Old Faith Blog

Great article at LDSFreemen.com  on God's commandment to multiply and replenish the Earth, by Ezra Taylor. The introduction: Happiness, that is true joy, is something that all of Heavenly Father’s children desire to have. The Psalmist says that “Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them” (Psalms 127:5). What is a quiver and what do we need to fill it with to bring us that happiness? When we read the context, of course, more understanding is opened up to us. King Solomon writes, “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.” (Psalms 137:3-5) A quiver is a case for holding or carrying arrows. It was used as a metaphor to point out the fact that when one fills up their life with children, which are “an heritage of the Lord”, true happiness follows.

The Church has started publishing a video series called Mormon Messages  on Youtube and among those are the two embedded below about why we build temples and the blessings that are received through the temple. My wife and I have began doing temple work for our family. My side has been mostly done and still requires some more work for the furthest back and outward of my family tree. We've just begun baptisms and are working through those of the names we have. My wife's side is completely untouched except for her grandmothers, grandfathers, and a couple of uncles that have passed away. We have a lot of geneology work to do for her family as she is a first-generation convert. It's been exciting to do the work for those who you can trace to and possibly share a surname with. It's felt a little more significant for me knowing a little better those whose work we are doing. They're not complete strangers, anyway. Here's those two videos that I recommend watching to bet...

MormonTimes.com reports on a student , Michael Baldwin, at Brigham Young University who has put together a paper harmonizing the several accounts of Joseph Smith's first vision. The report contains an excerpt from the harmonization and I recommend reading it. Here's the report explaining what that means: Baldwin noticed that each version had some aspects that were unique. One would mention one detail while another would focus on another detail. He decided to bring all the different versions together in a harmony -- similar to what many have done with the four New Testament Gospels. He made two columns to help organize the information. One column had the common elements of the First Vision. Another column contained the unique elements. He created a single narrative of the First Vision from the different accounts and color-coded the words to keep track of the sources.

Orson Scott Card's latest MormonTimes.com  column is a reflection on Hugh Nibley. As one who has read most of his work, I can appreciate what Card has to say about him: My father knew I was interested in the Book of Mormon; he also knew that I was frustrated with the amount of nonsense -- bad reasoning, shoddy scholarship, gross overreaching -- that pervaded the books then available that tried to "prove" the Book of Mormon through archaeology. Hugh Nibley's book did none of the things that had made me so unhappy with the others. Instead, he studied the text of the Book of Mormon closely, and treated it, not as something to be proven, but as something that was true. The Book of Mormon, Nibley showed me, is not trying to prove its own genuineness, it's trying to get people to repent of their sins and accept the Atonement of Christ. But the culture is there -- it simply isn't explained or pointed out, because that wasn't the writers' purpose.

Scientists and religious leaders call for an end to the fighting over the legacy of Charles Darwin. This week, the bicentennial of his birth is being celebrated throughout the world. Brigham Young University has a series of lectures planned throughout the week that I will be attending on Wednesday evening. I'm sure this article was timely released. An excerpt: "Evolution, we believe, has become caught in the crossfire of a religious battle in which Darwin himself had little personal interest. "We respectfully encourage those who reject evolution to weigh the now overwhelming evidence, hugely strengthened by recent advances in genetics, which testifies to the theory's validity. "At the same time, we respectfully ask those contemporary Darwinians who seem intent on using Darwin's theory as a vehicle for promoting an anti-theistic agenda to desist from doing so as they are, albeit unintentionally, turning people away from the theory. "In this year of all ...

This video is making it's way around the blogosphere. It's a slideshow collection of the Mark Mabry "Reflections of Christ" photography project. It is accompanied by the hymn "Come Thou Fount". It is a beautiful collection of photos depicting the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Reflections of Christ - Mark Mabry

I delivered this talk in Sacrament meeting on January 25th, 2009: [Good morning brothers and sisters.] I am privileged for this opportunity to speak here in Sacrament meeting and pray that the Spirit has been with me as I prepared this talk. Before I begin though, I’d like to just share a few updates on my family. My son is in his first year of primary and from what I can tell, he really enjoys it. I think there are six or seven kids in his class and knowing how rambunctious those kids are, all I have to say is that the Bishop owes Sister Ferguson big time! Julieta is teaching full time in primary and has quite the class herself. I’m really proud of how well she’s handled her kids. I can see how much she loves them and they love her in the way they’re quick to give her a hug. She has also been enjoying Activity Days with Sister Smith and Sister Parry. For myself, and I say this with true sincerity, I have really enjoyed Gospel Doctrine and the opportunity to lead our discussions on the...

Chris Brown, writing for LDSFreemen.com , gives an excellent critique of the argument that money, and subsequently capitalism, is evil. The article can be found here and includes much on the government's monopoly power to print baseless money. An excerpt: Of course, money is a good thing, although it—like most things—can be used for evil purposes. It is simply a medium of exchange, used to serve as a common denominator, which then makes more exchange possible. Money is actually useful and necessary in a complex society, allowing a society to move from barter to more advanced civilization. It helps the entrepreneur allocate resources according to their relative prices, and provides the ability to calculate revenues and expenses, profits and losses. It facilitates specialization and the division of labor. In short, it makes economic calculation possible. But the love of money is something very different; for the love of anything over God would be breaking the first commandment, of l...

ABC's Nightline  aired an 8 minute special on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last night. I thought it did a fair job and featured interviews with Apostles Ballard and Cook. It's nice seeing the Church get access to this type of exposure. The link below, I am unable to embed it here. Mormon Temple Revealed - Nightline

A week ago, I saw headlines all over Google News from various media outlets reporting on new findings published in the January 1st edition of  Pediatrics . The headlines included "Virginity Pledges Don't Stop Teen Sex" by CBS, "Virginity pledges don't mean much" by CNN, and "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds" by the Washington Post. Reading the articles lead one to believe that abstinence pledge or not, all teens were equally promiscuous. The unfortunate thing is that such a conclusion is not based on the actual study used to write those articles. Here to clear up the half-truths delivered by these "elite" media outlets is William McGurn writing for  The Wall Street Journal . The article can be  found here . The introduction: The chain reaction was something out of central casting. A medical journal starts it off by announcing a study comparing teens who take a pledge of virginity until marriage with those who don...