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? Continue reading…
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? Continue reading…
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 made another Monday Morning Theological Poll and asked: “True or False: If someone wishes to leave the church, it is because they have some grave, unconfessed sin?”
…I don’t know how representative BCC is of Mormondom as a whole, but if we can but abuse statistics for this one time, we can come to the conclusion that, overwhelmingly, Mormons do not believe such a claim. Just looking at the stats, more Mormons percentage-wise say “no” to such a claim than Facebookers hate the new Facebook design (drat, that’s a lie: Facebook’s current 93% hate [with millions of votes] tops the 91% of BCCers that say false. But if Obama’s 53% of the popular vote can be a landslide and Prop 8’s 52% can just be a “narrow victory,” then I’m game for anything statistic-wise.) I’ll add Obama supporters to the list of people coming after me. Continue reading…
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, Continue reading…
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? Continue reading…
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 [it happens more often than I'd care to admit], 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 how flawed and petty and prideful Ex-Mormons must be or whatever, he notes:
…the narratives themselves seem to be driven by an estrangement process both doctrinal and social. I believe that we, as liberal and intellectual Mormons are partially to blame for perpetuating these feelings of estrangement.
I discussed this a bit on my blog, but I wanted to discuss this again because I hadn’t really quite seen something like it. Continue reading…
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 problem is that we are told that the same spirit we develop here will rise with us there. (Alma 34:34) In other words, if we gain peace in this life, we will be at peace in the next life. That’s worth pondering. Continue reading…
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 concepts (such as a creator) are denied, and religion is viewed as a crutch or a psychological defense. Rejectionists like to point out that spiritual experiences are invalid because they cannot be known objectively. They may have some disdain for religion and may think that we would be better off without religion because of all the conflict it has caused in the world.
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 DVDs first, and we’ll see you in a few months. EXTREME SPOILER ALERT. Continue reading…
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: Continue reading…
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. Continue reading…
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 chain of horrible sicknesses, and the prayer in my heart went something like this: “Lord, I know when I get blessings for these things, they usually don’t work, and I might be selfish to ask. But could you just do me a solid this one time? People got healed constantly of much worse than this in the Scriptures. I’m not testing you, I think. I just want to get better.” My roommate then administered the blessing, and, much to my dismay and anger, it didn’t work.
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