Religion VS Culture

Does our faith make a difference in how we live? A new book says no.


...Sociologist Alan Wolfe has discovered the source of the contemporary church's power failure. In a book titled "The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith" (Free Press), Wolfe, a self-described nonbeliever, reaches some sobering conclusions. After traveling the country observing various denominations and religious services, Wolfe writes, "Far from living in a world elsewhere, the faithful in the United States are remarkably like everyone else." C.S. Lewis called this "contented worldliness," which he said is the great enemy of the church.

Wolfe says that religion in the United States "has never existed in practice the way it is supposed to exist in theory" and that in the battle between faith and culture, "American culture has triumphed." It was supposed to happen the other way, but too many people got comfortable with culture because it's easier to give in to the current and be carried along than to swim upstream.

The Myth of Neutrality

From Exiled by Helen Holt, Story of John Lathrop

...“Neutrality is a myth, a glorified myth. Neutrality is a Trojan Horse, professing some advantage, but being inherently full of danger. Neutrality is not neutrality at all. It always favors the despot — adds to his power. Neutrality favors nothing and no one. That is the great myth!”

John Lathrop went on to say: “If a man steals from his neighbor, his act is evil. If that man happens to be your employer, his act is still evil. If no one questions the stealing employer, on the ideas it would be better to remain neutral, then the employer continues to steal. Neutrality refuses to keep evil in check. Evil unchecked will destroy good. That’s why neutrality is so dangerous. Moreover, real neutrality refuses even to identify evil as evil, in which case there is no activity to promote good as well as no activity to prevent evil. By default, neutrality is the great sympathizer and nurturer of evil. The most deadly enemy of righteousness is not evil, it’s neutrality.” (Edited from, Exiled, (1987), pp. 7-9.)

Mrs. Holt pointed out that there can be a difference and a conflict between liberty and loyalty — the conflict of liberty of conscience that inspires one to positive action, in contrast to loyalty to some personality which inspires neutrality, which in turn breeds ignorance and apathy.

Being neutral in a cause shows the most blatant form of permissiveness and cowardliness. Neutrality does no good for the apathetic except allowing the tyrant more freedom to continue his totalitarian rule and wickedness. It allows the oppressor the freedom to take away everyone else’s freedom and the exercise of conscious.

Religious Freedom - Religion in the Public Square

A NEW ORDER OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOMby Richard John Neuhaus 12 Sep 2008

...The question of religion’s place in the public square is not, first of all, a question of First Amendment law. It is first of all a question of understanding the theory and practice of democratic governance. Citizens are the bearers of opinion, including opinion shaped by or espousing religious belief, and citizens have equal access to the public square. In this representative democracy, the state is forbidden to determine which convictions and moral judgments may be proposed for public deliberation. Through a constitutionally ordered and representative process, the people will deliberate and the people will decide.

In a democracy that is free and robust, an opinion is no more disqualified for being religious than for being atheistic, or psychoanalytic, or Marxist, or just plain dumb. There is, or at least there ought to be, no legal or constitutional question about the admission of religion to the public square; there is only a question about the free and equal participation of citizens in our public business. Religion is not a reified thing that threatens to intrude upon our common life. Religion in public is but the public opinion of those citizens who appeal to religion in public.

As with individual citizens, so also with the associations that citizens form to advance their opinions. Religious institutions may understand themselves to be brought into being by God, as the Catholic Church certainly does understand herself, but for the purposes of this democratic polity they are free associations of citizens. As such, they are guaranteed the same access to the public square as are the citizens who comprise them. It matters not at all that their purpose is to advance religion, any more than it matters that other associations would advance the interests of business or labor or radical feminism or animal rights or whatever.

Being Mean

HEALTH NEWS DEC. 23, 2008 Being mean bigger deal than being nice

Democracy Requires Righteousness

The Importance of the Right Question J. Reuben Clark Law Society Conference Clayton M. Christensen February 12, 2009 ...Democracy works because most people most of the time voluntarily obey most of the laws.... ... he made clear that democracy-enabling religions are those that support the sanctity of life, the equality of people, the importance of respecting others’ property, and the importance of personal honesty. Those religions also had to be strong enough that they held power over the behavior of a large majority of the population.... ...“You just think that because democracy works for you, and has worked in western Europe, that it will work everywhere. It only works where there is a strong foundation of religion.”

