Christmas and Smithmas Combo a bad idea...

[_Trevor]

I rest my case.

Yes, obviously one person's ludicrous and unfounded beliefs are better than another's. Put the name 'Jesus' to it, and it is self evident that it should have priority.

[_guy sajer]

What were the hymns to Joseph Smith?

Charity, we had "Praise to the Man", "We Named Him Joseph" and "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" plus a devotional narative. Those are all fine songs, but of course, it is Christmas time and our thoughts should turn to Christ.

I must say that was over the top. I can't see having even one song about Joseph Smith. I don't know "We Named Him Joseph." We out here in the "mission field" always did think you Utah Mormons are strange. I think I would go to the bishop on this.

When in graduate school, the sunday before Christmas the missionaries spoke and their topic was . . . drumroll . . . missionary work.

I think that Moksha's experience is the exception but one that happens reasonably frequently.

From where I sit, singing songs in praise of one founder of one mythologicial religion is as good as singinig praise for the founder of another mythological religion, though Christ (if he existed) never really founded a church, nor do we know anything he actually did other than that which has come down to us years after the fact and in service of building up a mythology rather than describing actual historical events.

[_charity]

One more reason never to move to Utah. I'll add that to how angry several LDS I know got about the commentators during the BYU-UCLA game. They claimed that they were anti-BYU and anti-Church.

I thought they were quite nice about the Church. Talked a lot of missions and how many had been and how many were "deferred" from the team to serve missions. I really liked the LaVell Edwards quote. After saying they had seen some of the UCLA players out late, one of them said they wouldn't have seen any BYU players out on the town in Las Vegas, becasue, as LaVell Edwards had said, "Our boys bring the Ten Commandments and a $10 bill to Vegas. They don't break either one."

I just thought the commenatators were pro-UCLA.

[_silentkid]

I went to church with my parents, grandparents, and brother's family yesterday. The sacrament program consisted of choir and congregation Christmas hymns. A speaker read from an old James Faust talk in between some of the songs. Only one brief mention of Joseph Smith's birthday was made. All in all, it was a pretty pleasant Christmas service. Oh, one dude played an electric violin; could this mean that electric guitars in sacrament are only a few years off?

[_The Nehor]

One more reason never to move to Utah. I'll add that to how angry several LDS I know got about the commentators during the BYU-UCLA game. They claimed that they were anti-BYU and anti-Church.

I thought they were quite nice about the Church. Talked a lot of missions and how many had been and how many were "deferred" from the team to serve missions. I really liked the LaVell Edwards quote. After saying they had seen some of the UCLA players out late, one of them said they wouldn't have seen any BYU players out on the town in Las Vegas, becasue, as LaVell Edwards had said, "Our boys bring the Ten Commandments and a $10 bill to Vegas. They don't break either one."

I just thought the commenatators were pro-UCLA.

I agree with you Charity. I thought they were pretty neutral. Just showcasing some of the insanity that keeps me from wanting to live in Zion (which is not Zion). ;)

[_huckelberry]

Trevor, I can see your point that if one goes to a Mormon Church one ought to expect Mormon type stuff. Not much point of freting that one finds Joseph admirers there.

I do not share your disparagement of peoples focus of Jesus. I think I understand that a person might well not believe the supernateral dimension or the belief in his divine idenity. There is a lot of room to be skeptical of those things. Even so it might be considered that Jesus is interesting with or without the divine identity. He is someone who caught peoples imagination by addressing what matters to people in a way which people have found fascinating. Creating a fascination with some ideas which last for thousands of years is a feat which is at least interesting.

I am tempted to say Joseph is not interesting in this way at all. But Joseph created new avenues in the imagination for people to relate to that original interesting person Jesus. Making these new connections gives Joseph Smith a bit of the quality interesting. A reflection.

Interesting is a quality which a person in the first century had which distinguishes him from a variety of popular prophetic Jewish renewal figures of his time. It is a thread which connects a person with those later reports we know of as gospels. It is one of a couple of threads of connection which indicate that the relationship between person and Gospel contains substance. Another thread is that the movement predates the gospels. The earliest writings, Pauls, come to be in a context where the Jesus movement is not a new thing. The gospels do not as fictions create a movement. They instead reflect a movement created by that quality of interest that Jesus had.

It is true we do not know enough to be sure there is not historical whitewashing going on. Who knows maybe he was a winebibber fond of eating and associating with sinners .

[_Trevor]

Huckleberry,

I agree with everything you have written here. In terms of the power and longevity, the myth of the Christ is hard to beat. On the other hand, to say this is quite distinct from saying that there is some difference in species that makes Jesus and Joseph completely different characters (with Jesus being inherently legitimate and Joseph being inferior, derivative, and unworthy of any kind of reverence). Joseph Smith has the disadvantage of being a well-documented person, while who knows what on earth is going on with a person named Jesus. My whole point is that both figures have been and continue to be mythologized, and that they obviously do receive worship within different communities. The non-believer looks at a historical figure named Smith, while the Mormon believer sees him in terms of a living mythos that is not unlike what shaped the Jesus figure. The historical facts have pulled Smith back to earth somewhat, but there is still plenty of deification there. And I don't see what is inherently wrong with that, as compared with Christianity, so long as the myth omits negative aspects of the historical man. Personally, I have no desire to worship Smith, but I have no problem with those who buy into a whitewashed myth and guide their lives by it and worship it. I am somewhat put off by those who yield to the demands and pressures of larger Christian culture by jettisoning their myth in favor of a Protestant one. No offense. I say let Mormons be Mormons. They don't have to be Lutherans to be good people.

T

[_moksha]

I think that Moksha's experience is the exception but one that happens reasonably frequently.

The portion of the program devoted to Joseph was considerable back in 2005, but I figured that was to be expected since it was his 200th Birthday bash and all.

And that means they should cater to your Smith-free Christmas desires?

Not at all. An entire Sunday devoted to Joseph Smith, call it Joseph Sunday, would be fine. However, inserting him into the Nativity scene, so to speak, is beyond what I wish to experience and I think it ultimately would look bad to outsiders as well, since it lends credence to our worshiping of Joseph Smith. As most of the LDS posters here have said, this was not their Christmas program experience, so I would take that as proof that it is not necessary on any level to insert Joseph Smith during the Christmas program.

[_karl61]

I heard the germans were the first to decorate the christmas tree but they use to decorate it with parts of their enemy.

[_Jersey Girl]

I heard the germans were the first to decorate the christmas tree but they use to decorate it with parts of their enemy.

If you're referring to Nazi's could you please say Nazi's instead of "germans"?