by Steve
And now the big news (or part of it)....

We've moved!

Please update your links accordingly. The new site URL is http://www.bycommonconsent.com. You can also get there by clicking the banner at the top of the page.

Do not bookmark this page. This site will no longer be updated, but it will remain open for browsing through our archives or for leaving snarky comments that no one will ever read.



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by Steve
The recent bait-and-switch at some other blog has caused us to consider the thirst of the average Bloggernacler for something new, something unique, something mildly blasphemous. We feel your pain, O ye unwashed masses. And so, on Wednesday, we will unveil some changes ourselves, BCC-style. Not the piddling, ho-hum changes you see elsewhere -- oh no! Ours will rattle your teeth like a ride on the Cyclone, shift your paradigm without a clutch and cause you to question the very meaning of life. Prepare yourselves.

And those of you who know what's going on, SHUT UP or I will e-break your kneecaps. The rest of you, feel free to speculate -- the best rumor-mongerer will win a shiny new Bronze Hornsman.
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by Karen
Yes, ladies and gentlemen...the folks at WalMart are recognizing the buying power of Mormons, and are filling that with a glorious bronzed hornsman...complete with a tennis visor.

Behold!

So how do you all feel about marketing efforts towards church members? Off shoot of church's marketing plan as suggested by Deseret News? Tacky? Priestcraft? Necessary and welcome? Will you be buying a bronzed hornsman for your relatives this Christmas?

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by Kristine
This is going to take a minute to explain, and non-musicians may have a little trouble imagining what I'm trying to describe, but hang in there with me for a minute...

I sing in a little choir--a pretty decent little chamber choir, about 10 people to a part, not quite enough tenors (of course), but not a bad group. The director, Gary, is new this year, and very, very good.

This last Tuesday night, Gary was late to rehearsal. He'd had to go out of town for the weekend--some crisis with one of his parents to attend to--and his plane was late getting back. So he was frazzled, and we were poorly warmed up, and the rehearsal was a bit haphazard and sluggish. Until the last half-hour, when Gary, inspired by the music (Gerald Finzi's Magnificat, if anyone's wondering) and some degree of panic about our impending concert, cranked things up a notch. He managed to find some little extra bit of energy, and implored us to give a little more, to go ahead and make mistakes, to just *sing.* And he managed to make himself a little vulnerable--a goofy look here, an awkward big conducting motion there, trying to make a point. All of a sudden, everybody was really, really singing. There was music! It's hard to describe exactly, but if you've ever been in a musical group, or a theater production, or (probably, I wouldn't know) a sports team that just got it all together all at the same time, you know that magic.

The point is this: for me, the feeling in that rehearsal on Tuesday, when all 37 of us in that room were reaching, straining, for something ineffable and lovely, was indistinguishable from the few times I've been really sure I was feeling the Spirit in a church meeting. It makes sense to me that God would bless a bunch of his (their) children who are working together for something good and true and beautiful with his Spirit--why ever not? And yet, it feels a little strange to say "I felt the Spirit very strongly at choir rehearsal last night."

So, two questions for you:

1) Was it the Spirit filling the choir room?
2) Why does it feel funny to say that?
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by Karen
I'm planning Thanksgiving this week which got me thinking about previous Thanksgivings. They fall into pretty much two categories. Category One: Long plane rides home for a too short weekend with my family, consisting of doing lots of dishes while hoping that no one in my extended family is fighting. One memorable Thanksgiving red eye plane ride in law school found me sitting next to a very smelly little man who tended to cuddle after he fell asleep. Category Two: being a stray taken in by charitable people whose sense of duty probably outstripped their affection for me. Another memorable Thanksgiving found me in an apartment in Boston with a hostess with strep throat, who felt well enough only to bake a turkey. There was another Mormon girl there with me, who was so overwhelmed to be surrounded by Harvard Law Students that she had a "drunk Mormon episode" fueled by adrenaline rather than wine. She karaoked the entire Rent soundtrack at the top of her lungs while the authentically drunk law students sat around staring at her with mouths gaping open. On the way home some guy with a southie accent called me and my friend lesbians. A day forever emblazened on my memory.

This year will be different. This year, I'm cooking dinner with my urban Singleton family. (huzzah for Bridget Jones!) As I found out last year, Singleton dinners are wonderful. No family fights, no green bean casserole, and no football. And once I figured out I could cook a turkey without burning down the house, my enjoyment only increased. This year, riding on last years' success, we're doing it again. And possibly taking in some strays--only we will not play the Rent soundtrack.

So, here's the thing I've realized while planning Thanksgiving for my urban Singleton family. They really are family. We take care of each other. Together we've gone through major surgery, job loss, illness, grief over (traditional) family tragedies, hookups, and breakups. Armed by our cell phones, we all know that help is one chain of kindly gossip away. Our families know it too. My friend's sister called one of us the day of that friend's emergency surgery. A quick phone conference to decide who could take work off, and we had someone at the hospital in 30 minutes. My roommates' moms call, and talk to me about my job woes before they talk to their own daughters. My parents praise my friends more than they praise me. (Or at least my insecure self thinks they do.) We have some important things in common. We're all committed to living gospel-oriented lives, and we check up on each other. There is safety in confessing both doubts and triumphs to an unconditionally caring ear.

I think I've always subconsciously bought into the idea that my gratitude was for the opportunity to simulate an authentic Mormon life in an unconventional environment while I waited for my chance to have a family of my own. But as I've been planning Thanksgiving for my favorite Singletons, I realized we're all living authentic Mormon lives. We are taking the admonitions of prophets and scriptures and structuring our lives to fit them. We are committed "gospel livers" and not "gospel waiters." We live in a world so centered around family that we forget that the perfect family doesn't exist. All committed members living gospel lives inside or outside a traditional family are authentic Mormons, because we are all taking gospel principles and trying to apply it to whatever craziness life is throwing at us. And let's face it. Life tends to throw the crazy right about this time of year. May all your holidays be filled with minimal craziness assuaged by your authentic Mormon convictions. And may you avoid both smelly traveling companions and the Rent soundtrack.

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by Dave
On Saturday night, a car pulled up behind me just after I found a convenient parking spot on a narrow Pasadena street. A tall, confident-looking fellow emerged from the car, stuck out his hand, and said, "Hi, I'm Aaron Brown." Not one to miss a line, I replied, "Do you mean the Aaron Brown?" Suitably flattered, he confessed, and I introduced myself as his co-blogging partner in crime. And thus we convened an impromptu meeting of the California wing of Bcc, Inc. We're no vast left-wing conspiracy, but we get around.

The event was actually the monthly meeting of the Miller-Eccles group, whose mission (for those who choose to accept it) is "to encourage LDS gospel scholarship, enlightenment and understanding." The invited speaker this month was Ron Walker, a BYU history prof who is one of three authors of what promises to be the definitive book on the unfortunate occurrence at Mountain Meadows (forthcoming from Oxford Univ. Press in 2005). Prof. Walker's remarks made it clear there was simply an awful lot going on in Utah in 1857, and most of it is relevant to understanding how something like Mountain Meadows could have happened. Having visited the actual site earlier this year, I found the presentation to be especially interesting.

Incidentally, the host told us he was pleased to see some "younger" attendees (which he generously defined as "under 35") at the meeting, which seemed like the kind of discussion the average Bcc'er would find interesting. There is a $10 per person suggested donation to defray travel expenses of the presenters, but the discussion seemed well worth the investment. Check the MESG website for details on future meetings and speakers.
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by Steve
It's not often that we at BCC have brushes with greatness, but over the past week I've had some emails with an artist involved in the most original and interesting news the LDS arts community has seen in years. Michael Allred is one of the biggest names in modern comics and graphic novels, with titles under his belt like X-Statix and Red Rocket 7, and his most famous work, Madman, is being made into a film by the fantastic Robert Rodriguez. His style has been compared to such greats as Jack Kirby and others, and his wife, Laura, has been his amazing colorist for years. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard of Mike's latest project, The Golden Plates, a series of Book of Mormon narratives that takes LDS doctrine in a bold new direction. I asked him a few obsequious questions, and he's generously responded. And maybe, just maybe, he'll answer a question or two of yours if he's so inclined.

Question/Fawning Admiration #1: Tell us about your visual inspirations.

Well, Arnold Friberg (who originally did 12 paintings of the Book Of Mormon, most which appear in several editions) is the first artist I remember seeing. So, his depictions of BOM people are the definitive ones in my mind, and so I'm going from his interpretations.

Question/Fawning Admiration #2: How did you go about picking and choosing which narrative aspects to follow?

It's been surprisingly easy. I simply read the scriptures and break the events into separate moments that can be illustrated.

Question/Fawning Admiration #3: What were the challenges of putting doctrine into the graphic novel format?

I do approach it as sacred. And while there is certainly a large bias of the comic book/ sequential art /graphic novel format, I'm
approaching it in the most thoroughly definitive way I'm capable of. In other words, using Friberg as an example again, what if he'd done THOUSANDS of illustrations instead of just the original 12? Well, I'm attempting to draw every moment with the doctrine placed in sequential order where ever possible.

Question/Fawning Admiration #4: Do you think the Book of Mormon is a history to be taken literally?

I absolutely DO regard the Book Of Mormon as a literal historical record, inspired by God, and the key to the truth of ALL things. It supports the truthfulness of ALL scripture.

Question/Fawning Admiration #5: Do you view this graphic novel as a missionary tool?

It is my testimony. Drawing is what I do best and having committed to this I will never again be at a loss to share my testimony and what I know to be true. Already many people who've never even heard of The Book Of Mormon have now been exposed to the first 14 chapters of the book. My hope is a seed will be planted, they'll find the beauty of the record, seek out the actual scriptures and find their way to the gospel. And for someone like myself, a life-long member who originally struggled with the scriptures, this might help provide a visual doorway to understanding the events, context, and flow of the history, and embrace the scriptures. AND for those who already have a love and testimony of the book might simply enjoy seeing it fully illustrated.

Question/Fawning Admiration #5: I must say, incidentally, that I admire the artistic guts it takes to do a project like Golden Plates; you're really going in some new territory here, and I think it's fantastic.

Thank you very much!
At this point, I just hope enough people get behind it so that I can finish it. We're off to a great start. The word of mouth on the project, and the positive response is well beyond what I had hoped for. It's thrilling.

Thanks again Mike! We want to officially order all BCC readers to go out and order copies immediately, and spread the word about a great book by an amazing author. His official website is at www.aaapop.com, and you can order his books through www.onipress.com.

UPDATE: Some reviews of The Golden Plates are starting to come in, and it's interesting to see.
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by Mathew
Renewed hope for a lasting peace in the Middle East comes in the wake of Arafat's death. After so much violence and misery, it seemed to me that hate had become a permanent part of the desert landscape. Now that the man the world recognized to represent the Palestinian people is gone, a new beginning feels possible. I do not mean to say that Arafat was all that stood between the current state of affairs and a lasting peace. There is blame enough to spread around in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Pointing fingers may strengthen ideological positions, but does little to solve the harder problem of preparing populations to tolerate one another. With new blood in the Palestinian leadership, however, personal animus can be put aside and the world may find someone who, like Thatcher and Reagan found in Gorbachev, they can deal with. I don't know much about Mahmoud Abbas, but I do know that he is considered more moderate than Arafat and is an experienced negotiator. Maybe the time for peace has come. Hope, naively or not, springs eternal.

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by Steve
The fate of the bloggernacle is WAS in YOUR hands!

Poll's over, folks, and here are the results:

www.bycommonconsent.com 45.6% with 62 votes

www.rameumptom.com 30.9% with 42 votes

www.korihor.com 11% with 15 votes (due to T&S tampering)

www.zelph.org 10.3% with 14 votes

www.zeezrom.com 2.2% with 3 votes

total votes: 136

What will we do now? We shall gather in secret chambers to decide.

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by Steve
Over the last year or so, I decided to read some of the great 'masterworks' of literature in their entirety, instead of just the snippets from the Norton anthologies. Sumer also joined along, reading books alongside. As a result, we've now read Moby-Dick, the complete Sherlock Holmes, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, A Passage to India, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, The Three Musketeers, Portrait of a Lady, Leaves of Grass, Treasure Island, Don Quixote, The Corrections, and a couple of others.

I initially took this on as a kind of personal Mount Everest, to read them because they're there and they're big, honking books that nobody really ever reads, and yet are classed amongst the most wonderful books ever written. Let's face it, there's a great deal of unrighteous pride involved here, to be able to flaunt your current reading -- telling people you're reading Don Quixote is a heckova lot more satisfying than responding with Men are From Mars or The Da Vinci Code. But I've gathered a couple of impressions from reading these big, tough books, and thought I'd get your ideas as well:

First, they're not so tough. The big books take some patience, but they're not so challenging or unengaging so as make them unreadable. War and Peace, for example, is challenging for the most part because of its variety of locales and characters; keep track of those, and the book isn't half as daunting. Getting your mind around some of the ideas, such as in The Brothers Karamazov, is a different matter; I'm still trying to work them out in my mind. But then again, so is everyone else!

Second, they're pretty good. Anna Karenina is now Sumer's favorite book (though its recent Oprah nod shook its reign). Don Quixote is now mine. They are considered the greatest books ever for good reason, but their size and reputations put them out of reach for most of us. I never would have appreciated them without reading them whole -- the fact of having read the entire book makes each aspect of the book seem more satisfying. Now the commandment in D&C 88:118 to seek wisdom in the best books makes a little more sense.

Do you get this same pleasure of working your way through a tough book?
What books are you reading now?
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by Dave
The Bloggernacle did its part--just about every weblog posted at least once on the election. I link to some of the more interesting pre- and post-election posts below. Television made its first big impact on presidential politics in 1960 with the Nixon-Kennedy debate. Blogging made its first big impact in 2004 by shooting down Dan Rather's memo story. What role will blogging (or the next Web innovation) play in 2008? Ask me in four years!

POST-ELECTION: Clark, rarely a political blogger, posts a nifty color map showing vote by county, shaded from blue to red by percentage vote--Utah is as red as it gets. John Fowles notes negative European press on Bush's re-election, which he summarizes as "predictably negative, even arrogantly condescending." Chris at LYMA promotes "Jon Stewart in 2008" and thinks the incumbent's supporters need to come up with a better chant than "Four More Years." And Mormanity likens this election's left-wing diatribes to anti-Mormon rhetoric, which he illustrates with a lengthy excerpt that starts, "Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states . . . ."

PRE-ELECTION: Greg at T&S points out that from 1932 to 1948, Utah voted solidly Democratic. And God didn't send down fire and brimstone! Although a rabid Republican might argue He did nuke St. George. Justin does a flashback to the election of 1912--Utah went for William Taft, but Woodrow Wilson Kerry won and kept the United States out of The Great War for the first three years. Larry the guest blogger at Our Thoughts talks about the lack of an opposition party in the province of Alberta, arguing that "[i]f we are to survive as a vibrant society in this province we need to allow for dissent and counter ideas." Look at Clark's map--not much dissent in the heartland of America either. Finally, Gordon's post on LDS Senator Harry Reid, possibly destined to be the Senate Minority Leader, features 74 comments giving many interesting details on this suddenly visible LDS politician.

NEXT WEEK: The theme for Potluck 8 will be LDS Sunday School, highlighting the Bloggernackers who have done regular lesson posts or commentary and running a few Google ranking contests. Anyone who does a "Three Things I Love/Hate About Sunday School" post is also at risk to be covered next week.
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by John H
Thanks to the wonders of genealogy (and the marvelous Family History Library in Salt Lake), more than a few Latter-day Saints scratched their heads when they researched ancestors and learned they had been married in a polygamous union after 1890 when the Manifesto was issued. Post-manifesto polygamy has since become a fascinating topic for researchers, and was well-explored by Ken Cannon, D. Michael Quinn, and B. Carmon Hardy.

Hardy and Quinn argue that one post-1890 marriage took place on ship off the coast of San Francisco. The couple? Wilford Woodruff and Madame Lydia Mountford, a colorful, if largely forgotten character from Mormonism’s past. Madame Mountford waltzed into Salt Lake City in early 1897 as part of her speaking tour on the Holy Land. She was Russian, had lived in Jerusalem, and her background lent credence to her showmanship; her lectures on the New Testament and Christ’s life included actors and larger-than-life costumes. She met with members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve. Some of the Brethren were skeptical - Anthon Lund noted that she had no foreign accent (Lund would know, speaking five languages himself). But Woodruff was enchanted by the woman. He attended most (if not all) of her lectures in the Tabernacle, and after she left Salt Lake, he continued to correspond with her.

It turns out that after their initial meeting 5 February 1897, in the next eighteen months before Woodruff's death, no other person was mentioned as many times in his diary as Madame Mountford. In fact, only his health received more attention in his daily journal. Woodruff started referring to her only as “M” and in one entry mentioned that he benefited from her “massage treatment.” In September 1897 Wilford Woodruff departed for a vacation to the west coast. He refused to let his wife and daughter join him (although they wanted to) and he and personal secretary L. John Nutall traveled under assumed names. They arrived in Portland, Oregon first. Then they traveled to San Francisco, stayed only two days, and took a ship back to Oregon. Who happened to be staying in San Francisco at the time of their journey? Madame Mountford.

Woodruff and Nutall returned back to Salt Lake a few days later. Hardy and Quinn theorize that Woodruff married Mountford (with Nutall officiating) on the ship - a common practice of post-manifesto marriages so as to create plausible deniability. After all, they weren’t married in the U.S. but on the ocean.

It’s a fascinating tale to be sure, and one that I’ve been doing a lot of reading on. Mountford was friends with Susa Young Gates, so I’m combing her papers for any kind of a hint in the correspondence between the two that suggests Woodruff and Mountford married. When one reads Quinn or Hardy, it’s next-to-impossible to not believe the marriage took place. But this raises the grand dilemma for all historians and our quest to understand the past.

We tend to view individuals as if their lives were a series of blips on the linear radar screen. In this case, a reference to Mountford pops up, then another, then more. The dots are easy to connect, giving us the evidence that we’re looking for. But then, we forget that the people in our story aren’t blips or just colorful characters. They’re humans, living day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute.

Perhaps if Wilford Woodruff were here (and being totally candid, of course) I could ask him, and he might smile and say he did marry Mountford, and that she fascinated him. He might congratulate Quinn and Hardy on their detective work, putting two and two together. But what if he was stunned at the insinuation. What if, when questioned, he just said he doesn’t know why Mountford appeared in his diary so much. It certainly wasn’t intentional, he might insist. After, he probably wasn't counting the number of times he referred to something, the way later historians would. And what if he said he isn’t sure why he decided to only stay two days in San Francisco, or why he doesn’t record anything about Mountford when he’s there (Quinn calls this, accurately, I suspect, a “deafening silence.”) Haven’t we all done things that, in retrospect, might not make sense to someone who views our behavior from the outside? We might have a perfectly logical explanation, or we might not even be sure ourselves. It’s human nature.

Thomas Alexander offers a nice alternate view to the Mountford-Woodruff connection. Were the two married? I don’t know. (Actually, even if they were, I’m not sure why it’s as important as others make it out to be; the two clearly never intended to share a life together or even reside in the same state, let alone act as husband and wife.) It can’t help but make me wonder, what if our visions of the past are off-base. Actually, it wouldn’t be all that bad. I’d love to sit down with Joseph Smith someday, see him smile, and tell me, “Here’s what really happened.”

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by Mathew
One of our friends at T&S mentions that the the "official Church advocates using political means to encourage the traditional family" and that lately that has meant supporting the effort to codify the time-honored definition of marriage. Like other good LDS, I'm trying to think of other things we could codify to preserve the sanctity of marriage.

1. Divorce--what is it good for? This is a problem in our church. Our leaders speak often about the soaring divorce rates and the negative impact on society. If you aren't committed enough to marriage to stay in it, you probably shouldn't be in it in the first place. With around 50% of all marriage in the U.S. ending in divorce, this presents a bigger threat to the institution of marriage than SSM. A ban on divorce with a few well-crafted exceptions for physical abuse would discourage the Britney Spears of the world from denigrating our time-honored institution. Of course it will be difficult to get popular support for this measure because so many of our family members, friends and neighbors are involved in this practice that the Bible condemns, but friends, we must be firm and stand for truth. We must not give the impression that we are going after homosexuals only because they are easy targets--we are people of principle and we must be equally firm against those who would lessen the significance of our marriages on every front.

2. Sex--for married people only. I don't think sex outside of marriage is as big a problem in the church, but society seems to have accepted it. We've been told that no other sin tops this one except murder. In the old days it wasn't socially acceptable to have sex outside of wedlock. There were strong societal taboos and there were even time-honored laws against it. The union of a man and a wife was one of the most beautiful parts of marriage. It still is. But it's being cheapened by people who are having unions without being married. Folks, don't be fooled, this is part of the radical agenda of people-eschewing-respect-for-virtue (PERV). If sex can be had without marriage, some people will still get married because it is important to them to make a public commitment to the person they love, but lots of people will be getting all that sexual healing without making the co-pay we call marriage. To many people that will make marriage seem less desirable and the institution will be lessened. We should therefore make a law against people have sex unless they are married. Again, this is going to be unpopular, but we must stand on principal--otherwise it will look like our principals are selectively applied to gays.

Any other ideas how we can use the law to strengthen marriage?

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by John H
The election is over, my man didn’t win. I liked John Kerry and I was ready to give him a shot for four years to see what he’d offer us. But, unlike some liberals, I’m not announcing my plans to move to Canada or predicting the end of the universe as we know it. George Bush strikes me as a likeable, nice fellow, even if I strenuously disagree with many of his policies.

But I am depressed after the election. It’s not over the leader we chose, but over why, apparently, he was chosen. In exit polls, more people said they were concerned about “moral values” than were concerned about the economy or terrorism. Lest anyone think I am opposed to moral values, let me reassure you. I like values just fine and I think they compose the backbone of a strong society.

What I despair over is conservative control over what is defined as values. One of the big surprises of the election was the Republican ability to match the Democrats in new registered voters. People were anxious to support George W. Bush for the first time. The question is, why? I’m sure there are a lot of reasons, but if the exit polls are right, moral values is a big one. I doubt people who voted for Bush were thinking, “I’m thrilled with how Iraq is going, or I love where unemployment is at.” They connected with him on the “value” issue.

So what does that mean? It means stem cell research, abortion, same sex marriage, and of course, religion. Perhaps this is why Utah Mormons overwhelmingly supported Bush again this year. What doesn’t it mean? Apparently morality has little to do with tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, 2,200 dead American soldiers, and tax cuts for the wealthy. (Within a few months, the number of dead soldiers will exceed the number of people killed on 9/11.) I’m not sure how or when it happened (and I don’t really care, frankly) but I’m utterly at a loss as to why conservatives get to decide what values are in America. Values don’t encompass helping the poor among conservatives, or fighting AIDS in Africa in a meaningful way. Yes, I know we gave some money, but to steal Bill Maher’s analogy, we’re like the millionaire who flips a quarter, or when we’re feeling really generous, a dollar, to the homeless guy and then thinks we made a real difference. We have the ability in this country to alleviate much of the suffering around the world, but we don’t. We’d rather drive tanks to work, shop with forklifts at Costco, watch TV on screens the size of movie theatres, and do whatever we want, whenever we want, the cost be damned. Apparently that’s what freedom means these days. We bitch and moan at paying $2 a gallon in gas to drive to the restaurant, but $5 for the valet is ok, and hey, who doesn’t pay $13 for a pear and gorgonzola salad?

What I’m suggesting is that our values are seriously screwed up in this country. Our outrage is reserved for Janet Jackson’s boob during the Super Bowl (where innocent children could’ve been watching!!!), for Bill Clinton’s marital infidelity, and for John Kerry’s “questionable” war record. We care about things that don’t matter and ignore the things that do. I hope we can stand up and let people know that we’re moral people, and that we stand for values, but that those values count. Sure, abortion’s an important moral issue, but if you’ve got such a myopic view that it’s what determines your vote, you’ve got no business calling yourself a person with values. What would Jesus do has to mean more than walking out of a movie where someone has the nerve to take their clothes off. We’ve got to stop letting conservatives control the discourse and tell us what counts and what doesn’t on the value-o-meter. Dying children in Africa matters. Genocide in Sudan matters. Iraqi civilians aren’t just collateral damage. What can we do to let our fellow Latter-day Saints know how we feel? What can we do to help combat this conservative control?

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by Kristine
It's the end of autumn in New England. It's hard to describe how gorgeous it is. I walk around most days with a tight aching in my throat, as though I might cry any minute--the loveliness so intense it's painful. As I type this, I am looking out the window over our backyard, covered in gold and russet leaves, out over a half-mile of rooftops and red and orange treetops to the ocean, the leaves more brilliant against the slate gray of the water than the blue sky.

I am a pagan at heart; the veneer of my Mormonism shows its bare spots when I'm overwhelmed by this-worldly beauty. I believe that I will never understand birth, death, resurrection, the Plan of Salvation carefully mapped out on the Sunday School chalkboard. All I know in my bones is what I've lived over and over again--the first pale green thrust of spring, the slow ripening and heaviness of summer, and the dying glory of the autumn leaves.

This autumn, death has seemed closer than usual. The mother of one of the fifth-graders at our school died slowly and painfully of cancer, the husband of a friend disappeared and was presumed drowned when the boat he had been sailing washed up on the shore of a Wisconsin lake. And a boy from our school, just 14, brave in the stupid way of adolescent boys, dared a train with his bicycle and lost. His mother had been riding a little ways behind him, and came around a corner to find her golden boy lying in the October leaves.

I see her now, every day when she brings her daughter to school, and it is hard not to turn away, to run. She is the spectre that haunts all parents' nightmares, the embodiment of that fear we never can quite banish. My faith seems too flimsy a defense. I do not want assurance that my children's spirits will live forever; I only want their bodies to outlive mine. My universe weighs just over 100 pounds, as tall and wide as three adored bundles of skin and bones, viscera and hair, blood and muscles.

I will the leaves to stay on the trees, to hang on against wind and rain, not to leave us with the cold beauty of the trees' forms and the stark peace of the snow-covered garden. And yet the useless beauty of the leaves' dying makes room for hope--surely this autumn glory *means* something. Surely a world so beautiful is evidence of sense and purpose, such loveliness the assurance of a great Love over and around us all.
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by Aaron B
That's my prediction. Just because nobody else in the media will definitively call this election, doesn't mean I can't. You heard it here first folks.

(Does this qualify me as a prophet?)

Liberals, vent! Conservatives, rejoice! Libertarians, shrug your shoulders?

Aaron B

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by Karen
This past month I celebrated my thirty-first birthday, and in addition to very much enjoying my friend-sponsored surprise party (where my lovely friends contributed to my much needed mental tidy by burning things that upset me in a big big bonfire), I enjoyed some free introspection time. This year, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about my birth mother. Usually, a few days after my birthday, I remember that she is out there somewhere, and surmise that she was probably trying to deal with a very difficult day. This year, however, I thought about her quite a bit on my birthday and thought that although I have no strong desire to actually try to find her (as I'm a fiercely devoted member of the quirky but loving Hall family) I did want to say thank you. So here is my thank you note:

Dear Birth Mother,

I don't remember meeting you, although I'm sure that I made quite an impression on you 31 years ago. I know it must have been hard to make the decision to put me up for adoption. But I wanted you to know that I consider it to be the most admirable selfless act that I can imagine. My parents are amazing, supportive, loving people, and they raised me in a stable, spiritual home, along with my older brother. They aren't rich, but they had the financial stability to support me and encourage my education. They also are happy, well-adjusted people, who raised me to be practical and strong--but still call me princess. I am so grateful that I was raised in that home, and I know that you made it possible. I imagine that you were pretty young when I was born, and I also imagine you realized you couldn't give me everything you wanted to yourself, so you shared me with people who could. I like to think that you passed on to me the ability to make mature selfless decisions, because that is something that I admire about you, and am striving to develop myself.

I also want to thank you for not having an abortion. I always thought it was ironic that I was born exactly nine months after the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. I know that you legally had the choice to terminate your pregnancy, but you chose not to. I hope you don't regret that decision. I feel so fortunate to be alive. I love my life. I love what I've done with it, and I cherish the fact that I've been so blessed.