Religious Freedom VS Freedom from Religion

Meeting the Challenges of Today NEAL A. MAXWELL Oct. 10, 1978

...M. J. Sobran wrote recently:

The Framers of the Constitution . . . forbade the Congress to make any law “respecting” the establishment of religion, thus leaving the states free to do so (as several of them did); and they explicitly forbade the Congress to abridge “the free exercise” of religion, thus giving actual religious observance a rhetorical emphasis that fully accords with the special concern we know they had for religion. It takes a special ingenuity to wring out of this a governmental indifference to religion, let alone an aggressive secularism. Yet there are those who insist that the First Amendment actually proscribes governmental partiality not only to any single religion, but to religion as such; so that tax exemption for churches is now thought to be unconstitutional. It is startling [she continues] to consider that a clause clearly protecting religion can be construed as requiring that it be denied a status routinely granted to educational and charitable enterprises, which have no overt constitutional protection. Far from equalizing unbelief, secularism has succeeded in virtually establishing it....

...Our founding fathers did not wish to have a state church established nor to have a particular religion favored by government. They wanted religion to be free to make its own way. But neither did they intend to have irreligion made into a favored state church. Notice the terrible irony if this trend were to continue. When the secular church goes after its heretics, where are the sanctuaries? To what landfalls and Plymouth Rocks can future pilgrims go?...

...may I point out what a vastly different view of life the doctrine of foreordination gives to us. Shorn of this perspective, others are puzzled or bitter about life. Without gospel perspective life would be a punishment, not a joy—like trying to play a game of billiards on a table with a rumpled cloth, with a crooked cue and an elliptical billiard ball (from Sir William S. Gilbert’s libretto of The Mikado). (Perhaps the moral of that analogy is that we should stay out of pool halls.) In any event, pessimism does not really reckon with life and the universe as these things “really are.” The disciple will be puzzled at times, too. But he persists. Later he rejoices over how wonderfully things fit together, realizing only then that, with God, things never were apart....

Dumbing Down Jesus

Questioning the alternative Jesus Michael De Groote 29 Nov 2009https://www.deseretnews.com/article/705347805/Questioning-the-alternative-Jesus.html

"It's not a Jesus who is going to ask you to repent of your sins," he said.The alternative Jesus requires working for social justice — such as stopping human trafficking. But you can do what you want in your personal life."They feel like the Christ of faith has diluted the Jesus of history," Holzapfel said, "They want to rescue what they think is the powerful message of Jesus.

Hebrew Word Plays in the Book of Mormon

Sunday, September 23, 2018Matthew Bowen's New Name as Key-Word Offers a Stunning Surge in Book of Mormon Word Plays Related to Names

Good Articles on Same Sex Marriage, Gender, and Gender Attraction

"Motherhood and The Moral Influence of Women" 
World Congress of Families II, Geneva, Plenary Session IV, November 16, 
1999 

...perhaps the most significant factor is the literacy of
women. Women have always impacted entire cultures. Their influence
begins in each society's very core--the home, where women have always
taught and modeled what Tocqueville called "the habits of the heart"--
the mores, or civilizing habits, that create a sense of personal and civic
virtue, without which free and open societies can't exist. ...

A child is an echo charnber. If he hears the sounds of love from his
mother, he will later speak those same sounds of love to others. But if
the mother's signals are confusing and hateful, the child will later feel
confused and hateful.9 Whether a mother feels support from her
husband, her family, and her society profoundly influences whether she
feels like a mother of hope—who values herself enough to nurture a child
of hope with the milk of human kindness. And children of hope create a
society of hope. ...

Consider now, in summary, a true story from Australian history
that illustrates the power of women's moral influence as mothers of
hope, women of fidelity, wives of commiünent, and nurturers of human
ties. In its early decades as a British colony, Australia was avast
wilderness designated as a jail for exiled convicts. Until 1850, six of
every seven people who went "down under" from Britain were men.
And the few women who went were often convicts or social outcasts
themselves. The men ruthlessly exploited them, sexually and in other
ways. With few exceptions, these women without hope were powerless
to change their conditions.
In about 1840, a reformer named Caroline Chisholm urged that
more women would stabilize the culture. She told the British
government the best way to establish a community of "great and good
people"in Australia: "For all the clergy you can despatch, all the
schoolmasters you can appoint, all the churches you can build, and all
the books you can export, will never do much good without ... 'God's
police'-- wives and little children--good and virtuous women."
Chisholm searched for women who would raise "the moral
standard of the people." She spent twenty years traveling to England,
recruiting young women and young couples who believed in the
common sense principles of family life. Over time, these women tamed
the men who were taming the wild land; and civil society in Australia
gradually emerged. Also, the colonial govemments enacted policies that
elevated women's status and reinforced family life.23 As one historian
said, "the initial reluctance of the wild colonial boys to marry was
eroded fairly quickly." Eventually, thousands of new immigrants who
shared the vision of these "good and virtuous women" established stable
families as the basic unit of Australian society more quickly than had
occurred "anywhere else in the Western world."...

