Making our history one step at a time
Lesson from 4th century Christianity: if someone excommunicates you, you excommunicate them right back. This book covering the history of Constantine, the Nicene creed, and the Arian heresy is a fascinating mirror in which to reflect on the doctrinal disputes and approaches of our own day.
Irenaeus is the early Church's head of the correlation department. He wrote Against Heresies as an attempt to checkmate an early Christian heresy, Gnosticism, that put God as one of a long chain of gods (sound familiar?) and considered material existence evil.
This has been such a helpful book for understanding suicide. Written as a self-help book for those contemplating suicide (but not a substitute for treatment), it is also a good resource for those wanting to help.
I recently had a friend ask me, why did you, a gay Latter-Day Saint who had every reason to leave the Church, choose to stay? How did you keep your faith? I wanted to write down some of my thoughts as I've been pondering this.
It's been a few days since the end of conference, giving me enough time to piece together a few of my thoughts. I haven't had time to completely read through all the talks yet, so I may do a few follow-up posts with some more in-depth thoughts on specific talks or themes. But wow! What... Continue Reading →
I have wanted to delve a little deeper into philosophy for a while now, but it always is so intimidating. I have a copy of Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason) in the original German sitting on my bookshelf that I pull out every time I feel in the mood for an... Continue Reading →
I teach the 16-18 year-old Sunday School class in my ward/congregation, and September begins a discussion on the commandments. I gave a lot of thought on what to share this week, and I decided to do a compare/contrast setup with common secular views of commandments with the religious rationale for commandments. Perhaps I was waning... Continue Reading →
I re-checked out Jerry Z. Muller's comprehensive little library of conservative theory "Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present" this past week, because I kept wanting to quote it, but I hadn't written down any quotes when I first read it! Checking it out from the UW library,... Continue Reading →
The LDS church recently weighed in on the marijuana debate in Utah releasing a document raising a number of legal issues surrounding the legalization of medical marijuana. The action predictably drew calls for the Church's tax exempt status to be removed for engaging in overtly political issues. An opinion piece in the Salt Lake Tribune... Continue Reading →
