The Pierian Spring: New Blog Project

I’d like to announce a new blog The Pierian Spring.  The blog is devoted to further discussion and discourse on Mormon scripture and thought and written primarily towards a Latter-day Saint readership.

Interfaith dialogue necessarily requires one to summarize, describe and otherwise explain one’s faith tradition in a way that others can appreciate and understand.  It goes without saying that in order to do this effectively, one must make a concerted effort to learn about the religious traditions of others and become aware of the themes, contours, the history and concerns that has shaped the faith of others.  In a sense, one must become religiously “bilingual.”  Thus, those involved in interfaith dialogue are continually learning about the faith of others but importantly, and concurrently, studying and reflecting on their own faith tradition, and as a result gain an important perspective concerning their own faith tradition.

Patheos Series on Interfaith Dialogue

Patheos is currently running a series on Interfaith Dialogue from a variety of religious perspectives including those from a Catholic, Evangelical, Mainline Protestant, Latter-day Saint and Pagan view points.  Authors discuss what led them to enter into dialogue with those of other faiths.

Most Improbable Dialogue

Christianity Today, a magazine of evangelical conviction, has just published an article written by Richard N. Ostling (co-author of Mormon America) titled “Most Improbable Dialogue.” The article covers the efforts of Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints to engage in a series of dialogues and conferences over the years.

Ostling informs readers of the November 14, 2004 “Evening of Friendship” event at the Mormon Tabernacle where renowned Christian theologian Ravi Zacharias addressed a group of Mormons and Evangelicals.  It was also at this event that Fuller Theological Seminary president Richard Mouw shocked the Evangelical world by publicly apologizing to Mormons for the Evangelical distortion of Mormon beliefs.

National Student Dialogue Conference 2009

This year’s National Student Dialogue Conference (III), hosted by Standing Together, will be held Friday & Saturday on November 13-14th, 2009 at Biola University.  The two-day conference will involve key religious leaders and thinkers who will speak from both Latter-day Saint and Evangelical perspectives.

For more information on the conference visit Standing Together.  Also visit the National Student Conference Facebook page.

How Should Evangelicals Approach Mormon Missionaries?

A triad of posts appeared this week: “How to Witness to Mormon Missionaries. Or, what to do when you have Mormon missionaries at your door” by Bridget Jack Meyers of ClobberBlog, “Witnessing to Mormon Missionaries” by Tim of LDS & Evangelical Conversations, and “Three Evangelical Perspectives on Witnessing to Mormon Missionaries” by Aaron Shafovaloff at Mormon Coffee. While these three authors do not represent a unified school of thought as to how to approach Mormon Missionaries as Evangelicals, each is a self-identified Evangelical Christian and offer his or her perspective in the matter.

Perhaps you are wondering what I think about these distinct posts from my perspective of interfaith dialogue and interreligious communication. If you are, you’ve come to the right place.  What follows are my observations, critiques and commentary.

Mormonism and the Cross: Looking at the History

Last year during a discussion about why Mormons do not wear the cross I made the following statement:

I think it is very important to look for historical explanations, rather than contemporary or popular explanations for why Mormons do not wear crosses or have crosses on their meeting houses. For that matter, it is important to draw a distinction between the cross as a doctrinal symbol, an architectural symbol and for personal adornment.

In regards to meetinghouses, Bushman observes that “During the course of his life, [Joseph] never built a standard meetinghouse, even in Nauvoo, where the Mormon population exceeded 10,000.” Rather, Joseph’s “architectural imagination focused on temples.” Bushman explains, “However culturally anomalous, the City of Zion occupied a central place in Joseph Smith’s design for world renewal. He conceived the world as a vast funnel with the city at the vortex and the temple at the center of the city.” I haven’t found any historical evidence that Joseph taught using crosses in architecture was somehow unfavorable or improper, but rather he was looking towards the tradition of ancient Israel for his inspiration and sought to create “a church of cities rather than a church of congregations.” (RSR, 216-222).

Exploiting Self-Criticism in Interfaith Dialogue

Individuals of faith care passionately about their religious community. Evangelicals, Catholics, and Latter-day Saints care about the nature and role of teaching (what is taught and how it should be taught), the relationship between faith and society (the nature and extent of political involvement), and the way of the Church (policy and administration).

Engaging in self-criticism or self-critique is part of life in any religious community. Do we practice what we preach? Do we live what we believe? Do we engage in hypocrisy? Are we faithfully teaching the next generation? Does our beliefs make a difference in our community?

Google Reader as Urim and Thummim

Yes, of course, who has time? Who has time? But then if we do not ever take time, how can we ever have time? – The Merovingian

One of the best ways I’ve found to improve my connectivity to the amazing content created by the community of bloggers is through using a Reader.

There are other “Readers” out there, but I will be focusing on Google Reader.  If you don’t know what Google Reader is, how to use it, or why you would even want to use it, I suggest watching “RSS in Plain English” by Common Craft (I’ve had a link to this video on my blog since I began back in August 2007).  This short video is only about 3 minutes and well worth the time.  Time.  Isn’t this the problem? We don’t have a lot of time to waste trying to find new content or tracking down that one post that was so good but we have forgotten where we stumbled upon it.  We need a way to save time.