Homosexual "Marriage" and  Civilization
Orson Scott Card
15 February 2004

Orson Scott Card: Communities succeed with monogamy Deseret News 2 Oct 2008

The Divine Institution of Marriage
LDS Newsroom, 13 August 2008

Current iteration:

...Tolerance obviously requires a non-contentious manner of relating toward one another’s differences. But tolerance does not require abandoning one’s standards or one’s opinions on political or public policy choices. Tolerance is a way of reacting to diversity, not a command to insulate it from examination....

...However, speaking out against practices with which the Church disagrees on moral grounds – including same-sex marriage – does not constitute abuse or the frequently misused term “hate speech.”...

...When a man and a woman marry with the intention of forming a new family, their success in that endeavor depends on their willingness to renounce the single-minded pursuit of self-fulfillment and to sacrifice their time and means to the nurturing and rearing of their children. Marriage is fundamentally an unselfish act: legally protected because only a male and female together can create new life, and because the rearing of children requires a life-long commitment, which marriage is intended to provide. Societal recognition of same-sex marriage cannot be justified simply on the grounds that it provides self-fulfillment to its partners, for it is not the purpose of government to provide legal protection to every possible way in which individuals may pursue fulfillment. By definition, all same-sex unions are infertile, and two individuals of the same gender, whatever their affections, can never form a marriage devoted to raising their own mutual offspring....


Many who shout 'intolerance' embrace tyrannyMatthew Sanders October 30, 2008

...Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy argued that "unbounded relativism as a civic philosophy soon becomes passivity and indifference: No judgments can be made, for it is impossible to place one set of values over another. This is a far cry from toleration derived from a belief in universal rights. If, in the civic sphere, relativism swallows tolerance whole, belief in universal rights turns into no belief at all."...

...Elder Russell M. Nelson adds, "Gracious tolerance for an individual does not grant him or her license to do wrong, nor does your tolerance obligate you to tolerate his or her misdeed" (Ensign, May 1994). We make no pretention of perfection, nor do we withhold compassion and understanding, but we do maintain our privilege to act on principle....


No Case for Homosexuality in Bible
Joseph Bottum, John Mark Reynolds, Bruce D. Porter

...Reject the Bible, if you will–but don’t pretend it means just what you want it to mean. The plain fact is that when the Old Testament talks about homosexual behavior, it condemns it. And when, in the New Testament, the followers of Jesus encountered homosexual acts, they quickly and universally condemned them....

The Institution Formerly Known As Marriage by Jennifer Roback Morse
Public Discourse 24 Apr 2009

Elder Bruce C. Hafen Speaks on Same-Sex Attraction 19 Sep 2009
The following address was given by Elder Bruce C. Hafen at the Evergreen International annual conference on 19 September 2009:

...Many other people also live heroically with uninvited daily struggles....

...Having same-gender attraction is NOT in your DNA, but being a child of God clearly IS in your spiritual DNA—only one generation removed from Him whom we call Father in Heaven....

...How much is “all we can do” for one who suffers same-gender attraction? I don’t know. But I do know that “all we can do” is less than many of you think it is,...

...
your faith in God must run so deep that, first, you know, first of all that He has the power to remove your unwanted same-gender attraction—“he is able to deliver us from the furnace.”  But, second, if He doesn’t deliver you right now (“but if not”), for whatever reason, you will not give up on Him or on yourself....

...as President Packer said, “The angels of the devil convince some that they are born to a life from which they cannot change and are compelled to live in sin.  The most wicked of lies is that they cannot change and repent and that they will not be forgiven.”[xxii]  If you believe no change is possible, you have only two options, neither of which is acceptable to a believing Latter-day Saint — you must either give in or give up.  Thankfully, you have other options....

...To tolerate behavior is to move it, legally, from being prohibited to being permitted, which we did in deciding not to prosecute homosexual behavior as criminal.  However, we can tolerate or permit that behavior without also endorsing it — that is, promoting and encouraging that behavior, which we have historically done only when the behavior serves a significant public purpose....

...Both no-fault divorce and same-gender marriage allow personal adult rights to trump the best interests of society and children.  The radical personal freedom theory on which the Massachusetts same-gender marriage case is based is actually the logical extension of the same individualistic legal concept that created no-fault divorce. Think about it. When the law upholds an individual’s right to END a marriage, regardless of social consequences (as happened with no-fault divorce), that same legal principle can be used to justify the individual’s right to START a marriage, regardless of social consequences (as happens with same-gender marriage)....

