Mormonism & the Mormon church

This weekend as I watched General Conference on TV, I couldn’t help but feel a bit melancholy during President Hinckley’s talk. Gordon B. Hinckley became prophet and president of the Mormon church when I was a freshman in high school. He is the prophet that I grew up with, that sent me on a mission, and who I’ve heard speak the most. His talk this weekend was reflective and personal, as if he was alluding to his own upcoming passing. Despite that tone, President Hinckley ended the talk by saying, essentially, ‘This isn’t an obituary. I look forward to seeing you in October.”

I found it interesting to learn today that two years ago on President Hinckley’s birthday, President George W. Bush awarded Gordon B. Hinckley the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award given to civilians. I can’t think of anyone more deserving.

In the Mormon Church, Thomas Monson is the president of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. This means that when the current president of the Church Gordon B. Hinckley passes away, Thomas S. Monson will (most likely) become the new prophet and president of the Church.

This weekend was the semi-annual General Conference, which we watched on TV. (It’s 4 hours on Saturday and 4 hours on Sunday.) The men are also expected to attend a priesthood meeting Saturday evening, so it is an additional 2 hours of meetings that day.

At the Saturday evening priesthood meeting it was interesting hear President Thomas Monson speak so openly and candidly. Though he has always seemed warm and friendly as a speaker, he was particularly warm and even entertaining this evening. His intonation and facial expressions make it easy to listen to his talks. I think that in turn makes it easier for his stories to uplift because he can keep the audience’s attention so well. President Monson told several uplifting stories that evening. I look forward to rereading his talk when it becomes available within a few weeks in print.

When I was growing up in Las Vegas, we often went to “Warm Springs”, a natural hot springs located about 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas off of I-15. It was originally owned by Howard Hughes but somehow ended up in the hands of the Mormon Church many years ago. It has since been the location of many campouts and activities for Mormon girls and boys. I’ve camped several nights there and even had a birthday party there one year.

This week the Southern Nevada Water Authority announced that it will pay $7.2M to the Mormon Church to lease water rights from the springs for the next 20 years. I don’t suppose this will mean the end of the fun for Mormon girls and boys in Las Vegas, but I did find it interesting.

A new TV show from HBO called Big Love tells the story of a polygamist family in Salt Lake City, an upsetting concept to the Mormon Church because of its potential among other things to confuse viewers.

Some members of the Mormon church practiced polygamy after its founding, but its practice was discontinued in 1890. Since then, no polygamist can be a member of the Church. So called “fundamentalist Mormons” that practice polygamy aren’t actually Mormons. Setting a TV show about polygamy in Salt Lake City seems sloppy on the part of HBO since (non-Mormon) polygamists today are most likely to be in rural Utah, Arizona, or Texas. And it’s a bit irreponsible since it perpetuates myths about Mormonism.

The Church has released at least one press release about Big Love, mentioning three concerns:

• Concern for abuse victims
• Confusion over the continued practice of polygamy
• Concern over the moral standards of television entertainment

My favorite part of the press release touched not only on Big Love, but the general “unhealthy preoccupation with sex, coarse humor and foul language”:

Big Love, like so much other television programming, is essentially lazy and indulgent entertainment that does nothing for our society and will never nourish great minds. Parents who are casual about their viewing habits ought not to be surprised if teaching moral choices and civic values to their children becomes harder as a result.

Mormons, however, may have little to worry about since the show appears to be a flop:

From what I can tell, the goal of [Big Love] is to prove that life can be just as mundane, colorless and boring with three spouses as it can with one or none. Mission accomplished…. Nothing [the actors] do breathes life into these characters or their problems, most of which seem to center on the inherent difficulty of scheduling three intertwined households. (USA Today)

A recently released survey from Princeton Review rates Mormon-owned Brigham Young University the best value among colleges.

Source: BYU gives most bang for buck, review says

Apple.com has an interesting case study on how the Mormon Church used Apple software and hardware to create special effects for the recent movie Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration.

“Shake performs a miracle” (Apple.com)

The Church is now publishing RSS feeds on lds.org. You can find all of them at the following address:

http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,6606-1-3386-1,00.html

One of my favorite Book of Mormon heros is Captain Moroni. The Book of Mormon seminary video about Captain Moroni is now available on Google Video.

There are also several other seminary videos on Google Video, which you can also embed in your website:

Becoming Children of Christ
The Pride Cycle
For Our Day
Pride
Allegory of the Olive Tree
Overview of the Book of Mormon

I recently listened to a CBS News interview with John Shehan, manager of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline. He talked about the dangers to children of online communities like MySpace.com, particularly because children and teenagers tend to publish too much personal information. Predators frequent these sites and employ a variety of methods to find victims. Mr. Shehan said one common method predators employ is to pretend to be atheist and engage in religious conversations with a religious girl. The predator gets close to the girl by debating religious topics, and the girl thinks she is converting the atheist to her religion.

This strikes me as especially plausible for young Mormon girls, who might be tricked into naively conversing with a predator under the guise of converting him to Mormonism. (For example, it’s not difficult to find Mormon girls on MySpace.com, and a predator might seek them out knowing their tendency to be open about their religion.)

Mr. Shehan said parents should speak to their children about their online behaviors and should give them enough attention that they don’t look for it online.

Source: Larry Magid’s Tech Report (Feb 3, 2006) [mp3]

Appropriate for President’s Day, I just listened to an excellent speech by Richard Bushman, author of Rough Stone Rolling, which compares and contrasts the lives of Joseph Smith and Abraham Lincoln.

They were contemporaries though they probably never met. Joseph was just 3 years older than Lincoln, and they both lived in Illinois at the same time for 5 years.

Both were born into poor farming families whose ancestors had arrived in America during the 1600’s. Both were hard working, country boys who achieved little formal schooling.

Lincoln’s had little interest in spiritual matters but went to church often with his parents. Joseph’s parents, on the other hand, did not regularly attend church, but Joseph was deeply concerned with spiritual matters such as achieving forgiveness of sins and his own salvation. As a boy Lincoln would often stand on a “stump” after church, repeating the sermon word for word and mimicking the mannerisms of the preacher. Joseph’s formal religious background was far smaller, but his curiosity and inflection much more.

Both went through a period of maturity and accomplishment from age 22 to 25. Lincoln began to be ambitious and began networking with people. Joseph translated the Book of Mormon, organized the Church, and sent out missionaries.

Lincoln worked his way up from hireling to store owner to lawyer to state politician to senator to President. Lincoln’s accomplishments followed the ideal path of the “American Dream,” rising from poverty to President gradually. Joseph’s curve of accomplishments was “almost vertical”, becoming a prophet essentially overnight, not over a period of time.

Lincoln believed in the impersonal, deterministic, uninvolved God of Calvinism, though that softened as he suffered through the Civil War. Joseph believed in a personable, loving, concerned God, which made it all the harder when he felt alone or abandoned by Him.

Lincoln believed in capitalism, the freedom for every man to determine his own place in life. (This was his main concern with slavery — the lack of personal economic freedom.) Joseph believed in material equality and even tried practicing consecration with his people. But more than economics, Joseph was concerned with the spiritual welfare of his people. Lincoln was concerned with free markets; Joseph was concerned with having a temple in each community.

Joseph Smith died at the young age of 38. If Lincoln had died at 38 he wouldn’t have been remembered for anything. Both died as martyrs to their causes.

Joseph Smith and Abraham Lincoln by Richard Bushman [mp3]

This and other talks from the Sidney B. Sperry symposium at BYU