Digital Waiting Room Sampler

There are lots of blog posts in my brain, but very few are making it out into the world lately.

Since I haven't written much lately, though, I think I'll just refer you to a few articles I'e been meaning to write about:

"The Idea of Abrahamic Religions: A Qualified Dissent" by Jon D. Levenson is pretty interesting. I like his emphasis on Abraham as the founder of a family/people rather than just as an advocate of an ideology. As someone who still believes that God wants to call a people and not just teach good principles, I particularly appreciated the way he treated Paul's thought.

 "The Most Progressive Organization on Earth" by Steve Piersanti is great in bringing out the components of church organizations that are egalitarian, socially leveling, communal, and otherwise delightfully socialist-sounding. ;) I also really identified with his observation that one thing keeping more Latter-day Saints from self-identifying as liberal is the number of self-identifying liberals inside and outside of the Church who complain about how conservative the Church. I know that personally I grow less and less confident in my (now very lukewarm) self-identification as a Democrat when I hear Democrats rag on my religion (especially when those Democrats are also Mormon). I mean: conservative members don't call the church backward for disrupting the free market by assigning people to wards rather than letting them choose. Can't liberal members let certain ideas

While we're on the subject of political self-identification, I'd also like to recommend "Politics Is Not My Religion" by Merrijane Rice. It's become quite common to judge people by their political beliefs--and that's silly. You can vote "wrong" and still be a pretty great person. You can vote "right" and still be a jerk. So...I know it's quick and easy to judge someone by party affiliation. But if you're going to be sinful and judge someone, at least try to do it over things they do in their real lives, and not things they think about policy decisions they have extremely little influence over.

Also on the subject of elections: I highly recommend voting. In the "Four Centuries of Mormon Stories" contest. Because wouldn't the next week of November be so much better if fewer people got worked up about Obama or Romney and more people got worked up over Mormon Lit?

 Those are pretty much my suggestions. To round out this sampler, though I'll add quick plugs for my recent poem on Real Intent and an interview with Scott Hales about my book on Modern Modern Men.