ON THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFEAND CIVIC RESPONSIBILITYThe Most Reverend Raymond L. BurkeBishop of LaCrosse


Apologia for Evil: Also an award-winning motion pictureRod Dreher

...That's the philosophical heart of this film: Individual happiness is the highest good in anyone's life, and brave are those who have the courage to put personal fulfillment above any other entanglement. The Hours is a fairytale for contemporary narcissists. No wonder Hollywood loves it so....

...It's superficial to think that happiness comes easy; some people have everything, and yet are still estranged from themselves. It's even more superficial, though, to think the point of life is to find personal happiness. Most people outgrow that egotistical worldview after their teenage years, and come to understand that the task is to live a meaningful life, if not a happy one. A meaningful life is to be found in love, in living nobly and selflessly in the service of something or someone greater than oneself: God, family, friends, country, humanity, or some combination thereof. The secret to happiness is paradoxical: You find it most truly and deeply through loving others more than you love yourself. Only a father can know how joyful it feels to cradle his crying newborn at three in the morning. Only a saint or a hero knows the joy of dying so that others might live....

..."Hell is other people," said Sartre, because they keep us from becoming our true selves. So too says The Hours, because we fail if we become entangled by commitments that prevent us from fulfilling our desires. Selfishness is a virtue. It's no surprise that this heartless movie is a favorite of the American cultural elite, but for everybody else, The Hours isn't worth five minutes of one's time.


Jewish World Review Jan. 17, 2003 / 14 Shevats, 5763
Julia Gorin

"The Hours": I am woman. Hear me bore.

Here I've spent the past five years thinking I was happily married. Thank god my friend convinced me to see the critically-acclaimed, Paramount-Miramax release "The Hours," nominated for seven Golden Globes and starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore. Because it lifted the veil from my eyes to reveal that I'm actually a lesbian who must leave her husband and children immediately, before their love drives me to overdose on pills or drown myself in a river.

Based on author Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer prize-winning 1998 novel, "The Hours" moves back and forth among three different time periods and three different women. Its message is that anything, anything is better than living a societally-imposed heterosexual life, in a house, in the suburbs--even if it means living alone as a librarian the way Moore's Laura Brown, who is very pregnant with her second child, chooses to do after rethinking an overdose for herself and the baby, opting instead to abandon the family after giving birth.

Or else it is not life that one is living, but a lie. For the dream of idyllic suburban family life can belong only to man, jailer of unsuspecting woman. At least Moore gets to kiss her seemingly perfect but actually sterile and momentarily willing next-door neighbor Kitty on the mouth.

Like Mrs. Brown's pathetic husband, Virginia Woolf's (Nicole Kidman) pathetic husband has sequestered her to the peace of the countryside after London life exacerbated her madness. But, as Woolf convinces her husband, the "death" of living in the suburbs is more maddening than the jolt of city life that she so craves, for it is only in the latter setting that one can thrive. Before returning to the city, Kidman gets to kiss Miranda Richardson, who plays her sister, passionately on the mouth.

...

Janney plays the long-time companion of Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep), who seems to be living the most honestly of the three heroines: in a 10-year relationship with her lesbian partner and, for a shorter time, with a sperm that, together with single then double motherhood, has produced the perfect child, played by Claire Danes--whom we can infer from manner and dress to be a budding lesbian herself. Danes portrays a remarkably well-adjusted daughter who goes to college, helps her mother, is kind to strangers and has no curiosity about the sperm that spawned her.

The once wrongly married Laura Brown envies the rightly never-married Clarissa Vaughan, because she conceived a child she actually wanted. Little does Mrs. Brown know that Vaughan has been pining away for that which every woman, lesbian or not, secretly desires--a gay man. In this case, the gay man is Mrs. Brown's estranged son, played by Ed Harris, who is dying of AIDS and tosses himself from the window. (His circumstances are all the more tragic, since his lifestyle was picture perfect: gay and living in the city.) As Kidman's closing narration tells us to look life in the face, Streep gets over her pining for the dead gay man she can't have, and grabs Janney's face, kissing it passionately on the mouth.

Yes, look life in the face, advises "The Hours," whether that means doing so as a lesbian, as a loner or as a suicide (and nothing in between). Yet the film, an elaborate setup to get us from one Saphic kiss to the next, is so transparent in its perverse propagandizing that it can't be accused of being insidious. Indeed, given the current literary and cinematic climate, it could easily be mistaken for parody.


