However, contrary to my usual interests, last month I picked up a newly released book by David J. West entitled Heroes of the Fallen.  I had run across West’s blog a few months earlier, and I had been following his posts.  I knew that he was an aspiring LDS author, but I hadn’t followed his blog closely enough to realize that he had a book about to be published.  When he announced it’s release, I was intrigued by what I had already gathered from his blog.  So I headed over to the local bookstore where he was doing a book signing and purchased an author-signed copy. I finished Heroes of the Fallen in about a week.

The book is set in the ancient America of the Book of Mormon, around 320 or so years A.D.  This setting is both a benefit and a challenge for the author.  West benefits from a pre-existing setting, complete with unusual names and places, a history, language, political system, and religious beliefs.  My favorite fantasy writers, like J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Lloyd Alexander, drew upon the histories, myths, and legends of the ancient civilizations with which they were familiar, borrowing names, plots, archetypes, and themes in order to lend weight and coherence to their works.  In some ways, Heroes of the Fallen benefits similarly from the Book of Mormon.  By adapting and extrapolating from the Book of Mormon, West is able to concentrate on filling in the details and bringing to life a fully-realized, exotic, ancient civilization without having to invent it whole-cloth.

But this benefit is also a liability too.  Unlike the Icelandic Volsungasaga, the Norse Eddas, or the Germanic Nibelungenlied from which Tolkien derived some of his work, all of which are completely unfamiliar to most modern readers,  as a book of scripture, The Book of Mormon is much more familiar to LDS readers of Heroes of the Fallen, which are its natural audience.  I found it difficult to evaluate West’s book on its own merits because in my mind I kept comparing what he was describing to my own understanding and experience with the Book of Mormon.

This comparison problem is complicated by the fact that the book has been billed in some reviews as historical fiction and not fantasy.  Tolkien was not trying to retell the Saga of the Volsungs, he was deriving a new faerie story by including elements from the Icelandic saga.  West, on the other hand, has clearly done an immense deal of research in order to present a believable setting that is both consistent with the Book of Mormon and ancient America, and the plot is situated firmly in events from the Book of Mormon.  So his texts invites a comparison that Tolkien’s does not.  I wonder if a non-LDS reader might enjoy the book more because he or she could approach it as a Fantasy novel, enjoying the detail and cohesiveness facilitated by its Book of Mormon origin, without the distraction of comparison.  On the other hand, perhaps without the familiarity with the Book of Mormon, a non-LDS reader would find many of the references to earlier events and characters a nonsensical distraction instead of an enhancement.  So the Book of Mormon setting is both a boon and a demerit.

Despite West’s expansive research and detail, the ancient America he paints includes a great deal of speculation, exaggeration, and imagination and his novel is better because of it.  He doesn’t let what we supposedly know or what we don’t know stand in the way of crafting an interesting story.  It is a story of ancient warfare, political and religious intrigue, and courageous but often flawed heroes.  The characters often read like super-heroes– seven and eight foot tall warriors, rippling with Arnold-Frieberg-style muscles who can leave fist marks in solid wood beams that they punch in frustration.  Some of his main characters are derived not from the Book of Mormon text itself, but from somewhat obscure LDS historical trivia, like Zelph the White Lamanite, and the Prophet-Judge Onandagus.  In fact, the only character from the Book of Mormon itself to appear as a substantial main character in Heroes of the Fallen is Mormon himself, and most of the events of the plot are not recounted in the scriptures.  This leaves West a lot of room to develop his story and characters independent of specifics from the Book of Mormon by filling in the gaps with his own story.  So in addition to Zelph and Onandagus, there are lots of fun references for Mormon doctrine, history, and culture buffs, including Seer Stones, an appearance by one of the Three Nephites, Book of Mormon Archaeology, and testing Evil Spirits.

I dislike writing that tries too hard to be poetic or tries to come across as literary by over-employing descriptive devices.  At first I was worried that West’s writing was going to be like that.  His prologue was a little that way. Frankly, I think you could probably skip the prologue and then maybe come back to it at the end.  But I found that, on the whole, West did an admirable job of using striking and sometimes startling descriptions without distracting me or detracting from the story.

I do have a few complaints about the book, however.

First,  I wish the book had indicated that it was only part one of a long story.  I started the novel expecting it to reach a central climax where the building political, religious, and personal tensions and subplots come together.  But no, this is just part one in which everything is set up.  Sure there where sequences of action, but the plot only continues to thicken without ever coming to a conclusion, which I presume will come in the next book, or maybe a third.  It would have been better had the book been called Heroes of the Fallen – Book One or something like that.  It was kind of like watching The Empire Strikes Back and expecting it to reach some kind of resolution by the end.  Better managed expectations would have avoided my disappointment.

My second complaint was not the fault of the author.  I attribute it to poor editing.  “To nock an arrow” is a nice phrase.  “Zelph nocked an arrow” does read well.  But when everyone is “nocking” arrows every couple of pages it starts to feel tiresome.  How about some variation like “prepared” an arrow, or “placed” an arrow, or “set” an arrow, or “notched” and arrow, or even “readied his bow.”  This isn’t a serious error, all writers do it unconsciously, but I think it is something that an editor should have caught.  I probably would have noticed less if the first occurrence of “nocked” hadn’t been misspelled “knocked,”  which is even more the fault of the editor.  But that was the only misspelling I noticed.

My third complaint was that the book was very gory.  Perhaps this was unavoidable given both the human sacrificing elements drawn from ancient American archeology and history and the wars of degenerate, secret-society controlled nations drawn from the Book of Mormon.  But I did find the increasing amounts of spurting blood off-putting.  I have family members who would probably have enjoyed this book, but I have a hard time recommending it to them because I know that they will find the gore disturbing.

My last complaint is that there were a few distracting anachronisms.  The phrase “trade their freedom for security” for instance is used a couple of times in the novel.  I appreciate how the book tried to explore issues of freedom and security, but I wished that it had avoided this modern, cliché phraseology and found a way to say the same thing in different words that fit better with the ancient setting.  Another anachronism that stuck out to me was an apparent “Word of Wisdom” style prohibition on alcohol, coffee drinking, and smoking.  I suppose that falls under speculation, but it did stand out to me.  Other than that, however, West does a great job of bringing to life a degenerating ancient society without employing modern phrases that might pull us out of the story.

In fact, one thing that I really liked about Heroes of the Fallen, was that the Book of Mormon society that it paints is not very similar to the kind of American democratic, constitutional government society we have today.  The Nephite government in Heroes of the Fallen is, in my opinion, a much more accurate depiction than I’ve typically seen.  The Judges who reign over the Nephites may be elected to the judgment seat by a democractic voice of the people, but they are much more like the judges of ancient Israel than modern politicians, and even the good ones are more like Warlords than Senators.

Heroes of the Fallen is well done and other than the fact that I was not prepared to wait for the sequel for a resolution, I enjoyed it a great deal.  I recommend you purchase a copy from amazon.com and check it out.

Also, try out the Beta of the church’s new General Conference page:

https://beta.lds.org/general-conference

MP3 Audio

This post will be updated with the earliest available mp3 audio files I can find as soon as they become available. If necessary, the links will be replaced by links to the official MP3s at the church website as they are posted.

