Comparable to the Bible: Archery--You're Doing It Wrong

Returning to the Book of Mormon itself, 1 Nephi 14 and 15 are fairly forgettable.  Fourteen contains a vague pro-Mormon conditional prophesy, saying that if the Gentiles in the "promised land" (read: "Americans") believe in the Book of Mormon, things will go well for them, and if not they'll face some unspecified disaster.  The only notable thing about this prophesy is that it stands out with its very vagueness.  All the other prophesies we've seen so far in the Book of Mormon have been excruciatingly specific and explicit, to the point of plagiarizing the Gospels they were supposed to foreshadow.  However, the 1 Nephi 14 prophesy is instead incredibly vague.  Why the difference?  It's not like God has ever had any trouble looking forward in time past any particular point, inclusive of 1830 AD...but Joseph Smith would have understandably had a lot more difficulty writing accurate "prophesies" about events after his time than events before it that were recorded by other authors he could easily rip off.  Another curiosity of this chapter is that Nephi says he received visions of the end times but was forbidden to write them down--because they were exactly the same as the visions which would be written by John in Revelation.  While I applaud Smith's restraint in not flat out plagiarizing an entire book of the Bible, I'm not really sure that his explanation for why Nephi did it, in character, really makes sense.  There are, in the Bible, a number of visions of the end times.  Revelation is most famous, but there's also passages of Daniel and Ezekiel.  None of these visions is exactly like the others: each comes from a different perspective and adds different information to our incomplete understanding of the end times.  In fact, a cursory examination of scriptures shows that none of the visions given in scripture is exactly like the others.  In other words, prophets, their visions, prophesies, and analogies are all unique.  So, if the same God who gave all of these unique visions is behind the end-times vision Nephi received, why is it a carbon-copy of the one given to John in Revelation?  The best explanation for "God" in the Book of Mormon being suddenly unable to come up with original material seems, to me, that it wasn't our endlessly creative God at all but Joseph Smith borrowing heavily from what was familiar to him (the Bible, having grown up in the "burned over district" of Bible-thumping preachers) rather than taking the risk of trying to invent something original.

As for 1 Nephi 15, it is a chapter which really should have been omitted altogether.  All the chapter does is rehash the earlier explanation of the olive-tree metaphor (originally by Paul, ripped off by Smith and shoved down the throat of his character Lehi).  The reason for the rehash is simple: the original description occurred in a vision Nephi alone saw and his brothers were understandably curious about it.  A skilled writer, when coming to this situation (whether in fiction or in real life) would summarize rather than repeat an earlier explanation (saying simply "Nephi told his brothers what the angel/Spirit had told him in the vision").  The Bible contains examples of this, summarizing the actions of the shepherds rather than repeating descriptions of their encounter with the angels at Christ's birth (Luke 2:17-19).  However, as anyone who's been following these posts knows, Joseph Smith is about the furthest thing from a skilled writer as you can get.  So, naturally, rather than summarizing as he should, Smith dives into a pointless and frustrating rehash, wasting one of his chapters and however many minutes of our lives it takes us to read it.

Really, it's not until 1 Nephi 16 when things get interesting again.  Lehi and his family finally pack up and move out of the Valley of Lemuel (so named by the Book of Mormon: the only relation to known real geography is that it's said to be three-days journey from Jerusalem on the Red Sea).  They journey through the wilderness southeastward "many days," eventually (as per chapter 17) winding up on an eastward track to the sea which takes them eight years to accomplish.  However, two important things are laid out at the start of the journey.  The first is that the daughters of Ishmael (the object of Nephi's second fetch quest) are parceled out in marriage to Nephi, his brothers, and Zoram--the servant Nephi had to talk into joining the family because he witnessed the god-commanded, cold-blooded murder of his master.  Ishmael's sons either already have wives who aren't mentioned at all or they just aren't important enough to God, or maybe (more likely) Smith forgot about them (life sucks when you're part of a plot device of a bad author).

