The book for my book club is by Sarah Baringer Gordon, The Mormon Question. It’s bee n a really hard book to find at the library (nearly impossible), so I got a late start on it. It takes a very different approach to the polygamy question. Ms Gordon has a law degree, and so she talks about the legal arguments concerning the separation of church and state. I’ve learned a lot about the evolution of legal thought and the Constitution. There hasn’t been a strict separation, especially during the 1800′s. The Mormons helped define that line.
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Today is Joseph’s 204th birthday. (He was born in 1805 for those of you curious about the math.) Since Dec 22 is the first day of winter, and the day with the shortest amount of sunlight, I’ve heard people say that Joseph’s birth was symbolic. Joseph was bringing light into the world after a period of darkness. That’s interesting.
As most of you know, Joseph died June 27, 1844 in a hail of gunfire at the Carthage jail, leaving behind a pregnant wife and 3 young boys: Joseph SMITH III (age 11 1/2), Frederick Granger Williams SMITH (age 8), Alexander Hale SMITH (age 6). Emma gave birth to David Hyrum SMITH on Nov 18, 1844, 5 months after Joseph’s death . (Emma gave birth to 10 children in all, though most of them died at or near birth. Don Carlos SMITH lived just 15 months from 13 Jun 1840 – 15 Sep 1841.)
Three years after Joseph’s death, Emma married a man by the name of Lewis Bidamon. Most astonishing to me is the day she picked for her wedding: Joseph’s birthday, 23 Dec 1847. Read more…
BiV over at Mormon Matters posted a link to the Mormon Song from the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Apparently, Senator Orrin Hatch wrote a Hannukah Song, which I found really catchy, and Conan tried to follow suit, even including his on Tapper-nacle Choir to help him out. This is my first video ever, so I’m hoping it works. (Update: Even though I upgraded to WordPress 2.9, which supposedly has built in video support, it isn’t working as advertised. It was supposed to embed videos, but I’ll have to just post the links here. For anyone out there who know how to embed videos into WordPress, please let me know.)
http://www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/video/clips/a-song-for-the-mormons-121409/1185331/
Here’s some other cool videos:
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I’ve been reading some of the interesting changes in temple ceremonies (specifically the Endowment ceremony) in the book, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship, by David John Buerger. (I talked about this in my previous post as well.) The temple is a place where we are constantly reminded that if we must communicate, we should whisper so that the Spirit of God will be there. However, it wasn’t always that way. Buerger records that following some initiatory ceremonies, and weddings, dancing was actually done in the Kirtland Temple. I wish such practices continued today.
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My book club just read this book, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship, by David John Buerger. I have to say that while the book is interesting, I had some real discomfort while reading the book. As an active Mormon, we have promised not to talk about the sacred ceremonies outside of the temple. So, I will honor that promise. On the other hand, it was fascinating to learn some of the changes over the years, and I felt a greater understanding of temple ceremonies.
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For my birthday, my wife gave me Dan Brown’s newest novel, The Lost Symbol. I don’t typically read novels–I prefer sports, history, religion, or biographies–but I read The DaVinci Code and loved it. Angels & Demons was pretty good. I had heard rumors that Dan Brown’s book was going to deal with Masonry and Mormonism, so I was looking forward to see a good conspiracy novel. Well, it turns out the Masonry part was right, but the Mormon part was pretty benign. There were only 2 obvious–but benign references–to Mormonism. Some of the plot has some indirect parallels to Mormon thought, though the book focuses more on seeming pagan practices than Mormon ideas. Anyway, this was fun to read, and I thought I’d try to give a few nibbles from the book, without giving away too much plot. So, here’s a taste of how related it is to Mormonism (which isn’t much). I’m not going to give away too much that relates specifically to the main plot, but if you want to read it fresh, you should quit reading now.
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