Here is the conclusion of Times & Seasons look at Grant Hardy’s new book Understanding the Book of Mormon, and the second half of our 12 Questions interview:
12 Questions with Grant Hardy – part II
Author: James Olsen
James is the husband of Erin Fairlight Olsen. Together they have conspired to doom their four children to a lifetime of mispronounced names: Gaebriel Joseph, Magdeleine Ysabelle, Myriam Reevkahleh, and Ewa Nuhr. Raised where the buffalo still roam in northeastern Wyoming, James learned how to Anglicize French while serving in the Missouri, St. Louis Mission. Afterward he thought so long and indecisively and with such passionately committed existential anguish about what to do with his life that finally BYU simply granted him a degree in philosophy. He then received a Master of Arts degree in International Affairs from George Washington University. Unable to subsequently handle the pressures of looming heteronormativity, however, he once again took up philosophy, this time at Georgetown. Currently he is in Doha, Qatar, hiding out from Georgetown, which, much like his wife, would really appreciate it if he just graduated.
12 Questions with Grant Hardy – part I
To cap off our roundtable review of Grant Hardy’s new book Understanding the Book of Mormon we’re fortunate to feature an interview with the book’s author. The interview will be posted in two parts. Our thanks to all who have participated, and especially Bro. Hardy.
Response to Alison – part II
Here’s a second post, responding to issues raised in Alison’s Serving on the Sidelines. Moses 6:59-60: That by reasons of transgression cometh the fall, which fall bringeth death, and inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and by blood, and by the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten; that ye might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory; for by the water ye keep the commandment; by the spirit ye are justified, and by the blood ye are sanctified. I love these verses. I love the visceral, embodied symbolism. I’ve been personally moved and affected by the connection they make between the atonement and the two births that we undergo in this life – our physical, mortal birth and our rebirth into the kingdom of heaven. These verses are, I think, among the most theologically rich passages in all of our restoration scripture. I’m even conservative and traditional enough to believe that these verses can help us understand the men-hold-the-priesthood dichotomy we’ve maintained in this dispensation. I’m convinced, however, that just as there is an edifying way to invoke them, there…
Response to Alison – part I
Alison has a talent for writing trenchant posts in general – posts that point to the heart of an issue – particularly as concerns women’s issues.[1] This post is a response to her latest (please read first).[2]
Bootstrapping a Book of Mormon Readership
Compare this classic statement of Richard Bushman, meant to encapsulate his own efforts as part of the New Mormon History movement: As more and more historians work to situate Mormonism in American history, Mormons like me want to join the discussion. We will write better if we are less defensive, more open to criticism, more exploratory and venturous, but even with our inhibitions and parochialisms, we should come to the table with our Mormonism intact.[1] with this statement from Grant Hardy: As the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints becomes a world religion, the need for our traditional siege-mentality diminishes. When we speak with others about our beliefs, we can be con fident that we have something to add to the diversity of human re ligious life—without necessarily having to be in full missionary mode—and we can take seriously differing points of view without feeling that we are somehow giving ground to the enemy. . . .We are at a point where bridges to the wider world will only make us more visible and attractive. And to those with faith in the ultimate destiny of our religion, reaching out to a wider community is not threatening. Our scriptures, our traditions, our doctrines, and the inspiration of our leaders are impressive and secure. We have nothing to fear, and much to gain, from stepping across the room and striking up a new conversation.[2] Hardy’s book Understanding the Book of Mormon…
Grant Hardy Week at Times & Seasons
Times and Seasons is excited this week to present to you a roundtable series review of Grant Hardy’s recent book Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (Oxford 2010). The upcoming posts will not only acquaint you with book itself, but also provide our opinionated responses, and of course, allow you all to join in the fray. Best of all, Brother Hardy has agreed to participate in a 12 Questions Interview that will cap off the whole affair. To begin, for those of you not already familiar, we want to introduce the author himself. Dr. Grant Hardy is currently Professor of History and Religious Studies and the Director of the Humanities Program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. After serving a mission in Taiwan he earned his B.A. in Ancient Greek at BYU followed by a PhD in Classical Chinese Language and Literature from Yale University. Professor Hardy is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for both his teaching and scholarship. In his current post he received the 2002 Distinguished Teacher Award for the Arts and Humanities Faculty, and he was named to a Ruth and Leon Feldman Professorship for 2009-2010. He is also the recipient of a research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Professor Hardy has published Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo: Sima Qian’s Conquest of History (Columbia 1999); The Establishment of the Han Empire and Imperial China (Greenwood 2005); and the first…
Fix it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without
