Take this assessment and find out:
(Taken from D. Jeff Burton’s For Those Who Wonder : forthosewhowonder.com. Similar to a Correlation Department survey on Religion and Life conducted among LDS Church members in the mid-1980s)
Section I: Measures of Participation and Activity in Standard Church Programs
1. How often do you attend the temple? Continue reading…
2 Nephi 31:3 (emphasis added)
For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding.
When I was a teenager, I had an angry, liberal, bisexual friend whom I loved. Not in a romantic sense, but in a sense that I truly understood her. She was incredibly creative and I wanted her to be successful in her musical and artistic endeavors. We once had a conversation that completely surprised me. She had seemed so anti-religion for as long as I had known her, so when she told me the following, I was completely shocked: “When I saw Tori Amos in concert for the first time, Arthur, I swear I felt something that I never have before. I think I believe in God now… when I saw Tori Amos I somehow knew that there must be a God out there somewhere.” Continue reading…
Now that we’ve discussed the nature of the First Vision, what did it mean?
There are many meanings, the most vital being those which each person can discover for herself or himself. Here are those we are most familiar with, because they have been written and spoken about at length in the official media of the institutional LDS Church:
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?
“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…
I was raised in a household of faith. My parents are believers who encouraged discussion of religion in their home. I’ve asked around and found that this isn’t the case in many LDS homes. My parents asked what we children learned in Primary and Sunday School and then what we thought about it!
Let me be clear about a few things. First, I have been diagnosed as a liberal Mormon. Second, liberal Mormonism has been discussed before in the Bloggernacle, with one site devoted entirely to it. Third, I’m not talking about politics. Finally, this means some Mormons have problems with me. Continue reading…