The second thing is that Lehi discovers the Liahona outside his tent door the morning he is to leave.  The Liahona (not so named in the text, though apparently it's given a name later in the book), in case you're wondering, is a magical compass.  The later description in Alma 37:38 (the origin of the name "Liahona") explicitly says it's a compass.  It's described in 1 Nephi 16 as a round brass ball of "curious workmanship" containing two "spindles" suspended within, and also some writing.  One of the "spindles" points the direction the party should travel, the other spindle isn't ever mentioned again.  Just from the description alone, it sounds like a compass.  Compasses were not invented at all until four or five hundred years later in China, and they would not find their way to this part of the world for more than a thousand years.  However, the Liahona is supposedly given miraculously by God, so this shouldn't be an issue.  So, while I have to say the presence of the compass is, given the circumstances, not entirely implausible, I have to ask: why a compass?  God, in the Bible, guides many travelers by many means (wise men by a star, Moses and the Israelites by a pillar of cloud by day, and fire by night), but never a compass.  Certainly, God can do whatever he wants, and if He wanted to use a compass in this instance, that's perfectly fine.  However, I have to point out that a compass also fits extremely well with the idea of Smith as the author.  Smith was a 19th Century man, growing up in a human culture spoiled by hundreds of years of reliance on magnetic compasses for navigation (such that the contemporary idea of escaped slaves "following the Drinking Gourd" and actually using the stars for navigation--like humans had before the invention of the compass--was actually considered unusual and creative).  A compass would be his logical choice for guiding a character, possibly to the point of failing to realize that the character should be able to guide himself by other means without a compass.  This was a mistake made by Brian Jacques in his otherwise-excellent book Mariel of Redwall, wherein characters living in a medieval fantasy setting (where navigating by the stars should be common knowledge among travelers and sailors) were forced to rely on a primitive magnetic compass for navigation, even in conditions where other, more familiar means would have been available to them.  I will be watching this compass closely, to see if it's used in a way that's consistent with people living at the time (who would have used it as a divine supplement to their own navigational knowledge using the stars, sun, and landmarks) or in a way that's consistent with more modern people (who are totally reliant on their compass and pathetically helpless without it).

That being said, it should again be noted that the Liahona is a magic compass.  It apparently relays directions from God, but it does so "according to the faith and diligence" the characters pay to it.  That is, it's directions are relative.  This is in keeping with the overall theme of the Book of Mormon, when it comes to knowing truth (as explored in the previous post): that truth can only be found via direct, subjective revelation from God and that receiving this revelation is entirely dependent on the inquirer's ability to believe hard enough.  It's a sort of circular logic where believing something is true magically grants you proof that it is so (why this doesn't work with things that are patently untrue is never explained), and it's the same magic that fuels the little compass.  It's also a magic that's totally absent from the Bible.  In the Bible, the guidance of God is objective--as objective as God Himself.  The cloud that guided the Israelites and Moses was just as thick during the day and just as bright during the night whether the Israelites were giving it due "faith and diligence" or not (mostly not).  The star that guided the wise men was equally visible to them and to skeptics (note that Herod doesn't ask the wise men to show him the star--indicating he can't see it--but when they first saw it--indicating he can see it).

Following these things, Lehi and his family pack up and head out into the wilderness.  Though they bring a lot of supplies according to verse 11, they are soon forced to live off the land.  This is accomplished by Nephi, his brothers, and the sons of Ishmael hunting beasts using their bows and slings (1 Nephi 16:14-15).  However, a problem arises.  After many days of traveling and hunting in this fashion, Nephi breaks his bow.  Because of this, no one gets any food and Nephi's brothers Laman and Lemuel (Sam having been forgotten by the narrative) and the sons of Ishmael complain as starvation sets in for the whole camp.  ...At this point, the appropriate link is to the TVTropes page for Fridge Logic--the bits of internal consistency screw ups that the reader may brush over at the moment but which, on second thought, cause him to realize your entire story makes no sense at all.  The problem is this: in verses 14-15 we have about half a dozen men (4 sons of Lehi and at least two sons of Ishmael--assuming Zoram did no hunting) who are successfully providing food for the entire party by hunting game with their bows and slings.  Three verses later the entire party is on the verge of starvation because one hunter broke his bow.  How did all of the other five hunters suddenly become incapable of providing food for themselves and their families?  What happened to Nephi's sling, and why doesn't anybody know how to make a basic snare?

