Every so often I meet someone who has chipped a nail and then concludes as a result that there is no God or that God is not good. While there are variations on the theme, the bottom line is that the person has noticed adversity and decided that there is a level of adversity that is “too much” and from which they conclude that faith is vain.
Monthly Archives: March 2008
Unto the Pure
Not too long ago I came across an interesting passage in the New Testament that caught my attention and gave me pause. It is found in the obscure book of Titus, chaper 1 verse 15, which reads: “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.” I read it over a few times, trying to make sense of it…trying to see if it was saying what I thought it was saying.
My Disenchantment with Church and State—Part 2 The State
MY DISENCHANTMENT WITH THE STATE Perhaps I should blame Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Amy Goodman or John Pilger for my enlightenment. Or perhaps I should thank the neocons, George Bush and Tony Blair for waging an illegal war, as judged by the UN, in Iraq and destroying my naive ideal of the United States & UK. I am only 25 and had never experienced the fears of recession or seen, first hand, the duplicity of my own government before. As time went on, I began to read, download, and read more. Why was the world I knew as a...
The Jagged Little Pill We Call Mormonism
. . . . there I was writing my ex-wife a letter trying to explain what a Temple Marriage and Sealing is and what it means regarding our son. You see my current wife and I wanted her daughter, my older son, and our younger son, to all be sealed to us in the Mormon Temple. One of our many obstacles was my son was only 15 and needed the consent of both of his living parents. The other obstacle was my wife’s daughter was 18 and needed the same consent from her bio-father (even the Bishop had to...
The LDS Church and the BSA: Part 2 Why Scouting Won’t Disappear
After what has been discussed about Scouting in the Church, I wanted to share some inside information that I have to explain why the Church will probably stay with Scouting (Cetus Paribus, meaning the homosexual ban remaining). A year ago I was part of a seminar with Frazier Bullock, who is an area authority in Utah, who presented a presentation about Scouting. If you’d like it I have it and can send it to you. The presentation outlined that along the Wasatch Front, 40-50% of young men are going inactive. This is not because they are reading Fawn Brodie,...
“Believest thou…?”: Faith, Cognitive Dissonance, and the Psychology of Religious Experience by Wendy Ulrich, Ph.D
Once upon a time there was a young man that grew up in a wonderful Mormon family. Though he had no regrets about growing up Mormon, he had to admit he was different in one way from his family and others; he was innately an intellectual. Now by this, I do not mean he had a better intellect that others, far from it. By this I only mean he was less spiritually intuitive and often found himself trying to use his intellect on things even if there weren’t enough facts to draw any realistic conclusions. One day, after many years of...
My Disenchantment with Church and State—Part 1 The Church
MY DISENCHANTMENT WITH CHURCH As long as I can remember, I was always rebellious against what I felt was unjust coercion, but I feel it was not until my mission that I started to come into conflict with authority.
Scouting is a What?
By the 1980s the Church had clear and convincing statistical evidence that Scouting had no net positive effect on the long term success of LDS youth (using gospel markers such as temple marriage and missions) or on their activity rates. Several efforts were made to look for replacements. More than twenty years later, the last “counseling” session between a member of the Seventy and local leadership in Oregon finished with one of the brothers asking for the Church to just scrap the Scouts and to use the Young Women’s program until further notice. You might ask, what has happened...
The Unfinished Restoration: A Global Vision
Mormons tend to think of the Restoration as a discrete series of events that began with the First Vision and concluded with the Martyrdom. Because we tend to view the Restoration as something that has already occurred, we don’t seem to talk much about whether there is something more we can and should be doing to complete it. However, there is an aspect of the Restoration that is unfinished, and which seems to be largely overlooked.
My Top Ten Cultural Sins, or Why I Don’t Mark My Scriptures
10. I don’t mark my scriptures. The last time I did was 12 years ago and it was to make it easier to find the key scripture passages I used to teach the missionary discussions. I still have my marked-up seminary scriptures. They are sadly disfigured from the brutal SoCal scripture chases I put them through on a daily basis in high school.