Saturday Morning Session MP3s

Saturday Morning Session 1st Hour

Saturday Morning Session 2nd Hour

Complete Saturday Morning Session

President Thomas S. Monson

President Boyd K. Packer

Julie B. Beck

Bishop Keith B. McMullin

Elder Wilford W. Andersen

Elder M. Russell Ballard

President Henry B. Eyring

Saturday Afternoon Session MP3s

Saturday Afternoon 1st Hour

Saturday Afternoon 2nd Hour

Complete Saturday Afternoon Session

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Presented by Robert W. Cantwell

Presented by Brook P. Hales

Elder L. Tom Perry

Elder D. Todd Christofferson

Elder Koichi Aoyagi

Elder Bruce A. Carlson

Elder David A Bednar

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Priesthood Session MP3s

Complete Priesthood Session

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Elder Ronald A. Rasband

David L. Beck

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

President Henry B. Eyring

President Thomas S. Monson

Sunday Morning Session MP3s

Sunday Morning Session 1st Hour

Sunday Morning Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Morning Session

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Elder Richard G. Scott

Elder Donald L. Hallstrom

Cheryl C. Lant

Elder Quentin L. Cook

President Thomas S. Monson

Sunday Afternoon Session MP3s

Sunday Afternoon Session 1st Hour

Sunday Afternoon Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Afternoon Session

Elder Russell M. Nelson

Elder Robert D. Hales

Elder Bradley D. Foster

Elder James B. Martino

Elder Gregory A. Schwitzer

Elder Francisco J. Viñas

Elder Neil L. Andersen

President Thomas S. Monson

Streaming Video

As in previous years, live streaming video of the conference, as well as archived recordings of completed sessions will be available on demand through the official church website as well as through BYU TV and KSL.

Official Streaming Video on lds.org:

General Conference Video in English

General Conference Video in Spanish

General Conference Video in Portuguese

General Conference Video in American Sign Language

Podcasts

For the last couple of years, the church has provided official audio and video podcasts of the conference sessions. You can subscribe to the podcasts to receive conference on your iPod or in a podcast enabled feed reader like Google Reader. In past years KSL has also provided a podcast.

In my experience, the KSL podcast sessions often become available shortly after each session ends, but they have been very unreliable.  The official audio podcast has sometimes been posted remarkably fast after the sessions, but it has also been a little inconsistent. Understandably, the video podcast posts a few days later during the following week.

Official LDS.org Audio Podcast (MP3s of Individual Talks)
Official LDS.org Video Podcast (MP4s of Individual Talks)
KSL Audio Podcast (One MP3 per Session)

Twitter #ldsconf

Over the last couple of years, twitter.com has emerged as a powerful online tool for live, real-time commentary. If you are a twitter user, you can post your conference comments using the #ldsconf hashtag.

View #ldsconf comments on twitter

Links to the mp3 audio and mp4 video podcast files will be automatically tweeted through NothingWavering.org through @ldsconference.

LDS Blogs

To find LDS blog commentary on the conference, you can check the LDS Blog Portal at NothiningWavering.org which aggregates blog posts by mainstream and orthodox LDS bloggers as well as content from official LDS websites.  You can also check out LDS blog posts specifically tagged with ‘conference’. Nothing Wavering also tweets links to LDS blog posts and official content on twitter @ldsblogs, @ldsbloggers, and @ldsofficial, in addtion to the@ldsconference twitter page mentioned above.

Let me know if you have links to any other great conference resources.

Enjoy!

Then in November, we released an update to add the Old Testament.

When we released the Book of Mormon, I had taken the time to develop a Book of Mormon outline, and I wanted to outline the Old Testament as well.

I started looking online for some good Old Testament outlines to use as a reference, and while I found a number, none were really what I wanted.

So, I began to review numerous articles on the Old Testament to help me understand each book better, and I went through the entire Old Testament chapter by chapter, and often page by page, comparing what I was reading to the articles and identifying ways to group and relate the parts.

In addition to study, I prayed frequently that Heavenly Father would help me to understand and organize an outline that would be useful for me and others; simple enough to make the book more understandable and approachable without  oversimplifying.

The resulting outline was built into the plugin, but I quickly realized that I needed to create a printable version.

So, here’s the final outline in PDF format that can be downloaded and printed by anyone who finds it useful.

An Outline of The Old Testament

I’ve learned a great deal through this process and have grown to both understand and love the Old Testament more than I ever have before.  Even if in the end the outline is only really useful to me, it’s been worth it.

(There is also a revised and simplified version of my Outline of the Textual Structure of the Book of Mormon for those interested)

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of “The Origin of the Species” by Charles Darwin.  If you’ve followed this blog for a significant time you know that I have doubts about the compatibility of Darwinism and the belief in God as the Creator.

I remember as a high-school biology student, in addition to various other evolutionary facts, our teacher showed us the famous Heackel drawings of the developmental stages of embryos. He made us all memorize the phrase “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.”  And he insisted that it was a scientific “fact” that proved that Darwin’s theory was undeniably true.  It was all very convincing and I believed him.  As a faithful member of the LDS church I reasoned that “evolution” was simply the device which God employed to bring to pass the creation.  This was in 1989 and little did I know that the “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” hypothesis had, even then, been long discredited.

After graduating from high school, going on an LDS mission, and then attending BYU for a number of years, I found myself once again taking Biology, this time as a graduation requirement.  It was 1998.  As I wandered the BYU bookstore, scanning the biology books, I ran across a funny looking book with a golden colored cover with red letters spelling out the curious title “Darwin on Trial,” by Phillip E. Johnson.  It had been published in 1991, but this was the first time I had heard of it.  Johnson had an impressive resume, graduate from Harvard and the University of Chicago, former clerk to U.S. Chief Justice Warren,  and professor at the Boalt School of Law of UC Berkeley. He was not trained in biology, but he was an expert in logical argument and evidence in the realm of law.  I sat in the book store for a couple of hours, missing several of my classes, as I read his critique of Darwinism.  I went back another day to finish it.

I imagine I felt a little like some members of the LDS church feel when they innocently stumble upon some of the historical aspects of the church that appear to contradict their understanding of the church.  Johnson made some very astute observations about evolution.  He exposed some glaring logical fallacies. This well educated, intelligent man doubted Darwinism and made some good arguments that needed to be addressed. And a number of the undeniable “facts” I had been taught were simply not true.  “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” was a long discredited hypothesis.  I felt deceived by my high school biology teacher.

Well, it had been nearly ten years.  I remembered that my teacher had also told us that our scientific knowledge of biology was doubling every five years. Now I was taking a BYU biology class.  Surely with our greater knowledge these issues would have been addressed and new, potent evidence for evolution would be available.  As fate would have it, within a couple of weeks of reading “Darwin on Trial” my university biology class covered the unit on “Evolution.”  I was shocked to find that the textbook was still touting peppered moths and embryological parallelism (even including Heackel’s bogus drawings).  It seemed that nothing had changed.  I had taken years of physics and chemistry at both the high school and college level.  I knew how science was supposed to work.  But there was no mention of the challenges put forward in Johnson’s book let alone an attempt to address and refute them, at least in the biology course that most students would be required to take as a graduation requirement.  It felt like propaganda instead of science.  I was thoroughly disillusioned.

A year or two later I was taking a class on Victorian era English literature.  One day the professor broached the subject of evolution.  I was interested to see if the English department would approach the subject differently, but again I was disappointed.  Evolution was a “fact.”  The professor made it clear that anyone who doubted it was either uneducated, a fool, or wicked.  I was the only student who would openly admit to doubting Darwinism in the class.  I lent a copy of Johnson’s book to my professor.  It was returned to me by mail some time later without comment.  I don’t even know if he ever read it.

