Exponent II's Blog, page 266

Book Review: Whom Say Ye That I Am?

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Whom Say Ye that I Am? Lessons form the Jesus of Nazareth
By James McConkie and Judith McConkie
Published by Greg Kofford Books

There are a lot of books out there about Jesus.  Why might you be interested in this one? I’ll tell you briefly.

This book puts Jesus’ teachings in context of the Jewish and Roman religion, politics, and culture of his time.  That’s certainly been done before.  But what I think is particularly valuable about this book for an LDS audience is its sources.  Unlike a lot of LDS literature that takes its Latter-day scripture and church authorities as primary sources, this book quotes very few LDS sources.  Instead, it’s a meta-analysis of contemporary scholarship on Jesus, using almost a dozen different Bible translations, the apocrypha, and many well-respected writers and scholars, some I’d read or heard from (John Dominic Crosson, James Martin, Harold Kushner, Eugene Peterson), and many I had not. The McConkies draw on scholarship that is often underutilized in LDS writing to bring a fresh perspective on many aspects of Jesus’ life and teaching.

The book is organized in three sections: I, Jesus and Individuals, II, Jesus and Institutions, III, Concluding Thoughts. Section I includes chapters on women, marriage, the poor, the wealthy, the sick, the lost, the outcast, the enemy.  It presents these topics in ways that will probably kindle some discomfort in many readers, for example the existence of female apostles and Jesus’ expansive idea of family, which doesn’t sit easily beside the contemporary LDS preoccupation with the nuclear family.  However the book stops short of explicit critique of anything, and gives no suggestions for change.  There is very little interpretation or exegesis by the authors, which is either a strength or a weakness, depending on what you hope to get out of the book.

There are a great many interesting facts presented that add depth and meaning to the stories of Jesus. For instance the woman with the lost coin in Luke 15 may have been looking for a special coin, a drachma, which was given to a Jewish girl and worn as an ornament after her marriage, giving the coin as much or more sentimental value as economic value.  I especially appreciated the explanation of shepherds in Jesus’ time.  They were unclean because “as a practical matter they could not observe long hours of prayer or follow the rituals of hand washings before eating or the purity law for handling blood of injured animals. They were by definition unclean. Their lives spent in fields tending sheep made such religious demands impossible.” To me, this awareness adds another layer of meaning to the fact that Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd (John 10:11). The explanations of the extreme differences in power and privilege between the upper and lower strata of Roman and Jewish society were also striking.

I found myself less interested in the section on Institutions than the section on Individuals, which surprised me because I’m very interested in critiques of institutions in my own life.  And the final two chapters, a discussion of discipleship using salt as a metaphor for full commitment, and a speculative essay by a relative of the McConkies titled “In Search of the Personality of Jesus” felt like an unsatisfying end to me.  I wanted more synthesis and analysis of the book as a whole for a conclusion.  However, I learned a lot from reading this book.  I feel I know Jesus better after having read it, and if I’m still teaching Gospel Doctrine in my ward when we study the New Testament next year, I will definitely use it as a resource.

Rocks, Light, and the Calling of a Prophet

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“Twenty-one Pebbles” courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of my favorite stories from the Book of Mormon is when the brother of Jared asks God for light in the ships that the Jaredites use to cross the ocean. The brother of Jared is a righteous man and has been obedient, but his request for light (a need directly created by the style of boat that God directed to be made) is turned back on him. God basically responds, “Yeah, you’ve got a real problem there. What do you think you should do?” Instead of just giving an answer, God lets the brother of Jared work it out and gives divine blessing to the solution the brother of Jared finds.

I’ve been thinking about this story over the past couple of weeks as I’ve pondered the calling of a new prophet. The Mormon process seems to be both magical and bureaucratic: God chooses the new prophet, but it also happens to always be the man who has been an apostle the longest. Claiming both of things creates some theologically difficult questions: Does God kill off people to get his chosen man in place? When did something so mystical become so procedural? Is bureaucracy God’s real method of moving through our world?

I’ve been diving in deep with these questions, trying to see the divine that lies underneath the traditional answer. What emerges? My answer, for now, is that I think God doesn’t really care who becomes prophet, as long as it’s someone who is earnestly trying to serve. Our own Bible Dictionary tells us that “a prophet is anyone who has a testimony of Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost,” a remarkably democratic definition of a spiritual leader. The story of the brother of Jared teaches us that sometimes God lets us work out our own answer and then simply accepts whatever we come up with. I suspect that as humans struggled to find an answer for how to choose a new prophet, they came up with a bureaucratic system that is simple and clear in a moment when the people need simpleness and clarity and God said, “Okay, that works for me if it works for you.” I think it could have been different. There could have been another right answer. We could have ended up with someone else.

