It’s on folks.

SLTrib
San Jose Mercury
ESPN

Official statements:
BYU
MWC
WCC

Continuing my series of church history questions

Question #4- So I read somewhere that during the Korean War(1951), there was a shortage of Young Men to go on missions, so the seventies were asked to fill the gap, and married men were then called to serve full-time missions. How did that work out? For How long did this go on? How long were these missions? How does this correlate with around the same time the first missionary lessons/discussions were published for standard use throughout the church (1952)?

Seth Godin, in his somewhat disappointing book tribes, (disappointing in that it hammers the one note of the wonders of the internet and social media, which everyone already knows, and in that it reads like a bunch of blog posts thrown together into a book.) brings up an interesting conversation about faith, that I’ve been thinking about for about 6 months now. We often seen setups where faith and science are made to be contra one another, but I found his setup very interesting, faith vs. religion.

‘Faith goes back a long way. Faith leads to hope, and it overcomes fear. Faith gives our ancestors the resilience they needed to deal with the mysteries of the (pre-science) world.Faith is the dividing line between humans and most other species.
Religion, on the other hand, represents a strict set of rules that our fellow humans have overlaid on top of our faith. Religion supports the status quo and encourages us to fit in, not to stand out.

Religion works great when it amplifies faith.

That’s why human beings invented religion. It’s why we have spiritual religions and cultural religions and corporate religions. Religion gives our faith a little support when it needs it, and it makes it easy for your peers to encourage you to embrace your faith.
Religion at its best is a sort of mantra, a subtle but consistent reminder that belief is okay, and that faith is the way to get where you are going.

The reason we need to talk about this, though, is that often religion does just the opposite. Religion at its worst reinforces the status quo, often at the expense of our faith.’

I am pretty conflicted in terms of this statement because I totally agree with it, and also totally disagree. But rather than share my views, I want to hear from you.

What do you think?

How good is our church at boosting faith?

Continuing my series:

Question #3- How did we get to where The Aaronic Priesthood is the Young Men’s program of the church? When did 12 become the starting age for the priesthood? (For example, why not make it 11 since scouts starts at 11?) I see in the 1950’s the ages to be ordained teacher’s and priests moved from 15 and 17 to 14 and 16. Why the change?

Ever since Utah announced it was leaving the Mountain West Conference to join the Pac10 there have been rumors swirling about what BYU would do. The three main options were to sit tight in the MWC, hope for an invite to the Big12, or go independent. Well the Big12 invite has not arrived so it appears BYU has taken its fate into its own hand and decided to go independent. Here are some links:

SLTrib saying it is a done deal
Deseret News calling it a done deal too
ESPN predicting it last night
CBS Sports

It does indeed look like a done deal. BYU football will reportedly go independent and all other BYU sports joining the WAC starting in the Fall of 2011. This is very similar the the arrangement Notre Dame has with the Big East.

Should be an interesting week for BYU sports fans. Stay tuned.

So I’ve decided to continue a series of questions regarding church history that I can’t seem to get google to answer for me. I’ll be asking one a sunday until I get lazy and forget (maybe next Sunday.)

Question #2 is this- What did the church do for converts before Gospel Essentials class? I see in 1958 a “new program for convert integration was adopted” (per the church almanac), but have no idea what it was or how it fits in with our current convert integration efforts.

So I’ve decided to start a series of questions regarding church history that I can’t seem to get google to answer for me. I’ll be asking one a sunday until I get lazy and forget (maybe next Sunday.)

So Question #1- Per the 2010 Church Almanac, the church started home teaching in 1964, replacing ward teaching. What was the difference between home teaching and ward teaching. And since we (the church) always site the story of Joseph Smith’s home teacher being nervous, and Joseph coaching him, how does that all work out, since home teaching didn’t start until over 100 years later?

Bonus- When did visiting teaching start?

From the fake scripture file:

1 Among “active” Mormons there are three levels or degrees of Eagerness;
2 And in order to obtain the highest and most time consuming jobs in the church, an active Mormon must enter into this degree of activity [meaning fully “Eager” and not “Less Eager” or “InEager”];
3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it.
4 He may enter into the other less demanding callings, but that is the end of his institutional progress; he cannot have a promotion.

I feel a new cross-stitched wall hanging coming on…