Discerning God’s Light

I spoke in church today (for the second time in as many months; my family moved to a new ward and my wife and I were asked to speak very soon). Here is what I had to say.

I want to begin my talk by asking you to conduct a thought experiment. I want you to imagine being in this chapel in pitch darkness. Imagine that we’ve turned out the lights, closed the doors, and blacked out the windows. There is absolutely no light in here at all. Now imagine that way up here on the stand, I light a candle. Wherever you are sitting, I hope that you are imaging that you can see it, because even though our imaginary candle would a very small light, everyone in this chapel would be able to see it through the darkness. Now, here comes the experiment: ask yourself, how far away from the candle you would need to be before you would not be able to see it anymore.

Sanctifying Motherhood

I spoke in church today on the sanctifying power of motherhood. Here is the text of my talk:

I want to begin my talk by summarizing a short story written by a nineteenth-century American writer named Bret Harte, called “The Luck of Roaring Camp.”

The story begins in Roaring Camp, a mining settlement up in the Sierra Nevada during California’s Gold Rush. It was like most other mining camps, and it’s residents were like most other miners. The term “roughs” applied to them was a distinction rather than a definition. Perhaps in the minor details of fingers, toes, ears, etc., the camp may have been deficient, but these slight omissions did not detract from their aggregate force. The strongest man had but three fingers on his right hand; the best shot had but one eye. One or two of them were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were reckless.

Now, these roughs were all collected before a rude cabin on the outer edge of the settlement because something was happening inside that cabin that had never happened in the camp before. Deaths were by no means uncommon in Roaring Camp, but a birth was a new thing. And at just that moment, a sharp, fussy cry — a cry unlike anything heard before in the camp — rose into the air.

How We Know What We Know About the Godhead

A few weeks ago I was in a Sunday School class about the nature of the Godhead, when one of the class members said that it is obvious from the New Testament that the Godhead is as we Mormons believe it is: the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as three distinct beings, the Father and Son having glorified physical bodies, and the Holy Ghost being a personage of spirit. This is not an uncommon position among Mormons, but it rubbed me the wrong way and the more I thought about about it, I understood why: because it’s not true.

What Scripture Stories Have to be Literally True?

One of the flashpoints between religion and science is the origin of humanity. The Bible tells us that God personally created the first two human beings (Gen. 1:26–27). Science tells us that humans evolved over millions of years from single cell organisms to more complex lifeforms to primates to humans. The two accounts seem to be mutually exclusive, and, traditionally at least, believers couldn’t accept the theory of evolution without undermining their faith. Peter Enns, in his book The Evolution of Adam, argues that this is a false dichotomy, and that belief in God and an acceptance of evolution are compatible.