Fortunately, Smith is not totally oblivious to the gaping plot hole in his story here.  Unfortunately, his solution makes things worse.  The reason the other five (minimum) hunters were reduced to starvation by the loss of Nephi's bow was this: their bows had "lost their springs" (1 Nephi 16:21, direct quote).  Their bows had lost their springs?

Let's get one thing straight.  While a bow is, in the technical language of physical mechanics, considered a spring, it does not have a spring.  If your bow has a spring, you're doing archery wrong.  Since bows do not have springs, they cannot, of course lose springs and thereby be rendered inoperable.  Some online Mormon apologists have proposed that what the Book of Mormon really means is that their bows had lost their springiness, but this also makes no sense.  There is no way to remove the inherent spring-like properties of a bow, short of breaking it.  Just to be sure on this one, I consulted with the archery department where I worked, asking about possible condition issues with wooden longbows (which is the closest to what would have been used by Bronze Age Hebrews, like in the Book of Mormon).  While such bows can suffer defects in the bowstring due to degradation over time (which can be fixed by replacing or rewinding the bowstring) or warping of the limbs due to improper storage (which would cause tension problems, but not a loss of springiness or springs), there is no defect or condition which could be accurately described as the bows "losing their springs."  The condition the Book of Mormon describes is totally impossible and completely incorrect.

Joseph Smith, however, did not have an archery department to consult and evidently (like other 19th Century Americans) knew next to nothing about bows.  He may well have thought that bows could spontaneously "lose their springs" or that his audience could be duped into believing it was so, thus covering over the gaping hole in his logic.  However, for anyone who knows bows, the impossible malfunction only makes the hole bigger still.  Even if you don't know enough about bows to realize Smith is making stuff up, you surely have the intelligence to ask what happened to all those slings from a few verses ago and why nobody in this story ever heard of a snare or other weapon (like spears, also used in hunting).  The answers to these questions are never addressed in the text, but perhaps these animals could magically only be killed by ranged weapons and maybe the slings mentioned earlier had lost their springs as well.

All this would be bad enough, but unfortunately Smith is just getting started.  Even more glaring than the plot hole of how the loss of Nephi's bow managed to reduce half a dozen formerly-competent hunters to starvation is the madness that is Nephi's bow itself.  You see, Nephi's bow is explicitly said to be made of "fine steel."  A large number of problems arise.  The first is that forging steel was generally beyond the capabilities of Bronze Age cultures, like the Hebrews around 600 BC (which is when Nephi supposedly lived).  Examples of ancient steel are very rare and steel metallurgy is nowhere mentioned in the Bible (bronze was the predominant metal, as shown by the special emphasis given to materials made of iron--which, previous to the introduction of steel centuries later--was the hardest known metal).  A common defense is that the Bible does, in fact, mention steel several times...but in truth only the dated KJV mentions steel, and this is due to a mistranslation of the word nuchushtan.  All other translations correctly render the word "bronze."  Apologists then try to apply this solution to the Book of Mormon, but in doing so they run into flat contradiction of the Book of Mormon's self-description as "the most correct" book--for if the Book of Mormon mistranslates the word for "bronze" as "steel," then logically books that translate the word correctly (such as any modern Bible translation) are more correct!  Furthermore, the official descriptions of how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon character-by-character with divine inspiration completely rule out the possibility of translation error--so either the bow was really made of steel or Smith is a fraud.

This brings us to the question of whether or not steel (or bronze) is a suitable material for making a bow.  The answer is no, on both counts.  It's true that spring steel can be used to make a good crossbow, and that alloys of bronze with shape memory (allowing them to "spring back" rather than deforming) would eventually be developed, neither of these things existed in Nephi's time.  Apologists have argued long and hard that the presence of ancient iron (both forged and meteoric) and one-off articles of low-quality steel equals the availability of spring steel in sufficient quantities that people would start making bows out of it--but the truth is that it is long hard road from haphazardly producing a little steel here and there to producing quality spring steel you can make a bow out of.  It is also a road that leaves a clear archaeological record (if not in the steel articles themselves, at least in the forges and facilities required to make them, and the primary sources that would mention them).  The simple fact is that the metallurgy necessary to make a practical steel or bronze bow in 600 BC simply did not exist.  A Mormon apologist may make a last-ditch defense by saying it is hypocritical for me, a Bible believer, to criticize the Book of Mormon for its one reference to a steel bow when the Bible has three references to steel (or bronze) bows, but an examination of the text deflates this argument.  In the Bible, all three references to impractical metal bows are poetic--they are not intended to describe any real or even realistic weapon.  However, in the Book of Mormon, the steel bow of Nephi is paraded as a historical fact in a historical narrative: so either he had a real, genuine steel bow or--as that proves implausible--the Book of Mormon is lying to us.

