It is one of my favorite topics as of late and it came up again in the extended debate that has been going on in my last several posts about revelation: God and his prophets want the church to be a Nation of Prophets. (more…)

When it comes to describing the process by which prophets receive visions and experience encounters with Celestial visitors, Paul said it best:

“whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth”.

As the second installment of this series on properly judging revelation I will make the boldest assertion of this series: I believe that the vast majority of revelations we read about in scripture were not physical in an earthly sense. While I am certain that they were very real and concrete in one sense, I strongly suspect that if we had video recordings of these visitations and visions all we would see is a prophet alone. (more…)

There were some very interesting challenges and questions posed to me in the comments of my last post but since I was on vacation last week I did not have time to respond to them sufficiently. Now that we are back I thought the general subject was important enough to warrant its own set of posts. Jeffrey Giliam made the most provocative comments there and his comments are in line with other views he has expressed elsewhere. Our disagreement centers on how to judge the quality of revelation from God. Before I directly respond to those comments I thought it would be wise to lay a foundation for my responses. In this first post I will respond to a list Jeffrey published where he delineates what he sees as the differences between “revelation” and “inspiration” from God. Here is the hierarchy he presents ranked from least impressive to most impressive (he calls 1-3 inspiration and 4-7 revelation): (more…)

J. Stapley put up an excellent post the other day asking “Why would prophets leave revelations unwritten?” In it he outlined the sacred visitation President Lorenzo Snow had in the Salt Lake temple from the Lord Jesus Christ. In that interview the Lord gave President Snow very clear and explicit instructions regarding the reorganization of the first presidency. But President Snow never wrote this experience down or shared it with the whole church. We only have knowledge of it because he told some of his descendants of the story and long after his death they revealed it to the church at large. The question is: Why did he choose to keep this experience to himself? (more…)

In the Fall of ’91 I was freshly home from my mission and a transfer student at BYU. I had a couple of items high on my list of priorities: One was to find a smart, funny, gorgeous girlfriend and the other was to start a rock band. (The latter presumably would add to the success of the former.) I succeeded at both by my first month. You know the hottie girlfriend I found as Kristen J and the band I started was called Sam I Am. (more…)

7 There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes;
8 We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.
(D&C 131:7-8)

In Mormonism we believe all will be resurrected in to physical bodies. Such resurrected beings have to live somewhere in the physical Universe. Where do you suppose that will be? (more…)

I’ve been planning to report on how my gig in San Diego went, but I was sort of looking for an angle. When Jeffrey Giliam questioned the reason we have to go through a veil of forgetfulness when we come to earth in the comments of another post I decided I might try to kill two birds with one stone. (more…)

(Part 2 of 2)

After recently bashing the Parable of the Bicycle I figured it was only fair that I expose myself to some bashing in return. Here is an attempt at another analogy that I am formulating basically on the fly. (more…)

Not surprisingly, my comments on the flaws of the now-famous “Parable of the Bicycle” started a discussion of the atonement and what it does or does not do for us. The primary point I was trying to make in that post was that while the atonement frees us from a permanent death and from paying for all of our own sins ourselves, it does not change our natures for us. Only one thing changes our natures and that is our repentance. Our repentance (or changing for the better) is as much enabled by our free agency as it is by the Atonement. (A short discussion of this point was also going on over at Nine Moons). So if ongoing repentance and change is required for us to become like God it seems that the obvious next point should be that it will take a lot more time than this single mortal probation to accomplish that Herculean task. I have my preference on how I think we are given sufficient time to in the eternities, but that is not the point I want to discuss here. I want to focus on how much of exaltation is a result of our works throughout the eternity and how much of it comes from the atonement. (more…)

In the comments of my last post there was some discussion of faith vs. works. Mormons have always been accused of being too works-focused by other Christians. They like to say things like: “Sorry guys, your works don’t save, Jesus does. Works are how we serve Jesus; they are pathetically puny compared to the gift of the atonement, which cannot be earned.” Interestingly, some Mormons like to say these very same things. (more…)

You might have noticed that Kristen is posting here at the Thang now. She started her own blog and I couldn’t stand the idea of the coolest and funniest person I know posting elsewhere when I could probably get her to make the Thang her permanent home. So after a little begging that’s what I got!

I figure she will help bring a little humor and humanity to the Thang. She tells a mean story and there’s nothing like a good story to lift the soul.

So welcome Kristen J! This Thang is suddenly looking better.

PS — Thanks to Kaimi and others who have already welcomed her or linked to her recent posts.