our expectations change if pleasantness is displaced by conflict? It strikes me that our values shouldn’t change just because we face a challenge or a conflict, but plainly we often do change our values or norms when the context or time horizon of our interactions changes. Honorable mention for The Burden of Leadership.

Founders – Try Plight of the Smart LDS Woman at that DMI blog. This post had some of the best comment participation I’ve ever seen; comments reflect experience from all across the spectrum on this touchy and sometimes personal topic.

Enough dying and killing for Jesus … let’s just see what the Best of the Box posts were for the last week, as selected by me from the MA box listings. If your favorite was skipped, you can always submit it in the comments. Go leave a comment at one or two of this week’s overachievers.

Founders - Nothing is really jumping out at me, so I’m going with Don’t Be So Cliquish! at Nine Moons. It’s a good reminder — no one likes to be left out and I’ll bet we all offend a few of the unintentionally excluded without even knowing about it. About 9Moons: I’ve been watching the comment box and there is a lot of traffic here. The shifting banners thing must be having a subliminal impact. Check. New. Banner.

Mainland - Always the toughest choice to make. Hats off to M* for posting an interview with Richard L. Bushman, with questions posed by Jed Woodworth, who Bushman in the RSR Preface described as “my collaborator on this book.” Quick quote: When asked why he didn’t commit himself in RSR on some of the more controversial questions in that period of LDS history, Bushman said: “I see no reason to solve problems that cannot be solved. When you go beyond the evidence, you get in trouble. Premature closure leads to error.”

Isles of the Sea - I am tempted by a couple of Clark’s philosophy posts, but I’ll go with Devils and Activism at FMH. It opens with a quote from one of my favorites, Conrad, about strong devils versus weak devils. I’m going to save that quote for my “quotes to use in Sunday School” file. I guess that makes me a weak devil. A strong devil would nail it to the door of the chapel.

More Islands - I’ll go with A Soft Answer … as a complete experience. He doesn’t really blog, he just links and accumulates in a colorful fashion. The Letterman missionary photo at the top of the queue is a must-see. Nice photos of LDS chainsaw brigades down South. With its many links to Mormon bloggers who don’t post (very often) on LDS topics, ASA is a good reminder that Mormon blogging extends well beyond the Bloggernacle: There’s The Sub Report; This Divided State; Joe’s Place (who looks like just a regular guy until you read that he’s in the running for a spot on the Mo Tab Choir). Oh, and one great post hiding down the queue: Church’s Policy Positions Are Not Doctrine.

Even More Islands - Mormons and Evolution ran a great two-part series: A Tale of Two Letters, Part 1 and Part 2. M&E is the B’nacle’s “all evolution, all the time” channel, but these are two posts you really should read. I’m not fond of the result the two letters arrived at, but they are surprisingly well-crafted and conciliatory. Maybe I’m speculating, but I catch a hint in the letters that JFS recognized this was a no-win situation for all concerned.

Pods - Easy. Finding Our Way Back Home, Part 1.

Joseph Smith, The Prophet of the Restoration debuts at the Legacy Theater (on the Temple Square corporate campus in Salt Lake City) on Saturday, December 17, according to this story in the Deseret News. There is also a long list of Visitors Centers that will be showing the new movie beginning on December 24.

The article notes that the film was “produced under the supervision of the First Presidency.” That’s interesting, as there is no official biography to use as a script, apart from the brief canonized account authored by Joseph Smith himself and appearing in the History of the Church and the Pearl of Great Price, two 19th-century documents. The movie, in a sense, becomes the 21st-century “official” depiction of the life of Joseph Smith. Welcome to the video age; we do movies, not texts. Movies have soundtracks, good for motivating spiritual emotions that should be associated with the Joseph Smith story. Conveniently, movies have no text that can be quoted or analyzed, just a string of images and depicted events. The dialogue is the closest thing to a text, but most of it will no doubt be fictional if plausible dialogue, words that would likely have been used by Joseph or other people during the events shown in the movie.

