Some Notices that Bear Repeating

I have mentioned these before, but I will repeat them.

From this entry:

Normally blogs have some sort of comment feature. The purpose behind such a feature is to have readers leave behind thoughtful comments. In reality, however, comments on most blogs that I have read are ignorant, hate-filled, and incoherent diatribes.

For that reason I do not allow comments on the blog, even the occasional good one.

From this entry:

The views expressed in this blog are the author's own. They do not necessarily represent those of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

I understand some people view that as an understatement.

A Reader's Comment

I received the following comment on this blog post:

I was going to comment (if comments weren't disabled for what are probably excellent reasons) that an even better analogy might be the number of evangelicals who are aware of the controversies over the authorship of certain Pauline epistles.

Outside of those who interact with Biblical scholarship, most evangelicals I doubt are aware that the authorship of several of Paul's epistles is hotly contested, and it's a given, even among many conservative scholars, that he didn't write the Pastorals.

Is the evangelical movement not true because most evangelicals have a mistaken view of the historical background of Ephesians or 2 Thessalonians?

I guess that I did not think of that analogy because I am skeptical of some of the arguments on the authorship of Paul's epistles. It also seems to me that Paul's epistles are much more central to Evangelical thought than the Joseph Smith Papyri are to Latter-day Saint thought. On the other hand, I cannot recall the last time I have seen the book of Nahum cited in evangelical literature. I know that evangelicals have written commentaries on it and I would not be surprised if I agreed with much that they might have to say on the subject, but Nahum does not seem to be on most Evangelical's radar screens. The same could be said of Habakkuk. The Joseph Smith Papyri are probably of less importance to most Latter-day Saints than the book of Nahum is to most Evangelicals because Latter-day Saints do not think of the Joseph Smith Papyri as being "God-breathed" the way that Evangelicals think of anything in the Bible (which presumably includes Nahum) as being "God-breathed."

It seems to me that one of the problems that appears in dialogues between Evangelicals and members of the Church of Jesus Christ is that Evangelicals have a view of scripture that does not allow for any mistakes or errors. They view scripture as "God-breathed" and perfect. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ, however, do not think that their scriptures are perfect. The Book of Mormon tells them that there are errors in the Bible and that the Book of Mormon is not perfect, and that neither is complete. Thus some Evangelicals think that if they can find even one error in the scriptures of the Church of Jesus Christ, that that error invalidates the entire scripture and the entire Church. We simply do not see it that way.

No Comment

As I start blogging, I do so with some trepidation. Normally blogs have some sort of comment feature. The purpose behind such a feature is to have readers leave behind thoughtful comments. In reality, however, comments on most blogs that I have read are ignorant, hate-filled, and incoherent diatribes.

I am not the only one to notice the problem. Arthur Brooks in his book, Gross National Happiness, asks why ideologues are happy: “The most plausible reason is religion—not real religion, but rather, a secular substitute in which they believe with perfect certainty in the correctness of their political dogmas. . . . True political believers are martyrs after a fashion, willing to shout slogans in public for causes they are sure are good, or against causes they are convinced are evil. They are happy because—unlike you, probably—they are positive they are right.”[1] Brooks notes that true political believers tend to consider themselves happy but they delight in making those around them unhappy. “The unhappiness created by happy people with extreme political views extends far beyond those stuck behind them in traffic and exposed to their bumper stickers. There is evidence that people with extreme views affect everybody adversely, because they are less compassionate than average, less honest, and less concerned for others.”[2] They want to stir like-minded people to action. “In the extremist’s mind, it’s good if you get angry.”[3] But is it?

The Book of Mormon, as usual, has some interesting commentary on the subject. The letter of Mormon to his son Moroni preserved in Moroni 9 contains some of the most depressing passages in scripture: descriptions of the barbarous practices of the Nephites who “only a few years” previously had been “a civil and a delightsome people” (Moroni 9:12). One cause of the depravity was that “Satan stirreth them up continually to anger one with another” (Moroni 9:3). This is one reason why I am not overly enthusiastic about comments.

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[1] Arthur C. Brooks, Gross National Happiness (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 34.

[2] Brooks, Gross National Happiness, 37.

[3] Brooks, Gross National Happiness, 35.