This doesn’t mean, by any means, that it’s not divine. In fact, for me, it makes me more grateful than ever for a God who bestows grace on broken, flawed humans. Because the idea that God would accept our offering of a prophet, would be willing to receive a human answer to a question and give divine blessing on it, that idea is powerful. That’s where I see an expansive, loving, intelligent being emerge from our human structures. God touches that bit of bureaucracy and makes it give light, allowing us comfort and help as we make our voyage.

We see through the glass darkly. In our search for God, we create rules and policies and procedures. Sometimes, as we fumble around, God smiles upon us and accepts our offering. When that happens, we assume that it came directly from God and that the system or policy is in itself divine. With just a few omissions to the story, the brother of Jared’s rocks could look very different: without the knowledge that God sends the brother of Jared away the first time to figure out the answer himself, the use of rocks could look like God just clearly and directly choosing The One Single Right Way to Light the Ships. I love that we know differently. We know that the miracle isn’t that God spelled out exactly how to do it, but that God takes Jared’s simple rocks and makes them holy. It’s an act of love to so graciously accept a flawed gift. And sometimes, in that moment of God turning stones into light, we see the finger of the divine.

Prayers We Have Loved

A couple months ago, Judy, a longtime friend of Exponent II, sent me an email about a prayer she had heard in a yoga class that she loved. I thought this was a terrific idea for a compilation post — prayers that members of Exponent II have heard and loved over the years. What prayers have you loved? Please feel to share in the comments.

Judy:

I have been a subscriber to Exponent II since it began. I lived in Boston at the time and was in the ward with all the ladies that started it. I became a feminist at that time and have been one since and shared it with others in all my church callings over the years. In the mid 80s I took a yoga and meditation class with a guy who was an active Protestant Christian, and he always had us start with this prayer that so impressed me that I memorized it and have used it ever since. Here is the prayer:

Father, Mother, Brother, Friend, I come before Thee that my spirit might commune with Thee. Help me to know that I am Thy Loving child and remember always that Thou and I are one. Aom, Peace, Amen.

Melody:

I wrote this as a poem and ended up using it as an actual prayer. It’s become my favorite prayer.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

Dear God — Mother, Father, Son,

May this prayer of love and gratitude fly swiftly to your ears.

May my every want be transformed into celebration of the thing wanted

even if I do not obtain that thing. May I feel abundance in the smallest gifts

of this earth — food, shelter, sunlight, companionship. May I see Your Image

in every human face and so offer thanks for your presence in the world.

Thank you for transforming water into wine and hearts of stone into flesh.

Thank you for making me a women whose fleshy heart broke willingly three

times with the birth of my children. Thank you for daily calling us toward you.

Help us listen better and follow better. Thank you, God, for this “one wild and

precious life.” And for the poetry of each new day.

Em:

My dad (nonmember) always prayed the same thing over dinner:

Bless O Lord this food to our use

And us to thy self and service

Amen

I misheard it routinely through childhood (what is a food tooaroo? Snethtothy self and service?) but as an adult I like it. LDS people regularly pray for our food, but our food prayers don’t consecrate us to God and to service. I like the idea of doing that at meals.

Caroline:

I found this prayer by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel profoundly moving.

I no longer ask You for either happiness or paradise; all I ask of You is to listen and let me be aware and worthy of Your listening. I no longer ask You to resolve my questions, only to receive them and make them part of You. I no longer ask You for either rest or wisdom, I only ask You not to close me to gratitude, be it of the most trivial kind, or to surprise and friendship. Love? Love is not Yours to give.

As for my enemies, I do not ask You to punish them or even to enlighten them; I only ask You not to lend them Your mask and Your powers. If You must relinquish one or the other, give them Your powers, but not Your countenance.

They are modest, my prayers, and humble. I ask You what I might ask a stranger met by chance at twilight in a barren land. I ask You, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to enable me to pronounce these words without betraying the child that transmitted them to me. God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, enable me to forgive You and enable the child I once was to forgive me too. I no longer ask You for the life of that child, nor even for his faith. I only implore You to listen to him and act in such a way that You and I can listen to him together.

 

Nancy Ross:

This is a blessing I wrote for my pastor’s ordination to elder. I’ve adapted it here.

Prayer for Those in the Desert

Long ago,

Church mothers and fathers

Were called to the desert.