I have followed the “Intelligent Design” vs “Evolution” debate ever since.

The crux of my problem with “Evolution” is as follows:

I accept that species adjust to their surroundings through micro-evolutionary adaptations.  This is an observable fact.

I can accept that there has been a succession of species which have evolved from one into another.  There is quite a lot of evidence for this.

But I cannot accept Darwin’s hypothesis that a completely unguided mechanism of accumulated micro-evolution by random mutation and natural selection is solely responsible for the complete genesis of the plenitude of biological life. There is very little evidence supporting this mechanism and because it requires such unfathomable time frames it is also completely unobservable.  By its very definition Darwin’s mechanism excludes the possibility of a supreme being employing evolution as the device for teleological creation.  The minute you say God “used” evolution you have become a “Creationist” because Darwin’s hypothesis does not permit evolution to be “used” by an intelligence at all.

An address to BYU by Elder Marion D. Hanks was printed in the July 1981 issue of the LDS Church’s Ensign magazine. He said:

I know that man is co-eternal with God, and that he clothed us in spirit form and then made it possible for us to have eternal life, through his gift, through his love. I know that, with his Son, he is our Creator and that his children are his special and crowning creation. But I take great comfort in personal conversations I had with President David O. McKay some years ago when I was concerned with these matters. His answer was about what I have given you. He said, ‘It would do no violence to my faith to learn that God had formed man in one way or another.’

If you believe that God has a purpose in creation, and that he guided it to his own ends, then you have automatically rejected Darwin’s unproven mechanism.  You may still believe in the “fact of evolution” (micro-evolutionary adaptations and a succession of species) but you reject Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution” (i.e. that this observable “fact of evolution” is solely the result of his proposed purposeless, materialist process).

Accepting the “fact of evolution” but rejecting Darwin’s hypothetical anti-teleological mechanism seems to me to align well with the LDS Church’s position on Evolution. We do not know by what means God brought the creation to pass.  But we do know that it was brought to pass by His will and to fulfill His purposes.  Any theory that rejects this is incompatible with the revealed Gospel.

Personally, I like the theory of “Front-Loaded” evolution, wherein the basic building blocks of life were pre-configured with sufficient information to generate all of biological life.  This information would then be activated through the natural complex feedback loops and attractors of reproduction to produce the succession of species we observe.  That way mutation and natural selection do play a role, but are not the sole mechanism of creation because their creative power is only made possible and set in motion by the inclusion of intelligently organized information.  It’s just a hypothesis, but I like it and hope to see some research in that direction.

Darwin Doubters like me who express their doubts on blogs are frequently labeled “uneducated , fools, or wicked”  and so there are few who will openly admit to their doubt, just like in my English class years ago.  The fact that Darwinists so often react this way to evolutionary apostates is just another hint that it has become more of a dogma than a science.  At a very minimum if you don’t want schools to “teach the controversy” then you shouldn’t be calling for the Church to do so with regard to its history.  And if you complain that members of the church are not familiar enough with the critic’s views of the church, then maybe you should pick up a clutch of modern “Intelligent Design” books and read them all from start to finish.  If you’re going to presume to judge the Church of God then you should be at least as presumptuous for the Church of Darwin.

Some books to check out:

Darwin on Trial 2nd Edition 1993 by Phillip E. Johnson- somewhat out of date, but still a great introduction

The Edge of Evolution 2008 by Michael J. Behe

The Signature in the Cell 2009 by Stephen C. Meyer

My collection of life included a number of different birds.  I had a parrot, cockatiels, budgerigars, zebra finches, canaries, a rooster and some hens, a bantam rooster and hens,  ducks, homing pigeons, and ring-neck doves.  I didn’t get an allowance and breeding pets, especially doves, and selling them to Utah Valley pet stores was my primary source of income.

Close personal contact with doves, especially in contrast to the other birds I had,  gave me some insights into why the dove has been used as a symbol of peace, and in the scriptures as a sign for the Holy Spirit of God.

Parrots and parakeets have sharp, hooked bills and when they feel threatened or trapped they will squawk and screech, complain and murmur, and give you a painful bite– sometimes drawing blood.

The miniature bantam rooster, bred for cock-fighting, would take offense at my mere presence in the coop.  He would stand between me and the miniature hens, puffing up his feathers and strutting aggressively.  If his absurd show of lilliputian strength didn’t frighten me off, he would attack me viciously, and with surprising effectiveness, by jumping up and kicking me painfully in the shins with the sharp spurs on the backs of his legs.

The other chickens bore their name well.  They would scurry and run, unable to fly for more than a few feet, dodging left and right like tiny female football players avoiding being tackled. But the minute they felt even slightly cornered (in fact or only in their tiny imaginations) they would freeze and assume  a funny cowering position with their wings lifted up slightly, like shoulders in a shrug that said “I give up!  Don’t hurt me.”

The smaller finches and canaries fluttered and jumped all around the cages, never giving up like the chickens, until they were caught.  Some might protest and nibble at your finger, but without the sharp hooks of the parrot, their struggle was completely ineffective.

Which brings me to the doves.  Ring-neck doves have been bred in captivity for between two-thousand and three-thousand years. They are known for their gentle nature.  This is especially apparent when they feel trapped.  Of course, if the doves can fly away they will.  But if they cannot, they don’t scramble like the chickens and then give up all of a sudden; they don’t murmur and complain and bite like the parrots and budgies; they don’t strut and then attack like the bantam rooster;  they simply raise the one wing closest to their perceived assailant in a gesture of peace and submission.  They don’t bite or nip. There is no aggression and no visible panic.  Even after they are in hand they do not complain or bite.

However, if they are protecting their eggs or babies, they will sometimes bite.  I never had a dove bite me to protect itself, only to protect its young.  There is a nobility in the dove that turns its gentleness into gentility.  At least that is my own experience with them.

It is easy to project peace when all is well. But when the master reaches out toward us to examine us and we feel trapped and cornered and scared, how do we respond?  Are we parrots? Are we chickens? Are we fighting cocks?  Or finches?  Or are we doves?

I had a particular pair of doves that were my primary producers.  The male would repeatedly bow to the female, while cooing to her until she would agree to mate with him.  I could count on them to regularly produce two eggs, like clockwork, every six to eight weeks.  The male and female would both take turns incubating the eggs, or even sit on them together, and both would feed and care for the babies once they hatched. I would move the pair of babies into a different cage once I was sure they were feeding themselves, and then sell them to a pet store.

Then suddenly, one day the eggs didn’t hatch.  I carefully removed the eggs, removed the shade from the lamp in my room and held them up to the bulb for candling.  Normally I would be able to see the developing blood veins in the egg in the early stages of development, and later a tiny baby bird through the back-lit eggshell.  But this time there was nothing.  The eggs were unfertilized.

I waited a week and tried again just to be sure, and then disposed of the eggs.  The pair soon had another set of eggs.  I candled them.  Nothing.  Suddenly the birds were not fertile.  I tried various methods of fixing it.  I changed the diet.  I clipped the feathers around their cloacae to make sure that they were able to mate properly.

The eggs were all infertile.  My only source of income was gone.

Finally I turned to prayer.

A question came to me:  Had I paid tithing for the last set of doves I had sold?  Usually I had been diligent about paying a tithe on the money I made from my birds, but I realized that this time I had not.  That Sunday I took one tenth of the price I had charged for the last pair of baby doves with me to church, filled out the tithing donation form, put it in the donation envelope, and gave it to a member of the Bishopric.

