Category: Uncategorized

Part of me hesitates to even post this, because I don’t care too much about this debate.  Mormons want to call themselves Christian, and I don’t really care.  There is no doubt that Jesus Christ plays a central role in their religion, so it makes sense for Mormons to self-identify as ‘Christian’.  Of course, the whole debate hinges on the definition of Christianity, and there are other competing definitions of Christianity.  On those more robust definitions (if we accept them), then Mormons are not Christians, though I think it is probably better to just say they are not ‘creedal Christians’.  But, as I say, I don’t really care too much about quibbling over who has claim to the name ‘Christian’.

That said, I have very little doubt (and most of the LDS folk I know agree) that Mormonism is very different – essentially and fundamentally different – than every other brand of Christianity we usually think of.  Quite simply, Mormon Christians and Creedal Christians disagree about the nature of God (Trinity, Jesus) and the nature of man (whether man is of the same species as God, whether man can become a god).  Which is to say they disagree about the most important things.  

My only complaint is when some Mormons diminish those differences, acting as if Mormonism was just ‘another denomination’ (as if the differences between a Mormon and a Lutheran are not any more extreme than the differences between a Lutheran and a Methodist).  To my mind this is, not to put too fine a point on it, just plain dishonest.  (Let me stress, not all Mormons intentionally diminish these differences, but just that some do).

Anyway, First Things has an article on the matter here.  Bruce Porter (a member of the Quorum of the Seventy) writes on one side, Gerald McDermott on the other.  I think it is pretty fair on both sides (though I am sure my Mormon friends will disagree with some of McDermott’s arguments).  You can also listen to interviews with the two authors here.

(It’s an AI program on the web.) Here’s how it went:

I asked her if she was a baseball fan.  She said yes.  I asked which team she rooted for, and she said “the large one”.  After failing to explain what she meant, we finished with this exchange:

Human: You are not making any sense
ALICE: Was I supposed to make sense? I didn’t know that.
Human: You are not intelligent.
ALICE: I am highly intelligent. I have many intellectual functions.
Human: Such as?
ALICE: For example, a tomato.

Article here. Ms. Goodsell Jones did an excellent job, on the whole (got a little garbled over the agnostic/atheist distinction). She tells an important story about a broad segment of the USU student body: those who want to question the religion they were raised in, but can’t do so except anonymously or under some cover. Good thing SHAFT is there, for community.

Read about it here.

Frequent visitors to this blog are surely tired of my ranting on and on about how no one reads great books anymore. Hell, I’m tired of hearing myself complain about it.  But I cannot resist.  A First Things ‘On the Square’ article about it being ‘hard times’ for great books here.

My complaints are not gripes, for it is not a trivial matter.  The way in which members of a civilized society spend their leisure time is almost all-important to the ongoing welfare (not to mention possible flourishing) of their culture and society.  For those that have not read it, I cannot recommend Josef Pieper’s book ‘Leisure, The Basis of Culture’ highly enough.

Please, for your own sake and for the sake of our civilized society – turn off the tv, put away the ipod and the game station and read Chaucer, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Plato, … great books!