One's hope for Mr. Cunningham's next literary triumph, as for director Stephen Daldry's and screenwriter David Hare's cinematic one, is that it might find even greater social resonance, perhaps by exploring more courageous themes such as pedophilia, necrophilia, incestuous pedophilia, and incestuous necrophilia.  

Missing LinkBy STANLEY KURTZJanuary 14, 2003 1:45 PMMarriage and cloning.


Souls, Symbols, and SacramentsJEFFREY R. HOLLANDPresident of Brigham Young UniversityJan. 12, 1988 • Devotional

PASTORING THE FAR SIDE:MAKING A PLACE FOR BELIEVINGHOMOSEXUALSA conversation with Stan Roberts.

The Genesis of Gender, or Why Mother in Heaven Can't Save You, Carrie A. Miles, Sunstone July 1997

Elder Russell M. Nelson: The Family: The Hope for the Future of Nations
By Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve 12 AUG 2009

Following is the complete text of a talk given by Elder Russell M. Nelson at the World Congress of Families V in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Aug. 12, 2009.

...Marriage is not simply a contract between individuals; it affects all of society. For that reason, governments have long recognized the family as the fundamental unit of society and have endorsed and encouraged traditional marriage through legal recognitions, protections and benefits....

...Furthermore, those who seek to undermine traditional marriage and family would effectively limit the rights of those who do uphold the sanctity of these institutions. This consequence leads to another major concern— the eventual erosion of religious liberty, including the liberty to defend, promote, and practice traditional family values.7 Religious liberty is essential if we are to raise up righteous children. Morally responsible families will not marginalize religious liberty, they will nurture and protect it....

Interesting Article on Language Origin

First Tongue: An Ancient Global LanguageIntroducion by Gary Vey

Viewzone 2002

Omni Short Story Jan 1986 Tangents by Greg Bear

Tangents by Greg Bear

Omni Short Story from 1984 Adagio by Barry Longyear

Barry Longyear Adagio

Cannonball 2007

Super fun read.


CHARLES GRAEBER GEAR THE PEDAL-TO-THE-METAL, TOTALLY ILLEGAL, CROSS-COUNTRY SPRINT FOR GLORY

Stars as a Representation of Leadership Structure (And Wandering Stars)

What did Abraham Learn about Leadership from the Stars?

By Larry Barkdull · August 20, 2018

“And I saw the stars,” began Abraham, “that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it. And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob.”[i]

To understand the vision of the heavens, Abraham, like Moses, learned that stars represent the organized intelligences, who are the spirit children of God.[ii] The greatest and “first creation, nearest to the celestial”[iii] is Kolob, which represents Jesus Christ, who is nearest to and most like God, and who, in ascending order, is “more intelligent than they all.”[iv]

Other representations of stars are revealed in the vision. For example, Abraham learned that a star called Oliblish “stands next to Kolob…which is the next grand governing creation near to the place where God resides; holding the key of power also.”[v] Could this star represent the Holy Ghost? Then, fifteen “fixed planets or stars”[vi] receive their power from Kolob and apparently govern the universe. Do these celestial bodies represent the fifteen apostles who comprise the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve?

If Kolob, Oliblish and the Fifteen represent the great and governing ones, could some distant star also represent each one of us? If so, what power do Kolob and Christ govern us and keep us in orbit?

Abraham discovered that there exists in the universe a “grand Key, or, in other words, the governing power.”[1] Flowing from Kolob to Oliblish to the Fifteen and out to the myriad galaxies, stars and planets, Kolob governs the universe by the power of the “grand Key,” holding all the creations of God in specific orbits. Additionally, Kolob employs the grand Key or governing power to set each sphere’s times and seasons, all of which are reckoned by the times and seasons of Kolob.The ‘Grand Key’ of Leaders’ Authority and Power

...

We learn the name of this governing power in Doctrine and Covenants 88; it is “the light of Christ.”[3] God harnesses the power of this light to create stars and planets, and by the medium of this light, God sustains the life of his creations as he governs them. This “light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space.” Moreover, the light of Christ “giveth life to all things,” and it “is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God.”[4]

...

Fixed Stars and Wandering Stars

If a star remains fixed in Kolob’s gravitational pull, it will live to fulfill the measure of its creation; if it breaks free and becomes a wandering star, it will either self-destruct or collide with another orb and cause cataclysmic damage to  both.

...

Moving Slowly but Surely

Abraham learned that Kolob rotates deliberately so that it affects the revolutions, times and seasons of every celestial orb: “One revolution was a day unto the Lord, after the manner of his reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standeth [Earth].”[6]

Notice that the Lord is careful to explain that Kolob rotates more slowly than any other heavenly body and that each of God’s creations receives its “light from the revolutions of Kolob.”[7]

What possible meaning could this have to leaders? Could it be that Kolob rotates slowly so that the weakest creation in its charge is not left behind?

