Alice Walker, who wrote about the heartbreak of female genital mutilation quoted an African proverb in the beginning of her book Possessing the Secret of Joy: “I have seen the axe, and the handle is one of us.” Are women our own worst enemy when it comes to reinforcing stereotypes and norms that limit women?
Posts Tagged ‘ mormon ’
Voting — 2008 Niblet Awards
And the nominees are . . .
Groupthink
“Groupthink” is what naturally happens when a group becomes sedentary and sluggish. When change is introduced or new people are introduced, they challenge the “groupthink.” I’ve never seen the word groupthink (when used correctly) as a positive. Does the church suffer from groupthink or just unity (“being one,” and “if ye are not one, ye are not mine.”)? You decide.
Bloggernacle Rankings: BCC is #1!
According to alexa.com, By Common Consent is currently the top ranked site in the Bloggernacle. Congratulations to our esteemed colleagues; you have earned the distinction of “top blog”! Not to toot our own horn, but Mormon Matters is also on the rise in the Bloggernacle (at #3), coming in behind #2 bloggernacle perennial favorite Times & Seasons.
The Genius of Mormonism: Missions
I wanted to do a series of posts on aspects of the LDS church that I consider to be sheer religious genius. These are religous practices or concepts that have given Mormonism its staying power, and when compared to other religions are “best-in-class” (to borrow a term from business). The first practice I will address is full-time missions.
Spirituality, Rationality, Mentality, Duality
Today’s guest post is by jmb275. In my first guest post, I talked about intellectualism and faith. A few of the commenters pointed out that I had somewhat assumed that we had dual natures – spiritual and rational. The point was mentioned that the term “spirituality” could be loosely defined to be many things – not necessarily religious in nature. In this post I would like to address these issues as I have been pondering it for quite some time.
Looking Forward to the Good Life
I’ve spent some time over the years thinking about questions that remain in regards to the logistics of the afterlife.
Family First?
In a pro-family church, why doesn’t family always come first? We state that family comes before church, and yet there seem to be many in the church who don’t live as if they believe it. What do we need to do to get people to believe that family (and marriage) comes first?
What Bothers Me, and Why I Still Believe
I am an active member of the church, and a believer. I am well aware of most of the controversial issues (Book of Abraham, DNA, Book of Mormon historicity, polyandry, etc.). Some of them occasionally bother me. Others do not. Although according to statistics I am very educated, I probably could not win an argument defending the church on any of those points. I could not support the church on Prop. 8, (if you want to specifically comment on that, please go here). I will probably never understand in this life why we are discouraged from praying to our Heavenly…
Intellectualism and Faith: A Would-Be Marriage!
It is easy to think yourself out of a testimony. It’s as simple as saying “well I can’t prove God exists, or doesn’t exist, therefore I am agnostic.” Today’s guest post is by jmb275.
Women are from Venus, Men are from Kolob
Based on my experience, I would guess that the majority of LDS women under age 65 would say that polygamy is NOT an eternal principle and that it doesn’t require any earthly worrying as a result. While the men are probably not worrying about it (although any of them who are married to me should think twice about expecting additional wives in the future), my impression is that a higher percentage of them believe it is an eternal principle that will be practiced long term.
Bloggernacle Personality Survey
The bloggernacle seems to attract a specific subset of Mormon culture, and as a result, opinions and comments are often different from those we hear expressed at church. One reason for this could be that some personality types thrive in organizations while others are prone to be disenfranchised. A popular metric to determine personality type is the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or the simplified version of this, the Kiersey Temperament Sorter. These psychometrics are based on the psychology of Carl Jung. Many have already taken this instrument and know their MBTI type or their Kiersey Temperament. If not, you can…
Marie Osmond Supports Gay Marriage
Wow. Marie Osmond openly supports gay marriage. First Steve Young’s wife. Now this. Will announcements like this eventually impact broader LDS opinion going forward (at least in the U.S.)? Will it make some LDS members think twice, or feel emboldened to disagree w/ the mainstream church on this one issue? Should be interesting if this keeps happening.
Why Faith Needs Reason
The tragedy of 9/11 had a big impact on my views about the relationship between faith and reason. As I watched the video footage of the jumbo jets flying into the World Trade Center towers over and over again, it dawned on me that I was witnessing the destructive power of faith unchecked by reason. Consider for a moment the faith proposition that motivated the 9/11 hijackers: “If you slit a few throats to hijack a plane and then fly that plane into a skyscraper, killing yourself and all your comrades along with thousands of civilian men, women, and children,…
What Else Did God Say To Joseph?
Not too long ago, I sat through an Elders Quorum lesson about the First Vision. The teacher, who I like and who generally does a good job, was leading a paint-by-numbers sort of discussion (Q: “What do we learn from The First Vision”; A: “God has a body”). As usual for this topic, the lesson had its share of omissions (no mention of the other accounts) and historical missteps (“No one else in 1820 believed that God and Christ were separate beings”). All in all, it was a fairly typical meeting and, to be honest, I was zoning out. But…
In Praise Of Good Bishops
Here’s the one lesson I learned from my 3.5 year stint as an Elders Quorum President: never, ever aspire to be a Bishop. Seriously, it is a thankless job. To put a finer point on it, being a Bishop is an honest-to-goodness, up-to-40-hours-per-week, full-time thankless job. Not to mention the fact that the pay (-10%) is really lousy. An evergreen subject here in the Bloggernacle, it seems, is the outing of “bad Bishops.” I cannot begin to count the number of posts and comments I have read over the past few years in which people have complained about all forms…
Is Mormon Culture Depressing Utahns?
Ever since I read the MHA study ranking Utah as the #1 most depressed state in the U.S., I’ve been asking my Mormon friends and family why they think Utah has a higher percentage of population reporting depression than any other state.
Brigham Young: Prophet, Pioneer . . . Radical Environmentalist?
Although Brigham Young is one of the most well-known Presidents of the LDS Church, perhaps second only to Joseph Smith, it seems most Mormons are completely unaware of his passionate beliefs about caring for the Environment. We owe Hugh Nibley an enormous debt of gratitude for collecting Brigham’s teachings about the Environment and publishing them in his 1972 essay, “Brigham Young on the Environment”. When a home teacher shared the essay with me several years ago, I was shocked to read statement after statement by Brigham Young that one would expect to hear from a radical environmentalist, and I quickly…
Half-way Mormons: A lesson from the Puritans
I hope everyone enjoyed their turkey and stuffing for Thanksgiving last week. One thing I appreciate about the Puritans, other than their fondness for a good feast, burning witches, cool hats, repression of normal sexual desires, and providing the grist for great dramas like The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, is the good sense of their descendants in religious matters. They decided you could be a half-Puritan, which technically sounds like you’re half dirty today, but hear me out.
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