1) There is a man in my ward who is a dean at a major college in our area. He is a brilliant scholar in his field, and he has served as a Bishop and in a Stake Presidency. He also is one of the most humble men I have ever met. A couple of years ago, one of his adult daughters died in a freakish surgery accident - totally unexpected - leaving behind a husband and an infant daughter. Continue reading…
Archive for the 'questioning' Category
“You may say I’m a dreamer; but I’m not the only one.” John Lennon.
Acts 2:17: “. . . your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
“Whitewashing” is an accusatory term often used against the church to describe efforts to gloss over sticky points in doctrine or history. So, does the church engage in whitewashing? Continue reading…
Andrew wrote a beautiful and moving post recently - “Dark Night of the Soul“. In reading that post and the subsequent comments, I had an epiphany about my own experience with certainty and doubt. I have been thinking about how to explain the difference between my experience and Andrew’s - and, even more interesting, the similar result from such different experiences. I will not try to summarize Andrew’s post here; that would not do it proper justice. What I will post here is the epiphany that struck me as I read it and the comments about it.
I have not experienced the “dark night” Andrew describes. Continue reading…
What can we learn about gender roles in marriage from committed gay couples? Is equity the ideal? Is it possible? With less than 24 hours until Father’s Day, here’s some food for thought. Continue reading…
Are teens who practice polygamy devout or brainwashed? Are teen terrorists devout or brainwashed? When is a teen old enough to be held accountable for crimes, but not old enough to make his or her own life decisions? Continue reading…
Should our political views always align with our moral views? When and if they don’t align, why not? Guest blogger Ray explores this idea in today’s Guest Post:
I’m intrigued by those on the bloggernacle that see The Book of Mormon as fiction but inspired by God. It’s common to hear someone that holds that belief say that it doesn’t really matter if The Book of Mormon is historical or not. Continue reading…
As a child, the story of Moroni visiting Joseph Smith seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on just why. Only later, on reflection, did the mythic aspects of the story stand out more sharply.
Joseph Smith has always been surrounded by stories, rumors and narratives. Those who had heard of the Book of Mormon would ask him how they should determine the truth. This was especially so since he freely told people that he was not perfect, but just like them.
Brigham Young’s favorite rhetorical style embraced hyperbole (common for his time). He also enjoyed doctrinal speculation based on his reckoning or logic. Several times he was braced by those who wanted him to be their sole light.
The responses both men made are ones we should remember. Continue reading…
Speaking to a group of Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo, Joseph Smith once said that if he had the lungs for it, he would preach a sermon that would make all of them shut their mouths and go home until they knew something about deity. He then asked the following question: “Why be so certain that you comprehend the things of God, when all things with you are so uncertain?” (TPJS, p. 320)
Why, indeed? Latter-day Saints are well known for declaring their beliefs with the preface, “I know…” It’s simply not enough to say, “I believe….” In fact, the “I know” phraseology is so common, that in order to add emphasis, some will go further, with statements like, “I know with every fibre of my being….” In the LDS community, this emphatic certainty is looked upon as a desireable thing, so much so that those who are less emphatic in their affirmations can be looked upon as a bit defective. This “knowledge” is often, in fact, presented as one of the great offerings of the LDS church. Hugh Nibley, in many of his works, referred to what he considered the “terrible questions.” “Where did I come from?” “Why am I here?” “Where am I going?” To Nibley, these were universal questions faced by all mankind, and not being certain about the answers made a person unbearably anxious. Continue reading…
Do you believe that God the Father, the Son, and maybe even the Holy Ghost visited Joseph Smith in the spring of 1820?
Or did Joseph have a vision of them?
Does the difference matter? Do you base your testimony, your faith in the existence of God, your continued participation in Mormonism, on a visit of Deity to a young farmboy?
There are BYU professors, and there are BYU professors. Brother Keller is in a class by himself. His life story alone fascinates me. Converted to the church as a young adult, Continue reading…
“I know that the Devil lives in outer darkness surrounded by concourses of ghastly minions amidst weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth”.
Why don’t we hear this from the pulpit in LDS testimony meetings? It’s just as much an article of faith as the existence of God, right? There must needs be an opposition in all things, as Lehi said. Continue reading…
One of the most unseemly and disturbing images in the Book of Mormon is when Nephi is commanded to cut the head off of Laban who lies drunken at his feet. So, what did Laban do to get on God’s hit list? Did he deserve it? Was it necessary? And how did some of the other deserving baddies (such as Laman & Lemuel) escape with their heads intact? Continue reading…
When I was a child, I spake as a child,
I understood as a child, I thought as a child:
but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
(1 Cor. 13:11.)
