The Mormon Monk

One of the challenges of reading the gospels is constructing a single coherent picture of Jesus Christ's mortal ministry from four complementary (and occasionally competing) sources. Take, for instance, the baptism of Jesus Christ. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all give different accounts with slightly different details. But even if you reconcile those three versions (and the JST alterations of them), you are still missing an important source on the baptism of Christ. I've always known that 2 Nephi 31 provides commentary on the event, but just recently I realized that it also contains an account of the event itself --with material missing from the Bible. Here's one version of how those four sources might be harmonized if you were to construct a single view of Christ's baptism (JST in bold): 1 Then, when all the people were baptized, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee to Jordan , to be baptized of John. 2 But John refused him, saying, “I have ne...

Curious about what's in the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon? Me too. But I'm fairly confident I now know a little bit more about one of the bits that was reserved until the last days. In Ether, we read of Jared--the son of King Omer--and his unnamed daughter, who collectively plot to steal the kingdom. Jared's daughter, who "was exceedingly fair" and knew it, reminded her father of "an account concerning them of old, that they by their secret plans did obtain kingdoms and great glory" and proposed that "my father send for Akish, the son of Kimnor; and behold, I am fair, and I will dance before him, and I will please him, that he will desire me to wife; wherefore if he shall desire of thee that ye shall give unto him me to wife, then shall ye say: I will give her if ye will bring unto me the head of my father, the king" (Ether 8:9-10). It's your standard tale of corruption, seduction, and patricide--way more exciting than anything you...

On Monday night, I fully intended to watch My Life in Ruins , (think My Big Fat Greek Wedding ; just as funny) with my wife. For some reason, the service I wanted to download the movie from would not cooperate, and I was forced to find a different activity for the night. I ended up putting on paper (screen) some thoughts about/for Mormon women that had been swirling through my head for a long time. The next morning I went to UNC-Chapel Hill, where I teach freshman English, and endured a thoroughly miserable presentation by a guest lecturer. At the end of class a girl who has spoken maybe twice the entire semester came up to me and said, "Mr. Hutchins, I help run a group on campus that is interested in women and religion, and I know you're Mormon, and I was wondering if you and your wife would be willing and able to come and speak to us next Monday night." Obviously she has never asked a returned missionary to do something like this, or she would have said, "Mr. Hutc...

In The Family: A Proclamation to the World , the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles provide guidance on gender roles within marriage: "By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nuture of their children." To oversimplify, fathers are responsible for bringing home the bacon, and mothers are responsible for making sure the children also eat their vegetables. But don't forget the all important qualifier to this counsel: "In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners." In the 1970s, at about the same time the Equal Rights Amendment was gaining traction in Congress, women across the country--who were not familiar with the as-yet-unwritten Proclamation , but who nonetheless had lived by the gender roles it prescribe...

This post is a special gift to my bachelor readers, who might not realize that marriage--and especially marriage to Mormon maidens--is now within their financial grasp. Like any other man, I had to show the future Mrs. Monk a glistening chunk of carbon before she would consent to marry me. For the last 150 years or so, Mormon bachelors have spent many an hour toiling away to buy the rock that would convince their girlfriends to marry them; toil no more, my brothers! Turns out that engagement rings are meant to purchase something that you don't want to buy--and that any morally upright Mormon maid doesn't want to sell. Apparently engagement rings are a fairly recent invention, an insurance policy meant to decrease the likelihood that a jilted maiden would file a breach of promise lawsuit . We all know that young men are willing to lie in order to get young women to agree to have sex with them , and one of the lies that young men used (and probably still use) quite frequent...

It's not too hard to figure out why Alma's counsel to Shiblon on avoiding sexual temptation is a good idea , but Alma provides an explicit reminder of the stakes of this particular commandment in his subsequent rebuke to Corianton: "Know ye not, my son, that [sexual sins] are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost?" (Alma 39:5). The negative consequences of sexual sin are made quite clear, but what are the spiritual blessings that naturally come to those who bridle their passions? After all, as King Mosiah teaches, there is a blessing--a positive externality--tied to every act of obedience: "he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you" (my emphasis; Mosiah 2:24). So by bridling "all your passions"--and not just your sexual passions, mind you--we do more than guarantee that we w...

In the Book of Mormon , Alma offers his second son Shiblon some advice that--given his third son's interest in the harlot Isabel--might have been better directed toward Corianton. He tells Shiblon to "bridle all your passions." We commonly interpret this counsel as advice that is particularly applicable to cases of sexual temptation, and secular research has recently confirmed the wisdom of making decisions about sexual morality well before the time to actually make such decisions is nigh. Dan Ariely--the author of Predictably Irrational , and a man with interesting fashion insights --has done important research on the bridling of passions. He asked a number of male undergraduate students to take a survey rating their propensity to engage in a number of different sexual behaviors if and when they were sexually aroused. A sample of some of the questions: "Is just kissing frustrating?" "Would you tell a woman that you loved her to increase the chance that she...