There is, of course, a very plausible explanation for why the Book of Mormon would contain a steel bow, even if it were untrue.  Smith would no doubt have thought the idea sounded awe-inspiring and (as it appears three times in the KJV of the Bible, which Smith would have been familiar with) Biblical.  He would have therefore been certain to include it, adding awesome-but-impractical weapons to an inventory that already contains impractical-but-awesome gold and brass books.  It is in total keeping with his style as a writer.

What Went Right in the Rock

A post by a friend of mine recently reminded me that there were many good things at Summitview and the Rock.  While I maintain my criticisms, I don't want to forget the good things as well, things I hope the Rock continues to hold on to and things I wish to hold on to as I go to a new church.  I also have to admit that my experiences and perhaps my perfectionist side tends to bias me toward negative criticism.  I want to correct that by listing some of the positives.

1. Sound Teachings: It may seem odd to mention this as a major strength of a church whose teachings I disagree with.  To be clear, though, I disagree with what is taught privately through "council" and how those teachings are put into practice.  In the church and college ministry's public teachings, one would be very hard pressed to find fault (many at the Decommissioned Forum have tried, and the mental gymnastics required to do so is one of the reasons I am no longer with that forum).  Public teaching was very sound and Biblical.  It was also balanced and emphasized a desire to connect with other churches (something that GCC churches and the Rock have historically struggled with).  I would very much like to see this kind of teaching continue and, in fact, hope it manages one day to suffuse the entire organization's beliefs and practices, public and private.  Many of my negative experiences would have been quite different if the public teachings had been applied privately (for example, the unity of believers was a common topic during the time when the rift between me and the young woman was being allowed to expand into our other relationships; also the week I left because the leaders told me to follow others over direct leading from God, the sermon was on praying to God for guidance and listening to Him).
2. Apologetics: While this could be considered a subset of sound teaching, it deserves special mention.  I had never before been in a group of Christians which so specialized in sound apologetics.  Here, the Rock contrasts very favorably with the Navs.  In the Navs I would run into members and even leaders who thought that Neo-Darwinian evolution was perfectly compatible with the Bible and Christianity or (as one of them confessed) simply tried not to think about the apparent contradictions as they believed both.  There were other areas as well where Navs were content to live a not-well-thought-out faith.  This was a weakness.  In the Rock, though, even casual members could probably give you three reasons why a literal interpretation of Genesis was a better fit with the scientific evidence, just from listening to a few of John Meyer's sermons.  Apologetics didn't come just from sermons, though.  There were additional "classes" students could take in the Rock which would give a more in-depth look, and the church seems to have hosted at least one speaker on apologetics each year, generally on Creation or some other hot-button topic in the world of a college student (this past semester they hosted a speaker on responding to homosexuality Biblically--I regret that I was unable to attend that conference).  There was even one year where the small groups in the Rock spent their Bible study time watching and discussing The Truth Project, a video series designed to give a comprehensive grasp of apologetics.  Critical thinking was (and no doubt still is) a required course at the Rock, which is perhaps why it surprises me so much that so little of it is applied to the private teachings and practices there, many of which would collapse under a fraction of the scrutiny Rockers automatically bring to bear on outside heresies.
3. Evangelism: While the Rock and Summitview are officially non-denominational, their teaching and practice puts them firmly in the realm of Evangelical Protestant Christianity.  Evangelism is a big deal around the Rock, bigger even than in the Navs.  The Navs had an "evangelism team" that went out cold-turkey sharing every week, but in the Rock every small group meeting or activity (and there was generally one every night of the week, whether everybody could make it or not) has the potential to be used as outreach and many are for that express purpose.  The Rock is very good at evangelism and focuses very strongly on it.  Several of my friends owe their salvation to the outreach efforts of the Rock, which is more than I can say for any other Christian group I've been involved with before or since.  It makes sense that the Rock and Summitview would be strong evangelically, too.  After all, they're part of the Great Commission Church movement.  I may never have had any concrete idea on what that movement was and where it came from until after I left and looked up its history myself (the history given to members joining the church--unless it's been updated--is extraordinarily vague), but I was clear about one thing: the great commission and its call to evangelize was one of (if not the) main focus of the group (this was why it was so shocking to me when a leader let emotional purity override the great commission).  I think the Rock needs to keep an evangelistic focus, and would only caution that some balance is necessary.  Evangelism has become such a focus in the group that it is sometimes difficult for a member to imagine any other purpose in being a Christian, or any other role for a Christian to take in the church (though according to Ephesians 4:11 this is only one of several important roles in the Church, and, as the Navs have it "to know Christ" comes before "to make Him known" in importance and order).  In my own time at the Rock, evangelism became the defining mark of Christianity to me, and it took me a lot of studying and caused me a lot of shock to find out that, Biblically, the real mark of Christians and the true highest commandment of Christ isn't the great commission but the New Commandment to "Love one another" (John 13:34).