Please don't worry about me. I know that there are still people who are wary of adoption. I remember reading billboards for mental hospitals in Utah that specialized in "drug and alcohol addiction, eating disorders, and adopted children." I always thought that was pretty ridiculous, and being the spunky girl I am, make fun of those signs and attitudes regularly. Please don't spend time anguishing over whether or not you did the right thing. I know you were inspired to allow my parents to adopt me, and I'm so grateful that you followed that inspiration. I really hope that you have found peace with your decision, and I want you to know that I wish you all the best in life. You certainly deserve to experience the same kind of happiness you've given me.

With much respect,

Karen

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by Steve
Many have written to me, to complain of how they weren't able to be at the Bloggernacle party last week. I'm sorry you couldn't make it, you non-NYC inferior nerds. For those of you who couldn't make it, I've made a little video of myself for the curious public. It's a bit long, but will fill in a lot of blanks for you all. Enjoy!
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by Kristine
1. The New York City Subway map makes things look close and easy enough to get to. Do not believe it.

2. Mat Parke is not, in fact, the general counsel for a grocery store chain. (yes, I'm stupider than I look!)

3. Really good cheese tastes a *lot* better than pretty good cheese (thanks, Kaimi!)

4. Steve Evans is funny. And his dad played the villain in an old church movie. Somehow that makes him seem even funnier.

5. I can get along just fine (swimmingly, actually) with at least one of the Bell brothers. (which makes me suspect that pre-millenial reconciliation, or at least detente, with the Fowles might even be possible :))

6. It is unwise for me to stay up past 1 a.m., as fatigue puts me in a confessional mood. It's a good thing we weren't drinking--heaven knows what scandalous tales I might have told :)

7. Did I mention that Steve Evans is funny? I actually fell on the floor laughing at one point (of course, almost everything is pretty funny by 2:15 in the morning)

8. JWL was the only person who was almost exactly as I'd imagined him, and just as wonderful.

9. Kaimi, whom I had always imagined as a righteous man, careful to bring up his children in truth, has been corrupting his innocents with that great evil of our time--Yankee fandom. Fortunately, his children will still have access to the spirit, which can whisper truth to them in spite of the false traditions of their father.

10. D., besides having very quickly become one of my favorite people on earth, is a FABULOUS host. His place is beautiful, the food was wonderful, and he was so warm and welcoming. He even flew back from Utah a day early to arrange everything perfectly. What a guy!

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by Dave
Am I the only one who finds the Bloggernacle more interesting than television? In case you've spent too much time watching Scrubs, Lost, The O.C., and the other fare so elegantly showcased yesterday by Steve, here are a few Bloggernacle highlights since the last Potluck.

Justin gives short teasers on two new books by Terryl Givens that are in the works for next year. Yes, they are both on Mormonism. The one subtitled The Cultural History of the Mormon People looks quite promising. I wonder if blogging will make it into the last chapter? Givens, Jr. blogs (he was a regular commenter at T&S at one point) so there is a chance the Bloggernacle will at least get a footnote.

Rusty talks about the tough sell that early-morning seminary is for some Mormon teenagers. Y'all can chime in with your opinion, but I've never seen any official recognition of the fact that wake-up times for EMS students have morphed from early morning (7ish) to very early morning (6ish) to very, very early morning (5ish) as high schools have beefed up their curricula and schedules. Declining interest by some teenagers is a sign of their sanity. Failure to adjust by CES is a sign of rigid thinking, the kind of "make the people fit the program" approach that makes the Mormon Church such a wonderful place. Try holding Sacrament Meeting at 6:00 a.m. and see who shows up! My sympathy, of course, to instructors like Rusty who are caught in the middle.

John C. at new blog United Brethren is trolling for advice on what to say to a straying LDS student who is trying to deal with his initial foray into Mormon Studies via Jon Krakauer. I would tell him to tell the kid to start blogging, but the question probably deserves more serious treatment. Go drop in and share your unique BCC insights.

The best I could come up with over at the other blog was Matt's post on the how regularly he sees Mormons with left-leaning political convictions leave the Church while one rarely sees right-leaning Mormons take the long walk. Try to suppress your knee-jerk liberal reaction and read the post, which recognizes that this is a delicate subject and treats it as a question that deserves serious discussion. We form singles wards and Polynesian branches . . . how about a Democratic branch or two? I'd even settle for a few politically neutral congregations.
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by Steve
OK, you weak-minded fools, you love your T.V. You spend more time worshipping the boob tube than on your knees before your Maker. That's O.K. -- you are no different than the rest of America and the world. Better for you to be mesmerized by the phosphors than to be a total social outcast.

That being said, no amount of T.V.-watching will make you normal, unless you watch the right T.V. Being an fanboy of Antiques Roadshow and Charmed will get you neither into the Celestial Kingdom, nor the Great and Spacious Building. So, your friends at BCC have put together this friendly guide to the new Fall schedule, so that you may set your VCRs, program your TiVos and rearrange your Family Home Evenings as appropriate. This is a guide to prime time viewing on the major networks only -- mormons are too cheap for HBO (though we discuss the best of HBO below).

We've tried to present three options for each time slot.The first option in a timeslot is what you ought to watch, as a cool member of society; the second is what you could watch, if offended by cool content; the third is what you must never watch, for fear of contracting social leprosy. Links are provided to each show's homepage. Feel free to disagree with our picks to your hearts' content, you knobs.

Monday
8:00 p.m. SpongeBob SquarePants/F.H.E./7th Heaven. Not much to merit watching this hour of television, sadly. 7th Heaven is a dark, evil addiction which grips my family. You can justify watching it, however, by virtue of the rumor that Aaron Spelling originally planned to make it about mormons. Just have F.H.E., and get yourself right with the Lord before 9:00.
9:00 p.m. Everwood/CBS comedies/Girlfriends. Everwood is class A WB stuff. Truly enjoyable writing, fine cast, and it's filmed in Utah! The show is heartfelt, and deals with some interesting issues, at least occasionally. The other two options are horrible. Of course, come Jan. 10th, the truly awesome 24 begins in this timeslot, so 24 vs. Everwood should cause you to rush out and buy TiVo right now.
10:00 p.m. The Wire/local news/CSI Miami. Will David Caruso stop trying to seem like a Bad Dude? Come on, scrawny man! You're not fooling anyone, and your show is even worse than the original CSI, if that's possible. What a waste of Miami! At least Miami Vice involved Michael Mann and a Ferrari.
11:00 p.m., MONDAY-FRIDAY: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, on Comedy Central. Really, this is the only 'must-see T.V.' that still exists. You could also stay up after and watch South Park, you perverts.

Tuesday
8:00 p.m. Gilmore Girls/scripture study/NOVA. GG is a great show: snappy writing, a weird, funny world, and involving characters. It has the fastest pace of dialogue of any show on television, and I've grown to really enjoy it. Don't like the WB? Get over it. Watch PBS, you nerd.
9:00 p.m. Veronica Mars/Scrubs/Frontline. VM is the new, better written BtVS. What an amazing, soon-to-be-cancelled show, with a strong, smart woman and a thoughful writing style. It's about the nosy daughter of a P.I., but it's really much more interesting than its premise. Plus a really cool intro song -- this is the best show ever on UPN, including when they stole Buffy. Scrubs will do in a pinch for dumb comedy. Not in the mood for great TV or mildly interesting comedy? Watch PBS again, you nerd.
10:00 p.m. local news/whichever Law & Order show is on, and ready yourself for Wednesday.

Wednesday
8:00 p.m. Lost/60 Minutes/Smallville. Lost is another JJ Abrams masterpiece, kind of an Alias meets Cast Away meets Land of the Lost. The premise? Crawl out from under your rock -- people are lost on an island somewhere weird. Interesting, suspenseful, well-executed T.V., that ranks up there with Veronica Mars for best new show. 60 Minutes is always fun to watch, but try to avoid Smallville, which takes a great superhero franchise and reduces it to creature-of-the-week T.V. Awful, made more so by its potential.
9:00 p.m. Another FHE/Spike TV/West Wing. Not much on at 9:00 p.m. Wednesdays, and don't give me West Wing, 'cause this season sucks rocks compared to years past. It'll be gone next year, I guarantee. I put in Spike TV because tonight they're showing Dog Day Afternoon, which puts them up a couple of notches in my book.
10:00 p.m. See Tuesday.

Thursday
8:00 p.m. The O.C./Joey/Journal writing. Mock if you must, but The O.C. is great, pulpy T.V. at its best. It has soap opera-y storylines, to be sure, but it's snappy & fun, great to look at, and gets you hooked pretty quickly. It has some good James Dean moments, believe it or not. And that Adam Brody is dreamy! Joey is there for you if you really miss Friends, I suppose, but it's fairly forgettable.
9:00 p.m. CSI/The Apprentice/Organizing food storage. This is a good hour to just keep the T.V. off. CSI is awful stuff, the worst ham-fisted writing in the world. But it's Bruckheimer-produced, so if you liked Bad Boys then this may keep you drooling. The Apprentice is included so that you can keep up with the water-cooler talk the next day, but Trump is a moron.
10:00 p.m. Late night temple session?

Friday
8:00 p.m. Complete Savages/Joan of Arcadia/Dateline NBC. Complete Savages is a sitcom produced by Mel Gibson, that has a real Chuck Jones-style comedy angle. It's fairly dumb, but has moments of hilarity, and is the best on-screen depiction of an all-male household I've ever seen. Joan of Arcadia is basically a smarter teen version of Touched by an Angel, but it still sucks, despite its emmy nods. Dateline NBC represents the worst of "news" journalism.
9:00 p.m. PPIs/Reba/JAG. This is the time of night you regret having a T.V. If you have an Xbox, Gamecube, or Atari, break it out. Otherwise you'll face the worst cheese of middle America. Sumer really likes Reba, because she hails from Texas and "it's not ridiculous." You be the judge. Reba is a single mom, working hard to keep her family together. *yawn* As for JAG, Catherine Bell ceased to be a sex symbol years ago, and Bellisario (the producer) hasn't made an interesting show since Airwolf's 2nd season.
10:00 p.m. Get a life! Get out of the house, potato! Go clubbing!

Saturday (are you really watching T.V. on a Saturday night? Loser!)
Not much of note comes on Saturday night. But I must divulge one of my many secret pleasures, Cops. Man alive, there's something deeply satisfying about seeing the darker side of humanity.

Sunday
Sunday has a host of funny and intersting shows. Here are the highlights, but you may as well just program your T.V. to swap automatically between ABC and FOX. Otherwise, feel free to watch American Dreams, Cold Case or British House of Commons on C-SPAN to your heart's content -- just don't expect anyone to want to hang out with you, ever.

7:00 p.m. America's Funniest Home Videos. Sure, it's a bit of a guilty pleasure. But you never get tired of someone taking a golf ball to the crotch, people! To me, AFV is a microcosm of America itself; it shows our vices, our pleasures, our failures. Well, more accurately, yours (O Canada...)
8:00 p.m. The Simpsons. The best animated series on television, and arguably the best ever, depending upon how many Futurama fanboys you talk to. Those who think The Simpsons are in poor taste obviously haven't seen a lot of South Park (must be the same people who think T&S is a liberal blog *snicker*).
8:30 p.m. Arrested Development. AD is by a mile the best comedy on T.V., and certainly the best show Jason Bateman's ever been a part of. Produced by Ron Howard, and starring some of the best comedic talent available (including Mr. Show's David Cross), AD is the ultimate tongue-in-cheek family sitcom. If you haven't watched it, you owe it to yourself to upgrade from the shlock that normally passes for comedy, such as Everybody Loves Raymond.
9:00 p.m. Desperate Housewives or Alias (starting in January)/Law & Order - Criminal Intent/Masterpiece Theatre. Desperate Housewives is listed as a shout-out to Gigi Parke, who is addicted to the show (as a mirror of her own life, perhaps?). But it's highly regarded and has an interesting ongoing series of plots. My only objection is that it's a little too racy than it needs to be, and is sometimes a little obvious with its themes. The same could be said for the other show ABC slots at this time, Alias. But somehow, Jennifer Garner kicking butt as a super-spy seems more harmless. Last season's Alias was terrible compared to its spectacular first season, but rumor has it that JJ Abrams is back on track -- if Lost is any indication. I've included L&O - CI as an option here because Vincent D'Onofrio is really good at being a creepy detective, but there's not too much else that distinguishes it. Again, you want class? Watch PBS, nerd.
10:00 p.m. Go to bed!/News/Boston Legal. Can you really consider watching Boston Legal? Just because William Shatner and James Spader star doesn't make it worthwhile -- cast isn't everything (tell that BTW to the dorks behind Dr. Vegas!).

Soon to come: cable shows, HBO and others. Please feel free to snark away should you disagree. We will cruelly mock you. For those who deeply care about T.V. (and you all should), behold an invaluable resource: Television Without Pity. This is the internet's best recapping and review site, where the reviews are often better than the shows themselves (esp. for 7th Heaven).

Go forth and watch, my children!
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by Mathew
In yesterday's post, Steve talks about jobs in bad environments for terrible pay that his mother forced him to take. Folks, it's as if we led parallel lives. Either that or we have the same mother. That isn't as implausible as it sounds--with so many kids running around its possible that we just didn't bump into each other.

As it turns out, even before reading Steve's post, my employment history had been on my mind. Last Saturday I called Mom up to review the record. I began by letting her know that I am paid decently at my law firm and asked if I should give some of the money back. She seemed surprised at the question and asnwered "no", a position I find inconsistent with her insistance that I not take the $3 an hour Sister Slagowski offered me for yard work when I was 12 because it was "too much".

My first real job was working for my father. I grew up on a farm and Dad, in an attempt to teach me about money, paid me a summer salary from which I was expected to buy my own school clothes. When I started I was 10 and we agreed to $120. I wasn't being paid to do my chores of course. Daily milking the cow, feeding the chickens, pigs, and cows, mowing the golf course we conservatively called a lawn or weeding the garden that produced enough to can hundreds of quarts a year was all gratis (or as my mother put it--"earning my keep". Chores were expected--I, along with my older brother, was paid to run the farm. We threw siphons, pulled head-gates and dug cross-dikes day and night when it was our water turn and eventually grew two crops of alfalfa and a few thousand bushels of wheat from the stubborn Idaho soil. At the end of the summer Dad called me into his study to reckon the books and cut me a check for $60. He was bishop at the time and scrupulously honest, but in money matters his memory was notoriously bad, so I ended up wearing Toughskin pants for another year instead of the more expensive Levi's I had fantacized about.

The next year, having no better offers, I again worked for my father. The controversy from the year before had been put to rest by his promising to pay me $120 this year. After we had cut and baled the hay and harvested the grain, I met again with Dad in his study where he sold me my first investment. He would cut me an $80 check and I would use the other $40 to buy a pair of piglets in the spring which I could raise and then sell on the open market when they were adults. Making money never seemed so easy and I readily agreed to his proposal. Sitting in my law office and thinking back on this, it occurs to me that I should have read the fine print--but who thinks about that when they are 11.

The next spring Dad drove me to a farm a few miles from ours and we purchased two piglets. I grained and watered them every day, carried the pig slop (scraps from our kitchen) out to their pen whenever it was full and after about a year we had two large pigs ready for auction. My father proposed simplifying the transaction, foregoing the auction and buying the pigs directly. He offered me the magic number, $120. This was below market price, but on the other hand, I hadn't paid anything for the grain and an $80 profit (tax free!) looked pretty good. So we slaughtered the pigs. Dad then explained that things hadn't gone well with the farm that year (my entire family engaged in group-delusion by insisting that one year things would go well with the farm), but that he would pay me when he had the money. I guess he never got the money because I never got paid.

I advertised the injustice of the situation often and loudly enough that the Pig Money has now entered family lore. Now when we get together for family occasions, I sometimes ask Dad when I'm going to get paid. Trying to be philosophical about it, I comfort myself by thinking that if at age 30 the worst thing you can say about your father is that he welched on the Pig Money, you can't complain.

It's harder to forget the injustices I suffered at the hands of my mom--more on that later.

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by Steve
No, not that Pedro.

I live in a smallish building on the Upper West Side -- five families, 6 floors and a basement. Each of us lives on a separate floor, but we all share some common areas in the building, like any other condo. We have a small garden out front. We take turns taking the trash to the curb; we take turns shoveling the walk. We all pitch in to tend the garden and clean up common areas. 'Tis a harmony of the highest order, 4th Nephi-style.

Or so it should be. Some of us are more lazy than others, which means every once in a while, the snow doesn't get shovelled or the trash builds up. When there are only a few families, and we all take turns, a particular family's failure to contribute becomes extremely obvious. We all come from very different backgrounds, so some of us have never performed this type of manual labor before, while others had several crappy jobs through high school that their mother got for them that made them do all kinds of junk like this for the worst pay imaginable and you had to work with total coke fiends.

Anyhoo... enter Pedro. One of the families knows a super from down the street, named Pedro. For $150 a month, Pedro has offered to shovel our walks, take out the trash and periodically clean up our sidewalks. Pedro does a very fine job at his other building, and has enough spare time to work on ours, too. $150/month, $30 per family, seems a reasonable amount. But I have a weird aversion to hiring Pedro to do these tasks for me. I'm worried that it will fragment the culture of our building, making us rely on others to do work which is rightly our own, while causing each of us to participate a little less towards the common good. This all seems to cut against the grain of my pioneer blood and the spirit of the mormon work ethic. Isn't it good for me, in some way, to get out there and shovel my own walk? What are the effects of hiring people to do our work?

Pedro would be a good President. We have a contract with Pedro to perform services, and he fulfills these tasks gladly as promised. We have him work for the collective good, and in exchange we each work a little less. Pedro is the central government executive branch, performing our work in exchange for our money. We all participate a little less, and pay a little more, but the tasks get done more efficiently and we live worry-free. Pedro is Big Government. Vote for Pedro!
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by Christina
The cover article in the New York Times magazine this weekend was about a family in New York in which the two parents are gay women who have raised to now young adulthood two daughters (each conceived through male sperm donors and borne by the mothers, one each). I was particularly interested in the article because I worked for one of the mothers, Sandy Russo, when I was at Legal Services one summer. The thrust of the article was as follows: there is political cachet on each side of the debate over gay marriage and gay couples raising children as to the sexual orientation of those children as youths/adults. The body of social science research performed on families like this is small, as the possible sample size is still very small. However, there have been studies, as one might expect given the cultural issues at stake, coming down on both sides of the debate over the welfare of children raised in gay unions. Some evidence exists that the children of these unions are as or better socially well-adjusted as children of other unions on all the typical indicators for these things. Let's take it as a given that gay unions turn out happy, productive members of society. What I am interested is the question, as articulated by the subjects of the article and exemplified by these two daughers: do openly gay parents who raise their children affect their children's sexual development in such a way that those children are more likely to question their sexual orientation, act on homosexual impulses and/or identify as homosexual? In the Russo-Young family, one daughter is gay; the other is straight.

After reading the article, my conclusion was that these kids are influenced in their sexual development by their parents' homosexuality. First of all, kids are influenced by everything their parents do; whether we adopt our parents' attitudes, activities, or politics is something every one of us struggles with in the process of defining self and growing to adulthood. It is only sensible to me that sexual orientation is just like any of these other things. I also believe that our sexuality has both innate and cultural aspects, and, controversial as this is, I think women's sexuality is probably more malleable than men's. Given these assumptions together, gay parents' sexual orientation will surely affect their children's orientation, most likely insofar as those children struggle more consciously with sexuality as a choice between homosexuality as the norm and heterosexuality as the alternative. This was certainly expressed by the children profiled in the article.

So, my question is, what does it matter? As members of this church, we are taught that our sexuality should only be expressed in heterosexual marriage. But this standard doesn't jibe with the reality of many people's experience, particularly for those who don't identify as heterosexual. I've heard more progressive members of the church say that given the assumption that our sexuality has both innate and acquired attributes, we should be accepting of homosexuality but not encourage it. Would that then mean that we love and support our homosexual friends but don't encourage them to raise children.? I don't think this is a tenable approach. At bottom it still marginalizes gays, lesbians and transgendered people because it still assumes that these modes of sexuality are wrong (and denies them basic human freedoms).
What is the church's stance? Is it correct?
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by Aaron B
I am intrigued by the phenomenon of the closeted blog-reader. You all know who you are. You read By Common Consent religiously (and maybe occasionally stoop to visit BCC-lite), you stay home with your computers on Saturday nights just in case something profound pops up on this site, but you never actually dare to make a comment yourself. Why is that? I mean, it’s not that difficult to chime in, folks. All you have to do is push the “comments” button, provide your name and email address (which can even be anonymous, don’t you know), and say hello! It’s not like your every utterance need be profound or thought-provoking (though that would be nice). I really do occasionally run into people who say they visit the Bloggernacle, but haven’t ever left a comment. And we all recall the occasional commenter who says: “I’ve been reading this blog for a long time, but I haven’t commented until today …”

What is going on here? Why are there so many passive readers who haven’t yet morphed into active participants? Some theories:

(1) The intellectual sophistication of those participating here is so impressive that most readers are intimidated into awestruck silence.

(This is quite flattering. I hope this is it. Alas, though some of Nate’s philosophical ramblings might qualify, I doubt that my latest screed would pass muster. (Although Steve E. tells me my recent observation on "Turner & Hooch" was quite brilliant, thank you very much)).

(2) People read BCC as a guilty pleasure, but most don’t dare participate in such an edgy forum for fear that the ecclesiastical repercussions might be severe. A corollary of this view -- BCC is really, really important, and those of us who participate here are unusually brave and stalwart souls, ready to defend truth and righteousness, no matter what the consequences!

(I really like this one. But it’s probably false.)

(3) We are collectively perceived as vicious enemies of orthodoxy, ready to pounce on any dissent that doesn’t conform with our enlightened "liberal" views. Hence, people are afraid we will make fun of them and make them cry.

(Not true, folks. We’re all about peace and love around here. Really. Besides, the only blogger I feel compelled to pick fights with is Lile).

(4) Our pretentiousness and self-importance is so mindboggling, that it’s all that most readers can do to just sit dumbfounded in front of their screens, fingers paralyzed.

(Impossible. This can’t be it.)

(5) Everyone who reads this blog does comment here! We’re flattering ourselves to think we even have any other readers! We don’t! Most of our blog traffic is simply a function of Steve E. not having enough to do at work and visiting the site like 40,000 times a day.

(I fear this may be it.)

In all seriousness, though, I wonder what it is that prods a reader into taking that first step towards full participation. How long does it take the average reader to make the leap? Why does it take as long as it does? Why don’t those of you who typically visit here in silence finally break the mold and say something? Tell us about yourselves! Now’s your chance.

Aaron B

P.S. Yes, this means you Peter Dittmer. :)

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by Aaron B
I am a lousy journal writer. Always have been. Yes, I kept a journal as a young child at my parents’ insistence and it is fun to go back and visit those juvenile entries once in a blue moon. But ever since I was seven, I have only made diary entries on rare occasion. Even as a missionary, I couldn’t bring myself to write regularly. I always felt like there was no obvious method for selecting what I should include and exclude from my daily drama, so rather than having to make judgment calls as to what would be important to put on paper, it was easier just to bag the whole project.

This evening, while I was perusing through some old files, I happened upon a mini-essay I penned as a missionary, written on a piece of paper stuck between two pages of my (nearly empty) missionary journal. The essay is undated, though I believe I wrote it about half way through the mission. I have fixed some of the punctuation and translated the occasional Spanish word into English, but otherwise, I resisted the temptation to give it an edit (which it desperately needs). Here it is:

Why I do not have and will not have a mission baptismal goal

When I first arrived in the mission field, I arrived at my first area at the same time as my trainer, and we basically opened the area. There had been 2 missionaries working there immediately before us, but they had not been working like they should, so they were removed, leaving us with basically nothing to start with. Within the first 7 weeks I was there, my comp Elder Zacarias and I had 13 baptisms. Needless to say, that was the highest number of baptisms performed by a companionship in the mission that month, and was the highest the mission had seen in quite some time. We became rather famous in the mission for a short time, and of course reveled in the praises and respect given us by our mission president, as well as fellow missionaries.

Let it be stated that I was just a greenie at the time, who often felt he was just being taken along for the ride, but Elder Zacarias was an experienced elder who had had somewhat similar experiences throughout his mission. Elder Zacarias had set a baptismal goal of 100 baptisms in his mission, and I do believe, if I’m not mistaken, that he reached it. Needless to say, he left the Mission Trelew with one of the highest number of baptisms for a missionary ever achieved in the mission. I’m sure he returned home at the end of his 2-year stay quite content with his work, and felt that his mission had been a complete success. . . . but from my point of view, in many ways, Zacarias’ mission was a complete DISASTER.

What the rest of the mission didn’t see (and what I believe the president chose not to see) was the real, behind-the-scenes story behind the numbers Zacarias was pulling in, a story I fully lived as his companion for two months. The truth was, although Zacarias admittedly had many excellent qualities as a missionary (his ability to animate members and investigators, build social trust, leave spiritual impressions, and work unceasingly were among the best I’ve ever seen in the mission field), he was driven by a burning lust for high numbers and personal recognition, and nothing was more important to him than this. Because of this, Zacarias left behind him a legacy of baptized drunks, and instant inactives … inactives not because of the many unforeseeable motives that might drive people inactive (indeed, we as missionaries cannot always blame ourselves for the choices of our investigators, saying it was wrong to baptize them. But in these cases, the responsibilities of the missionary to ensure preparedness and appropriate baptismal motives were not fulfilled, and that is definitely deserving of blame), but because of the simple fact they were unprepared (many never had any church attendance) or had never gained testimonies (some had never read almost any of the Book of Mormon).

So what’s my point? What this all boils down to, I think, is a dilemma that not only I have had to face during my mission, but one that I think all missionaries have to face at one time or another. . . The eternal struggle between QUALITY and QUANTITY. Theoretically, it goes without saying that everybody wants the maximum quality and maximum quantity out of their baptisms. But the simple, mathematical reality is that less quality inevitably leads to more quantity and vs. versa. Every missionary learns that the line between the two has to be drawn somewhere, and each missionary has to make the decision for himself/herself as to where he/she chooses to do it. And working within a system (such as the mission) that is so numbers-oriented (or appears to be becoming so), it is very easy to take the Zacarias option and make a “run for the glory.” Needless to say, many do. And then we foolishly ask ourselves why we have a 70% inactivity rate in South America.

I will repeat. . . missionaries cannot blame themselves every time a baptism goes inactive. Inactivity is the free agency of every individual. But if we have not done all that we can to prepare our baptisms. . . if we have not ensured that our investigators have gained adequate testimonies of the gospel, then we are at least partially at fault for their failures.

So why don’t I set a number as a baptismal goal? I choose not to because I don’t want to risk becoming another Zacarias. Not even a little bit. Instead, my goal in the mission is to work as hard as I can, to the best of my ability to bring about as many baptisms as I can, be that 10 or 1000. My baptismal success depends upon many things (the personal choices of my investigators, my teaching ability, the openness of the people, their reception to the Spirit, God’s will, my faith, etc.), but in the end, at least I will know that I’ve done my best, and I’ve done it for the right reasons. I see no reason to cloud my judgment by tempting myself with inappropriate motives.


It is fun to read the thoughts of a much younger me. I get to relive some of the frustrations and other emotions that I felt all those years ago. But what I want to know from you all is … did the 20-year old Aaron Brown have a point, or was he just blowing smoke?

I assume my observation as to the inevitable tradeoff between “quality” converts and high numbers of baptisms is a true, and perhaps obvious, one. (But feel free to disagree if you’re so inclined). More interesting to me is the question of setting goals, per se. Does the very act of setting a numerical baptismal goal increase the chances of one’s cutting corners in preparing investigators, obsessing inappropriately about numbers, overfocusing on outward, meaningless benchmarks of success and viewing potential converts as mere means to a selfish end? Wouldn’t missionaries be better off making sure their hearts are in the right place, their motives are pure, and that they are working hard, leaving the Lord to take care of the numbers? Or was I wrong to identify the act of goal-setting, per se, as the source of Elder Zacarias’ problems? Are there virtues to the goal-setting process that more than offset any of the negatives I mentioned? Or is goal-setting itself not the source of the problem at all, contrary to my essay, and I was engaging in a serious misdiagnosis? A penny for your thoughts …

Aaron B

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by Dave
I'm continuing a feature started on my other blog, highlighting interesting posts around the Bloggernacle since the last Potluck, ones that deserve another go-round and additional comment from the BCC community. This should be especially useful for group bloggers who frequent BCC and T&S but don't get out much (to other Bloggernacle sites). For previous installments, go here.

Justin at Mormon Wasp talked about Wallace Stegner and gave a link to an interview he did with Sunstone in 1980. Stegner wrote about Salt Lake City as a unique Western city rather than as a Mormon city, and was the first person to make me actually like the place a little bit. He deserves more attention.

