A Quick Note: The Perils of Going to Lecture

The below is the first in a series of posts that resulted from a friend and me who had more amusing things to do than listen to lectures an an Unnamed Class. A note for the humor impaired--most of this is sarcastic and intentionally ridiculous. We wouldn't actually write any of these (well, most of them...).

Titles Rejected by the Honors Thesis Committee:

New Light on the Book of Revelation: The First Six Hundred Sixty-Six Days of the Clinton Presidency.

Culture of Shame: Back-Alley Abortions at BYU

“Not Just a Token”: Recollections From BYU’s Second African-American Student

Condoms or the Pill? A Quantitative Survey of Birth Control Choices at Wymount Terrace

Historical Mormons Revisited: Eliza R. Snow as a Postmodern Radical Feminazi

In Defense of Censorship: The Irrelevance of Academic Freedom

New Light on the Manifesto: Genetic Health, Rural Utah, and Inbreeding Trends

Quantifying Righteousness: A 116-Variable Model

Judging Righteous Judgment: Ten Reasons Emma Smith is Going to Hell

The Modern Mormon Romance Novel: Artless Drivel, or Soft-Core Porn?

“Give Said the Little Stream”: Wasting Water and Drought Among Utah Mormons

“Come Thou Fount” and Apostasy: The Hymnbook Committee’s Quantifiable Effect on Church Membership

Safety in Numbers: Why We Care More About Third-World Baptism Rates Than Converting Our Neighbors

Testimony Meeting as a Dying Art: Some Recent Trends

Female Sons of Perdition? Why Hillary Clinton is Not the AntiChrist

Market Failures, Monopolies, and Rent-Seeking: The BYU Bookstore as a Case Study

BYU Liberals: Tragically Misguided, or Actively Evil?

Profiles in Incompetence: The History of the Daily Universe

Mormon Eugenics? The BYU Honors Housing Program

The Book of Mormon Code Revisited: Shocking Insights From the Original Manuscript

National Election Observations II: Thanks, Edwards!

Traditional CW: VP candidates are supposed to balance the ticket, pulling either ideological factions or electoral votes into the nominee's column.

Edwards: Generates media excitement for about three days. Brings no southern states to Kerry. Brings no appreciable benefit to Kerry period. Would not have been reelected Senator from North Carolina. Desperately wanted to be VP nominee. Is widely talked about as a potential candidate in 2008.

Is this failing to make sense to anyone else? Kerry shouldn't have given him the time of day after defeating him. If Dems nominate him in 2008, one will have to question their sanity. "Edwards! He Doesn't Get Results!" One has to wonder what would have happened if Kerry had picked a moderate midwestern popular Democrat--say, one who could have pulled Ohio into his column.

We Get Results

The DesNews got defensive last Saturday!

Our decision toward the end of the campaign to reverse ourselves and urge
the defeat of Initiative 1 most certainly left some people with the impression
we felt otherwise. We have been accused of flip-flopping, an odd, meaningless
term that lately has turned thoughtful reconsideration into a pejorative — as if
stubborn and rigid dogmatism was a virtue.

Thoughtful reconsideration is okay, I suppose. But when your excuse for changing your mind is "Well, we hadn't actually read the thing we were endorsing," it looks pretty pathetic no matter how you try to justify it.

And is the Desnews really trying to say that flip-flopping is a meaningless term? ~71% of Utahns may disagree.

National Election Observations I: Thanks, Iowa!

One of the best ironies of this election requires us to cast our minds clear back to what was supposed to be an interesting primary season. Remember the drama of the Iowa caucuses (before the Dean Scream)? It was the last real drama, as Kerry sailed through almost every state based on his Iowa Momentum (and Edwards' reluctance to attack). And why did Iowa Democrats select Kerry for frontrunner status? Supposedly, according to accounts at the time, it was all about electability. Kerry was boring, but electable, said the CW about what IA Dems were thinking.

Turns out IA Dems didn't even know their own state. Iowa went for Bush, one of 3 states to flip from 2000. Can we reform the nominating process yet?