A week or two later I carefully removed the newest pair of eggs from the dove’s nest.  I removed the shade from the lamp in my room and held the eggs up to the bulb.  Through the shell I saw the red outlines of veins, branching out from an amorphous  mass inside the egg.  They were alive!

This simple experience will be dismissed or mocked by some.  But for me it was profound.  It is hard to describe the impression it had on my young faith.  I had prayed over lost or sick pets before, and God had answered my prayers.  But suddenly my relationship with God changed.  He had the power over life and death.  He could make a Dove infertile or give barren Hannah, or the virgin Mary, a son.  Ultimately, He had complete control over my ability to prosper, to make money, independent of my effort.  And I had obligations to him.

MP3 Audio

This post will be updated with the earliest available mp3 audio files as they become available. Links to the official MP3s at the church website will be added as they are posted by the church.

Saturday Morning Session MP3s

Saturday Morning Session 1st Hour

Saturday Morning Session 2nd Hour

Complete Saturday Morning Session

President Thomas S. Monson

Elder Richard G. Scott

Vicki F. Matsumori

Elder L. Whitney Clayton

Russell T. Osguthorpe

Elder David A. Bednar

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Saturday Afternoon Session MP3s

Saturday Afternoon Session 1st Hour

Saturday Afternoon Session 2nd Hour

Complete Saturday Afternoon Session

President Henry B. Eyring

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Elder Robert D. Hales

Elder Jorge F. Zeballos

Elder Tad R. Callister

Elder Kent D. Watson

Elder Neil L. Andersen

President Boyd K. Packer

Priesthood Session

Complete Priesthood Session

Elder M. Russell Ballard

Elder Walter F. Gonzalez

Elder Yoon Hwan Choi

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

President Henry B. Eyring

President Thomas S. Monson

Sunday Morning Session MP3s

Sunday Morning Session 1st Hour

Sunday Morning Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Morning Session

President Henry B. Eyring

Elder L. Tom Perry

Bishop H. David Burton

Ann M. Dibb

Elder Russell M. Nelson

President Thomas S. Monson

Sunday Afternoon Session MP3s

Sunday Afternoon Session 1st Hour

Sunday Afternoon Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Afternoon Session

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Elder Quentin L. Cook

Elder Brent H. Nielson

Elder Dale G. Renlund

Elder Michael T. Ringwood

Elder Joseph W. Sitati

Elder D. Todd Christofferson

President Thomas S. Monson

Streaming Video

Live streaming video of the conference, as well as archived recordings of completed sessions will be available on demand through the official church website as well as through BYU TV and KSL. The video at the official website and through byu.tv has been our primary conference experience for the several years now and we really enjoy it. You can even pause the conference to go to the bathroom and come back without missing a thing.

Official Streaming Video on lds.org:

General Conference Video in English

General Conference Video in Spanish

General Conference Video in Portuguese

General Conference Video in American Sign Language

BYU.tv:

General Conference Video in English

General Conference Video in Spanish

General Conference Video in Portuguese

KSL:

KSL.com General Conference Video

Podcasts

For a few years the church has provided official audio and video podcasts of the conference sessions. You can subscribe to the podcasts to receive conference on your iPod or in a podcast enabled feed reader like Google Reader. In past years KSL has also provided a podcast.

In my experience, the KSL podcast sessions often become available shortly after each session ends, but they have been very unreliable. The official audio podcast has sometimes been posted remarkably fast after the sessions, but it has also been a little inconsistent. Understandably, the video podcast posts a few days later during the following week.

Official LDS.org Audio Podcast (MP3s of Individual Talks)
Official LDS.org Video Podcast (MP4s of Individual Talks)
KSL Audio Podcast (One MP3 per Session)

Facebook

For the first time this conference NothingWavering.org will be automatically posting links to audio and video of individual conference talks on Facebook. Become a fan of the Nothing Wavering Facebook page and you will see links to conference, as well as to posts from official LDS websites and LDS blogs right in your News Feed where they can be easily shared with friends an family.

Twitter #ldsconf

In recent years, twitter.com has emerged as a powerful online tool for live, real-time commentary. An article on the church’s official tech website described trends in twitter commentary a few General Conferences ago. In more recent conferences, the official twitter page of the @LDSNewsr0om has tweeted the conference as well. If you are a twitter user, you can post your conference comments using the #ldsconf hashtag.

View #ldsconf comments on twitter

Links to the mp3 audio and mp4 video podcast files will be automatically tweeted by NothingWavering.org through @ldsconference.

Video/Twitter Mashup

Bryce Haymond will again have a mashup of the live streaming video of the conference side-by-side with the twitter #ldsconf comments at his Temple Study blog .

LDS Blogs

To find LDS blog commentary on the conference, you can check the LDS Blog Portal at NothiningWavering.org which aggregates blog posts by mainstream and orthodox LDS bloggers as well as content from official LDS websites. You can also check out LDS blog posts specifically tagged with ‘conference’. Nothing Wavering also tweets links to LDS blog posts and official content on twitter @ldsblogs, @ldsbloggers, and @ldsofficial, in addition to the @ldsconference twitter page mentioned above.

Let me know if you have links to any other great conference resources.

Have a wonderful experience!

History is a testament to the nearly limitless incapacity of the human misunderstanding.  And while each generation reserves a regular chuckle for the naiveté of its ancestors, it is often just as blind to its own errors.

I believe that our minds are not only limited by lack of experience and information.  They are fundamentally limited by mortality.  Our two eyes can only extrapolate three dimensions, though with some effort we can conceive of a tesseract even if we cannot visualize it in its true form.  We can only perceive colors of light within about 380 to 750 nanometer wavelengths, and as a result plants and flowers that exhibit intricate ultraviolet patterns and designs appear to us quite plain and ordinary to our limited vision.  Technology allows us discover their patterns by translating the ultraviolet into our visible spectrum, but we are incapable of actually seeing them as they really are.

Reality is not circumscribed by your or my ability to comprehend, conceive of, or perceive it.

Just because you cannot see how your neighbor’s sub-prime mortgage can affect the value of your own home does not mean that it cannot.  Just because you cannot conceive of how same-sex marriage could possibly threaten the institution of the family does not mean that it cannot do so.

So it is especially arrogant to presume to circumscribe God and his church with the incapacities of human misunderstanding.  Just because you cannot conceive of a way in which God can have exhaustive knowledge of the future while simultaneously allowing mankind to have true free will does not mean that it is not possible for him to do so.  Just because you cannot see how a good God can allow so much suffering in the world, doesn’t mean that God is not good.  Just because the priesthood restrictions before 1978 don’t make sense to me doesn’t mean that they were not God’s will.  It just means I cannot comprehend it.

Now don’t misunderstand me.  I am not advocating for irrationality.  I am not saying that reality is not rational.  It just means that our ability to apprehend reality through purely rational means is inherently limited by nature.

As members of the LDS church, our knowledge of God by necessity comes through authorized revelation. We have a prophet.  If we only follow the prophet when the information he receives can be reconciled with our reason then there is no need for a prophet at all because reason alone would suffice.

So, until we receive additional information from the proper authority, we should probably refrain from relying on our human misunderstandings as our own special versions of Hyum Page’s seer stone to suggest publicly which doctrines should be accepted or abandoned by the church, or to correct her direction.  Either the watchmen are indeed on a tower that permits them to see beyond where we are able, or they are not.  And I believe that they are.

