The Mormon Monk

Peter and Social Capital Two and a half months ago, I (briefly) told the story of Peter , a young man who moved from BYU, Utah and a predominantly Mormon culture to NC State, Raleigh and his non-member girl-friend Chelsea (again, all names have been changed). I explained that my job as a ward missionary is to provide Peter with social capital that is supportive of his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Social capital is important, because it is the number one predictor of religious belief or conversion. To use a secular example, I'm much more likely to believe that the world is round if I'm around lots of other people who believe the world is round, regardless of whether or not that belief is accurate. So too, are we much more likely to believe specific religious doctrines and churches if we are around other people who believe in the truthfulness of those doctrines and churches. Since my initial observations on the importance of providing Peter with...

Each March, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints invites the submission of original music and poetry "to encourage musical talent and bring new musical works to light." Among other categories, the church invites the submission of potential hymn texts. Now, one of the things that hymns do is teach doctrine, and since the last edition of the hymnbook was released, a substantial new statement of doctrine has been issued by the First Presidency-- The Family: A Proclamation to the World . This unique document teaches at least eight principles not taught by any hymn currently available in our hymnbook: 1) Marriage is ordained of God. 2) The family is central to God's plan. 3) Gender is an eternal and purposeful characteristic. 4) God's command to multiply and replenish the earth is still effective. 5) Parents are accountable to God for raising their children. 6) The family is ordained of God. 7) Families are encouraged to work and play together. 8) Husbands and w...

In Elder's Quorum today, we had THE TALK. If you are a man, or if you are a woman who has ever been to priesthood session of General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, you know what THE TALK is. THE TALK is when a priesthood leader pleads with his male listeners not to view pornography and exhorts those who are consumers of pornography to get ecclesiastical (and potentially professional) help. THE TALK is almost always uncomfortable, but I thought my Elders Quorum President, Matt Willis, did a phenomenal job today. More important, for the first time in a long time--perhaps since I got THE TALK on a monthly basis as a teenager--I actually heard a new idea for preventing pornography use: the PPI. In Mormon culture, PPI stands for Personal Priesthood Interview, a (supposedly) regular meeting between men and their immediate priesthood leaders where priesthood holders give an account of their lives (in general terms--confessions of sins are saved for intervi...

In 1747, a young missionary named David Brainerd died. He had spent the last four years of his life preaching to the Delaware tribe of Native Americans, living among them and teaching them about Jesus Christ. His life story, as recorded in his journal and popularized by Jonathan Edwards was a bestseller in the eighteenth century and is still in print (and read) today. As a full time representative of Jesus Christ, Brainerd took his religion a little more seriously than most, but as I read through his journal, nothing struck me more than his reverence for the Sabbath Day. On each Sunday that he made an entry in his journal, Brainerd began the entry with the title "Lord's Day" and then described his day's activities. On one Sunday, Brainerd writes that he preached to a group of Christiant "about sanctifying the Sabbath, if possible to solemnize their minds; but when they were at a little distance, they again talked freely about secular affairs. O I thought what a h...

When Alma first told Corianton that he should stay away from the harlot Isabel because "wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10), he offered spiritual counsel to a wayward son without any sort of external proof. He asked Corianton to believe that the enticing pleasures obviously associated with many forms of wickedness bring no lasting satisfaction. Now, 2,100 years later, I bring you empirical proof that "wickedness never was happiness." In his book, Gross National Happiness , Arthur C. Brooks calls attention to Thomas Jefferson's claim in the Declaration of Independence that all men are entitled to "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." If the United States is a nation dedicated to the pursuit of happiness, Brooks asks, what are the public policy goals that will make our individual pursuit of happiness more successful? Using 30 years of survey data and a variety of experiments, Brooks conclu...

Priesthood blessings have been on my mind recently, for a number of reasons. My mother-in-law is feeling poorly and has been for at least a week. On Monday night, she requested that I give her a blessing. Since neither Alana nor I had firm plans for our Family Home Evening lesson that night, we decided to teach my two-year-old son Gabriel about priesthood blessings. He folded his arms reverently three times: once when I consecrated oil for the healing of the sick, once when Donald Gilreath (my mother-in-law's home teacher) anointed her with the oil, and once while I gave her a blessing. He listened patiently while Alana and I explained how priesthood blessings can make us feel better and help us learn what Heavenly Father wants us to do. Then, he ran to me and said very seriously, "I want a blessing, Daddy." I, of course, was glad to oblige and touched that he wanted a blessing. This is the blessing he received: " Gabriel Ogarek Hutchins, by the power of t...

I grew up in Northborough, Massachusetts. It's a small, suburban town where little extraordinary happens--trust me, I lived with the town's police chief for twenty years. Northborough also doesn't have the rich history that other Massachusetts towns/cities do--Henry Walden Thoreau didn't build a cabin within town limits, John Adams didn't own a farm there, and James Naismith didn't throw a ball through into a Northborough peach basket. But, there are a more than a few individuals who were either born in Northborough or who lived there for substantial periods whose ties to Northborough should be celebrated, and William Francis Allen (1830-1889) is one of them. Allen was an educator whose career seems fairly uninspiring: he spent 8 years as an assistant principal at a high school and 22 years as a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While years of academic service are highly admirable (at least from my admittedly biased perspective), there are many o...