...

Integrity

Leaders cannot lead unless they have integrity. Followers must believe that leaders have the ability to keep their word or they will not follow them. “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.”[8]

Abraham believed in the Lord’s integrity and therefore, he was willing to move from Ur and travel to Haran then to Canaan in pursuit of a promised land. Because Abraham had integrity, he advanced the vision of a promised land and convinced other believers to also leave Ur and follow him. Later, because of his integrity, Abraham convinced more people in Haran to follow him to a better future.[9]

Paul said, “For [Abraham] looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” And of other faithful vision-seekers, “But they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”[10]Such is the vision of a leader.

Throughout his journeys, Abraham looked to the stars for inspiration. “Eternity was our covering and our rock and our salvation.”[11] Suffering one trial after another, Abraham kept his integrity. And so did the Lord, who continued to hold out a vision of success to Abraham and never let him down.

Atonement Sacred Embrace

Symbolismin the Sacred Embrace

Another ancient symbol of renewed life is the sacred embrace.[xiv] Hugh Nibley notes that according to the Manichaean religion, “the right hand was used for bidding farewell to our heavenly parents upon leaving our primeval home and [was] the greeting with which we shall be received when we return to it.”[xv] Likewise, the Mandaeans, whose history may intersect with disciples of John the Baptist,[xvi] still continue a ritual practice in which the kushta, a ceremonial handclasp, is given three times, each one of which, according to Elizabeth Drower, “seems to mark the completion … of a stage in a ceremony.”[xvii] At the moment of glorious resurrection, Mandaean scripture records that a final kushta will also take place, albeit in the form of an embrace — what the Ginza calls the “key of the kushta of both arms.” In this context, the two-armed embrace of Mandaean ritual can be seen as an intensification and a fulfillment of the handclasp gesture.

Both the handclasp and the sacred embrace may represent not only mutual love and trust but also a transfer of life and power from one individual to another. In what Elder Willard Richards called “the sweetest sermon from Joseph he ever heard in his life,”[xviii]the Prophet described a vision of the resurrection that, like Mandaean ritual, included a handclasp and an embrace:[xix]

So plain was the vision. I actually saw men, before they had ascended from the tomb, as though they were getting up slowly. They took each other by the hand, and it was, “My father and my son, my mother and my daughter, my brother and my sister.” When the voice calls for the dead to arise, suppose I am laid by the side of my father, what would be the first joy of my heart? Where is my father, my mother my sister? They are by my side. I embrace them, and they me.

Joseph Smith’s words about the gesture of embrace in the resurrection recalls similar symbolism in the stories of Elijah and Elisha, who each employed a similar ritual gesture as they raised a dead child back to life.[xx] The more detailed account of Elisha reads as follows (see Figure 5):[xxi]

And he [Elisha] went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands: and he stretched himself upon the child;[xxii] and the flesh of the child waxed warm.[xxiii]

Although some might take the “intent of this physical contact [as] to transfer the bodily warmth and stimulation of the prophet to the child, Elijah’s prayer, however, makes it clear that he expected the life of the child to return as an answer to prayer, not as a result of bodily contact.”[xxiv] The threefold repetition of the act in the story of Elijah points to a ritual context,[xxv] perhaps corresponding to a similar Mesopotamian procedure where “the healer superimpose[s] his body over that of the patient, head to head, hand to hand, foot to foot.”[xxvi]

In addition to the stories of Elijah and Elisha, Eugene Seaich noted the following parallels in Jewish and Christian sources:[xxvii]

The same embrace reappeared in the early Christian Gospel of Thomas, where Jesus tells the disciples that they must “become one” with him by placing eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in the place of a hand, and a foot in the place of a foot, and an image in the place of an image.[xxviii]

That this was remembered even during the Middle Ages is shown by the fact that the Seder Eliyahu Rabbah (eighth century) also explains how God will resuscitate the dead by lifting them out of the dust, setting them on their feet, and placing them between his knees to embrace them and press them to him. … Compare Acts 20:10, where Paul raises a man from the dead with a sacred embrace. Also the Jewish apocryphon, Joseph and Aseneth, where Joseph gives his bride eternal life with an embrace and a kiss.[xxix]

Seeing anticipatory symbolism in this story, the Seder Eliyahu Rabbah specifically adds that the Messiah will be the very “Son of the Widow” whom Elijah raised from the dead.[xxx]