April 2009

October 20008

April 2008

Last fall I broke the news that the church was considering allowing members to watch the Priesthood Session live this year by using the planned LDS Account login functionality.  The LDS Account system was finalized and released earlier this year and rolled out to a number of church websites.

Making the audio and video available after the Conference Report Ensign magazine has been publish may represent a new policy for Priesthood session media.

We’ll see if the church makes an official statement.

(Hat tip to reader David S for the tip)

In the April 2009 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder L. Tom Perry, who is one of the Twelve Apostles of the church, spoke about the responsibility of every member of the church to facilitate the missionary effort to teach the Restored Gospel.  He urged us to step up “to do a job that is rightfully ours and for which we are better suited” than the missionaries. He urged us to open our mouths
to our friends and family. (Read the whole address: “Bring Souls Unto Me“, April 2009)

A few months prior to his conference address, Elder Perry presided over our stake conference.  I had the opportunity to attend the priesthood leadership training meeting where he introduced us in more detail to the church’s vision for member driven missionary work and reactivation.   Without creating any new manuals, establishing any new organizations , or requiring any additional meetings, he told us that the church intended to radically alter the work of building up the church through missionary work.

He then introduced us to a ward mission process by which wards and stakes will prayerfully identify teaching opportunities for the full-time missionaries.  Lessons to both less active members and non members will be treated as equally important. Increasingly, members will be expected to drive the work forward by sharing the Gospel.

The church has known for many years that the most effective missionary system is driven by member referrals, but officially shifting the responsibility for finding new people to teach onto the stakes and wards, and holding them accountable for it, is an important, fundamental change.

My Revolutionary Proposal

Elder Perry’s words reminded me of an idea I had at the end of my own mission that dovetails perfectly with this new effort.  Since his presentation I haven’t been able to get it off my mind.  The more I think about it, the more I think that it needs to happen.  Here it is:

Sacrament Meeting Invitations

Yes, I think that Sacrament Meeting Invitations could revolutionize the member missionary effort. Here’s how:

It requires a simple, but fundamental shift in how we treat Sacrament Meeting speaking assignments.

Most weeks, the bishop of the ward asks a number of members of the congregation to speak on assigned topics.  The church could establish a policy that all sacrament meeting speaking assignments be made with the ward’s missionary responsibility in mind.  When the bishop or his counselor asks a member to speak on Sunday, he would also hand them a number of invitations with a challenge to give the invitations to friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, or other acquaintances who are not members of the church, or to those who are less active members of the church.  The invitations could read:

Come hear me preach a brief sermon at my church on Sunday ______________________.

I will be speaking about ____________________________________.

The service begins at __________________ and lasts about 70 minutes.

Our congregation meetinghouse is located at ____________________________________.

Sunday best dress is usual but not required.

Hope to see you there,

The bishop would fill in the date, topic, time, and address, and the speaker would sign the invitation.  Similar invitations could be made for those performing musical numbers.

This is a very small change, requiring little additional effort or resources, and leveraging existing practices and organization, but it’s implications have potential to be revolutionary!

1. Personal and Less Awkward

Real or imagined, inviting someone to church feels awkward. It often doesn’t feel socially comfortable or even appropriate to invite someone to church without an antecedent that indicates some kind of existing interest or disposition.  So we wait around forever for the topic to come up and the right opportunity to make the leap.

But inviting people to come to hear you speak in church is different.  It’s about you, not just the church. It’s like inviting people to come hear your band play, or attend a baby shower or your daughter’s dance recital, or to come to a barbecue at your house.  There is no reason to wait for conversational queues that might indicate interest or disposition.  If they can’t make it or aren’t interested that’s fine.

2. A Physical Reminder

Because the invitation is physical it is easier to give.  Instead of having to strike up a conversation that leads to an invitation, you can simply pass out invitation cards.  If you are especially shy you can simply leave them taped to the door, mail them, or leave them on a colleague’s desk.  When being delivered in person, you can simply say “Hey, I’m giving a sermon at my church on Sunday and wanted to give you an invitation,” and hand them the card.  The physical invitation then stays with whomever you have invited as a reminder.  It will sit on their desk, their coffee table, the passenger seat of their car, or be stuck to the fridge.  It has all the information needed to attend and sets expectations for dress and duration.

3. Time Dependent

The invitations benefit from a specific deadline.  Currently, a goal to invite others to church is too open ended.  Artificially imposed deadlines aside, you can always put it off until another day because there is a meeting every Sunday.  But you speak on a specific date.  It is a real deadline.  The time sensitivity helps people to overcome the tendency to put off the invitation.  It also puts a deadline on those who are invited because if they don’t come, they will miss your sermon.

4. Outward facing

Inviting non-members to hear you speak changes the focus of sacrament meeting talks from inward facing to outward.  If there is a chance your non-member friends or family will come to hear what you have to say, it matters more.  A sacrament meeting talk becomes an opportunity to share your testimony of the gospel with your friends and inspires more thought and preparation.  Are you using words that your friends will understand?  Do you need to explain some things that members take for granted? Consequentially Sacrament meetings will become more visitor-oriented.

5. Self-Reinforcing

Every time you remember that you need to be preparing your talk, you will also remember that you need to extend the invitations.  Every time you see the person you have invited, it will remind you that you need to be preparing your talk.  The invitations and the talk preparation feed back into each other.

6. A Positive Conversation Starter

Instead of the invitation being the culmination of a conversation, the invitation initiates and facilitates conversations about the gospel and the church that may have not happened otherwise. People will be curious or even surprised that you will be preaching a sermon. Instead of passively waiting for discussions initiated by others about dietary restrictions , temple ceremonies, or whatever negative thing they may have heard about the church, the invitations actively lead to discussion of some of the most appealing and interesting aspects of the church: participatory membership and the lay ministry.  A conversation about how the congregation is run by the members and the sermons given by the members themselves provides a positive, memorable introduction to the church that is likely different from their own experiences with other churches and will inspire curiosity that will reinforce the invitation.  It also helps people understand that our meetings are open to visitors.

7. Youth Experience

Many congregations have a teen-aged member speak.  Youth speakers would benefit from real missionary opportunities on a regular basis.  And it will be easier for them than to invite their friends than before, even though it does add some stress to what for some teens is already a difficult assignment.

8. Unique

The invitations take advantage of the participatory nature of the church.  There are few other churches that could consistently replicate this kind of program on a large scale.  Latter-day Saints will come to be associated with invitations and member sermons.

9. Low Tech

While technology could certainly be used to augment and simplify the invitations system, it isn’t required.  It would be nice if the church graphic designers produced attractive invitations, like pass-along-cards, that were properly branded, and distributed to each ward and branch.  Or perhaps the church software developers can add a section to the new stake and unit websites that would generate attractive invitations on the fly for printing and email-able invitations.  But realistically the proposal can be implemented with a simple PDF that can be printed and filled out.  Or a printed invitation template that can be photocopied. (A simple PDF template can be downloaded at the end of this article)

10. Hunting and Fishing

Currently, inviting people to church is like hunting.  The missionaries pray about and identify a member family that they will invite to prayerful identify a couple of friends or family members to invite to church or a meet the missionaries .  They identify a couple of people who may be “ready” or “prepared” and approach them with some trepidation.  They aim for a specific target.  Sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail.

