Panelists: Julianne Hatton, J. Nelson-Seawright, Ann Porter, John Hamer, and John Dehlin (Moderator)
Topics: An introduction to Mormon Matters, PBS’s “The Mormons”, and an Ensign Article entitled: A Firm Foundation in a Shaky World.
Also, a big thanks to Skye Pixton for providing the music for this episode.
I hope you enjoy!
Comments 21
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John Dehlin, Ann, Jay, wow! I just started listening, and I LOVE hearing your voices after reading so many of your comments over the last many months. It gives me a much richer sense of you all than I get just from reading your words on the page.
Thanks, Eve! You’re our first confirmed listener (other than ourselves).
Great to hear from you! Maybe we can have you on as a guest!!!!
I guess I’m confirmed listener #2! Great show! I can’t wait for the next one!
I’m listening, too. I enjoyed the format and the variety of perspectives.
Ann, are stage fivers allowed to say they are in stage five? j/k
Well, you get tot be the first podcast on my new iPod, since I stupidly left mine where it could be easily stolen a couple of months ago. I’ve been doing penance by not buying one, but gave in a few days ago, and it came today,and I’m loading it up right now.
On the whole, I really liked the documentary. I thought that there were certainly many things that could have been worse– perhaps an indepth discussion of garments. I know two people who say they’re going back to church because of it.
As for me, that family with the unpronounceable last name, and the terminally ill daughter was the high point of the documentary– but also made me feel thoroughly inadequate as a parent of two kids who bicker, can’t sing, and talk back. And I’m not thin or wealthy with a tidy beautiful house either, so I felt very imperfect there.
And do you know there are some odd tweetering noises at times in the podcast? Like about when you start talking about the Ensign. It sounds a bit like the noises used for the storm trooper guns in Star Wars, but quieter.
John records the podcasts on a computer and those are probably sounds generated by programs running at the same time. If he is still using Skype for the podcasts, it acts similar to an instant messenger program where it will play little sounds when people on your “buddy list” log on or log off.
Thanks Clay, it sounded a bit like when we used to throw rocks at empty grainbins when I was growing up, only quieter.
Anyway, I came back to mention to whoever it was whose grandma is wondering about DNA– if your grandma hasn’t read this book, Trace Your Roots with DNA: Use Your DNA to Complete Your Family Tree
by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak , and Ann Turner, she ought to. It’s about the best introduction for a layperson to how DNA research works. It’s also, in my opinion, a good thing for LDS folks who are struggling with the DNA issues to read, as in introduction from someone who’s not at all interested in proving whether or not the Lamanites descended from the Hebrews. It just lays out current DNA research. Then you can make your own judgments when you’re reading the LDS stuff.
I can’t seem to find it in iTunes, will you be listing it there for us iTunes users?
Paula — the funny sounds are Instant Messaging we were doing. That shouldn’t happen again. 🙂
jjohnsen — We are in iTunes. Just search for Mormon under podcasts, and we’re there. Mormon Matters is the name. Let me know if you can’t find it with this description…I just did.
Thanks again for listening!!!!
maybe update the about tab. just a sugestion
I loved the part that I could hear. I don’t know if it’s my connection or what, but the audio just cut off partway through and I couldn’t get it to go any further. =(
Tatiana,
Try re-downloading.
Others have had a similar problem, and I’m trying to get to the bottom of it.
The redownload got stuck at 53%. I’ll try again.
Yay, it worked this time! It may have been my connection that was the problem.
Like most of the panelists, I loved the PBS special. I was dismayed/amused by the ward members who stood up in the following sacrament meeting crying about how awful it was and how they had to turn it off, etc. Oh well. 🙂 I did also have some friends ask me about things afterward, that they’d never heard of.
I was also surprised more panelists didn’t have a reaction to the Oaks comment about it being “wrong to criticize a leader, even if the criticism is correct.” My reaction, after watching the whole thing, was that it may have been the most damning bit in there. Even the other negative stuff was tempered, I thought, by the fact that there were multiple points of view and it was left to the audience to decide what to really think. But something coming straight from a church leader that implies members aren’t allowed to question is disturbing to me.
That said, I can only imagine the comment was taken out of context a little (or maybe I just need to imagine that for my sanity, but I don’t think so). Certainly Elder Oaks doesn’t really think people should allow their leaders to lead them astray simply because it’s “wrong to criticize.” I think he must have meant something more like what the panelists indicated: we should support our leaders, even in their weaknesses (which I strongly believe); we should not be critical even if we disagree; it’s not our place to criticize anyone, really, so leaders are off-limits along with all our fellow men; etc. But having that one little statement with no explanation could easily be read — I think IS most easily read — as a leader-control thing.
Regarding the hurricane Katrina help: my father drove to Mississippi 5 times since it, and even had our city here in Oregon adopt a city of similar size and population, where he organized specific monetary and physical donations that were given directly to the city and schools. He’s clocked well over 20,000 miles in his motor-home pulling various trailers.
Nobody asked him to go. People actually tried to talk him out of it. He persisted and changed lives for the better.
So, he is a perfect example of the kind of person who represents selflessness.
Hey John,
I like the format of these podcasts. Great idea.
Concerning Elder Oaks’ statement, if it was L. Ron Hubbard that said what Oaks said do you think your panel would have given it a pass? Would you suggest any Scientologist follow that advice? The moment any leader exempts themselves from all criticism is the instance your moral barometer should throw up every red flag you’ve got. I cringed as his statement was brushed off as innocuous (I’m trying to conjure as much Hitchens’esque indignation as I can).
I also have a few comments about the article “A Firm Foundation in a Shaky World.”
The first line of the article states ”Don’t let something you don’t know shake your faith in something you do know.” This has to be one of the more ridiculous things I’ve ever read. First, if you know something you no longer need faith in it. If you have faith in something then by pure definition you don’t know it. Faith is a detriment to an argument not a help.
Knowledge and truth don’t need to be insulated from opposition or argument. In fact quite the opposite, they demand that they be subjected to it. This is the mind numbing attitude I find so damaging in the Church and one of the main reasons I am no longer a Mormon. The constant reminder that we are sheep and the demand to be like little children are an unacceptable surrender of the mind. What does the Sheppard do with his flock? He fleeces them and when they are good for nothing else, he kills them. Childish thinking is cute in children but toxic in adults.
On a side note, I wonder if you’ve ever considered having Tal on Mormon Matters or Mormon Stories? I suggested the same thing to Tom Grover since he also talked about what Tal said in the documentary on KVNU’s For The People. It may be past it’s relevancy but it’s worth suggesting. Tal posted a response to his statement in the documentary that you may have already read on the KVNU blog (http://kvnuforthepeople.com/?p=428).
I got a podcast from itunes. it was a panel discussion about the pbs film. are there more podcasts?
also can you give me ann porters e-mail adress?
thanks, mike
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