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:
Mormon Matters Motto is Exploring Mormon culture in a balanced way- so bare with me on this one (excuse the pun).
In the next month or so I will be teaching a six-week Sunday School course based on “Strengthening Marriage: A Resource Guide for Couples” from LDS.org. Has anyone taught or been in this class (or any class in the church on relationships) before? What worked? What didn’t? What was interesting? What was boring?
The title is from DC3:1. Today’s guest post is from Bouvet and is in reference to this year’s Doctrine & Covenants manual, Lesson 4 is Remember the New Covenant, Even the Book of Mormon.
As they say, sex sells. The church has had a lot to say about sex and sexuality. It’s been on a winding path, but over time it has developed a rather comprehensive universe-view to back its positions. I like to think, even if some people vehemently disagree with the church position, or think that the church has become bland on certain doctrinal points in relationship to its past, LDS doctrines concerning the family have been consistently unique, fresh, and vitalic (even though that’s not a word, no other word sounds right to me…so hush up!)
This is a post written initially on my own blog. It was reprinted on Feminist Mormon Housewives a while back. It created a very lively discussion and even got some comments from a few people who had personally been through a transgender operation. I have edited the original post to make it more up-to-date and to include some of the comments it generated. ————————————————————————– Sometimes I find it hard to reconcile certain Church teachings with real-life stories. I was reminded about this after catching an old episode of Oprah a few weeks ago.
“The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health” (Add Health), Found that conservative and evangelical Christian teenagers are more sexually active than mainline Protestants, Jews, and even Mormons. On average, white evangelical Protestants begin having sex shortly after turning sixteen, which is sooner than most other groups.
There was an interesting article in Time recently about Facebook’s censorship of pics with nips, specifically eliminating pictures of breastfeeding moms (and, in their defense, a few of topless women who just happened to be holding babies). But, this brought up an age-old question of Mormondom: why are there no nipples on the Nephites in the BOM vids?
Many consider The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene to be the quintessential Great Catholic Novel: a book written about faith and doubt with great courage. So far, no one has written what one would call “The Great Mormon Novel.”
On the eve of another election in the United States of America, many historic events are looming, both encouraging and daunting; Whatever happens, we will either elect our first person of color as President, or our first female as Vice President. We may see a 60-vote majority in the Senate for the Democratic party. But offsetting these historic events is great uncertainty and fear about an ongoing economic crisis unseen since the Great Depression, alarm due to serious conflicts with various nations overseas, even apprehension about possible irreversible changes in our environment. Yet, here we are again looking at...
The following article is interesting and asks a fascinating question. Is Pornography Adultery? Coincidently, the following is excerpted from a post I wrote independent of the above article on my own blog two weeks ago (September 6), entitled “Becoming More Chaste in Thought and Deed“.
I’ve enjoyed a book by Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher called The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially. This book is, in large measure, a response to earlier research done by sociologists and family scientists, like Jesse Bernard, that wrote influential books “proving” that marriage was good for men and bad for women. It makes an interesting read to see how one set of “evidence” that seems so overwhelming suddenly appears to be dicey at best and dangerously wrong at worst through a simple re-slice and reapplication of the same set...
“I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.” Jessica Rabbit Plenty of criticism is heaped on post-restoration church leaders. There seems to be a tendency to hold them up against an impossible and inaccurate standard of perfection while giving a pass to figures in the Old and New Testaments. But is that fair? Wouldn’t OT & NT leaders have the same shortcomings when viewed from our “enlightened” modern perspective?
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.
Unless your last name is Van Winkle, you likely already know that, yesterday afternoon, the California Supreme Court concluded that the state’s law prohibiting same-sex marriage (SSM, for short) is unconstitutional. Put more simply, in 30 days, SSM will be a reality in California. For those of us here on the Left Coast, things are about to get very interesting. Within hours of the ruling, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, without a hint of irony, told a gathering of reporters: “I plan to marry as many people as I can.” Like many others, I’m still working my way through...
Very few famous Hollywood actors are Mormon, even fewer are practicing Mormons. While there are some obvious disconnects (e.g. law of chastity, modesty, time commitments), there are some equally compelling connections between some of the basic values of Hollywood and Mormonism and other values that are close, if not quite aligned.
Over the years, the LDS First Presidency has made various statements about sexual relations between husband and wife. Unsurprisingly then, Mormons seem to hold divergent views on this topic. But it is unclear which are the prevailing attitudes today because Mormons are typically tight-lipped when it comes to sexual matters.
