Monday in Holy Week: Cleansing the Temple

April 6, 2020 by

I am pulling this one from the archives to celebrate Monday in Holy Week today. This was first posted on March 30, 2015. So much has changed in the world and the Church since Holy Week five years ago. The Spring of 2015 seems like a downright idyllic time now, just five years later. But the example Jesus set in cleansing the temple of the money changers remains as powerful today as then. In fact it is ever more powerful today.

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

* * *

Jesus likely knew that he was sealing His fate when he “cleansed” the temple by casting out the money changers after his “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. In the Gospel of Mark, this cleansing of the temple occurs on the Monday of Holy Week (Mark 11:15-19). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon

Moral Leadership From Some US Religious Leaders on Immigration

June 13, 2018 by

I was pleased and relieved this morning to see a tweet from Father James Martin linking to and discussing the moral leadership of US Catholic Bishops against the inhumane, shocking, and dangerous asylum decision that domestic abuse and gang violence will not count as grounds for seeking asylum in the United States of America, which many see as the land of liberty where they can begin a new life protected by the rule of law and strong institutions. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon

Guns: Failing Mormon

May 30, 2018 by

The two top Republican candidates for an open Senate seat in Utah so far show every sign of failing to live up to a nearly 1700 year old exhortation by the prophet Mormon. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon

Rising Generation

March 14, 2018 by

Today is the one month anniversary of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida. At schools across the United States today, many students will walk out of class at 10:00 am to protest Republican politicians’ refusal to enact common-sense gun regulations that would substantially reduce or eliminate school shootings. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon

A New Era

February 5, 2018 by

Today marks the beginning of a new era of sorts — as of today, the Berlin Wall has now been down longer than it was up. This is truly astounding for me as a GenXer. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon

Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness: Why a Temple? Why Sacraments?

July 10, 2017 by

Terryl Givens gave the following talk in my Provo ward yesterday. I couldn’t pass up the chance to ask Professor Givens if I could post it as part of our occasional “Sunday Sermons” series, and he graciously accepted.

I had a long conversation a few days ago with a much beloved daughter. We were talking about a family dear to us, of whom the last of the children just made an exit from the church. I asked what she thought the common thread to their stories might be. She said it wasn’t what I often hear to be the culprit: different accounts of the First vision, or Joseph’s seer stone, or horses in the Book of Mormon — or even polygamy or social policy. No, it was something much more fundamental. She said, the whole framework of the Restored Gospel — especially the emphasis on temples and ordinances — just doesn’t seem meaningful to many of her generation. So much structure, so many rules, so many seemingly empty rituals and ordinances. She then noted that as she was preparing her lesson for Young Women on sacraments and ordinances, she too struggled to find a convincing language, a resonant rationale. “Authority” and “obedience” don’t hold the same sway with generations who have not grown up with an almost innate deference to such concepts because, as Richard Rohr notes, they never experienced the framework of stable certainties and widely accepted verities. As the poet Robinson Jeffers noted wistfully, “O happy Homer! Taking the stars and the gods for granted.”[1] [Read more…]

Filed Under: Doctrine & Policy, Guest Post, Mormon, Scriptures, Theology

Columbus and Accountability

October 10, 2016 by

“And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles,
who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters;
and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man;
and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren,
who were in the promised land.”

– 1 Nephi 13:12

Posthumous portrait of Christopher Columbus by Sebastiano del Piombo, 1519 (source: http://tinyurl.com/zrkzztj)

Posthumous portrait of Christopher Columbus by Sebastiano del Piombo, 1519 (source: http://tinyurl.com/zrkzztj)

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an opinion piece by David Tucker, a senior fellow at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University in Ohio, in which Dr. Tucker is willing to go part of the distance in reducing cultural adoration of Christopher Columbus. After acknowledging many of the negative consequences for native peoples of Columbus’s actions — and rehabilitating Columbus by arguing that we only condemn him now because of the European values that he brought to the New World, primarily the notion of Equality (?!) enshrined in the Declaration of Independence — Dr. Tucker states “[t]his Columbus Day we need no triumphalism. Let it be a day instead to ponder the human capability for good and evil and wonder how we might encourage more of the good.”[1]