So come December 17 we will have a textless, official 60-minute movie version of the Joseph Smith story to complement the 561-page scholarly but unofficial textual account of the Joseph Smith story recently authored by Richard L. Bushman. It will be enlightening to compare the two accounts.

So what happened in the Bloggernacle last week? Plenty of good stuff, all listed by title in the boxes of the Mormon Archipelago. This week’s highlights include posts from New Cool Thang, BCC, A Motley Vision, Ned Flanders, and Mormon Stories. Read on …

Founders. At New Cool Thang, Bunko Gets Bonked. At the very least, you’ll learn about Bunko from this post (try here for a quick description if you’re drawing a blank, starting with “Bunko is a dice game”). And that spells … trouble. Right here in the River City Church. [Update: I've been advised that the Bunko Gets Bonked post itself got bonked. Sorry if you missed it earlier -- sometimes when you're late to the party you miss the show.]

Mainland. At BCC, try South Park, Peepstones, and Mormon General Knowledge. The terms in the title relate to each other like this: Mormon General Knowledge somehow misses the fact that Joseph used one or another of his seerstones, aka peepstones, not the “Urim and Thummim,” to facilitate his translation/dictation of the text of the Book of Mormon. And South Park, the TV show, apparently once depicted a Joseph Smith translation scene, complete with a seerstone in a hat. Additional commentary in 100+ comments to the post.

Isles of the Sea offers Tell Us A Story, by P. G. Karmenides at A Motley Vision. With this post on storytelling, I finally connected the AMV poster with this book author. Nothing this interesting ever happened in my AP English class.

More Islands. Ned Flanders gives us a Conversation With My Converts, the “rest of the story” from this earlier post. A little piece of post-mission drama worth reflecting on.

Even More Islands. Finally, at Mormon Stories, an update on the Mormon Studies Wiki. Sounds like the kind of project that gets started then forgotten, but if enough people get behind it, maybe it will last.

[Complete series] The True to the Faith (TTTF) entry “Exaltation” is just three words: “See Eternal Life.” Interesting. I think the Church still believes in and teaches what Mormons have traditionally referred to as “exaltation,” but leaders prefer to use different terms now, such as Eternal Life, which is given a two-page discussion. Are we feeling less exalted these days?

I’m inclined to think it’s just a better sense of decorum and more attention to friendly get-along-with-your-neighbors PR. “Exaltation” sounds a little too triumphant in a day when religious tolerance and ecumenicalism are among the institutional virtues religions are expected to publicly embrace. The term is fine for an EQ lesson or even a Sunday talk from the pulpit, but (following this theory) leaders prefer to speak of “salvation” or “eternal life” in public discussion.

As evidence, I’d first point to TTTF itself, which declines to give an independent definition for “exaltation.” The “eternal life” entry says nothing about temple ordinances or celestial marriage, so that entry actually says very little concerning the traditional LDS understanding of “exaltation.” The only possible reference to the LDS belief that higher temple ordinances are required to attain the highest form of salvation — to enjoy the full presence of God in the afterlife and a full measure of His promised blessings — is the statement that we must show “obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel” in order to obtain salvation, a rather elliptical way to refer to celestial marriage or the temple. The “eternal life” article quotes 2 Nephi 31 extensively, but D&C 132 not at all and D&C 131 only by reference.

A second source to consider is the recent post at M-Star quoting an LDS stake president responding to a TV interviewer’s question about the LDS view of salvation. The SP responded that everyone will be resurrected, but only some will “be exalted,” namely those who “follow the teachings of Jesus Christ” and “repent of their mistakes.” Sounds like salvation, not exaltation, to me, but TV sound bites don’t accommodate lengthy explanations or careful doctrinal distinctions.

By contrast, the short Encyclopedia of Mormonism article “exalation” is much more direct. Exaltation is “a state that a person can attain in becoming like God — salvation in the ultimate sense.” It is “available only in the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom” and requires “the Endowment and the eternal marriage covenant of the temple.” It is a short and accurate summary of the traditional LDS view of exaltation and it was directed to the general public, not a strictly LDS audience. On the other hand, the article was published in 1992, 13 years ago. Has the tone of the LDS message changed that much in 13 years?