4. Community: The Rock was very effective at building communities of believers out of widely dissimilar individuals.  Small groups became very close-knit and viewed one another like families.  In explaining my attempts to get onto a small group (called a "D-Team" or a "House Church" currently) to those outside of the Rock and Summitview, I ran into a language barrier.  I had chosen to call them "Bible study groups" to avoid having to explain what I meant by "D-Team" all the time and since the small groups' major meeting is a midweek Bible study.  But the term turned out to be misleading.  In the Navs and in other groups, Bible studies are temporary arrangements which meet together only for actual Bible studies.  In the Rock, a D-Team is far more than a Bible study.  For all intents and purposes, when you join a D-Team, you automatically gain anywhere from a half-dozen to twenty new friends, some of whom may be quite close.  There is only one official meeting of each Team every week, but there are many unofficial meetings as well.  Teams sit together during the Rock's worship service and during church on Sunday.  After both, they will almost always go out together for a meal or fun group activity (or both).  If you go to a conference or retreat, you can expect to go with and spend the entire time with your Team (I went once without a Team, and it was very difficult with several periods of time where I was in limbo because the activities planned to fill that time were all Team-based).  Additionally, any discipleship relationships that are formed will (with the exception of leaders, who are discipled by other leaders higher up) be formed within the Team.  Given that you already hang out with the members of your Team frequently, Teams tend to fulfill many unofficial functions as well.  Transportation arrangements are almost invariably made within the Team.  Housing arrangements often come out this way, too.  Study groups and gaming groups spring up within them as well.  In this way, it is fairly typical for a member of the Rock to be hanging out or doing something with at least one member of their Team every day of the week.  Your Team is your friends and your friends, the Team.  This arrangement has the benefits of creating a closely-knit small community of believers, and I cherish the memories of the fellowship I had in that community.  At the same time, the arrangement does have some drawbacks.  Since one's own Team consumes so much time and social energy, some may find it hard to form or maintain friendships outside of their Team, much less outside of the Rock.  This also explains why many ex-members like myself have found that to leave a Team or the church is to lose all of their friends.  It is not, as I discovered when I returned, that the friendships formed in the Rock are all fair-weather friends, highly dependent on one's organizational loyalty.  Instead, the most likely explanation is that Teams are such all-consuming social structures that they leave little room for relationships outside their confines.  If there were some way to balance the community-building property's of the Team with a greater openness and availability toward outside friendships, that would be ideal.  There are some indications that the Rock is moving in this direction.
5. Gender Roles: This is a very odd praise, considering how much I've spoken against the state of gender relations in the Rock.  While I stand by my criticism, there is something to be said for the Rock's approach to gender.  The teachings of the Rock and Summitview do present elements of a solid framework for approaching gender Biblically and traditionally.  Biblically, they have maintained male-only leaderships positions over mixed groups and provided some good apologetic defense of that.  They also have a good emphasis on Biblical marriage relations (not long before I left, there was a sermon that touched on Ephesians 5 and was very Biblically sound).  The church is also excellent for setting up and training for traditional family gender roles of the husband as a the breadwinner and the wife as the homemaker and child-rearer.  The danger comes in confusing the traditional with the Biblical: the traditional roles have roots in our culture, but not necessarily in the Bible.  This distinction does not seem to have been made very clear in the Rock or the church at large, leading to several of the "Myths of Summitview" blog posts on the church site becoming necessary (the misconception that homeschooling is the only right choice, that larger families are inherently more "faithful," that working mothers are unbiblical, and the whole dogma around emotional purity).  Additionally, while there is no problem with any of the traditional roles or values in isolation (even emotional purity can be a good thing if practiced as a private conviction--though I have never seen or heard of it being so used), these roles and values are often applied too broadly and accepted with too little examination.  For example, a common report among women is the huge emphasis on marriage and family, but this is not appropriate for all women, as the Bible says that some Christians (including members of both sexes) are called to celibacy (something which is, from a Biblical perspective, severely undervalued by most Protestants).  So while teachings on gender relations need to continue, I do feel they need to be balanced by a firm delineation between what is traditional and what is scriptural and a refusal to insist that everyone conform to values, practices, or roles that lack firm Biblical support.
6. Cookies: Snacks after the service make everyone happy.  Enough said!