My sister Morgan has spent this year in very rural northern Uganda, working with refugee women on a project called Paper to Pearls (these women make and sell incredibly beautiful jewelry out of recycled paper, often the only source of real income to their large families, and which often goes to support the community at large). Much like letters from the mission field, what she writes about this experience has been hilarious, humbling, faith inspiring, and quintessentially Mormon. I wanted to share one such nugget that she wrote: When my grandfather passed away one year ago in March, I really wanted only one thing from his possessions: a plaque that sat in my grandparent’s kitchen for years that read, “Fix it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” I’m not sure why that spoke to me like it did because I wasn’t necessarily very good at doing any of those things. I was successful in obtaining the plaque however, and as it sat on my bookshelf in the following months I can say it truly made a difference in how I viewed buying new objects and throwing out old ones. Since moving to Uganda though, I have learned I still have a long way to go. It seems to me the concept was born here in Gulu and every day I am amazed at the resourcefulness of people. I brought a cheap pair of Old Navy flip-flops…
My Fathers – My Ancestors
A Happy Father’s Day to all! My day’s been celestially filled with family, great meals, and rainbow drawings/notes from my children. And on top of it all I’ve had the rare opportunity to sit quietly in an idyllic spot and read The Book of Abraham – an appropriate text for Father’s Day if ever there was one. In reading and talking through some of the verses with my wife – who already seems to have the great knowledge and the greater knowledge that I, like Abraham, seek for – we spent some time on that conspicuous word that pops up over and over again: fathers. Now I’ve no idea what language the Abrahamic scroll was originally written in, nor even what the linguistic and cultural conventions of later Egyptian implied. However, I have a middling knowledge of Hebrew (greatly supplemented by my wife’s much better grasp of the language), and in Hebrew, as in other related languages from the region, the word we commonly see translated as ‘fathers’ is avot – a plural ending (-ot) attached to the singular father (av). Similarly, the plural for mother is imahot. The plural for a mixed crowd of “ancestors,” however, is simply avot. Thus, the word when it appears in scripture is ambiguous. The same is true for lots of plurals, in ways that are significant to us today. Take ‘children’ for example (benim), which is the same word used for ‘sons’ –…
Taking Section 89 Seriously
Which revelations we cherish and consider central, and which one’s we sideline and (sometimes literally) forget is surely a result of a complex host of variables. Local culture and politics are obviously a huge deal. The Word of Wisdom is a revelation that is particularly interesting
12 Questions with David E. Campbell Part II
Here is Part II of our 12 Questions interview with David E. Campbell, co-author of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (see here for Part I). In this half of the interview Campbell answers questions related specifically to his and Robert Putnam’s research concerning Mormonism. 1. Mormons feature prominently in this book. I’m biased to say that this is because, as you state on page 15, Mormonism is a “highly distinctive tradition[] that, because of [its] size, [is] often neglected in analyses of the American religious environment.” Despite our currently being in “the Mormon moment,” however, I suspect that many would claim that the prominence of Mormonism in your study is merely a result of your being one of the authors. How legitimately is Mormonism stacked up alongside the other traditions you analyze in order to accurately gauge the American religious scene? And can you speak to the reaction of your audience at large with regard to your discussion of Mormonism and its prominence in your analysis? I confess that I wondered myself whether reviewers would criticize the book as featuring Mormons too prominently. (As an aside, you may be interested to know that our chief ethnographer, Shaylyn Romney Garret, is also LDS). I can report that, thus far, no one has raised this as an issue. To the contrary, one prominent scholar (non-LDS) who reviewed an early version of the manuscript actually suggested that we say more…
12 Questions with David E. Campbell – Part I
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell is deservedly receiving a great deal of attention. It is undoubtedly the most comprehensive and significant sociological examination of religion in America to be published in decades, and perhaps ever. Aside from the sheer mass of sociological data that this book makes available in a magnificently readable format (the book is page turner), the book is also a tour de force of sociological analysis and interpretation. People in all fields related to religion in America are giving careful attention to this very important book. Times and Seasons is very excited, then to have the opportunity of sharing some of David Campbell’s additional insights. What follows is the first half of our 12 Questions interview with Campbell. One of the unique features of American Grace is the prominence it gives to Mormonism alongside other major U.S. religions. Consequently, we divided up our questions topically between those that deal with general issues from the book and those that deal more specifically with issues related to Mormonism. This first post will deal with former. By way of introduction, Campbell is the John Cardinal O’Hara, C.S.C., Associate Professor of Political Science and founding director of the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame. His research and teaching focus on American politics, political participation, religion and politics, and education policy. Also, as…
Temporal Saints
Tis the season for anxious engagement! Toward this end I want to highlight some charitable organizations that are absolutely worthy of your donations.
“There could not have been saints in Ancient Greece”
This is what we find at issue in today’s debates concerning homosexual marriage and lifestyle.
