Blog Archives

Enos Envy

July 23, 2009
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Enos Envy

Over my lifetime, I have offered all manner of prayers.  These range from earnest, well-intended pleas on behalf of others (“please comfort my sister as she deals with her MS diagnosis”) to mundane requests for undeserved assistance (“please help me pass my Spanish pop quiz”) to the downright inappropriate (“oh Lord, please let me be able to hold it until I get off this bus!”)* But now, after 36 years of practice, I’m rethinking prayer.  In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I’m not a “lose the keys, pray for keys, find the keys” sort of guy by…

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What Else Did God Say To Joseph?

April 16, 2009
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What Else Did God Say To Joseph?

Not too long ago, I sat through an Elders Quorum lesson about the First Vision. The teacher, who I like and who generally does a good job, was leading a paint-by-numbers sort of discussion (Q: “What do we learn from The First Vision”; A: “God has a body”). As usual for this topic, the lesson had its share of omissions (no mention of the other accounts) and historical missteps (“No one else in 1820 believed that God and Christ were separate beings”). All in all, it was a fairly typical meeting and, to be honest, I was zoning out. But…

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Memo To YW Leaders: Thanks, But No Thanks

April 1, 2009
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Memo To YW Leaders: Thanks, But No Thanks

In our current callings, my wife and I spend a lot of time digging through Church instruction manuals.  I teach both the 12/13 year old Sunday School class (weekly) as well as Elders’ Quorum (once a month).  My wife serves as the Laurels adviser, and is responsible for teaching at least a couple of lessons per month.  Nearly everybody who has served in a teaching capacity can point to some instance in which they have viewed the correlated manual as lacking in some respect, be it too bland, too overly positive in its historical view, or just plain out of…

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In Praise Of Good Bishops

March 18, 2009
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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 forms…

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Using Prayer As A Weapon

September 18, 2008
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Using Prayer As A Weapon

Here’s how the bedtime ritual usually goes at my house.  After baths are finished, hair is combed and teeth are brushed, my family gathers for evening prayers.  Each of my daughters takes a turn, with the oldest (7 years old) usually volunteering to go first.  Without fail, her short prayers contain the following elements:  (i) expressions of gratitude for “this day” and “our friends,” (ii) a request for a blessing that she have a “good night’s sleep,” (iii) a request that the Lord help us “find a new house” (we’re house hunting at the moment), and (iv) pleading that she…

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The Theology of “Saturday’s Warrior”

September 4, 2008
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The Theology of “Saturday’s Warrior”

Many Church members consider Johnny Lingo to be the zenith of kitschy Mormon culture (for the uninitiated, you can see it here).  When I was at BYU 15 years ago, I often ran into “wild and crazy” RMs sporting “Mahana, You Ugly” or “Wanted:  Eight-Cow Woman” T-shirts.   But for me, while Brother Lingo and his island crew hold a special place in my heart — along with that kid from the “Cipher in the Snow” — they pale in comparison to the granddaddy of all Mormon cheese:  Saturday’s Warrior.  For the sake of brevity, I will refrain from a detailed…

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Wealth & Worthiness

August 14, 2008
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I have long believed that the Church’s reliance on a lay clergy is both one of its strongest selling points, as well as one of its greatest weaknesses. On the hand, our DIY approach to religion results, among other things, in folks having a very personal stake in building the Kingdom, which is a plus. On the other hand, following a leader who is simply plucked from the congregation, without any formal training or indoctrination, can lead to the imposition of personal, non-doctrinal strictures (e.g., Stake Presidents banning beards and other such nonsense). This, of course, is too big a…

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Lessons Learned (aka Thanks, Bloggernacle!)