This list is not comprehensive.  There are probably some things I left out, but I think this hits the highlights.  There are still some mixed blessings out there, of course, like the emphasis on seeking council (which is good, but should not be the be-all-end-all of decision making) or not gossiping.  On the one hand, gossip is a sin and is given very little attention by most Christian groups.  On the other hand, the emphasis on gossip caused no noticeable drop in negative comments about other Christians in or outside the Rock compared to other groups (I actually heard a lot more negative talk about other Christians while in the Rock, from members and leaders in good standing--let alone those like me who weren't--than I ever did in the Navs) and was/is commonly used to deflect valid criticism which might otherwise be used constructively to help the group grow.  There are also a number of aspects of the church I never got to witness, like the children's ministry or the other life-stage ministries like Symbio.  Still, it does show where some of the group's strengths lie, and some of the things I'll be looking for as I move on.

Reflecting on 2013

2013 was a busy year for me.  A lot happened!

To start with, I've had three jobs and three homes in three cities.  I started the year living at with my parents in Colorado Springs and working at the local Walmart as a cashier.  Quitting there in April without another job to go to, I was offered a position at the YMCA of the Rockies in Snow Mountain Ranch not one week later.  I returned to live on campus there in what is technically Granby, Colorado--but practically the middle of nowhere.  While working there as a janitor, I continued to seek work for an eventual move to Fort Collins, finding employment at JAX as a cashier.  This prompted another move at the end of Septemeber, to my present job and my present home.  I am happy with my job as it is now.  The pay, hours, and work are all good, and the employer is absolutely amazing, an inspiration of servant leadership in action.  My hope going into 2014 is to stay with this company in this city, though I may try to find other housing arrangements when my lease is up this summer.

