![\"Ossawa](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2019\/12\/761px-Henry_Ossawa_Tanner_-_The_Annunciation.jpg\")
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We held our quarterly Interpreter Foundation Board meeting this morning.\u00a0 It was very pleasant to welcome two new members \u2014 Matt Bowen and Jim Graham \u2014\u00a0 to the Foundation\u2019s Board of Trustees.\u00a0 There are really interesting things on the horizon.\u00a0 (See here<\/a> for biographies of the current members of the Interpreter Board.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It seems that a former student of mine \u2014 Dan McClellan, who was an impressive participant in a seminar on \u201ccelestial ascents\u201d that the late Bill Hamblin and I taught at Brigham Young University \u2014 has become a social media \u201cinfluencer\u201d:\u00a0 \u201cMormon TikTok star debunks Bible conspiracies, misinformation: More than a quarter-million TikTok followers enjoy Dan McClellan\u2019s unusual combination of deadpan humor and solid biblical scholarship\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Incidentally, Dan published an article in Interpreter<\/em> back in 2015\u00a0 \u2014 \u201cPsalm 82 in Contemporary Latter-day Saint Tradition\u201d<\/a> \u2014 in which, among other things, he took issue with an earlier article that I myself had published on the subject.\u00a0 I judged at the time that our disagreement was not so fundamental as to demand urgent response.\u00a0 Should I ever return to the topic, though, I\u2019ll certainly take his fine work into account.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I realized this evening that I haven\u2019t heard about nor even thought about Kate Kelly, the former leader (?) of Ordain Women, for a very long time. \u00a0Maybe I just haven\u2019t been listening or don\u2019t move in the right circles.\u00a0 But some time ago, while looking for something else, I ran across these two items from blog entries that I posted back in February 2015, and I think that they\u2019re worth remembering:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSadly, the Mormon faith<\/a> has become a place that incentivizes the survival of the least fit. Since strict obedience is demanded and harshly enforced, only the least talented, least articulate, least nuanced thinkers, least likely to take a stand against abuse, and the least courageous people thrive in the Church today.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 Kate Kelly, founder of \u201cOrdain Women,\u201d in The Guardian<\/em>\u00a0(6 February 2015)<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n II.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n As I noted\u00a0yesterday, Kate Kelly, the founder of \u201cOrdain Women\u201d has pronounced the membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> unfit, untalented, inarticulate, unnuanced, cowardly, morally acquiescent, and conformist.<\/span><\/p>\n Now, it seems unlikely to me that the Saints suddenly became inferior and inadequate overnight, just when Ms. Kelley was excommunicated last summer. \u00a0Presumably, they were already low specimens of humanity even when she was still a member of the Church.<\/span><\/p>\n Moreover, her judgment of the Saints seems merely\u00a0a superficially more civil variant of the description often given of Mormon believers on some apostate message boards, as \u201csheeple,\u201d \u201cMorgbots,\u201d \u201cMor(m)ons,\u201d and \u201cUtards.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n So, I confess, I\u2019ve been led to\u00a0wonder why she was ever demanding to be ordained a leader among such a defective people.<\/span><\/p>\n Do successful corporate executives crave appointment as Boy Scout patrol leaders?<\/span><\/p>\n Do Nobel-laureate physicists aspire to take first prize at junior high school science fairs?<\/span><\/p>\n I suspect that the Lutheran theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wanted to\u00a0abolish<\/em>\u00a0the Hitler Youth, not to join the boys and become their\u00a0leader<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n But perhaps I\u2019m failing to grasp\u00a0the self-sacrificial and compassionate nobility of her offer to receive ordination and to help us. \u00a0I\u2019m reminded of Rudyard Kipling\u2019s famous 1899 poem \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Burden\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n Take up the White Man\u2019s burden\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n Send forth the best ye breed\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n Go send your sons to exile<\/span><\/p>\n To serve your captives\u2019 need<\/span><\/p>\n To wait in heavy harness<\/span><\/p>\n On fluttered folk and wild\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n Your new-caught, sullen peoples,<\/span><\/p>\n Half devil and half child<\/span><\/p>\n Take up the White Man\u2019s burden<\/span><\/p>\n In patience to abide<\/span><\/p>\n To veil the threat of terror<\/span><\/p>\n And check the show of pride;<\/span><\/p>\n By open speech and simple<\/span><\/p>\n An hundred times made plain<\/span><\/p>\n To seek another\u2019s profit<\/span><\/p>\n And work another\u2019s gain<\/span><\/p>\n Take up the White Man\u2019s burden\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n And reap his old reward:<\/span><\/p>\n The blame of those ye better<\/span><\/p>\n The hate of those ye guard\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n The cry of hosts ye humour<\/span><\/p>\n (Ah slowly) to the light:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy brought ye us from bondage,<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur loved Egyptian night?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Take up the White Man\u2019s burden-<\/span><\/p>\n Have done with childish days-<\/span><\/p>\n The lightly proffered laurel,<\/span><\/p>\n The easy, ungrudged praise.<\/span><\/p>\n Comes now, to search your manhood<\/span><\/p>\n Through all the thankless years,<\/span><\/p>\n Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,<\/span><\/p>\n The judgment of your peers!<\/span><\/p>\n I grant that the concept of a \u201cWhite Man\u2019s Burden\u201d is racist, and that Mr. Kipling\u2019s poem and the Pear\u2019s Soap ad are gender-exclusive. \u00a0Thank History that we\u2019ve evolved beyond such sexism and ethnic bigotry. \u00a0But their unashamedly condescending statements of a felt mission to help lesser people, even at considerable cost to oneself, may be relevant here.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I now share another of my favorite pieces of classical Christmas music, Franz Biebl\u2019s version of Ave Maria<\/em>, as performed by the male a capella<\/em> group Chanticleer<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n V. Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mari\u00e6.<\/span> Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.<\/span><\/p>\n V. Maria dixit: Ecce Ancilla Domini.<\/span> Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.<\/span><\/p>\n Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostr\u00e6. Amen.<\/span><\/p>\n My translation:<\/span><\/p>\n The angel of the Lord appeared unto Mary,.<\/span> Hail, Mary, full of grace. \u00a0The Lord is with thee. \u00a0Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n Mary said, \u201cBehold the handmaiden of the Lord.<\/span> Hail, Mary, full of grace. \u00a0The Lord is with thee. \u00a0Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. \u00a0Amen.<\/span><\/p>\n There is horrifying evil, sorrow, selfishness, hatred, disloyalty, and ugliness in the world. \u00a0But there is also great goodness and beauty. \u00a0This exquisite piece offers a glimpse and a reminder of that.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But let\u2019s not leave things on such a high note.\u00a0 In a season of the year when the horrors of theism tend to be disguised beneath a thick layer of sentimentality that attempts to inject religious fantasies into Xmas, its good to have access to the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u00a9.\u00a0 These are some\u00a0 that the Hitchens File<\/em> has recently coughed up:<\/p>\n \u201cThe Church of Jesus Christ Donates US$10 Million to Stop Polio and Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus: Half of the polio donation targets under-immunized communities throughout Africa\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cOntario Latter-day Saints and Muslims Serve Together by Packaging Food: Joint food packaging activity in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, helps #LightTheWorld\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
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\n R. Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n R. Fiat mihi secundum Verbum tuum.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nAnd she conceived of the Holy Spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nLet it be unto me according to thy word.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n