NEW CDC Data: Show Birthrates declining dramatically nationwide. The largest decrease occurring in West & SW states with Utah seeing the steepest birth decline at -36.2% pic.twitter.com/SsrfEFENb9

— Lindsay Penney (@TexasLindsay_) October 6, 2023

CDC data shows Utah had the largest decline in births per 1000 from 2007 to 2022 at 36%.

Utah has seen a lot of social change and move ins, shepherded by its government class who hoped to make the state more appealing to investment by  making it less ‘Mormon.’

So these figures wouldn’t have worried me if it weren’t for the fact that from 2012 to 2022 we experienced a 25% drop in new children of record.  That is an absolute drop, not a drop in per 1,000.  The per 1,000 figure would be a 40% drop.  Worse than the Utah drop.

We can quibble about what these numbers mean, but that the over all picture is bad and the direction is bad–I am tempted to say literally catastrophic–is beyond dispute.

TFR 2.9

Their formula is some combination of material incentives along with a fair amount of just being supportive and  doing a lot of little things to make it clear that the town values having children.

However, from the examples in the article, I wonder how much of the town’s success is from cherry-picking families from their surrounding area?

Most of you know this already, because its obvious.  I didn’t.  Sister Freeman said something obviously true that I hadn’t put together in my mind before.

Just as a wedding does not make a marriage, a covenant ordinance does not make a relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  The ordinance, whether wedding or not, is a vessel that has to be filled.

Wedding:marriage::covenant:divine relationship

I’ve struggled for awhile with how exactly a ‘covenant’ is different from a contract or agreement.  Sister Freeman’s talk gave me the jumping off point I needed.

A covenant is a relationship built on a mutual promises.  Or, which is much the same thing, a covenant is an eternal agreement.

P.S.  I loved her passion for the temple garment

We are reading Ephesians 5 this week.

Coincidentally this morning, I came across a review of Origen’s Revenge: The Greek and Hebrew Roots of Christian Thinking on Male and Female, by Brian Patrick Mitchell.  I don’t endorse everything in the review (as always with links) and I haven’t read the book.  Still, from an LDS standpoint, it sounds fascinating.   Mr. Mitchell apparently does a deep dive into the Greek philosophical approach to men and women, which basically saw women as knock-off men.  Or else men as the higher “spirit” sex and women  as the lower “body” sex.  From which much evil follows, including in Christianity.

Time for a second look at “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?”

The Proclamation on the Family is both a timely and practical warning against contemporary evils but also, I and you have been realizing, a profound doctrinal statement.  The sexes are real, and good.  Sex is real, and good.  The body is eternally meaningful.  You are your physical being.  And so on.  Deeply rewarding.

A gentile friend of mine once said, “I got so misogynist that now I love and respect women.”  He meant he’d spent so much time figuring out the ways in which women could not be counted on to act like men that he had eventually absorbed that they weren’t  men. (more…)

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During Sister Wright and Brother Daines’ talk I wrote “these are very ‘feminine’ themes.”  Comfort, relief, acceptance, etc.

At one time I believed that churches including occasionally ours were too feminine in their approach and focus, driving men away.  So ‘feminine’ themes gave me allergies.  Now, whatever the truth of that particular sociological observation, I have realized that femininity is one of the foundational truths of the world.  There should be a complete and moving ‘feminine’ version of the gospel that will appeal to women but also to men, because it is tapping something deep and godly.  There should likewise be a complete and moving ‘masculine’ version of the gospel about duty and honor and glory and triumph that will appeal to men, but also to women.  And approaches that are both, and approaches that cut orthogonally.  The eternities cannot be fully contained in one mortal package.

The problem, if there is a problem, is not too much feminized gospel.  It is too little masculinized gospel.

(“To serve in this Church is to stand in the river of God’s love for his children” – wow)

What a great time.  As President Monson might have said, hearts were touched, inspirations were jotted down, apples were canned.

Having General Conference every 3 months might take away the specialness, but I’m willing to try the experiment.

Question:

who presided?  If they announced who was presiding, I missed it.

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Comment.

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Our analysts anticipate themes related to the gospel and the Godhead.  Inside sources tell us to expect stories, scriptures, doctrine, and the phrase “our beloved prophet.”  Don’t miss a minute!

Just under the wire,  here is what I haven’t posted about yet from the last General Conference.

One

Brother Uceda made a parable clearer to me. The parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son.

When Luke, the Gospel writer, is introducing the three stories, he uses the word parable in the singular, not in the plural. It appears that the Lord is teaching one unique lesson with three stories—stories that present different numbers: 100 sheep, 10 coins, and 2 sons. The key number in each of these stories, however, is the number one.

This can be a hard parable if you read it as a justification for local leaders to ignore your family in favor of those who are more performatively lost. But from a divine perspective we are all lost sheep. The actual  point is that the only level of success love can be satisfied with is 100%. Whether personally or as a people 0.5 or 0.9 or 0.99 is not enough.

Coincidentally (?), Elder Christofferson spoke next on being one in Christ as the body of Christ.   What an interesting juxtaposition!  We can imagine a parable as follows

What man of you,  having injured his hand,  would not bind the wound? Would he say I will not bind it, because the rest of my body is well? No, but he will bind it and treat it until his hand is also well.

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I consider a great many (not all, but many) AI concerns to be in the same vein as Caveman Science Fiction.  It is a psyop to keep us from challenging existing power structures. But if we are cavemen (and women), and we have been handed fire, then we ought to learn how to use fire. So… just what do you do with fire, anyway?

We are going to search out the deepest Mysteries of the Book of Abraham.

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Wisdom, n.: mastered fear.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

His noble and great ones are the chiefest of his miracles.

God touched a plumber.  He bored a tunnel through the mountains that gushed fresh, cold water for a thousand years.

God touched a cop.  He rooted out corruption in high places down to the last rotten apple.

God touched a teacher.  The teacher’s students became a band of statesmen who led their country to destiny.

God touched a fisherman.  He made the waters bloom and caught in their hundreds of thousands the teeming fish.

God touched a mother.  She raised up the the founders of a nation.

God touched a father.  He made a world.

By WmJas

The first two articles are great.  I will be following assiduously.

In verses where it says something along the lines of ‘and the people glorified God,’ what does that mean? (more…)