In Praise of Heavenly Mother
I had a rather formative and utterly unique experience in Elders Quorum a few years ago. I taught the Mother’s Day lesson and at the end, after bearing my testimony, not one soul said “Amen.”
Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise
I got that familiar little thrill we all feel when one of our favorite hymns is sung in General Conference, as our first session this morning opened with “Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise.” (I was especially happy to have caught it since we experienced significant technical difficulties getting the conference to stream, causing us to miss both the intro and Pres. Monson’s subsequent talk – in eight years of internet streaming conference, I’ve never not had technical troubles, except one time, in the middle of the night, in a smoke filled internet cafe in Alexandria, Egypt). This is one of the great hymns of the restoration, written by Edward Partridge and included in Emma’s hymnal. Sadly, as with many of our hymns, we only get a few (slightly sanitized) verses of this hymn today. I thought I’d put it up with all of it’s millenarial gusto for all to enjoy. Here’s how it read in our first hymnal: 1. Let Zion in her beauty rise; Her light begins to shine, Ere long her King will rend the skies, Majestic and divine. The gospel’s spreading through the land, A people to prepare, To meet the Lord and Enoch’s band, Triumphant in the air. 2. Ye heralds sound the gospel trump, To earth’s remotest bound; Go spread the news from pole to pole, In all the nations round, That Jesus in the clouds above, With hosts of angels too, Will soon…
Reforming the Church – A Response to Nate
Nate has written a very articulate and worthwhile post that I think cuts to the heart of a common problem in how we emotionally respond to issues we have with the church. It goes together well with this other post of his which is similarly worth (re-)reading. I’m responding not because I particularly disagree with the things he has said (though I think he has mis-framed the issue a bit), but because there’s so much more to say on the subject that I fear Nate’s characterization may threaten to cover up rather than shed light on the issue.
Adventures in the Journal of Discourses
I’m going to briefly argue for the general importance and contemporary relevance of the Journal of Discourses. But first, let me say: My grandpa (Max Olsen) is a very good man.
A Reading of President Packer’s “Presiding in the Home”
During a great discussion of our most recent general conference, one very bright young woman in my class sincerely asked, “President Packer said that ‘the father presides at the table’ – and I just want to know what that means.”
What If the Rank & File Really are Stupid?
That is, what if they really are perniciously ignorant or uneducated or immature or tenuous neophytes or fragile (speaking of both intellect and testimony)? What if they’re as hopeless as some in and out of the Church so often say and treat them as being?
Reviving the Hebraic
Every four years we have a celebrated ritual during the second hour of church: it is the discussion by all members present on the topic of being uncomfortable studying the Old Testament.
Actions for Haiti
I think that viewing the magnitude of human trauma in Haiti right now is similar to trying to mentally envision the difference between a 1000 and a 2000 sided object – we can’t really do it.
Ring Out Wild Bells
Following up on Kaimi’s post concerning “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” I thought we ought to take the opportunity to read over the full text of Lord Tennyson’s “Ring Out Wild Bells,” another frequently sung hymn whose lines concerning injustice, social inequity, political divisiveness, and faith we never sing!
December and Magic
December, like childhood, is an opportunity for us to experience an enchanted world, and regain some of the understanding we too quickly lose – and often anxiously jettison – after childhood.
Under Intellectual Condemnation
Let me begin by saying that I not only believe in the historicity of The Book of Mormon, I feel a deep and passionate commitment to our narrative. But this is a point on which I think Mormon historicitists, believers in a divine or human fiction, or any other type of good Mormon ought to be able to agree: The Book of Mormon is rich far beyond our nascent attempts to uncover.
Diapers, Dishes, and Dusting
Yesterday, a Mormon Times article began with this opener: “For Finnish music star Mervi Hiltunen-Multamäki, trading in exotic concert locales, a prime-time TV show and platinum records for diapers, dishes and dusting was an easy decision. Maybe that’s because following the prophet has never been hard for her.”
Let Them Praise His Name in the Dance!
I went on one of the best dates I’ve been on in some time tonight – my daughter and I went to BYU’s World of Dance.
Alienated in Zion
“I say unto you, be one; and if you are not one ye are not mine (D&C 38:27).” And then comes the uncomfortable experience of sitting in Sunday School (or in the midst of some other group of Mormons) with the persistent, anxious thought, “I really don’t fit in here…”
The Question of Pacifism
I’m not, by nature, a pacifist.
Grassroots-Style Dispensations
Are Mormons exclusivists or universalists?
The Revisionist Reformation
A favorite perennial topic of discussion is the ever-elusive distinction between church culture and doctrine (or officially sanctioned practice or attitude).