I don’t think this goes far enough in dealing with Columbus’s legacy — especially for me as a Mormon who has so deeply internalized the Church’s teachings about the importance of the principle of accountability in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But for the past few years, I’ve posted my thoughts about Columbus and Columbus Day on social media and I’ve received substantial push back on my criticism of Columbus, specifically from Mormon friends and family. Again, today, I’m aware that many are claiming that denouncing Columbus is just an example of political correctness run amok. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Anciently Revealed, Current Events, Holiday, Mormon, Politics, Race, Society & Culture, Theology

MSSJ Swiss Pilgrimage, 2016

January 21, 2016 by
12th century frieze of pilgrims on the Via Francigena heading toward Rome (Fidenza Cathedral, source: http://tinyurl.com/j7c7x8w)

12th century frieze of pilgrims on the Via Francigena heading toward Rome (Fidenza Cathedral, source: http://tinyurl.com/j7c7x8w)

The Mormon Society of St. James is pleased to announce its fourth annual[1] pilgrimage in 2016, the Swiss Road of the Via Francigena (St. Francis’s Way), the ancient trading and pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Liturgy, Mormon, Mormon Society of St. James, Pilgrimage

Book of Mormon Central, #BOM2016

December 31, 2015 by

Example of material available at www.bookofmormoncentral.org (click on the image for a full page view)

Example of material available at http://www.bookofmormoncentral.org (click on the image for a full page view)

Just in time for the Church’s curricular focus on The Book of Mormon in Sunday School during 2016, a new non-profit called Book of Mormon Central with an office and research library in Springville, Utah is launching a new, interactive repository of information and materials about The Book of Mormon, which Book of Mormon Central believes will allow The Book of Mormon to “advance goodness, justice, and faith on personal, family, social, and international levels.” The founder of Book of Mormon Central is Lynne Wilson, John W. Welch is the Chairman, and Kirk Magleby is the Executive Director. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Media, Mormon, Sunday School

Second Sunday of Advent

December 6, 2015 by
Detail of Saint Paul Preaching to the Women of Philippi, from a tapestry set of the Life of Saint Paul. Designed by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (Netherlands, 1502–1550), ca. 1529–30. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (KK T III/1) (source: http://tinyurl.com/p8jmegt)

Detail of Saint Paul Preaching to the Women of Philippi, from a tapestry set of the Life of Saint Paul. Designed by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (Netherlands, 1502–1550), ca. 1529–30. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (KK T III/1) (source: http://tinyurl.com/p8jmegt)

We haven’t been left alone in this fallen world. In his grace and mercy, God has sent us true messengers to communicate his love and righteousness to us, his mortal children. Their job is to lead and guide us, walk beside us, as we encounter the brute reality of the natural world.

On Second Advent we contemplate those who prepare the way of the Lord as his messengers. John the Baptist is the model. His was a consecrated life, preaching nothing but faith in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and repentance for our sins, so that through Christ’s grace we might experience his righteousness, both externally as our tutor in this mortal test and internally as we learn to align our thoughts and actions with that moral compass within that corresponds, through the light of Christ, with God’s righteousness. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Liturgy, Mormon, Mormon Lectionary Project

Announcing Evening with JSPP Editors Dec. 3

December 3, 2015 by

We are excited to pass along the following announcement from Benchmark Books in Salt Lake City:

EVENING WITH THE EDITORS

We are excited to announce that Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Brent Rogers will be at Benchmark Books, 3269 S. Main St., Ste. 250, Salt Lake City, UT 84115 on Thursday, December 3, to discuss the latest volume of the Joseph Smith Papers, Journals, Volume 3: May 1843–June 1844 (published by the Church Historian’s Press). They will be here from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.—speaking at 6:00—and will answer questions and sign books before and after that time. We hope you will be able to make that night but, if not, we can mail signed copies or hold them here at the store for pick-up. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Announcements

Truly Consecrated: A Real Man for all Seasons

October 6, 2015 by

Plaque outside an eponymous pub in North Norwich on the site of a Lollard’s Pit, “where men are customablie burnt” (source: http://tinyurl.com/k9nmttm).