Bret at Nine Moons posted The Manipulation Pattern: A Mormon's Favorite Tool (ouch!). He wonders out loud about the difference between the manipulation pattern and the commitment pattern, and how we can "avoid falling into the trap of using manipulation." He has a nice discussion, but I really hope the practice is not as easy to fall into as Bret makes it sound. Perhaps we should be teaching missionaries the Golden Rule instead of the commitment pattern?

Ryan at Intellecxhibitionist contrasts living ordinances with apostate sacraments, also giving a link to a nice talk on The Great Apostasy ("TGA") delivered recently by Noel Reynolds at BYU Idaho (the new training ground for LDS apostles) from which he borrowed the idea. You don't hear much about TGA these days, which is a good thing because most of what we used to hear about it was wrong. That seems to be what Reynolds is getting at, although he doesn't come right out and say it. He lists three myths about TGA, which amount to three ways Mormons have misunderstood it in the past.

Finally, if you have a soft spot in your heart for caffeine but feel a little guilty about it, go read this and you'll feel better. Thanks to Nate the good humor man for a new vision of hot drinks.
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by Kristine
This has absolutely no Mormon content. It's just that I know lots of you are in NYC, and I am in Boston, and I do not want to miss this RARE opportunity to say:

Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!!

And I'm starting a write-in campaign for some candidates I can really get excited about

ORTIZ--WAKEFIELD '04

(And yes, tomorrow you can all laugh at me)
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by Steve
The title for this post comes from an old mission field chestnut; a talk given by Spencer W. Kimball, warning missionaries against falling in love in the mission field. You can read the text of it here -- apparently its validity is in dispute. I had little trouble keeping my heart locked during my mission in France; no one really ever tried to bust in, frankly. I can't say that my companions were so lucky however, with sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic results (mostly hilarious).

A recent comment at the unmentionable blog relating a Dear John incident has inspired me to blog about my own Dear John experiences, and to solicit yours, Dear Reader. First, a couple of gems from the Book of Steve: I'd dated Tracy a few times before going into the MTC, she was a fine, strapping lass from Calgary. As things are wont to do, my image of Tracy became more lustrous the longer I was in the MTC, and by the time I was in France, Tracy was quite the catch. I wrote to lovely Tracy, asking for a small picture of her, perhaps to adorn my dumpy apartment in Sartrouville. Tracy was all too happy to comply, and in a few weeks I had my picture -- her engagement photo. Thanks, Tracy *rrrrrip*.

Another from the many, many disappointments: I'd dated Aisha during freshman year in Deseret Towers, and I thought we had a bright and make-out rich future ahead of us. We wrote each other frequently, sharing thoughts, feelings, and experiences. *sigh*. About 8 months into the mission, the letters stopped -- no explanation, no notes. I was crushed. Was she all right? Had the lamanites taken over her city, Pahoran-style? A few months later, the letters started again. However, amongst the thoughts and feelings being shared were thoughts and feelings about some other guy. Trevor? Mark? Who cares. Thanks for sharing, Aisha *burns letters furiously*.

These are tame experiences, compared to some of the absolute heart-crushers I've witnessed with my companions. I've seen elders get completely immobilized for days, sobbing uncontrollably. Remember this, O ye who are about to embark on missions -- lock your hearts, dear friends. Lock your hearts.
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by Christina
I am a skeptic, I have a difficult time with faith, and there aren't many things I believe wholeheartedly that I can't judge based on my own experience, whether spiritual or temporal. There are some truths I hold to, nonetheless, and one of them is the mutability of human nature. I believe we have the ability, perhaps particularly so in this mortal life, to change who we are fundamentally, for better and for worse - and often both at the same time. I also believe that we can help each other change, in fact, those two things together sum up a good portion of what we are here on earth to do, and what we are most fulfilled by doing, as I see it: 1) work to grow ourselves and, 2) help each other grow.

Here is my problem:
What happens when we are dealing with people who are so mired in their circumstances that our experiences together don't seem to help? I'll give a few examples of what I am thinking about. I've worked with children and youth in high risk situations on and off for several years. One thing that is very difficult to break through is the depression in children and teenagers who know that their chances of making much of themselves in life are slim to none. Granted, some people can come through even exceptionally bad circumstances and make a life that is happy and fulfilling. Many, however, do not. Teenagers in low socioeconomic areas, particularly in high-gang activity areas, know this. I remember working with one kid who had been doing pretty well through his junior high school years. But in his second year of high school he just lost it. He stopped playing sports, his grades plummeted, he pretty much dropped out of life. After many attempts to get through to him, I once had an open, honest talk with him in which he told me that he just didn't see the point in making much effort any more, because everyone else in his life had dropped out too. His brothers and cousins and friends were in gangs, some of them had been killed, many were in jail or clearly headed in that direction. He couldn't see, despite some serious adult intervention on his behalf, how he could be different. This wasn't laziness, it was an acknowledgement of reality.

Another example from yesterday, which is what got me thinking about this issue again: my husband and I know a family that has difficulties with their younger son, who has been in and out of high school for several years, and now he is nearly 21 and still has not finished. In the last 2 years, in particular, he has become severely depressed and nonresponsive to life. He wanders the streets and doesn't go to the few classes he needs to get his GED. We have known this family a few years, we have seen the son go in and out of the hospital, talked with him, given him blessings, given his mother blessings. His mother is at a point where she doesn't feel like she can take it any more - she can't get her son to take care of his basic human needs, and she is tired of doing these things for him, but she doesn't want to put him out on the street.

What do we do? My question is not, whom should we help? Nor is it, how can we judge who needs our time and energy? We are fallible, we can't judge where someone is in life, and we probably all have experiences in which we know people who didn't appear to be getting their lives in order who later on will change and testify to the love and support that sustained them in their difficult times. We all need help, we all deserve it, because life is struggle. My question is, what do we do for those who seem to have given up, especially young people? How do we get them engaged in life? Is it just a problem of brain chemistry - are some people depressed and therefore the best help is medicine? (full disclosure: I have siblings and other relatives with chronic depression, and in no way do I mean to diminish the force of it, and I acknowledge that brain chemistry matters a great deal in who we are and become).
What do we do when it seems we can't help each other grow/change/deal with problems?
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by Aaron B
Now that you’re all sick to death of watching Ken Jennings rake in millions while you slave away at your day job, it’s time to direct your attention to the next up-and-coming Mormon celebrity: Ryan Benson. Ryan is a contestant on the new NBC reality show “The Biggest Loser,” which is billed as a “compelling new weight-loss drama in which two celebrity fitness trainers join with top health experts to help 12 overweight contestants transform their bodies, health and ultimately their lives.” Ryan is a former member of my ward, and is also a good friend of mine.

Now, let me assure you that I typically LOATHE reality shows. I pride myself on never having seen a single episode of “Survivor.” (I have seen a little bit of “The Bachelor,” but only because my wife stole the remote while I was watching C-Span). But given Ryan’s presence on the show, I feel compelled to watch, and so should all of you!

Incidently, Ryan describes himself as a “Mormon on the Edge” here. Since we few and proud Bloggernaclites are oh-so-hip and edgy ourselves, we should feel even more inclined to tune in than we otherwise would. Maybe Ryan will even wax on about how “Cool Mormons watch R-rated movies” and make Bob Caswell proud!

Finally, you should know that Ryan has visited the Bloggernacle on occasion, though he’s only commented once. (Despite my best efforts, I was never able to get him to develop a full-blown addiction).

The series starts this Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. I imagine that Ryan will be returning home shortly (he has been hidden away at a Beverly Hills hotel for weeks and weeks now). You can trust that I will do my best to coax out of him how the series ends, and if I’m successful, I’ll be sure to post some spoilers. :)

Aaron B

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by Steve
One last time, folks...


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by Steve
Dave, BCC'er and mastermind of Dave's Mormon Inquiry, has a tremendous post up about fiscal transparency in the Church. Some very strong arguments all over this issue, and raises some fun questions about Church fiscal policy and our relative wealth. I wonder if the Church engages in derivatives, swaps and hedges in complicated structures, Enron-style, or whether it is all about straight-up asset valuation in the Warren Buffett tradition. Clearly, the consecrated funds view is a solid argument for conservative transactions -- but at the same time, the parable of the talents rewarded the highest gains! If Warren Buffett used his middle initial more prominently (it's "E", for Edward) he could almost be a G.A. -- his annual letters could be slapped into the Ensign, they're that fun to read.

P.S. hot presidential debate tonight, supposibly focusing on the economy. Stay tuned for a poll!
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by Kristine
Astute readers (and even, perhaps, some who are not particularly astute) will have noticed that I frequently (er, pretty much always) disagree with John Fowles. Online, at least, we seem to inhabit the opposite poles of possible intellectual orientation to Mormonism. In real life, of course, we'd probably be chatting about obscure German verbs and the best restaurants in Ann Arbor and our kids and be great friends in no time. But online we seem to be cast as arch enemies, which is very intellectually productive for me, at least (John probably only gets high blood pressure out of our discussions).

Anyway, I mention this because lately (when I'm not busy thinking of new ways to provoke John), I've been thinking about a little exchange we had a few posts ago, about the relative degrees of difficulty of living in a black and white world versus living in a grayish one. I said that I was envious of people with John's apparent confidence; he said he thought it would be easier to live in a world of grey. (Maybe it would be, with the British spelling :)) I'm curious as to why we each might think the other's way of being in the world easier. Perhaps it's a simple case of "the grass is always greener..."

But perhaps not. It seems to me that many disagreements between conservatives and liberals (for want of better terms) come down to this suspicion of each other: I think John is choosing the easy way by abdicating a great deal of his own critical faculty and agency in favor of a stance of more or less unquestioning obedience; he thinks I'm trying to find an easier way than just keeping the commandments, with my constant questions. It is certainly true that some "liberality" is an excuse or a rationalization for less-than-valiant behavior. But there must be deeper issues at stake here. If I behave exactly as John does (and I think I probably do, in very many ways), is my way of thinking about things still wrong? Is it possible for conservatives to grant that there might be a principled, moral reason for taking a liberal stance? And, conversely, is it possible for liberals to believe that a conservative stance can be similarly principled, and not a mere abdication of one's reason and thoughtful effort? Can we see and acknowledge the difficulty of both stances?

The vitriol in debates between conservatively oriented and liberally oriented Mormons reminds me sometimes of the nastiness between mothers who leave paid employment to care for their children and mothers who outsource some childcare while they pursue another occupation (sheesh--no wonder people resort to inaccurate and loaded terms like "working mother" and "stay-at-home-mother"). Both ways are sooooo hard, and somehow we get invested in thinking our way is the hardest, and therefore we're heroes and people who take the opposite course are wimps. What a strange kind of competition! Is choosing what seems the hardest way really the most virtuous course?
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by Steve


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by Aaron B
Put aside for a moment the alleged LDS prohibition on viewing R-rated movies (I know that’s asking a lot from this group). Imagine a world in which no reference to movie “ratings” has ever been voiced by any of the Brethren, but a general admonition to follow the “Admonition of Paul” is in force. What I want to know is … “What kind of movies should good LDS members watch, and what kind shouldn’t they watch?” Most critical commentary on the “No R-rated movies standard” tends to condemn the MPAA’s rating system as “arbitrary,” “flawed,” and a poor guide to determining what is worth viewing and what isn’t. But if there were a perfect standard, or at least a hypothetical rating system that incorporated all the sophisticated concerns and nuanced criteria you think should count toward determining whether a film is acceptable, what would that standard look like? This may seem like a simple question, but I don’t think it is. Most LDS discussions of R-rated movie-watching confront it in passing, but not directly. Some specific questions:

(1) Surely there are fantastic, moving, amazing films very much worth watching, notwithstanding the fact they contain some offensive material. Surely there are other films that have lots of redeeming qualities but that are not worth watching, as their offensive content definitively outweighs the good they contain. Are there rules of thumb for determining how to distinguish between these two types of films? Where do we draw the line? Is there some sort of objective standard we can devise, or does it “just depend” on each person and his/her particular sensitivities? Whatever the answer, I don’t think the mere act of pointing out that Violent Film X or Sexual Film Y “contains some inspirational moments so we should see them anyway” is a sufficient answer.

(2) Where does everyone come down on the classic “sex vs. violence” question? One line of argument holds that gratuitous violence in film is worse than gratuitous sex. After all, isn’t murder worse than a little fornication? Would you rather that Little Johnny imitate the axe murderer or the horny teenager on screen? On the other hand, another line of argument has it that gratuitous sex is worse than gratuitous violence. Little Johnny is quite likely to experience a genuine sexual response to Kim Basinger fooling around with Mickey Rourke (and we don’t want that). He is less likely to genuinely get the urge to go on a killing spree just because he saw Charles Bronson do it. Is there a unique LDS perspective on this question?

(3) Assuming that “violence” and “foul language” are generally to be avoided, what exactly are we avoiding and when? Suppose I’m deciding between Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest splatterfest, or a serious film about gang violence like “Boyz in the Hood.” Is the murder and mayhem of “Boyz in the Hood” more important to avoid, as it is more realistic and therefore more intense, or is Arnold’s film to be more fervently avoided, as its violence is “gratuitous,” rather than a realistic portrayal? Are the frequent cuss words in “Boyz in the Hood” more offensive than those in Arnold’s film because they portray gang life “as it really is”, or are they less offensive for that reason?

(4) Many decry the “desensitization” that accompanies frequent exposure to violence or bad language in cinema. I agree that desensitization is a real phenomenon and that I, personally, have been thoroughly desensitized. (I know this because I was sickened by certain scenes in “Robocop” when I first saw it, and now they seem like no big deal). Is my desensitization only a problem to the extent that I imitate the foul language I hear in my speech, or act out violently in imitation of what I see? Or is there something about the very act of desensitization, per se, that is a problem, regardless of any observable consequences?

(5) The only way to really know the content of a film, and thus know whether it meets your content standard or not, is to view the film. But if you have to view a film to truly know whether or not you should view a film, you’re really not in a position to ever avoid the films you should avoid, are you? So isn’t some sort of ratings system, MPAA or otherwise, ultimately necessary, regardless of its flaws?

(6) Can we all at least agree that the most offensive film of all time is “Turner & Hooch”? I think I’d rather sit through “Faces of Death” and a truckload of gay porn than have to watch that drooling dog again. Disgusting.

Aaron B

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by Karen
Not content to wait until actual mid-life to have a mid-life crisis, I've decided to over-achieve in this area and have them every 10 years. If it's good enough for the U.S. census, it's good enough for me.

Let me sum up me in a few stark words: went to law school, worked in a law firm, worked at an international organization, went back to law firm, hated said work with a fiery passion--usually reserved for sin and injustice, am now unemployed, am now looking for jobs for which I am apparently not qualified, self-doubt and crazy schemes are hatching simultaneously. (Well, that first part was more descriptive, and the last part more mid-life crisis-ish.)

Here's the thing. I think I'm going back to school. I, already over-educated and debt-laden, am seriously considering returning to get a Master's degree in International Affairs/Security Studies, with the goal of an eventual Ph.d. nascently forming. Now, I'm not so crazy that I'm going to go to school full time. This will be strictly a night thing that will hopefully correspond to and complement the fascinating day job that I plan to have in the very near future--please God, the very near future...

So here are the existential questions: Who am I? Am I the gal who will not be happy with my career until I'm doing exactly the kind of work that fascinates me, and moreover will not be happy unless I can link my job directly to being socially beneficial? (Not in a "I'm helping the economy kind of way" but in a "I want to actually be writing the foreign policy" kind of way.) In law school I didn't think that those things mattered to me, now I know they are essential. Is that selfish? Millions of people simply exist by doing jobs that they don't necessarily like, but that pay the bills. Why should I be different? Because I have the luxury to do so? I'm not married, I'm not supporting children, therefore my happiness is paramount? Or should I be looking at this more in a law of consecration kind of way? I should develop whatever meager talents I've been given to the highest degree possible as a way of benefitting others.

Where did I come from? Well, educationally, and most recently, law school. My inspiration to "go for it" and get an ivy league education was much stronger than my inspiration to serve a mission. I knew that I should go to law school, mostly for that "law of consecration" reason mentioned above...yet, it turns out that was more of a stepping stone rather than an end. Am I turning my back on that inspiration? Rejecting it? Or is this new career plan, complete with the resulting financial and time cost, a refining of my original trajectory--a honing, rather than a correction? Further, I love being in school. Again, am I being selfish because I'm having a difficult time right now, and want the same kind of happiness that I remember from undergrad and law school? Partly, yes. I miss that kind of structured learning. I miss the atmosphere.

Where am I going? (Besides to the temple...for some serious introspection...) Apparently, back to school. Apparently to a place where I'm over-educated and under-financed. (Incidentally, very attractive traits to the single Mormon male population...) But also, apparently to a place where I'm happier, apparently to a place where I'm more qualified for jobs that I actually want (government and eventually teaching), and apparently a place where I'm finally satisfied with my career choices--in a great big existential sleep-at-night-and-look-at-myself-in-the-mirror-in-the-morning kind of way.

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by John H
The R rated movie debate emerged recently at another blog, so I can thank them for inspiring this post. It goes without saying that what is offensive is highly subjective. Hopefully we as Latter-day Saints would have at least some consensus about some films. Try as you might, justifying a XXX movie is pretty tough to do (and that goes for either the porno kind or the abysmal Vin Diesel kind). But other things are tough to pin down. I had a friend (one who’d been to several R rated movies with me) strenuously object to showing Gone with the Wind at a ward movie night. He was appalled at the scene where Rhett Butler snatches up Scarlett in the middle of an argument, carries her upstairs amid her protests, and insists she needs to be loved. In the next scene, we see Bonnie, the product of the night’s passion. “He basically rapes her and it’s portrayed as romantic,” my friend argued. Those 10 seconds ruined the 4 hour movie for him.

I’ll confess right now, I’m tough to offend at films. Those who are easily offended are quick to label folks like me, “desensitized” (we don’t feel the same way they do, you see). I used to return the favor with labels like “sheltered” and “prude.” Now I just try and appreciate that we’re different.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear everyone’s most inspirational R rated films. The rules are: 1) Unless you are absolutely convinced you’ve got a brilliant, original new point to add to the “no R rated movie” debate, let’s just avoid that line of discussion altogether. Yes I’ve heard President Benson’s talk; yes, I know how crappy the rating system is; yes, I know about . . . yada yada yada. 2) Feel free to disagree with a film selection and tell us why, but please do so respectfully. In other words, don’t just say that you were offended at this film and you just can’t imagine why the rest of us haven’t seen the light like you. 3) Tell us your reasons. Don’t list Zombie Mutant Cannibals 4: Death Rides a Zombie without a little explanation as to why this inspired you. 4) Try and stick to movies that truly moved you - especially movies that changed the way you view life or enhanced your spirituality somehow. I love Stripes just as much as the next guy, but it didn’t exactly change my life. Finally, 5) You don’t have to list only R rated movies, but I am especially curious about movies that might not traditionally be considered inspirational.

I’ll kick it off with a very cliched one, but one that changed my view of war forever: Saving Private Ryan. I can’t explain why or how, but in the first 20 minutes of the film I was overcome with grief. I’d read about World War II, I’d studied it and watched veterans on TV. But that film made the sacrifice so real, so tangible. For the first time I was struck with the knowledge of what war means. I knew as I watched the camera pan across Omaha Beach after the battle, that if I were to go to war, I most likely wouldn’t be a rugged Tom Hanks-like hero. No, I’d be the guy lying face down in the sand in the corner of the screen, next to other nameless, faceless people. Hopefully I’d be lucky enough to still have my dog tags so my family could be notified properly.

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by Steve
A friend of mine asked me why I hadn't blogged about General Conference, in particular wondering if I had any spectacular thoughts on Pres. Hinckley's words regarding women. My initial, glib response to him was that I hadn't posted because I was underwhelmed, but upon reflection, I remain underwhelmed. With a couple of (major) exceptions, GC just didn't do it for me, and I was a little disappointed. The choir was wonderful as ever, the themes were similar to those of Conferences past -- so what's wrong with me?

Boo Hoo, you say. Don't you know it's the responsibility of the listener to glean from Conference, and you must not have had the Spirit, and we have a lay clergy, and I thought it was fantastic? Well, yes. I know all that -- in fact, the last Priesthood lesson I had was all about how only evil/stupid people get nothing from boring Sacrament talks. The lesson established two lines of thinking that I've seen a lot in the Church, even though I'm not certain that either is necessarily correct:

1. Not only should our leaders not be criticized, no one should be criticized for what they say in the course of lessons or talks.

2. The onus is (pretty much) always on the listener to get something out of talks, even bad ones, and as a baseline, no General Conference talk is a bad one.

I can see how we might want to avoid criticism as a way of solidifying our bonds of love to each other in the Church. But I don't think that the spirit of Christ excludes all criticism. You'd better show those outpourings of love afterwards, but our scripture clearly identifies ways for us to correct each other, at least in doctrinal matters. Can we also consider this to be a basis for social correction as well?

Here is what I really want to say, but I'm just not getting around to it very well: can we legitimately criticize Conference talks for being garbagey rhetoric, without such criticisms constituting "speaking evil"? I like folksy stories as much as the next person, for example, but can I say that I am sick of Pres. Monson's tripartite phrasings and passive voice(without going to hell)? Talks were written; speeches were delivered; congregations were bored.

It's not like I have some boatload of critiques that I've been aching to unload on the Brethren. I am mostly interested in the proper realm of criticism and correction in the Church, generally speaking. In light of the restrictions on evil speaking, what then are the boundaries on criticism and correction? Is Church a proper forum to give (or receive) correction and advice on social issues? I think that there is clearly some minimal level that we could all accept -- the Gospel doesn't seem to exclude all critiquing. So where are the margins?

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by Karen
So, apparently my friend thought it was rude when I tested the length of the scarf I was crocheting during the closing prayer in conference today. Which made me wonder, really, what proper t.v. prayer behavior is, which started me questioning all of my little conference rituals. So, in the style of the Mormon Miss Manners, I present to you: Conference Etiquette.

1. T.V. prayers are real prayers, but require less rigid behavior. Do keep your eyes open and move, but only while sitting down. Do not get up to get a snack. Do not talk. Do not mute the prayer and fight with your family. Do not make other people laugh by pulling faces. Do check your scarf length.

2. Do not sing along with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Do make fun of the one poor black man that they keep focusing on, and do give the camera men suggestions on whom to focus. Preferrably the man who is yawning, or the woman who forgot the words.

3. Do sing loudly during the rest hymn. Do ignore the looks of people around you--because your enthusiasm outstrips your talent. Do laugh at the primary children when they sing "gird up your loins" during Come Come Ye Saints.

4. Do enthusiastically raise your hand to sustain the general authorities. Do make wildly speculative comments about why certain people were released.

5. Do not say rude things about the general authorities. But do make affectionate comments like "oh he's so cute" and "he looks better a little chunky."

6. Do not fall asleep during morning conference. It is permissible to fall asleep during afternoon conference, but only accidentally. Do not snore.

7. Do work on handiwork during conference. Do vocally admire your friends' handiwork. Do secretly think that yours is better. Do ignore talks about pride.

8. Do not ignore the other talks. Do feel guilty. Do start REGULAR scripture study for at least a week, and do go buy a journal with every intention of writing in it. Do dust it occasionally.



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by Kristine
Heh-heh. Can't wait to show this to my 7-year-old. (Well, most of it--some of it's PG-10, I think ;))

UPDATE: Eep!! I hadn't looked at all of it. Some of it is actually PG-28 or so!
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by Steve
oh yeah!



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by Kristine
The other day, over at that other blog, Sunstone was getting its quarterly flogging. I've reread my responses on that thread, and it strikes me that I was not my usual cool-as-a-cucumber (ha!) self. I'm irrationally defensive of Sunstone and Dialogue and Exponent II and all of those independent Mormon publications that some people think are soooo two decades ago. The reason is simple, really: Sunstone saved my life.

I grew up in a family that, while open to more questions than some LDS families, was essentially quite conservative. Yes, the bishop might have some wacky ideas (he was my dad, after all!), or the Primary teacher might have gotten a couple of historical details wrong, but that was no reason to rock the boat. It was fun to read more books about Mormonism than anybody, and to occasionally feel smug in one's superior knowledge, but we did not Question Authority or do anything else that might have been suggested by 60s bumper stickers. If I had a nickel for every Family Home Evening lesson on obedience...

After I graduated from college, I decided to go on a mission. I felt very strongly directed to go, and I'm not one who usually gets more than suggestions in answer to prayers, so I went, even though I wanted to go to graduate school instead. To make a long, private story short and semi-public, my mission was the worst two months of my life. I learned first-hand, and in very painful ways, that leaders make mistakes, that sometimes a bureaucracy is just a bureaucracy, and that it is possible for individuals to slip between the cogs of the institutional machinery and have their spirits crushed. When I got home, I was as lost as I've ever been--the cozy world of inspired church leaders and their wise counsel felt lost to me; a world without the church (which would also mean without my family, most of my friends, etc.) seemed uninhabitable. I took 200 sleeping pills.

Fortunately (I think), somebody noticed me passed out in my car and got me to a hospital. Even more fortunately, I spent some time recuperating in my great aunt Elizabeth's guest room, which had bookshelves lined with old issues of Sunstone and Dialogue. I spent days and days reading about how people had grappled with the same questions I had, how they had made peace (and not) with questions of institutional authority, priesthood, and revelation. I got to know people who seemed more like me than many of the people I knew in the wards where I'd lived; I realized that I was not so painfully unique after all. I learned that the church is not a monolithic, unchanging edifice, but that it is built and rebuilt with human hands and human minds trying hard to discern God's will (with varying success). I had sort of understood that on an intellectual, theoretical level, but when I needed it translated to an emotional and personal level, I *really* needed to read "Pillars of My Faith" and Gene England's essays and a reexamination of the seagull story (don't ask me why that one mattered--it really did somehow!). Slowly, I started to believe that there could be a recognizably Mormon world that had room for me in it.

It's not so much that Sunstone and Dialogue and Exponent II are needed to perform such dramatic therapeutic function very often; I hope they're not! But in a church with no "Reform" or "Conservative" or "Renewal" or even "Protestant" branches to speak of, and a church divided by geography so that true fellowship occurs mostly by fortunate accidents of residence, we need some connections for people who feel themselves, for whatever reasons, on the margins. We need a place for scholars (and wannabes) whose work asks uncorrelatable questions to publish their work and have it challenged by people who won't immediately and exclusively challenge their faithfulness instead of their data and their conclusions. We need a place for people who are working their way out of the church to find comfort and solace so that they can eventually leave Mormonism without bitterness.
Does it get repetitive sometimes? Of course--what else could be expected in a church which is by its nature so slow to change (and populated by humans, whose nature seems *never* to change much!)? Does every piece pass scholarly muster? Of course not! But then again, neither does every piece in _Social Text_ (wink if you're old enough to get the joke). Is the Sunstone/Dialogue/Exponent II crowd smug and self-congratulatory at times? Of course--everybody wants to be in the in-crowd sometimes, and crow about it. Yes, the crowing is a little shallow and adolescent, but sometimes we all have to let our inner 7th-grader out for air, right?

Like Nate, I'd love to see Mormon Studies grow, and be peer-reviewed and respectable. I'd like there to be something new and exotic in every issue. I'd like there to be new questions and exhilarating new methodologies. I would like the 3 people on the planet who are smarter than Nate Oman to write regularly so he can be served too. But I'm just dumb enough not to mind reading some things over and over, in slightly different voices--Mormonism is (among other things) a community of belief and ideas and it can exist only in the form of flawed mortals trying to connect their own puny ideas with something bigger. Sometimes the so-called intellectuals (and even the real ones) look just as goofy trying to do that as the deacons bearing their testimonies for the first time and trying really hard to keep their voices from cracking. What's not to love about that?!
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by Jeremy
[Cross-posted at OT]

The topic of Same-Sex Marriage has bounced around the bloggernacle so much it has taken on a universally-recognized acronym. The topic of gay adoption has received much less attention, and, as far as I know, has elicited little (or no?) specific ecclesiastical counsel (unless one counts Sheri Dew’s controversial speech, which was delivered after her tenure in the Relief Society General Presidency – and which, incidentally, was recently removed from the Meridian website.) I don’t have any eloquent doctrinal arguments or child-welfare statistics to posit, but I do have a story to share, one that I think speaks for itself.