Amusing

First in what will hopefully be a series of election-related posts:

Sometime before election morning, someone had scrawled a series of 'vote for Nader' messages on the sidewalks leading to campus. You have to admire their dedication...

The Desnews is a Flip-Flopper!

The Desnews opposes Initiative One, despite an earlier endorsement.

I might post more on I1 later, but my main observation about this election season lately has been that, at the end of the day, blogging about something you spend all your time studying isn't nearly as exciting as blogging on something else, and lack of free time means the end of the day usually comes too late for blogging anyway. Sigh. Seven more days.

Yesterday's Random BYU-Related Observation

If you walk over the Mysterious Heat-Emitting Vent outside the SWKT, while holding an umbrella, interesting effects occur.

Today's Random Intersection of LDS Culture and Utah Politics

Hugh Nibley's lawn is currently sporting a Matheson for governor sign.

Developments Pending

Alas, I've been hideously busy with various academic, personal, and medical crises, and have thus slacked on blogging lately. However, faithful readers who haven't given up yet (and hapless Google searchers who usually aren't going to find what they're looking for), don't panic. We're going to experiment by adding a guest blogger or two to shake things up a bit (and spread the non-posting guilt around a bit).

If I can get myself out from under a mountain of work, I may even dust off my List of Things to Blog About one of these days and write some substantive posts myself. In the meantime, stay tuned for further developments.

Unity and Division

The ideas in the this post have been processing for awhile, and still may not have reached a coherent conclusion, but what the heck...

So a couple of weeks ago I was having a long discussion with a roommate about various stuff, which touched on:

*A tension in the Church between adapting to the needs of the individual and maintaining unity in the Church as a whole. For instance, the home teaching message is supposed to be individually adapted to the needs of the person being home taught, yet it is also the same message churchwide. Go too far in adapting to the individual and the unity falls apart; if I ignore the HT message on divorce as irrelevant to single students and substitute something completely different, it's easy to fall into trap of never talking about what the 1P wants us to talk about. On the other hand, if I rigidly teach the divorce message without taking into account the needs of the home teachee (who might be distressed about marriage, or concerned with his own parents' divorce, or something), it would be easy to offend someone, or just alienate him by never teaching a message that addresses any of his concerns.

*The question of what the Church could do to more fully use the internet. One idea discussed was the fact that the internet allows virtual communities to form in ways not limited by geography. The standard ward unit of geographical focus unites people along one common element--where they live. This makes some things easier (almost anything having to do with face-to-face interaction) and some things harder (many special needs can't be met by many wards). The net could allow the formation of communities along other common elements. It already does in many ways--singles looking for eternal mates, apologists looking for the latest FARMS stuff, bloggernaclers doing what we do, etc. However, none of this (except some family history stuff) really takes place under the official direction of the Church. These virtual communities allow needs to be met that weren't being met at the ward level--but the danger is that the virtual community--with its unofficial status--might start to compete with and damage the official ward community.

CS Lewis points out that an effective tactic Satan uses to keep us from living our religion is to get us to make it "Christianity and" or to form into schisms within the Church. Eugene England points out the importance of the geographic ward in forcing us to interact with, serve, and be served by those who are very different from us. Davis Bell points to what he sees as a troubling tendency of some of us in the Bloggernacle to start condescending to non-internet junkies.

This is a hard problem. I think that real benefits can come from 'subgroups' within the Church. Subgroups can help us connect with people who understand our special problems, can give us access to information not available through other means, can allow us to pursue talents in settings in which they will be appreciated, etc. Subgroups also can compete with the main group, can fall into error, and can magnify their own importance out of proportion. A big reason, in my understanding, behind the centralization and correlation movement in the mid-20th century was that the official structure of the Church had become so complicated that different auxiliaries and organizations were competing with each other, and the Church couldn't act efficiently as a whole. On the other hand, the Church has experimented with subgroups with varying degrees of official or tacit approval (the Genesis group comes to mind, and even special units such as student, singles, or language wards are in effect subgroups outside the normal pattern).