By the time William Tyndale translated the New Testament into English for the first time in 1526 — on the run and in hiding, probably in Germany — translating the Bible into English or possessing an English translation of scripture had already been strictly prohibited for more than 100 years. Many people had burned in “Lollard’s pits”[1] since John Wycliffe had translated the New Testament into English in 1382 (and his “Lollard” followers had translated most of the Old Testament by 1384, the year of Wycliffe’s death). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon, Mormon Lectionary Project

The Gift of Faith (Elder Andersen, Priesthood Session) #ldsconf

October 4, 2015 by

Elder Neil L. Andersen, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (source: http://tinyurl.com/od5vv2v)

Elder Neil L. Andersen, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (source: http://tinyurl.com/od5vv2v)

Faith, or lack of it, is a rather divisive issue and always has been. An Oxford-educated, well spoken LDS friend of mine, for example, frequently directly engages Richard Dawkins and a number of his new atheist “groupies” in massive twitter brawls. These forays into the twitter badlands are, however, defensive, as he responds to the criticisms of religion and faith that constantly emanate from those quarters. These dust-ups are not merely a product of our “secular” age in which secular society derides religious people and their faith. The twitter angle is. And there’s no mass murder associated with it in this situation, which makes it very different from previous ages of time. Things are much better now; virtually every aspect of human existence is exponentially better than at any other time in all of recorded history. For example, in this situation, the new atheists can deride, criticize, and mock without burning at the stake, and religious people can believe without being rounded up into concentration camps or murdered in killing fields. [Read more…]

Filed Under: General Conference, Joseph Smith Era, Modernly Revealed, Mormon

The Selichot and the Days of Awe

September 5, 2015 by

As spiritual preparation for the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (collectively, the “Days of Awe”), the Selichot — prayers and liturgical songs of repentance — are recited and sung on four days before Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year or Day of Judgment/Day of Remembrance.[1] When Rosh Hashanah falls on a Monday or Tuesday (as this year, on September 14, or rather September 13-15 to be technical), the first Selichot begins after midnight Saturday night nine or ten days before (so, this year, the early morning hours of September 6). In fact, Rosh Hashanah falls within the period of repentance known as the “Season of Teshuva” or “Days of Favor” lasting 40 days from the first day of the month Elul until Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. During Rosh Hashanah, we hope that our names might be written in the Book of Life; whether written in that book or elsewhere, the Judgment entered on Rosh Hashanah is sealed (though most believe not permanently!) on Yom Kippur. In anticipation of this, the “Sheima Kolenu” is often sung at first Selichot: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon, Mormon Lectionary Project

It’s a Good Story

September 1, 2015 by

I know that the story told in this Youtube video is true. My talented brother-in-law, Gregory Welch, prepared this video and released it today. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Anciently Revealed, Internet & Social Media, Joseph Smith Era, Media, Missionary, Religion

“Once I Was a Beehive”: Must-See Mormon Film of 2015

August 23, 2015 by

“Once I Was a Beehive” (2015)

Go see this film! It’s one of those rare Mormon films that you’ll love, whether you’re Mormon or not. If you live in Utah, it’s playing in theaters until Thursday, August 27, 2015.

I do not pretend to be a connoisseur of Mormon film by any stretch of the imagination, or a movie critic in general, for that matter. In truth, I can add very little to film and theater critic Eric Samuelsen’s excellent review of Once I Was a Beehive, in which he highly recommends the film. I fully endorse his review in the sense that he says exactly what I would have wanted to say but much better than I could have. (Samuelsen’s glowing recommendation means a lot because he is known as somewhat of a cynic or at least a critic — he calls himself the Mormon Iconoclast — about Mormon culture.) But I had a few brief thoughts about it based on my own tastes in literature, film, and culture, and perhaps most importantly, from my perspective as a Mormon father of four Mormon daughters. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Comparative/Ecumenical, Current Events, Film & Television, Media, Missionary, Mormon, Pop Culture, Theology

Building Up Zion with Blood and Jerusalem with Iniquity: The Moral Clarity of William Wilberforce’s Career Against Slavery

July 30, 2015 by

William Wilberforce by John Rising, 1790 (source: http://tinyurl.com/pcoulo2)

William Wilberforce by John Rising, 1790 (source: http://tinyurl.com/pcoulo2)

