Category: Book of Mormon
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Mosiah 25-28
Theological Background by Kristen Elizabeth O’Donnell Gandalfo argues that our common inheritance is not corruption but vulnerability. It is our vulnerability—our fragility, precariousness, and nakedness—that drives us toward self-protective, egotistic behaviors that are the root of sin and violence. This is a theological anthropology, an approach to understanding the human person and the meaning of…
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Mosiah 18-24
Theological Background by Kristen When the priests of King Noah discover Abinadi teaching, they are offended by his evisceration of their morality and his prophecies of God’s judgements: And now, O king, what great evil hast thou done, or what great sins have thy people committed, that we should be condemned of God or judged…
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Mosiah 11-17
Theological Background by Kristen “You who would read this book,” Marguerite Porete wrote sometime between 1296 and 1306, “If you indeed wish to grasp it / Think about what you say, / For it is very difficult to comprehend; / Humility, who is keeper of the treasury of / Knowledge / And the mother of…
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Mosiah 7-10
Theological Background by Kristen In a now famous TedTalk, the magnificent Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks about the dangers of a single story. A single story is one with only one face, one dimension, one voice. A single story fills a vacuum proposing to be complete, offering a stereotype as a salve against fear and discomfort.…
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Mosiah 4-6
Theological Background by Kristen This week, two of my favorite people died. Both have influenced me deeply and both died far too young. One was a well-known scholar and the other was famous among her vast network of friends and family. Both were pillars of insight, wisdom, faith, humor, kindness, and life. I find that…
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Mosiah 1-3
Theological Background by Kristen Remember playing the telephone game? One person whispers a phrase into the next person’s ear, going around and around trying—as goofily as possible—to discern the original phrase. Usually, of course, the phrase has been delightfully distorted and the group can laugh at the linguistic morphing. In the game, such shifts are…
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Enos-Words of Mormon
Theological Background by Kristen In what we read as a few chapters between Enos and Words of Mormon, we find the records of a civilization over hundreds of years. We encounter these professedly vast people through the reports of a few men. Their accounts, and their identities, differ significantly. Enos records his own conversion experience…
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Jacob 5-7
Theological Background by Kristen Zenos wrote about olive trees. Olive trees, and Israel. Whoever Zenos was, his voice is lost to history. But it is not lost to Jacob. Zenos is perhaps to Jacob what Isaiah was to Nephi. He resonates with this story in a way that tells us something about what he understood…
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Particular and Universal: Telling the Story of Holy Week
Contributed by Kristen This is a repost from last year. All of our Easter posts, as well as resources, music and art can be found under the “Easter” tab. As a hospital Chaplain, one of the most common things I heard in hospital rooms was, “I know other people have it worse.” Objectively, they may…
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2 Nephi 31-33
Theological background by Kristen And so we come to the end of Nephi’s writing. The last of the family to remember Jerusalem, he has been a bridge writer. Nephi has identified with the prophecies of Isaiah as symbols of his family’s covenant relationship that will bring them from exile to reunion, from estrangement to restoration.…
milk & honey mamas 