covenant

The Grossest Form of Church Criticism

President Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994)

President Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994)

In recent weeks I have encountered what I consider to be one of the most damaging forms of criticism of the Church.  You might think that it is from all the anti-Mormon literature or propaganda.  Or perhaps it is those who are so vocal as to picket the curbs at our General Conferences with signs, profanity, and filth.  You might think it is those who have become disaffected, have left the Church, and are now eager to tear it down or “expose” it for what they see as serious problems.  You might think it is the work of scholars who have been excommunicated, and now find intellectual haven in promoting arguments against the learned.  You might even think that it is those tribulations that come from the adversary himself.  But this is not the case.

There is a much more gross and pernicious form of criticism of the restored gospel and of the Lord’s restored Church.  It is that criticism which comes from within the Church.

I know that this runs in the same current as several of my latest posts, but I strongly believe that “it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor” (D&C 88:81).  And it also has a direct relationship to the covenants we make to God in the temple.  [Read more…]

Our Relationship with Money

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There is an excellent post at BCC by Jamie Huston entitled “Examining Our Attitudes Towards Money.”  I think I would echo everything he said.  He even included some quotes from Hugh Nibley, which I always appreciate.  Here are some great reminders of what we have covenanted to do in the temple, yet so often forget.  As Nibley often said, if we are to build up Zion, we’ve got to get both feet out of Babylon.

The Egyptian Ankh, “Life! Health! Strength!” – Part 2

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(Continued from Part 1, which has been updated)

As I mentioned in Part 1, the more interesting aspects of the Egyptian ankh are not necessarily what it means standing alone, but how the Egyptians used it in their texts and illustrations.

There are three principal ways that the Egyptians used the ankh symbol, by itself, in their drawings:

  1. Detail from Papyrus of Ani - a god leads the initiate towards the throne (click for larger view)Probably the most common depiction of the ankh is being clutched in the hand by the gods and goddesses on the upper loop portion of the symbol.  Wikipedia notes:

    The ankh appears frequently in Egyptian tomb paintings and other art, often at the fingertips of a god or goddess in images that represent the deities of the afterlife conferring the gift of life on the dead person’s mummy… ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh))

    In other words, the Egyptians believed that their gods “held” eternal life in their hands, and could bestow it upon certain persons at their pleasing.  Chevalier and Gheerbrant note:  [Read more…]

The Egyptian Ankh, “Life! Health! Strength!” – Part 1

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Detail of Hathor shrine at Hatshepsut's temple in Luxor, Egypt

Egypt figures a central role in the religion of the ancient Near East, where much of our canon of scripture owes its narrative and existence to this locale.  Even the Book of Mormon tells us it was written in “reformed Egyptian” (Mormon 9:32).  The most interesting aspect, to me, is the adoption into Egypt of traces of the rites and ordinances of the temple of God, and its priesthood.  Unfortunately, the ordinances were apostate forms, the priesthood invalid, and all was done in imitation of the true order:

Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood. (Abraham 1:26)

But even so, the fragments of the ordinances that are extant in artifacts and texts are very educational.  In Hugh Nibley’s classic work The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment he says:  [Read more…]

Sacrificing our will to the will of our Father

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Offering sacrifice and burnt offeringsI had contemplated entitling this post “A Change in Temple Sacrifice Following Christ,” but since today is Father’s Day, I thought this title was more appropriate.

From the time they left Jerusalem until the time of Christ’s ministry among his descendants in the Americas 600 years later, Lehi and his family offered sacrifice and burnt offerings to the Lord (1 Ne. 5:9; 1 Ne. 7:22; Mosiah 2:3). Such was part of the law of Moses which they sought to keep diligently, as the Israelites had been observing for thousands of years (Mosiah 12:28-29; Mosiah 13:27-28; Alma 25:15-16; 2 Ne. 25:24, 30; Alma 30:3). But even then, they remembered that the law of Moses was in similitude of the great sacrifice of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was to come to the earth and work out an infinite atonement by the shedding of his blood and body (Alma 34:14).

When Christ visited the inhabitants of the Americas he explained how the law of Moses was fulfilled in him, and how things were to become new:

And he said unto them: Marvel not that I said unto you that old things had passed away, and that all things had become new.
Behold, I say unto you that the law is fulfilled that was given unto Moses.
Behold, I am he that gave the law, and I am he who covenanted with my people Israel; therefore, the law in me is fulfilled, for I have come to fulfil the law; therefore it hath an end. (3 Ne. 15:3-5)

The law of Moses was fulfilled, but this did not mean that the covenant ended: [Read more…]