Two little girls, whom I will call Tuyen and Xuan, were both taken into an orphanage in Vietnam shortly after birth. The staff cared for them as best they could, given their limited resources, hygiene was substandard and the babies often slept side-by-side, several to a crib. Around the time of the girls’ first birthday an adoption agency brought a group of several prospective parents to the orphanage. It was a diverse bunch: a single, middle-aged woman, first-time adopters, couples wishing to expand their families. Also included in the group were a devout young Mormon couple (whom I know personally, and who allowed me to post this) and a gay couple. Tuyen went with the Mormon couple, and was later sealed to them in the D.C. temple; Xuan left the orphanage with her two new dads.

Before heading back to the states, however, it took the parents a couple of weeks to submit the health and governmental forms and receive all the bureaucratic approvals required to complete the adoption, so while they waited for forms to be processed the adoptive parents and their new children did lots of sightseeing. Tuyen’s mom and Xuan’s dads turned out to be naturally inclined towards group organization, and took charge of the sightseeing itinerary and shopping trips (it’s a terrible stereotype, I know, the shopaholic woman and the gay guys telling each other how fabulous their purchases are, etc., but that’s how it happened). The Mormons and the gay men became fast friends during the trip, and the friendship continued after they returned to their respective homes. Even though they live several hours apart, the two families still visit each other on occasion to celebrate their girls’ birthdays, their adoption anniversary, and American and Vietnamese holidays.

While I find that friendship in and of itself quite heartwarming (and believe me, I get a lot of mileage out of it when friends or associates categorically accuse Mormons of homophobia), other circumstances lend this story even more poignancy. Shortly after Xuan and Tuyen left Vietnam for America with their new parents, the U.S. government discontinued allowing adoptions from Vietnam. This prohibition remains in place today, largely because of bureaucratic inertia on both sides, and there are no signs of progress. This has created a grave situation for orphanages in Vietnam, as their meager operating budgets relied on adoption fees; the orphanage where Xuan and Tuyen lived has fallen into disrepair and is in desperate need of financial aid. More somber still is the future that the little girls in the orphanage face today if the adoption ban continues as they become children and eventually adolescents; if you follow the news, you probably have an idea of the bleak prospects for an orphaned teenaged girl in Vietnam. I shudder to think, but these are the questions that this situation begs: what if the gay couple hadn’t gone to Vietnam and adopted? What if Tuyen had gone home with the Mormon couple but her friend Xuan had been left behind in the orphanage as the adoption ban had taken effect, and had stayed there as she approached adolescence? Regardless of what you might think about gay adoption as a political issue –and I’m talking about an actual situation and an actual person, so it’s not really a political issue anyway–are there any grounds on which to argue that this happy, healthy little girl would have been better off if her dads hadn’t been able to adopt her?

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by JL
There I said it. I finally admitted it. It has been 6 weeks or so since I've been to church. I'm in a new ward somewhere. So I don't have a calling and dread going to a brand new ward where I don't know anyone. The questions alone: 'And who are you?' "Are you married?" "Where are you from?" "where did you serve a mission?" "And what brought you to New York?"

It's not just going to a new ward, I've always hated going to church. When I was a little kid it was 5 hours of torture (we lived and hour away), of course children find it boring. But I didn't grow out of that, as an adult I also find myself counting the minutes until I can escape the crowded rooms with fluorescent flashing lights, screaming kids, the smiling and shaking hands. My favorite part of church is singing the hymns. I've been an adult now for 10 years, I use the term 'adult' loosely, meaning I was no longer a minor. But whenever I don't have a calling that forces me to be at church I always stop going. I set the alarm every Saturday night but turn it off Sunday morning, promising to go next week.

I never think of myself as an 'inactive' but I've ended up on that list a few times. The first happened in college when the missionaries started coming to visit me. Just to hang out. It took awhile before I figured out they were trying to re-activate me, actually it was the day they took me out for ice cream and paid. I knew it should have happened the other way around. Then last year the branch president paid me a home visit and asked what it would take to get me back to church. I told him I needed a calling, so he gave me one.

When I begin gliding into an inactive phase, my spirituality drops. If I start swearing then I know I've been away too long. And everything in my life feels more difficult during these periods and my mood drops. Without fail, whenever I find myself thinking that everything is going wrong, I remember I haven't been to church in a few weeks or months. So I drag myself back and once my attendance resumes, life gets easier and happier. I've now hit the point where I'm swearing and everything is falling apart. Time to go back to church. Yuck.

I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have a strong testimony. I keep most of the commandments. But the most difficult one for me is gathering together oft at meetings. Why is that? That seems very wrong. Is it just me or does going to church stink? I know I need it, but does it have to be so painful? And so early in the morning? I do have agoraphobia and extreme difficulty waking up in the mornings which adds to my abhorrance, but that's not the whole of it. I know I should suck it up, stop complaining and get my rear-end back to church. But does anyone else out there feel the same way I do? Is there something we can do to make church less painful? There must be something I could do to make it better for myself at least, any suggestions?

Jen J

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by John H
I returned late last night from the John Whitmer Historical Association meeting in Omaha, Nebraska (the RLDS equivalent of the Mormon History Association). It was a great conference and I always enjoy driving along the Mormon trail, looking out at the Platte River and imagining the columns of Saints making their way to their new home in the west. Meetings with our RLDS (now Community of Christ) counterparts make it difficult not to compare and see the distinctions between us. I'll confess, the differences don't always fall in the Rocky Mountain Saints' favor.

At the MHA meeting in Kirtland two years ago, we walked through the sites owned by the Community of Christ, notably the Kirtland Temple, and were greeted by professional historians willing to answer all of our questions. They were knowledgeable and knew the history of the sites well. When we walked through the LDS-owned sites, we were greeted by young sister missionaries who repeated the same brief stories about the rooms and buildings for each group, and then bore the same testimony - word for word - at the end of each room. At the end of one tour, we asked the kind Korean sister who'd been giving the tour a question or two. She did her best to explain to us that she didn't know English, and that she had memorized her tour spiel and testimony. I find no fault with this dear, faithful Korean sister doing her best in the assignment she was given. But I was stunned that the Church wouldn't bother to provide historians, or even just a volunteer who spoke English, to staff these sites while MHA attendees, the vast majority of which are already Church members, tried to learn more about the buildings and grounds.

This time around, at John Whitmer, two other distinctions were very obvious. First, as we discussed the history of the early restoration and our common heritage, I noticed the lack of tension in the room and among the members. History was not used as a way to convert people to the Church or build faith; nor was it used to tear down or attack the Church. History simply was. When Klaus Hansen spoke of his journey writing the history of the Council of Fifty, he made some very matter-of-fact comments about difficulties with LDS Church archives, particularly with General Authority G. Homer Durham and his well-known tight grip on the archives. Hansen didn't make the comments critically, but he didn't present it as a positive development; it was just what happened. No one shifted uncomfortably in their seats, or stormed out offended that someone would dare say something not perfectly faithful about a Church leader.

I couldn't help but think there's something to not tying so much of our faith into our history. It's a difficult thing in Mormonism, but it can be done. The historian of the Community of Christ can speak of Joseph Smith and his legacy without having to defend the prophet every five minutes. He can talk of Joseph's polyandrous marriages to ten women without having to stop and assume an apologetic perspective for what he's saying. Community of Christ historians treat Mormon history much the way American historians treat American history: They admire the men and women they write about, and you can see the fondness they feel as they speak. But they don't have a crisis of identity or patriotism when they write about George Washington or Thomas Jefferson as slave owners. They write it because it's true, so far as the evidence explains. Robert Dallek wrote of John F. Kennedy admiringly, but didn't wonder if he could still like Kennedy when he wrote about his affairs with multiple women. This is the Community of Christ approach to history, and I wonder if we could learn from it.

Finally, the greatest distinction between the two movements comes whenever I hear Grant McMurray, president of the Community of Christ, speak. He approaches faith and history with the question of what they can do to help be good people today. While I think the LDS Church does the same, often we are slaves to our history, insisting that things be done a certain way because that's how they've always been done. When you believe your past comes from God, it makes it tough to change the present, no matter how necessary.

President McMurray's closing address Sunday morning was a masterpiece. He talked of going to the Nauvoo Temple to the open-house and walking through. He recalled being given booties (no, not that kind of booty!) to put over his shoes. He said he was not offended at this request, and completely understood it. But it did give him cause to pause and think about the divergent ways the two movements view sacred space. He humorously talked of Rocky Mountain Mormons standing in awe at a truck stop in the middle of Nebraska because Brigham Young may have walked there. He said that if you were to ask Community of Christ members what their most important sacred spaces are, most would respond that the campgrounds, where they went on youth camps, are sacred to them. This is where they ruminated over their faith with friends, where they experienced things that forever contributed to their faith journey. President McMurray pointed out that the youth stayed up past curfew, sneaking around to visit other youth. Minds would wander during the testimony meetings and church meetings, and young pranks would be pulled when serious minds ought to be prevailing.

But it is precisely because of these human foibles that makes the space sacred, because our humaness is mixed with spirituality, President McMurray insisted. He told of attending literally hundreds of meetings about the construction of the RLDS temple in Independence, where lengthy discussions would go on and on about what's appropriate for the temple, and what should be allowed in different rooms, particularly the Sanctuary. A few months after the temple was built and dedicated, the youth had their first meeting. In the sanctuary, a large, inflated globe of the world (picture a beach ball) was symbolically passed around, showing that the youth are the future of the world. It took about two seconds before the ball was being batted around, as if the youth were at a baseball game. This went on while each hand tried to touch the ball. Was President McMurray shocked or outraged? No; this is what makes sacred spaces sacred. Our humanity, trying to become better, is what creates the sacred. A building is not sacred simply because we deem it as such. It is sacred because of what we experience there, and what it does to help build our faith. President McMurray closed by asking us to remove the booties from our shoes, and plant our very human feet on sacred ground.

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by Aaron B
It was the late 1980s. Las Vegas, Nevada. The Church had just completed construction of the Las Vegas Temple. I was in highschool at the time, and the leadership of my Southern California ward decided to plan a youth field trip to the Open House. I have various random, but vivid, memories from the trip: Flirting via CB-radio with the occupants of a minivan on the ride up, heckling a prostitute and her John at our motel, being handed anti-Mormon literature outside the temple, etc. Most vivid of all, however, are my memories of walking through the Celestial Room. Although I’d been inside a temple before (to do baptisms for the dead), I’d never visited an actual Celestial Room, and I thought it was pretty impressive. No, I didn’t have an overwhelming spiritual experience that changed my life, but I did think it was an amazing, spiritual place, and I was quite taken aback by its beauty. I also made a point of looking around at all the other people walking through the room, Mormon and non-Mormon alike, to gauge their reactions. It seemed that most found the experience similarly impressive, and there was very little conversation, except in hushed tones.

The following Sunday was Fast and Testimony Meeting in my home ward, and the Bishop announced that the bulk of the hour would be set aside for the youth to talk about their experiences on the recent temple trip. I didn’t go up to the pulpit myself, but several other youth did, including a Young Woman named “Jenny.” Through flowing tears, Jenny shared in vivid detail her thoughts and feelings as she walked through the holy building. The climax of her narrative took place in the Celestial Room, where Jenny said she was totally overcome by the Spirit. She apparently found the experience so moving that she cried profusely while walking through the room. Then, at one point, she looked around to gauge the reactions of others in the room, Mormons and non-Mormons alike.

“Brothers and Sisters,” Jenny exclaimed. “When I looked around me, I suddenly realized that everyone else in that room was also crying along with me! Everybody! Even the non-Members were brought to tears! Let me assure you that there wasn’t a dry eye in the house!”

Jenny closed by bearing her testimony, and sat down. All in all, hers was a very moving performance. Her testimony seemed heartfelt, and was rhetorically effective in conveying the meaning and spiritual intensity that she wanted to convey. I have no doubt that she was sincere in her recounting of the experience, and really related the event just as she remembered it. But unfortunately, much of what she said was completely false…

For you see, I was standing only a few feet behind Jenny the entire walk through the temple. The entire time that Jenny was in the Celestial Room, I was standing right behind her. And Brothers and Sisters, let me assure you that NOBODY in that room was crying…. O.K., I can’t really say “nobody” … maybe somebody was. I didn’t scour the room for evidence of tears. But I didn’t notice a single person crying in the Celestial Room the entire time I was there, and since I was consciously observing the faces around me, it’s virtually impossible that I would have missed something that obvious.

Was Jenny lying? Was she intentionally exaggerating to spice up her narrative? Possibly, but I really don’t think so. I really believe that she believed that everyone in that room had been crying. Everyone. That’s what her memory of the event was. So that’s what she shared with the congregation the following Sunday.

I probably wouldn’t even remember this incident, but for what happened next… After the meeting came to a close, I was approached by my 12-year old cousin, Darcy. Darcy knew that I had gone to the Open House, and she assumed (correctly) that I had been in the Celestial Room at the same time as Jenny. Darcy was a very emotionally effusive person, and she knew me to be exactly the opposite: a stoic, unemotional robot. So she made the following statement to me: “Aaron, that’s soooo neat that you got to go to the Temple! And that’s soooo sweet that you were crying in the Celestial Room! I mean, you don’t ever get emotional like that!” Darcy then walked away before I could respond. I stood there a bit mystified by her strange comment. Then I remembered what Jenny had said, and realized why Darcy had jumped to the conclusion she did about my alleged sobbing.

At the time, I was simply irritated with Darcy. “Oh great,” I said to myself. “Now Darcy’s going to go falsely tell everybody in the family that I’m a “crier.” Just what I need!” However, as the years have passed, and I’ve looked back on that incident, it’s taken on a new significance for me: An entire congregation had been informed about an amazing spiritual experience had by one of its members. Certain of the details of that experience were crucial in giving it a quality worth remembering and possibly recounting. There was no obvious reason for the listeners to doubt the details of the story. Surely some in the congregation would reference this event to others, including the details about mass weeping brought on by the Spirit, just as Darcy did. And those details were totally and utterly false.

We have had recent discussions on the reliability of historical accounts of spiritual or visionary experiences in Mormon history. And as the critical historian turns his eye to the past, there are various questions he might ask: What is the evidence that Incident X, Vision Y or Transfiguration Z really occurred? Did the actual witnesses of the alleged event record their experiences? Or were they merely recorded second-hand by non-witnesses many years later? If the actual witnesses did record their experiences, did they do so immediately, or only decades later, after their memories have had time to evolve into something other than what they used to be? If the actual witnesses didn’t record certain notable details of their experiences, why not? What do their omissions suggest about the reliability of the traditional versions of these events?

These are all good questions. But I have an even more fundamental one: If a sincere, first-hand participant in a spiritual experience can get the basic facts of her moving experience so terribly wrong less than one week after having it, how reliable is anybody’s testimony regarding their spiritual experiences?

Aaron B

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by Mathew
I recently spent a few weeks in the hinterlands of Utah where I found myself admiring again the Mormon pioneers, many of whom not only crossed the plains but then left the relatively verdant Salt Lake Valley to settle what even today looks like forsaken desert. As I drove through those dusty towns in Southern Utah I wondered what beliefs inspired them enough to leave everything they had ever known and walk into such an uninviting place. My appreciation grew still further, when, after four days of camping, Gigi told me she was sick of looking at red rocks and asked to go back to Salt Lake. This in turn led me to think of a study I read recently which found that there is a positive association between belief in heaven or hell and economic growth which can be found at this link: http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/barro/papers/Religion_and_Economic_Growth.pdf

The authors of the study hypothesize that religion affects economic outcomes by fostering religious beliefs that then influence individual traits such as thrift, work ethic, honesty and openness to strangers and that belief in heaven or hell affects these traits by creating rewards and punishments. Interestingly, measured in economic terms, belief in hell appears to motivate more than belief in heaven–and professed belief in God alone (w/ no concept of heaven or hell attached) motivates people little or none. Or, as the authors of the study put it "professed belief in God may signify little about the religious convictions that motivate economic performance".

My gut tells me that the pioneers were motivated more by a belief in heaven than a belief in hell. The Mormon concept of hell, after all, is more comforting than that associated with most Christian religions I am familiar with. And all of the stories and anecdotes I have heard over the years suggest that the pioneers were very focused on building the kingdom of God–both on this earth and the next. It seems to me that we (or perhaps just I?) are much less focused on that concept that we used to be. We mention it from time to time, but the absence of a collective struggle to build an empire in largely unsettled territory means that the kingdom of God has shifted from the tangible to the ethereal. I consider the temple, however, as one place where we continue to focus on building the kingdom and engage in a collective work that may not benefit us personally but contributes to the kingdom as a whole.

A few other unrelated but interesting points–the study mentioned above also found that economic activity suffered when people attended church–labeling beliefs as the output of the religious sector which can affect economic growth and church attendance as the inputs of the religious sector which consume economic performance. A quick google search confirms that T&S and Brayden King scooped this study some months ago–Jim Falconer briefly blogged about it on T&S back in Feb and Brayden wrote about it in Jan.

Considering all of the variables the authors’ of this study where to trying to control for, I take their results with a grain of salt, but I think that heaven and hell are certainly powerful motivators for those who truly believe in them and it seems certain that the actions motivated by those beliefs would have some economic effect. To take another example, I’ve read theories that trade stagnated during the middle ages in part because of European societies’ taboos against usury and the profit motive.

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by John H
In 1877, shortly after the dedication of the St. George Temple, Wilford Woodruff reported what would become one of the most beloved stories in Mormonism. He described a visitation by the Founding Fathers of America, who demanded to know why their temple work had not been performed in the Endowment House. After the experience, Woodruff quickly had the work performed for these Brethren and their wives, including such luminaries as George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.

Although this story has been repeated often to encourage Latter-day Saints to attend the temple and perform work for the deceased, I believe it has far more important implications and teachings. It turns out, of the people that appeared in vision, almost all had their temple work performed prior to their visit to Woodruff. George Washington in fact, had been baptized no fewer than three times. Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and others had their work performed by John Bernheisel in the Endowment House - the same Endowment House that the visitors insisted had not been utilized in their behalf. Why would these spirit beings maintain that their work needed to be done, when in fact it had already been performed (in some cases more than once)?

This experience, like so many others, can tell us something about the difficulty in interpreting our spiritual experiences. At the outset, I think it’s important to note that there is no reason to believe Wilford Woodruff was lying about his experience. It seems clear that, at the very least, he believed something had happened. He did go on to baptize these brethren and their wives - something he probably wouldn’t have done had he not been somehow prompted or inspired to do so. My friend Brian Stuy, who researched this topic and published his findings in the Journal of Mormon History, theorizes that Woodruff saw no difference between his dreams and actual visions, and perhaps Woodruff's dream became a vision with various retellings.

How do we know we interpret our spiritual experiences correctly? They are immediately filtered through the lens which we view the world, making it hard to keep them pure. We all know someone who prays and receives an answer that the Book of Mormon is true, and the next thing we know, they’ve interpreted that to mean they must vote a straight-Republican ticket, attend BYU, don CTR jewelry, and pray in restaurants. But such extremes aren't the only examples. What about a friend of mine who had a powerful spiritual experience while holding a document penned by Joseph Smith, only to later learn it was a Hofmann forgery? If we experience the divine when reading the Book of Mormon, does it really mean it's true, or does it simply mean we're in the right place at the right time?

Is Woodruff’s experience a cautionary tale - warning us to be careful in reading too much into our encounters with the divine? Or is it a lesson about finding value in all things, regardless of the accuracy or truth of how we deconstruct our spirituality? Or is it something else entirely?

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by Karen
I have to say, I'm approaching the Sabbath with a bitter- sweet kind of feeling. Tomorrow I'm getting released from being the gospel doctrine teacher. I always pictured myself as the "smile and agree to serve" kind of gal....no matter if it was nursery, homemaking, or ward librarian. But when I got called into chat with the first counselor a couple of weeks ago, he told me that they had another calling in mind for me and what did I think about being released from teaching gospel doctrine. I started crying. Yep. Right there in the coat closet we were meeting in. I sort of plastered on a fake smile and said "I'm happy to serve wherever I'm needed" and made a beeline for the bathroom where the sobbing started in earnest. Let's just say I'm embarrassed. About the whole crying in the bathroom thing....oh and crying in the car in the parking lot, oh, and the choking up when talking with the person who I'm now replacing in my new calling. I'm even more embarrassed that this episode has resulted in the entire bishopric looking at me with soft, kind eyes and patting my arm whenever we talk.

So I needed to figure out why I was being such a big baby--because clearly this behavior cannot continue. And I have thought of a few reasons, but the ultimate one is that I love teaching gospel doctrine. It is the most spiritually fulfilling calling I've ever had. I love being the one that waits for the inspiration to pick out the topics that need to be discussed. I love presenting ideas in an unusual way and seeing people get excited in Sunday School. I love being forced to systematically study the scriptures. I love that I've taught for long enough that themes have started to emerge. Like every once in a while we have a "symbolism is fun" lesson, or a "scriptures as literature" lesson, and the class really digs it. I love that even though I'm naturally shy, I've been forced to get to know large numbers of people in my calling. Mostly, I love that I've had a spiritual renaissance that tracks with my teaching gospel doctrine ever since I graduated from law school. (A particularly tumultuous few years for me spiritually...) Finally, I'm currently going through some of the most seriously difficult few months I've ever faced in my life, and I love having the familiarity of a calling that I am comfortable and confident in.

Which is probably why I'm being released--comfort and confidence are not necessarily the adjectives related to spiritual growth. Apparently, I've had this calling longer than anyone else in the ward has had his/her calling, including the bishop. I don't think we get passes from necessary change just because we're happy where we are, or just because we think we need continuity, or just because we cry in front of people in power. So tomorrow will be bitter, because I'm being released, then teaching my last lesson. But also tomorrow will be sweet, because I'm being trusted to do something else. And sweet because I'm taking with me all my spiritual growth from the past few years. And sweet, because I'm not leaving the gospel behind, I'm just reapplying it. Kind of like mascara after a good cry...




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by Kristine
I have too much to do. At the end of every day, I collapse into bed with a list of things left undone churning through my head. It's hard to pray, hard to sleep without this list intruding. It's even worse since I've had children, and my list of important things to do rattles around in my brain all day before I can even check off one item after the creatures are asleep. I've tried to explain the panic this induces to my husband: imagine that you went to your office and your boss came in and started piling urgent tasks on your desk, any one of which would take a day's work to complete, then she tied your hands behind your back, unplugged your phone and computer, dumped your files on the floor for good measure, and said "ok, get to work."

But this sense of too much to do, it seems to me, is pervasive--everyone feels too busy, out of control. We buy calendars and PDAs and Franklin Planners, hoping that somehow, writing down the oppressive lists of things to do, places to go, people who need us will somehow untie that knot of dread in our stomachs. As far as I can tell, these talismans are useless--they may push the panic out into the edges of our consciousness, but they don't meaningfully reduce the conflict between ambition and time.

I wonder what we are to learn from this conflict. After all, if we are truly eternal creatures, the pressure of time will eventually cease. And yet it is such a dominant feature of our earthly lives that I can't imagine we aren't supposed to take some lesson from it into the eternities with us.

I wonder...
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by Steve
There's an excellent article over at McSweeney's, addressing errors in one person's Bible. I have similar errors in my own Bible.

Hey, while I'm thinking of errors, what does it mean to say that a book is the "word of God"? Do mormons have a consistent approach to defining that catchphrase? Just curious, because it seems to mean a lot more to some religions (i.e., Islam, So. Baptists) than to ours...

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by Karen
So I went to Napoleon Dynamite with a friend last night. For the uninitiated, it's an independent film made by several BYU grads. They entered it into Sundance, where it was apparently wildly popular. A movie studio bought it, and now it is being slowly rolled out on the limited release model. It's been in D.C. for a couple of months now, and is still gaining momentum. (Full house Saturday night.)

The plot you ask? Well, imagine your most misanthropic stage of adolescence--add in a red 'fro, a permanent slack-jawed look, moon-boots, living in Preston Idaho, a dysfunctional family, and a strange love of tater-tots, and voila, our protaganist Napoleon. I didn't really explain the plot, because there isn't much of one. It's mainly a series of vignettes, all leading up to a school election and the funniest dance scene you've ever seen in the movies....really. There are no overt Mormon references, but lots of markers: asking your date to the dance through elaborate passive schemes, modest prom dresses, boondoggle at scout camp, your mother forcing you to date the loser kid, future farmers of America, really big bangs way after they went out of style, and the fabulously colorful substitute swearing--gooooosh! frickin'! iiidiot!

I've seen the movie twice. The first time, a month or so ago, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in a movie. This time I took a friend who grew up in the Northeast. I had admittedly talked up the movie a little too much, and the audience was full of teenagers, who had obviously seen the movie several times, and were laughing in advance of the jokes. But really, my friend didn't get it. This is a person with a highly developed, and wonderfully subversive sense of humor. She thought that perhaps the humor was from the clever manipulation of cultural references that she wasn't familiar with. Ultimately, we figured out that she just found the movie depressing, and it seemed mean to laugh at the characters--dampening the humor of it.

Which makes me wonder, is "stereotyping" humor only funny if you are skewering your own culture, and is the audience then limited to members of that culture? Am I cold-hearted and unChristian for howling with laughter at the rural Mormons? Am I really cold-hearted and unChristian because I needed someone else to point out to me that it was kinda sad? The thing is, I still think the film is brilliant, but in true Mormon fashion, wonder if I should feel guilty about it.....



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by Dave
"The LDS Church is nearly 1,000 couple missionaries short despite the church's efforts to recruit more volunteers." So states a BYU NewsNet article, summarizing a recent report they say was posted at LDS.org, although I couldn't find it there. The article says there are "2,110 senior couples" presently serving, with a need for "3,093 couples" at the present time. Well, if they are short nearly 1,000 couples, they are actually short nearly 2,000 couple missionaries, but let's ignore BYU NewsNet's mistake and focus on the problem here: What's the problem with the senior couples? Is retirement getting a little too cozy these days?

Frankly, I would have thought there was a surplus of senior missionaries out there. It seems like everyone I know has parents or grandparents serving or just returning from a mission of one sort or another. Perhaps some of those seemingly faithful senior couples who claim to be serving a mission on Temple Square three nights a week are actually just sneaking over to Wendover for a little action. Or maybe some Mormons are simply embarrassed to admit their parents or grandparents are kicking back and enjoying retirement like gentile hedonists instead of signing up for the best 18 months of their life, so they pretend their parents are faithfully serving a mission somewhere.

I've seen the blue sheet they post on the bulletin board at church and many of the missionary positions offered to seniors (they get to choose their call!!) actually sound fairly interesting. So seriously, what's the problem? Here are a few tentative ideas: (1) Seniors are just worn out from years of church and temple service. (2) After 50 or 60 years, seniors have learned to resist peer pressure and manipulation by guilt and just say "no" (or "we'll think about it") when their Bishop floats the idea. (3) Civil and political unrest around the world makes prudent seniors hesitant to travel abroad. Would you want to live in Khazakstan or Rwanda for the next two years? (4) Big screen TVs, along with 100-channel cable. (5) Too many temples (yes, we overbuilt) are depleting the pool of available seniors by diverting them to never-ending rounds of temple service.

If you have a better explanation, please share it. Or, if you want to have a little fun with Grandpa, call him up, direct him and his browser to Bcc, and have him leave his own comment about his experience or lack thereof as a senior missionary. And just in case anyone should actually do this, I'll quickly extend a warm Bloggernacle welcome to any pioneering Senior Bloggers who come here to visit. Just click on the underlined orange "Comment" link below and start typing.
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by John H
If you haven't noticed from my posts, there are many issues which I haven't thought about in great detail or depth, but that I like to pontificate about anyway. One such issue is the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac in the book of Genesis.

I'm no scriptorian or scholar of any kind of the Old Testament. So my hope is that some will be able to shed a positive light on what strikes me as an appalling story - at least the way it is used in the Church. Given that much is made of Abraham's tremendous love of Isaac, I assume the story is one of the importance of submitting to God's will and being obedient. The obvious allusion to the sacrifice of Christ is also present. Yet this particular story carries some very unpleasant baggage with it about the nature of God and what he might ask us to do.

For my part, I picture the story in today's time and world, and any attempt to make it personal leaves me sick. If any parent attempted to sacrifice their child by claiming God told them to do it, would any of us have any doubt that they were nuts? Would any of us hesitate to contact the proper authorities if a relative, friend, or neighbor mentioned they needed to sacrifice their child? Can any of us imagine raising a knife to our own children, ready to cut their throats or stab their hearts? Such an image is fairly graphic, but I think if we embrace a literal interpretation of these scriptures, we should be aware of precisely what such a sacrifice entails.