There is also a symbolism of the sacred embrace in the miracles, death, and resurrection of the Savior. According to H. Riesenfeld,[xxxii] whose careful study of Old Testament incidents of raising the dead showed detailed parallels to the later miracles of the Savior: “It is perhaps more than chance that the miracles of revivication performed, according to Jewish belief, by Elijah, Elisha, and Ezekiel, each prefiguring the coming Messiah, in some way have reached fulfillment in the Messianic activity of Jesus Christ.” According to Sparks and Gilquist, the actions of Elijah in reviving a dead child can also be seen as pointing forward to the “death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.”[xxxiii] Matthew Brown brought attention to Medieval paintings such as this one by Lorenzetti (Figure 7) that echo the actions of Elijah and Elisha, showing specific points of contact with the Savior at his death — face, hand, knee, and foot — with an embrace across the chest. Brown correlated such scenes with passages such as these from English mystery plays: “Behold my body … / And therefore thou shalt understand / In body, head, feet, and hand.”[xxxiv]

Jubilee as a Division of a Millenium _ John Pratt

Indeed, the pattern is more than simply suggestive of the history of Adam's family. It actually puts it all onto the calendar like a schedule. Jubilees of 49 are grouped by sevens into a 343-year Great Jubilee (see Figure 2). Each set of seven 49-year jubilees is named in the same order of Planting, Watering, etc. Then three Great Jubilees are combined to for a millennial jubilee of 1,029 years. Why three? Note that the three annual festivals divide the year into three main parts. There are seven millennial jubilees which in turn are also named Planting, Watering, etc. (see Figures 3 and 4). They begin on Sun 23 Sep 4117 BC and continue for 7,203 years until autumn of AD 3086. Thus, the Garden of Eden was during Planting, the Flood during Watering, Moses during Nourishing, the first dispersion during Transplanting, Jesus came in the Meridian of Time Jubilee and told his disciples the grain fields were ripe ready to harvest (during Grain Harvest) (John 4:35), Christians during the Protestant reformation and restoration became workers in the vineyard during the Vineyard Harvest, and we are now several years into the Burning, which will be followed by the Millennium of the Olive Oil Harvest. The week-long festivals in the annual pattern become special jubilees in this larger version, each being included within a millennium. The scriptural "meridian of time" (Moses 6:62) in this pattern is the Mid-Year Jubilee beginning with the birth of John the Baptist and ending with the death of the Virgin Mary.[4] God promised that He would give us a pattern in all things (D&C 52:14) and indeed even told us that all of our days, months, and years combined are like a single year with God but not with man (D&C 88:44) (see Figure 3).

Logical Reasoning Proves God

. . . Identity excludes probability. That which is identical is not probable. . . . Therefore there is a cause, outside of space, outside of time, the master of being, which made being to be in this way. And this is God.”

Jewish Temple Symbolism and Imagery (and brother of Jared) and Sacrament

How the Symbolism of Judaism’s Holiest Day is Significant to Latter-day Saints By LDS Perspectives Podcast · September 18, 2018.

Shon Hopkin: One of the important things for modern Christians and Latter-day Saints to understand is that the tabernacle and then the temple were set up to imitate a return into the Garden of Eden. This is the idea that Adam and Eve and all humankind have been cast out of the Garden of Eden, out of the presence of God, out of the paradisiacal state and are living in this fallen world. God has even placed cherubim, these angelic guardians, to protect the presence of God. And the idea isn’t, “You can’t return into my presence.” The idea is rather, “You need to prepare appropriately before you return into my presence.” As the high priest proceeds from east to west towards the Holy of Holies, he is carefully, appropriately, boldly seeking to return, like Adam and Eve returning, representing all of the congregation of Israel, or we might say representing all of us if you’re taking a modern perspective, back into the presence of God. When you move past the veil, you’ve now passed those cherubim stitched on the vale. And they were actually stitched on the vale. They are guarding the way as if saying, “Do not enter in unless you are truly ready to come in.” This is high drama for ancient Israelites. We have someone representing all of us that is going to enter into the presence of God. That’s going back into the Garden of Eden.