August 1, 2008
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Unfortunately, a confluence of factors — vacation, increased tasks at work trying to make up for said vacation, shuttling daughters to and from various summer activities — has kept me out of the Mormon Matters community over the past few weeks. This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened to me. In every long-distance friendship, I’m the one who forgets to make the phone call, who doesn’t return the e-mail, and who eventually drops out of communication altogether, leaving the other party to the friendship wondering, “I wonder what happened to that dude.” Long story, short: don’t…

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How My Wife Exercises Her Priesthood

July 3, 2008
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Tired of talking about gay marriage?  How about women and the Priesthood? In all seriousness, let me share with you a recent experience that has had a profound impact on the way I view the concept of Priesthood, and that has convinced me, once and for all, that I am not the sole Priesthood bearer in my family.  I believe it’s high time we recognized the service rendered by faithful LDS women as more than simply the fulfillment of a Relief Society assignment, or being a good visiting teacher.  Such efforts constitute the righteous exercise of Priesthood power.

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Raising “Good” Children vs. Raising “Happy” Children

June 27, 2008
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This one is for you parents and aspiring parents out there.  How would you answer the following question:  Is it more important to you that your child be “good,” or that he/she be “happy”?  Hold on to your initial responses — I don’t think it’s such an easy question. 

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Voting Mormon

June 2, 2008
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Voting Mormon

In a previous post, I explored the idea of defining “political” vs. “moral” issues for purposes of deciding when (and how) the Church should get formally involved. A related issue is whether we, even without formal instruction from the Church, are obligated to cast certain, pre-determined votes on select issues. Put another way, does my Mormonism require me to vote in favor of all manner of local referendum banning homosexual marriage? If so, how far does this unwritten rule go? And what about my free agency?

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Taking Back Sunday: A Call To Put Up Or Shut Up

May 28, 2008
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Taking Back Sunday: A Call To Put Up Or Shut Up

Beyond white shirts, facial hair and Coke — the Bloggernacle’s equivalent of the Holy Trinity — nothing gets Mormon bloggers’ collective knickers in a twist quite like the perception that they are forced into silence during the Sunday meeting block. On an almost daily basis, I run across posts and comments in which members bemoan the fact that, during their worship service, they feel unable to share with others (i) some nugget of non-correlated history, (ii) their left-of-center view on a theological point, or (iii) their discomfort with a cultural practice that has been adopted by the rest of the…

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New Same-Sex Marriage Ruling; Same Old Polygamy Stereotypes

May 16, 2008
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New Same-Sex Marriage Ruling; Same Old Polygamy Stereotypes

Unless your last name is Van Winkle, you likely already know that, yesterday afternoon, the California Supreme Court concluded that the state’s law prohibiting same-sex marriage (SSM, for short) is unconstitutional. Put more simply, in 30 days, SSM will be a reality in California. For those of us here on the Left Coast, things are about to get very interesting. Within hours of the ruling, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, without a hint of irony, told a gathering of reporters: “I plan to marry as many people as I can.” Like many others, I’m still working my way through the…

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Rethinking The “Moral vs. Political” Question For An International Church

April 18, 2008
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Rethinking The “Moral vs. Political” Question For An International Church

The general election is looming, which means that soon, we here in the U.S. will be hearing an official First Presidency statement in our wards regarding the Church’s political neutrality. You’ve heard the mantra before: the Church does not get involved in political issues, but it does take a stand on moral questions. Despite its seeming simplicity, this statement raises a host of unanswered questions regarding the wisdom of Church involvement in domestic political movements, and its seeming unwillingness to get involved in issues affecting Saints in other parts of the world.

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Why Eugene England Still Matters

April 9, 2008
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Why Eugene England Still Matters

If you spend any time here in the Bloggernacle, or leafing through the pages of any number of “alternate voices,” you are bound to encounter Eugene England. A founder of Dialogue, England — a former Bishop, LDS missionary, and BYU Professor — is a patron saint of the Mormon intellectual community, oft-revered as “our greatest essayist.” But for all of our lip service, we — as a Church and as an Internet community — could still learn a thing or two by actually putting his more challenging philosophies into practice.

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The Amazing Adventures Of “The Mormon Answer Man”

April 4, 2008
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The Amazing Adventures Of “The Mormon Answer Man”

Look up there . . . . who’s that emceeing the Ward Roadshow? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the Mormon Answer Man!! Faster than a missionary speeding downhill towards a dinner appointment. Able to pull three heavy-laden handcarts at a time. Behold his breath-taking adventures after the jump, if you dare . . .

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