As I’ve grown older, the things I’ve unlearned about God are just as significant to me as the things I’ve learned about Him. In fact, the God I believed in as a child is almost unrecognizable to me now.
Ben Stein is prominently featured in an upcoming documentary called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” where he takes a stab a neo-darwinism, and seeks to bring increased legitimacy to the intelligent design camp. The creation vs. evolution debate is of course nothing new to Mormons, as the early and mid 20th century saw a good deal of postulation and debate on this matter among LDS Church leaders. Typically, Mormons seem generally untroubled by the issue, often finding resolution with “religion tells us why, science tells us how.” Mormons tend to be willing to accept the fossil record and the geological data all while acknowledging the role of a Creator, but without apologizing for the Genesis account. I perceive that latter-day saints figuratively sit back, munch on popcorn, and enjoy the show as the young-earth-creationist-evangelicals duke it out with the secular darwinists. Continue reading…
When I saw the trailer for this movie one giant big ‘THING’ came to my mind . . . . Human Kind didn’t live in the time of the woolly mammoth! Or did we? I started to question myself, my religion, Christianity, Judaism, Creationism, etc. I started to believe that there was in fact a human evolutionary process our ancestors went through. Maybe Charles Darwin was correct in his findings at Galapagos. Maybe Sasquatch is our missing link.
This movie seemed really intriguing to me. I really want to go see this movie even though it might make much of what I thought to be true now untrue. The movie has danger, high adventure, ancient civilizations, there is a hint of love in the story line, and it has prehistoric creatures as well as humans roaming the earth together.
MY DISENCHANTMENT WITH CHURCH
As long as I can remember, I was always rebellious against what I felt was unjust coercion, but I feel it was not until my mission that I started to come into conflict with authority.
Continue reading…
Sometimes I recall nuggets of spiritual wisdom but cannot remember when or where I picked them up. One in particular has increasingly taken on new meanings for me as I’ve wrestled with some of life’s tougher questions. You might call it the “Parable of the Elephant.” This is how it goes, as best I remember, with a few adaptations of my own:
I always thought the midlife crisis was just a cliché. But now I’m 41, and I’m finding myself in the midst of an all-too-real midlife phase of questioning myself, my identity, and my place in life, with accompanying feelings of anxiety, dissatisfaction, and disillusionment.
Nearly all these feelings focus on my career situation. I’m ten years into a wonderful second marriage, so that’s not affected. But I sense the crisis spilling over somewhat into my religion/faith. For this post, I thought I would do a bit of self-inventory in the spirit of “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.” Continue reading…
Many of you may be aware of an ongoing case in Utah involving Peter and Mary Danzig. I’m not going to summarize here, as you can read about the details on various sites, but I’ll post links to the back-stories below. This post is just about opening a conversation. The core issues I feel are under debate are about how much involvement the LDS church officially has in the opposition of same sex marriage. The Danzigs resigned their membership because they felt the church was pressuring them to act against their own consciences. The church says (in a very unusual press response to a personal case) that it does not encourage one position or the other, but rather to be active in politics to support your values. Continue reading…
It’s been a few months since I first came out to my family and friends. I’d been living a secret double life for too long, and I couldn’t stand the duplicity any longer. As I’ve continued to come out to more friends, I’ve learned I have to be careful and selective about when and to whom I reveal my secret. It makes some people feel awkward and uncomfortable when I tell them about it; others don’t know what to say and simply stare at the ground or abruptly change the subject.
In part one of this reconstruction journey, I talked about how being hyper-focused on being right intensifies the impact when you come to see that ambiguity (essentially the opposite of right/wrong clarity) is inseparably interwoven into the LDS gospel. I’ve been taught my whole church life to “choose the right” and I have heard testimony born time and again that we are so fortunate to have the whole truth (as compared to other partial-truth-holding faiths). Coming face to face with the reality of ambiguity is like diving into a very cold pool of water on a very hot day. In this follow-up article, I want to talk about my own reaction to breaking the surface of this water, and after allowing myself enough time to acclimate to the change in temperature, changing my focus so I can enjoy the benefits of this new fluid world. Continue reading…