There are 13 memorials similar to this one dedicated to Utah Highway Patrol Troopers killed in the line of duty. The Atheist Association Inc of New Jersey, sued to have the crosses removed because they claimed the crosses violated the separation of church and state. A federal court ruled for the Atheists. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal on the case, meaning that the crosses likely will need to be removed
Mormons Defending the Cross
Malay Revisited
KC Kern did a series of guest posts at Wheat and Tares called “Legend of the Lost Book of Gold”. I thought he did a fantastic job discussing the theory. In part 1, he discussed a story of Christian missionaries taught a group called the Karens that already worshiped a god called Y’wa. Part 2 discusses the actual theory in more depth. Part 3 discusses common objections to the theory, and Part 4 gives a conclusion to the series. If you haven’t read the series, please check it out.
Pre-Halloween Mormon Massacre
How do you write a Mormon-themed Halloween post? Â Thanks to SamBee at StayLDS, I was reminded that Oct 27 marks the 173rd “anniversary” of the Extermination Order. Â Even more gruesome is the fact that today, Oct 30, is the 173rd anniversary of the Haun’s Mill Massacre–a true horror-story fit for any Halloween tale.
Woodruff's Vision of the Founding Fathers
Stephen Taysom put together a collection of essays in a new book titled Dimensions of Faith: A Mormon Studies Reader. Topics include biographies, theory, experience, memory, and media/literature with authors such as Newell Bringhurst, Larry Foster, and Jonathan Stapley (to name a few.)
Many of us are familiar with Wilford Woodruff’s vision of the Founding Fathers in the St. George Temple. Brian Stuy gives some interesting background on this story. Just after the temple was dedicated in 1877, apostle and temple president Wilford Woodruff had a dream on two successive nights. The signers of the Declaration of Independence said to Woodruff, Continue Reading »
Heretics, Jesus, and Jarrod's Problem
Life has been unusually busy of late. Sorry I haven’t posted very often–I’ll try to get back on track. A lot of my posts take some time to research, but Jarrod gave me a softball. Rather than leave his comments on my “About page, I thought I could churn out a quick post (requiring no research). It’s obvious that Jarrod wanted to debate some of the same ole, same ole. Jarrod doesn’t raise any new issues–these have been debated ad nauseum before, but since he just happened along my blog, I thought we could discuss them again here, especially since the issue got raised this week in the Mitt Romney campaign. On my About page, I wrote:
Ten Years after 9/11
Tom Brokaw during a rehearsal, courtesy http://newsroom.lds.org/article/mormon-tabernacle-choir-tom-brokaw-remember-9-11
The past few days have brought a series of news stories remembering the terrible tragedy that happened 10 years ago. I was curious to see if there would be any differences in our church services. On the one hand, Music and the Spoken Word invited NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw to narrate a special tribute to the tragedy called Rising Above. I watched the re-run of it Sunday night (since my church meetings were scheduled at the same time.) I also note that President Monson wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post sharing thoughts about the tragedy.
Book of Mormon Maps
It’s been quite some time since I blogged about Book of Mormon geography theories. KC Kern runs a website called Book of Mormon Online, and has recently updated his website with satellite images with Google maps of some of the theories. (Click here.) I always post stuff on my blog first, but there have been quite some heated comments with some imaginative maps at Mormon Matters (where I used to blog), such as the Malay Theory, the Baja Theory, Peru, and the Great Lakes Theory. KC has added the Sri Lanka Theory, as well as Rodney Meldrum’s Heartland Theory and the more conventional Central American Theory. I’m also impressed that he has Lehi’s route in the Arabian Peninsula (which seems to have more credibility than some of the other theories.) The maps are pretty cool. What do you think?
Ancient Proof-Texting
Back in 2008, Jeff Spector introduced me to the concept of proof-texting.  I think we’re all familiar with the idea of taking a scripture out of context to support a certain religious belief.  However, I didn’t realize that this practice goes back thousands of years.  Charles Harrell and Greg Kofford Books has recently published a new book This is My Doctrine: the Development of Mormon Theology.  They noted that New Testament writers were guilty of proof-texting as well.
On page 8, Harrell describes what a proof-text is.
Bloom calls Smith "most eminent intellectual in Mormon history"
In 1969 Leonard Arrington asked 50 prominent Mormons to identify the “five most eminent intellectuals in Mormon history.” The list was published in Dialogue. Twenty-four years later, Dialogue decided to run the survey again. It was re-published a few month ago in the Deseret News, and it has been a favorite bloggernacle topic for the past few months. BH Roberts was #1 in both surveys. In the 1969 survey, Joseph Smith was #3, but fell to #5 in 1993.
Concerning these surveys, Yale University Professor Harold Bloom said, Continue Reading »
Mormon Heretic 