Religions in Their Own Words – Morality in Representing Other Religions
Several posts ago, I wrote about the morality of other Christians referring to Mormons as non-Christian without explaining their non-standard use of the word “Christian.” Far from claiming that they should call us “Christians” I suggested how they could morally call us “non-Christians” without misrepresenting our beliefs. That article was actually a heavily modified letter I had written to an Evangelical in defense of Jehovah’s Witnesses, not Mormons. In retrospect it was a mistake for me to change it to be a defense of Mormons because it brought the subject matter too close to home and, I suspect, caused people...
Clinton Comes to Kirtland
I was in the offices of the new Kirtland Temple Visitor Center last Thursday when the call came through. According to the mayor’s office, Bill Clinton was coming to Kirtland on Saturday — to hold a rally and to tour the Temple. This would make Clinton the first US President to tour the Temple since James Garfield. The Temple staffmembers were excited, but skeptical. If Clinton were coming, wouldn’t they have heard from the secret service directly?
The Church and the BSA: part 1
In 2010, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) will celebrate its Centennial anniversary. In 2012, the Church will celebrate its centennial contract with the BSA. With these upcoming historic events, its likely controversy over the BSA and its links with the LDS Church will grow for a time. On a macro scale, the BSA is no different than any other not-for-profit organization. It has a board, professionals, organization structure that is completely independent of the Church. Only 17%-18% of all units are LDS sponsored. Mormons and Methodists trade off on who charters more units. On a local scale, wards...
Can We Laugh Here?
It seems almost every Sunday in our ward someone takes the time to crack a joke from the podium. I find this ever so wonderful being one who enjoys a good laugh. But what I have found out, by pure experimentation, is that I am the only one in the congregation laughing. I have wondered if it was purely me being a chuckle head but as I look to my left my wife is laughing also. I know they all these people have a sense of humor. . . . or do I.
Testimony Part 1: ” I Know the Church is True”
The first time I attended the LDS Church was a Fast and Testimony Meeting at the University Ward in Berkeley, California. Coming from a background where a liturgy was the Sabbath Service with very small amount of a sermon or speech coming from the Rabbi or Bar/Bat Mitzvah kid, I was just dumbfounded. The idea of members of the congregation getting up and just speaking extemporaneously was shocking to me. I was incredibly impressed and really enjoyed it even if, at the time, I had very little clue what they were talking about.
Reed Smoot Hearings: A Review and What it Says About Today
Title: The Mormon Church On Trial: Transcripts of the Reed Smoot Hearings Editor: Michael Harold Paulos Publisher: Signature Books Reviewed by Nicholas S. Literski For decades, talk of the Reed Smoot Hearings has conjured up claims of religious persecution, duplicitous testimony, and shocking admissions. Intimidated by the multiple volumes of original source material, would-be historians have settled for short excerpts and whispered rumors. That day has passed, and we have Michael Harold Paulos to thank for it. Condensing thousands of pages of testimony into a single volume presents tremendous challenges. Editorial bias, consciously or not, continually threatens to interfere with an...
What Happens When We Die? A “New” Perspective?
This past wave of media attention on Mormonism has not been very kind. In a number of venues and outlets, ranging from national network news, to the mainstream newspapers, to blogs and Youtube, many Mormon beliefs have been lampooned for their oddities and eccentricities as they came to the forefront of public awareness. Often times the portayal was something to the effect of “Mormons are nice, hardworking ethical people, but their belief system is nothing more than a hodgepodge of 19th century fantasy mixed with some biblical overtones.” However I recently came across a very interesting news spot from...
“Please bless the food that it may change on a molecular level to provide us with additional strength that we would not get otherwise…”
I’m out of the YSA circuit now, but when I was there I often heard the prayer, “Please bless the refreshments, that they may nourish and strengthen our bodies.” It was funny because the “refreshments” were usually cookies and punch. I am glad I was never called on to bless the refreshments, because I probably would have refused. Putting the questionable nourishing power of donuts aside, why do we ask for a blessing on the food? Do we expect it to change the food in some way? What kind of change?
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