What Is The Nature Of God’S Progress?,
2021
Brigham Young University
What Is The Nature Of God’S Progress?, Matthew Bowman
BYU Studies
In the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the question of whether or not God progresses can be separated into two more precise questions, each of which has been the topic of strenuous debate. The first has to do with whether God has always been divine or achieved that state through eons of progression, passing through a humanity much like ours along the way. The second is whether God continues to progress—and crucially, whether that progression is qualitative or simply quantitative: whether God’s progress means that God learns new things and gains new powers or whether …
Using Section 84 To Emphasize The Priesthood Power Of Women,
2021
Brigham Young University
Using Section 84 To Emphasize The Priesthood Power Of Women, Barbara Morgan Gardner
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
In the October 2019 general conference, President Russell M. Nelson expressed his yearning for the women of the Church to “understand that the restoration of the priesthood is just as relevant to you as a woman as it is to any man.” In the same talk, he invited the women to “gain, understand, and use the power with which you have been endowed” and to “study prayerfully all the truths you can find about priesthood power.” He encouraged the women to study Doctrine and Covenants sections 25, 84, and 107 as a starting point to increase their understanding. He then …
Is God Subject To Or The Creator Of Eternal Law?,
2021
Brigham Young University
Is God Subject To Or The Creator Of Eternal Law?, James Mclachlan
BYU Studies
Whether God is subject to law or whether God created all law is a question long debated in priesthood quorums, Relief Society meetings, Gospel Doctrine classes, and around Latter-day Saint dinner tables. Both sides claim the scriptures and the Prophet Joseph Smith. The divide usually lines up with, on one side, Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce McConkie teaching of God’s power over all things and, on the other, B. H. Roberts, John Widtsoe, and James Talmage seeing God as the revealer of laws that even God must follow. Not only is the question open and unsettled as a matter of …
The King Follett Discourse: Pinnacle Or Peripheral?,
2021
Brigham Young University
The King Follett Discourse: Pinnacle Or Peripheral?, James E. Faulconer, Susannah Morrison
BYU Studies
On March 8, 1844, fifty-five-year-old King Follett, an early convert to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, was killed in a well-digging accident. On April 7, as part of a general conference of the Church in Nauvoo, and in response to the request of Follett’s family, Joseph Smith memorialized him with a sermon about the general subject of death and the dead. Smith said his sermon, a revelation on the origins of God and the divine potential of human beings, was about “the first principles of consolation.” Though Smith mentions Follett by name only early in the sermon, referring to …
Shards Of Combat: How Did Satan Seek To Destroy The Agency Of Man?,
2021
Brigham Young University
Shards Of Combat: How Did Satan Seek To Destroy The Agency Of Man?, Philip L. Barlow
BYU Studies
Human beings in other guise lived before the creation of our world. This belief is at once controversial and durable, pervading the history of Western thought and bearing analogues elsewhere.1 That gods, angels, or other celestial beings rebelled against their superiors or engaged in cosmic conflict prior to earth’s creation is a related concept, widespread in the ancient world. Depictions or allusions to such contests appear in the myths, lore, art, literature, and sacred texts of Babylon, Egypt, Israel, Persia, Greece, Rome, far-flung tribal religions, and elsewhere. In certain cases, the older traditions endure even to the present, as …
Each Atom An Agent?,
2021
Brigham Young University
Each Atom An Agent?, Steven L. Peck
BYU Studies
An agent, broadly conceived, references something causally efficacious. More narrowly, the word agent is usually deployed in at least three senses. The first is as brute causality. For example, to say that water is an agent of erosion on vegetatively barren hillsides is to claim that water directly causes the removal of the soil in particular drainage systems. The second sense, used predominately in biology, recognizes an agent as an individual autonomous system that constrains the flow of energy and matter such that its actions are performed for particular functions or goals. For instance, a simple bacterium is drawn to …
How Limited Is Postmortal Progression?,
2021
Brigham Young University
How Limited Is Postmortal Progression?, Terryl L. Givens
BYU Studies
One way of making sense of Latter-day Saint heterodoxy—its location outside the spectrum of mainstream, historic Christianity—is to envision it as the culmination of early Christian trends that were suppressed or reconfigured in the early centuries of the new faith. In other words, one could see the Restoration as a road of Christian development not taken. After all, holds the great historian Walter Bauer, heresy is merely the orthodoxy that lost out.1 One scholar of early Christianity observes that the condemnation of Origen, church father of the third century, ensured the supremacy in the Christian tradition of a “theology …
The Book Of Mormon Translation Process,
2021
Brigham Young University
The Book Of Mormon Translation Process, Grant Hardy
BYU Studies
Joseph Smith did not offer many details about the translation process for the Book of Mormon, other than affirming that it was done through “the gift and power of God.”1In 1831, at a Church conference where he was invited to share more information, he declined, saying that “it was not expedient for him to relate these things.”2 Along with the golden plates, he had been given a set of Nephite “interpreters” (Mosiah 8:13; Ether 4:5), which he described as “two stones in silver bows” (JS–H 1:35), apparently looking something like a pair of glasses or spectacles. According …
In The Hands Of The Lord: The Life Of Dallin H. Oaks By Richard E. Turley Jr.,
2021
Brigham Young University
In The Hands Of The Lord: The Life Of Dallin H. Oaks By Richard E. Turley Jr., John W. Welch
BYU Studies
In several ways, this is not a normal book. But then, it does not cover an ordinary life. It should be read and revisited especially by every Brigham Young University student, faculty member, and alum. After all, no other biography has ever been written about a graduate of BYU (1954) who went on to become a clerk to the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court (1957–1958), a dynamic president of BYU (1971–1980), and also an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ (1984). I can only imagine that every Latter-day Saint and all readers of BYU Studies Quarterly will …
Full Issue,
2021
Brigham Young University
Sinners In The Hands Of The Unknown God,
2021
Brigham Young University
Sinners In The Hands Of The Unknown God, Dainel K. Judd
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
Many readers will recognize the title of this article as a merging of phrases from two well-known sermons in Christian history. The first five words of the title come from Reverand Jonathan Edwards’s eighteenth-century sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” The last three words form a phrase from the testimony of the Apostle Paul to the ancient Athenians wherein he spoke of “THE UNKNOWN GOD” (Acts 17:23).
