This Thursday or Friday, someone at the Church Office building will get a phone call and make the long walk to President Monson’s office. By the time he leaves, he will have traded in his current position for a lifetime calling as an apostle. We’ll find out Saturday who he is, but why “stand idly, looking on” when we can spend four days speculating?
Recently heard, and not necessarily in order: Logic tells us that Jesus Christ really lived. Think about it. The calendar. B.C. Before Christ. How could people have missed that?
A whistleblower is someone internal to an organization who alleges misconduct. So, what if the organization is the church? Does the church handle whistleblowers effectively or not? If so, how? If not, why not?
I decided to spare everyone the full title of this article: Why Bearded, Blue-Shirt-Wearing African-Americans Who Support Extension of the Priesthood to Women who love Pr0n are Depressed. (And that title, if you can believe it, is actually culled from what the internal memos discussed). I’m sure there are several writers on site who are busily searching through intellectual copyright law as I speak, so I must speak quickly before I get shut down (not to mention before the Bearded, Blue-Shirt-Wearing African Americans and Women who love Pr0n nab me for libel). The other day, John C at BCC...
I know the LDS church has no official views on evolution. I had someone ask me what I thought about it, and frankly, I haven’t given much thought about it. As I understand, there are people at BYU who believe in evolution, but I think they believe that evolution has limits, and don’t rule out that God created the world. DPC commented on my blog,
I am on the Stake Missionary Committee, and Wednesday night we had a fascinating set of meetings. I couldn’t help but think as the meetings unfolded that everyone here would have been shocked at the conversation flow and the end result of our final committee meeting. I don’t want to go into lots of detail, but I do want to recap two highlights and ask everyone here the same question my Stake President asked us: What advice would you have me give our Bishops?
A while back I was reading an article by Seth Payne (and I blogged about it on my personal blog from a slightly different perspective)…and I guess I was most impressed/shocked by something that Seth had done. See, while I was already interested in the paper because he tried to analyze the Ex-Mormon exit narrative (I’m just a sucker for that…even if someone gets it wrong , but fortunately Seth had a reasonable analysis, I think) what I didn’t expect was in this shift that Seth took. Rather than speaking about...
I’ve always been under the impression that premeditated murder is an unforgivable sin. Is it?
I am struck regularly by how many members fail to focus on Jesus’ life and realize that there are incredible lessons (particularly in the Gospels) about specific things we can do to become more like Him – things that can lessen the effects of our sins and actually help decrease the frequency of those sins – thus bringing internal peace and a measure of calmness to our lives in the here and now. I believe we sometimes buy into the apostate obsession with the afterlife – as though it’s OK to be miserable here, since we’ll be happy there....
The following are four approaches one can take when addressing another’s faith.* Exclusivist – Believe in “the only true church.” Exclusivists may see the church or the restored gospel as the only means of salvation. They may not openly try to share the gospel with everyone, everywhere, but that is their goal. The most obvious members in this category often include “I know this is the only true church” in bearing their testimony. They may appear to be intolerant of other religions practices, or be accused of having an agenda in their relationships with non-members. Rejectionist – Basic religious...
This is a post from my blog I did previously, with some updates. I will confess that I love learning about the Middle East. I love learning more about Jews, Muslims, Arabs, etc. I have so much to learn. I’m a grad student working on some genetic studies (one of my many jobs). As part of the genetic study we are doing, we have our study participants tell us their race. In medical studies, different treatments can affect different races quite dramatically.
OK, I realize that the majority of our regular readership are probably not BSG watchers; however, since the reimagined series is based on the original late-1970s series created by Glen Larson, who used it as a vehicle for Mormon themes and theological musings, it’s likely that there are Mormons (beside me) who followed this much bleaker (and a gazillion times better) version. This post is ONLY for those who have seen the Series Finale; it not only contains spoilers but is incomprehensible if you haven’t followed the show or watched the finale. If this isn’t you, go rent the...
My son received a large white envelope from SLC yesterday, and he had to wait four hours to open it, so that his mother and siblings could get home. We then rushed to a ward party, where, obviously, his call was the main topic of conversation – since his brother and sisters had immediately published the info on Facebook, and his parents had done the same on their personal blogs. The details are as follows:
One aspect of the church that makes me nervous at times is the alliances we form when our interests coincide with other groups, whether this is in the political realm (as is often the case), or even at times in interfaith work we undertake.
I was sick over the bitterest month of the winter. It was just one grueling, annoying, or depressing illness after another. First it was a flu, which turned into a sinus infection, and then an awful throat infection, followed by a cold. I was miserable, and, no doubt, miserable to be around. Late one night in the middle of it all, I considered my roommate. He was a friend of mine and also the Elders Quorum President. It came to my mind to ask him for a blessing, using consecrated oil. I desperately wanted to be healed from this...
Here’s the one lesson I learned from my 3.5 year stint as an Elders Quorum President: never, ever aspire to be a Bishop. Seriously, it is a thankless job. To put a finer point on it, being a Bishop is an honest-to-goodness, up-to-40-hours-per-week, full-time thankless job. Not to mention the fact that the pay (-10%) is really lousy. An evergreen subject here in the Bloggernacle, it seems, is the outing of “bad Bishops.” I cannot begin to count the number of posts and comments I have read over the past few years in which people have complained about all...
Since today is St Patrick’s Day, I wanted to write a quick post about St Patrick. Few people know his story. I know that Mormons love to tell and listen to great missionary stories, and I think Patrick is an example of forgiveness, missionary work, and Christian service. I’ll keep it brief, but a longer version of this post can be found here.
One of my fencing coaches often relates a story about how she despises the parents of little fencing kids. And this is not isolated. Soccer moms, fencing moms, Girl Scout moms, etc., etc., are all insane. As my coach relates this story, she points out the reasoning of fencing moms: if their kid is doing well, it’s because their kid is the greatest thing ever in the world and will become an Olympic fencer. If their kid isn’t doing well, it’s because the coach is terrible and the kid needs to go to a better club. It couldn’t be...
Last week, there was some heated debate here about More Open Mormon History. I don’t want to open that exact same discussion all over again, but I do want to look a little more closely at the motivation behind our conversations here. I find Jude 1:4, 8-10 to be absolutely fascinating. I have eliminated the skipped verses (5-7) and focused directly on the underlying attitude addressed in the overall passage and one specific application of it – and its implication for each and every one of us as we converse without being able to see each other.
In the next month or so I will be teaching a six-week Sunday School course based on “Strengthening Marriage: A Resource Guide for Couples” from LDS.org. Has anyone taught or been in this class (or any class in the church on relationships) before? What worked? What didn’t? What was interesting? What was boring?
