Solar Corona by Alson Wong (Jackson, Wyoming, 21 August 2017)

The 2017 eclipse is yesterday’s news, but is still worthy of note.

Since we were vacationing in the center of the country for other reasons, we decided to go to Hopkinsville, KY, to view totality. Hopkinsville gave itself the nickname of “Eclipseville” for the event, as it was the town closest to Greatest Eclipse, the point experiencing totality when the sun, moon and earth are perfectly aligned. Better, the skies were predicted to be entirely clear. Humidity was so low that even jet contrails evaporated within seconds of being created in the skies above us.

There were parking lots charging $20 and more a space, but we figured we’d head to the local LDS chapel. A close look at the NASA site shows we were less than 2 miles from the center of totality, which meant we lost only 0.7 seconds of the 2:40 totality we might have experienced elsewhere.

The local LDS folks hadn’t organized to cash in on the eclipse, so parking was free and plentiful. There was shade as well as grassy places to put blankets while we waited for the main event. LDS folks had gathered from as far as Texas and Michigan. Like little goslings, we’d gathered “home” to the LDS chapel in the path of totality. Children ran around and adults chatted with one another, offering eclipse glasses to anyone who might not have brought enough for everyone. Continue reading →

Prayers and Pterodactyls with Steven Peck

Steven L. Peck is a BYU professor who has emerged as a powerful advocate for science and evolution, publishing two books about the topic in as many years.

His latest offering, Science the Key to Theology, is an impassioned plea to members of the LDS Church to teach the compatibility between science and religion, rather than their supposed conflict. Too many feel they need to make a choice between believing science and believing in religion, and are choosing science.

Steven himself became less active as a youth after learning that his Seminary teacher didn’t believe in dinosaurs. Then Steve went to BYU and found professors who modeled a healthy fidelity to both scientific and religious truths. These professors helped Steve appreciate how science speaks to the “how” of creation, but religion is still needed to speak to the “why.”

Laura Harris Hales and Steven Peck talk about the harm caused by maintaining a faulty tension between science and religion.

This is one of the most interesting and faith-promoting

videos I have watched in some time.  Two women with same-sex attraction got married to each other.  One had history in the Church, the other did not.  Because of love from their family members, they began a journey towards full acceptance of the Gospel.  Their ward and the missionaries were filled with love toward them.  They then decide to get divorced, and the woman who was not a member got baptized.   They describe in detail their very touching testimonies of the truth of the Gospel.

Tonight, I attended a phenomenal devotional entitled “Why I Believe” at the D.C. Temple Visitor’s Center. Thurl Bailey, a former Utah Jazz player and convert to the LDS Church, was the featured speaker alone with his wife Sindi. Two recent converts to the Church also spoke about their conversion.

Thurl’s story was particularly memorable for a couple of reasons. Thurl first spoke about his childhood and his decision to pursue a career in basketball. Even though he was over 6 foot tall at the time (now he is 6’11), he didn’t make the team the first two times. That coach told him that he had no future in basketball. Luckily Thurl persisted and tried for a third time with a different coach. That coach put him on the team and offered to mentor Thurl one on one because he saw that he had great potential. Thurl spoke about how Heavenly Father sees us with the same kind of great potential. He also spoke about those who had given him their full trust such as his wife.

Second, Sindi spoke extensively about their marriage and courtship. Her parents refused to meet Thurl and staged an intervention where they forced her to choose between them and Thurl (Thurl is African American while Sindi is white and from Southern Utah). They then cut off contact with her for five years. It was sad to hear about that degree of bigotry and intolerance. But fortunately, the Lord eventually softened their heart. And when Thurl was baptized his father in law performed the ordinance.

Third, Thurl spent a manner of years attending Church but not being baptized. His wife was loving and supportive throughout that time. Then, Thurl felt prompted to take an opportunity in Italy even though he didn’t know why. While there, alone for a time, Thurl felt prompted to call the missionaries to come visit him because he was lonely and wanted to speak to fellow English speakers. The Mission President came as well, and really connected with Thurl and was able to answer his concerns in a way that no one had before. The timing was right and the Lord had led him to where he could be converted.

Finally, Thurl spoke of a particularly meaningful experience that occurred right around that time. He would frequently cross the Border into Switzerland, and on each trip the border patrol asked him three questions: 1) Where are you coming from?; 2) What is your purpose here?; and 3) What is your destination? On one occasion, those questions pierced deep into Thurl’s soul and he stopped at the side of the road and pondered them. He realized that the Gospel gave him answers to those question he could not get anywhere else. I really appreciated his story and his powerful testimony of the restored Gospel.

Schooling and Being Schooled in Religious Education with Casey Paul Griffeths, interviewed by Stephanie Dibb Sorensen

Casey Paul Griffiths is an expert on LDS Church education and its globalization efforts.

The formal foundation of education in the Mormon Church began in 1888 when the church board of education was established. Around this time, the United States initiated a free schools program. Wilford Woodruff, president of the church at that time, became very concerned that the federal education system was exclusively secular. Starting in the 1890s, he instructed every stake to launch their own academy. In the early 1900s the academy system was discarded for the more affordable seminary model. But this led to a whole new problem — training religious instructors in a lay church. By the 1930s the the existence of professional theological scholars created tensions the church is still grappling with.

Stephanie Dibb Sorensen (in her inaugural LDS Perspectives interview) talks with Griffiths about what this first generation of scholars faced when they came back to Utah to teach after studying in the liberal classrooms of the University of Chicago, as well as how the Church’s Pathways program is continuing this legacy of uniting secular and religious education.

Stephanie Dibb Sorensen is a mother to three and teaches Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. She blogs about finding faith in motherhood at her blog, Diapers and Divinity, and is the author of Covenant Motherhood.