OT SS Lesson #11
Lesson 11 in the Old Testament manual employs several stories from Genesis 34-39 to develop the theme of sexual morality. Joseph’s actions embody the “Lord’s standards” for morality and are contrasted with the actions of Shechem, Reuben, and Judah. You may notice that the featured characters in the lesson are all male. What shall a woman do with a lesson like this? I think the idea is for women to identify with Joseph — to be virtuous when facing temptation. But Joseph is a man, his responses are male-oriented, and intentionally or not this approach will tend to render the women in your Sunday School classroom invisible. Consideration of the female archetypes found within these chapters may yield some surprising insights. Continue reading…
I would like to use Genesis 12 (and an interesting post by Aaron B from BCC) to examine the inverse of Elder Oak’s famous talk ‘Good, Better and Best’. Simply stated Abraham was married to Sarai (who was apparently pretty hot!) and Pharoah was going to want to marry her. His choice: either die as her husband and have his wife forced into marriage (in effect raped) or live as her ‘brother’ and have his wife forced into marriage (and in effect raped). What to do? Continue reading…
I want to take a lead from Hawgrrrl, who recently posted on the value of Sex Education in trying to reduce the rate of unwanted pregnancies and instil values of chastity in young people, but approach it from a different avenue. I recently attended a seminar which presented results from an investigation into the relationship between self-esteem and sexual activity for people in their teens. Her results showed that having high self-esteem (perhaps to the point of being arrogant) actually serves a protective function against having sexual activity. Simply stated: having high self-esteem means that you are more likely to have sex later in life. However the results are not quite that simple. Continue reading…
OT SS Lesson #8
“The Genesis passage is very clear, that the sin of Sodom that brought on the destruction of the city was indeed linked to homosexuality.” (R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Seminary)
“Saying that the last recorded acts of the Sodomites — the demands for same-gender sex — are proof that they were destroyed for homosexuality is like saying that a condemned man cursing his guards on the way to his execution is being executed for cursing the guards. Sodom was judged worthy of destruction before the incident with Lot and the angels.” (Inge Anderson, “Sins of Sodom“)
One of the prominent themes in this week’s Sunday School lesson is the story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. But in Christian thought there has been some controversy over how closely the story should be linked to homosexuality, as the quotes above indicate. There are several points that are up for grabs, and I’m not sure either side has a complete understanding yet. Read on, and let me know what you think! Continue reading…
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At the Evergreen conference held September 18-19, 2009, Elder Bruce Hafen gave a talk regarding homosexuality. The talk was reprinted on the official LDS Church Newsroom website. I will not synopsize the talk here but I suggest reading it yourself. Within a very short time, for obvious reasons, the bloggernacle was dissecting and analyzing the speech. These actions generated some interesting discussions here, and one permablogger at FMH did a good job of challenging the less-than-spectacular research here. Continue reading…
A while back on my blog, Seth R (usually of 9 Moons fame) posted a lengthy and detailed comment about the deficiencies of liberal religion (particularly of a hypothetical liberal Mormon denomination) and also the deficiencies of our current orthodoxy. I took a stab at part of his comment in a post on my blog, wondering if it’s possible for the church to be complacent.
But there was another curious (if bold) comment he had made…he points out how he feels in certain areas he hasn’t earned his morals, and that many members aren’t “earning” their morals. If one isn’t truly “earning his morals” from following guidance like the Word of Wisdom or the Law of Chastity, then how do we avoid or move past simply practicing a modern and vain form of legalism?
Continue reading…
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The US Supreme Court just announced it will not hear arguments regarding the US military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
The link to the article summarizing the CA Supreme Court decision is in the sidebar to the left. In summary, the court allowed Prop 8 to stand (keeping marriage in CA defined as being between a woman and a man) but also allowed all homosexual couples married prior to its passage to retain their married status. Continue reading…
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Matthew 5:27-28 includes the statement:
“Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
Rather than debate that statement, although I am open to discussing it here, I want to focus on an underlying issue within something to which we refer frequently as the “Law of Chastity”. My primary focus is on the injunction regarding eliminating “lust” – and particularly how it can be avoided no matter one’s surroundings and exposure. This a result partly of the long, interesting discussion we had recently about “naturism” – but I don’t want to rehash that discussion here. Rather, I want to focus on one of the underlying currents that seemed to flow beneath the discussion. Continue reading…
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My home teacher (who is very cool) came by yesterday to drop off some starter cables for my car and as one does in that short interlude we discussed the celestial kingdom and being Gods after this life. He believed that those who don’t make it to the highest kingdom in the Celestial Kingdom won’t have any sexual relationships and if you don’t have sexual relationships their will be no need for sexual organs.
Continue reading…
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In a recent CNN.com/living article (“Out-of-wedlock births hit record high”), the discussion centered on the fact that the birth rate outside of marriage in the United States has risen nearly 25% in the past five years. You read that correctly – 25% in 5 years. The following are some representative quotes from that article: Continue reading…
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Mormon Matters Motto is Exploring Mormon culture in a balanced way- so bare with me on this one (excuse the pun). Continue reading…
OT SS Lesson #11
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