This week is international week at M*.  This means there may be some posts in languages other than English.  There may be some stories of spreading the Gospel beyond the United States.  The goal, I believe, is to celebrate the growing non-American nature of the Church of Jesus Christ.  Given that this is a volunteer blog, things may not go according to any strict plan.

Personally, I am doing my small part for international week by doing some volunteering.  On Sunday, I signed up to help translate family history information from other languages into English for my stake.  This week I will also offer to become a volunteer translator for a local hospital.  I have no idea yet how either of these efforts will go, but I’ll let you know.

Christian Scripture has always had to deal with what on the surface might seem like two contradictory propositions. On the one hand we have the idea that there is one Lord and God.

Deut 6:4:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: [1]

On the other hand we have the idea that Jesus and the Father are two different persons or beings of some sort that are individual and distinct from each other.

For example, John 14:28:

Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I ago unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

Thus we are presented with two simultaneous positions:
1) There is one God
2) That one God is made up of multiple persons/beings/individuals Read the rest of this entry »

I originally started a series of posts building up my views on the Mormon Doctrine of Deityon Mormon Matters back in 2008. I would like to finish the thoughts I started there, but I felt like I needed to collect my thoughts first. In this post, I’m going to summarize my past posts and the ideas that I explored in each. I’m doing this largely for myself so that I get back in the swing of things and also so that those interested will have a convenient place to link to past posts as I talk about them later. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: This is a reprint of a post I did on Mormon Matters and then later on Jr. Ganymede. I have to repeat it again because if I ever want to finish my thoughts on Mormon Doctrine of Deity, this is my starting point.

I am fascinated by the Book of Mormon’s teachings (i.e. doctrines) about deity. I am almost equally fascinated with the many scholarly attempts to force fit it into pre-existing categories to make it seem safe. [1] Read the rest of this entry »