On the arrow of time:

It seems that Mormonism posits two trajectories for time and ordering. One the one hand, the Kingdom of God (the second coming has already begun with Elijah coming to the Temple) is growing and becoming stronger; in a sense, progressing and becoming increasingly ordered. On the other hand, the world is unraveling creation by turning it into chaos. This seems to occur primarily at the site of moral degeneration. This latter part seems to be very much a part of a previous generation's romantic construction of their own past, and perhaps this is what all generations do as they are displaced: they wax nostalgic about the "good old days" when people were good and so forth. The oldest documents complain that children don't respect their parents anymore! So in Mormonism we combine a sense of nostalgia for a past purity with a future eschatological purity. The ordering principle hear seems to be morality, and this is the message of all apocalypse.

For secular society, it seems that the ordering principle is replaced by things like wealth and other quantifiable successes. How does this engage the issue of prospertiy and sin?

I am very intrigued by the Scientist's deconstructionist reading of the BoM on the point of prosperity. I think I will use that in the future. It definitely seems to set a paradox...the blessings of God sow the seeds of their own destruction. More needs to be done on this "cycle of prosperity" than just identifying it. Rather, I think we need to explain it in the BoM's own terms, that is in providential ordering. In what way is this cycle useful for God's ultimate purposes? I also think that the distinction being made between individual and communal prosperity is important, but I am not sure exactly how yet. (or maybe we just leave it deconstructed and rejoice in the paradox itself... that sounds like religion to me!)

I do think it is important to note that politics/economics and religion can never be seperated really, especially when dealing with ancient religion. My question is how explicit should we make this, and how dogmatic should we be about it?

Concerning the deuteronomic promise of the BoM... I not only think that there is a connection, but a very very close connection. I hope to publish this sort of thing some day, so for now just the highlights. Consider that Jeremiah, a close personal friend of Lehi's family, is one of the most likely authors of Deuteronomy! His prophetic book is very similar lexically and is being produced the exact same time that Josiah "finds" the Torah in the Temple. To me, it seems that this sort of message is not just a theodicy of poverty, but also of foreign domination under the Assyrians and later Babylonians. Lehi looses hope in this promise ever being fulfilled in Israel, so there is a new exodus/creation in order for the promise to be fulfilled.

After reading Ostler on Christology, I realized what a serious problem he is trying solve. There needs to be some definition of God that accounts for Jesus' divine status in his pre-mortal state (not to mention the Holy Ghost). This Christological problem arises from our conception of soteriology. In order to be gods, we must have physical bodies and have passed through mortality and obtained all those important experiences to make us love enough, but Jesus was God before any of this. The problem is further complicated by the fact that we claim that Jesus created the world. We generally think that when we become gods we will create our own worlds, but God assigned this to Jesus. So, what exactly is God's role in all of this if Jesus, a premortal spirit, was given the opportunity to govern this world, and what does that mean we will be doing when our turn comes? BH Roberts sees Jesus (rightly) as the exemplar of our salvation rather than some bizarre metaphysical exception of divine/human mumbo jumbo. So, if this is true, how do we define "divine" or "God" as to include all three members of the Godhead and their various metaphysical/experiential conditions?

The discussion about authoritative texts is an important one, and though I am always impressed by the creativity of the Literary Critic and the Lawyer in this regard, they seem to be overlooking some issues. I think that my discomfort with the authoritative texts on doctrinal matters is precisely because it limits the amount of creative interpretation possible in the scriptural canon. Despite Dworkin, the more texts you have and the more specific they are, the less room there is for potentials. Now, people still try to get creative with these texts. I once heard a female lawyer in NYC discuss the Proclamation on the Family. She applied a very creative reading of the text, specifically this "clause" that comes after a weighty discussion of gender roles: "Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation." She understood "other circumstances" as "or, if you don't really believe all of this crap you can disregard it." I thought this was a nice lawyerly reading, but at the same time gutted the text of any authority. My point is that texts do have limits, despite what literary critics and lawyers sometimes think... Now, coming up with a grand unifying theory of everything sounds good to me, but I am not really sure that it can be done without either badly interpreting some things, or just excluding them altogether, especially within the plurality we call Mormonism.

The second problem is related, but it is less about the flexibility of interpretation of texts than their ontological status. There is a tension in Mormonism between the status of revelation, church proclamations, and even scripture as authoritative, and the concept of continual revelation. The moment a revelation is given, it is subject to revision due to its ontologically contigent status. It makes even the most foundational texts in Mormonism radically contigent. This is kind of scary. Worse, it calls into question the reason for reading any of the canonical texts at all. Is there a standard for navigating one's way through these texts and knowing what it is that one is supposed to believe in them, and what one is supposed to disregard? Do I know that King Follet supercedes Mos 15:1-4 because it comes later, or is better, or do I just prefer it? If so, why should I read Mos 15:1-4 at all? With all of the possibilities for doctrine within Mormonism, BoM, D&C, Bible, early JS, late JS, BY, etc, how do I know which one is correct? Or, as the Literary Critic seems to be saying, are none of them "correct"? If revelation is always contingent, and nothing is safe from revision, what exactly am I supposed to believe?