Peculiar

Peter identified members of the Church as “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people.” (1 Pet. 2:9). President Hinckley referred to this frequently as president. I've become friends with a few Evangelical Christians over the past few years since I left Utah. They seem to fit this description a little better than we do as a people. Is that bad or good? They sometimes can be annoying and awkward with their...I'm not sure how to describe it other than guileless religious social norms.

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I listen to audio books on my way too and from work. I usually have a list of ones I would like to listen to, but I finished that list and randomly picked one at the library on my last visit. I don't remember the title right now, but it is definitely written for an openly Christian audience. It isn't as in your face as some of the evangelicals that I have met, but it is more so than I am in my life.

For example, I do not frequently say to my wife that I feel so blessed for all that I have and grab her hands to offer a prayer of gratitude. I do the first half, but not usually the second. I feel a little guilty about that on one hand when I think of that. On the other, it seems a little weird....is that because I'm not as much "in the world, but not of the world" as I should be? In my/our effort to be main stream have I been tainted just enough to see that as weird and awkward?

Maybe its just a different style of worshiping. Mormons are definitely more on the reverent side of the spectrum when compared to other Christian religions. In the end, it is interesting that it made me pause and think enough to motivate a post after 2 months of nothing else quite being strong enough!

Slate on Mormonism Perseverance

Slate has recently released an article on how Mormonism could save the USA if it were to collapse from political/social/environmental causes. Very interesting article, though he did get some simple things wrong. For example, "upon his resurrection, Jesus Christ will rule on American soil." He doesn't know that all Christians believe Jesus was already resurrected. Big miss there.

It was interesting that he used the word clannish. I think that was his kind attempt to avoid the distasteful (to us) word cultish. I like his description of us, "They are just like us, only they're always on their best behavior." I'm glad he was candid and honest without any of the incorrect, negative preconceived notions that tend to be written about us by those on the outside.

Does life work like a video game?

I have had a few experiences recently that made me wonder how God manages our faith and blessings. It is easy for me to imagine that he runs us like we would run little people in a game of "SimPersonal Life."

An easy case would be if we need a blessing and fast for it. By fasting or doing good deeds we accumulate potential blessing points. If you are asking for an answer to whom you should marry, it would cost you 50 potential blessing points. If you want to cure a physical ill, it would cost significantly more, say 150 potential blessing points.

Sounds easy right? When you involve faith, others and others' faith it becomes complicated. For example, if you have a lot of faith it will lower the physical ill potential blessing points requirement to 125. If others have faith it can lower that amount some more. Joseph Smith said that your faith to be healed when receiving a blessing is more powerful than your faith to heal when giving one. So if person A needs a blessing and they have X amount of faith it will lower their needed total 30 points. If person B needs the same blessing and person A gives them the blessing with the same X amount of faith, it only lowers the needed point total by 20.

To make things even more difficult, what happens when you need that healing blessing, everybody comes together and you only totaled 149 points when you needed 150? Do you get a partial blessing or is it all or nothing?

I imagine that things do work similar to this, but on a much more complex level such as throwing in things like do you need the faith promoting experience, will it help you carry out something else in your life that God needs you to do, etc.? Although I have never conceived it in this way before, my lifelong wish has been to understand God's scoring system and what point tallies I need for the various blessing I wish I could get. I think if I knew that one blessing required 500 points, I wouldn't even try. On the other hand, if I knew that I was short just a few points on another blessing I would have tried a littler harder instead of giving up with a hopeless frustration that I never got an answer. Life would be a lot more manageable that way.