The ICM poll of 10,000 people in the USA, UK, Israel, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, Mexico and Lebanon was carried out for the BBC Continue reading…
Archive for the 'christ' Category
A Zen Buddhist/Freemason friend of mine has put together some great posts of “Best and Worst Bible Verses.” I have been trying to convince him to make the series into one of those daily calendars. Would it not be great to wake up in the morning and read: “Happy shall they be who seize your infants and dashes them against the rocks!” (Psalms 137:9)? Continue reading…
OK Paul technically isn’t exactly an international DJ, not unless you consider that you can listen to his interviews on line.
This post was inspired by David Stout’s series of posts on LDS Worship, Part II and Part III as well as HawkGrrrl’s post entitled “More Christ at Church.”
Often people have a hard time with intimacy (intimacy = “into me see”) because they feel vulnerable. They would rather deal with ideas than people, and they don’t want others to see who they are. They might feel insecure or care what others think of them. People who feel this way wear what we call social masks to hide who they are and present a facade instead of their true self to others. And sometimes, the mask people wear is the church. Continue reading…
Based on word count, what was the focus of April 2009 General Conference? Before you scroll down, see if you can guess the top 3 words that were used. Continue reading…
The mission of the church is to bring people to Christ (it is not the tri-fold mission of proclaim the gospel, perfect the saints and redeem the dead). Yet many members feel that the focus on Christ is missing in our weekly worship. So, what’s the best way to bring Christ back to the center of our Sundays? Continue reading…
I am struck regularly by how many members fail to focus on the life of Jesus and, thus, fail to realize that there are incredible lessons (particularly in the Gospels) about specific things we can do to become more like Him – things that can lessen the effects of our sins and actually help decrease the frequency of those sins – thus bringing internal peace and a measure of calmness to our lives in the here and now, regardless of the storms that rage therein. I believe we sometimes buy into the apostate obsession with the afterlife – as though it’s OK to be miserable here, since we’ll be happy there. The problem is that we are told that the same spirit we develop here will rise with us there. (Alma 34:34) In other words, if we become peaceful in this life, we will be at peace in the next life. That’s worth pondering all on its own – that we are accountable for whether or not we develop internal peace. Continue reading…
Since my last post was quite speculative and controversial, I thought I’d go for a change of pace and talk about something we’re all familiar with, or so we thought. The history of baptism is quite interesting, and much more complex than most people know. Some have questioned the Book of Mormon’s account of baptism which predates Christ. So, I wanted to learn more about the history of baptism, and came across a concept of Mikvah.
There is a strange parable in D&C 88 about workers digging in a field and their boss giving them the joy of his countenance for an hour during their shift. Read on to weigh in what you think this means. Continue reading…
David Stout is a Disciples of Christ minister. This is the third and final installment of his insightful commentary on LDS Sacrament Meeting Worship. To provide proper context for this final installment, we are including a couple of paragraphs from the end of the last installment. We want to thank David for his contributions here at Mormon Matters; it has been enlightening and well-considered.
Now again I want to underscore the fact that I write as a non-Mormon, and I recognize the fact that there must be something about the sacrament meeting that does work and that the current missionary strategy has proven quite effective. Consequently, it could be very well argued that there is no point messing with success – and I would not object in the least if you, the reader, took that position.
But I would humbly suggest that maybe the broader vision of David McKay, the insights and success of Gladys Knight and her gospel choir, and the early roots of the LDS Church itself might raise some heretofore unconsidered possibilities for reaching more people from different backgrounds. I would also suggest that these same possibilities for more effective mission might also bring the sacrament meeting and the principle of ongoing revelation into greater practical coherence. Continue reading…
The traditional Jewish celebration of the Passover, which started Thursday night, can illustrate the rich symbolism found in the Old Testament and show how the symbolism of the Passover points directly to Jesus Christ. Please note that the original Passover observance is described in Exodus, chapters twelve and thirteen. The modern Seder evolved from this Old Testament event.
I’m an education professor. In academic research, we talk about quantitative research and qualitative research. In order to avoid boring you to death, I offer a simplistic definition of each to explain the difference. Quantitative research is about statistics; it’s about cold hard facts (of course, there’s no such thing, but that’s a discussion for another day). Quantitative researchers use test scores, statistics and surveys to explore research questions. Qualitative research is about words, stories, narratives, meaning, and context. Qualitative researchers use case studies, observations, and interviews to explore research questions.
I often wonder whether sometimes we at church focus too much on quantitative things. Continue reading…
“Faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time, for one will dispel the other.” Continue reading…
Mormon Matters Motto is Exploring Mormon culture in a balanced way- so bare with me on this one (excuse the pun). Continue reading…
I am on the Stake Missionary Committee, and Wednesday night we had a fascinating set of meetings. 
I couldn’t help but think as the meetings unfolded that everyone here would have been shocked at the conversation flow and the end result of our final committee meeting. I don’t want to go into lots of detail, but I do want to recap two highlights and ask everyone here the same question my Stake President asked us:
What advice would you have me give our Bishops? Continue reading…
I’ve been thinking about Levi Peterson’s The Backslider lately (SPOILERS AHEAD). Continue reading…
One of my favorite parts about BYU-Idaho, or rather, one thing I actually liked about BYU-Idaho, was the religion classes. Systematic, academic study of the Standard Works was something I’d never experienced before and I loved it.
One thing that hit me like a ton of bricks in the middle of a religion class at BYU was this: I don’t know who the Holy Ghost is. Even my religion instructor admitted ignorance on the subject, though speculation abounded.
Many view the Second Coming as a time when Jesus will personally and politically reign, not just host lamb & lion mixers. So what do you think? Will Jesus govern politically? Or is the notion that Jesus will govern politically more of the same wishful thinking that people had the first time around when they thought the Messiah would free them from political oppression by the Romans? (Weren’t they disappointed!) Continue reading…
A few posts on MormonMatters got me thinking once about my relationship with other faith groups. For instance, a recent post on why it seems that ex-Mormons have a hard time joining other denominations. Valoel wrote a blog post on what you’d do if you found out that the Church weren’t true through some sort of revelation (from God or otherwise), however the post had the caveat: “For simplicity, the assumption for this topic is that no other church is a true alternative.”
For me, I’ve found that if, for some reason, I discovered that if the Church isn’t true, I probably would join another faith. Why?
There’s a difference in interpretation between how LDS and non-LDS view the statement by Jesus to Peter when he says “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” While all might agree that there is a play on words between the name “Peter” and “rock,” Catholics consider this scripture as the origin of Papal authority, whereas LDS readers would say that Jesus was referring to “revelation” as the rock upon which He would build His church. So, just what rock was Jesus talking about? Continue reading…
Much has been said in church magazines and the Bloggernacle about the image of Joseph Smith. Do we know what Joseph Smith really looked like? Are our statues and paintings truly representative of him?
This is not the point of my post here, though. I recently had a conversation with my fiancee about Rastafarianism, mentioning that Rastas believe that Jesus Christ was black. I admitted that, though I personally don’t see much evidence for that, I did concede that Jesus probably looked very different than what most Mormons envision.
