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Back Into the Compound

Back Into the Compound

Last updated on: October 6, 2021 at 10:15 pm by Dan Peterson

Back Into the Compound 2021-10-06T22:15:24-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The Hale Centre Theatre, in Sandy, Utah, is (as I’ve often said before and am now saying again) a local, state, and regional treasure.
(Photo from the Hale Centre Theatre website)

***

Here’s a new piece that went up on the Interpreter Foundation website a couple of days ago:

“Book of Moses Essays #75: Noah (Moses 8): The Sons of God and the Sons of Men (Moses 8:1-21)”

Here is how to order a copy of the conference edition of the Liahona. As I pretty well suggested in yesterday’s blog entry, I intend to do it:

https://store.churchofjesuschrist.org/liahona-1200-1

***

With friends, we attended a performance of Agatha Christie’s famous murder-mystery play The Mousetrap at the Hale Centre Theatre this evening (Monday evening), up in Sandy, Utah. I’ve seen the play at least once before — and actually, I think, twice — in London. Oddly, though, I scarcely remembered the plot, just as I scarcely remembered it the last time. And I’ve probably already forgotten the plot again. In any case, I’m forbidden by the play to reveal the play’s ending.

***

I’m not at all sure what to make of this article:

“In Just 10 Years ‘The Book of Mormon’ Musical Has Gone from America’s Darliing to America’s Latest Problem — The Inverse of the Mormon Story”

***

I missed the news of his death:

“Death of a post-theist shepherd: The unorthodox faith of Bishop John Shelby Spong”

I have to confess that I was never much impressed by the quality of his thinking; I thought he was an intellectual lightweight. There seem to be a few, though, who would like the Restoration to go in more or less the direction he went. His denomination didn’t precisely prosper, though, as his kind of thought came to be more and more on the ascendant.

***

My blog’s leading resident atheist commenter today described Utah as a “theological compound.” I assume that he was attempting humor, but I’ve heard the claim seriously advanced.

The relevant definition for the noun compound that is provided by Merriam-Webster will serve my purpose here: “a fenced or walled-in area containing a group of buildings and especially residences.”

Even when deployed metaphorically or polemically, the concept of being “fenced” or “walled-in” seems essential to the concept of a “compound.”

But Utah is hardly “walled-in” or “fenced.” I flew in from the very different world of Newport Beach, California, just a few hours ago. There were no barriers. Airports here function freely. And there were none a week or so ago when I flew down to the OC. Amazon ships books into Utah in the same way that it ships them into Massachusetts and into the People’s Republic of Berkeley. (There is no Index of Forbidden Books.) Hollywood and foreign and independent films play here as they play elsewhere. So do scores of television and radio programs. Faithful and committed Latter-day Saints work and walk alongside non-Latter-day Saints just as they do elsewhere. Several drivers each day can testify to having driven into and out of the state with entire freedom.

I chuckle mildly when I hear Utah humorously described as a “compound.” When the claim is made seriously, though, I’m far less amused. It can only be seriously advanced on the basis of some combination or other of ignorance, arrogance, and bigotry.

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