This is the next installment in my series about what gives Mormonism staying power and makes it an effective religion at winning and retaining adherents.
Monthly Archives: September 2009
Wherein I stop being liberal and start standing up for what I believe
A lot of what I talk about in regard to the church is a reaction against something else. For a period of time my wife even stopped talking to me about Relief Society lessons because of what I would argue or disagree with. After a lot of self-reflection over the past few months, I realized my problem: I am not standing up for what I believe is right, I’m just arguing with those who do. When I think there is an over-emphasis on necklines or haircuts, or a teacher presents something that I think is wrong, I want to...
How Our Families Can Help Families Around the World Escape Poverty
A year ago my wife and I were struggling to find ways to teach our children the importance of helping those in need, and lamented the fact that despite our knowing there are millions of families around the world who need help, we felt virtually powerless to make any significant difference in their lives. And although we were grateful for the opportunity to make monetary donations to the Church’s humanitarian program, we felt that writing a check quite wasn’t enough to help our children understand the challenges so many of the world’s families face; nor did it allow our...
Have you read the Sealed Portion of the Book of Mormon Yet?
Christopher Nemelka has published the sealed portion of the Book or Mormon and has also translated the 116 pages of missing manuscript. His website can be found here. John the Beloved and the Three Nephites use him to present their message to the World. Joseph Smith, himself, gave Christopher the Gold Plates so that he could translate the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon. He believes that in 1987 he was called, in the same manner as Joseph Smith, to share a message with the world. He believes that his organization is the only true message for the World today...
The Surprising Truth About Mormon Employment Discrimination
Religious discrimination in the workplace is barred in the United States. It has been that way since the 1960s. This prohibition is across the board, and applies whether the employer is a public or private entity. If you discriminate against your employees on the basis of religion, you could easily end up as a defendant in federal court, sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Many states have anti-discrimination laws as well. Of course, we know about the persecution of Mormons in the 19th Century and the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the 1930s and ’40s. We...
My 9/11 Tribute
This essay has almost nothing to do with the September 11th attacks. If anything, the attacks that many of us saw only served as a catalyst. I am thinking of 9/11/1857. And the hero? Not a fireman, but rather a lumbering, stuttering, 200-lb councilman from Ft. Johnson, Utah.
Narratives
History seems like a collection of facts, but in reality, most history is a collection of stories that we use to give context to the facts. Often the story details contain more conjecture than fact, but narratives or stories are the way we are able to understand and remember facts. Without narratives, we don’t have history that matters. The problem with narratives is that it is easy for people to use them to decide that someone else’s facts are false.
The Sesame Street Approach to Primary
The children’s television series Sesame Street premiered November 10, 1969. I was just turning 10 years old, so I didn’t watch it very much as a child. But in the mid-1980′s, with several preschoolers, the show became a staple in our home. Wikipedia describes the program as follows: Sesame Street uses combinations of animation, puppets, and live actors to stimulate young children’s minds, improve their letter and word recognition, basic arithmetic, geometric forms, classification, simple problem solving, and socialization by showing children or people in their everyday lives. Since the show’s inception, other instructional goals have been basic life...
Too Much of a Good Thing: A Birth Control Poll
Does the church discourage birth control? Are couples encouraged to breed as quickly and frequently as nature allows? Take this poll to share your feelings on the subject.
Mormons Doing Nasty Things
Are Mormons more often criminals than members of other similar religions? This is a question we will never answer with precision. After all, one’s religion is not asked when booked for a crime. For an accurate assessment of interreligious rates of criminality, such data would be a necessary condition to doing some per-member calculations. However, we might estimate an answer by examining court opinions arising from criminal prosecutions. This method is admittedly a soft proxy. Criminal opinions reflect only a small portion of all criminal prosecutions, and they refer to a defendant’s religion only when it is somehow injected...
John Remy’s Been Summoned to a Disciplinary Council for Reported Apostasy
John Remy (an old friend of Mormon Matters) is being summoned to a stake disciplinary council for apostasy. Bummer. Sad. Our love goes out to the Remys. AND to the local church leadership that has to deal w/ this mess. This feels like a lose/lose situation. (Comments closed. Please comment on John’s blog if you desire to comment…but only in kindness.)
‘A Sacred Silence’: Blake Ostler on the Heavenly Mother
In a Sunstone presentation entitled ‘A Return to Logic’, which discusses Blake Ostler’s work, he was asked about the Heavenly Mother. As a fan of Blake’s work I wanted to discuss his answer a little here, recognising that it was not a fully formulated or prepared response. The major points of his answer seem to be: firstly, that he does not believe Joseph Smith taught this doctrine, secondly, he does believe that it is true, thirdly, we can have a relationship with her and fourthly, we should not talk about her or that relationship in explicit ways because it is sacred.
Overseas Persecution of Mormons: A Comparative Analysis
We know that the LDS Church has projected itself around the world through its missionary efforts. This has occurred during a time when U.S. immigration law was becoming more refugee-friendly. Perhaps it is inevitable that we would start to see cases where individual Mormons seek asylum here in the United States, based on fear of persecution in their home countries. How do these LDS asylum cases compare with asylum cases involving churches with which Mormons are commonly confused – the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Seventh-Day Adventists, and the Christian Scientists?
Homework Assignment for this Sunday’s Testimony Meeting
Every now and then, you can find me sitting in testimony meeting with a note card on my lap and a pen in my hand, tallying the number of times that various phrases are repeated. I started doing this on my mission in a particular ward where Jesus’ name was notoriously absent from testimony meetings, with the exception of the standard closing line.
The Word of Wisdom and animal cruelty
I had one of those “oh, great” moments today as I was searching the news online. I have “oh, great” moments now and then. For instance, about a week after the semester started here at the University of Kentucky, as I was locking up my bike, I realized none of the other bikes had helmets with them. It then dawned on me: no one on campus wears their helmet. I’ve been the one geek on campus who wears a helmet! All the people that looked at me and smiled- were they really just laughing at the helmet? Then I...
Is Wrongful Excommunication Legally Redressable?
Jeff Breinholt is a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice, and a hobbyist legal researcher/writer on cultural issues, including modern American religious movements. We welcome him to Mormon Matters for a series of guest posts on legal issues in Mormonism. Those who follow Mormonism and who worry about its treatment of dissidents might be excused for thinking that the LDS Church stands alone in its use of excommunication. I must admit I was one of them. I was wrong.
Mormon Mysticism and the Tarot
Andrew’s previous post on the Book of Abraham got me thinking about Mormon mysticism and how it has been de-emphasized in the modern Church. In a way I hate to see the status of the Book of Abraham lowered among mainstream Church members because it is the last bastion of Joseph Smith’s mystical bent. Mysticism as it exists in the Church today is interesting. There is still a place where the Three Nephites, the planet Kolob, temple ties to Masonry, numerology and such are discussed, but these things are treated more as folklore and legend than essential components of...
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