Sunstone has been going on since Wednesday here in Salt Lake City. It ends tomorrow, and I thought I would give a few words about the conference. I have been blogging here at Mormon matters for about a year and a half, and have never met any other bloggers here….until this week! It has been nice to nice BiV and Stephen Marsh. I hope to meet others tomorrow. It was also nice to meet with a few apostles.
There are a large majority of Mormons (especially here in Utah) that think the Church is wedded to the Republican Party. A very interesting letter was read here in Utah on Mar 22, 2010 as Utah prepared for the upcoming Caucus Meetings. Let me quote something very interesting from the letter. (The full text from the LDS Newsroom can be found here.) “Principles compatible with the gospel may be found in the platforms of various political parties.” (Emphasis mine.) Why does it seem that many Mormons don’t seem to believe this, despite the church’s oft-quoted emphasis that the church...
I attended the Mormon History Association meetings in Independence, Missouri this past week. I thought I’d share some pictures. If you’d like to read more about the conference, here are some links to my posts from Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. CoC Independence Temple at Sunset
Last night on KUTV in Utah, an announcement was made which signals the end of an era. It was reported that Bruce R. McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine will no longer be published by the Church, and that it will not be sold by Deseret Book. Since I didn’t see the newscast, I’m not sure what reasons were given, but one viewer stated, “Why? For tighter correlative control, because of the book’s embarrassing clarity, and because of some controversial assertions in the book.” He also said that the publisher asserted the book was withdrawn because of poor sales.
Perhaps the time has come in the church to recognize that some members want to openly espouse a non historical view of the Book of Mormon?
Headline in the Independence Examiner for Thursday, April 15, 2010: “Delegation Takes No Action on Human Sexuality Issues: Church Will Continue Dialogue.” Headline by John Hamer on BCC on Thursday, April 15, 2010: “Gay Rights Revelation Added to The Community of Christ D&C” ———- The two headlines above generally cover the spectrum of opinion about what happened at the Community of Christ World Conference as it completed the process of canonization of a new Section 164 for its D&C. The spectrum of opinions about whether what happened was a good thing or bad thing, of course, runs even more...
A small crowd at the BYU Studies Symposium yesterday was on hand to receive Richard Holzapfel’s self-proclaimed Mormon history “bombshell.” He presented the morning plenary session on Wilford Woodruff’s 1897 recorded testimony, the first sound recording made of an LDS General Authority. The audience was treated to hearing parts of this recording, which is also available at the BYU Studies website.
I listened recently to a Mormon Expression podcast with John Dehlin, in which he comments upon the difficult position the Church leaders face. He observes that their are times when they make particular decisions based upon a legalistic-bureaucratic framework that sometimes seem incomprehensible, even unchristian but that these decision are understandable. I would like to ask this question: Is there an alternative?
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...
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,
‘In 1866, at the age of only twenty-seven, Joseph F. Smith was ordained an Apostle by President Brigham Young, and served briefly as one of his special additional counselors. When a vacancy occurred in the Twelve the following year, Elder Smith was sustained as a member of that quorum’ . The date was Oct 8, 1867. This means Joseph F. Smith was an Apostle a year before he joined the Quorum of the twelve. Moreover, BY ordained Joseph F. Smith spontaneously without consultation of all members of the First presidency . Lest we think this is just another aberration of...
Obedience to the Word of Wisdom, it is commonly known, was not always a requirement for entering the Temple or advancement in the Priesthood. What is less clear from the historicl record is when this principle moved to become a requirement. President Joseph Fielding Smith believed the change occurred in 1851, but an excellent article by McCue has shown this cannot be the case . Others have argued that it occurred under the Joseph F. Smith administration (he seems to have been the first to have said it was a commandment – but it was only made a test of fellowship...
A close friend of mine who wishes to remain anonymous recently saw in the shadow of the temple his story follows In October, I was fortunate to attend the Portland, Oregon, screening of the movie, In the Shadow of the Temple. http://www.intheshadowofthetemple.com The screening was hosted by the producers, Karen Di Millia and Dennis Lavery. Prior to the screening Dennis and Karen spoke for 10 minutes and explained how they started this project. After the screening they took questions and answers for roughly 30 minutes. Lavery and DeMillia, who are not–and never have been–LDS, originally planned to make a...
A temple wedding petition to is being circulated to promote love and happiness in the family by changing the church’s stance on civil marriages preceding temple weddings. The petition requests that the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints make it acceptable to have a civil marriage ceremony first, if desired, and then giving the couple the necessary time to attend the temple for the sealing ordinance as they do in those countries whose laws require it. (The petition is not endorsed by Mormon Matters; this information is being shared for discussion as a news item). In...
Recently I drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon with my brother and nephew. This is the canyon in which many of your ancestors pulled out the granite for the construction of the salt lake temple. As soon as we passed the granite facings on the side of the canyon my nephew played a song on his iPod by Corb Lund Brother Brigham Brother Young and it brought mental flashes into my mind of men working on the side of the mountain blasting granite out of it. It made me think of the struggles that men and women had even back...
If you didn’t happen to read the February issue of Ensign Magazine in 1987, you missed some valuable instruction about how to provide critical feedback to Church leaders. Luckily for you, this post provides a second chance to get up to speed on what all would-be “improvers” in the Church should know about how to seek improving the Church without crossing any line that will forfeit your eternal exaltation and doom you to an eternity of teeth-gnashing with a TK smoothie.
If someone can find something in the Book of Mormon, anything that they love or respond to or find dear, I applaud that and say more power to you. That’s what I find, too. And that should not in any way discount somebody’s liking a passage here or a passage there or the whole idea of the book, but not agreeing to its origin, its divinity. . . . e have many people who are members of the church who do not have some burning conviction as to its origins, who have some other feeling about it that is...
Do you know your Apostles’ wives? Bonus points if you can give first/maiden names in the comments. (Don’t cheat–only make a guess if you didn’t have to look it up!!) Katherine Jessop Christofferson
