We went over Samuel the Lamanite this week.  There is a lot in it that was surprisingly complex, or at least surprisingly different, and I found myself struggling with the answer of “why” (i.e. why was it worded this way, why did they receive this message).

The first part of my notes will be questions that perhaps some of you will be able to answer.  Then I’ll share a few other thoughts from the lesson. Read the rest of this entry »

I went to the Seattle screening of “Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons” last night. First, let me say that this post is not review. Second, it was a very good film; not a documentary in the scholarly sense of relating history, facts, etc., but rather a presentation of different people’s experience with the Priesthood ban.

Now, what this post is about: One of the interviewees quoted the phrase, “God is no respecter of persons” as evidence for her that the Gospel—and specifically the Priesthood—should be accessible to all people. That got me wondering about how and where this phrase is used in scripture—and whether applying it to the Priesthood ban (more accurately, the lifting of the ban) was strictly correct. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey all. I thought I’d let everyone here know that I’ve started up a more or less temporary side project on the Book of Mormon, located at http://throughthebom.blogspot.com/ Read the rest of this entry »

At Robert’s behest, I’m posting some notes on Alma 43-52, effectively after the fact, since I was asked last minute to teach this lesson last Sunday. Robert’s interest seems primarily to be in how one can take up the “war chapters” without (1) having to appeal to the symbolic reading (i.e., we are all in a war with Satan, etc.) on the one hand or (2) making the war chapters into a kind of trite passage in Nephite history. I hope I can do something that distracts that polarizing opposition in the following notes. Read the rest of this entry »