They clashed with demons

Wandered the wilderness

Found themselves and their God

Within this sacred and uneasy place.We have been called to the desert,

A religious frontier,

With the demons (and the Mormons)

To wrestle with faith,

Accept our lack of belief

And grow a community

In the borderlands.We have come into

Each other’s lives

At a strange time of tumult,

Fear, and transformation.

Together we collaborate on

The old work of

Loving our neighbors

In this place remembered for its

Violence

Separation

Slavery

Unworking the harm wrought

In this wild and scorching place.

May we never fear

The heat of the desert.

Amen.

Jess R:

I love the Anglican prayer book (found here: https://www.bcponline.org/)

This is one of my favorites:

Let us pray.

Almighty God, we give you thanks for surrounding us, as

daylight fades, with the brightness of the vesper light; and we

implore you of your great mercy that, as you enfold us with

the radiance of this light, so you would shine into our hearts

the brightness of your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Amen.

Grant us, Lord, the lamp of charity which never fails, that it

may burn in us and shed its light on those around us, and

that by its brightness we may have a vision of that holy City,

where dwells the true and never-failing Light, Jesus Christ

our Lord. Amen.

O Lord God Almighty, as you have taught us to call the

evening, the morning, and the noonday one day; and have

made the sun to know its going down: Dispel the darkness of

our hearts, that by your brightness we may know you to be

the true God and eternal light, living and reigning for ever

and ever. Amen.

Ellen:

This is the prayer we end with in my kundalini yoga class:

May the Long Time Sun

Shine upon you

All love surround you

And the pure light

Within you

Guide your way on

Guide your way on

We do it 3 times, once for yourself, once for your loved ones and pets, and once to the world. Its a wonderful and peaceful way to end the class.

Dora:

I love the idea of the greeting “Namaste.” Before going to Nepal, I’d only ever encountered the word at the end of yoga classes. In Nepal, it’s used as a rote, quotidian greeting. But I love the idea behind it. “The divine in me greets the divine in you.” A reminder that we are more than our mortal clothes of clay.

Spunky: 

I love prayers of thanksgiving — this one is from the Auckland Museum.

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Mercia Second Ward: Part Deux

This is the second part in our ongoing series about a recently discovered  set of documents that illuminate for us what life was like in a Medieval ward.  Though many plain and precious truths were lost during the time of the Great Apostasy, faithful saints worked hard to live the Gospel according to the light and knowledge that they had.

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The announcement said “bring your children to the Ward assignment at the Stake Welfare Garden. It is important that ward members of all ages engage in service.”  This went about as well as one might expect.

[image error] Recently church leaders announced that, in addition to serving the ward in visible ways through blessing and passing the sacrament, serving as ushers and serving as home teachers, teenage boys would now also carry out sacred ordinances in the Temple.  “By recognizing their maturity and unique potential for leadership, we honor these Sons of God for their dignity, reverence and spirituality” said President Odo of the Wessex Temple District.  Sister Odo tried to comment but could not be heard over the sound of slapping towels against rocks by a rushing stream.

 

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Burthred invited his Home Teachee Hildegarde to share his hymnal.  She was on the point of accepting when she noticed the beady eyes of the bishopric and their wives fixed eagerly upon them.  Another match in the making?! Knowing that sharing a hymnal could easily be mistaken for consent to the laying on of hands and the gift of tongues, she refused and hastened out the door.

 

[image error]President Aelf decided the Sisters would welcome a guest lecture in Relief Society about the Family Proclamation.  He opened the floor to questions and was surprised to learn that some sisters felt it was impossible to be equal partners if one partner presided over the other.  He chuckled warmly and began to explain how really the two terms were not only compatible but really it made perfect sense if you only took the time to study and understand that the true meaning of patriarchy isn’t the world’s definition of patriarchy.  Twenty minutes later he found himself thoroughly contorted from his attempts to resolve incompatible assertions.

[image error]Having a 17 month old child could make church a thankless chore, but it had a few advantages.  The minute President Aelf began his lesson with the question “How has the Family Proclamation blessed your life,”  Sister Godgifu realized that little Alfred had to be taken out of class immediately.  Did he need his diaper changed? Or a snack? Was he fussy? Did he need to nap? Doesn’t matter.  Her duty as a Mother in Zion was clear, and she was not one to shirk it.

“Irrespective of Cause”: a Story about Jon Huntsman, Sr. and HPV Vaccine

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Jon Huntsman Sr. and Karen Huntsman (Image courtesy of the Chronicle of Philanthropy)

Former LDS Area Seventy Jon Huntsman Sr., founder of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, passed away today. In his honor, I would like to share this bit of breakroom gossip from about a decade ago, when I was an employee at the Utah Department of Health.

