The Mormon Monk

History says that you've got to have one or the other, so either the 89th section of the Doctrine and Covenants (the LDS prohibition against alcohol) or Wilford Woodruff's Manifesto  (the LDS prohibition against polygamy) will have to go. According to a new paper from the American Association of Wine Economists (an organization I would definitely make fun of if I wasn't an academic myself), the discontinuation of polygyny (multiple wives) is closely linked to the rise of viticulture--the drinking of alcohol and, especially, the phenomenon of intoxication (getting drunk). In "Women or Wine?" the authors "find evidence of a positive correlation between alcohol use and monogamy both over time and across cultures," meaning that as social groups transition from polygamy to monogamy they begin to consume alcohol. This historical trend, obviously, is one that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have bucked; the church officially disav...

As previously noted, the land of Israel was dotted with temples during the prophetic ministry of Isaiah; in addition to the main (and famous) temple complex built by Solomon in Jerusalem, Israelites worshipped in at least fifteen other, smaller temples built to Jehovah. Unfortunately, Israelite patrons converted many of these temples to the worship of Canaanite gods, especially Baal and Ashtorath. Isaiah condemns this corruption of temple worship repeatedly in his messages to Israel but especially in chapter 44. Through Isaiah the Lord reminds his people that they salvation can only be found in and through Him: "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God" (44:6). But this reminder, as Isaiah knows very well, has come too late; the Israelites have already begun to worship other gods, abandoning their covenants and perverting temple rituals. Isaiah complains that "The carpenter stretcheth out his rule [a plumb line used to measure and square]; he m...

Quick--without looking at Google or lds.org , how many temples are currently in operation around the world? Answer: There are currently 134 temples in operation around the world, with another 23 either under construction or announced. Those 134 temples are more than 6 times the number of operating temples in existence 30 years ago, and when the St. Louis, MO temple was dedicated in 1997, it was the 50th--so in the last thirteen years, more than 100 temples (twice the number previously extant) have been built or are now being built. This explosion in temple construction has been made possible by the proliferation of "small temples," buildings much smaller than the Salt Lake or Washington D.C. temples, but that nonetheless " accommodate baptisms for the dead, the endowment service, sealings, and all other ordinances to be had in the Lord’s house for both the living and the dead ." When the late President Gordon B. Hinckley announced the advent of smaller...

So I've just finished my first semester of full-time university teaching. The good news is, my students seem to like me and claim to have learned life lessons and academic skills in my classes. The bad news is, my somewhat narcissistic belief that I've somehow made a difference in their lives is probably misguided. Lars Lefgren and David Sims, two economics professors at my own school, have just published research which suggests that a teacher's impact on his students' lives, whether that impact is positive or negative, is a fleeting phenomenon. "The researchers report that most of the gains from a highly rated teacher vanish quickly. In reading [English!], 87 percent of the benefit fades after one year."  Now, to be fair--the findings of Lefgren and Sims were drawn from middle school data, so their research might not reflect the ability of college students to learn and retain skills/knowledge . . . but it's a sobering reminder that education is not a s...

Back in the 1840s, before Thanksgiving was a national holiday, Margaret Fuller--one of the first female journalists (for the New York Tribune ), and the first to serve as a foreign correspondent (during Italy's battle for unification)--celebrated the spirit of Thanksgiving and called for its establishment. This is, in part, what she had to say: "Thanksgiving is peculiarly the festival day of New-England. Elsewhere, other celebrations rival its attractions, but in that region where the Puritans first returned thanks that some among them had been sustained by a great hope and earnest resolve amid the perils of the ocean, wild beasts and famine, the old spirit which hallowed the day still lingers, and forbids that it should be entirely devoted to play and plum-pudding. [. . .] And, in other regions, where the occasion is observed, it is still more as one for a meeting of families and friends to the enjoyment of a good dinner, than for any other purpose. [. . .]The instinct of f...

In the first verse of this chapter the Lord answers the implied accusations of Israel. In response to their claim that the Lord has divorced them and sold them like slaves into bondage, God asks, "Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you?" Of course, the Lord has NOT divorced or sold Israel; rather, Israel has sold itself into bondage: "Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away" (50:1). But Israel's voluntary slavery is "for nought" (52:3) as Isaiah makes clear some verses later. And why is their slavery "for nought"? Because the Lord has already given himself into slavery to pay our debts. In Deuteronomy the Lord explains the process by which an Israelite may voluntarily give himself into slavery: "And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee ...