Nearly four months after Parliament passed its Slavery Abolition Act in August, 1833 abolishing slavery in the British Empire, thanks primarily to the decades-long political campaign of the evangelical Christian Member of Parliament William Wilberforce, Joseph Smith recorded in a revelation on December 16, 1833 in Kirtland, Ohio, that “it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another” (Doctrine & Covenants 101:79). The Lord seems to have eagerly ratified Wilberforce’s lifelong fight against what any honest, informed observer must agree constitutes one of the greatest moral blights on humanity in the modern age: the African chattel slavery perpetrated by white Europeans and their American trading partners under the ostensible blessing of religious doctrines proclaiming the inherent inferiority of the African races and God’s supposed acquiescence in their bondage, servitude, and unspeakable abuse. Nothing condemned the professed Christianity of the day and European and American society more than this insidious and evil practice, built on such false religious justifications and the most vile commercial greed in the hearts of conspiring men. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon, Mormon Lectionary Project

Making the Desert and the Soul Blossom as the Rose: Pioneer Day in a Global Church

July 24, 2015 by
The Mormon Trail (source: http://tinyurl.com/q5lkkkh)

The Mormon Trail (source: http://tinyurl.com/q5lkkkh)

The historical basis for Pioneer Day celebrations is the 1847 arrival in the Salt Lake Valley of wagon trains of Mormon pioneers fleeing religious persecution in the United States. They first left their prosperous city of Nauvoo on the banks of the Mississippi River in Illinois in the Winter of 1846 and traveled a 1,300 mile route on foot and with covered wagons through the inhospitable American outback to reach an isolated desert valley on the western edge of the Rocky Mountains. Mormon pioneers from around the world continued to make this or other similarly arduous journeys of migration from their homelands in the heart of civilizations to this far flung frontier settlement throughout much of the rest of the nineteenth century. Theirs was a pioneer spirit, as evidenced not only by how they accepted their lot as refugees forced from civilization into what was, at the time, a remote, harsh, virtually uninhabitable wilderness, but also by virtue of their conversion from among many nations to the truly radical religious movement known as Mormonism, which laid claim to a Restoration of Christ’s Gospel and of all things. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Holiday, Liturgy, Mormon, Mormon Lectionary Project, Theology

Pioneer Day Family Hike (Local mini-Pilgrimage)

July 23, 2015 by

Ensign Peak, Salt Lake City, Utah (source: http://tinyurl.com/pkja58a)

Ensign Peak, Salt Lake City, Utah (source: http://tinyurl.com/pkja58a)

Last year the Mormon Society of St. James hosted a local “mini-pilgrimage” in Utah, hiking the last section of the Dominguez-Escalante trail, ending at the commemorative cross in Spanish Fork canyon, the farthest point north that the Spanish company ventured in 1776. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Admin, Announcements, Mormon

If Not, Why Not?

June 22, 2015 by

charlestonDid anyone have prayers in Church meetings yesterday that focused on or even mentioned last week’s terrorist attack on black worshippers in Charleston? In Sacrament Meeting or in the opening or closing prayers in any of the classes such as Sunday School, Relief Society, or Priesthood Meetings? If not, why not?

For several years now, at least, I’ve been troubled by and wondering why we don’t pray for the “big things” in our Church meetings. Every Sunday, numerous prayers are offered during our Church services. Opening and closing prayers in Sacrament Meeting, opening and closing prayers in Sunday School classes (many wards having multiple adult Gospel Doctrine Sunday School classes running at the same time because of the number of adults in the ward needing to attend), opening and closing prayers in Relief Society and Priesthood Meetings. In this case, if most Mormons in the United States attended wards yesterday in which nary a word was mentioned, in the numerous prayers offered, about the tragedy — for the victims of the Charleston terrorist attack, for peace or healing locally and nationally, for justice, or even for mercy for the lost soul of the white supremacist terrorist who explained the reasons for his calculated attack as white supremacy, a belief in segregation, and a hatred for black people — then why not? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Mormon, Religion, Theology

On Lifting the Priesthood and Temple Ban

June 8, 2015 by

The Daily Universe, BYU's Student Newspaper, June 9, 1978 (source: http://tinyurl.com/nwyme3v)

The Daily Universe, BYU’s Student Newspaper, June 9, 1978 (source: http://tinyurl.com/nwyme3v)

What was obvious[1] fell into long desuetude just a little over twenty years after the Church was established:

“And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her: and the highest himself shall establish her. (Psalm 87:5.)

