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 Read the rest of this entry »

Theologian Walter Wink put it this way in his excellent essay, “Homosexuality and the Bible.”

“He [Paul] seemed to assume that those whom he condemned were heterosexuals who were acting contrary to nature, ‘leaving,’ ‘giving up,’ or ‘exchanging’ their regular sexual orientation for that which was foreign to them. Paul knew nothing of the modern psychosexual understanding of homosexuals as persons whose orientation is fixed early in life, or perhaps even genetically in some cases. For such persons, having heterosexual relations would be acting contrary to nature, ‘leaving,’ ‘giving up,’ or ‘exchanging’ their natural sexual orientation for one that was unnatural to them. In other words, Paul really thought that those whose behavior he condemned were ‘straight,’ and that they were behaving in ways that were unnatural to them. Paul believed that everyone was straight. He had no concept of homosexual orientation. The idea was not available in his world.”

Wink goes on to say that the relationships Paul describes are “heavy with lust; they are not relationships between consenting adults who are committed to each other as faithfully and with as much integrity as any heterosexual couple. That was something Paul simply could not envision.” The crux of the matter, Wink explains, is simply this:

“…the Bible has no sexual ethic. There is no biblical sex ethic. Instead, it exhibits a variety of sexual mores, some of which changed over the thousand year span of biblical history. Mores are unreflective customs accepted by a given community. Many of the practices that the Bible prohibits, we allow, and many that it allows, we prohibit. The Bible knows only a love ethic, which is constantly being brought to bear on whatever sexual mores are dominant in any given country, or culture, or period.”
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The letters attributed to Apostle Paul offer particular guidance to Community of Christ in its current struggles related to baptism and human sexuality. Of course, they need to be considered along with 2,000 years of Christian history and doctrinal development, almost two centuries of the same in Joseph Smith Jr.’s Restoration movement, and 150 years of the Reorganization.

Let’s begin with baptism. One basic statement stands out in the seven letters just about everybody agrees were actually written by Paul (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon):

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus are baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” –Romans 6:3-8 NRSV

Clearly Paul positions the act of baptism as participation with Christ in being raised from “death” to “life.” Thus believers experience a symbolic death to the power of Sin and a rising to new life. Note what’s not in that passage: the idea that baptism washes away sins (meaning individual transgressions), the ministerial authority of the person administering baptism, the particular method of baptizing, any connection with an institutional church, and baptism’s relationship with confirmation.

Does that mean none of these other areas are important or connected somehow with baptism? No, it just points out that (1) Paul’s theological understanding of baptism was focused on participation with Christ and (2) he wrote his letters before the believing community had begun to institutionalize its practices. The second point shouldn’t be surprising, considering Paul’s belief that Christ’s return was imminent. If anything, it might raise a question as to whether Paul even felt the need for an organized institution.
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First of all, I’m delighted the Herald will be getting a complete redesign effective with the April issue, as touted in this news release on the Community of Christ Web site. It’s something that Jim Hannah (my immediate predecessor as Herald editor) and I, along with graphic-arts director Jack Martin, pushed for year after year without success. But I can’t help but be curious regarding the lead sentence in the statement:

“For more than 157 years, the Herald has been sharing stories that emphasize the church’s mission and message.”
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For those of you arriving here from my initial 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.