Front Matter,
2021
Brigham Young University
Front Matter
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
No abstract provided.
Christ As Our Law: He Who Sanctifies, Enlightens, And Saves,
2021
BYU–Hawaii
Christ As Our Law: He Who Sanctifies, Enlightens, And Saves, Keith Lane
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
The doctrine of Christ is a living, practical theology of discipleship (see 2 Nephi 31:21, Doctrine and Covenants 10:62). With the revelations given to Joseph Smith, particularly those in the Doctrine and Covenants, the faith of the Latter-day Saints is grounded in the realm of practical behavior— of religious life ordered for individuals and the Church by laws, principles, and, above all, covenants and ordinances given us by Deity. But all these point to Christ himself as the law. Clearly there are elements of correct belief or orthodoxy, but these are primarily useful because they point us to faith in …
Uncovering The Voice Of The Lord: Analysis And Implications Of Joseph Smith’S Letter From Liberty Jail,
2021
Arizona Institute of Religion
Uncovering The Voice Of The Lord: Analysis And Implications Of Joseph Smith’S Letter From Liberty Jail, Adam R. Jardine, Seth N. Hord
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
Joseph Smith’s experience in Liberty Jail stands among the most faith-challenging, helpless, and discouraging moments of his life. His letters during this time are of such significance that portions have been canonized as scripture and are among the most cited sections by church leaders in general conference.1 This paper provides an exegesis of portions of Joseph Smith’s Liberty Jail letters with a specific focus on the transition in pronoun usage in his dictation of Doctrine and Covenants 121 and 122. Despite ample scholarly attention on these letters, there appears to be limited discussion regarding Joseph’s change of language in the …
“Come, See The Place”: Teaching Students The Value Of Historic Sites,
2021
Brigham Young University
“Come, See The Place”: Teaching Students The Value Of Historic Sites, Scott C. Esplin
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
The scriptures repeatedly speak of holy places. For example, the Old Testament frequently uses the term to refer to the tabernacle or later the temple, including designating a portion of both structures as “the holy place” and “the most holy place” (see Exodus 26:33–34; 1 Kings 6:16; Ezekiel 41:4).1 New Testament passages generally adopt the same usage, with the book of Acts twice recording when Jewish leaders accused Stephen and later Paul of corrupting the “holy place” by their teaching about Jesus of Nazareth (see Acts 6:13; 21:28). Foretelling when “the end [would] come,” the Savior himself cautioned followers in …
Section 77 And Book Of Revelation Scholarship,
2021
Brigham Young University
Section 77 And Book Of Revelation Scholarship, Nicholas J. Frederick
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
The book of Revelation is a complicated book, to say the least. For those of us who teach courses covering the book of Revelation, we often rely upon Joseph Smith’s questions and answers on the book of Revelation, now canonized as Doctrine and Covenants 77, as a means of providing some answers to all the mysterious complexity John’s vision presents to us. However, the question inevitably arises as to how closely the answers provided in section 77 adhere to the text of the book of Revelation as well as the opinion of New Testament scholars, both those contemporary to Joseph …
Learning That Leads To God,
2021
Brigham Young University
Learning That Leads To God, Russell T. Osguthorpe
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
While teaching an instructional design course, I would often begin the semester by asking students to define the word learning. On the surface, that seems like a relatively simple task, but most students struggled to craft a definition that satisfied them. We would then explore scholarly definitions of the word, often with equally unsatisfying results. Scholars in the fields of education and psychology usually focus on three primary aspects of the word learning: (1) the acquisition of new knowledge or a new skill (2) that persists over time and (3) is not due only to growth and development.
“As Long As The World Shall Stand”,
2021
Brigham Young University
“As Long As The World Shall Stand”, Elder David A. Bednar
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
I am grateful to gather with you today in this Brigham Young University devotional. Susan and I love you and have looked forward to this occasion with great anticipation for many weeks.
Full Issue,
2021
Brigham Young University
Full Issue
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
No abstract provided.
End Matter,
2021
Brigham Young University
