Month: August 2019

Vulgarity and Plain Words in Scripture and Life, Part 1

/ Scott S. Mitchell / 1 Comment

A painting by Del Parson showing a group of people mocking and pointing their fingers at Lehi, who is prophesying while standing near a palm tree.

I have a long history of loving and hating vulgarity.  Like most devout Christians, I’ve been disgusted at how vulgarity now dominates everyday speech, and how our crass, dumbed-down society seems incapable of expressing anything without resorting to it.  And many movies, plays and TV shows with compelling stories and acting are made unwatchable by writers whose profanity-laced dialogues are harder to endure than a long swim in a cesspool.

But perhaps I’m as devout a hypocrite as I am a Christian, and because of that, I also enjoy some forms of vulgarity. Continue reading →

Jacob 2 and 3, Censorship, and Mormonism’s Avoidance of Stubborn Book of Mormon Truth, Part 2

/ Scott S. Mitchell / Leave a comment

Image result for ancient polygamous wives

In Part 1 of this essay I included the excerpt below from the LDS Church’s Teacher Manual for seminary (i.e., high school aged) students.  This excerpt is taken from the Book of Mormon lesson wherein the content of Jacob 2 and 3 is addressed. Readers may wonder why I didn’t include material from the lesson covering Jacob 2 and 3 in the Church’s Book of Mormon Teacher Manual for Institute (i.e., college aged) students.  (I truly do hope readers wondered that.  It would mean the reader is intellectually engaged in the discussion of this topic, for one thing, and that question naturally inheres in a discussion about how the LDS Church teaches difficult subjects.  But in this case, the question also leads to a very interesting answer.) Continue reading →

Jacob 2 and 3, Censorship, and Mormonism’s Avoidance of Stubborn Book of Mormon Truth, Part 1

/ Scott S. Mitchell / Leave a comment

Image result for solomon's wives

By Scott S. Mitchell

Two Sundays ago, the lesson in my LDS priesthood meeting centered around a talk by Becky Craven in the April 2019 general conference entitled “Careful Versus Casual.”  Predictably, two things occurred during the classroom discussion.  First, the discussion quickly focused on two of the most prominently discussed Law-of-Moses-type items on Mormonism’s long checklist of do’s and don’ts–wearing the temple garment and Sabbath Day observance.  Second, two or three members of the class self-censored the comments they felt were most important to make.  (It should be obvious who one of them was.)  Had they not self-censored, they would have pointed out that neither temple-garment-wearing nor Sabbath Day observance were part of Jesus’ gospel when he preached that gospel to the Nephites.  Thus, as non-commandments, the rules of garment wearing and Sabbath proscriptions didn’t merit the attention LDS Church members give them.  In fact, it might also have been added that Jesus never even mentioned the word “temple” or anything about sabbath observance to the Nephites in all his teachings,1 nor were these items part of his teachings to the Jews.

Continue reading →