Category: #LightTheWorld

Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.

-David Foster Wallace, This is Water

If we don’t have some basic principles and ground rules that we adhere to, it’s very possible to think our way into delusion and confusion and all kinds of mental problems. A recent conversation about depression led me to ask myself about my own cognitive ground rules, including the ones related to my thinking around faith. We sometimes call these assumptions, and these are the ones I choose to adhere to.

Continue reading “It’s good to have cognitive ground rules”

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This is the 368th week, and we’re covering the Saturday morning session of the October 1999 General Conference.

It’s been a long time since I started this General Conference Odyssey way back in 2015. I stuck with it really well through about 2019 and had another good chunk in 2020, but I missed pretty much all of 2021 and 2022. One of my goals is to stick with it again throughout 2023. Eventually I’ll go back and fill in all the gaps, but I don’t know when that will be.

Continue reading “Earrings, Scrupulosity, and Love”

Church finances are often a point of criticism. But should they be?

In thinking about church finances, it’s helpful to have a basic grasp of tools large organizations use to make complex decisions around investments and spending. In this presentation we look at one of those tools, the Analytic Hierarchy Process, and think about how organizations bring maturity to their decision making processes.

The important question to consider is, what methodologies are the church’s critics employing? And are those superior to frameworks like AHP?

Continue reading “Church Spending”

This was a challenging topic to discuss, addressing some current negative thinking around our missionary program.

YouTube narration here:

A recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune unclearly characterized my comments to the Utah State Legislature on August 18 regarding conversion therapy. I would like to clarify them. While I oppose the current version of the conversion therapy rule, I do not support conversion therapy. As a therapist, I don’t believe changing sexual orientation is an appropriate goal in therapy. But I oppose the conversion therapy rule because not only does it forbid these kinds of attempts to change sexual orientation, but also brands a much broader range of interventions as “conversion therapy,” including assisting clients who wish to manage their sexual behaviors.

Continue reading “Responding to the SL Tribune’s Mischaracterization of my Testimony on Conversion Therapy”

A couple of weeks ago on a work trip I spent time with a coworker friend I hadn’t seen since before COVID; he’s a guitarist, and in our catching up we talked about the sadness of losing Eddie Van Halen in 2020.

Continue reading “Reflecting on Van Halen”

Why are we here?

There are many answers to that question, even among groups of people who hold the same religious beliefs.

But a good representative statement from Evangelical Christianity is found in pastor Rick Warren’s best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Life:

Continue reading “A God of Order in a World of Chaos”

As I have continued to study the words of President Nelson, I’ve been struck by his firm belief and conviction in the existence of absolute truth.

Perhaps no talk from President Nelson exemplifies this more powerfully than his introductory remarks from the most recent general conference.

“In that spirit, I invite you to listen for three things during this conference: pure truth, the pure doctrine of Christ, and pure revelation. Contrary to the doubts of some, there really is such a thing as right and wrong. There really is absolute truth—eternal truth. One of the plagues of our day is that too few people know where to turn for truth. I can assure you that what you will hear today and tomorrow constitutes pure truth.”

I love the simplicity of this promise. There is truth. Prophets are called to teach it. We can rely on it and treasure it. There isn’t a different truth for me and for you. There is just the truth.

I grew up in a Jewish home. When I was a kid, I developed a lot of questions about what happens after we die. Around me I had family members sick or dying and so these questions had a fierce urgency. As I got older and talked about this topic with my parents and religious leaders, I was surprised to find that there wasn’t a uniform answer. Everyone had their own views. Some believed in heaven and some believed in reincarnation and some believed there was nothing at all after this life. This confusion was deeply unsatisfying for me. While I appreciated the intellectual vibrancy of Jewish debate, I found that I could not find answers to the questions that I had, only more questions. I did not think that God could be the author of so much confusion and uncertainty.

One of the things that attracted me to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the belief that there is absolute truth and that there are Prophets and Apostles on the earth who reveal that truth from God. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to listen to conference and hear servants of God declare his truth with power and authority.

As we get ready for General Conference next weekend, I hope that we will all look forward to learning pure truth. More than that, I hope that we will be grateful for the knowledge that there is absolute truth and that we know where to look to find it.