A front-page article in today's LA Times provides fodder for today's blog.  The front-page headline is innocuous:  "A bid to shake up Utah's liquor laws."  On an interior page, blazing across all six columns:  "Tearing down the Zion curtain?"
 
Now, the article is more balanced than the headlines would have one believe.  In fact, if anything, it supports the current Utah liquor laws.  It might be hard to see that, given the incendiary backpage headline and the article's continual reminder that the "politically powerful Mormon Church" controls things in Utah.  But even if I weren't in support of Utah's liquor laws, it would be tough for me to rush to change them because (gasp) they "stymie Salt Lake City's otherwise flourishing culinary scene and slow the growth of the state's $7.4 billion tourism industry."  Or, how about this:  "'It's silly--ridiculous'" that a restauranteur has the aesthetic of his restaurant hurt, or that a bartender has to pour drinks out of view of his patrons.

OMIGOSH!  LET'S TEAR DOWN THE ZION CURTAIN!!!!

Utah is being compared to the former Soviet bloc in a front-page article of the Times--and why?  It's liquor laws are different from California's?  And there is a sinister undertone in the "grandfatherly" voice of Apostle D. Todd Chistopherson because--why?  The Mormon Church favors limiting alcohol consumption?

This one, I confess, is a little easier to follow than some others from this week.  Hollywood has been in Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, and when Hollywood can't get its drinks the way it wants them, heads will roll.  The Times is merely helping to roll the heads.

Along these same lines, I wonder why in the world I was led to believe that the Sochi Olympics were going to be the worst since Berlin in 1936.  Or what is so political about climate variations?  Or why, in the midst of the worst drought in 500 years, California doesn't just desalinate water from the largest ocean on earth?  There's a reason for everything, and it usually has nothing at all to do with such mundane things as the Olympics or climate variation or water.  It's usually tied in with someone's financial or emotional or political investments, and the only reason we are supposed to believe that contemporary Russia is worse than the former Soviet Union, or climate change means to vote for one candidate and not another, or there's something wrong with desalinated water (other than the tastelessness) is because somebody somewhere probably has a finger in some pot of money. 

Back in the Saddle Again

Well, I'm back.  The haitus is over.

I want to start this foray into the blogosphere with a more overt expression of my current intentions.  I read through my previous statement, and I don't necessarily want to amend that too much.  I'm still interested in pop culture, and I like to flex the ol' PhD occasionally.  I might even wax funny occasionally, if PhD's are actually allowed to do that without sucking all the moisture from the atmosphere.

But I am increasingly interested in having a voice in the national--check that:  world--dialogue about religion and its place in the public sphere.  I am also interested in both Mormon and general Christian apologetics

So, here is my intital salvo:

I am still an orthodox member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

I have a personal witness from direct experience that there is a God.  I have faith that I am in the image of God, and that he looks human though I haven't seen Him.

I have direct personal experience--I might rather say "experiences"--that prove to me that God loves me.  I have faith that He loves everyone.

I have direct personal experience--again, multiple experiences--that prove to my satisfaction that God does not lie.  In all cases in which I have been able to personally test the veracity of what God has said (either through the LDS canon of scripture or through personal experience), I have discovered that God has spoken the truth.  I have faith that He cannot and will not tell a lie.  I have faith that cases which I have not been able to test--either because they have not happened yet, or because the test is otherwise not available to me--these cases will also prove that God speaks the truth.  I have faith that things I do not currently know or understand will be knowable and understandable and will prove God's veracity.

A long time ago, I prayed to know if "the Mormon Church is true."  The unequivocal answer was a resounding "Yes!"  There can be no possible doubt for me that the answer came from God.  I am reluctant to publish too much of my spiritual experiences, and indeed, I don't believe it's necessary for me to prove to the world that the experience I had on the first night I prayed, or experiences I have had since, are from God and not my own little brain.  However, I feel a certain responsibility to be a witness, just as if I had received a subpoena to testify in court.

I have had innumerable spiritual witnesses that the Book of Mormon is a true, ancient document, and is the Word of God, equal to the Bible.  I am perfectly willing to discuss the Book of Mormon at length.  I love the book.  Both as a scholar of literature and as a practicing Latter-day Saint, I confess that the Book of Mormon is my favorite book.  If I were allowed only one book (and me a compulsive reader!), and if I were confirned to some limited space, I could find happiness in reading and studying and pondering the Book of Mormon--both as a literary and as a devotional text.  The King James Bible, Shakespeare, and Mark Twain would be icing on the cake--but the cake alone would suffice.

So here I am.  Back in the saddle again.  Chafing at the bit.  Champing in the gate. 

And maybe I can finish that novel while I'm at it...