Sacrament meeting invitations are more like fishing.  You cast your net wide and see how many people you bring in.  Some slip through, but you get a lot more yield.  While bishops should still seek inspiration in making speaking assignments, and speakers should still seek inspiration concerning to whom invitations should be given, realistically you could invite everyone to your workplace with the hope that a couple might come.

We need both hunting and fishing approaches to grow the church.

11. Easily Implemented Locally

While I would like to see this proposal implemented as a standard policy church-wide, it is simple enough that individual Stake and District Presidents, Bishops and Branch Presidents could fairly easily implement it in their own congregations at any time, if they felt that the Spirit guided them to do so.  Even individual members could print out and distribute invitations on their own initiative when asked to speak in church.  I’ve put together a simple prototype invitation form as a writable PDF that can be downloaded and used.

12. Potential Reach

Up to three members of each ward and branch would be inviting others to church two or three weeks out of the month.  Even if there are only 26 Sundays with speaking assignments, with 28,109 wards and branches, if each speaker invited only 1 person, that is potentially 730,000 people being invited to church every every year.  If each speaker invited just 3 people, that would be nearly 2 MILLION people invited every year.  Of course, as the church grows that number increases.  And contrasted with missionary cold-call door-knocking, street contacting, and English classes, these invitations are far more likely to be effective because they are personal.

Of course, the weakness of the proposal and the key difficulty is the follow up.

The speaker should make sure he or she thanks any visitors for coming.  The ward mission leader, the bishop, and the missionaries should be available immediately after the meeting for the speaker to introduce his or her visiting friends. Hopefully, as visitors become more of a focus for the sacrament meetings, members of the congregation would keep their eye out for visitors and introduce themselves and avoid monopolizing the time of the Bishop or Missionaries until later.  The leaders and members should be careful not to be pushy, these are after all people who came to church driven primary by their relationship with the speaker and not because they are necessarily interested in joining the church.  They should be invited to return the next week, and made aware that the missionaries are available to answer questions.  Of course, following the Spirit is the most important.

Perhaps those who come to hear their friends speak will never come back again, but they will have had a significant exposure to the church that will influence them and their perceptions of Mormons for the rest of the lives.  And more importantly, they will have had an opportunity to hear our testimonies and feel the Holy Spirit touching their hearts.

I really believe that this proposal has great potential to truly revolutionize the church.  I would like to get the feedback from a few people who try it, or Bishops who want to give it a try in their wards.  Let me know what you think.

Download LDS Sacrament Meeting Invitations:

Editable PDF: LDSSpeakingInvitationsForm.pdf

Static PDF: LDSSpeakingInvitations.pdf

Word Doc: LDSSpeakingInvitations.doc

OpenOffice: LDSSpeakingInvitations.odt

UPDATE:  Please be aware of the official church guidelines for how local units are to properly use and display the name of the church and the official church logo.  I have updated the invitation documents above to conform with the guidelines.  If you downloaded them previously please download the updated versions.

This weekend, April 4th and 5th, 2009, is the annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints where the modern Apostles and Prophets of Jesus Christ will speak. Every Conference I post links to MP3 audio and other Internet resources as they become available.

MP3 Audio

This post will be updated with the earliest available mp3 audio files I can find as soon as they become available. If necessary, the links will be replaced by links to the official MP3s at the church website as they are posted.

Saturday Morning Session MP3s

Saturday Morning Session 1st Hour

Saturday Morning Session 2nd Hour

Complete Saturday Morning Session

President Thomas S. Monson

Elder Robert D. Hales

Margaret S. Lifferth

Michael A. Neider

Elder Allan F. Packer

Elder D. Todd Christofferson

President Henry B. Eyring

Saturday Afternoon Session MP3s

Saturday Afternoon 1st Hour

Saturday Afternoon 2nd Hour

Complete Saturday Afternoon Session

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Presented by Robert W. Cantwell

Presented by Brook P. Hales

Elder M. Russell Ballard

Elder Quentin L. Cook

Elder Kevin W. Pearson

Elder Rafael E. Pino

Elder Richard G. Scott

Elder Russell M. Nelson

Sunday Morning Session MP3s

Sunday Morning Session 1st Hour

Sunday Morning Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Morning Session

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Elder Neil L. Andersen

Elder Steven E. Snow

Barbara Thompson

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

President Thomas S. Monson

Sunday Afternoon Session MP3s

Sunday Afternoon Session 1st Hour

Sunday Afternoon Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Afternoon Session

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Elder David A. Bednar

Elder Gary E. Stevenson

Elder José A. Teixeira

Elder F. Michael Watson

Elder L. Tom Perry

President Thomas S. Monson

Streaming Video

Live streaming video of the conference, as well as archived recordings of completed sessions will be available on demand through the official church website as well as through BYU TV and KSL.  Our family has been watching the conference through the official website and through byu.tv for the last several years and it has been great.  You can even pause the conference to go to the bathroom and come back without missing a thing.

Official Streaming Video on lds.org:

General Conference Video in English

General Conference Video in Spanish

General Conference Video in Portugues

General Conference Video in American Sign Language

BYU.tv:

General Conference Video in English

General Conference Video in Spanish

General Conference Video in Portuguese

KSL:

KSL.com General Conference Video

Podcasts

For the last couple of years, the church has provided official audio and video podcasts of the conference sessions. You can subscribe to the podcasts to receive conference on your iPod or in a podcast enabled feed reader like Google Reader. In past years KSL has also provided a podcast.

In my experience, the KSL podcast sessions often become available shortly after each session ends, but they have been very unreliable.  The official audio podcast has sometimes been posted remarkably fast after the sessions, but it has also been a little inconsistent. Understandably, the video podcast posts a few days later during the following week.

Official LDS.org Audio Podcast (MP3s of Individual Talks)
Official LDS.org Video Podcast (MP4s of Individual Talks)
KSL Audio Podcast (One MP3 per Session)

Twitter #ldsconf

Over the last couple of years, twitter.com has emerged as a powerful online tool for live, real-time commentary.  An article on the church’s official tech website described trends in twitter commentary during the last General Conference. This year, the official twitter page of the @LDSNewsr0om will be twittering the conference as well.  If you are a twitter user, you can post your conference comments using the #ldsconf hashtag.

View #ldsconf comments on twitter

An archive of #ldsconf comments will be available @LDSConf.

Links to the mp3 audio and mp4 video podcast files will be automatically tweeted through NothingWavering.org through @ldsconference.

Video/Twitter Mashup

Bryce Haymond will have a mashup of the live streaming video of the conference side-by-side with the twitter #ldsconf comments at his Temple Study blog .

LDS Blogs

To find LDS blog commentary on the conference, you can check the LDS Blog Portal at NothiningWavering.org which aggregates blog posts by mainstream and orthodox LDS bloggers as well as content from official LDS websites.  You can also check out LDS blog posts specifically tagged with ‘conference’. Nothing Wavering also tweets links to LDS blog posts and official content on twitter @ldsblogs, @ldsbloggers, and @ldsofficial, in addtion to the @ldsconference twitter page mentioned above.

Let me know if you have links to any other great conference resources.

Enjoy!

Book-of-Mormon-Outline.pdf

I compiled the outline as a way to help me understand the Book of Mormon better by identifying some of the organizational boundaries, voices, and structure of the text.

The chapter boundaries of the original 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon were different than our modern version and it was not divided into verses.  Apostle Orson Pratt divided the book into new chapters and added the verse divisions in the 1838 Liverpool edition of the book. One objective of the outline was to easily see the different boundaries between the chapters both in the original translation and our modern version.