I'm wearing them right now. I'd be willing to bet that you're wearing them too. "Fornication pants" is the phrase that Brigham Young purportedly used to describe . . . blue jeans. I just finished reading the book Jeans by James Sullivan, and it was quite fascinating. I now know that denim was around for the American revolution, that it comes from the region of Nimes in France ("de Nimes), and that at least 25% of all US paper currency is denim. No--seriously, that picture of Andrew Jackson in your wallet? It's made out of the same stuff that's covering your butt. This book is a must-read for jeans enthusiasts . . . but I would be a little wary of Sullivan's claims. For instance, that bit about Brigham Young? Sullivan claims that Young denounced blue jeans as instruments of sexual deviancy in the 1830s, when blue jeans first incorporated button flies. While I wouldn't put it past old Brigham to have used those words, I highly doubt tha...

In Wickedness Never Was Happiness Part 1 , I noted that Arthur C. Brooks has made a persuasive empirical case that acts of righteousness--charitable giving, marriage, labor, service, etc--cause an individual to experience happiness. For Part 2, it's time to look more closely at the other side of the coin: unhappiness. Prophets and apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have long warned that watching television can have a detrimental impact on our lives; in 1989, Elder M. Russell warned about the deleterious effects of watching inappropriate material on television , while also acknowledging that "Philo T. Farnsworth, back in 1927, must surely have been inspired of the Lord to develop this remarkable medium of communication" (Seriously--go check out the link; it's the most extensive General Conference talk ever given on the subject, and the picture is priceless.). So saying that "TV is bad for you" is less than revelatory. But researchers...

In his epistle to the Hebrews, Paul explains that “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (11:1). Paul emphasizes the materiality of faith when he describes it as a “substance” with “actual [physical] existence” and an “evidence” or physical “proof” of that which is “hoped for” and “not seen,” but too often we treat this foundational description of faith as though it meant simply a mental belief in things hoped for and not seen. Alma reminds us that faith requires that we, as believers, take physical action and conduct an “experiment” (Alma 32:27) that will give substance to our beliefs and eventually lead to “a perfect knowledge” (32:26). Faith is, as Elder Richard G. Scott taught us in his most recent General Conference address , “a principle of action and power.” During my years as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University, I spent many nights wooing the woman who would eventually become the beautiful Mrs. Monk, and I remember one night in ...

After writing about Ammon's LACK of priesthood authority, as recorded in Mosiah, it only seems fitting that I address Alma's apparent SURFEIT of priesthood authority; after reading our last entry, the lovely Miss Jan asks, "Why was Alma able to baptize after fleeing from King Noah?" So glad you asked, Jan . . . Mormon's description of Alma's baptism in the waters of Mormon has provoked a lot of thought in me throughout the years, and while I'm not sure that I have THE answer, I certainly have come up with a lot of answers to explain the (apparently) unorthodox events of this passage: 12. And now it came to pass that Alma took Helam, he being one of the first, and went and stood forth in the water, and cried, saying: O Lord, pour out thy Spirit upon thy servant, that he may do this work with holiness of heart. 13. And when he had said these words, the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he said: Helam, I baptize thee, having authority from the...

I recently read the Book of Mormon account in which Ammon (the first one, not the arm-chopper) encounters the people of King Limhi and the descendants of Zeniff after an extensive bit of wandering in the wilderness. After all that Limhi and his people have been through, they are ready to forsake the sins introduced (or at least promoted) by King Noah and to enter the waters of baptism: "And now since the coming of Ammon, king Limhi had also entered into a covenant with God, and also many of his people, to serve him and keep his commandments. And it came to pass that king Limhi and many of his people were desirous to be baptized; but there was none in the land that had authority from God. And Ammon declined doing this thing, considering himself an unworthy servant." (Mosiah 21:32-33) These verses always troubled me. Ammon clearly has the priesthood--why doesn't he just baptize them? I've generally been content to assume that Ammon was not personally worthy and neither ...

This morning, as I listened to conference with the beautiful Mrs. Monk, she and President Boyd K. Packer provided a gentle reminder: it's time for another personal pornography interview with your loved ones. Don't delay--early intervention could make all the difference.

The book of Job begins and ends like a fairytale, but the middle reads more like philosophy, with endless disquisitions on the moral and ethical principles which have guided Job in the past and should guide him in the future. Because the "story" of Job differs so drastically in style from the philosophical substance of Job, biblical scholars have long thought of the first and forty-second chapters of Job as a "frame tale"--a literary excuse for telling the story (or, in this case, having the philosophical discussion) that you wanted to tell. For example, the pilgrimage in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is a frame tale, whose main purpose is to enable to author to narrate the many unconnected stories that the pilgrims tell each other on their road to Canterbury. The notion of God conversing with Satan is so far-fetched, scholars have argued, that it obviously can't literally be true, or even theoretically "true" in the patronizing sense that the author ...

