Recently, the editors of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, opened their online archives to permit free viewing of Volumes 1 through 37 (Spring 1966 through Winter 2008). That’s an amazing treasure trove of articles related to “all things latter-day saint.”

If you’ve ever read an article in Dialogue and wished you’d saved a copy, well, here’s a chance to at least read it again. (It appears to be impossible to print the article as it appears on the screen, however, although copies can be obtained for a small fee.)

Of course, I bring this up for my own purely selfish reasons. The Spring 1991 issue (Vol. 24, no. 1) included an essay of mine, “The Temple in Zion: A Reorganized Perspective on a Latter Day Saint Institution.” Back then the Independence Temple was rising from what had been a parking lot just a few months before. I attempted an explanation to LDS readers as to why in the world we were building a temple without an oxen-supported baptismal font in the basement or any of the other typical features of modern LDS temples.

Reading now almost 20 years later, I am embarrassed by some rather dated and parochial parts (a lot has changed in 20 years, after all), although that’s probably fairly common for anybody re-reading a decades-old essay. If anyone is at all interested, it begins on page 86 (just use the link above [or again, here]; the archives requires opening a page at a time).

If nothing else, I was startled by my repeated use of the word “Reorganized.” How thoroughly I’ve become accustomed to “Community of Christ.” Now, how long do you think it will be before an online archive of the Herald is available?

For those of you arriving here from my ForeWords blog: Welcome to the “other end of the road.” You’ll find all my previous blog postings here, along with a lot of other good stuff archived from my days as a writer/editor at Herald Publishing House and Community of Christ International Headquarters. Not everything going back to 1986 is here (yet), but at least my more recent published writing is.

I’ve consolidated my blog site and this Web site now that I’m closer to publishing my book, What Was Paul Thinking? (an 8-lesson adult-study course introducing the “New Perspective on Paul” and what Paul really said related to church roles for women, marriage, and homosexuality). My plan is to have it for sale on Amazon this spring.

Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to continuing the conversation here.

Well, at least now we know where some of the snow went that was ordered for the Vancouver Winter Olympics! And we here in western Missouri (to say nothing of all the folks farther east and north) are really, really ready for spring.

In the meantime I proudly demonstrate my dual-nationality status to my neighbors. The sweater is an authentic pattern and style of native people along the British Columbia coast. (It was knitted by my mother back in the late ’70s when I lived in Vancouver. Mom had something of a flair for designing and knitting “decorative” sweaters, this one being the only one I actually wear in public. After tackling this sweater she swore she would never, ever do anything like it again–and she didn’t.)

The mittens are a very recent gift from my good friend Rod Downing in Vancouver (okay, I don’t actually wear them to shovel snow and spread salt–they’re much too good for that–but I’d like to think I’m the only one in town with a pair of official Vancouver Olympic mittens).

And the ball cap: the Royals’ spring training opened last week in Arizona, which I’ll take as a sure sign that spring is indeed on its way, even if the sun doesn’t actually come out tomorrow.

The recent counsel to the church by President Steve Veazey included guidance found in paragraphs 6c through 7d. Unfortunately, not everyone who goes to the Bible seeks the “Living Word,” but instead finds comfort and support for existing beliefs and prejudices. Let’s be honest here: taking biblical words at face value when it comes to the topic of human sexuality, without regard for historical and cultural contexts, can lead to unfortunate results.

Ancient Mediterranean cultural understandings (whether in New Testament times or centuries before) were far removed from some 21st-century societies, although they aren’t that different from some current cultural practices in the so-called developing world. For example, the industrialized West (which includes North America, Western Europe, Australia, and numerous others countries) offers a cultural climate in which same-gender relationships can exist on the basis of equality. But in the ancient world, all sexual relationships existed only between non-equal partners. In the vast majority of cases that meant males were dominant and females were submissive.
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The traditional approach to the issue of baptism (and thus, rebaptism) in the Community of Christ has been to tie it directly to the authority of the church’s priesthood to perform the sacrament. And so I was both relieved and grateful to see that President Steve Veazey chose a completely different route in responding to the leadings of the Spirit to present the new counsel he presented to the church: Apostle Paul’s groundbreaking statement to the Galatians:

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:26-27 NRSV).

By doing so he completely changed the theological landscape: This issue of rebaptism is not about us as an institution, or who holds the power and authority to act, or what makes this faith community different from all others. The central argument is about what it means to be “baptized into Christ.” And so of all the meanings and purposes of baptism, the one that is raised up and made paramount is that to be baptized is to “be buried with Christ and raised with him to be a new creature”–a creature appropriately fit for the new age Christ inaugurates. Membership in this (or any other) institution becomes secondary, although of course still important.
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