Liberal and Conservative at Church

What do we mean when we use the terms “liberal” and “conservative” in our discussions of faith?

Is the church “too conservative?” What does that mean?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of liberal and conservative tendencies when it comes to faith?

Are there liberal and conservative patterns in apostasy?

In this presentation, we discuss these and other questions.

Spirituality is Addition and Subtraction

Spirituality is part addition, part subtraction.
In the West, we tend to focus on the addition part: doing things, getting things, and achieving things. That is not necessarily bad, but in our focus on addition, we can sometimes inadvertently add things that are not healthy, like perfectionism. We can also fail to account for our Western worldview and how it impacts our spirituality.

Memory, Prophetic Translation, and the Lost 116 Pages

I am unfortunately at an advanced enough age that I have now encountered more than once something I have said, done, or written, that I have no memory of at all. This is a humbling experience. So while I was reading Kent Jackson’s excellent book Understanding Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible that Joseph Smith translated some sections of the Bible more than once, apparently having forgotten that he already had done so previously with a different scribe.

How do his second pass translations compare to the first? Did he translate the passages in exactly the same way?

The Spiritual Discipline of Living in Reality

Acceptance is letting go of:

Denial
Avoidance
Pretense
Delusion
Escape
Numbing
Drama
Delay

An acceptance statement can be phrased as, “My present reality is _______”

Why I Don’t Panic Over Controversies Involving the Church

Why does there seem to be a steady stream of bad headlines about the church?

Has it always been this way?

How do we process allegations and bad news without losing our minds?

Sustaining Leaders and Fellow Saints

This blog post is based on a talk I gave for my ward on February 12, 2023.

Introduction

A little over seven years ago I got the idea of reading through all the General Conference talks that are easily available on the Church’s website, which means going back to the April 1971 General Conference. I haven’t kept to my schedule perfectly since then, but I’ve read many, many talks, and I’ve really gained an appreciation for the wisdom and consistency of these teachings.

So when I was asked to give a talk on the fourth temple recommend question–a kind of topic I’ve never heard of before–I knew where to start. I did a quick search and ended up reading (or at least skimming) about two dozen talks, some of which were incredibly powerful to me. I’ll be quoting from these talks at length.

It’s good to have cognitive ground rules

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.

“If the Church were following Jesus, it would give all its funds to the poor!”

“Why doesn’t the church give tons of money to the poor?”

I’m currently developing an article about fundamentalism, and how its core impulse is to avoid cognitive dissonance no matter what.

This is Buoyancy

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This is the 372nd week, and we’re covering the Sunday afternoon session of the October 1999 General Conference.

There was one quote that really stayed with me from this session of General Conference, and it came from Elder L. Tom Perry’s talk A Year of Jubilee. The quote comes from Harry Emerson Fosdick, who I’d never heard of before. He was an American pastor who lived from 1878 to 1969 and was (via Wikipedia) “one of the most prominent liberal ministers of the early 20th century.” I know basically nothing about Liberal Christianity other than what I just read on Wikipedia:

My Answer to Ellen

In 2008 John McCain appeared on the Ellen show and gave an awkward and inarticulate answer when challenged about her own desire to be legally married. (This is before the Supreme Court required states to recognize same sex marriage). In a blog that is long since defunct, I posted my own imagined response to Ellen if I was interviewed on her show. I reproduce it here for historical interest.