The Food and Drug Administration had only recently approved the first vaccine protecting against Human Papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually-transmitted infection that is the leading cause of cervical cancer. Now that an effective vaccine was available, state lawmaker Karen Morgan sponsored a bill to fund vaccination of women and girls, with fervent support of local health advocates.  The bill required a one million dollar appropriation, but in the end, the state legislature only appropriated $25,000, with a big caveat—none of the funds could be spent on vaccines. Instead, lawmakers wanted to direct the funds toward educating women about “abstinence before and fidelity after marriage being the surest prevention of sexually transmitted diseases including the human papillomavirus.”

About a month after the legislative session ended, I was eating lunch in the Health Department’s cafeteria when a coworker came running in, absolutely beaming.

“You will not believe what just happened,” she exclaimed.  She had just finished a meeting about the new appropriation. Several stakeholders were there, including lawmakers and Jon Huntsman, Sr., representing the Huntsman Cancer Institute. As she described it, some of the people in attendance kept raising questions along the lines of, if you vaccinated girls against sexually transmitted diseases, what would stop them from having sex? Some even suggested that cervical cancer was an appropriate punishment for promiscuity.

Seemingly on impulse, Huntsman pulled out his weapon—a checkbook—and slammed it on the table. Moments later, he passed a check with lots of zeroes on it to my friend and said, “This is for vaccine.”

The next day, the Utah Department of Health announced that Jon and Karen Huntsman had donated $1 million to the Department for cervical cancer prevention, including HPV vaccination, thus paying out of their own pockets the full sum that had originally been requested of the Utah Legislature.

They also released a statement from Jon Huntsman Sr., in which he declared that “My quest in life and my pledge in death … is to assist in the eradication of cancer in all its ugly mannerisms, irrespective of cause.” 

 

Pioneer Phil makes his 2018 Cumom Day Prediction

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Photo by Aquistbe. Used under the CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license. No changes made.

HILL CUMORAH, Manchester, Ny – Mormonism’s most famous Cumom has made his prediction.

On Friday morning, as crowds gathered around, Pioneer Phil saw his shadow and predicted six more millennia of patriarchy.

Legend has it if a furry/scaly/feathery animal casts a shadow on Cumom Day, Feb. 2, expect six more millennia of patriarchy. If not, expect the Second Coming.

In reality, Phil’s prediction is decided ahead of time by the suits in the Church Office Building on Temple Square, a tall and spacious building in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Records dating to 1830 show Phil predicting more patriarchy 140 times while forecasting an early Millennium just 31 times. No records exist for the remaining years.

 

H/T to KCRA News

Exponent blogger Liz Layton Johnson interviewed by Salt Lake Tribune’s Mormon Land podcast

[image error]Liz talks about her popular (and sometimes controversial) ideas to improve the church inspired by Martin Luther’s 95 Theses.  Listen here: ‘Mormon Land’: 95 ways to improve the Mormon church — from new hymns to padded pews and letting girls pass the sacrament

Read the original post here:

My Ninety-Five Theses for Today’s Mormon Church

 

The Exponent’s Religious Feminist Podcast featured on NBC News

[image error]The article quotes Exponent blogger and podcast host April Young Bennett and podcast guest Carol Lynn Pearson. Read it here:

Noted heart surgeon Russell Nelson unlikely to transform Mormon church as new president

Find the original podcast episode here:

Advocates for women react to the transition to a new Mormon prophet

The Rise of 2nd Wave Feminism and the Religious Right in the 70s with Marjorie Spruill

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Marjorie J. Spruill

In this episode of the Religious Feminism interview series, Marjorie Spruill, author of Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics tells us about two American women’s movements in the 1970s that shaped American politics today: 2nd wave feminism and the rise of the religious right, the part that Mormons, Catholics, Evangelical Christians and other religious groups played in the clash, and how this moment in history explains much of the polarization of American politics today.  You can find episode notes for the Religious Feminism Podcast here at the Exponent website: http://www.the-exponent.com/tag/religious-feminism-podcast/

Links to Connect and Learn More:

 

Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics

Divided We Stand Facebook Page

New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States

One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Women’s Suffrage Movement

Additional Resources Discussed in the Podcast:

Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and Equal Rights by Martha Sonntag Bradley

 

Mormon Feminism in 1977 and Today by April Young Bennett

We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics by Neil J. Young

 

 

Listen and subscribe below:

LDS Church statement on DACA calls for ‘hope and opportunity’

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/9...