Those who join God’s people in Zion leave the world and all its distinctions behind. Though a man be born in Rahab or Babylon; Philistia, Tyre, or Ethiopia — that is, heathen, black, white, or of a tribe traditionally hostile to God’s chosen people — it shall be said of him once he has joined himself with the cause of Zion, “this man was born there” (Psalm 87:4). We are assured that “[t]he Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob” (Psalm 87:2). For this very reason, “Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God” (Psalm 87:3). All who join with Zion are of Zion: “this man was born there.” Joseph Smith seems to have understood this intuitively, authorizing the ordination of several black converts, including most famously Elijah Abel, to the priesthood.[2] [Read more…]

Filed Under: Anciently Revealed, Liturgy, Modern Era, Modernly Revealed, Mormon, Mormon Lectionary Project, Race, Religion, Scriptures, Theology

The God Eaters

June 5, 2015 by

Ronan’s post on transubstantiation (which fittingly identified a “bridge” that Mormonism, as the Restoration, can build between the Catholic and reformed perspectives on the meaning of John 6:51-58) got me thinking about one of Heinrich Heine‘s “historical” poems in his Romanzero, a collection of poems divided into three books, published in 1851. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Art, Comparative/Ecumenical, Media, Mormon, Religion, Scriptures, Theology

Easter Evening: Changed Hearts, Spiritually Begotten

April 5, 2015 by

Felix Mendelssohn, Psalm 114 Op. 51, “Da Israel aus Ägypten Zog” (1839)[1]

* * *

The Resurrected Christ brought this universal message to the people described in The Book of Mormon:

9 Behold, I am the law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life.

10 Behold, I have given unto you the commandments; therefore keep my commandments. And this is the law and the prophets, for they truly testified of me.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Holiday, Mormon, Mormon Lectionary Project

Good Friday: Holding Fast the Profession of Our Faith Without Wavering

April 3, 2015 by

Jesus’ Trial Before the Sanhedrin (John 18:19-27, Mark 14:53-65, Matt. 26:57-67, Luke 22:63-71), The Passion of the Christ (2004)[1]

* * *

The story of Christ’s passion recorded in John 18 and 19 makes for riveting though heart-wrenching reading, especially on Good Friday. In the Garden, Jesus’ Apostles both betray (John 18:4-5) and loyally defend him (John 18:10). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon, Mormon Lectionary Project

Cleansing the Temple: Monday in Holy Week

March 30, 2015 by

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

* * *

Jesus likely knew that he was sealing His fate when he “cleansed” the temple by casting out the money changers after his “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. In the Gospel of Mark, this cleansing of the temple occurs on the Monday of Holy Week (Mark 11:15-19). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon, Mormon Lectionary Project

The Annunciation

March 25, 2015 by

Detail from "Nativity" by Brian Kershisnik, 2006 (source: http://tinyurl.com/m6oafwf) -- The beauty and grace of Kershisnik's angels constantly inspire me.

Detail from “Nativity” by Brian Kershisnik, 2006 (source: http://tinyurl.com/m6oafwf) — The beauty and grace of Kershisnik’s angels constantly inspire me.

I hope you believe in angels. I do.

Celebrating the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38), we necessarily reflect on the amazing implications of God sending the angel Gabriel “unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth” (Luke 1:26) — dispatching an archangel to an essentially forgotten rural backwater of a town on a Galilean hillside to visit a young, unknown, betrothed girl. But God, for whom “nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37), knew Mary and had selected her among all His chosen people for a pivotal mission in His work of salvation. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon

Howard W. Hunter

March 3, 2015 by

“I feel ours is the mission to serve and to save, to build and to exalt.”

– Howard W. Hunter

Howard W. Hunter, November 14, 1907 – March 3, 1995 (source: http://tinyurl.com/nyepynv)

Howard W. Hunter, November 14, 1907 – March 3, 1995 (source: http://tinyurl.com/nyepynv)

Howard W. Hunter served for only nine months as President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from June 4, 1994 until his death on March 3, 1995, the shortest period of any Church President so far. A banker, lawyer, and accomplished musician, he was called to be an Apostle on October 10, 1959 by President David O. McKay, who had recently dedicated the Los Angeles, California temple (1956) with the support of President Hunter, who was then serving as the President of the Pasadena, California Stake with the responsibility of organizing the open house and dedication of that temple.

