I want to let everyone know of a very unfortunate situation in Romania. According to this Deseret News article, Elder McKay Choy Burrows, 20, of Highland, Utah, and Elder Jace Edwards Davis, 20, of Logandale, Nevada, died from accidental natural gas asphyxiation due to a gas leak in their apartment sometime Friday night in Romania. It’s terrible that such a seemingly preventable tragedy happened to these 2 young men.
Some time ago, as a guest I wrote a post entitled ‘Academic freedom in the Church‘ which tried to explore some of liberalizing tendencies seen in LDS culture since the September Six, but particularly over the last decade. Having recently read an excellent (as usual) article by D. Michael Quinn on the development of the ‘Sacral Power Structure‘ of Mormonism, I wanted to re-visit this issue as a result of some of the reasons he gives for the increasing authoritarianism and conservatism in the Church. Quinn argues that the expansive growth of the Church during the 1950-1970′s led the hierarchy...
A recent post by Cr@ig on Main Street Plaza caused me to reflect on the strength of interfaith marriages. I had hoped to generate a follow-up post on this topic at MSP. However, since the comments on the Cr@ig’s post devolved into a blame game of whether the believer or non-believer was more responsible for marital dissolution, I decided it was probably best to avoid a second opportunity for mud-slinging. Differences in religious belief can be the death knell to a marriage. For that reason, many organized religions strongly advocate against being “yoked with unbelievers”. This is not only...
According to the recent lesson manuals, the founding fathers, including Benjamin Franklin, were inspired. All things denote (not connote) that there is a God, and, to quote Mr. Franklin, beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Discuss how your discussion of the first lesson in the manual went.
While there are moral truths that all religions tend to share (don’t kill, don’t steal, be nice to people, etc.), religions also include “bizarre” differentiators to distinguish each religious community (often in food prohibitions, clothing choices, or supernatural beliefs). These “bizarre” elements hedge up the community and create borders between the religious group and those not in the religion. Without these “fences,” a church would cease to be a community. But a negative byproduct of these “bizarre” elements is that they are indefensible on grounds of logic or “truth.” So, what elements of Mormonism are “true” and which ones are...
OT SS Lesson #5 I have often thought that had I not joined the Church at age 19 I would have liked to have joined a kibbutz in Israel, or to have lived on “the Farm” in Tennessee (back when it was more hippie-like), or at least to have been a part of an intentional community. As I began investigating the LDS Church, and in particular reading the passages in Moses under consideration in our Sunday School Lesson #5, I was drawn to the strong emphasis on cooperative community which began under the direction of Joseph Smith and continued...
An article from the Salt Lake Tribune listed in the Mormon Matters sidebar sometime ago noted the official elevation of “care of the poor and needy” to the status of a “purpose” of the Mormon (LDS) church. Church news sources are noting how LDS resources are being mobilized from both the United States and the Dominican Republic, in coordination with partners such as Islamic Relief, CARE, Food for the Poor, and Healing Hands for Haiti. All of its missionaries are reported to be safe, and the church is using nine meeting houses to provide shelter for members and an...
Michael Ash in a Sunstone article entitled ‘The Sin “Next to Murder”’ has argued that Alma’s exhortation to his son Corianton (who had ran off with an woman of ill-repute), that ‘these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost’ (see Al 39:5), is not speaking about breaking the law of Chastity. Ash argues that Corianton’s sin is ‘causing the spiritual death of others’. Aside from this being an interesting article, it raises the question of what is...
Voting is now closed. Voting for the 2009 Niblets has begun. You may click the selections to view the links as many times as you wish. Then make your final selection and click the “vote” button. Once you click the “vote” button on each category, you cannot change your vote. You may make one selection for each poll except the last one; for the write-in category, you may choose up to three selections. Each person may vote one time. Polls will close at the stroke of midnight on January 31st. Here we go . . .
I wish I could claim credit for the title of the post, but it actually comes from this MSNBC article. Apparently the Pope is encouraging Catholic Priests to blog. It reminded me of Elder Ballard’s admonition back in 2007. Even though the pope doesn’t love computers, he said,
I recently came across this story on the BBC Website and felt that I had to return to Mormon Matters to write a few comments about it. High Cost of Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism Over the years I have noticed many similarities between Mormons and other religions, but I never thought I would see a similarity in this context with Judaism. This article addresses some of the main issues that people at Mormon Matters find challenging. Perhaps we, as doubting Mormons are not as alone as we feel. 28 year old, Chani Ovadya, is interviewed about her experience. She does...
Nominations for the Niblets Awards are now in. A few minor changes have been made to screen for category, and to avoid duplication. Nominations that did not fall under 2009 were eliminated. New blogs were accepted if they had a very small bit of introductory posting before 2009. When an author had two or more posts nominated for the same category, one representative post was chosen. The order of appearance is alphabetical; however, when links are included they came out alphabetical by link. A few more nominations have come in by email and will be added as soon as...
I recorded my first Mormon Stories podcast in some time w/ professor, author and mother Joanna Brooks, and thought it might be nice to discuss these episodes here on Mormon Matters. For some background, Joanna was a very important figure in the uber-controversial BYU Academic Freedom days of 1990-1993…and is now a writer on Mormon topics for Religion Dispatches (along w/ being the Dept. Chair of English at SDSU). She was also recently featured on RadioWest to discuss the phenomenon of Glenn Beck. As you may remember from her post earlier this week, Joanna has recently started an advice-column blog entitled “AskMormonGirl.com“, and...
A discussion about the concept of the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times and the Information Age.
Welcome to “You’re the Bishop,” a new installment at Mormon Matters. My name is Bishop Bill. Once every few weeks I’ll post a situation that I had while I was bishop, and let you decide how to handle it. Everybody gets to play, even the ladies out there. After a week, I’ll add a comment with what I did in the situation, and how it turned out. Let’s play!
Hey Folks, Some of you may have heard that I’ve decided to bring back Mormon Stories Podcast. For those of you who are new to the ‘Nacle or who never listened previously, Mormon Stories is an audio podcast interview series (kind of like Fresh Air with Terry Gross or Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippet), where I interview Mormons of all types — from Richard Bushman to Grant Palmer — and give them a chance to tell their stories. The full archive of my past interviews can be found here. Mormon Stories 1.0 (2005-2007) was focused on two main...
This is the second guest Post from FireTag, a member of the Community of Christ (formerly known as RLDS). As he mentioned in his previous post, the Community of Christ is going through the process of canonization of a new revelation. Here’s his latest installment of the process. CofChrist Prophet: Baptism in Christ Transcends Culture “5 It is imperative to understand that when you are truly baptized into Christ you become part of a new creation. By taking on the life and mind of Christ, you increasingly view yourselves and others from a changed perspective. Former ways of defining...
OT SS Lesson #4 Although our SS lesson for this week presents Adam and Eve as two literal, physical characters, the temple ceremony hints that we can benefit by viewing their story as figurative. I am often dismayed that symbolism, while given lip service, is so little understood in LDS circles. Since the majority of Mormons believe in a literal Adam who will return to the earth in his physical resurrected body and fulfill a major role at Adam-ondi-ahman, there is little reason to investigate the allegorical aspects of the Adam and Eve story. Thus, they have become “unidentified...
Never in the history of mankind have name initials played such an important role as in the LDS Church.
