Handbook Changes: Music at Church

January 14, 2022 by

When I was in high school, I volunteered to have my saxophone quartet play a special musical number in sacrament meeting.

My offer was declined.

I suspect it was declined on church policy grounds. The 1989 Handbook—the one that would have been in effect when I was in high school—didn’t have explicit policies on the types of music and the types of instruments permitted in sacrament meeting; rather, it limited its guidance to the requirement that “[m]usic and musical texts are to be sacred, dignified, and otherwise suitable for a Latter-day Saint meeting.”

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Doctrine & Policy, Music Tagged With: , , , ,

Accomplishing God’s Work of Leading Out Against Prejudice

February 15, 2021 by

I wish the Church would tackle racism and nationalism with the same energy it devotes to sex. 

It’s not difficult to envision.  Just take every resource the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints currently spends defending chastity and reallocate them to anti-racism.  When we’re inevitably challenged for being too “political,” emphasize the great moral need for social policies which recognize the divine worth of every soul.    

We have the foundation to accomplish this.  In October 2020 President Nelson pleaded with us “to promote respect for all of God’s children.”  The Prophet “grieved that our Black brothers and sisters the world over are enduring the pains of racism and prejudice.”  He then called “upon our members everywhere to lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice.” 

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Current Events, Doctrine & Policy, General Conference, Modern Era, Mormon, Politics, Race, Society & Culture, TCoJCoLDS Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Faculty Demographics at BYU

June 26, 2020 by

A couple weeks ago, President Nelson issued a joint statement with the NAACP condemning racial injustice. Toward the end of that statement, they said:

We likewise call on government, business, and educational leaders at every level to review processes, laws, and organizational attitudes regarding racism and root them out once and for all.

(Emphasis mine.) It occurred to me that, while at BYU-P, very few of my professors were people of color. (It’s been a couple decades, so my memory isn’t perfect, but as best I can remember, I had two Brazilian professors, which is probably the closest I came.) I wondered what BYU faculty looks like today.

It isn’t pretty.  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Mormon, Race, Society & Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Doubting Your Doubts

September 4, 2015 by

In an October 2013 talk called “Come, Join With Us” Pres. Uchtdorf welcomed everyone to be a part of the church, even if they have doubts.  He famously said:

 First doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.

It’s a great line.[1]  Some have taken it to mean that Pres. Uchtdorf is saying that there is no room for doubt, that only the faithless doubt, that doubting your faith should never ever happen.  Given the rest of the talk, that seems like an unlikely interpretation.  He speaks with empathy toward those who have doubts and invites everyone to join and participate in church regardless of their doubts. [Read more…]

Filed Under: General Conference, Mormon, Navel-Gazing & Poetic Observation, Religion, Society & Culture, TCoJCoLDS, Theology, Doctrine & Policy Tagged With: , , , , ,

Corpus Christi

June 4, 2015 by

One of the traps into which religion can fall is that it often makes the thing into the thing signified. There is “God” — theological debates, Del Parson paintings, doctrinal pronouncements, even the scriptures — and there is “God above God,” the noumenal thing that is never quite the phenomenal thing.  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Modernly Revealed, Mormon Lectionary Project, Theology Tagged With: , , ,

Trinity Sunday

May 31, 2015 by

This post is a slightly revised version of last year’s Trinity Sunday post. For more recent BCC discussion of the Trinity, start with J. Stapley’s “Mormon Jesus?”, which links to other posts by BCC authors.

Early in the Book of Mormon, Nephi receives some information that seems to have been all at once exciting, shocking, and confusing. After Nephi affirms his belief in Lehi’s vision of the tree, the Spirit who had carried him away responds with praise: “Hosanna to the Lord, the Most High God; for he is God over all the earth, even above all.” Then comes the intriguing part: “And blessed art thou, Nephi, because thou believest in the Son of the most high God.”

This is intriguing not only because Nephi has not affirmed any such belief, but more profoundly because the text has not hitherto mentioned any such Son (except when the narrator Nephi, writing 40 years after the fact, attributes his father’s vision to “faith on the Son of God” [1 Ne. 10:17]). The book opens with Lehi, likewise carried away by the Spirit, seeing God enthroned (1 Ne. 1:8), after which he sees “One descending out of the midst of heaven” and “twelve others following him” (1 Ne. 1:9-10). While we are justified in understanding this “One” as Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon does not at this point identify him as God’s Son; nor does it clarify the relationship between this One and God at all. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Modernly Revealed, Mormon Lectionary Project, Theology Tagged With: , , ,

Trinity Sunday

June 15, 2014 by

MLP

MLP

Mormon Lectionary Project

Trinity Sunday, Year A

Gen. 1:1-2:4a (NRSV); Psalm 8 (KJV); 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 (NRSV); Matthew 28:16-20 (NRSV); 1 Nephi 11:6; Alma 34:37-38; D&C 20:21-28

The Collect: Almighty and everlasting God, who as the Father and the Son, aided by the presence of the Holy Spirit, appeared to thy servant Joseph Smith, jr.: grant that we may be one with each other, and one with thee, as you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are one God forever and ever.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Comparative/Ecumenical, Modernly Revealed, Mormon Lectionary Project, Theology, Doctrine & Policy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,