The Book of Mormon itself is translated from multiple different sets of records which create natural boundaries in the structure between source materials and authors. Some of these divisions and groups are identified by headings in the original text itself, which I have colored blue. The original translation did not identify the range of chapters over which the headings extended, but in the 1920 edition of the Book of Mormon, text was added to identify which chapters comprised each section identified by the headings.

In addition to the headings from the original record, based on my own reading I have added my own sections with their own headings and boundaries, colored green, whenever possible using words from the actual text.

Many of the boundaries I have made organize chapters of the text where the primary voice changes from the principal author or editor of the plates (Nephi, Mormon, Moroni) to one of their sources for an extensive section, or when the editors (Mormon for the Large Plates of Nephi and Moroni for the Plates of Ether) interrupt their narrative to offer extensive editorial commentary. Additionally, I have marked a few sections where the author makes a significant shift in focus extending for multiple chapters, notably Nephi when he recounts his dream.

The outline is not comprehensive, and there are a few places where making the original chapter boundaries match up with the 1920 chapter ranges doesn’t quite work out. Also there are numerous places where the
editors voice is so intermixed with the speakers, for instance in Alma chapters 9 through 13, that I have not tried to group them under individual headings other than the original heading from the text.

This effort has certainly helped me understand and appreciate the Book of Mormon far more than I did previous to this effort, and building the outline has strengthened my testimony that the Book is true and was translated by the gift and power of the Holy Spirit.

This is my first version so if you find any errors or typos please let me know and I will make corrected versions of the outline available.

Please feel free to copy and distribute it if you find it useful.

“Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.”

…

“I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.”

…

“We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.”

“We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.”

This article is a distillation of a more thorough series of posts on the Evangelical Collapse on his blog, where he clarifies that:

“I clearly said that evangelicalism was going to suffer a collapse, not at all meaning it would die. I said that HALF of evangelicals would be something else within 2-3 generations/10-20 years.”

Spencer’s is careful to state that he is not a prophet and that his prognostications  may be wrong.  But if he is right, the shifting religious landscape may be a great opportunity for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

According to recent statistics about religion in America by the Pew Forum, 26% of Americans identify themselves as Evangelical.  If, as he predicts, 50% of evangelicals will be something else in the next 10 – 20 years, that’s approximately 39,000,000 people who will be something other than Evangelical over the next two decades.

Spencer believes that a number will go to Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox church.

We should make sure that they all have the opportunity to consider the Church of Jesus Christ during their religious flux.  The terrible calumnies about the church widely believed among evangelicals will still be hard to overcome, but while they are re-evaluating their own beliefs, they may be more open than in the past.

As is usual with the web, not all of the content is worth promoting, or even consistently worth promoting.

In addition to blogging, we’ve seen the beginnings of a couple of LDS-oriented comic strips.

The 9th Ward is posted most Fridays by father-son team Rick and Ryan Goldsberry, who live in California, and features humorous vignettes related to Mormon culture.

Zarahemla Times is also posted Fridays by Kevin Beckstrom.  It’s about a family living in the suburbs of Zarahemla in the time frame of about the end of Alma or Helaman in the Book of Mormon.  Interesting in that it employs modern LDS terminology, such as the Relief Society, anarchronistically to an ancient setting.

So with blogging, podcasts, and now comics, we arrive at the next step in web-based LDS Entertainment: The Book of Jer3miah.

The Book of Jer3miah is a web series produced by a group of BYU Students and Faculty with new episodes posted…you guessed it…every Friday.  The series is an interesting experiment in Web-based LDS Entertainment.  Each episode is between 3.5 and 5 minutes long, and tells the mysterious story of Jeremiah Whitney.  It starts on Jeremiah’s birthday with the gift of a video camera.  The appearance of a mysterious card in his locked car directs him to the Manti Library, where the mystery begins to unfold.

The story has a lot of LDS thematic elements as well as an LDS setting.  While some of writing and acting is pretty mediocre to poor, the story is interesting and takes an approach similar to popular Television shows Lost and Heroes.  Like those shows, The Book of Jer3miah seems to have some supernatural overtones and only reveals some of what is going on in each episode, leaving fans to speculate and come up with theories.

Watch The Book of Jer3miah Trailer

The Book of Jer3miah – Trailer

I’ve watched all six existing episodes, and I hope that while entertaining and interesting, they can manage to not trivialize the Gospel and the church.

The episodes are available in HD and at 5 minutes an episode, I’ll definitely be watching to see what happens next.

Let me know what you think.

(This entry contains some original observations about the word Bishopric that I have not encountered elsewhere, so please read beyond the first few paragraphs even if you are familiar with LDS Bishops and Bishoprics)

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Bishop refers to the individual priesthood authority who directs the affairs of a single congregation.  In contrast, in the Catholic church a bishop oversees multiple congregations in a group called a diocese, similar to what latter-day saints call a Stake President.

A Bishop in the LDS Church is not paid for his service, but manages the affairs of his congregation in his spare time in addition to holding a normal full-time job to support himself and his own family.  Bishops are called from among the members of the congregation who hold the Melchizedek Priesthood to serve for a number of years, after which they are “released” to return to the congregation and replaced by another.  So in any congregation there is only one bishop, but there may be several former bishops among the congregation.

The word Bishop means literally “overseer” (see Etymology below).  The Bishop is both the presiding High Priest of the Melchizedek Priesthood and the President of the Priest’s Quorum of the Aaronic Priesthood for the congregation over which he has stewardship.

As President of the Priest’s Quorum, he directs the sacrament ceremony of the Lord’s Supper (see An LDS Lexicon:  Sacrament) each Sunday, and handles the temporal affairs of the ward including overseeing the collection of tithes and other donations made by the members of the congregation.  He also oversees the distribution of aide to the poor within the geographical limits of his congregation.

As the presiding High Priest, he also works together with the President of the Stake, which is comprised of multiple congregations, as a gatekeeper to the additional ordinances performed in the Temple, which differ from normal Sunday services in that they are restricted to only those who are living according to certain commandments and statutes of the Church (see An Lds Lexicon: Endue, Endow, Endowment).  The bishop conducts standardized interviews to judge the worthiness of those members who wish to participate in the temple ceremonies and issues a printed recommend with his own signature that, after an additional interview with the presidency of the stake, will permit the member to enter into the temple. ( Sunday services in the chapels of meetinghouses are open to the public.)

The Bishop is assisted in his duties by two counselors.  Latter-day Saints refer to the Bishop and his Counselors collectively as “the Bishopric.”  Most members of the church are unaware that using “bishopric” in this way is relatively meaningless outside of LDS culture. As far as I can tell, this meaning may be unique to the latter-day saints (please let me know if you have any examples outside of Mormonism).

The church also has a “Presiding Bishopric” which oversees the temporal affairs of the church worldwide including tithing and humanitarian aide.

Looking at etymological roots, the “-ric” suffix in “bishopric” means “realm” and is strongly related to the German concept of a “reich.” (See Etymology below) It is also more distantly related to the words “ruling,” “regulating,” and “reigning.” So “bishopric” literally means “the realm over which a bishop rules” and, in standard usage, bishopric is simply a synonym for diocese. In a more generic sense a bishopric is a bishop’s stewardship, which includes his responsibilities and authority, in addition to the physical realm over which that authority extends.