Certainly there are better ways to teach us about the importance of obedience, submission to God's will, and the importance of the Savior's atonement. I can't fathom feeling too kindly towards anyone or anything that demanded I kill my own child. How would one worship God in confidence after such an event? If God is our parent, shouldn't he of all people understand? Can you imagine telling your own child to get ready to kill a beloved pet or possession, only to say "Just kidding! - I just wanted to test you" at the last minute?

I have yet to find much that is positive in the story. I love the words of Clifton Jolley at the Sunstone symposium in Dallas: "There's only one answer a parent should ever give when asked to kill a child - N0! You respond to the request by saying, 'You're God; give him cancer, and his mother and I will take care of him before he dies.'"

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by Karen
Yes, the one and only true Mormon blog managed to sneak a correspondent into the RNC this past week. Yours truly spent a couple of memorable days sitting in Madison Square Garden, with press credentials around my neck, smiling politely and thinking..."whatever you do, don't let anyone know you're a Democrat." I was planning on filing blow by blow descriptions of the Convention, but didn't quite manage to become cyber-enabled in New York. (Thus explaining one reason that I'm a fake reporter instead of a real reporter). So, you'll have to settle for my end of the week overall impressions.

1. I'm apparently easily star struck. Here's a list of people that I stared at from an embarressingly close distance: Don King, Peter Jennings, Brooks and Dunn, Some Christian Rock Band with Really Really Hot Guys (not their actual name), Sarah Evans, Larry King, George H.W. Bush, Anderson Cooper, some guy from ABC news with a fake tan, and the very best.....Triumph the Comic Insult Dog WHO WAS FILMING RIGHT BEHIND MY CHAIR!!!! Oh, and Zell Miller, which leads me to point number two....

2. Zell Miller scared me. Not the Republicans though, they loved him. Which scared me too. Here's the story. I finagled (read, "politely asked for") a floor pass, pushed my way to the front of the floor to watch Sarah Evans up close, and then Zell Miller started talking, so I decided to stay. And then people started shrieking like banshees all around me, and pressing in closer, and I started feeling really claustrophobic.....which probably heightened my sense of fear. But really, just his talk kind of scared me. I wanted to shout out logical phrases (like: "none of this makes sense unless you can prove a connection between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, which you can't!") refuting his reactionary rant, but that sure didn't seem wise. So I just made my way back to the press section wishing that I had taken at least one other Democrat in my travel group--someone that could share my wide-eyed look of trepidation. Who knew that Chris Matthews would soon be my wide-eyed ally, lending some credibility to my fear....

3. Old people who are Republicans dress up in really funny hats, and you can laugh at them behind their backs, and even take their pictures, and they like it!

4. The audience reacted very differently to Cheney and Bush. Cheney was just another speaker. Didn't register nearly as much applause as his new buddy Zell. At some points, I think the audience was just being polite in it's reaction to Cheney. Bush, on the other hand, was a rock star-- surrounded by screaming masses of old ladies in funny hats--audience chanting and waving signs as cued by the young Republicans sitting behind the stage. They LOVED his self deprecating jokes, they LOVED his smirky disses on Kerry, and they LOVED when he talked like the commander in chief. Here is something they didn't love though, about either Bush or Cheney: domestic policy. Cheney got in about two lines. I think education and health care. Barely a smattering of polite applause. Bush hit it a little more. Again, even for the Elvis of the Republican party, barely polite applause. The Republicans were not interested in domestic policy. Nothing nada. They are counting on the traditional strength of the Republican Party--national security--and are, I suppose, hoping that people don't dig too deeply into the logic or morality of this administration's choices. Whether this means that the Democrats should concentrate on pointing out the rash and ultimately harmful security actions of this administration, or whether they should concentrate on the economy and domestic issues, I don't know. But it was loud and clear what the Republicans were relying on, to the exclusion of any other issues.

5. If I wanted to rip off my dress and reveal my "pink slip" underneath (clever clever) while shouting anti-Bush slogans, I too could have been carted off by two amazingly buff security guards like the woman in the section next to me. But it didn't so much seem worth it.

6. The convention was surprisingly negative. I heard a pundit say that they counted a TOTAL of five references to President Bush in the entire Democratic Convention. In Cheney's speech alone, there were dozens. And many of the other speeches had the same tone. They were clearly winding up for a dirty campaign, and the audience LOVED IT. I think we're in for a very long 60 days.

7. Mitt Romney was a disappointment--much to my surprise. He was by far, and I think to his credit, the most polite of the "bash Kerry" speakers. But, there was no fire, no electricity, no inspiration. If he was hoping to use this as his entrance into the national Republican limelight, I think it was a failure.

8. As Jen mentioned, there were policemen everywhere. But rather than seeming menacing, they were pretty much just hanging out. A couple of them cat-called my roommate and I. Which was tres amusant. I never felt threatened, though. Although, I imagine this had something to do with the fact that I was wearing press credentials, and walking in the midst of the Republican crowd. The only problem I ever had was after my friend and I went down to the Media Welcome Center to grab some dinner. We had left our picture i.d.'s up under our chairs in the arena. The security guards didn't want to let us back in. It quickly became clear to me that they were worried that we were protestors with slogans written on our underwear, and for a brief moment I was worried I was going to have to undress in the middle of a metal detector line to prove that rather than a protestor I was just a nice Mormon girl--thereby bringing to life a recurring nightmare I've had since junior high. Fortunately, some sweet smiles and polite assurances that we were not protestors eventually got us back into the Convention. All in all it taught me valuable lesson. Next time I pretend to be a reporter, I shouldn't expect to get free food out of it.

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by Dave
Late August is when freshmen at semester schools move to campus and start learning what campus life is all about. At BYU, a fair percentage of campus life seems to be centered around the Honor Code these days, as reflected in this Deseret News story about Honor Code skits performed during Orientation Week. My recollection of how the system worked a few years ago was that if you didn't drink beer or coffee, sleep with your girl friend, steal from the Bookstore, or get caught cheating, you were more or less safe. Seems like rules have proliferated.

This strikes me as odd, since the increasing size of the applicant pool and more stringent admission screening (seminary attendance, a searching Bishop's interview, etc.) arguably delivers an increasingly well-behaved and religiously dedicated group of LDS students to BYU each Fall. So what exactly is behind the increasing emphasis on the Honor Code? Is it the looming presence of a GA as BYU President? Is it that more religiously dedicated students means an increased demand for detailed rules? I'm curious to know what motivates the ever-increasing emphasis on the Honor Code and how it is perceived by the average BYU student (off the record, as opposed to as quoted in the Daily Universe).
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by Aaron B
It's finally happened. After whipping up a nefarious, Gadianton-like scheme to bring down the Behemoth of the Bloggernacle, Steve E. and I were able to take down the website of those intellectual upstarts with smashing success! In case you haven't noticed, that other blog no longer works. You can no longer make comments there. At last, BCC will finally be able to fulfill its destiny, step up to the plate, and humbly assume its role as that #1 most trafficked site in the Bloggernacle. Which is how it should be.

Consider the demise of T&S as a metaphor for its intellectual bankruptcy, generally.

So with that out of the way, I would like to announce that we the BCC pantheon -- good Mormon "liberals" that we are -- will be shortly announcing a Bloggernacle-wide "Speech Code" which we will use to enforce our heterodoxy with an iron fist. If you want BCC to link to you, you'll have to toe the line, folks. All must comply. Resistance is futile.

Aaron B

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by JL
It's frightening. Walking around Manhattan has become scary. There are groups of police on every corner in Midtown. Subway entrances are blocked (hope there aren't any fires), some streets are closed off so pedestrians can't even cross them. People are afraid and confused. Look at the view here.

Most Americans probably aren't getting the 'real' news about what is happening so I want to share some links and info. More than 900 protestors were arrested on Tuesday. Check out Union Square arrest photos here. Metro buses have been turned into police vans to cart people away. Police are photographing ALL the protestors. Isn't that illegal? I believe the ACLU is working on it but of course it'll all be over by the time anything happens in the courts. Photos of police arrests and civil rights monitors at the library here. Can you spot the undercover biker cops here? (Hint: scroll down a few photos.) Read about this photo-blogger's illegal arrest here. Another blogger tells her story of escaping arrest after 3 hours detention on the street here. She is more sympathetic with the police and blames the big guns for the arrests.

The blogosphere has a lot of eyewitness stories and photos of events both in and out of the RNC. For a good list of links check out The Gothamist.

Our president's sole claim to success is his protection of our nation from terror, so why is he generating so much terror here? I imagine Osama laughing at the arrests of protesting, patriotic American citizens.

Jen J
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by Mathew

The single biggest reason I can think of why any American should not vote for Bush is the way he squandered the good will of the world after 9/11. Instead of seizing the moment to further discredit a corrupt ideology not only here at home but around the world, Bush’s poor judgment has given it strength. In May the International Institute for Strategic Studies released a report which noted that al-Qaeda recruitment has been accelerated by the war in Iraq and, as we all know, our relationships with many of our strongest and closest allies have been severely damaged. I will never shake the conviction that we failed to seize the post-9/11 moment to take the war of ideas to our enemies–instead we gave them a propaganda boon.

As for the Republican convention, there isn’t a lot to say about anything you haven’t seen on TV. The city itself is unusually empty–if you could leave, you probably did. If you couldn’t leave, but your company agreed, you are telecommuting. If you are like me, however, you are still taking that train to work–and wondering somewhere in the back of your mind if Madrid will repeat itself. Armed men patrol the streets–you literally can’t walk a block in mid-town (where my office is) without seeing five to ten cops or army types. I personally haven’t seen any of the mass protests, but upon emerging from my building on my way to the gym today I was surprised to see twenty or so cops hanging around along with an equal number of photographers. I asked them what was going on and they told me that they were expecting some sort of protest which apparently never materialized. In the locker room at the gym I hear blue collar workers ranting about Giuliani’s speech. I’ll be glad when it’s over and I only have to see security officers with machine guns at the airport.

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by John H
Over at some other blog, in a topic that seems to be winding down, a comment made by Jared really grabbed my attention. He said, "As Nate Oman and others never tire of pointing out, the church mostly cares about what we do rather than what we believe."

Upfront I have to say I'm not familiar with previous threads or discussions that have touched on this topic. So I'm most likely misunderstanding what Nate and others have been trying to say and what their perspectives are. (Nate's obviously a very thoughtful fellow and I have no doubt he's put a lot into his reasoning, as always.)

That said, this notion that the Church cares more about doing than believing is pretty much foreign to my own experience. I'm one who wanders through Mormonism wary of saying precisely what I believe in Church. I don't want to suggest that my experiences or my perspective are somehow evidence that my paranoia is correct. I'm truly very curious as to what others' experiences are and if people think my concern about speaking out is without merit.

My experience tells me: If I don't show up to help someone in Elder's Quorum move, no one says a word. If I miss my home teaching, no one calls to chastise me. If I don't sign up to do a cannery assignment, not a word of disapproval is uttered in my direction. I've had times in my Church activity where I couldn't (or wouldn't) participate all that much. No one talked to me, no one criticized me, no one approached me and asked me what my problem was. I showed up to Church each week and coasted by.

On the occasions I've dared venture my beliefs in Church, it hasn't gone so well. When I introduced the Book of Mormon to my Gospel Doctrine class, I touched very briefly on Joseph's money digging. I suggested that Joseph used his seeing talents to try and provide for his poor family before realizing that he had a much higher calling and that there were more important ways to use his gift. One woman a week later told me how disturbed she had been at what I said and pointedly told me not to stray from the manual, since that's all the Brethren had approved. When I mentioned that the Melchizedek Priesthood was probably restored in 1830 and not 1829, two people were so angry I thought after Church they'd be heading to the hardware store to pick up torches and pitchforks.

During a discussion while I worked at Deseret Book, the topic of progression between degrees of glory came up. I mentioned President McKay's letter that said we don't know if it is possible, and I also pointed out that some leaders had said it would be possible, while others quite strongly insisted it would not. One man (these were employees chatting in the breakroom - not customers) became very uncomfortable and said he didn't think it was appropriate to talk about this. Another woman actually began to cry and said this was the reason her brother had left the Church, and why did people like me refuse to believe the truth (in this case, the truth was that you could not progress between kingdoms).

I could go on, but I won't. Suffice it to say I'm not persuaded that these are just a few anecdotal stories that prove nothing. These kinds of disagreements are hardly over fundamental points of doctrine. So here's my problem: Given the experiences I've had and the experiences I've seen others go through, I proceed through Church convinced that if I spoke up, I would not be accepted. Perhaps it isn't fair to assume how people would act. But I can't see it being too well received if I said that I didn't believe the Book of Mormon was a historical record, or if I mentioned my support for gay marriage.

The temple recommend interview, which seems to be the primary criteria for determining worthiness in the Church, seems to be mostly about belief. Yes, many things involve both believing and doing, such as the Word of Wisdom. But I suspect one's condemnation would be the same regardless of whether they actually broke the Word of Wisdom or whether they said they believed it was ok to break it.

In short, the Mormon community I've grown up in and lived seems to have repeatedly demonstrated to me that it's beliefs that get you in trouble or get you accepted. I've seen it as my father's left the Church, as friends in Sunstone have been looked upon with suspicion, and as I've garnered more raised eyebrows than you can count. If you stray from the orthodox perspective, someone will be there to correct you or remind you that you're wrong. Granted, most people probably won't say anything. But we don't pay attention to those who don't come up to us, while we tend to make a pretty big deal out of the ones that do.

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by John H
The First Presidency has written the expected letter on political neutrality and by now it has been read over most pulpits throughout the U.S. But this year as I sat in Sacrament and heard the letter, I could swear there was a new addition. As it turns out, I wasn't wrong. (You can view the full text of the letter here.) The last line in this year's letter reads, "In addition, members who hold public office should not give the impression they represent the Church as they work for solutions to social problems."

For those of us living in Utah, this (at least at first glance) seems like an obvious allusion to the Utah State Legislature (which is 90% LDS). In recent years the Legislature has prompted almost half a dozen statements from the Church in an effort to clarify its position after the Church was cited as a reason behind proposed legislation. One such statement addressed the issue of concealed weapons in Church. The ultra-conservative legislature insisted those with concealed weapons permits have a right to carry their 9mm glock into a school or church building. Some legislators expressed their genuine shock and surprise when the Church announced it was opposed to weapons in their buildings and would take the steps necessary to prevent such weapons.

Another surprise for conservatives in Utah came when the Church announced it did not oppose a bill to create hate-crime legislation. Gayle Ruzicka, director of the Utah Eagle Forum (a group so conservative they make John Birchers look like socialists) insisted the Church's statement on the hate-crimes bill had been misunderstood, and then she graciously took the time to tell everyone exactly what the Church really meant. In response, the Church actually released another statement effectively chastising Ruzicka (a member of the Church) by reiterating that it did not oppose the hate-crime bill and that any attempt to attribute any other meaning to their first statement was a mistake.

Most recently, a political group that supported a bill that would have made it impossible for undocumented workers to get a drivers license, cited LDS teachings of honoring and sustaining the law as a reason why the bill should pass. The group also insisted the Church would not give a temple recommend to an illegal immigrant. The Church issued yet another statement, saying it had no position on the bill in the legislature, and that illegals can have temple recommends, since they are issued based on personal worthiness, not nationality.

So for the millionth time in the bloggernacle, what is it with some Mormons and politics? I just learned that church-owned Deseret Book has received several complaints from customers who are incensed that the store would dare carry Bill Clinton's memoir. As one customer put it, "Deseret Book used to be my safe haven. Now I can't even trust it."

Are most Mormons political conservatives who just can't fathom that someone would be a Mormon and a liberal? Or are a few squeaky wheels getting lots of oil in the media and in our minds? Am I just so annoyed at people like those who complain to Deseret Book that I magnify them in my own mind to be more representative than they really are?

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by Kristine
So today I had the slightly surreal experience of having our ward mission leader approach me in the hallway with a visitor in tow, saying "there she is--she's our Ward Sunstoner. She just got back from the symposium" with a beaming grin on his face.

Turns out that he (the WML) had met a young man during a fair at which our ward was manning a family history booth. The young man seemed well-informed, and eventually confessed to being a member. "But," he said, "I'm more a Sunstone than Sacrament Meeting kind of guy." So WML convinced him that it was possible to do both, and was thrilled that the Ward Choir Director/RS Secretary/Music Chairman/Sacrament Meeting Chorister was also a bona fide Sunstone reader and subscriber who could be called upon for witty banter to distract our visitor (who works for the DNC) from the running Republican sniping that passes for discussion of the Book of Mormon in Sunday School.

In closing, I just want to say that I hope that we can all remember the importance of being missionaries and setting a good example by attending the Sunstone symposium!
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by John H
I was getting a haircut today (for the record, I get my hair cut at a posh salon known as "Dollar Cuts") when the stylist had to run to the front to make an appointment for a walk-in. While she was gone, I looked down at some of the hair that had fallen in my lap. It looked remarkably like salt and pepper. "That's impossible," I thought. I'll find a rogue gray hair now and then, but I'm 27 years old and I hardly look gray. I also didn't have my glasses on so I figured there must be some mistake.

Turns out, it isn't. Gray hair seemed to surround me - to mock me. I never thought I'd be this kind of guy, but I don't handle getting older well. I know I don't qualify as "old" - not by a long shot. But I've had a very enjoyable last five or so years. Childhood and adolescence wasn't kind to me, so being a young, post-missionary Mormon was pretty sweet.

To get to the point, I think dealing with age and death is where a lot of Church members have me beat. I'm the kind of person who says living is a lot more important than believing, that life is short so make the most of it, and that the here and now is a lot more appealing than the hereafter. So I find, unlike most faithful Church members I meet, that I don't deal well when pondering old age or death. I like living and what life has to offer. And my inherent skepticism means I can't be all that confident of where (if anywhere) I'll be headed when I give up the ghost. Getting old is pretty much the one thing we're all guaranteed, so it seems silly to fret over it at all. And the rational person in my mind tells me that very thing. But I still find I do it.

So, any advice for a young fellow who hasn't the wisdom, experience, or mind to deal with the inevitable in a very thoughtful way?

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by Steve
Confession time: I am a vain, vain man. At the same time, I take terrible care of myself and am not a particularly sharp dresser. So, you can imagine how deep my dissatisfaction runs. But all that is about to change: I am going to have cosmetic surgery. No, really -- next week, Sumer and I are flying to Vancouver, where we will both have Lasik eye surgery, following which, we will be spectacle-free. Hurrah! Napoleon Dynamite becomes Dirk Benedict.

There are some practical benefits to having this type of procedure -- no more glasses means that my vision, most likely, will be better than with lenses, including my peripheral vision; I'll be able to see underwater; to run without the bouncing of the frames; to make out with hot girls (such as Sumer) without the annoying clunk sound of glasses-hitting-girl, or worse yet, the horrible clank of glasses-on-glasses. But at the heart of it all, it's a vanity issue -- no more four-eyes, which I've been since 4th grade (I remember it to this day, dancing to Disco Duck, woefully aware of my lot in life). I've been sensitive about my glasses for a long time, and so has Sumer.

My religion offers me little advice regarding the advisability of cosmetic surgery, whether it's with or without any practical benefits. Is this surgery making my body more perfect? Will the incisions in my cornea be raised with me in the Resurrection? Alma has as good a description as anyone's: "the spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form; both limb and joint shall be restored to its proper frame, even as we now are at this time..." But this doesn't really tell us much about the nature of our resurrected forms. What is the "proper frame" for our bodies? We believe that our bodies will be made perfect -- does that mean we all get that 20/20 vision we long for? Will we no longer be lactose-intolerant? Will we be taller, stronger or (as my title suggests) more well-proportioned? In other words, does the resurrection serve to correct things perceived subjectively as imperfections, or does the resurrection work to some external standard of perfection?

This issue isn't as peripheral as it might sound, because our notions of a physical resurrection, together with LDS belief in a corporeal God, make our notions of heaven and perfection a little different than the average Christian's. Can we conceive of a God that can't eat spicy nachos or that is a little on the short side? Even worse, do our concepts of God's perfection require him to be anglo and bearded -- and if so, does our definition of perfection require us to be anglo? (and bearded -- better get that Beard Card, ye BYU-ites!) Perhaps we need to be a little more disciplined in LDS culture in how we conceive of perfection, and steel ourselves for the possibility that perfection may not mean the absolute resolution of self-conceived imperfections. That's the problem when someone else makes you perfect -- you don't get to decide when you've reached perfection! In the meantime, I'll be doing a little weight training so that I can fill out those heavenly robes a little better.

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by Kristine
So, for those of you who've been holding your breath...

I talked (a little) about BCC at the Sunstone symposium yesterday, in an exceedingly weird session titled "Internet Mormons vs. Chapel Mormons." It was mostly (I think) meant to explore Dr. Shades's contention that the Church is in imminent danger of schism because people are being exposed to uncomfortable facts about Mormon history and doctrine on the Internet, and are thus forced to discard simplistic "Chapel Mormon" beliefs about the infallibility of prophets, the relentless glory of church history, etc. So Dr. Shades laid out his theory in extreme and argumentative terms, was rebutted in similarly extreme and argumentative (though much more cogent) fashion by Michael Ash (of FAIR), and then it was my turn.

I had mistakenly believed that the session was to be more of a discussion, and less a serial presentation of short papers, so I didn't have a prepared statement, and included lots of ums and uhs in my rambling 5 minute remarks. I was a little flummoxed by the tone of the discussion preceeding me, and ended up in the strange (for me) role of Molly Mormon peacemaker, trying to lighten the mood in the room. In short, I think I seemed dumb, but really nice :)

I changed my mind about a couple of things over the course of the discussion. I still think that the Internet will not (at least not very soon) have a big impact on how the average Mormon in the pews (acknowledging, of course, that no such person exists!) perceives the workings of the institution. However, I do think it makes it somewhat more likely that people will encounter unpleasant facts about church history, difficult doctrinal issues, etc. in an unfriendly context--it's hard to get a sense of just what people's agenda is on the net. (Dr. Shades, for instance, seems somewhat less antagonistic to believers on his site than he appeared to be in person.) I think the Church needs to respond to this somehow, either by officially discouraging people from learning more about Mormonism online, or by creating more opportunities for people to grapple with the difficulties of Church history, doctrine, etc. in a friendly and believing context. (Obviously, I favor the second solution, and look forward to the Sunstone-enriched Sunday School manuals(:)) Correlation has had the (I think) unintended effect of pitching our Sunday School and Relief Society lessons to the lowest common denominator, and making it impossible to confront difficulties of any kind during the three-hour Sunday meetings.

The second thing will seem to contradict my hope that we could tolerate more controversy in Sunday School (it's always good to contradict oneself immediately!). While I usually think of myself as someone who enjoys a bit of contention, I was really uncomfortable with the level of animosity in the exchange between Dr. Shades and Michael Ash--it may have been just the nature of the forum, or the particular personalities of those two, but I'm less likely than I was before to think that it's a good idea for Mormon apologists to go toe-to-toe with antis. I'm not sure that many readers will follow the intricacies of their arguments, and the vitriol really does seem antithetical to the spirit of the gospel. (I think I might feel differently about academic exchanges in refereed journals, but at the level of "so-called intellectuals" with no degrees in ancient languages or philosophy of religion, it was just plain ugly.)

The best part of the day was meeting D. Fletcher and John Hatch. D. was much as I'd imagined him; John was not at all the small, wiry rock-climbing type I had pictured! Since I've already confessed to betraying my commitment to resisting gender-essentialist stereotypes, I'll also say that (as stereotypical females are supposed to) I *really* liked having embodied conversations with them, instead of just seeing cold words on the screen.
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by Aaron B
I have a confession to make: I am a liar. I have deliberately told an untruth about a fellow human being, with the intent to convince my listeners to believe something unsavory about that person and to affect her negatively. Shame on me? You decide. The story that follows has virtually no connection to Mormonism, other than that I happen to be Mormon, the Gospel demands that we not bear false witness against our neighbor, and I did so anyway with reckless abandon. All you amateur Mormon ethicists out there are invited to weigh in on my actions and call me to repentence ... or not.

One fine afternoon about two years ago, I pulled up to the drive-through at Jack-in-the-Box. I don't particular care for Jack-in-the-Box, but as it was down the street from my wife's work, I often bought something to eat there. I frequented the place enough that the Latino employees at the drive-through window knew me by sight, and would always smile and say hello. I would do the same. On this particular occasion, a homeless black man, probably in his late 70's, walked past my car, passively looking for a handout. I politely brushed him off, as I often do in these situations. A few moments later, as I was thinking about whether to order the buttermilk ranch or the Red Hot sauce with my chicken strips, I was suddenly jolted out of my stupor by a loud, caustic stream of racist vulgarities unlike any I had ever heard before. I turned around and witnessed the following scene: The black man had approached the car behind me, soliciting some change. The trashy-looking woman driving the car lit into him with the most obscene tirade imaginable. "Get the f*ck away from my car you f*cking n*gger!" she screamed. A continuing stream of F-words and N-words continued to flow from her lips. The volume and intensity of her bile was mind-blowing. I can honestly say I have never heard such a shocking display of hateful, racist filth in my entire life. No R-rated movie I'd ever seen could compare. No episode of Jerry Springer could ever come close (even without the censors). Even that Korean woman in testimony meeting couldn't hold a candle to this crone.

The black man's reaction was interesting. He was clearly shocked by the treatment he received, and I got the impression that he probably hadn't been talked to like this in a very long time. His initial, visceral response was to lunge at the car instinctively, as if he wanted to strike out at the window, but he stopped himself before he actually did so. Keep in mind that this was a very elderly gentleman, so I doubt he was prone to physical violence as a rule. The woman was unphased, and continued her racist tirade unabated.

I immediately became furious. Despite the occasional moral indignation I display on the internet, people who know me in real life will tell you that I rarely get visibly angry, if ever. I am known for my rather narrow range of emotional states: jaded, sarcastic, and more sarcastic. Thus, I hadn't felt this way for as long as I could remember. It was like I was in a Charles Bronson movie, or I was sitting in Harrison Ford's buggy, watching the tourists pick on the Amish guy. I was pissed.

The black man decided to ignore his verbal assailant, and he walked past my car again. I decided to lean out the window and hand him 2 dollars. He asked me if I'd just buy him a couple tacos instead, which I agreed to do. This gesture earned me an earful from the woman behind. "F*cking Saab-driver!" she yelled, over and over again. (Ouch - "Saab-driver"! What a put down! She really got me good with that one!). This gave me the opportunity to do something I don't think I've done since highschool. Down went my window, and up went my middle finger. (Juvenile and crass? Perhaps, but it somehow seemed appropriate at the time.)

I drove up to the pick-up window, paid for my food, handed the gentleman his tacos, and proceeded to drive off. The placement of the drive-through window and the exit at this location was such that I had to double back 180 degrees to leave the parking lot. In doing so, I passed right by the drive-through window again, just as the woman in the car was picking up her food. With my window down, I was able to hear her conversation with two Jack-in-the-Box employees. In a very irate tone, she was demanding to speak to the manager, in order to complain about the black man that had been "harrasing" her in the parking lot. She insisted that the restaurant see to it that he was kicked off the premises.

At this point, I snapped. I stopped my car, got out, and walked up to the drive-through window, placing myself squarely between the window and the woman in the car. I proceeded to talk to the employees in Spanish. (I'm as white as white can be, so it always comes as a shock to Latinos when I can speak their language. I figured my speaking Spanish might help my credibility in this instance.) I indignantly explained to the employees that they should pay this woman no heed, as she was a lying, hateful "racista" whose only motivation was to malign an innocent black man and to provoke an ugly incident. But I felt like this wasn't enough. I needed to say something else, to really dissuade the employees from having sympathy for her duplicitous claims. And then it happened ...

I decided to lie.

I continued addressing the Latino employees, but I switched to English, making sure that the woman in the car would understand me. "And that's not all," I fibbed. "This lady also made some ugly comments about you! After insulting that black man, she started mouthing off about how the "damn, dirty Mexicans" at this restaurant should be sent back toTijuana! So you guys decide if this is someone you want to take seriously." The employees looked at the woman and then looked at me with wide-eyes. They're faces seemed to turn white.

I shot a knowing glance at the woman in the car myself, gave her a big cheesy grin, and walked off.