Shon Hopkin: And again, I have to be careful here because symbols are multivalent. Right? This is just one way of understanding our ordinances and our symbols, but I think it’s a helpful Episode 94: Day of Atonement Symbolism in LDS Ritual with Shon Hopkin http://www.ldsperspectives.com/2018/09/19/day-atonement/ Page 11 of 15 way. I actually have to add one more Book of Mormon thing because I think it also helps as we talk now about Latter-day Saint ordinances and religious practice. The Brother of Jared is an interesting case study. This event is historically before the temple exists, but Mahonri uses this account and veil language as well to talk about his encounter with diety. After the Brother of Jared’s recounts his story of entering into the presence of God, he says, “As soon as you have enough faith you too can pierce the veil of unbelief and stand in the presence of God.” He understands what he’s doing with the story very clearly. And in that story, the Brother of Jared is also in a sense before a veil. He’s on a high mountain, so we would understand it as a temple kind of a setting, and he’s got a problem that he’s brought there before the Lord, and he’s asking the Lord to light these stones, and he prays this beautiful prayer. And if you think of him praying before the veil of the temple with this powerful prayer of faith, and all of a sudden, a hand pierces the veil. A hand peeks through the veil. God’s finger peeks through the veil, and the Brother of Jared looks at God’s finger and says, “Whoa. God has a finger. Therefore, God must have a body. God has a hand. Therefore, God must have a body. God’s willing to show me his hand. Therefore, maybe God will be willing to show me his whole body.” And that sparks his faith in such a way that with faith and boldness, he steps through the veil, so to speak, and enters into the presence of God and see’s God face-to-face. It’s not fair to call it Day of Atonement imagery because it happens before the Day of Atonement has ever been instituted, but to see this as an overarching theme both in the Book of Mormon and in the Bible, I think, is really important.

Shon Hopkin: And now I’ll talk about some Latter-day Saint ordinance practices. If we start with the sacrament, there are all kinds of symbolisms that can build on Day of Atonement imagery. The sacrament tablecloth covers the presence of God. It is covering those emblems that represent God’s presence. There are priests there. And if you think of the Day of Atonement now in Latter-day Saint practice, these priests are pronouncing the holy name of God, and the veil then is removed through sacred priesthood ordinance or ritual. You can tell it’s sacred because there is someone designated to guard the way and make sure it’s done appropriately. The bishop is up there. He’s the cherubim. The bishop is saying, “Whoa, whoa. This is important. This is a big deal. We are seeking to enter the presence of God. It’s got to be done correctly.” Right? If that priest gets the prayer wrong, there’s no magic in the order of those words it’s just we’ve got to do our best to do it the right way because we’re trying to enter into the presence of God. And so, we’ll say, “Oh, say the prayer again,” and the prayer is said again.” In this very sacred moment, the veil is pulled back and the presence of God, the community, the congregation, seeks to enter into the presence of God altogether and become one with the God that they worship. There is very beautiful and powerful symbolism there. Remember, I had mentioned that it’s high-risk, and in medieval legend, they’d even tie a rope to the leg. Well, you get that kind of language in the Book of Mormon. If you eat and drink unworthily you’re eating and drinking damnation to your soul. This is a big deal. Don’t just run Episode 94: Day of Atonement Symbolism in LDS Ritual with Shon Hopkin http://www.ldsperspectives.com/2018/09/19/day-atonement/ Page 12 of 15 past those cherubim. You prepare and then you humbly but boldly seek to enter into the presence of God. So that’s the sacrament. We could also talk about other ordinances as well.

Patriarchal Blessing Help

?Urvin Gee? receives help giving his first Patriarchal Blessing.

...He told of being ordained a patriarch. He was shocked and intimidated by the calling. He had, if I’m remembering correctly, never even received his own patriarchal blessing, and there were no manuals or instructions. For a lengthy period of time, though, nobody asked him for a blessing. So he began to think that maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, after all. Maybe he would have the honor of being a patriarch without ever actually needing to give a blessing.

But then a boy in his stake — which I vaguely think may have been out somewhere in rural Utah; for some reason, the southeastern part of the state sticks in my mind, though I may be wrong on that — made an appointment to receive a patriarchal blessing under his hands.

He was terrified. He wasn’t sure what to do or that he could do it. He began to study the scriptures, in Genesis and elsewhere, that would give him some sense of what he was to do and what a patriarchal blessing should be like.

In the end, he actually wrote a “blessing” out and memorized it, so that he would be ready when the boy came. When the time arrived, he put his hands on the boy’s head and was just about to begin reciting the “blessing” that he had prepared and memorized. But then he felt impelled to open his eyes. And here’s the crucial part: On the wall opposite him, he saw words, written in light. He sensed that he was to read them aloud. As he read a sentence or a phrase, it would disappear and be replaced by another one.

In the end, he had read off a complete patriarchal blessing — entirely different from the one that he had written out. This, he said, had never happened to him again. But he didn’t need it to happen again. He knew that the Lord would sustain him and that he had no cause to fear or to be concerned...