President Hunter faced many medical problems during his time in Church service, for which he became somewhat known, including a heart attack, broken ribs from a fall at general conference, heart bypass surgery, bleeding ulcers, kidney failure, hospitalization for exhaustion, and finally prostate cancer that spread to his bones in the last few months of his life. He had faced health problems since his earliest childhood when as a four year old — and nearly half a century before the polio vaccine was revealed through painstaking scientific discovery — he suffered from polio, which reportedly affected his back for the rest of his life. His dedicated service through much pain and suffering occasioned by these medical problems made his life a model of “enduring to the end,” an important tenet of Mormon doctrine closely associated with exercising faith in Jesus Christ and regular repentance for falling short of true Christian discipleship as the way to demonstrate acceptance of and dedication to the Atonement of Jesus Christ in one’s personal life (1 Nephi 13:37). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon, Mormon Lectionary Project

Lent II

March 1, 2015 by

Psalm 121, BCP Psalter, Coverdale, 1662, St Paul’s Cathedral Choir

* * *

For the high born, whose name and social position — and wealth — often stems directly from his or her birth, the doctrine that “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3) is a troubling proposition. This certainly seems to have been the case with the Pharisee Nicodemus, a “ruler of the Jews” (John 3:1) and a “master of Israel” (John 3:10), who flirted with Christian discipleship during Christ’s ministry. Will I lose my name, my status, my wealth if I am thus “born again”? These considerations perhaps reveal Nicodemus’ question to Jesus — “How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” (John 3:4) — as a sincere concern rather than the smart-alecky provocation visible in some popular versions of the story. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Anciently Revealed, Comparative/Ecumenical, Holiday, Liturgy, Mormon Lectionary Project, Religion, Scriptures, TCoJCoLDS, Theology

Common Consent, A Comparative Glimpse

February 17, 2015 by
Archbishop of York John Sentamu ordains Right Reverend Libby Lane to the office of Bishop of Stockport, Jan. 26, 2015 (source: http://tinyurl.com/lvo4mam)

Archbishop of York John Sentamu ordains Right Reverend Libby Lane to the office of Bishop of Stockport, Jan. 26, 2015 (source: http://tinyurl.com/lvo4mam)

A few weeks ago, we were given a fascinating glimpse of the scriptural principle of “common consent” as practiced in the Church of England when the Rt Rev Libby Lane was consecrated as eighth Bishop of Stockport on January 26, 2015. It was very moving to see an action taken “by common consent” as the congregation present all shouted in unison “It is!” when asked if it was their will that Rev. Lane be ordained to the office of Bishop. This also evoked images of King Benjamin’s speech in The Book of Mormon, in which all in attendance responded in unison at certain points. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Comparative/Ecumenical, Current Events, Mormon, Religion, Theology

My Belief

February 10, 2015 by

Apparently, in an interview today on Radio West with Doug Fabrizio, John Dehlin claimed that “people who blog at BCC” don’t believe in the historicity of The Book of Mormon. As far as I’m aware, John Dehlin does not have any special insight into the religious convictions of people who blog at BCC. In fact, as a result of his unsubstantiated comment, I feel it necessary to issue the following statement: “Dear Internet, I believe in the historicity of The Book of Mormon as part of the foundation of my Christian faith, which faith nevertheless rests exclusively on my belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Savior of the World — and therefore also my personal Savior — as witnessed in the New Testament, prophesied in the Old Testament as interpreted and finally understood through the New Testament realization of the Atonement, and as separately attested in The Book of Mormon, in the historicity of which I firmly believe based on personal spiritual confirmation of the truthfulness of the book’s message that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who is truly One God with the Father and the Holy Spirit, reigning forever, and based on fascinating and consistent evidences that have been studied and discussed extensively by Mormon scholars who are friends and family and whose sincerity and honesty and good faith I do not doubt in the slightest.”

Filed Under: Mormon
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