Aaron B

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by Steve
A recent column by Ms. Buttinsky herself threatens the very core of LDS dating relationships! Now I have the "Will I Wait For You" bit from Saturday's Warrior stuck in my head. At least she encouraged young Johnny to go on his mission...

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by Mathew
I don't consider myself an intellectual because by now I've known too many genuine intellectuals and I know that they are in a different class. They are almost always people I admire, not just because they are well read, erudite and full of interesting ideas, but because of the way they lead their lives. In Russian the phrase used to describe this is "lives intelligently"—an idea that has captured my imagination for nearly a decade. To live intelligently is something that I aspire to, but from which I am very far from achieving.

I honestly cannot ever recall having ever referred to myself as an intellectual. That said, I have to admit that I have been called intellectual by acquaintances (not recently—but five or six years ago) and am certain that someone, somewhere took the liberty to call me an intellectual. So here I am—a self-confessed so-called intellectual.

Being a so-called intellectual isn't bad—you still get to eat the crumbs that have fallen from the intellectual feast going on just out of reach. You waste endless hours reading the Wall Street Journal, the Times (as we like to call it), The Economist and, most deliciously, The New Yorker. Best of all, you don't actually have to write anything—leave that to the real intellectuals. Instead of writing, it has been my experience that so-called intellectuals gain an expertise in something useful and make a good living (as opposed to our true intellectual cousins).

Along with the good, however, comes the bad. So-called intellectuals are sometimes singled out in church talks and are often viewed as a subversive element. I agree that I and my fellow so-called intellectuals are, as a group, not subversive. Unfortunately being thought of as such for so long has led some to fancy themselves as fringe church members who don't really fit in. And I believe that for people of my generation, this causal link is a fact that has resulted in apostasy as some so-called intellectuals have taken the bait that was placed in front of them and left the church in righteous indignation over the three Ps: polygamy, patriarchy and pop synth. But most of us are happy to be in the center of the church—our spiritual home, testimonies intact, where we continue to wonder about interesting bits of church history and gay marriage.

Our intellectual dilettantism bothers some people who use self-serving rhetorical devices in an attempt to rein us in and otherwise make Sunday School the boring slog it "ought" to be. This usually takes the form of name-calling—often with a hyphen stuck somewhere in the mix: so-called intellectuals, pseudo-intellectual trappings, self-important etc-etc-etc.

We probably deserve at least some of this. Unfortunately the net is often cast too wide and true intellectuals are caught in it. Perhaps it is not the villain-rhetor's intent. Perhaps the speaker-monster added an obligatory reference to 2 Nephi 9:29—but many of our brothers and sisters, unused to nuance that so-called intellectuals value so highly, indiscriminately apply it to anyone saying unfamiliar things or otherwise using the English language for effectively communicating. This is where I have to object—for there is such a thing as a true intellectual. There is even such a thing as a faithful intellectual who earnestly seeks to learn and share gospel knowledge—and such people deserve better.

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by John H
In the wake of Jennifer's great post on the supposed repression of Mormon women, I thought I'd ask if Mormon men are repressed. As a Mormon man, I've certainly never been confronted the way Jennifer was and told that I'm repressed. On the surface, it looks like we've got it pretty sweet.

But deep down, are we not allowed to participate in the world of maleness? Let's look at some facts:

• Mormon men can't drink beer, arguably a strong part of American male identity
• Mormon men generally are discouraged from watching shoot 'em up, profanity laced movies, with all the scantily clad women you can shake a stick at.
• Some Mormon men might even be denied the sacred joy of watching football on Sunday
• With the emphasis put on families, Mormon men may not feel like they can spend evenings or weekends with "the guys"
• Mormon men may suffer an identity crisis - encouraged to weep during Sacrament meeting, yet discouraged from weeping during Steel Magnolias
• Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all, with the Church's emphasis on industry, hard work, providing for oneself and family, Mormon men may be denied that trait so beautifully embodied in Doug Heffernen, Homer Simpson, and others: Laziness

Of course, there's mostly sarcasm above, but I truly am interested in the differences between Mormon men and "wordly" (I hate that word!) men. I've actually heard one ex-Mormon argue that Mormon men are emasculated by the Church - just a teensy bit extreme in my opinion. But are there male rights of passage or other aspects of maleness that Mormon men are missing out on that they shouldn't?

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by JL
A few weeks ago, while traveling, I met an American woman with whom I had a lengthy conversation. She was in her late 50s or early 60s. She wanted to know about my work so we discussed philosophy for awhile among other things. I quite enjoyed talking to her. But later that evening I mentioned that I had met people at church who let me stay in their homes for free. She immediately asked me what church I attend. When I told her I am Mormon she was quite shocked. She asked me how I could be so educated and part of such a sexist church, thus allowing myself to be repressed. I said, "Women are encouraged to get as much education as they can and I'm not repressed." She told me that yes, I am repressed. When I asked her how I am repressed she just said, "Well, you have to admit that you belong to a sexist church." I said, "the church is patriarchal, yes. But that doesn't make me repressed. How am I repressed?" Our exchange continued in this way as she got increasingly more distressed and insistent. She never explained to me in what ways I am repressed. She simply insisted that patriarchy and conservative religion necessitate my repression.

She asked me how I could be politically liberal and belong to a conservative religion. I told her there were many liberal mormons, that one could be socially and politically liberal while being religious. This is the point at which she lost control of herself. She said "How can you be so educated and a philosopher and believe in such superstitions? Yours is a superstitious religion. Are you a true believer? Do you really believe that God spoke to Joseph Smith and all of that?" I responded, "Yes, I do believe it. I've questioned the doctrine and studied it and don't find it contrary to reason. So there is no conflict between my religion and my academic work." Her face got red and she screamed, "That's scary. I find that truly scary!" Then she stormed out of the hostel kitchen.

This whole exchange lasted about 30 minutes. Every time I challenged one of her assumptions she changed the subject instead of answering my questions. By the time she left, I found myself extremely angry and insulted. Though I kept my cool with her the whole time. I sat down at the table to finish my meal and smiled at the smirking German. Then the woman came crashing back into the kitchen saying, "The sad thing is that they are truly beautiful people, the mormons. So are most fundamentalist Christians." I smiled at her and then walked out.

In order to resolve my anger I had to recognize that she had issues with herself, not with me. Even though I felt insulted, she really fought against her own fears. My faith threatened and scared her. At one point she mentioned that she grew up in the Church of Christ and knows what it's like for fundamentalist women to be repressed. So at some time in her life she turned her back on her family's traditions. The fact that an intelligent, educated, liberal woman could believe in a religion like mormonism, which she obviously equated with all fundamental Christianity, rocked her worldview. She must hold a fundamental belief that religion is only for the ignorant women. Once I realized this, my anger turned to sadness for her.

There are at least two issues for discussion here. Are Mormon women repressed? And if so, then in what ways? I don't feel repressed but maybe, as the woman insisted, I am repressed and just don't realize it. I'm also single and childless so maybe I have escaped the repression that comes with having a family. Wives and mothers, are you repressed by your families?

The other issue is the perceived conflict with intellectualism and faith/religion. This woman could not accept the existence of a religious and educated woman. She obviously absorbed the Enlightenment ideals of rationalism over 'superstition' or faith. Our popular culture is similarly steeped in such ideals. So, lets explain away this false conflict or justify it as a real problem or rant about it or whatever else your hearts desire.

Jennifer J
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by Christina
I recently read an address given by the Reverend Canon Dr. Lauren Artress in which she discusses the work of the twelfth-century abbess, Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard had been pledged to the Church as a young child and served as a nun the remainder of her life, but it was not until she suffered a severe and prolonged illness in her 40's that she developed a deep relationship with God, began to see visions and to tap into her wellspring of creativity.

After recovering from her illness, the abbess wrote of how the Church had missed out on our spiritual connection to the universe and had developed a doctrine of a Christ as a policeman of small sins rather than a loving God of creation. Reverend Artress interprets Hildegard's ideas:

The Christian tradition divides sins into two categories, warm sins and cold sins. We pay a great deal of attention to warm sins, sins of the flesh, and we ignore the cold sins, sins of the hardened heart. We covet our excessive resources, greedy and without care for those who have no food or shelter.

Now, I find this to be a criticism of us in the church today as well -- and the practice of religion in general through the ages. I think it is much easier to follow rules than to follow our hearts. Thus, we learn as converts to religion and as children raised in the church to follow particular rules and to progress in life through developing obedience to particular commandments. These are the warm sins. Many people operate as if they can be a ticket-holder to the celestial kingdom (whatever that means) by abstaining from coffee, tea, alcohol, cigarettes, sex outside of marriage, by paying tithing, attending church and staying awake for some portion of the meetings. These things are not taught to the exclusion of listening to the spirit and developing deeper meaning in religion. However, I think we are encouraged by our leadership and by our own lack of self knowledge to stop at this level of warm sin and not move on to breaking through our cold sins.

There is a lot of value in not committing warm sins, so don't mistake this post for a justification for cheating on our taxes or having a sip of wine. My theory on sin is this: many commandments (warm sin ones) give us the guidance we need in order to have open minds and loving hearts. They eliminate unhelpful distractions and place a modicum of responsibility on our shoulders towards our fellow persons. But they don't go far at all in teaching us how to be truly loving and giving in the way that we must be in order to come to Christ. Of course, it is not meet that we be commanded in all things. Is this just something we have to figure out in our own hearts?

The question I am putting is, not why are there warm sins and cold sins, but why do we care so much about warm sins? I guess I am reacting to the perceived self-righteousness of many "religious" people in this world who may abstain from certain activities associated with warm sins, but whose hearts are cold to the needs of humanity. I don't like it. Is this a problem, or am I just too much of a Liahona Mormon?
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by Dave
This Sunday, my ward offered the usual cast of stock characters for an LDS testimony meeting: the returning wayward member who confessed to a variety of heinous but unspecified sins; a couple of grandmotherly types who discussed their ailments or those of other family members; a couple of auxiliary leaders sharing the good things happening with this or that person or group; a dynamic Polynesian sharing an aggressive but touching testimony; and of course a dutiful high priest or two expounding on the temple as a metaphor for life. Why do we do this once a month?

Wearing my critical hat, I might offer that it is a simple meeting to plan--no planning at all, in fact. Insecure leaders obsessed with apostasy are no doubt thrilled with a monthly meeting where we all get together to remind ourselves how true the Church is and how wonderful and inspired our leaders are. And the willingness of leaders to support a meeting with no agenda and no programmed message is symptomatic of the stunningly low quality of Mormon sacrament meetings overall. Meetings can be dull or boring but leaders simply can't grasp the idea that a meeting can be "too dull" or "too boring." That would imply a need to change something.

Wearing my faithful hat (I still have one), I would offer that it's at least a departure from the normal routine of dreary talks. These days, real people and their joys or problems seem rather more interesting that the ad hoc doctrines that infest Church manuals and high council talks. And from time to time there are moments of high drama that just don't happen anywhere else. It's not quite Jerry Springer, but then it's not phony either.

While it may be an easy meeting with no agenda, it's also true that allowing any member of the congregation to come share their thoughts from the pulpit is an unusual vote of confidence in the general membership. I suspect there are Evangelical churches where members of the congregation are invited to come share their conviction that Jesus is love and the Bible is true, but in many denominations the average member would have to climb past a pack of deacons, noviates, and lay ministers, then wrestle the microphone from the iron grip of an aging minister to address their message to the congregation from the pulpit. Could the Mormon tradition of an open mic on fast Sunday actually be a vote of confidence in the average Mormon sitting in the pews?
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by Mathew
Elder Haight passed away this morning of causes related to old age. When I mentioned his death to my mother she asked me if I was sure he wasn't just taken up. I will remember him for his soothing demeanor, his sense or humor and his frequent references to Ruby.

In his last conference talk he had the following to say:

I understand the power of prayer and of faith and of devotion, and I acknowledge precious witnesses from heaven. And so I stand here today just to bear my testimony and say hello to you. I'm hoping that by another conference I'll be totally healed and able to do what I'm asked to do.

I will miss this gentle servant of God.

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by Steve
Because you were looking for something fun to do on a Friday afternoon.



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by Steve
An increasing portion of our traffic here at BCC has been via Google searches that include the term "rumspringa."  For example, a search for "rumspringa amish biography" shows BCC solidly in fifth place.  I would like to extend a special greeting to those seeking further knowledge of our Amish teenage friends, running free in their early adulthood.  This is doubtlessly the result of the upcoming UPN reality show, "Amish in the City."  Perhaps you have come seeking a tie to your own personal rumspringa days.  Perhaps you have come seeking photos of amish girls gone wild.  No matter: we welcome you!  Take this opportunity to learn more about liberal mormons while you're here, and ask all the questions you like.  Perhaps you'd be interested in reading the mormon equivalent of Amish in the City.

p.s. a special thanks to Aaron B. and to Jeremy for spearheading BCC's rumspringa-thon.  I promise this wasn't an intentional googlebombing attempt, unlike others I've seen.



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by Kristine
Lots of Mormon women make nifty scrapbooks of their kids', their family's lives. I don't. Sometimes I feel bad about that, worry that my kids will feel deprived if all the events of their young lives are not recorded in carefully cropped snapshots, with cute die-cut figures and fancy paper borders. For a long time I thought my resistance to scrapbooking was just mild anti-Mollyism combined with a lack of time (oh, yeah, and resentment of turning nouns like "scrapbook" into verbs). But now I have a few minutes in my days, and I could, if I really wanted to, get around to making those scrapbooks. But I still haven't.

Here's why--I don't think they work. I think people make scrapbooks because they are trying to keep time from slipping through their fingers. Having a child makes you conscious of time in an acute and often painful way. When I was 26, it was easy for me to think that I was pretty much the same as I had been at 21. But even if I can sometimes think, at 34, that I am pretty much the same as I was when I was 27 (just a *little* fatter and more wrinkled, really!), there is this hulking 60 lb. 7-year-old next to me, who was just a 7 lb. lump of funny sounds and smells when I was 27. (OK, yeah, he still sounds and smells funny a lot of the time, but...)

I remember when we were leaving the hospital, being sad that he was 2 whole days old and it didn't make sense to give his age in hours anymore. And I shocked myself with a bout of strenuous weeping when he was a month old and I had to pack away the tiniest t-shirts. At every stage, along with the joy of new discovery, there is the nagging grief of never again--look! he's eating cereal (someday soon he'll be weaned), look! he's crawling (someday he will walk away from me), look! he's going to school (he'll learn things I don't teach him), look! he can read (the world is his; he is escaping the home I have so carefully made). And always the aching knowledge that he and I will not be here, in this minute, together again. A scrapbook is not enough to assuage that grief--it will not bring me back the sweet 20-lb. six-month-old who made my arms hurt with his delicious chubbiness, it will not smell like the back of his baby neck, or his grassy 3-year-old sweat, it will not really hold the awkward 1-gigantic-permanent-tooth cyclops grin that makes it so hard for me to yell at him today. A scrapbook will only be a cruel tease.

The other reason I think scrapbooks have such appeal to Mormons, of course, is our focus on our posterity, and our hope that our lives will be rich with lessons for our descendants. I'm not convinced that this is so, either. I have as storied a family as anyone, I think; my paternal grandparents, especially, have conscientiously recorded and retold as much of the family history as we can discover. And I love those stories, and I am glad to know them, and I learn from them, but it's still hard to be convinced of their significance, their weightiness, their *heft.* Despite my post-modernish academic training, I'm still attracted by the old Great Man historiography, and deep down I think that truly important lives will manage to make their mark despite being unchronicled by the people who live them. I intend to creep quietly into a plainly marked grave, and leave the digging through boxes of photographs to journalists and historians eager for baby pictures of my accomplished and celebrated offspring. Newspaper pictures and biography covers do not have pretty borders.
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by John H
Patty Henetz of the Associated Press has written an article on DNA and the Book of Mormon, focusing on geneticist Simon Southerton and his forthcoming book, Losing a Lost Tribe. Although DNA and the Book of Mormon has probably made the rounds through the bloggernacle, I suspect it’s a story that won’t go away for a while. I find the DNA issue to be fascinating, though hardly the death knell for the Book of Mormon that some portray it as. But I had an experience sometime ago that both troubled me and helped me resolve many of these issues, albeit perhaps unsatisfactorily for most members.

After hearing about the Zelph story here and there, and remembering it when I read History of the Church on my mission, I decided to do some digging. As a quick reminder, the Zelph story goes as follows: While on Zion’s camp, some bones are unearthed on top of a small mound. Joseph Smith declares that the man was Zelph, a white Lamanite and a righteous man.

I expected to hear that the Zelph story couldn't be taken seriously as an actual event - it was just a rumor. It turns out at least 7 or 8 people present at the camp reported on Zelph, including Wilford Woodruff. President Woodruff recorded in his journal that Joseph had a revelation, and that he learned that Zelph was a warrior under the great Prophet Onandagus. After doing my reading, I came away pretty convinced that the Zelph episode did in fact take place.

The first problem with this story is immediately evident. If Joseph had a revelation about Zelph, what does that mean for the limited geography theory? If the Book of Mormon took place, as we’re now told, in a small area in Mesoamerica, how did Zelph’s bones end up on a mound in Illinois? For whatever reason, that didn’t affect me too much. What surprised me, to the point where I had what might be called an epiphany, was reading about this great Prophet “Onandagus” that Zelph served under. I served my mission in upstate New York - just slightly east of Palmyra. One of the areas I served in was Onandaga County, one county over from where Joseph Smith lived. Coincidence? I think not.

I know it probably seems silly, but this information struck me hard. Rarely have a felt so sure of something: Joseph Smith was making stuff up. I’d always been able to negotiate my doubts and my faith without making scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon, a casualty. It seemed now I couldn’t even keep the most basic parts of my faith safe from my Sunstone side. Since this experience, I’ve calmed down, chilled out - relaxed a bit, if you will. The reality is I don’t know what the Zelph story means. I see several possibilities:

1. The Zelph affair never happened. One or two men saw Joseph looking at the bones on a mound, told some of the other men, a story got cooked up and passed on as truth. Or, Joseph speculated a bit, and it was reported as revelation. (For the record, I think this is highly unlikely. The consistency and specifics with which the men report the event are impressive.)

2. The Zelph affair did happen, and Joseph did have a revelation. The limited geography theory is simply wrong, or flawed, and Lamanites and Nephites did live in what is now Illinois, despite what current research and science suggests.

3. The Zelph affair did happen, and Joseph did have a revelation. However, the bones were actually not that of Zelph, but this event was a way for God to strengthen those who were in his service in Zion’s camp. They may have been feeling down and out, and this boosted their spirits. The theological implications of God revealing something that isn’t true are problematic, but I also think this possibility need remain open.

4. The Zelph affair did happen, but Joseph received no revelation. Instead, he made it up to boost the men’s spirits and remind them of the divinity of their mission. This does not necessarily invalidate the Book of Mormon, but suggests that Joseph was willing to lie to help people.

5. The Zelph affair did happen, but Joseph received no revelation. He not only made this story up, but made the entire Book of Mormon up. He was, as Dan Vogel might suggest, a pious fraud.

I’ll confess I’m partial to number 4. (I’ve left off a few other variations on these possibilities, such as Joseph was delusional.) What this experience forced me to do, for the first time, was look at what I valued in the scriptures. I was guilty of what a lot of us are guilty of - I paid lip service to things I didn’t really believe. We say that we don’t try and prove the Book of Mormon true, because we’re really only interested in its spiritual message and witness of Christ. But how do we react when it’s veracity as a historical book is challenged? FARMS, for example, will spend one paragraph in a book saying that the spiritual witness the Book of Mormon provides is what’s important, and that we can’t prove it to be true, then they spend the rest of the entire book trying to do just that.

We’ve tied so much into the Book of Mormon (if it’s true, then Joseph’s a prophet, and if he’s a prophet, then Mormonism is true, yada, yada, yada.) For my part, I’m learning to appreciate the book as a wonderful spiritual guide, regardless of its origins. I find I enjoy the New Testament a bit more (as if that doesn’t have its own historical dilemmas), but for the first time in a while, I’ve learned to read the Book of Mormon without the baggage we’ve attached to it. It’s really quite remarkable.

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by Jeremy
I read in the Rochester and Democrat and Chronicle this afternoon that prominent businessman and devout Mormon Kay Whitmore passed away last night after a struggle with leukemia. It's only by chance that I read it in the paper before I heard it over the phone; he happened to be a member of my ward.

I can't say I knew him very well. When we moved here he and his wife were serving in a singles ward in the next stake over, and they subsequently only attended our ward for a short time before they got restless and left on a mission (their second; previously they had overseen a mission in England) to southern California. They were simply too busy doing good things for me to run into him very often.

I did see him about a month ago, however, around the time of his diagnosis, and the circumstances of the meeting speak concisely to his character as citizen and saint: this former CEO of Kodak--the board of which, incidentally, forced him into retirement in 1993 because they wanted to trim more employees from the company than he was willing to fire--was sweeping up the gym floor after the boy scout pancake breakfast.

(Cross-posted at OT)



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by Karen
I realize that in the company of the intellectual giants in the bloggernacle, this next confession may forever peg me as a lightweight (if my previous posts have not already pegged me as such...) I watch reality dating shows. Not the serious ones like the Bachelor, no, I prefer the gimicky rip off shows. (My personal favorite moment was when the preening queen from Average Joe Hawaii dumped the average guy for the hottie, then was in turn dumped by him on their post-production vacation because she admitted that she once dated Fabio. Ladies and Gentlemen, TV does not get better than that...)

I have, until now however, been unable to explain my illogical attraction to the gimicky dating shows. Outback Jack changed all that. I have entered a level of higher consciousness and now choose to share it with you. Outback Jack goes to my Singles' Ward. Let me clarify, the Outback Jack syndrome has infected the Mormon Singles Scene. And let's just say it does not bring with it a wave of dignity and charity.

For the uninitiated. Outback Jack is a fairly hot, but strangely small man, full of testosterone and Australian good sense. A nice guy--certainly more sincere than his American counterparts. He seems well-meaning, and apparently naieve enough to agree to be on American television. The deal had its perks for him. The producers dropped 12 pampered, phenomenally gorgeous women in his lap, and every few days he gets to pick which ones will "continue on this journey" with him. He started out extremely kind, if a bit overwhelmed. However, as the show goes on, and these women continue to throw themselves at him, his attitude is slowly changing. Let me illustrate: On the last episode, as he was about to eliminate one of the pouting blonds, he voiced over "Ah, I'm about to break one of these sheila's hearts. That's so hard for me, I'm not a cruel person." About to "break a heart?" Come on. And once again, we witness the fact that power begets hubris. And hubris begets stupid voice-overs.

So it finally hit me. Single LDS men are by and large in an Outback Jack kind of "reality." I have attended my fair share of singles wards, and by the mid to late twenties, on average, the women are ahead of the men in both quantity and accomplishment. Now, I'm not trying to toot my own horn here. I'm quite sure I'm the woman that pulls the average down for the rest of my talented and beautiful sisters, but I am an observer, and I'm not the only one making this observation. The women outnumber the men, and by and large, therefore, there are MANY more "on the ball" women competing for a few really great men and a quite a few average joes. Sounds crass? It feels crass and undignified. And breeds very bad behavior, both in women and men.

In fact it breeds the kind of behavior seen on reality t.v. Women who act with charity in any other situation can be pouty and catty, and then feel both guilt and social ostracization. The men get an overinflated sense of self and start behaving badly--manipulating women they are not interested in for ego gratification, and dating friends simultaneously, lying to both of them, just because they can get away with it. (Incidentally these things happened to friends of mine, just this past week...I'm not being hypothetical here.)

The result? More and more women are dating outside the church, and finding ironically, that their non-Mormon boyfriends treat them better than the men in the church. I find it fascinating that women in the church are waiting for moral men to marry in the temple, then find that non-Mormon men handle the dating scene with a greater sense of morality. Which is sad, because for the most part, I like the single Mormon guys I know. I think they're trying to do their best to navigate a really horribly awkward situation, and are caught up in it. I can't say with certainty that I would behave differently if put in the same situation. But the fact of the matter is, the demographics powerfully skew the social situation, and that situation skews behavior.

So, I'm willing to admit that I could be caught in the flames of indignation on behalf of my friends who are continually hurt by others' bad behavior, and also so socially awkward, that I can't manage to navigate the waters of single mormoness without looking like an idiot most of the time. However, I think this brings up some really serious questions about single womens' expectations for a temple marriage. Fed up with the indignity of our situation, should we just give up, and cobble together families and happiness in the best way we can? Or is the ideal (that we haven't tasted yet) worth the intervening social torture? How are we supposed to act when faced with this kind of manipulative behavior? What's a single gal to do?



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by Steve
As you may know, I'm a lawyer, and draft contracts and other arrangements for a living.  Another way of looking at this is to say that I'm a bottom-feeder, and my job would not exist if people were honest with each other.  Either way, lawyers spin no cloth and till no fields.  My work, as with most modern office work, is heavily decontextualized, and I find myself far removed from any actual product or fruit of labor.  This didn't bother me very much -- when I was younger my office jobs and grunt-work were frequently detached from the real world.  This is a complaint of most modern office workers.  But lately, I've been working long hours, slaving over documents that few people will ever read, and otherwise questioning my chosen profession.  A part of this questioning has involved thoughts about being closer to people, working in a more hands-on way, and creating a more direct link between my efforts and an end product in the hands of the public.  This may not be possible for a lawyer, or for anyone else raised and trapped in an "Office Space" world.  I find myself wistfully thinking of becoming a tradesperson, such as a plumber or contractor, if only to witness the work of my own hands (this is, of course, total delusion -- I have no skills for working with my hands and my home improvements thus far have been met with limited success).

Is this a typically Mormon thought process, or an American one, for that matter?  I'm tempted to trace this kind of thinking back to puritan ethics and agrarian work culture, both of which are a part of LDS traditions.   Lesson manuals are filled with missives about "The Value of Work" and how noble it is to truly earn your money (pay close attention, investment bankers and arbitrageurs!).  These discussions seem inescapably tied to notions of a day's work for a day's pay and other concepts of work that somehow fall short of describing most modern professions.  As a result of this (perceived?) inadequacy I'd like to try and establish a framework for evaluating work in God's Plan to see if there are any rules or notions we can isolate as cultural relics, while identifying those divine gems that remain.  Not an easy task, but here are some initial thoughts:

• Work is meant to be difficult.  That is, we shouldn't get something from nothing.  The lot of the idler in scripture is fairly grim.

• We are meant to work in order to get by.  The concept of an idle aristocracy or of people taking jobs as a mere diversion is repugnant, as a violation of the principle that life is to be about survival and progression, not comfort and stagnancy.

• Our jobs really do matter.  I used to fall into the camp that asserts that within a certain range (i.e., legal) of activity, God doesn't care what we do to earn our money.  I now believe this to be false -- or rather that the boundary of the defined range isn't legality, but morality, as evaluated within the larger context of the purpose of work.  p.s. I should also point out, on a slightly unrelated matter,  that my wife Sumer thinks it's OK that Marriott hotels sell in-room pr0n and alcohol, and if she owned a convenience store would have no problem in selling such things herself.  I just wanted to get that out there.

I'm not sure where that leaves me, or what these ideas say about working in the modern world.  Even worse, these principles lead me to perform value judgments on professions in ways I'm not comfortable with (i.e., most modern office jobs are bad for us).  I also find myself unable to come to conclusions about the separation between workers and end-products (which seems to be the essence of work in modern society).  Is there something I'm missing here?  Let me know where I need to go from here, and I'll continue in future posts.

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by Kaimi
is available here.  Not a bad tune, either.

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by Steve
As noted on the LDS.org site, Elder Maxwell passed away last night.  I will miss him, as one of the most thoughtful and well-spoken apostles in recent memory.  His thoughts on the meaning of discipleship, the hallmark of his tenure as apostle, were of personal importance to me and to many others.  Our thoughts are with wife and children.

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by Kristine
Steve asked what I'm going to say on the Sunstone panel. I really don't quite know; I *told* Dan Wotherspoon that I wasn't sure I had much to offer, so they've been forewarned. (I'll try to at least wear something interesting, so I can be decorative). But here's my hypothesis, such as it is:

I think that there isn't really much difference between "Internet Mormons" and "Chapel Mormons." I think Internet apologetic battles may sway a few people around the margins, but I don't think there's any real effect on what's going on in the pews and in Sunday School. People self-select on the internet, just as they do with print media. People who only read the Ensign and Deseret Books stuff will not stray from lds.org. People who would read the stuff thrust into their hands on Temple Square will take a peek at the Tanners' website just out of curiosity. People who like FARMS will hang out at fairlds.org. People who like Dialogue and Sunstone will probably glance at timesandseasons from time to time. People look for code words that make them feel comfortable.

