Ben Bernards

06/01/2026

Making sense of the Tabernacle stories in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament is always a challenge. Try looking at them through the lens of Egyptian history and they'll become a little bit clearer.

04/23/2026

{discussion in Elder's Quorum on whether or not calling out leaders to beware of 'just checking the box' is good / useful / harmful...}

One of the challenges with “checking the box”-style of management is that it is very susceptible to the The Cobra Principle, where focusing on the measure can result in greater efforts to reach the measure, rather than the actual intended outcome **beyond** the measure.

The Cobra Principle derives from an (apocryphal?) story in colonial India.

When faced with a surging population of invasive cobra snakes, the British government announced a new program that would surely solve it — a new cash bounty for every dead snake turned into local officials.

The poor people responded as expected, rounding up and killing snakes with greater effort than before, working together as communities to eradicate nests, reaching out to make sure no stone was left unturned.

But officials were surprised to find that, even after several months of sustained, diligent effort, dead snakes were being turned in for bounties. ‘Surely the snake population would have decreased by now?’ they thought. ‘Where are all these snakes coming from? are there hidden nests we couldn’t see? was the problem worse than we’d originally thought? are they coming in from across the border?’

It turns out that, yes, the cobras were coming from nests the officials couldn’t see.

They were coming from the locals themselves.

The townsfolk realized that the cash reward they received from turning in dead cobras was an easy source of income, and they’d be willing to live with a contained problem (their own nests) in order to continuously reach the desired outcome (rewards for dead cobras.) Rather than focusing on exterminating, the townsfolk were just farming money.

So what did the officials do? They stopped the bounty program and went back to the drawing board.

And what do you guess the townsfolk did, now that there was no reward for dead cobras?

That’s right — they just turned them loose to let ‘someone else…’ deal with them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Resulting in even more cobras than there were before.

The Cobra Principle: when the intended solution to a problem actually makes the problem worse due to perverse incentives and focusing on the wrong behavior.

If you focus heavily on The Measure™️, you run the risk of behavior adjusting to merely meet the measure, even in negative methods, rather than the original positive intended outcome.

So when people call out “Hey, let’s be careful that we’re not merely ‘checking the box…’, perhaps let’s not be so ready to judge them as 'aggrieving the spirit', or 'being prideful', or 'using unrighteous judgement', or being a critic.

They’re actually trying to help you, in the same way that a warning signal from your dashboard is telling you that something is wrong.

Don’t shut down feedback from the quorum.

If you find yourself feeling defensive, upset, bothered, or otherwise perturbed that someone called you out for ‘checking the box’…you need to take that as good information useful for reflection and adjustment, rather than throwing it back in their face with a ‘stop being prideful and judgmental.’

Because that’s an instant way to lose followers, disengage your brethren, and continue the long slow fading out of their faith and partnership.

04/14/2026

Thoughts on 'Taking on the Name of Christ' from an LDS / Mormon Elder's Quorum discussion this week
Let's talk about it 🧵

The way we *Identify* ourselves as humans is fascinating to me.

One interpretive lens for understanding our Identity markers is whether they are 'Inherent' (born with them, can't change them, but could mitigate them) or 'Acquired' (they're chosen, either for us or by us.)

Skin color, left / right-handedness, neurotypology, sexuality, etc. : Inherent

Career, skills, talents, clubs, discipleship, etc. : Acquired

Another lens: Temporality.

Inherent Identity markers are more or less permanent, while Acquired Identity markers are usually Temporary

Yet another lens: Eternal Significance.

The less choice we have in the identity marker, the less it seems to be concerning to Heaven. Inherent markers are irrelevant, in the best way. If we're all created 'in the image of God', then every one of those markers from Him. Which mean's they're all beautiful.

What He cares most about are the Identities we *chose*.

So much of Christian Discipleship seems to focus on merely Identifying oneself as Christian...as if a mere label / hat / name tag / position in a Sunday pew were sufficient.

I think that's where we get it wrong. It's the Starting Line, not the Finish. The goal is for Identity to lead to Remembrance, which leads to Alignment, which leads to Emulation, which finally results in Empowerment.

And isn't it fascinating how linking our name to someone else's, making their identity part of ours, somehow **change** our behavior? Why is that?

When we get beyond mere Identity markers and truly Align our behavior with God's, we'll find ourselves Emulating him. And that's where the real changes start to unfold...especially as we stop drawing imaginary boundaries around the Inherent Identity markers around us.

The Crux comes, however, when we realize that our Choices and Actions might not be aligned with our internal Moral Values.
We'll feel the discomfort of Cognitive Dissonance when we admit to the reality of Misalignment between what we Choose and what we Claim to Value.

No amount of distraction, hand-waving, or obfuscation will assuage the conscience when faced with the reality of moral misalignment. Our Inner Peace will only be found when the gap between Values and Choices = 0.

This process of beginning to Identify with Jesus is only strengthened as we Remember him, which can lead to true Emulation, develop into Aligning our will with His and choosing to walk as He did, which brings us one of the great blessings of Discipleship: Empowerment.

Not power over others, not even power over our own situation -- we won't find easier paths or simpler questions...but we will find greater strength to endure the unavoidable difficulties.
Choosing to align with Jesus won't remove trials or temptations or heartaches -- it will merely strengthen us to withstand them **better**.

04/12/2026

Bishop stops to shake my hand, sees my lapel pin and squints… “huh, cool. Never seen one like that before “

Me: 🙂🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Jesus loves rainbows. It’s a good Sunday.

03/22/2026

Something to watch out for when reading the Old Testament - the Bias of Univocality.

It’s not one single book written by one single author or universally inspired. It’s a collection of oral traditions, some written centuries after the events they describe, each with a different intent. Their meanings are ‘negotiated’ in real-time.

02/15/2026

Things I Never Learned in Sunday School:
The One About Faith Construction, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction

How we handle new information, especially when it challenges our previously held beliefs, reflects our level of spiritual maturity, emotional resilience, and intellectual honesty and curiosity.

It can feel scary and unsettling when presented with new info, especially when it doesn't fit into our worldview. But we can't 'un-bite the apple'; we can't unsee what we've seen or un-know what we know.

Because that was never the goal.

We're not trying to go back towards Eden, in a state of childhood innocence.

The point of life is to go *forward*.
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02/01/2026

Things I Never Learned in Sunday School:

The One About Scriptures, History, the Past, and More
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01/26/2026

11/23/2025

When cousin comes to play, all brain cells go out the window

11/02/2025