Nauvoo Neighbor

A Reminiscence: Gospel Unity in a Time of Bitter War

What I learned from one member in Belgium about gospel unity in a time of war.

In the summer of 1990, I was serving in Liege, a French-speaking city in Belgium. As part of our work we were visiting all the members we could find on the membership rolls. One day we found an elderly sister who had joined the Church as a young woman shortly before World War I broke out, due to her age she rarely attended meetings anymore. I don’t recall if this member was living in Liege at the time of the Great War, but German atrocities were notably severe in this area, in part because this area was thwarting the achievement of a key component of the German Army General Staff’s Schlieffen Plan for winning the war.

She told me an amazing story about how the gospel of Jesus Christ can transcend bitter divisions and deep wounds.

Continue reading “A Reminiscence: Gospel Unity in a Time of Bitter War”

President Nelson for Lent

For Lent this year, I am listening to/reading one talk each day from President Nelson. So far I’ve read his talks “Self Mastery,” “With God, Nothing Shall Be Impossible,” and “Living By Scriptural Guidance.” Here are some of my insights so far.

“Self-Mastery”
We tend to acknowledge the way that actions follow our convictions, but I think we sometimes under-estimate how convictions come from action. Fasting is an example of the latter. Then-Elder Nelson says that “Fasting fortifies discipline over appetite and helps to protect against later uncontrolled cravings and gnawing habits” and “faithful payment of tithing…defends you against dishonesty or shabby temptations.”

I have often felt it was important for me to fast, even when for health reasons (such as during pregnancy) I have not been able to do a traditional fast from all food and drink. I believe there is something very important to God about mastering our appetites, some of which are brain appetites (like craving our phones). During the times I have been unable to fast from food and water, I try and choose something that a typically use or crave a lot, such as sweets or digital media. Sometimes I will even extend the fast since it’s not something I need to live. It has been remarkable how much power these items have over me and how much more peace and control I feel when I loosen their grip on my life.

“With God, Nothing Shall Be Impossible”

What stood out to me in the talk is that President Nelson talks repeatedly about having faith. Obviously that’s a common theme in General Conference, but it stood out to me because he never explicitly mentions “faith in Christ.” I realized that this talk was given in the 1980’s and it occurred to me that the reason he probably never explicitly directs our faith to Christ was that, at the time, there weren’t a lot of conflicting cultural slogans about it. In our own day, people frequently meme-ify having faith in everything from fairy tale magic to your one true love or an impersonal universal intelligence. It struck me that prophetic language changes as our times change because the prophets must find ways of communicating eternal truths within our own cultural moment. God’s truths are eternal, but he sometimes changes the way he communicates them so that we can understand them.

“Living By Scriptural Guidance”
President Nelson here teaches that “because truth given by revelation can only be understood by revelation, our studies need to be prayerful.” He later adds “you cultivate such revelatory experiences by living according to the light already given you and by searching the scriptures with pure motives—with real intent to “come unto Christ.”

I’ve realized recently how often different social media influencers seem to find scriptural and prophetic support for their particular thing while others can use the same scriptures to mean something opposite. It struck me that the scriptures are only authoritative in our lives when we study them with the intent to learn God’s will, rather than searching out passages we can use to support our own will. President Nelson here teaches that we need the Holy Ghost to interpret the scriptures correctly in our lives. And that will only happen as we humbly set aside our own objectives and try to adopt the Lord’s. I think the Lord calls it having “an eye single to the glory of God.”

The Sanctity of Life

Throughout his ministry President Nelson has been a powerful pro-life voice advocating for the sanctity of life and the need to prevent abortions. I’ve written previously about the strengths of the pro-life position relying on the words of President Nelson.

He first raised the subject in one of his first few sermons as an Apostle called Reverence for Life. President Nelson powerfully called abortion a “war on the defenseless—and the voiceless” and “a war on the unborn.”

Exclamation Marks not Question Marks

Although I don’t suspect that these posts will always go in order, I wanted to start with President Nelson’s first talk as an Apostle called appropriately enough Call to the Holy Apostleship

President Nelson apparently did not know about his call until the Saturday of General Conference. This must have been a major shock for him. But he had been prepared for his call through a lifetime of service.

