The Bloggernacle

Have you come across the Bloggernacle? If you have read any LDS oriented blogs then you have. According to Wikipedia:

"Bloggernacle is a name that has been adopted by some in the LDS blogging community to describe the Mormon portion of the blogosphere. It was created as a play on words of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir."

If you are looking for a good place to find places in the Bloggernacle you can start here.

So I was reading in the Bloggernacle and found a quote that I thought was great. It is from a devotional given at BYU May 2005 entitled, The “Welding Link” of Culture by VAN C. GESSEL. I was reading a post on By Common Consent about what constitutes something good or bad as far as art and literature go. I received my undergraduate degree in Spanish and in many classes I read short stories and novels that I would not read to my seven year old, but that did not make them bad. I agree with the author that it depends on the situation. If it is something that is in the world that can be seen in many forms and locations or is it a lie?

Anyway, I wanted to share this quote about why it is important to learn about things that might not be in total harmony with the teachings or standards of the church.

"Eight years ago, just after I was appointed dean of the College of Humanities, Elder Henry B. Eyring, then commissioner of the Church Educational System, challenged me to spend some time pondering the answer to a simple question. He asked, “Why do we teach a book like The Great Gatsby at BYU?”…And why is Fitzgerald’s novel about adultery, obsession, alcoholism, and murder taught at a place like BYU? Well, in part, because all those who are crowned with glory and immortality and eternal lives will have, in their own kingdoms, an array of offspring who are, in their own ways, disobedient, annoying, and horrifying. We will have to learn how to deal with an abundance of our own Jay Gatsbys and Sweeney Todds and Pol Pots and Marquises de Sade and Brian David Mitchells. Just as it is presently the work and the glory of our Father in Heaven to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life—in spite of all He knows about us, which is everything—we hope it will someday be our work and our glory to help provide those same blessings for countless souls who are very much unlike ourselves, and many of them will be supremely unlovable. In my experience, the best way to come to know such people—and not merely to know them, but to know them well enough to be able to love them beneath all the layers of their sins and imperfections—is through the instrument of good books. After all, the Lord has repeatedly instructed us to seek wisdom “out of the best books” (D&C 88:118; 109:7, 14)."

We are instructed to "seek wisdom" and there are many places that wisdom can come from. If we limit ourselves then we are not seeing the world for what it is; a glorious place prepared for us by our Heavenly Father.