society

Are We Required to Live the Law of Consecration, Now?

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I hear this a lot from members of the Church.  In fact just two days ago, I had someone ask me this very question after reading some of the quotes from Nibley in Approaching Zion:

 “So then are we required to live the law of concecration now?“

To that question I would pose a counter question, that might help us arrive at an appropriate answer.  When God reveals a law to man, is it required of man to live it if he wishes to return to live with God?  When viewed from this perspective, I think the answer can be none other than an unequivocal “Yes!” [Read more…]

Running Champion Bernard Lagat and Nandi Initiation

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U.S. professional running champion, Bernard Lagat

It is fascinating to me all the places that I hear or see or read glimpses of temple theology, the “scattered fragments” of ritual tradition ((Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment, xxvii)).  As Nibley found out, and taught extensively, these remnants are found all around us, everywhere.  My wife was listening to the radio on the way to the grocery store last week, and heard part of a program on Classical 89 that related to the Creation song.  She came home and told me about it, and I was immediately interested, and tracked down the transcription.  I’m still studying that, and will write about it soon.  But today, again, I was reading the February 2010 edition of Runner’s World, of all places, and came across references to ritual initiation and rites of passage.  [Read more…]

Temple the Source of All Civilization

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Hugh Nibley in 2000Professor Hugh Nibley often taught that the temple was the source of many of the institutions, forms, and trappings of our modern-day society. He once remarked:

There is no part of our civilization which doesn’t have its rise in the temple. ((Hugh Nibley, Don E. Norton, Temple and Cosmos: Beyond This Ignorant Present, 25.))

Nibley also made the comments:

So poetry, music, and dance go out to the world from the temple-called by the Greeks the Mouseion, the shrine of the Muses. ((ibid., 23.))

And:

All the arts and sciences began at the temple. Dance, music, architecture, sculpture, drama, and so forth-they all go back to the temple. ((Nibley, Hugh, and Gary P. Gillum. Of all Things!: Classic Quotations from Hugh Nibley. 2nd, rev. and expand ed. Salt Lake City, Utah; Provo, Utah: Deseret Book Co.; Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1993, 45.))

The more I study the temple the more I am convinced of these statements. I have found evidence for the temple in language, literature, poetry, dance, music, theater, drama, education, custom, astronomy, architecture, art, science, politics, and of course in the many religions of the world. Even our daily personal patterns of awakening, opening our eyes, arising, washing ourselves, getting dressed, eating breakfast, working out our salvation while the day of probation lasts, then going to sleep and awaiting to arise the next morning clearly has connections with the temple.

In what patterns of our civilization do you see the temple?