{"id":106053,"date":"2024-07-04T16:00:20","date_gmt":"2024-07-04T22:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=106053"},"modified":"2024-07-04T16:00:20","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T22:00:20","slug":"a-potpourri-of-thoughts-on-the-fourth-of-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/07\/a-potpourri-of-thoughts-on-the-fourth-of-july.html","title":{"rendered":"A Potpourri of Thoughts on the Fourth of July"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Coming up soon!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New materials are constantly appearing on the otherwise completely dead and rapidly dying website of the very nearly comatose Interpreter Foundation. \u00a0Here are two recently posted items:<\/p>\n

Hugh Nibley Observed<\/em>: \u201cEditing Hugh Nibley: The Man and His Legacy,\u201d<\/a> written by Shirley S. Ricks<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMy personal experience of working with Hugh Nibley\u2019s books and manuscripts began in the late 1980s when there was a big push to get several books out in time for the upcoming year when the Book of Mormon would be the focus for our Gospel Doctrine classes. Our family had spent the 1987\u201388 year in Jerusalem, so other than working on cleaning up a bibliography for Nibley\u2019s dissertation in Ireland (where we spent a couple of summer months on our way home), I probably didn\u2019t do a great deal on Nibley projects until our return to the States. It was around this time that I became more fully engaged in working on the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Hugh Nibley Observed<\/em>, edited by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Shirley S. Ricks, and Stephen T. Whitlock. For more information, go to https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/books\/hugh-nibley-observed\/<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Conference Talks: 2021 Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses Conference: \u201c\u201cI Am a Son of God\u201d: <\/em>Moses\u2019 Prophetic Call and Ascent into the Divine Council<\/em>,\u201d<\/a> presented by Stephen O. Smoot<\/a><\/p>\n

Stephen Smoot spoke at the 2021 Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses Conference on Saturday, April 24, 2021 on \u201c\u2018I Am a Son of God\u2019: Moses\u2019 Prophetic Call and Ascent into the Divine Council.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a landmark 2007 article, the evangelical biblical scholar Michael S. Heiser, writing in a Latter-day Saint academic journal, emphasized that \u201cthe divine council is central to a correct understanding of biblical theology, though few have recognized that fact. . . . The interaction on Israel\u2019s divine council needs to continue.\u201d It is significant that a depiction of God\u2019s divine council, or the council in heaven, appears in each book of scripture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Shortly before his death, the Prophet Joseph Smith touched on the subject of the divine council in his famous King Follett Discourse delivered on April 7, 1844. \u201cThe head God brought forth the Gods in the grand council,\u201d the Prophet taught on that occasion. \u201cThe grand counsellors sat in yonder heavens, and contemplated the creation of the worlds that were created at that time.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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A Wikimedia Commons public domain image of fireworks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n*
** *First of all, I want to wish the very happiest Independence Day possible to my American readers. \u00a0At the same time, I share my condolences on this day with any British readers who might be out there. \u00a0Otherwise, though, I want to express my hope that everybody, whether American or not, will have a wonderful Fourth of July. \u00a0(Or, in the case of those in Australia and New Zealand, that they will have had<\/em> a happy Fourth.)<\/p>\n

It is in the spirit of this day, on which we Americans celebrate something of a \u201ccivic religion,\u201d that I share a relatively short but thoughtful and perhaps even slightly provocative Christianity Today<\/em> article by Richard Mouw \u2014 a Protestant (indeed Calvinist) theologian whom I greatly admire not only as a thinker but as a person (with whom I\u2019ve had a few direct interactions): \u00a0\u201cTheocracy Is Not the Enemy of Pluralism: God\u2019s rule is inherently true and doesn\u2019t require that we force it on anyone.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

I also want to share here another Deseret News<\/em> article from the invaluable Jacob Hess<\/a>. \u00a0Not infrequently, I encounter comments from politically-left-leaning secular critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in which they claim, or insinuate, that American members of the Church are uniquely faithful to Mr. Donald Trump because aspects of the doctrine or practices or attitudes associated with the Restoration make them Trumpists by nature. \u00a0It turns out, though, that the data seem clearly to indicate that American Latter-day Saints are not<\/em> uniquely devoted to Mr. Trump. \u00a0Indeed, quite the contrary: \u00a0As a matter of fact, given their predominantly conservative and Republican proclivities, they appear to be uniquely resistant<\/em> to Mr. Trump: \u00a0\u201c\u2018I just can\u2019t bring myself to support either candidate\u2019: Why so many American Latter-day Saints feel politically homeless:\u00a0More than ever, people of faith are heading into the U.S. election without any major candidate they can support in good conscience. A deeper dive on why Latter-day Saints seem especially inclined to resist the two major options\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

And this, too, is worth a few minutes today \u2014 if you can spare them between the fireworks and the barbecues and the pool parties: \u00a0\u201cOxygen of Freedom: The Inescapable Christian Influence on American Independence.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0Some will like, and some will very much dis<\/em>like, the author\u2019s reference to \u201cthe clown car that is secularism.\u201d<\/p>\n

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** Newport Beach, California, at sunset. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
** I close with two passages from one of the most interesting of contemporary American writers, Marilynne Robinson, a novelist and essayist who writes from an avowedly Christian perspective that has been deeply influenced by her reading of John Calvin::<\/p>\n
** "
** \u201cI love the writers of my thousand books. It pleases me to think how astonished old Homer, whoever he was, would be to find his epics on the shelf of such an unimaginable being as myself, in the middle of an unrumored continent. I love the large minority of the writers on my shelves who have struggled with words and thoughts and, by my lights, have lost the struggle. All together they are my community, the creators of the very idea of books, poetry, and extended narratives, and of the amazing human conversation that has taken place across the millennia, through weal and woe, over the heads of interest and utility.\u201d \u00a0(From When I Was a Child I Read Books<\/em>)<\/p>\n
** \u201cEvery spirit passing through the world fingers the tangible and mars the mutable, and finally has come to look and not to buy. So shoes are worn and hassocks are sat upon and finally everything is left where it was and the spirit passes on, just as the wind in the orchard picks up the leaves from the ground as if there were no other pleasure in the world but brown leaves, as if it would deck, clothe, flesh itself in flourishes of dusty brown apple leaves, and then drops them all in a heap at the side of the house and goes on.\u201d \u00a0(From Housekeeping<\/em>)
\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
** Posted from Newport Beach, California<\/p>\n
** \u00a0<\/p>\n
** \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
** \u00a0 New materials are constantly appearing on the otherwise completely dead and rapidly dying website of the very nearly comatose Interpreter Foundation. \u00a0Here are two recently posted items: Hugh Nibley Observed: \u201cEditing Hugh Nibley: The Man and His Legacy,\u201d written by Shirley S. Ricks \u201cMy personal experience of working with Hugh Nibley\u2019s books and manuscripts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":32237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2001,2905,788,7206,3856,719],"class_list":["post-106053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ascension","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-mormon","tag-moses","tag-nibley","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nA Potpourri of Thoughts on the Fourth of July<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  New materials are constantly appearing on the otherwise completely dead and rapidly dying website of the very nearly comatose Interpreter\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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** *"