About the only idea I can come up with to keep things under control is to be careful of excessive polarization. Restated, we should try to keep our subgroup affiliations limited to positive identifications, not negative. In other words, define our interests by what we are interested in, not by what others are not. I may be interested in textual criticism of the BOM, but that doesn't imply that others have to be as well. Plenty of people with be exalted without caring that the 'feeling' in 1N8 should be 'pressing.' My interest is not bad as long as it does not turn into criticism of others' lack of interest.

The worry I have with dichotomies such as liberal v. conservative or Utah Mormon vs. Better-Than-A-Utah Mormon (or whatever the opposite is) is that they quickly seem to degenerate into us-vs-them. Instead of 'how refreshing that someone approaches some of my concerns the same way' it seems to turn into 'look what those awful [Not Us]ers are doing now,' or 'why everyone should be a [Us].' The stereotype created by the dichotomy does have limited utility, but often such utility is drowned out by the damage done by the misapplication of the stereotype.

On many key points, essential right answers exist, and on these points we must be united. On other key points, right answers probably exist, but we lack data on how we should be united. On still other points, right answers probably don't exist, and we can celebrate our differences. Only in the first category do serious differences really rise to anything more serious than 'interesting,' and only those in authority are called to do anything about those differences.

As we sort through the other categories, finding the answers (to the ambiguous issues) that work for us and celebrating the way communities can meet our needs, I think we must be careful not to elevate the less essential over the more essential.

Utah AG Candidates Oppose SSM Amendment

Desnews. SLTrib.

Interesting issues raised. Given the MO 70-30 margin of victory, passage in Utah looks certain (85+ margins wouldn't be out of the question), except for the possible overreaching in the second part.

My sense at the moment, though I don't have the legal training of the candidates for AG, is that the amendment would certainly bar the Legislature from enacting full-scale civil unions, but not necessarily bar the Legislature from doing anything to make it easier to grant "hospital visitation, emergency medical decision-making and inheritance" rights. As long as a bundle of rights is associated with marriage, making some rights that were formerly part of that bundle explicitly no longer conditional on marriage should be legal. Of course, the Legislature would have to actually do it.

My sense of the candidates' position is that the amendment would cause a lot of chaos (dissolving common-law marriages, etc). My sense is that it likely would, unless the Legislature acts to mitigate such chaos. One's views of the desirability of the amendment, then, would seem to hinge on whether such chaos is necessarily bad enough to scuttle the desirability of the amendment, and the likelihood of the Legislature averting it if so.

MO SSM Amendment Passes

Around 70-30.

The Monopoly of the Daily Universe Erodes...

...as blogs compete to be equally ignored sources of BYU gossip. Nate Cardon has set up a BYU blog ring. Though 'ring' is perhaps too strong a term for only having two members so far. If someone else joins, we could at least get up to 'triangle.'

Age and Spiritual Dynamism

Grasshopper has an interesting post on the meaning of death. In his comments, I note that Mormon often seems to take the view that death is a valuable reminder to us to be prepared to face final judgment at any time. But is this how we approach death today?

After all, society has a fairly low death rate. At least in the 'BYU student' demographic, deaths are rare enough that each one is news, though actually knowing the person is so rare that it isn't personal news. If death is supposed to be a reminder, it doesn't seem to happen often enough to be as effective as for the Nephites (who had low technology and constant war to contend with). [Of course, the logical solution, raising the death rate, is frowned upon.]

It occurs to me to wonder if this has practical consequences for the way we view sin and repentance. I find that it's easy for me to think of some spiritually admirable figure (bishop, stake president, GA, etc), 'of course, he's had decades to work on becoming that spiritually strong.' The corollary is, when viewing my own faults, is to think 'well, hopefully I'll get that resolved by the time I'm President Hinckley's age.'

Is taking such a long view a problem. Does our tendency to emphasize conversion as a long process go too far (generally, I think it far healthier to emphasize process over dramatic moment)? Or are our days prolonged to give us this time?

Other possible corollaries to this line of thought: Is one disadvantage of having primarily older church leaders that it makes it harder for us to see models of dynamic conversion in younger examples? Does the fact that so many people died relatively young in earlier eras imply that our course is fairly set when we are fairly young?

