Mormonism has a rich textual culture. Our meetings and teaching and studying are filled with encounters with the written word, and especially the holy word contained in scripture. In addition, many Mormons are prodigious readers and seekers of wisdom out of the best books that Mormonism and the world have to offer (perfectly illustrated by Dave’s Getting Hooked post and the accompanying responses).

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Yesterday was an exciting one for me. As part of my campus job writing what amounts to AP copy, I got to interview Reverend John Thomas, general minister of the United Church of Christ, before he spoke to the Yale community. He titled his speech “The Future of the Prophetic Voice in the Ecumenical Church.” Rev. Thomas amended this title to read “After Seven Years,” based on a letter Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote entitled “After Ten Years.”

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So I decided to save my textual analysis of The Backslider for next time and write about my current experience instead.

As I said in my bio, I’m a first-year student at Yale Divinity School. And this life-move came as much of a surprise to me. I never planned to go to divinity school and even now it seems extraordinary that I am here, where Jonathan Edwards was the “Dean of Discipline” in his day and counseled against “unseasonable and evil night walkings” (what?); where there is a room in the Sterling Divinity Quadrangle called the Revised Standard Version room, not as a polite homage but as a dedication to the work that actually took place there; where chapel is not a sedate occasion but a wonderfully planned liturgical event, combining hymn traditions from around the world with group prayers and divine scripture readings and sermons. (more…)

Thank you for your kind intro, Chris. What follows is a general response, or superstructure, to eight points Matt B. wrote for his discussion group, which he will be posting soon:

Art is dangerous. The person who fully engages with any piece of art runs the risk of being changed/transformed in fundamental ways. And many times we don’t control the ways in which we are transformed (both good and bad). I am a passionate proponent of art, not opponent as these statements might make me sound. We should be wary of those who uncritically guard against such transformation through blind prohibition of certain kinds of art. Such prohibitions can arise out of fear. But we should also be wary of artworks that offer transformation carte (more…)