On the BBC, there is a great series of Art documentaries entitled ‘Imagine’. Alan Yentob, a Television Executive, presents them and in the most recent, as of 18th Nov 2009, Yentob interviews and discusses the work of Anish Kapoor. People will recognise his sculptures without necessarily remembering his name, perhaps the height of fame for an artist. Having recently finished reading Givens’ ‘A People of Paradox’ I have been considering the relationship between Art and Spirituality and during this documentary Kapoor made some interesting comments which resonated with me. Continue reading…
Is morality a social construct or is it universal, transcending time and culture? Or is it a little bit of both? Read on to find out more about what we call “morality.” Continue reading…
Everybody blogs, right? Why not me? Looking for my niche, my angle, and the one thing that seemed to make me stand out in my corner of the world. I found it: Being single. And 40. And Mormon. In a family ward. In a town where EVERYONE is under 30, sealed in the temple and constantly reproducing. The best humor is found in our painful life experiences. Read about mine and laugh with me. Or at me. Whichever Continue reading…
This is kind-of an impromptu post and so I hope you can forgive the intrusion. But, I love Thanksgiving. Continue reading…
For anyone vaguely familiar with the Latter-day Saints, the many parallels between the Twilight Saga and the Church’s theology will be apparent.
As a mother of two and full-time secondary school teacher, I was adamant not to read the novels in spite of having been asked, begged and ordered a countless number of times this year, to do so, claiming I was far too busy. Nevertheless, as I have now seen both Twilight and The Twilight Saga: New Moon, I can not help but feel a slight sting of portentousness as I recognise I may have been somewhat rash to dismiss what is now a literary and cinematic phenomenon. Is it juvenile, hormonal, and pubescent diversion? Absolutely! However, its moral subtext is impossible to miss – more so in the sequel – and is a text worthy for analysis of how Christian ideology is portrayed in contemporary English literature. Having been subjected to serious doses of pathetic fallacy, Socratic irony and the author surrogate, through such literature as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, it is refreshing to find a text which engages today’s youth to those same concepts while retaining an unquestionably cool, sexy image. Continue reading…
Thanksgiving is, IMO, the perfect holiday: good food, a day off work, and no presents to worry about. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I wanted to post 10 Things I’m Thankful for about the church and ask that each of you share what you are thankful for. Continue reading…
So, what do you make of this? This AP article says that Hate crimes up against gays, religious groups – “Overall, the number of reported cases increases 2 percent.”
Now the FBI says this could be the result of better reporting, and not really an increase.
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“One clear-cut position is that the folklore must never be perpetuated. … I have to concede to my earlier colleagues. … They, I’m sure, in their own way, were doing the best they knew to give shape to [the policy], to give context for it, to give even history to it. All I can say is however well intended the explanations were, I think almost all of them were inadequate and/or wrong.
… It probably would have been advantageous to say nothing, to say we just don’t know, and, [as] with many religious matters, whatever was being done was done on the basis of faith at that time. But some explanations were given and had been given for a lot of years. … At the very least, there should be no effort to perpetuate those efforts to explain why that doctrine existed. I think, to the extent that I know anything about it, as one of the newer and younger ones to come along, … we simply do not know why that practice, that policy, that doctrine was in place… Continue reading…
Today’s guest post is from Reuben Collins who also blogs at Single Speed. Continue reading…
Two of the writers I have come to admire most over the last year have both said that they do not believe all suffering is meaningful, but I struggle to accept that emotionally even though it makes sense intellectually. Lowell Bennion was once asked about suffering and he replied ‘I haven’t suffered that much, but I think there is more human suffering than we need in order to develop human values, to teach us the meaning and value of life, compassion for other people… Some people are exposed to suffering beyond any possible value to them.’ [1] Similarly, Clive James, in speaking of those who would not denounce their (previously) murderous regimes, has offered a possible explanation for why: ‘their reluctance to accept that so much suffering could be wasted’ [2].
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Ok, I am when someone who get bothered when someone makes disparaging comments about another ethnic group. Fox suspended LA Clippers announcers Ralph Lawler and Michael Smith for one game because of one email from “a viewer who e-mailed Fox to complain.” Give me a break. Please, what is so offensive about this conversation?
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In this part 2 of the Studying the Old Testament series, we will discuss the books of the Old Testament, how they were organized, different books contained in different bibles, and extra-biblical books.
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In my endless search for connections between faith and music, I came across a stark and beautiful sight last month. First of all, I finally bought a Sleep album after knowing about them for years. Sleep is a sludgy, brutal Doom/Stoner Metal band from the early ’90s, and I really can’t explain why I love them so much. But that’s beside the point. I was reading about their history, and discovered that one of their original guitarists, Justin Marler, had left the band to become an Orthodox monk.
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Mormon Matters welcomes our newest guest poster. Kate Kelly graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA in Political Science. She served a mission for the church in Barcelona, Spain. She is currently in law school at American University’s Washington College of Law, the only law school in the nation world founded by women. She has had a career of various and sundry amazing jobs. She has been a mortgage counselor, an interpreter, an English teacher and spent last summer in Manhattan working at the Center for Constitutional Rights, as an Ella Baker legal fellow. She and her nurturing, gentle angel of a husband blog at www.kateandneil.com.
“Our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination. Traditionally, such discrimination was rationalized by an attitude of ‘romantic paternalism’ which, in practical effect, put women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.” Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677 (1973).
BYU is closing its Women’s Research Institute, and I, along with many others http://supportwri.blogspot.com/, am distressed by this decision. My distress comes, not only because of the consequences of this shortsighted move, but because it is emblematic of the overall problem in the church of romantic paternalism. Continue reading…
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