This Just In...

"BYU football not in top 25"
--front page, Daily Universe, 2 August.

Favorites

In all the recent discussion in the Bloggernacle, some have been making statements about the advisability (or lack thereof) of having 'favorite' General Authorities.  This immediately reminded me of something Arthur Henry King said about the scriptures:

"I was once asked to give a short talk on my favorite parable.  My reply was that I didn't think I had one and I doubted if I ought to have one and even if I did have one, I shouldn't talk about it because the important thing is not to dwell on our favorite things in the scriptures--that is self-indulgence--but to try to get other things in the scriptures to be as favorite as the favorite things we already have.  It is important that we concentrate on those parts of the scriptures that we don't much like ... we must never run into the danger of interpreting to ourselves particular verses that happen to speak to us and ignoring other verses which don't speak to us yet perhaps have a message that we ought to have ... Be mistrustful of what you like most, and listen carefully to what you have an impulse to reject."  --Arm the Children, 152-153.

The point, I think, is not that some doctrines should not sing to our souls more so than others.  The point is that we can profitably learn from examining why we find some doctrines (or verses, or GA speakers) to be so appealing, and why some are less so.  If the reasons point to a fault in us, we can then work to change it, and if not, we can at least understand why our perceptions are different from those around us.

In the case of GAs, reasons for different impressions could range from topics emphasized to speaking style to personal experiences with the person and so on.  Some GAs impress me more than others because of biography, because of particular teachings that resonated with me at particular times, etc.  Some people have speaking styles that I don't care for as much, which makes it harder for me to get as much out of their messages.  In some cases, the fault is probably mine, and in other cases it may simply be one of the unavoidable consequences of the fact that individuals will see different things differently.

In any event, I don't think it's a major problem to have a 'favorite' GA.  The problem would come if one stopped trying to learn from all of the Brethren, or if one failed to think about why that favoritism existed, and if it implied anything about whether other more important problems might exist in one's personal approach to receiving counsel.

Space Colonization II

I've been meaning to respond to the comments on this post below for a while now.

*Near-earth colonies can probably be considered 'part of Earth' for all intents and purposes.  And it is true that present technology seems unlikely to lead to easy travel to other solar systems anytime soon (though sci-fi fans are reluctant to rule it out, of course).  However, this line of thought seems to imply two possibilities:  A)  offplanet colonization attempts will never be self-sufficient, in which case why bother (except for the technological and scientific advancement, of course), or B) we'll work out how to build self-sustaining environments off Earth, in which case there's no reason not to send out an intergenerational colonization ship (the idea is popular enough in sci-fi that it seems certain that someone would want to try as the technology became available).  This leads us back to having some number of people outside the range of action when the Second Coming occurs, which seems weird to me (though several easy solutions exist).

*I would hesitate to assume that colonizing space is a 'trigger' for the Second Coming.  However, if it is, this doesn't imply that we should seek it any more than it implies that we should shy away.  After all, war in the Middle East is a 'trigger,' but we don't encourage that.

*I would also hesitate to assume that colonizing space is outside the bounds the Lord has set for us--at least without Him making it considerably clearer.  On the whole, space colonization seems to me to be A) morally neutral without further guidance, B) from a secular perspective, an enormously good thing, and C) from a theological perspective, a probably futile endeavor.  But as many other works (seeking world peace, an end of poverty, etc) are also ultimately futile though immensely important given what prophecies we have, perhaps this argument isn't as meaningful as I first thought.

Civil Unions Yet Again

First a few points:

*'Civil unions' is a broad term that can mean many different things.  It serves as a catchall term for legal relationships that range from nonsexual with relatively few benefits to relationships explicitly intended to be 'marriage-in-all-but-name' for same-sex couples.  The very question 'what does X think about civil unions?' thus is probably not a good yes/no question, as many people or institutions may have more complex views.  In addition, as state legislatures (or state courts) begin to consider the issues, they may come to a variety of conclusions--in favor of 'marriage lite,' in favor of changing certain legal rights associated with marriage in certain ways, in favor or a broad restructuring of family law, etc.  Any such changes might lead to a 'civil unions' provision, but what such a union might mean might vary considerably from state to state.  The degree to which such a provision seems to encourage versus being neutral with respect to immorality and/or undermining marriage might also vary considerably.