Following the Prophet with Exactness for Lent

I’ve seen a lot of people posting about challenges that they are undertaking for lent. Reading these posts reminded me of a recent challenge regarding following the prophet with exactness that I received and I decided that it would make for a great lent challenge.

Three Writing Samples

When scholars talk about authorship of scripture, sometimes they look at changes in tone, genre, setting, or perspective as evidence of multiple authorship.

Below are three samples of my own writing that inform my thinking about this. The total time span of these samples is roughly 25-30 years. If you didn’t know it was me, is there any way you would guess that these are the same author?

Scholars often describe a big problem in the field of Biblical Studies, a lack of external controls. In other words, they make judgment calls about shifts in genre, tone, perspective, setting, etc. indicating multiple authorship, without looking at known examples of these things in other places. Well, here’s a personal example. We could also do this exercise with restoration scripture, or with artistic materials like poetry and music. For example, U2’s October sounds nothing like Zooropa, but it’s exactly the same band, just 12 years apart. As people evolve, their communications evolve.

Learning to think…about faith

If we are serious about learning, we need to be mindful of our reasoning. It’s a process that adds a lot of work to all of our learning, but it’s absolutely essential if we want the best possible outcomes in our learning process.

When evaluating the truthfulness of a particular claim, we need to understand some basic rules of inference in order to sidestep fallacies that muddle our thinking. It’s common for those without this kind of training to focus exclusively on whether or not a particular claim is factual and disregard whether that claim logically supports the conclusion being drawn.

If you have never studied logic, here is a brief primer on some basic concepts (thanks to Meagan Kohler for her assistance!). Or, you can skip down to some concrete examples for Latter-day Saints.

What does it mean that the church is true?

Is the church “true?” I believe so, and that question matters a great deal to me. Why? Well, for starters, I pay 10% of my income to this institution, and devote a lot of time and energy to it. I have no interest in doing all of that just for the sake of belonging to a community (I can join or form any number of communities) or out of a sense of heritage, or any fear-based reasons, like “how else would I raise my kids?!!” There are a number of belief communities that I have belonged to throughout my life that I no longer belong to, because I no longer hold the beliefs that stand at the center of each of those communities’ existence.

Sometimes, we hear stories of people leaving the church and saying something to the effect that “I found out the church isn’t true.” I want to explore that a little further toward the end of this post.

But first, how does one even go about deciding whether the church is true? There are a number of questions that inform our views of whether “the church is true” or not, and below are the questions I personally use for arriving at my answer. If you haven’t gone through the exercise of writing down a list like this, I highly recommend it as a way of bringing clarity to your seeking. My list, with links to supporting resources:

We’re all biased. Let’s explore how.

We all have biases of different kinds. Below is a collection of typical biases, many of which are useful in discussions of faith.

Adapted from a full list of cognitive biases at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Anchoring or focalism The tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor”, on one trait or piece of information when making decisions (usually the first piece of information acquired on that subject).

Attribute substitution Occurs when a judgment has to be made (of a target attribute) that is computationally complex, and instead a more easily calculated heuristic attribute is substituted. This substitution is thought of as taking place in the automatic intuitive judgment system, rather than the more self-aware reflective system.

Quotes and Scriptures on Conversion

True conversion is more than merely having a knowledge of gospel principles and implies even more than just having a testimony of those principles. It is possible to have a testimony of the gospel without living it. Being truly converted means we are acting upon what we believe and allowing it to create “a mighty change in us, or in our hearts.” In the booklet True to the Faith, we learn that “conversion is a process, not an event. You become converted as a result of … righteous efforts to follow the Savior.” It takes time, effort, and work. My great-great-grandmother had a strong conviction that the gospel was more important for her children than all that the world had to offer in the way of wealth and comfort because she had sacrificed, endured, and lived the gospel. Her conversion came through living the principles of the gospel and sacrificing for them.

-Bonnie L. Oscarson, Be Ye Converted