I'm sure I'm missing something--I'm a bit of a Luddite and I don't get out much :) So all of you smart people please fill me in!!
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by John H
The annual Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium is three weeks away, so it's time I started spreading the word. I'll just mention a few things:

1. The program is online in pdf format at www.sunstoneonline.com. Do check it out. Note that students with a valid ID can attend for free and first time attenders are $50 for the whole conference. (Make sure to look over the workshops - Linda King Newell teaching a writing biography workshop - not too shabby!)

2. One panel in particular I'll mention is session 233 - Internet Mormons vs. Chapel Mormons. Kristine Haglund Harris will join others on this panel that discusses if there is a disconnect between those Mormons who are familiar with online forums, and those who are not. For example, those familiar with Internet forums and websites will tend to accept a much smaller body of canon (ie, not everything said or written by Church leaders is doctrine) - do those unfamiliar with online forums agree?

3. Dallas Robbins, at his website here, outlines some criticisms of the symposium. I'd be curious to hear what others think of his criticisms and if they have suggestions for improvement. I've posted some followup questions on his site and would love ideas from all places.

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by Aaron B
Once upon a time, I politely suggested we change the name of this site to "Zeezrom and the Kori-Whores."  I was callously and rudely rebuffed by my cruel, heartless co-bloggers here at BCC. (sniff!)
 
Well, I've got a new argument to add to the pile:  If we keep our name, we might get confused with the official newsletter of the Mormon Alliance!
 
Solution:  Take my original advice ... or perhaps invite Lavina Fielding Anderson and/or Janice Allred to guest-blog?
 
Aaron B 

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by Dave
I stumbled across an interesting set of directives to Catholic voters entitled A Brief Catechism for Catholic Voters. It's written by a Catholic clergyman with a PhD and it's posted on a website that looks pretty darned Catholic, so I'll take it as a fair expression of conservative Catholic thinking on this tricky issue of church and state. Mormons, too, like to mix religion with their politics, but sometimes we see our own difficulties more clearly by viewing someone else's. So here are some highlights (quotes in italics, my comments afterwards) from the fourteen numbered paragraphs in the article.

3. If a political candidate supported abortion, or any other moral evil, such as assisted suicide and euthanasia, for that matter, it would not be morally permissible for you to vote for that person. This is because, in voting for such a person, you would become an accomplice in the moral evil at issue. No, voting for a pro-abortion candidate is not morally equivalent to choosing or assisting with an abortion. If it were, then so would a lot of things be too: fixing the car of a pro-abortion person, selling a house to a pro-abortion person, coaching their kids in Little League, even just saying "Good morning" as opposed to "One day you will burn in hell" or some similar benediction could be "assisting." Making abortion a controlling litmus test for voting debases voting and undermines the polity.

7. A candidate for office who says that he is personally opposed to abortion but actually votes in favor of it is either fooling himself or trying to fool you. . . . If you vote for such a candidate, you would be an accomplice in advancing the moral evil of abortion. Therefore, it is not morally permissible to vote for such a candidate for office. This attempts to deny Catholic politicians the possibility of separating their political sense of duty from their personal sense of religious obligation. Didn't Catholics figure this out with Kennedy in 1960? He said (in no uncertain terms) that as President he wouldn't take orders from the Vatican--would he have been elected if he had said the contrary? We expect politicians to represent all voters and act with an eye to the diverse views of their constituents and the public good, not simply enact their own personal moral agenda.

In paragraph 10, the author opines that if the choice is between two (or several) candidates who are all pro-abortion, one need not withhold one's vote, but should instead vote for the candidate who "would do the least moral harm." That seems like a better and more general principle to follow in every case: vote for the guy who will do the least (moral) harm. In paragraph 14, the author holds out that knowingly voting for a pro-abortion candidate is a mortal sin (in Catholic theology, a sin which kills the spiritual life of the soul and deprives a person of salvation, unless he repents). All this Catholic angst over voting is a reminder of how authoritarian and how thoroughly opposed to political liberalism was Catholicism in the 19th century. Echoes persist.

So are there any pitfalls here that LDS leaders and voters can avoid? I'll note that LDS leaders have consistently worked hard to avoid endorsing specific candidates or getting embroiled in political disputes. Yet, it feels like the Church is becoming more politicized recently. The times they are a-changing. What think ye?
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by Mathew
After the Federal Marriage Amendment failed to gather enough support to put it to a vote, Senator Hatch had the following to say:

"If Massachusetts starts honoring gay marriage, that means a state like my home state that doesn't want to have gay marriage has to honor them," said Hatch. "Virtually every constitutional authority I know of thinks the full faith and credit clause [in the Constitution] will require recognition of gay marriages."

I'm not sure that this "spooky" view of the full faith and credit clause is so widerly held as Hatch says he believes. (That's right--I don't think he really believes it.) Yale law professor Lea Brilmayer certainly doesn't think so--her views on the matter can be found in a March 9 op-ed piece that originally ran in the Wall Street Journal. You can read it here.

The National Review has a nifty piece that responds to Professor Brilmayer here.

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by Aaron B
Over at the Evil Blog, those raving, intellectual apostates have finally gone too far. Brace yourselves … Russell has had the audacity to promote khaki pants for missionaries! Scandalous! Outrageous! I’m not sure I can visit T&S anymore. Steve, remove the heathens from our blogroll, forthwith!

What Russell obviously doesn’t know is that non-black and non-navy pants aren’t just prohibited in many missions… they are downright evil. How do I know this? Because one of my mission presidents never ceased to remind me of it. Every couple of zone conferences, President “B” would grill into the elders’ heads the moral distinctions between black/blue and green (O.K., not khaki, but close enough). Elders who wore dark pants were “dignos de ser representantes de Cristo.” Elders who wore green pants were most definitely NOT “dignos de ser representantes de Cristo.” The moral dividing line between the colors was completely black and white (green).

Why did he do this? Well, presumably President B figured the mission needed a rule regarding pants colors. This makes sense. After all, if you don’t have a rule of some kind, some elder in the mission is bound to wear something outrageous. (Remember Elder D from the MTC? He bought himself a pair of Argentine leather pants, and I shudder to think how often he would have worn them without this rule). But couldn’t President B have just explained the rule as a necessary, albeit somewhat arbitrary, act of line-drawing?

“Elders,” he could have said, “You need to dress in a relatively standardized fashion, so that you are recognizable as missionaries. You also need to dress in such a way as to not draw undue attention to yourselves. Therefore, I’ve decided to implement a mission rule regarding pants colors. From now on, you can wear blue pants and black pants, but not green or khaki pants. There’s nothing wrong with these colors, per se, but we need to draw the line somewhere, and this seems a fairly easy place to draw it.”

But President B didn’t say this. Instead, we got treated to a fire and brimstone lecture (I exaggerate, but not by much) meant to inculcate the strongest of taboos regarding the color green. You could’ve been forgiven for thinking that Christ himself was offended at the color. Of course, you can predict the reaction of the elders. Many embraced this teaching fully, while others quietly scoffed at the silliness and consequently had a difficult time taking President B seriously on any number of other topics.

I wonder if President B’s decision isn’t representative of a tendency in the Church more generally, whether in the mission field, within wards (think Bishops instructing the Youth), within families, or wherever: If you want a rule, a norm, or a taboo to be taken seriously, blow its importance way out of proportion and you’ll be sure to get higher levels of compliance. And the result, inevitably, is that a certain portion of your listeners have a really hard time taking anything you say seriously.

When every little mundane, trivial decision in the Church is imputed with cosmic significance, we may be able to better ensure norm compliance among a certain portion of the membership. But I wonder if this doesn’t consistently come at the cost of alienating another portion, or at least diluting the effect of other norms that really are important. Maybe, just maybe, we ought to be open and up front about the nature of our rules, and keep in perspective the relative importance they have in the grand scheme of things. Or am I the one that’s losing perspective?

Aaron B

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by John H
I'm starting to think I'm extremely naïve. There's something I believe that seems like it ought to be the most obvious fact on the planet. "Two plus two equals four" or "the sky is blue" kind of obvious - the sort of thing everyone ought to know.

But it turns out not everyone does know it. And the many people that do know it have long ago made peace with it - it's just not the issue to them that it is to me. I bring it up online or in group discussions, thinking I'm somehow shining some light in the world. In reality, I'm starting to think I'm embarrassing myself, playing the role of the "master of the obvious." So, with that in mind, here goes.

It seems to me that something that ought be understood by all religious people, something that ought to be as plain as the nose on one's face, is that religious beliefs aren't facts. They're called "beliefs" for a reason. We don't really know that the Bible is the word of God - we believe it is. We don't have a scrap of proof or evidence to back us up. We believe God is out there, we don't know God is out there.

Yes, people have spiritual, supernatural, or other-wordly experiences that seem to confirm the truth of these sorts of things. But these experiences, when taken from across the religious spectrum, are so diverse, so numerous, and so contradictory as to make them almost useless in determining truth. Not that individual experiences are worthless, but that using them to compile an idea of what truth is strikes me as pointless. For example, I've had some remarkable experiences in paying tithing. I've experienced things that I label as blessings, and I assign those blessings as having come from the Mormon concept of God. Those experiences are very real to me and I hope people will respect them. But that tells me that I have to respect the experiences of others. If someone else experiences blessings and traces those blessings to Vishnu, how on earth can I tell them they are wrong and that their blessings really come from my concept of what God is.

I remain entirely amazed at what people will do in the name of their religious beliefs, given that there is no way of proving they are somehow "right." Beyond one's own religious tradition, how does one choose Christ over Buddha, for example? Perhaps one tradition will ring truer with one's personal experiences, but it isn't like someone can demonstrate that Christ is the true way, while Buddha isn't.

This "fact" seems so obvious to me, and so very important. If understood by all, it means the guys won't fly the plane into the buildings. In short, it means (at least as I see it) that people don't need to mistreat other people over religion, because they realize we're talking about ideas and beliefs, not truth. Because when someone thinks they have the truth, they can justify anything - everything from religious violence to just being plain mean. Lonnie Persifall (an anti-Mormon preacher in Salt Lake) can call Mormon women "whores of babylon" while professing to love them, because he has "the truth."

But few others seem interested in this "obvious idea". When brought up among true believers, I'm usually seen as weird or even influenced by Satan (this logic is exactly the kind Satan would use to fight the truth, they reason). When brought up among the more intellectually minded (for lack of a better term), I seem to be regarded like the little kid who just figured out something obvious. They've dealt with this issue, and have decided to live their lives following their own faith. And yet I continue to contend that this kind of understanding essential to a peaceful, tolerant religious community.

For what it's worth, I'm not trying to make belief a morally relativistic place where truth is everywhere yet nowhere. I believe in exercising faith - acting on one's belief. That's why I go to Church, obey the commandments as best I can, etc. Belief isn't worth a lot unless it has action to back it up.

Am I being naïve in feeling this way? Am I watering down religion to nothing (and making it boring along the way)?
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by Aaron B
In the comments at my recent post at Sons of Mosiah, Grasshopper shared his fond memories of “streaking” through the halls of the MTC with nothing on but a shower cap, and the accompanying brush with ecclesiastical authority that ensued. He says he learned some lessons that have served him well. Not to be outdone, I also have an MTC experience that involves a ruckus through the MTC halls and an ecclesiastical confrontation, although it contains no nudity (alas!). (I hope all you Mormon liberals don't mind my longwindedness ...)

It is safe to say that my district was the most rambunctious in our building. Evenings were often punctuated by shaving cream fights or other high energy/high volume antics. About half of the district down the hall was similarly inclined, so our inter-district rivalry reached an intensity that warranted complaints to the authorities by elders on adjacent floors, no less.

About 7 weeks into our MTC experience, my companions and I became acquainted with another district of kindred spirits. “Where have you been all these weeks?” was a common question we would put to each other. Both districts enjoyed each other's company immensely. One evening, right before we left the MTC, this other district decided to throw us a “party.” This entailed our hanging out in their building and shooting the breeze – nothing scandalous. As 9:00 pm rolled around, it was almost time to return to our own rooms before curfew, and we really didn’t want to go. But alas, the rules are the rules.

Suddenly, a voice made an announcement over the MTC-wide loudspeaker: “Please set your clocks back one hour this evening because of Daylight Savings Time.” And then it hit me. I proclaimed, “Hey elders! The voice over the loudspeaker says to set your clocks back one hour. So it isn’t really 9:00 pm! It’s only 8:00 pm!” Everyone was quick to agree with my conclusion, and we spent the next hour leisurely shooting the breeze and goofing around.

As 9:00 pm (really 10:00 pm) came upon us, we decided we had probably better return home. Certain other elders on the floor realized we were “foreign” to the building and threatened to call the authorities on us, given the hour. We quickly exited the building, but not before a brief powwow concerning how we would make it back safely without getting caught. We were quite confident that if we proceeded with enough stealth, we could do so without being apprehended.

We guessed wrong. We were confronted no less than 3 times on the way home, each time by a caustic MTC official that demanded to know what we were doing out past bedtime. Each time I spoke on behalf of the group, insisting that the voice over the loudspeaker had told us to set our clocks back, and we had promptly complied … perhaps a little too promptly, but then we were just being obedient to instruction after all. :) I really didn’t expect this line to work, but it did! Every single time!! Each interloper accepted my explanation and we made it back through our building doors. Safe at last! (Or so we thought).

What we didn’t know at the time (but soon would) was that this particular evening happened to coincide with THE biggest drag-down, knock-out, shaving cream/random substance/pillow fight that our building had ever seen. It was started by the district next to ours – our long-time adversaries – and spread to the entire floor. Had we been present that evening, there is no question that we would have been active participants. How ironic that the one evening full-scale WAR breaks out was the one we happened to be “absent.” Anyway, apparently 5 different MTC branch presidents were called, and they converged on our floor. The imminent confrontation and chastisement was a long time in coming, and there was going to be hell to pay. However, someone apparently got wind of the presidents' arrival, and all the elders on the floor quickly sprinted to their rooms, shut their doors, and pretended to be asleep. Many elders were called out of their rooms to take the blame for the chaos, but nobody took responsibility. Apparently, everyone had been just “trying to sleep,” despite the ruckus, and nobody knew who the real culprits were. :) The branch presidents were pissed.

Ignorant of the evening’s drama, my district and I briskly climbed the stairs to our floor. On the way up, a fuming branch president confronted us. Irate at the evening’s antics, and even more upset that he didn’t arrive in time to bust the perpetrators, he accosted us in a measured, angry tone:

“There has been a problem on the floor this evening, elders. And I think I’m looking at the source of the problem RIGHT HERE!”

“Um, actually, no – we don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied non-chalantly. “We haven’t even been here this evening. We’ve been over at another building, because we mistakenly thought that, given the announcement about setting our clocks back …”

The look on the branch president’s face was classic. He was not expecting such a calm, creative, perhaps even semi-plausible reply. I can’t claim to read minds, but his face seemed to say “This isn’t supposed to be happening. I really need to bust some elders, and this group is my only chance. But they are claiming they weren’t here, and I can’t prove they’re lying. Aargh!!” (I think the president was so dead-set on finding those responsible for the pillow fight, he didn’t even bother to evaluate the appropriateness of our not being in the building on time).

“I think I’m looking at the source of the problem RIGHT HERE,” the branch president repeated (rather lamely, since he’d already said that).

I stood my ground. “No, actually, like I just said, we weren’t here this evening. We just got back from another building because we mistakenly thought that it was 8:00 rather than 9:00 because …”

What was the branch president going to say next? Nothing, it turns out – he just stood there fuming and speechless. So we quickly finished climbing the stairs and went to our rooms, passing several other indignant branch presidents along the way, and throwing them a few words of explanation. At the end of the day, nobody in my district got punished, or even yelled at, for anything that went on that night. And just as well too, since we were totally innocent.

What is the moral of the story here? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s “If you’re going to misbehave regularly, make sure that on the day you’re most likely to get caught, you’re misbehaving in some other fashion somewhere else, so you won’t get in trouble for your regular misbehavior.” Or maybe it’s “Don’t obey certain rules and you’ll be less likely to disobey other rules.” Or maybe it’s “Rationalize your actions calmly, with a straight face, and you’re sure to win over your superiors.” I really don’t know. But I am sure that whatever the moral, it can’t be found in the White Bible.

Aaron B

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by Steve
You've probably read about this elsewhere, but the U.S. Air Force pilot who killed four and wounded at least eight Canadians in Afghanistan has been fined $5,672. This article provides a fairly good summary of the decision. Personally, I'm disgusted that criminal charges against him were dropped, and that all he gets is the 'maximum' administrative penalty of about a month's pay, along with a reprimand. The behavior of this pilot was outrageous, but even more troubling is the idea of a military institution capable of generating such self-justifying attitudes in the face of acts that are clearly wrong... One more reason I'm beginning to believe that all war is bad.

Ranting aside, this news has made me question LDS theories of atonement and "paying for our sins." We speak of restitution and atonement as though we have two separate processes working contemporaneously: you repent of your sins, and you also give back the apple you stole or fix the fence you drove through. This seems to me to be erroneous, at least if we're concerned exclusively with personal forgiveness. What payment would've been enough for this pilot? If we reject the notion of an eye for an eye, why do we require payment at all? Is the idea of payment generated out of the needs of the individual, or out of the demands of the community at large? For example, if God decides that an administrative reprimand is enough temporal suffering for this pilot to endure in order to be forgiven, does the community have any right to demand payment beyond that reprimand?

UPDATE: You can read the full text of the reprimand here.

UPDATE #2: ABC News has an older but still interesting article on how the U.S. military engages in relative soul valuation. You can view the article here.
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by Kaimi
Don't worry, we won't tell your old AP what your reply was . . .


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by John H
Most of the time, I feel right at home in the Church. I love the people, the theology, the leaders, and especially the history. The thought of somehow not being a Mormon is beyond my comprehension.

On occasion, however, I feel very out of place at Church. When I hear comments that seem to be espousing Mormon values, whether uttered in Sacrament meeting, Sunday school, or even General Conference, I frankly find they are often different than my own values.

Just two examples: I’m not always thrilled with the direction of the media – the amount of sex and violence portrayed on television and movies is truly staggering. Yet I can’t seem to get worked up about it the way those around me seem to. Not a week goes by in my ward when someone in Sacrament, Priesthood, or Sunday school (or all three) doesn’t take the opportunity to point out just how evil and despicable the media is. I’ve often said it’s the thing Mormons love to hate.

The big issue right now is gay marriage. I certainly don’t expect the Church to embrace the notion with open arms and encourage gay couples to get sealed in the Temple. But I don’t believe it should be illegal, and I’m simply not that distraught over it. Three different gay couples live within five houses of me – my own marriage has yet to crumble in the face of this terrible threat to traditional marriage . But in my ward, there are plenty of people who can’t go a week without bringing it up. A few in particular get visibly angry as they continue to go on and on about how horrible gays are.

There are other issues mentioned frequently in my own ward that I either do not care about or that I disagree with: school prayer, Word of Wisdom (I obey it, but certainly don’t consider alcohol to be the incendiary evil others seem to), Sunday activities (shopping, etc.), politics – including war in Iraq, etc. And while these and other topics are a constant in my ward, many of the things that matter to me are never, ever mentioned. Just one example: I’m astounded, absolutely flabbergasted that people will die today because they don’t have enough food to eat. It’s simply beyond my comprehension. Yet I’ve never heard someone express outrage over that in Church. They’re horrified that Janet Jackson’s boob appeared during the Super Bowl for a split second (and they’re equally horrified that people would watch TV on Sunday), but they don’t seem perturbed (or if they are, they’re not speaking up) that people starve to death everyday.

Am I barking up the wrong tree yet again? (It is a specialty of mine.) I don’t expect Sunday school to be an hour-long commiseration on starvation. I do recognize that many of the Mormon values I mention above are issues of personal morality, whereas world hunger is a bit different of a problem. But would it hurt to hear it mentioned just once or twice? If I can hear about the evils of coffee week in and week out, can’t we make room for something like that once in a while?

Am I wrong in thinking that arguments about Coke and R rated movies are stupid waste of time? Should I be ignoring these differences and focusing on the things that unite me with my fellow Saints?

posted at 7/03/2004 11:46:00 PM -->link

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by Kristine
So here's a simple question, for which I failed to come up with a satisfactory answer during 8 weeks of several-times-daily hikes to the top of the stairs in the Lee Library last summer(I thought that if I took the elevator, people would realize more quickly that I was pushing a matronly 35 and not a bouncy coed... women can be silly that way):

Doctrine & Covenants 88:118 is prefaced with "And as all have not faith..." This is nowhere explained, as far as I can tell, nor is it condemned; it's just tossed off as a dependent clause describing conditions on the ground. The solution? Books! Is this a suggestion that some fraction of the membership of the church is destined to be/remain faithless intellectuals? Is that OK? Is it part of the plan?

Help!
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by Karen
This article printed in today's Washington Post outlines the Bush/Cheney election team's attempt to mobilize its religious base. The article outlines strategies sent to Bush supporters to help those supporters involve their congregations in the Bush campaign. The suggested "goals" include turning over membership lists to the campaign, organizing voter registration drives, and hosting partisan pot-luck dinners.

The Post explores the possibility that these activities could put the churchs' tax exempt status at risk. The Bush team counters that all the suggested activities fall well within election laws.

So, like a good Democrat, I got a little fussed when I read the article. Let's explore why.

1. It could be that I'm hopelessly partisan, and that anything Bush/Cheney does, including walk, talk, and breathe annoys me. I don't know, I'm certainly annoyed with the administration, but I'd like to think I have my logical reasons. However, I'm willing to accept any and all suspicion to the contrary and think about it before dismissing it as wrong.

2. I have an active pot-lucking life, and don't want to be suspicious at every invitation I receive; i.e. perhaps I resent Republican encroachment into my social life.

3. I don't want my ward list forwarded to the Bush campaign. Now, I know that kind of behavior is prohibited by the bi-annual reading of "the letter." (My favorite moment in sacrament meeting when the church reaffirms its non-partisan status, and everyone in the congregation thinks the letter is aimed at everyone but themselves.) But let's face it, there's a reason "the letter" is re-read so often.

4. The whole tax exempt thing is a problem. That's one church/state line of separation that I'd like to keep separate. For many reasons, including my tithing-boosted personal income tax refund.

5. I really dislike the implication that the Republican party is home of church-goers and the Democratic party home of sinners. I dislike the assumption that every person on those church lists would welcome inclusion on the Bush/Cheney supporters list. I resent the implication that I cannot be a person of deep faith, and disagree with a majority of the tenets of the Republican party.

So what do you all think...I'm I in the middle of an over-reacting snit, or do we have a problem here....
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by Steve
OK, let's settle this once and for all.


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by JL
Mormons are neither Catholic nor Protestant, so what happens to a convert in Northern Ireland, when their class, their identity, their traditions and their politics are tied to one of these two religions? It's not easy for them as you can imagine. I went to church at the branch in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Asking around I found out most of the converts were protestants who lived in Waterside, the protestant side of the river. They told me there were a few Catholics in the branch and most of them were on the dole and having too many babies. (Yikes!) So even after conversion, the LDS here identify themselves with one side or the other. They are all converts and have to face great pressure from their families, neighbors, and friends. When they get baptized they are denying centuries of their heritage. The religious distinction is more about loyalties to the crown or a native Ireland. It's been that way since the 17th century when the British in power tried to convert the natives and started bringing over protestant English settlers to fill their plantations. One history book I've been reading said, "To be a protestant or catholic in 18th century Ireland indicated more than mere religious allegiance:it represented opposing political cultures, and conflicting views of history." (Foster, The Oxford History of Ireland) That distinction continues today.

One woman told me that in the 80s she went to the branch in Omagh where the members were evenly divided among Catholics and protestants. She said they sat on opposite sides of the church and didn't talk to each other. But now they mingle and don't divide themselves that way. She told me she doesn't know how they did it, how they overcame the prejudice. But I think after 20 years of going to church with people it'd be natural to get over it, I hope so anyway.

Maybe mormonism is the solution to the 'Troubles' of northern Ireland. It would take another century at least, but imagine if there were no longer Catholics nor protestants in the country. First, I suppose the wards have to learn to integrate themselves too. I didn't notice any separation, and I couldn't pick out the few Catholics there. But in conversation with the members I could see that they can't so easily slough off their political and cultural identities with baptism.
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by Dave
What an odd piece of advice to hear over the pulpit, but hear it we did earlier this month, as explained (for late arrivers or early snoozers who missed the announcement) in this Salt Lake Trib article. And the Trib article gives "the rest of the story": the blunt advice appears to be a response to notes (apparently accurate) made of an apostle's Stake Conference remarks, subsequently circulated via email to various members, including (according to the article) CES employees. They can hardly put out a letter criticizing an apostle for what he said, so they put out a letter criticizing those who repeat what he said.

Okay--So what are the new ground rules for how to relate to a visiting GA's Stake Conference remarks? Don't make recordings. Don't take notes. It's probably best to simply forget what is said immediately at the conclusion of the talk, but if you do happen to remember what is said, do not repeat it to anyone. To really be on the safe side, consider just skipping out on Stake Conference entirely. A visit to your local cinema or sporting event would put you safely out of harm's way, as well as providing the whole family with alternate weekend conversation material.

If there's really anything important said, it would appear that an official written transcript of the remarks will be released. At least that seems to be the import of the announcement, according to what I recall. The memo was careful to distinguish reliable "official" sources from everything else. You would think they would at least post the memo in the Press Releases section at LDS.org, but no. Ironically, if you missed the announcement over the pulpit you have to get the news either via word of mouth, from the media, or right here.

[UPDATE: Here's the actual statement, also from the SL Trib--link from Frank's post on the same subject over at T&S.]
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by Dave
Surfing for something to kick around the blog, I noticed Christianity Today's review of Michael Moore's latest film/documentary/satire/comedy (real name: Fahrenheit 9/11, whatever that is supposed to mean). CT calls it "heavily sarcastic, rather entertaining, and somewhat incoherent." The title he borrows from Ray Bradbury, and the poster borrows a picture of George Bush (putting just Moore on the poster would be . . . unappealing?).

I liked some of Moore's early stuff (such as Roger and Me) but he's kind of flying out of orbit lately. Why should we care? Because seeing is believing for most people. Americans increasingly get their news from what might be charitably termed "the alternative media," sources like talk radio, Drudge, and hyped books like the recent slew of "I hate Bush" books all being examples. These are all outlets on the fringes of journalism that hype controversy and are largely insulated from editorial review. Moore's success on the big screen seems to open a new niche for this alternative media. Ironically, the 9/11 Commission has released a bunch of good, accurate information lately (such as "Overview of the Enemy"), not by any means slanted in favor of the President, but with good facts, historical context, and reasoned analysis. I'm afraid people will watch Moore's movie and skip the Commission reports.

It's not the politics that's the issue, it's the genre. My concern is that Moore's approach can make any person or cause look foolish, stupid, or evil. What's his next target: The Boy Scouts? Religion? Mormons? Baseball? Apple pie? Lawyers? And will satirical documentaries displace Hollywood action flicks the way reality TV has displaced sitcoms and dramas?
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by Christina
My husband and I had dinner with our home teacher and his family this past Sunday. We enjoyed a lovely meal and after Sis. X and I had thoroughly exhausted the topic of the vagaries of a life spent wearing undergarments designed by a male who clearly had no design experience, we got into the good stuff.

Home teacher X is a good man, actually a great man, and I have no problem with him - in fact, I like him very much - except that he happens to be in the stake high council. Unfortunately for him, this quirk of his means that sooner or later, as in any conversation I have with anyone with administrative authority in the church (ward clerk, anyone?), I started to pepper him with interrogatories and accusations, attempting to elicit any enlightened response on church policy.

This is my issue: why does the church so forthrightly and singlemindedly waste its greatest resource- the women?!!! In particular, let's talk about administrative leadership. I happened to go to law school in NYC along with others of you. Even during law school, a number of my male compatriots in the law school were tapped, rightly so, I'm sure, to share the burden of the administrative functioning of the stake. They were/are stake clerks, members of bishoprics, members of the high council, etc. This trend has only increased in the years since graduation. In fact, I would say we have a definite bias towards lawyers in the stake, perhaps because our great stake president is himself, one of the chosen. I, on the other hand, being of the female, if not feminine, persuasion, hold callings like primary teacher and compassionate service committee member. So, that is all well and good. I certainly don't aspire to be a bishop; I can rarely stay awake through sacrament meeting, and it would be mighty embarrassing to have to do my snoring on the stand.