In each of the three classes that I'm teaching this semester, I've offered the same advice: Keep the Sabbath Day holy by, among other things not working (in this cause studying) on Sundays. As a carrot, I've held out the ( previously mentioned ) promise of the late President James E. Faust--that you can do more and higher quality work by laboring in six days than you can in seven. And then, a few days before class started, I discovered this remarkable passage in the little-read book of Jarom. Jarom informs us that the Nephites of his day were wicked: "Behold, it is expedient that much should be done among this people, because of the hardness of their hearts, and the deafness of their ears, and the blindness of their minds, and the stiffness of their necks; nevertheless, God is exceedingly merciful unto them, and has not as yet swept them off from the face of the land" (3). These Nephites clearly are not righteous, and yet Jarom informs us that they "had waxed...

Traveling to my new job in Provo has led me to reflect again on the geographical similarities between the Lord’s ancient land of promise in Palestine and the Rocky Mountain sanctuary prophetically foretold by Joseph Smith. These parallels have been well documented: both locales are surrounded by mountains (although the ones in Israel are much smaller than those in Utah); they contain inland bodies of super-salty water which are fed by rivers; and they are refuges for the Lord’s covenant people. In this discussion of geographical parallels, Salt Lake City is the new Jerusalem—the city from which prophets lead the work of salvation in this dispensation. But Jerusalem was not the only city of significance located in ancient Palestine any more than Salt Lake is the only city of significance in Utah; Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Jericho are all cities that played prominent roles in biblical history. Of course, in addition to all of these well-known cities, there are a number of other, less we...

A few weeks ago, this Monk and newly minted PhD received a letter from the Brigham Young University English Department: The letter invited me to join the only university led by living prophets and to teach early American literature there, but there was one problem: my (now former) address was horribly misspelled. Actually, it's a small miracle that the letter even reached me. I asked myself--how could divinely inspired leaders get my information so wrong? Shouldn't they KNOW? And then I remembered Symonds Ryder (also, infamously, Simonds Rider), who was once placed in something of a similar situation. I quickly decided that maybe spelling wasn't the most important thing, even for an English professor, and suffice to say that I'm now happily on my way to BYU. Wahoo! Give me your tired, your poor, Your starving students yearning for knowledge . . . Send these, the young, the media-addled to me, I lift my books beneath the Y!

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affirm that “[w]e believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law” (AF 12) and that “[w]e believe that all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective governments in which they reside, while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments” (D&C 134:5). This guaranteed exercise of basic rights, including the right to “worship how, where or what [we] may” (AF 11), is a necessary precondition for our support of government because “[w]e believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life” (D&C 134:2). In other words, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that the primary function of government is the protection of indi...

This is the fifth part of a five-part series on the mysteries and realities of the AP English Language Exam and its grading process. For more on the marathon that is AP exam grading, see Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , and Part 4 . You’re probably sick of hearing about the AP exam—but before I go, I want to give you a look at the single worst essay I graded during my time in Louisville and a piece of the best writing on humor I’ve ever seen. First the (worst) essay: “Many people try to be comedy, act funny, and even draw humorists things but personaly that is just a gift that you have to be born with. “If Mr. De Botton wasn’t a natural this process was very hard for him probably due to the fact that he has to try to impress people and a lot of people get intimated by that. There are also risk of being talked about and laughed at and even dead silences. So Mr. de Botton probably went through a lot to be as well known as he is now. “In conclusion success doesnot just happen over night it ta...

This is the fourth of a five-part series on the mysteries and realities of the AP English Language Exam and its grading process. For more on the marathon that is AP exam grading, see Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , and Part 5 (coming soon). During a week in Louisville, I spent 53 hours reading student essays that were recorded in illegible scrawls requiring intense eyestrain to decipher. During that time, I graded more than 2,000 exams, spending a little less than a minute on each essay. I quickly grew tired of reading about Jon Stewart, Wanda Sykes, Chris Rock, Larry the Cable Guy, Tina Fey, and a slew of humorists I had never heard of before my arrival in Louisville. The only thing that pulled me through this slog of essays was the occasional gem in the rough, an essay whose unintentional comedy would lead to laughter. Let me share with you the last of these gems which students thought would impress exam readers: The following are excerpts from actual exams; each excerpt is in italics, w...

This is the third of a five-part series on the mysteries and realities of the AP English Language Exam and its grading process. For more on the marathon that is AP exam grading, see Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 4, and Part 5 (coming soon!). While the grading standards set forth in the official grading rubric for each essay question might seem to be straightforward, you’ll find that most graders disagree strongly as to what makes for an “adequate” essay versus an “inadequate” essay—and that those disagreements are even more stringent when you’re discussing minor variations: What distinguishes an inadequate 3 from an inadequate 4? An adequate 6 from an adequate 7? The sorts of natural disagreements that any two individuals might have over these sorts of questions are complicated by grader demographics. I would estimate that approximately 50% of the 2010 English Language exam graders were high school teachers; another 35% or so were teachers at the community college level, and the remaining 15%...