That’s the question, I think. I don’t believe the LDS doctrine of exaltation has changed at all, but the way it is discussed by senior leaders and the vocabulary they use when discussing it seems to have changed. Anyone have any other examples (or counterexamples)?

I’m importing a feature that I started over at DMI last week. I highlight one post from roughly the last week from each of the MA boxes and throw in a comment or two. If you missed these posts the first time around, there’s still time to get a comment in!

Founders - I’ll go with Apologetics, Anti-Mormonism, and Faithful Inquiry, by RT over at LDS Liberation Front. It should probably be paired with his earlier post on the Uses of Mormon History. I like the sound of “faithful inquiry,” but it’s always hard to stay neutral in a civil war. You end up taking flak from both sides.

LDSLF is a new member of the MA Founder’s box, somehow redesignated “Flotsam” since RT’s arrival. That’s a good reminder that Bloggernacle geography, and the MA boxes, are variable, not fixed. Islands move around. Seasons change.

Mainland - I’ll go with M*’s Is the Church the Only Path to Salvation? It’s not every day an LDS stake president gets interviewed on the Today Show, and I wouldn’t have known about it without this post. Nice discussion of the questions and answers, too. I think we will be seeing more and more mainstream media attention focused on the Church in coming years.

Isles of the Sea – A Motley Vision has been quietly assembling a very talented crew — it’s time to spread the word. Go look at this post: Criticism: The Working Language of Good and Evil, Part 3. It explores the fascinating idea that in modern cultures we still work witchcraft, using regular but snarky words, not formal spells. I want to go read Parts 1 and 2, then come back to Part 3 and see if I really catch the drift here. Go thou and do likewise, or risk being skewered by your neighbor without even knowing it.

More Islands - Easy winner here: Starting a Secret Culture of Combinations at MoBlo. Is modern consumer culture giving us a whole new brand of secret combination? Lots of clever cites in this post; go leave a comment or two. Goble … where have I heard that name before? Just how many of them are there?

Even More Islands - Don’t know why, but I really enjoyed this post at Woody’s Woundup. Maybe it’s because he’s a clever LDS blogger who’s into something besides LDS blogging. Woody just seems like an all-around pleasant fellow, and IMHO pleasantness was in short supply in the Bloggernacle this week. You might note that WW is part of the Bear Flag League, a miscellaneous association of California blogs.

Podcasts - Gotta be the first and only broadcast of the Steve and Adam Show. Another dose of good feeling.

Here’s a real problem I face every Sunday morning, and I’ll bet I’m not the only one: What do I bring to church to read during Sacrament Meeting? There are some ground rules I have developed to guide my choice of books. Perhaps you have your own suggestions.

First, it has to be a thin book. I was considering bringing my copy of Rough Stone Rolling along last week but decided it was just too visible. A good rule of thumb is it shouldn’t be any thicker than your Triple Combination. Also, a pleasantly subdued cover is a must. No bright orange covers to call attention to the non-conforming book by your side.

Second, no paperbacks. I mean the small trade paperbacks you read on BART or airplanes. Wrong size, plus reading Tom Clancy or some sci-fi novel in church (even an OSC novel) is just not kosher. Not quite as bad as playing a video game on your cell phone, but close. I think there’s a “some redeeming religious value” test that any book read by an adult during the meeting must pass.

Third, not too orthodox. This one is tricky. If you are reading a book by Boyd K. Packer in Sacrament Meeting, for example, you face the potential criticism that Elder Packer would not want you reading his book during Sacrament Meeting. It is more comfortable to read something by an author who likely wouldn’t mind you reading her book during the meeting. Any historian should do the trick. GAs who have passed on to the spirit world are also fair game, for some reason.

Following these guidelines, you may find your Sunday meeting reading to be the best part of your day. No distractions — the phone won’t ring and there’s no fridge to beckon. I ended up with Widstoe’s Rational Theology last week, which met all three of my guidelines. And what did you read last Sunday?