The word “bishop” occurs very infrequently in the King James version of the Bible, and only in the New Testament.  “Bishopric” occurs only once, spelled “bishoprick.”  Interestingly, it appears in a verse that itself quotes the Old Testament book of Psalms, which does not use the word “bishoprick” at all, but uses “office” instead (see Acts 1:20 citing Psalms 109: 8).  So this single biblical instance employs the more standard usage, with “bishopric” meaning “the stewardship of an overseer” and not “a priesthood presidency composed of a bishop and his counselors.”

It is instructive also to look at the usage of “bishopric” in the book of Doctrine and Covenants, where it us used seven times.  The first instance of “bishopric” in modern revelation is in Section 68, verses 16-18:

And if they be literal descendants of Aaron they have a legal right to the bishopric, if they are the firstborn among the sons of Aaron; For the firstborn holds the right of the presidency over this priesthood, and the keys or authority of the same.  No man has a legal right to this office, to hold the keys of this priesthood, except he be a literal descendant and the firstborn of Aaron.

This first usage matches the use in the Acts 1.  The bishopric here refers to the office of a bishop, the stewardship over which a bishop has authority.

Bishopric makes its next appearance in Section 82, verses 11-13:

Therefore, verily I say unto you, that it is expedient for my servants Edward Partridge and Newel K. Whitney, A. Sidney Gilbert and Sidney Rigdon, and my servant Joseph Smith, and John Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery, and W. W. Phelps and Martin Harris to be bound together by a bond and covenant that cannot be broken by transgression, except judgment shall immediately follow, in your several stewardships—To manage the affairs of the poor, and all things pertaining to the bishopric both in the land of Zion and in the land of Kirtland; For I have consecrated the land of Kirtland in mine own due time for the benefit of the saints of the Most High, and for a stake to Zion.  For Zion must increase in beauty, and in holiness; her borders must be enlarged; her stakes must be strengthened; yea, verily I say unto you, Zion must arise and put on her beautiful garments.

“Bishopric” here seems to refer to the physical realms over which they have been given stewardship (Missouri and Kirtland), and then, alluding to Isaiah  54,  Kirtland is specifically named a Stake to Zion.  This creates the most direct connection between a bishopric and a Stake in the scriptures, and matches not only the literal meaning of the word, but also the Catholic use of Bishopric as a synonym for Diocese.

We find the next instance of “bishopric” in the book of Doctrine and Covenants in Section 107, verses 13-18:

The second priesthood is called the Priesthood of Aaron, because it was conferred upon Aaron and his seed, throughout all their generations. Why it is called the lesser priesthood is because it is an appendage to the greater, or the Melchizedek Priesthood, and has power in administering outward ordinances. The bishopric is the presidency of this priesthood, and holds the keys or authority of the same. No man has a legal right to this office, to hold the keys of this priesthood, except he be a literal descendant of Aaron.  But as a high priest of the Melchizedek Priesthood has authority to officiate in all the lesser offices, he may officiate in the office of bishop when no literal descendant of Aaron can be found, provided he is called and set apart and ordained unto this power by the hands of the Presidency of the Melchizedek Priesthood. The power and authority of the higher, or Melchizedek Priesthood, is to hold the keys of all the spiritual blessings of the church

This, I believe, may be the source of our modern LDS usage of “bishopric” as a collective name for the bishop and his two counselors.  Verse 15 says that “The bishopric is the presidency of this priesthood.”  It is easy to see how a reader could take that to mean that the presidency of the Aaronic priesthood, comprised of the bishop and counselors, is called “the bishopric.”  However, I believe that this is a misreading.  Taken in context, and consistent with the use of bishopric in previous sections, I submit that verse 15 is actually saying that the presidency of the priesthood of outer ordinances is the “realm of authority” that belongs to Aaron’s seed, contrasted to the stewardship over spiritual blessings belonging to the higher priesthood.

Looking at the final three occurrences of the word in modern scripture, one in section 114 verse 2, and the final three in section 124, verses 21 and 141, we see that the continued use of “bishopric” agrees with the dictionary and etymological meaning of the word.

For verily thus saith the Lord, that inasmuch as there are those among you who deny my name, others shall be planted in their stead and receive their bishopric. Amen.

I therefore say unto you, I seal upon his head the office of a bishopric, like unto my servant Edward Partridge, that he may receive the consecrations of mine house, that he may administer blessings upon the heads of the poor of my people, saith the Lord. Let no man despise my servant George, for he shall honor me.
…
And again, I say unto you, I give unto you Vinson Knight, Samuel H. Smith, and Shadrach Roundy, if he will receive it, to preside over the bishopric; a knowledge of said bishopric is given unto you in the book of Doctrine and Covenants.

I think that reading these final instances interchangeably with “bishop’s stewardship,” and “the realm over which a bishop has authority” makes a great deal more sense than the modern LDS meaning.

Recognizing that the book of Doctrine and Covenants uses the word “bishopric” with its original meaning, different from the modern, idiosyncratic use by latter-day saints, improves our ability to understand the scriptures.

Translated in KJV from Old Testament Hebrew Words

The words “bishop” and “bishopric” do not occur in the King James version of the Old Testament

Translated in KJV from New Testament Greek Words

επισκοπον (ep-is’-kop-os) “an overseer, curator, guardian, or superintendent”
Total occurrences: 7 in 7 verses
Translated as: bishop(6), overseer(1)

επισκοπην (ep-is-kop-ay’) 1. “investigation, inspection, visitation; oversight” 2. “overseership, office, charge, the overseer or presiding officers”
Total occurrences: 4 in 4 verses
Translated as: visitation (2), bishoprick (1), office of a bishop

Usage in Latter-day Scripture

The words “bishop” and “bishopric” do not occur in the Book of Mormon or the Pearl of Great Price.

The word “bishop” occurs in the book of Doctrine and Covenants 70 times and the word “bishopric” occurs 7 times.

Etymology & Etymologically Related Words

Additional Resources

Bishop in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism Online

NOTE: This is an entry in an ongoing, periodic series I call “An LDS Lexicon.” Each entry in my LDS Lexicon series contains etymology, etymologically related words, some information about the Hebrew and Greek terms from which the word is translated in the Bible (if applicable), and some personal insights about the word.

The views expressed here and in other entries in this series are my own and should not be construed to represent the official doctrine of the LDS Church. They are subject to change and amendment.

You may view all entries in this series: An LDS Lexicon

Unexpected changes at my employment, and in our family, prevented me from pursuing further feature developments as I had planned.  But things are finally moving along now.

With Nothing Wavering I always wanted to attempt more transparency and community feedback than is available at most other LDS blog portals.  Finally, I am pleased to announce the new Nothing Wavering Blog where you can keep up with new features and blogs being added to the portal, as well as give your feedback.  Please consider subscribing to the blog’s RSS Feed or Email List to to keep up with what is happening with the portal, since I will not be discussing it much here at Sixteen Small Stones.

New features already announced include the ability to follow Nothing Wavering content with Twitter, a new Nothing Wavering Facebook Group, and plans for a Nothing Wavering Podcast using technology that allows listeners to easily record their own questions, comments, and topic suggestions over the phone to be included in the next episode of the Podcast.

There is also now a Nothing Wavering banner image that blogs included on the portal, as well as anyone else who wants to, can add to their websites to help promote the site.

It should be a fun and interesting endeavor for 2009.  I will continue to blog here as well, but  to keep up with future developments, as well as participate in its direction, please join me over at the Nothing Wavering blog.