Results of Ruminations

Thanks to the omnipresent (and omniangry) influence of the Twitter.com, I learned about the Nashville Statement . Rather than spend time summing it up for you, I'll let you follow the link and make your own decisions about it. For me and my part, I've already sounded off on this topic (broadly speaking), so I've not a lot too change here. I have thought a lot about the issues of LGBTQ+ rights, as I see them as a crucial point in the life of my church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) as well as the nation. The idea of allowing legal discrimination is puzzling to me, and though there might be some compelling arguments for areas of discrimination (say, disallowing a person with rage issues to work at a child care facility), the concept of sexual orientation isn't one that really computes for me. I simply can't see why it matters so much to people who don't participate in an LGBTQ+ lifestyle what those within the lifestyle do. From a doctrinal ...

I finished listening to Reza Aslan read his book Zealot . If you aren't aware of who Reza Aslan is, he is the host of Bel iever   in which he explores some of the different religions of the world. (Because I don't have a cable package, I haven't seen any of the show. He is a bit of a polemicist, to put it mildly, so some of what he does stirs people up. So, be warned*.) The book has long been on my radar. Reza Aslan is a Muslim who has dabbled in Christianity and eventually dedicated his life to studying different religions. He is a believer in God--a practicing Muslim as he is, that should come as no surprise--but his own personal experiences with Christianity came about as a youth. After some time, he lost faith in Jesus the Christ, but never stopped wanting to know more about Jesus of Nazareth. Zealot  is a culmination of his study of the life of the latter. Lots of people have spoken about Aslan's work, and since it's widely available, I don't want to tu...

Back in the Coraline age of England, John Milton got tied up in a couple of different pamphlet wars. One was a collection of polemics now called the divorce tracts , which documented Milton's approach toward the then-thorny theological question of whether or not divorce was biblically permissible. Living more than a century and a half after Henry VIII and his notorious marriages, Milton--whose first marriage, in particular, was unhappy and unfulfilling--found himself in a surprising place for a Puritan: Arguing against a fairly clear biblical prohibition. Milton's brilliant mind and writing style are in play, and his tracts are relied upon in Milton studies, particularly in light of the ways in which his conceits in the tracts become dramatized in Paradise Lost . I invoke the specter of the 17th century pamphlet war--not casting myself in any camp or in the shadow of any writer--in the distinctly 21st century manner: Writing an essay in response to another essay with which I ...

I recently finished my (whateverth) reading of the Book of Mormon. Having been born into the Church--and having served an LDS mission--I've spent a great deal of time in that book. It's not the book that I've read the most (that probably goes to Hamlet ), but it's up there. I read it every year and a half, or so, give or take. I sometimes diverge into other levels of scripture, but I cycle around to it regularly. Members of the Church--rightly, I think--insist that the eschatological stakes of the entire Church hinge upon the Book of Mormon, but I'm not exploring the ideas of the afterlife here. Instead, I want to share a story that a coworker shared with me. Like many who teach at my school, she had had a conversation with teenagers that changed the way she thought about things. This is something that requires a certain amount of humility, not just as an adult, but as a teacher, too: The acknowledgment that there is a different way of viewing the world that you...

I don't believe in creationism. I certainly understand the arguments about it, but it puts observational fact at odds of hermeneutics, and that's something that has been demonstrated as problematic, historically, for as long as Christianity has been around. To lay aside what we can apprehend with our minds strikes me as folly, not faithful. I have two beefs with creationism that I want to outline here, realizing that many people who read this likely will be bothered that my thoughts don't parallel their own. Such is life. Anyway, here are the two points I want to stick explore: The question of literal interpretations; and the nature of the God who exists within creationism. Literally the Truth It's probably no surprise that, considering the abuse it's suffered during the 21st century, I am leery about people using the word literally . Far too frequently, it's misused as a superlative instead of an adjective, which grinds this grammarian's gears. Howeve...

I've been "studying" the Bible a lot lately, but that probably means something different to most people than what it really was. That's why I put it in quotation marks. My study isn't of the Bible, but about  the Bible. It's also "studying" because I'm listening to audiobooks, which means I'm usually doing other things (driving, mowing the lawn, playing videogames) while I'm listening. As a result, I'm not fully focused on the books while I'm going through them. The two books are The Bible Doesn't Say That  and Whose Bible Is It?   While the first one is about mistranslations, mistakes, and flawed interpretations, the second one is more of a history, looking closely at what's known about the creation of the Tanakh, all the way up to the modern usages of the Bible. Both of the books cover similar ground, and both have been really enlightening. As a Mormon, my relationship with the Bible is less comfortable than other so...