*Simply because we expect to see an official Church condemnation of civil union laws (however defined) is not sufficient evidence to assume that such a condemnation has been made [a lack of condemnation does not equal an approval either, of course].  Projecting our own assumptions onto the words of the prophets is not a good thing (though it is, to a degree, inevitable).  An example is the reaction to President Hinckley's war talk of last year--it would have been amusing, if it hadn't been painful to watch, to see various people (including one BYU religion professor) twist the Prophet's plain words to support their own narrow ideologies (to various ends).  In any event, since I have seen no official statement condemning civil unions (despite seeing several statements on the related-but-not-legally-identical issue of preserving the definition of marriage), I am tentatively assuming that the Church has no express position on that political question (at this time).

*My tentative take on civil unions is that some proposed forms would be unwise, and some proposed forms might be good.  I am aware that other members disagree with me in both directions.  If someone is wrong in a way that needs to be corrected, CHQ is quite capable of doing so without my help.  In the meantime, I think it wise to remember that members can hold a wide variety of political opinions on various issues, and that our doctrines can lead different faithful members to different answers to difficult questions.  I tend to be in favor of an expansive view of what odd beliefs are permissible--not because I think that odd beliefs are always good (by definition, the beliefs are odd to me; my odd beliefs are perfectly reasonable), but because A) it's difficult enough for people to join the Church without our erecting all kinds of unnecessary political and cultural barriers, and B) the GAs are quite capable of deciding how to bring us all along on the difficult issues of our day.  As we need further direction, or as less important political issues become more important, CHQ is perfectly capable of issuing clearer directions, emphasizing specific doctrines, and even establishing additional requirements for worthiness.

Finally, a reader sends this account from a state on the East Coast, which I found interesting enough to pass on:

I was interested to learn, in an informal conversation with our stake president after a Saturday stake conference session, that he had been asked by the Brethren (most probably the Area Presidency) to organize a political coalition ... with the express purpose of maintaining the traditional definition of marriage.  (It was subsequently organized and is chaired by the stake president's wife, who is also a former state legislator...).  I asked him what he thought about civil unions and he said he had no objections to the idea (this was contextually taken as a personal opinion).  The overriding concern he seemed to be expressing (on whose behalf I am uncertain) was that if the definition of marriage is "legally" altered, then all the laws and public policies referring to marriage are effectively being rewritten without careful forethought.  Civil unions, on the other hand, are a new legal construction, and the laws governing what rights will be granted to such unions would (presumably) have to be defined explicitly through current legislation and/or litigation, rather than being defined implicitly by already-existing legislation and precedent which had only married couples in mind when it was created.

This may not be exactly what he meant, but that's how it seemed to me.  I subsequently had the thought that maintenance of the traditional definition also allows the church to continue to use the word, while a societal redefinition of "marriage" would force the church to invent a new word to mean the same thing marriage used to mean.

What has been interesting to me is the extent to which this coalition, though it is not visibly organized as a church program, is referred to in church meetings, in counsel from the stake president on what to teach our families regarding the marriage debate, and in literature printed and distributed by the stake.  While nobody has explicitly given a statement of the church's position on civil unions, the implicit message seems to be that maintaining the definition of marriage is the key issue at present.  We were counseled to call our senators and tell them what we thought about the FMA, but were not explicitly counseled to support it.

It seems to me that allowing civil unions would lead to the same social effects as redefining marriage, but on a slower timescale as things filter through the courts, and with the legal terminology making it explicitly clear that such an arrangement is not exactly equivalent to marriage.  In the long run, I am not sure what good this does except to delay the inevitable (and allow the church to continue to use the usual words to teach the doctrine).  Maybe a delay is the best we can get?

