If I have my dates right, it seems President Biden has declared this Sunday to be the Transgender Day of Visibility. The document attacks people who are taking the other side in school issues and threatens them with the Department of Justice. There is not as yet any proclamation related to Easter Sunday, unless this is the Easter Sunday proclamation.
It is odd to think that what on earth would have been a day full of grief for dead Jesus was in the Spirit World Palm Sunday and Resurrection Sunday rolled into one, Jesus making his triumphal entry and appearing in victory all in one.
But for the living, the end has happened. The cryptic, puzzling remarks of your master aside, he seems to have been finally defeated. Then you wake up the next day. Life goes on apparently, even after it’s all over. They killed the Savior last night. Now what?
I just read the 116 Lost Pages by Bradley. After a long time away from reading any apologetic material, I had a prompting to read this one. So what does the book have to do with Easter?
Quite a bit, by way of Laban.
There once was a king who heard rumors of injustice and corruption in his city. He decided to investigate. Charging his trusted servants and loyal palace guard to keep his secret well, he disguised himself as a worker, let us say a woodworker, and slipped out into the city. (more…)
Tuesday, Wednesday. Christ preaches and teaches. He condemns the pharisees. He gives a vivid and striking encouragement to parenthood. He also preaches about the second coming. Our usual impression is that he’s cramming in a lot of last minute teaching, knowing he’s about to leave. What he is really doing is telling his disciples what comes next. Judgment Day and the Second Coming are part and parcel of his fight with death and sin that is about to happen. The Second Coming really begins with his resurrection. The atonement is what gives him the right to judge. There is an interesting verse in 2 Nephi 9:22 that says that Christ suffered so that He could judge us. Obviously he suffered to give us the chance to repent. He is a man of mercy. But he is also a man of justice. He also suffered because he wanted to condemn us should we remain in our sins.
BYU President Reece has written and had published a call for BYU to be more BYU. It is inspiring. He identifies and rejects five secular false dichotomies
https://www.deseret.com/education/2024/03/25/religious-education-at-byu-school-mission/
He is also aware of what time it is:
1. He correctly identifies the inevitable trend when religious institutions to date have tried to become more intellectually respectable and have completely lost their religious character and been subsumed into the academic mass as a result.
2. “it is worth noting that secular academics have not, by and large, escaped or abandoned orthodoxy. They have merely embraced secular orthodoxies in the place of religious ones.”
3. “the modern exaltation of authenticity often privileges untrammeled subjective experience above all else. ”
4. “To challenge the secular assumptions and ideological priors of the broader academy is not to flee from hard questions; it is rather to resist spiritual colonization at the hands of a dominant dogma. ”
You should read the whole thing, especially for the paean at the close. My hair literally stood on end.
https://www.deseret.com/education/2024/03/25/religious-education-at-byu-school-mission/
PS–there are probably various ways one could take the title of this post. We mean it as an antonym to our series on what’s the matter at BYU? That series showcases alarming indications and this showcases inspiring ones.
Holy Week – Monday – driving the exchangers from the temple.
Last year’s post, which is a meditation on peace and violence.
Christ enters Jerusalem as King.
The entire holy week is a proclamation of his rule, including the death.
One little remarked aspect of today is how awesome worship and praise is when the object is truly worthy. Being a follower is great if you have a great leader.
Last’s year’s Palm Sunday, which have what I hope is an interesting insight into how Palm Sunday connects to Christ’s death and entry into the next world.
This year, pursuant to my inspiration for reading the Book of Mormon, I am going to try to connect Holy Week to Lehi’s dream. Pursuant to a specific inspiration, I am going to try to connect it to personal growth and crisis–“liken the scriptures unto us;” in other words, what are your holy weeks? Those are below the fold.
The Church put out a statement on church use of AI recently.
No. 1 Daughter, who is a cheery little bird, drew our attention to this passage:
Elder Gong acknowledged that some people will weaponize AI tools. Of particular concern are deepfakes, the fictitious or malicious use of someone’s name, image, and likeness. These are most likely to happen to people — such as Church leaders — who have a recognizable face and voice, a significant amount of video and audio in the public domain, and known and motivated antagonists.
Yep.
She speculates that something like this may be the reason we are emphasizing home church and other forms of personal, direct priesthood leadership. Increasingly nothing that isn’t face to face is secure or reliable.
BYU is adding a required intro course for new freshmen. Hubbub has ensued among veteran hubbubbers because students will read a toned-down version of Elder Holland’s already very mild “musket” speech.
And now a special guest comment from special guest commenter Brigham Young.
The First Presidency directed the Church, “To allow additional time on Easter Sunday for worship with family and friends, we have asked all wards and branches to meet only for sacrament meeting.” Worshipping with our families at home is a familiar concept, but how should we go about worshipping with our friends on Easter with our additional hour that we will not be at church? The option that comes first to mind is to attend Easter services that are not associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Perhaps an interfaith sunrise service, or a worship service in one of our friends’ churches. My own ward’s sacrament meeting on Easter will begin at 11 AM, so it should be easy for me to find another church service before that.
Another option would be for me to arrange some private Easter worship with a friend. Invite him to my house or elsewhere to sing a hymn, pray, and share expressions with one another of our joy in Christ’s triumph. I’ve never done anything quite like that. What do you think the First Presidency is telling the Latter-day Saints to do on Easter with our additional time for worship with friends?
The last time Easter fell on the first Sunday in April was 2021, and many of the General Conference talks on that day were what one might prepare with Easter especially in mind, while others focused on other things, such as President Oaks on “Defending Our Divinely Inspired Constitution.” Easter and General Conference will next coincide on April 5, 2026. If the pattern of last year and next continues, I suppose the Sunday sessions of Conference that day will be limited to a single hour, or perhaps omitted altogether.
I read a lot of low quality genre fiction. Recently I’ve been going through some new genres popular with millennials.
Nearly 100% of the time, when the author wants to give their paint-by-numbers pulp a little emotional depth, they do it by giving the protagonist Trauma. That’s it, always. Trauma. The trauma is usually caused by some cookie cutter family situation, abusive and/or distant mom or dad, but the abusive and/or distant mom or dad is never the problem, its always the Trauma caused by the abusive and/or distant mom or dad.
The stories are like this because it appeals to the readers, because we live in a culture that encourages trauma worship. Trauma has become an idol.
Gossip is surprisingly hard to define but its real. Like loud laughter, peace, and the Spirit, its one of those things you have to experience yourself to know what it is. (more…)