Guest Post by Non-Arab Arab
BiV’s recent post “Sod, Seed, Salvation: Abrahamic Covenant and the Claim to Palestine” brought me out of my normal lurking. Modern Palestine and what I firmly believe to be the erroneous interpretation most members of the church have regarding events there always riles me up. Usually I do the smart thing and bite my lip, but every once in a while I choose to enter the fray in full combat mode. As I’ve found on most issues of debate, it doesn’t really matter how right I think I am the noise of the argument rarely does more than highlight who already believes what. So my wish here is not to re-argue the questions of Palestine which I’ve already done enough of on this blog. Instead, I’d like to talk about shoes. No, not the famous Arab shoes, rather walking a mile in another’s shoes. Continue reading…
Published in Bible,
Jews,
LDS lessons,
Mormon,
christianity,
inter-faith,
international,
politics,
race,
religion,
scripture and
war .
OT SS Lesson #7
Sod, seed, and salvation — it’s how I like to describe the Abrahamic Covenant. There were three promises in the covenant. The first was a land promise, where the Lord gave Abraham and his descendants the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. The second was the promise of a great and numerous posterity. And the third was the blessing of the everlasting Gospel: the priesthood and the promise of exaltation, to come to the world through Abraham’s lineage. (see Genesis 17) But just look at how often the covenant was renewed! Continue reading…
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.
My wife brought this to my attention while reading the front page of the Deseret News: 2000s: The First Decade-Mormon Church Influence Soars. Without providing any sources, it says,
President Thomas S. Monson has been named the most influential 80-year-old in America and Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are listed among the most important 100 Americans in history
Other noteworthy items from the article include from the past decade: Continue reading…
Published in Jesus,
Peace,
abuse,
children,
christ,
christianity,
civil disobedience,
fear,
international,
love,
meekness,
mercy,
pacifism,
violence,
war and
women .
A Christmas message, by today’s guest poster, mormongandhi.
A child is born in Bukavu
A child is born in Bukavu, and sadness fills his mother’s heart… Bukavu is not the city of David. It is a town in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. War has been ravaging the country for years. Ever since Kabila invaded the former Zaire with military support from the US. It is a war that no one speaks of – but it has cost the lives of millions of people and caused unimaginable suffering.
Continue reading…
A year ago my wife and I were struggling to find ways to teach our children the importance of helping those in need, and lamented the fact that despite our knowing there are millions of families around the world who need help, we felt virtually powerless to make any significant difference in their lives. And although we were grateful for the opportunity to make monetary donations to the Church’s humanitarian program, we felt that writing a check quite wasn’t enough to help our children understand the challenges so many of the world’s families face; nor did it allow our children to witness the results of our family’s contributions. Continue reading…
Published in BYU,
Bible,
Culture,
God,
Humor,
LDS,
Mormon,
book of mormon,
children,
families,
gay,
general,
homosexuality,
international,
marriage,
media,
news,
politics,
religion and
sexuality .
First, Happy Independence Day (yay)!
…so I was digging through classic Mormon Matters and found Clay’s discussion asking: how much does church activity has to do with being Mormon anyway? He opened with something interesting:
Not so long ago, when I would hear about someone who didn’t go to church at all or have any interest in returning would refer to themselves as Mormon, I would be annoyed that they still identified themselves that way. I used to see being Mormon as a choice, as a religious path, and if you aren’t choosing it then you only make a bad name for the rest of us… or so I felt at that time.
I was excited…a post aimed at me! Yet later (the very next sentence), he writes:
Yet, it seems there is something deeply cultural about being Mormon, especially those raised or at least members from a young age.
Oh.
Continue reading…
Published in Bloggernacle,
Charity,
Devil,
God,
Happiness,
Jesus,
Mormon,
apostasy,
catholicism,
christ,
church,
curiosity,
death,
depression,
doubt,
faith,
fear,
inter-faith,
international,
jehovahs witnesses and
religion .

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…
Published in Bible,
Bloggernacle,
Charity,
Culture,
Discrimination,
Folklore,
God,
Happiness,
Humor,
Jesus,
LDS,
Leaders,
Logic,
Mormon,
Mormons,
Peace,
Sermon on the Mount,
apologetics,
book of mormon,
books,
burdens,
catholicism,
children,
christ,
christianity,
church,
curiosity,
death,
diversity,
evangelicals,
faith,
families,
fear,
general,
history,
inter-faith,
international,
introductions,
liberal,
love,
marriage,
media,
missionary,
mormon,
news,
orthodox,
parables,
plan of salvation,
podcast,
polygamy,
prayer,
questioning,
resolutions,
scripture,
service,
spiritual progression,
spirituality,
television,
theology,
thought and
women .
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

OK Paul technically isn’t exactly an international DJ, not unless you consider that you can listen to his interviews on line.
Continue reading…
Someone mentioned in a blog post that I read recently about how accessible materials and information about the Church are for us these days: blogs, books (official and unofficial), news, the internet in general. I couldn’t agree more. There’s a wealth of information about the Church at our fingertips and goodness knows that many of us spend hours reading, analyzing, discussing, and debating it all. I’m often surprised that more Mormons don’t take advantage of it.
There is one problem, however. This wealth of information is NOT equally available to members of the Church.
Continue reading…
Published in Anti-Mormon,
Bible,
Bloggernacle,
Culture,
Folklore,
Jesus,
LDS,
Leaders,
Mormon,
Mormons,
Sermon on the Mount,
Uncategorized,
apologetics,
apostasy,
book of mormon,
books,
christianity,
church,
curiosity,
diversity,
doubt,
education,
evangelicals,
faith,
fear,
general,
history,
inter-faith,
international,
liberal,
marriage,
mormon,
movies,
new order mormon,
orthodox,
parables,
questioning,
religion,
scripture,
spirituality,
tesimony,
theology and
thought .

Recently I saw Religulous here and he touched on Horus here and a few of the parallels between the story of Horus and Jesus.
Many Mormons when they start delving and unravelling events in our history also delve into what they can find out about (possible origins)
Continue reading…