Succession in the Twelve

It's been nearly 10 years since there's been a change in the Quorum of the Twelve.  In other words, the Quorum has been largely the same for my entire life, or at least the entire time in which I was conscious of such changes.  Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Bloggernacle people are asking questions and spreading rumors about the succession process.  I therefore figure that taking a closer look at the issue might help.

The Deseret News provides some helpful bios of current General Authorities which I'll be using as sources.  First Presidency.  Quorum of the Twelve.  Presidents of the Seventy.  Presiding Bishopric.

The last time a vacancy in the Twelve was filled was following the death of President Hunter (on 3 March 1995).  Elder Eyring was "sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve April 1, 1995, and ordained an apostle April 6, 1995, at age 61."  Elder Eyring had previously held callings in the Presiding Bishopric, the First Quorum of the Seventy, and was serving as Commissioner of CES when called to the Twelve.

The previous vacancy had occurred with the death of President Benson (on 30 May 1994).  Elder Holland was "ordained an apostle June 23, 1994, at age 53; sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve Oct. 1, 1994."  A press conference was held the day of the ordination, according to a subsequent Ensign report.  Elder Holland had previously held callings as a commissioner of education, in the First Quorum of the Seventy, and president of BYU.

The previous vacancy had occurred with the death of Elder Ashton (on 24 February 1994).  Elder Hales was "sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve April 2, 1994, and ordained an apostle April 7, 1994, at age 61."  He had previously served in the First Quorum of the Seventy and was Presiding Bishop at the time of his call to the Twelve.

The previous vacancy had occurred with the death of President Romney (on 20 May 1988).  Elder Scott was "sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve on Oct. 1, 1988, and ordained an apostle Oct. 6, 1988, at age 59."  He had previously served in the First Quorum of the Seventy, and as a President of the Seventy at the time of his call to the Twelve.

The previous vacancy had occurred (I believe) with the death of President Kimball (on 5 November 1985).  Elder Wirthlin, however, was not sustained until nearly a year later; "sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve Oct. 4, 1986, and ordained an apostle Oct. 9, 1986, at age 69."  I believe this delay may have been because of health problems among some Church leaders, but am well before my period of conscious recollection.  Elder Wirthlin was serving as a President of the Seventy when he was called to the Twelve.

By now, a few patterns seem to be apparent.  A vacancy is usually filled by the next conference, though it can be filled before (as in Elder Holland's case).  With conference nearly three months off, it seems like it could go either way at this point.  While no hard-and-fast pattern emerges, service as a President of the Seventy or in the Presiding Bishopric seems a common theme, and being a former BYU president could mean something [Elders Oaks and Holland are BYU's only two living former presidents besides Elder Bateman].  Links to short bios of those serving in the P70 and PB are above (though Desnews doesn't seem to have updated them to take last Conference's sustainings and releasings into account, including releasing Elder Bateman from the SS general presidency, and replacing Elder Neuenschwander with Elder Groberg in the Presidents of the Seventy).

Also of possible bearing is the evident recent decision to have the Presidents of the Seventy meet with the Twelve in their weekly meeting (one report here).  When I first heard about this, I thought it might be a logical way to ensure continuity in the Quorum--if Presidents of the Seventy had already been working closely with the Twelve, they would be available to fill vacancies fairly seamlessly (and given how smoothly the Twelve have been working together in recent years, it seems smart to build mechanisms to keep the momentum in that direction).

Those who obsess about symbolic representation among GAs will doubtless be interested to note that of the current Presidents of the Seventy, four were born in Utah, one in Idaho, and two in Europe.  Of course, if we look beyond the current Presidents, several other international GAs are available to serve.  [Personally, I think the symbolic representation arguments are sort of silly, as the Church has only just begun to be established long enough in most countries to give rise to a pool of native Church leaders with lifelong experience.  I expect that over the next few decades, the trend of increasing internationalization of Church leadership will continue, but that it ultimately isn't that big a deal.]

In the end, of course, the new member of the Twelve will be picked by the Lord through the Prophet.  Any number of well qualified individuals seem prepared, and while we'll miss Elder Maxwell, getting to know a new member of the Twelve should be interesting.  The succession process will work smoothly, and the Church will continue to be led by inspiration.