The three moves necessitated three churches, which has made connecting with other Christians difficult, but I have made a few friends among my brothers and sisters that I'm proud to call my own.  Much attention throughout the year actually focused on one church, Summitview Community Church, which I had attended while in college.  At the beginning of the year, I was reeling from having been kicked out of a small group in that church's college ministry (the Rock) for a conflict which was supposedly all my fault.  The previous summer, I had found out that the conflict was largely due to emotional purity and leadership mishandling of the situation--and that the Great Commission Church movement of which Summitview is a part had confessed to mishandling similar conflicts in the same way over 21 years ago.  At the beginning of the year, I was on the "De-Commissioned Forum" made for and by ex-members of the GCC, including several newcomers from Summitview and the Rock.  While there, I stumbled upon an article by the current leader of the GCC, John Hopler, and took exception to it, contacting him to voice my criticism.  To my surprise, he responded and publicly apologized.  Hopler worked tirelessly to get me in touch with the pastor of Summitview and the people I had been in conflict with the year previous.  As a result of his efforts, I was put in touch with the leader who'd given me the boot and the young woman who'd thought it necessary to protect her emotional purity.  Both apologized and the work of repairing these broken relationships began.  Unfortunately, in late June any hope of restoring some semblance of Christian love and unity with the young woman was lost when she sent me a sudden accusatory email (wherein she alleged that I was harassing her by trying to be friends with her, which she'd said she wanted to be, and by trying to resolve a conflict between us she'd said was bothering her--but of course admitted it would not be harassment if I was a girl) and cut all contact between us.  Though fellowship with her was ruined, I still felt I had reconciled with leadership of Summitview and the Rock and could return to both without problems.  I was wrong.  The young woman was already a member of both and was unwilling to share mutual friends and relationships, and leadership was still quite willing to take her side under the dictates of emotional purity.  By the end of November, I realized that even though my own position had changed and I was willing to allow the young woman to ignore me and have no fellowship with me as she pleased, the leadership's position had not changed and the young woman's position had only crystallized beyond absurdity.  In a final meeting, positions on the understanding of God's will that the leaders had specifically disavowed only a few months ago were reaffirmed (specifically, the position that a Christian should listen to their peers and leaders moreso than the Spirit directly speaking to them).  I walked out of that meeting and left that church.  I posted a defense regarding the emotional-purity based accusations which had been made of me and began to seek a new church.

All of this led to a lot of spiritual and emotional turmoil for me.  As my posts this year reflect, God has been speaking to me consistently about the importance of love and unity and I have tried consistently to pursue these things with the young woman, the Rock, and Summitview.  I have learned the value of such love and unity in their absence.  I have also learned that achieving them is something that must be accomplished with conscious effort by all parties involved, or not at all.  One party was definitely not interested, and so unity was broken.  But that wasn't the only thing I learned.  I learned what sort of a man I am, what I'm capable of, and whom I follow.  I learned I am a good man, committed to love and unity, that I am capable of pursuing these causes far beyond the point where others would have given up, and that I follow God and none other, no matter what.  One of the leaders of the Rock said he was praying this would be a watershed decision for me, to build me up for days ahead.  I do not pretend to know what kind of character he was hoping for, but I am pleased by how my character has developed through my seven year trial.  It bodes well for my ability to face whatever is to come, I think.  Nevertheless, I am glad that the trial is over and that the Rock and the young woman are behind me now.

I move on to other trials.  Beginning in June of this year, I began to read the Book of Mormon, taking seriously its challenge to read and study it, and putting to the test its claim to be comparable to the Bible.  The Comparable to the Bible Series was born.  While the actual business of seeing if the Book of Mormon measures up to the Bible has been a dismal failure (14 posts and most of one book in, and I can already say with certainty that the Book of Mormon isn't remotely in the same league as the Bible), the business of writing them and reading the Book of Mormon has been a success.  I have grown tremendously in my appreciation of the Bible and Christianity by comparing them with their fraudulent counterparts.  Additionally, the business has now put me in touch with a number of Mormon missionaries and given me an opportunity to present the gospel to them.

In other writing news, I finished my draft of my first-to-be-published fantasy novel this year and put it up for Open Beta, gathering reader feedback in preparation for a round of editing this coming summer, followed by publication!  I am very excited about this.  In the wake of this project's completion, I've turned my attention to other ventures.  I've completed two Star Trek Online fan fiction stories, with a third underway, as well as a novel-length fan fiction for The Secret World (all of which can be found here).  I've also spent a lot of time working on worldbuilding and backstory for an original dystopian military science fiction.  I even have a partial draft for a short story set in that universe, which I plan to continue and finish.  Speaking of things I have plans to continue, there's my old webcomic, "Dragon Hunt".  Long neglected on the back-burner, I worked out a script for the rest of chapter 4 earlier this summer and found it again today.  On New Year's Eve I also managed to recover the critical files for restarting the comic.  I also know how to overcome the technical hurdles which caused it to stop being produced last time around (I could not get my computer to render crowd scenes, but now I can just make a bunch of separate renders of different people and combine them to get a large crowd).  The only thing left is actually sitting down and doing the renders and postwork--which means the adventures of Bill and Lia should be returning soon.

So looking back, 2013 was a busy year and a hard year in many ways, but overall, a good one.  I look forward to discovering what 2014 will bring!