Awesome insight given at the NY Mag. Since Santorum is the last of several candidates to claim that God told him/her to run for president, who will God support now?
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/04/god-2012-president-campaign.html
Is God a practical joker, or is God that bad at guessing who really should run?
Let’s face it. Our modern government does not exactly reflect the Jeffersonian model. James Madison, the “father of the Constitution”, noted that except in times of war, the federal government should only make up about 10% of all government. Today, it makes up more than half of all government, and is increasing exponentially.
The Constitution was set up to leave almost all things to the States, with the exception of just a handful of activities (foreign affairs, inter-state commerce, defense, judicial system, etc).
However, over the past century, we’ve liberally loaded certain terms and concepts in the Constitution, to allow for increased federal intrusion into states and personal lives. Such as the clause “General Welfare” now technically includes specific welfare, right down to the individual. Commerce now includes anything and everything that may or may not have anything to do with actual commerce.
For this increase, have we gotten our money’s worth? After spending trillions on welfare, have we won the war on poverty? After Jimmy Carter created the Dept of Education that has increased with No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, do we see any real progress? Or do we see our children continuing to fall further behind other nations? Has the TSA made our flying experience safer? Or just more encumbered and embarrassing?
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Last Thursday evening, a fellow high councilor mentioned he would be speaking on the Atonement of Christ for Easter in his ward. He wanted to know more about it, as we generally understand the events occurring in Gethsemane and Calvary, as well as the Garden Tomb.
The discussion went beyond those events. Several of us, including an Institute director, saw the atonement as being “infinite” or without beginning or ending of days. We saw it as reaching back to our pre-mortal existence, touching the lives of those living on previously created worlds, and extending forever into the eternities.
While there are are theories on how the atonement works (Ransom , Compassion, Infusion, etc), we went deeply into a component of the atonement that is often overlooked: grace.
While the pinnacle of the atonement occurred 200 years ago, it is ongoing. 2 Nephi 2 teaches that without the atonement, we would have no agency, for as Jacob explained, we would not rise again, and therefore be subject to the devil, being angels to the devil.
So, the atonement allows us to choose life or death.
But we are also taught that even as Christ went from “grace to grace, receiving grace for grace” until he was perfected in all things (D&C 93), so we should also seek grace.
What is grace? It is anything and everything that God gifts to us. It is the air we breathe and the food we eat. It is saying a prayer, and immediately afterward, finding the lost car keys. It is in the inspiring moments God gives us. It is in knowing that God stands with us through the tough times. It is the big and little miracles that occur daily around us. It is giant revelations like Nephi and John the Revelator received, and it is the tiny whisperings of the Holy Spirit.
Grace is God reaching down to us and touching us, because the atonement has bridged the gap between fallen man and risen Lord.
Lesson 15 is now on my blog. It discusses the first portion of King Benjamin’s discourse. I give some background, and focus on Benjamin’s using the fall of Adam and Eve and the redemption through Christ.
http://joelsmonastery.blogspot.com/2012/04/book-of-mormon-lesson-15-eternally.html
Read there / comment here!
As requested by a few people, I’ve written up notes on my presentation at Kirtland Sunstone Symposium, including adding some things that did not make it into the actual presentation. The slides were not fancy, but if anyone wants a copy, please let me know and I can email them to you.
The Book of Mormon as an Ascension Text
by Gerald Smith
Presented at the 2012 Sunstone Kirtland Symposium (Mar 10, 2012)
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