I also recognize that we do have leadership roles for women: a woman can be a leader in the auxiliaries, as Primary or RS Pres. However, these roles tend to be reserved by age and experience in the church, unlike the leadership roles chosen for men around these parts. Furthermore, they are certainly off-limits for women who choose or are unable to work outside the home in a professional capacity. Finally, those roles deal exclusively with women and children. If a woman has a position of leadership in that or another capacity and needs to deal with men, her authority is always subject to the authority of a man.

So, what's up with the sexist treatment? Let's take as a given that the priesthood for men is a divinely inspired dictate and necessary for the preservation of order in the church and that hierarchy itself is a good (not that I don't, ahem, question that). What does priesthood service have to do with administrative function? If the men who come to NYC to go to law school and business school (sorry, MDs, I know you've got Yamada, but there just aren't as many of you) possess certain leadership/organizational skills, and the church chooses to call upon them to use that skill set, why not use women with those same skills that way?

The way I see it, priesthood function is organized to keep men interested in church. Excuse the generalizations, but the majority of men respond to hierarchy, responsibility, concrete accomplishment and power. So, the organization of the church does an effective job appealing to a certain kind of man, if not all men.

This isn't just a personal vendetta for me, because I happen to enjoy my callings, but rather a pattern of abuse we can track throughout the church. The bigger problem, aside from hurt feelings, is wasted resources. More educated women are not just excluded from serving most effectively in the church, they are squashed when attempts are made. Women, even those with certain carved-out leadership administration, still have to answer to (typically) socially-conditioned sexist males for approval of projects. Ultimately, I think many women just opt out. Why try to set up service projects at church when we can go outside the church and serve more effectively? I could be an attorney at Human Rights Watch and effect change, but if I wanted to set up a program to help at-risk youth in the church, I would have to clear it with fifteen people at the top of the stake, assuming I could even get them to answer my phone calls.

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by Steve
HOFRS is one of the greatest acronyms the Church has ever come up with: Helping Others Feel and Recognize the Spirit, a great way to systematize something that is utterly unsystematic.

In any event, for purposes of my post I'm tweaking HOFRS, because I'm curious about Helping Ourselves Feel and Recognize the Spirit. As to helping ourselves feel the Spirit: Christ says in John, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." How can we force the wind to blow our way? Admittedly, Sunday School Answers spring to mind, but I'm not sure that reading the Scriptures, or any other activity, is going to always do the trick for us as some sort of totemic invocation. What works for me is seizing random opportunities -- I have the idea that by praying, or reading scriptures, etc. whenever I get the chance, I have as much likelihood of feeling the Spirit as I would at any other time. Unfortunately, this leads me to believe that on some level, getting a piece of the Spirit seems a matter of happenstance. Can this be right?

As to helping ourselves recognize the Spirit: this one is a mess. I don't think we do a fantastic job in this Church of helping people realize when they've felt the Spirit, or helping them distinguish between the Spirit and "good feelings," or for that matter helping people understand exactly what "the Spirit" is. For example, take the doctrinal notions of "Light of Christ," "Gift of the Holy Ghost", and "feeling inspired." No one can explain what these mean, at least not in any definitive sense -- and to be sure, all of our doctrinal explanations will overlap and at times conflict. Don't get me going about the H.G. during Christ's earthly ministry!

In my mind however, a doctrinal definition of roles for the Holy Ghost/Spirit isn't as immediately important as trying to discern when you are feeling the Spirit, compared to when you've just watched "Beaches" or "Saving Private Ryan" and feel a catharsis brought on by good drama or melodrama. Can we feel the Spirit when it is artificially invoked through drama or film (that certainly seems the premise of LDS films)? How can we tell exactly what's going on? It would seem to be an important distinction since everyday emotions don't have the power to lead us to salvation the way the Spirit is supposed to. Equally difficult is the notion that the Spirit speaks through our own thoughts and emotions, thereby completely obscuring its nature as an external influence.

So, to sum up:
1. I don't know how, exactly, to get myself feeling the Spirit; and
2. I wouldn't really know it, exactly, if I were feeling the Spirit.

This can't be as hopeless a scenario as it sounds -- thousands feel the Spirit, and bear testimony to that effect. But I'd like to hear it from some of you.
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by Aaron B
The latest issue of Sunstone magazine contains the most interesting article to grace its pages in some time. Entitled "Defending the Kingdom, Rethinking the Faith: How Apologetics is Reshaping Mormon Orthodoxy," its author, John-Charles Duffy, argues that the "orthodox intellectuals" of Mormonism, while defending the faith and sparring with its critics, are simultaneously expanding the scope of Mormon orthodoxy in beneficial ways. Duffy contrasts "orthodox intellectuals" such as Stephen Robinson and the FARMS authors with "hard-liners" (orthodox non-intellectuals?) like Joseph Fielding McConkie. Orthodox intellectuals sometimes accommodate the wisdom of the world into their religious views and strive to square LDS understandings with secular knowledge, all the while maintaining certain boundaries so as not to become "liberal" Mormons or "revisionists." Hard-liners reject such a project, believing it to be misguided, and perhaps even harmful. Duffy concludes:

"I do not anticipate that orthodox intellectuals will persuade mainstream academics to take LDS faith claims seriously, nor do I anticiate that they will convince mainline Christians to stop challenging LDS claims to the Christian label. However, orthodox intellecuals have been remarkably successful at promoting their progressive orthodoxy within the Church."

How have they done this? Think of the debates about hemispheric vs. limited Book of Mormon geography, greater acceptance of evolutionary biology, modified LDS understandings of Biblical mistranscription ("it's really just about the canon"), etc. If this reminds anyone of Kaimi Wenger's "Elite Religion and Common Religion" thread at T&S, it should. Although the theses are different, many of the same themes and specific examples are present in both.

I really liked this article. It squared with many of my own observations about Mormon apologetics. Not that I wouldn't quibble with a few things: I don't share Duffy's a priori rejection of Book of Mormon historicity (not that this matters to his thesis). Also, I feel like overt psychoanalysis of academic motives belongs on Oprah Winfrey, rather than in a magazine article. Nevertheless, the broad claims of the article resonated with me. (Footnote 201 is one of my dead horses!)

This could serve as a springboard for a lot of issues, but here's the one for today: Duffy talks about the "anti-intellectual" tradition within Mormonism (which he rejects) and the "anti-contention" tradition (with which he sympathisizes). He thinks that on balance, the effect of orthodox intellectualism on Mormonism is positive, but in its vitriolic FARMS manifestation, it has had to "develop an apologia for apologetics itself." That is, the FARMS authors have needed to justify the scathing, sarcastic, polemical (insert lots of other adjectives here) quality of their rhetoric, in light of various scriptural, prophetic and apostolic admonitions ostensibly opposed to their project (but not universally so), and this hasn't been an easy row for them to how. Duffy thinks the scriptural grounds for jettisoning the anti-contention tradition in Mormonism are somewhat problematic, though perhaps not insurmountable.

I must confess that I personally am not as sympathetic to the anti-contention tradition as Duffy. I like rhetorical fireworks more than most people. I really enjoy reading the FARMS Review for this reason alone. I like to pick verbal fights. I don't necessarily wear that as a badge of honor; it is merely an empirical observation about myself (which other Bloggernaclites occasionally get to see on display). But at the same time, I think Duffy has a point; there is no denying the scriptural and prophetic injunction against "contention."

So what should we make of this? Is "contention" a bad thing that becomes a necessary evil only in certain contexts (be that a context of "defending the faith," or any other)? Or is "contention" sometimes bad, but sometimes an unqualified good? Or is the problem that "contention" lacks a precise definition, whose parameters haven't been thoroughly explored, and typical rhetoric about "avoiding contention" is therefore tired and simplistic?

You tell me.

Aaron B
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by Steve
Some of you may remember last week's Contest for the best blog ideas. After some long and arduous deliberations, we're pleased to announce our winners!

Winner, best blog post idea:
Ryan Bell, with his "Super Size Me" idea:

"First, the two inspirations for the idea. You may have heard of the movie "Supersize Me." For those that haven't, it's a documentary in which a man eats every meal, three times a day, at McDonalds, for an entire month. It documents his health and the changes his body makes throughout the month, as a sort of longitudinal experiment on what McDonald's food does in high doses, to the human body.

Second inspiration: Gary Cooper's post at Doctrinal:net on studying the scriptures intensely. Specifically, Gary writes that on his mission he was able (I do not know how) to read the scriptures for four to six hours a day, which resulted in an extremely heightened spirituality, including the receipt of many revelations.

So here's the idea: I'm going to mix the two. I'm going to go on a diet of pure Book of Mormon, allowing no other optional inputs in my life. Meaning: outside of work and encounters with actual people, I will not have anything put into my brain besides the Book of Mormon. For a month I won't watch TV, won't read anything else, won't do movies, music (except background sacred), or internet (besides blogs). Every spare moment when I don't need to be doing something else will be spent reading from the Book of Mormon. It will be a month of pure Book of Mormon.

During and after the diet, I will report on the experience."

And Winner, best blog tech update idea:
Dave Underhill, who submitted many great ideas, the best of which was:

"Consider giving each poster their own short link list, i.e. "Steve's Links" or "John's Links" where each can put their own favorite sites about absolutely anything. Encourages diversity, creates links, gives posters something to blog about."

Please join me in congratulating our winners and their fantastic ideas! I will contact them each today regarding their hard-won Gmail accounts, and implementing their ideas.
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by JL
For those of you experienced with budget travelling, the hostel culture should be familiar. Most dorm rooms have 4 + beds and the polite and friendly thing to do is introduce yourself to nearby bunk-mates. Introductions include obligatory answers to the following: where are you from, where have you been, where are you going, how long have you been here... and when things are really friendly bunkmates will often share tales of the things they've seen in town or good tours they went on.

My first night staying in an hostel last week, (I'm travelling) three boisterous dyed blond college girls checked themselves into my room. Usually I find these girls annoying. They tend to talk to much and be too loud in their vacuous blatherings. These girls did fit that stereotype and had a long discusssion on Britney Spears new boyfriend. BUT, they were sweet. When they told me they were all from Nevada, Reno or Las Vegas and then I looked at them with their sweet smiling blond selves, I thought, 'they could be mormon.' So I asked, 'You guys aren't mormon are you?' They laughed and said 'no', but told me they know lots of mormons.

Then, and this was my fault for asking the question in a negative way, one of the girls said "Hey, we could've really freaked her out by telling her yes!" Ha ha ha. That's when I knew it was time to share, so I said, "Oh, I am mormon, that's why I know there are so many in Nevada." They got quiet for 2 seconds then were over it. I felt the urge to say, 'don't worry, I'm not like the rest.' But I restrained myself, I'm glad I did. But why did I feel like saying that? I wondered what it is about us that makes girls like this think we are freaky, and that made me apologetic and almost shameful of my own kind? The whole episode disturbed me. I'm ashamed that I had that reaction. What is it about us that makes us so freaky? How sad. Here we were, on the other side of the Atlantic, and we both brought this negative view of mormons with us. Discuss.

(P.S. I'm having a fabulous time, it wasn't disturbing enough to tarnish my trip.)
Jennifer J
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by Mathew
A thread at Times and Seasons titled "LDS Need Not Apply" has sparked discussion of the Marriott Corporation's decision to make p0rnography available to their guests. Mormon's tend to see Marriott as a "Mormon corporation" and are quick to pass judgment on business practices that are perceived to be contradictory to church teachings. Of course Marriott is not the only corporation that is held to this unusual standard, but it is probably the most well known so it is the one I will use as an example.

Two camps generally emerge when discussion turns to whether Mormon owned or Mormon run corporations should be held to a different standard than the rest of their industry. The first camp puts out a "hypocrisy argument," expressing outrage or shock at the businessman's behavior. The second, what I think of as the "duty already owed" argument, says that a duty is owed to a constituency that requires a course of action that may be contrary to the church's teachings or the person's personal beliefs. Several times I have heard fellow church members condemn Marriott for trafficking in p0rn. Occasionally I hear in response that Marriott is a public corporation and the corporation owes a duty to shareholders to maximize profits.

Not maximizing shareholder return itself, however, does not violate any duties-at least in the state where it counts (and every other state that I am aware of). The Delaware courts have held that directors must maximize shareholder value only when the breakup of the corporation is certain or there is a change of control. Corporate directors are required to act in the best interests of their shareholders, but this does not require them to maximize profits without taking other constituencies into consideration. The legal doctrine known as the business judgment rule protects directors and officers from personal liability as long as they are acting in good faith-which amounts to having an articulable reason for pursuing a course of action.

While there is no real legal reason compelling a Mormon director or CEO to act against the teachings of the church, there may be competing moral reasons. I am sympathetic to the Mormon CEO who feels a certain way about an issue but believes that the shareholders to whom he owes a duty expect him to act differently. I'm not sure a CEO ought to feel comfortable imposing his moral values on a company if he doesn't believe it is in the best interests of the company-this is precisely the "imperial CEO" behavior that the business publications have spilt buckets of ink over for the last three years. On the other hand, it seems to me that a Mormon corporate leader is no different than any other corporate director or CEO in that he shouldn't check his ethical and moral convictions at the door.

What I'm interested in, then, is a corporate Mormon ethic that considers competing duties and interests that a Mormon corporate leader faces and thinks about how to approach them systematically.

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by Aaron B
You’re sitting in Gospel Doctrine class, and Brother So-and-So is going off on one of his weekly, mindless rants. As usual, his comments are sanctimonious, self-important and theologically intolerable. He must be destroyed! But alas, you can’t afford to respond with too much venom, lest your outburst be interpreted as over-sensitivity or as an awkward airing of your personal “issues.” That just won’t do. Better to offer a non-chalant, off-the-cuff rebuttal that seems polite and effortless, but that serves as a rhetorical bullet to the head.

To aid you in your efforts, it helps to have at your disposal an extensive repertoire of Mormon Intellectual Buzzwords (“MIBs”). Employment of one or more of these terms will shatter your opponent’s point because -- if for no other reason -- no one will have the slightest idea what you’re saying! But your indecipherable comments will ring with erudition, and that’s all that really matters! So on to my question…



Maybe I’ve left out some other choice contenders?

Aaron B

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by John H
I'll confess upfront I'm posting this for selfish reasons. I'm considering a paper for Sunstone and want to feel out some ideas. I'd even like to hear if people think I'm on to something or if I'm over-analyzing as usual.

This latest letter from the First Presidency announcing that garments can only be purchased with a temple recommend or a valid i.d. (to confirm one is an endowed member) seems to have added to a growing list of policy decisions that come from a very specific, narrow perspective. What I mean is, although the Church is a worldwide organization, many decisions are made based on the problems faced only in the Great Salt Lake valley. But those decisions are still imposed on the global Church.

For example, when President Hinckley announced changes to the missionary program, including the way farewells are handled, I was overjoyed. Growing up in Holladay (a suburb of Salt Lake), I felt like every other week we were hearing from weepy mothers telling stories about how their son or daughter drew all over the kitchen wall with markers when they were five and how they were going to miss them so much and so on and so on. But then I read an article by Peggy Stack in the Salt Lake Tribune that opened my eyes beyond my own Utah experience. A woman in a small branch in Wisconsin had recently had her home remodeled to host her son's farewell. He was the first missionary their tiny branch would have in some 25 years. She expressed disappointment at the policy but admitted she would obey. I can't explain how powerfully this story hit me. It felt like the whole Church was being affected because the east bench of Salt Lake City had more missionaries than the Sacrament meetings could handle.

This one example perhaps has the most negative ramifications. Others aren't necessarily negative or bad, but still seem to reflect the perspective of Utah Mormons, rather than a worldwide Church. Other examples include:

• Renewing Temple recommends every two years because bishops and stake presidents are spending so much time doing it, according to President Hinckley. Surely a branch president in Denmark (where the new temple has only 1,000 people in the entire district) isn't overburdened with requests for recommend interviews.

• The recent letter stating members should not quote from notes or statements made by Church leaders at regional or local conferences. This seems like a direct reaction to Elder Perry's comments in the Kuna, Idaho Stake conference, that spread over email and the Internet. Granted, the Internet is global, but I find it hard to believe it would have been seen as a pressing issue if the Brethren lived in Peru. Most of the emails and discussion seem to have been localized in Utah, Idaho, Arizona, and California.

• The above mentioned letter on garments. Would this be an issue if the Deseret News weren't running stories on garments for sale on eBay, or if Lonnie Persifull weren't waving garments in front of General Conference-goers? I suspect members in Japan haven't heard anything about these issues that likely prompted the policy change.

• Rhetoric surrounding the media. Many times (including recent conference addresses by Elder Ballard and President Hinckley) Church leaders address movies, TV shows, concerts, etc. that are only available in Utah or the United States. Members in South Africa will be entirely unaware that there is a controversy surrounding these issues.

• Just as with above, the same is true surrounding the intense rhetoric about gay marriage.

What think ye? Are policies that are only necessary for the Great Basin unfairly being imposed on the whole Church? Is this an absolute non-issue? In what ways is the Church doing better in recognizing local customs and culture?
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by Kristine
The orgies of lugubrious praise of Ronald Reagan in the press and even at other Mormon-themed blogs this week has me asking some questions (besides the obvious, snarky one of when obsequious adulation crosses the line into something nearly blasphemous).

What is patriotism for? The most common refrain to the eulogies of President Reagan is that "he made us feel good about America.". Why is that so important? I'm not saying that it isn't important; I think there may well be profound lessons to be learned from a deep love of one's country. Patriotism has inspired loyalty, devotion, self-sacrifice, even real heroism. Still, it seems to me that patriotism is an inconstant schoolmaster: patriotism that becomes blind to the foibles of the beloved nation or indifferent to the hopes and dreams of denizens of other nations can quickly become hideous. Patriotism seems risky to me because it is so easily distorted.

When I was younger and knew everything, my smug and self-satisfied explanation of why patriotism might be commendable went like this: like the love of family, love of country can expand our circle of caring out from ourselves. God bids us draw ever wider circles around the people and things that we love, until eventually our love, like His, can encompass all of creation. Getting stuck at caring for our families or our tribe or our country is better than remaining in a state of infantile self-love, but it is still far from the "telos" God has in mind for us. But this is far too easy an explanation, and fails to account for the many people who are much wiser than I who are deeply moved by patriotic feelings.

I think part of what has given me the willies about all the Reagan-worship in the last few days is that it is centered on one man, rather than on the principles underlying the nation's founding or some other more palatable abstraction. It's easy for me to think that loving humane ideals like freedom, justice, equality can move us to the kind of devotion to a community of "one mind" that will bring us to Zion, but I get lost when one (moderately to severely, depending on your persuasion) flawed man is enshrined as the embodiment of all those virtues. Still, to draw the Mormon parallel, it seems clear that the Saints who have come closest to making something like Zion were motivated both by love of the gospel in the abstract, and by love and loyalty to living, breathing, (and therefore flawed) leaders. I confess that I understand this kind of loyalty as little as I understand the emotion behind tributes to President Reagan.

So, help me out. Can patriotism be a tool for teaching us how to approach Zion? If so, what would such patriotism look like? Does it require us to turn a blind eye to the faults and sins of our leaders? Or, is patriotism a trap that closes our hearts to our brothers and sisters in other countries? Do the Jehovah's Witnesses have it right when they claim to reserve their allegiance for God? Should we be waiting for "a better country, that is, an heavenly"?
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by Christina
We love to talk about immortality and eternal life in this church, particularly in conjunction with our temple worship. But does anyone ever actually try to contemplate immortality? It makes me ache mentally when I try to wrap my mind around the concept. My husband thinks I'm strange -(for more reasons than this, let me assure you) - when other people get goosebumps talking about living with their families and God forever, I more often feel like I am suddenly being slurped into an endless pit. Now, don't get me wrong, I like the ideas of Progress, Truth, Love and everything else that is supposed to go along with living with God forever. I just don't understand it. Am I the only one who feels like the bottom drops out when I try to actually THINK about all these things we talk about in the church all the time?
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by Steve
At long last, our first contest. It was only a matter of time before we gathered enough intellectual and spiritual capital to unveil such a rich opportunity.

Without further ado, here is the contest!

The Prize: A Google Email account, courtesy of yours truly. Think of it: 1 GB of free email, cutting-edge technology and 10 MB max attachment size. Never empty your inbox again! See here for more information on how Gmail could change your life forever.

The Challenge: Come up with a good idea for BCC, whether a suggestion for a post, an idea for added functionality, or a different and new approach to LDS blogging. Post your ideas below.

The Rules: Anyone can apply, including BCC staff members, random people from the bloggernacle, even visitors from T&S. Suggestions for posts should be at least somewhat LDS-related, and the person winning with a post suggestion must write the post and reply to comments. Suggestions for added functionality must be Blogger-compatible, and the person suggesting the functionality must show us how to do it (unless it's something lame like, "uh, the sidebar doesn't show up in Netscape"). Judgments will be made by a group of BCC posters after we've received some good ideas (which, based on the number of comments lately, could take awhile).

That's it! Put your faculties to work, brethren and sisters, and win the sweetest email account around. These email accounts have been going for crazy prices on Ebay, but it's yours for the taking. Email me with any questions.
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by Steve
Browsing through Google News for bits on mormons has taught me that you never know what crazy stuff is going on out there. This morning, I came across this little tidbit about a renegade plot to raise up assassins to kill the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve. Perhaps the plotters were frustrated with the institutional framework for overthrow that Nate Oman discusses elsewhere.

The thing that struck me about these poor creatures is the way they've been interrogated by the government and put on the stand to testify against their prophet. Their responses show the shattered mind of people that have been reprogrammed. At the same time, I wonder how mormons would have testified on the stand during the days of polygamy prosecutions -- or for that matter, how would we testify on the stand about the church we currently belong to? Think of this interchange, from the article:

[plot witness Dawn] Godman said that, long after her arrest, she believed that Glenn Taylor Helzer, "working with the angels," would free her to continue God's work.

"My breaking away from Taylor Helzer has been a continuous process for the last four years," she said. "It's gone back and forth. It's been a struggle."

Prosecutor Harold Jewett asked Godman if she still thought Glenn Taylor Helzer was a prophet.

"You're still not sure, are you?" he said.

She responded, "At times, no."

I believe quite firmly that Gordon B. Hinckley is a prophet; were I to bear my testimony, I'd say that I know he is a prophet. But what would I say were I not bearing testimony, but giving it in court? Objective standards of witnessing and proof seem inapplicable to a church-based 'testimony.' What would you say on the stand?
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by Dave
Sounds vaguely scriptural (see maybe Matt. 21:16 or 3 Nephi 26:16), but I'm actually thinking of my Elder's Quorum meeting on Sunday, where an 18-year-old, newly-minted, recently graduated (I think he graduated) elder taught the lesson. The disorientating effect was heightened for me because I can recall when he was ordained a deacon, and have observed this young man on scout hikes/campouts and at various other activities for the last six years. He would not have received my "most likely to teach Elder's Quorum" vote. Simply surviving childhood was probably an accomplishment (although maybe one could say this about most teenagers).

So here's the miracle: he actually taught an okay lesson. It was on having good gospel books around the home. Sure, he got lots of supportive comments from the class (I noted how nice it is to have Deseret Book bookstores in many cities outside Utah these days, and my nose didn't grow so I must believe it). Sure, I might offer a few pointers here or there about the lesson or his style. But he wasn't nervous. He did a quite adequate job, even a fine job for his first lesson. I've seen worse, much worse.

Somehow, the Church teaches its youth to be passable teachers and to be comfortable teaching a class. Not just the natural teachers or the outgoing loves-a-crowd future salespersons--even the lower-half-of-the-curve types are able to manage it. Even an 18-year-old to a room full of adults all of whom are older and probably better informed about the lesson material. I confess I'm a little stumped as to how it happens. What's the secret?
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by Kaimi
We've all seen it: The family you've just met introduces you to their sons Moroni, Mosiah, and Brigham. Not only are they goofy names, they're names that scream out "look at my Mormon-ness!" And kids with uber-Mormon names almost always end up being the abnormal ones -- either rebellious, socially maladjusted, or just plain clueless.

So here's the poll: What is the worst uber-Mormon children's name? Which name is the most deadly kiss of death? Which name do you hear your cousin say "I just named my child ___" and you say to yourself, "wow, that kid is just not going to be normal"?


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by Jeremy
It probably wasn’t a good time for me to encounter this review, in the most recent Atlantic Monthly, of Oxford University Press’s recent reissue of the original Boy Scout Handbook from 1911. While Baden-Powell’s original ink drawings are charming, and many of his instructions and observations have a distinctive timelessness, certain aspects of the original book are quite alarming. Baden-Powell, for example, disgusted with the indiscipline and general “softness” of British boys, reportedly spoke admiringly of the youth-indoctrination programs sponsored by the governments of Japan, Italy, and Germany in the 1930s. (He died too early to early to witness the whole of WWII and/or retract his endorsement.) And how about this disturbing aside in the section on beekeeping: "[Beehives] are quite a model community, for they respect their queen and kill their unemployed." Pink Floyd’s brick in “The Wall” even apparently derived from one of the Scout Handbook’s distasteful metaphors about social order: "Some bricks may be high up and others low down in the wall; but all must make the best of it and play in their place for the good of the whole."

Of course, we’ve come a long way since 1911, and aside from the occasional John Bircher who might end up scoutmaster, I don’t think the uglier parts of Baden-Powell’s character live on in scouting, while many of the more valorous elements of his legacy live on. Still, the article stirred up certain misgivings I’ve been having about scouting lately.

I was never much of a scout. I liked going to camp, and a few merit badges left an impression on me. I have trouble remembering the details of CPR, for example, but for some reason I recall exactly what to do if I happen upon an abdominal wound victim with slightly protruded entrails; also, I feel I watch Olympic archery with a bit more appreciation and insight than most people. And, for what it's worth, I still occasionally accessorize with kerchiefs. Beyond that, though, there wasn’t enough interest to nudge me past the rank of Star Scout. Besides, my parents involved me early on in activities more befitting a child of my pastey constitution and small stature: I took piano, participated in band, and played a Winthrop Paroo in the local college’s production of Music Man that made little Ronny Howard look like a friggin’ amateur.

(Reading over the previous paragraph, I feel compelled at this point to assert my staunch record of heterosexuality. Former drama geek, to be sure, but I was kidding about the kerchiefs, for hellsakes!)

So, anyway, fast forward 18 years, and here I am in the Young Men’s organization, having a great time working with a great set of kids, but finding it difficult to maintain my (and foster their) enthusiasm for certain aspects of the Scouting program. Attending a court of honor recently, for the first time since my own lackluster scouting days, I found the clumsy ceremoniousness even harder to take seriously (and also a bit unsettling, as it seemed to demand of me a solemnity toward ritual that I normally reserve for priesthood and temple ordinances).

What’s more, the valuable life skills that scouting seeks to teach kids seem to be covered quite comprehensively in the church’s new Duty to God program, for which I have a great deal of enthusiasm. It includes lots of scout-ish stuff—-camping, wilderness survival, first aid, etc.—-but integrates it more fully with personal, family, and spiritual matters. And it presents all of these as straightforward values and goals with real, inherent, and immediate value, uncluttered by all the patches and pomp. It frustrates me that some parents lose countless nights of sleep over whether or not their kid will get his Eagle, when they often don’t even know about the revised Duty to God program. To be sure, the Duty to God pamphlets stress that the program is to be pursued in tandem with Scouts, but it seems to me that it renders the most important aspects of scouting redundant. (And there’s ubiquitous speculation that the new program was designed in part to be able to replace Scouts as the official Young Men’s program if necessary, had recent lawsuits forced the scouting program to change its policies towards homosexuality). Also, I find the Duty to God program more appealing in that it falls into obvious parallel with the Young Womanhood Recognition program.

Is there something to the ceremoniality and ritual of scouts that I just don’t appreciate? Are there crucial things boys will miss out on if they pursue the Duty to God award but neglect scouting? Will my own three little boys be worse off if, when they’re of that age, they do all the Scouty things—hiking, camping, rendering service, setting goals, developing skills—without all the Scouty accoutrements?

(I tell you this much: no boy a mine gonna' wear no friggin' kerchief.)
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by Kristine
A little blip in the radio news caught my attention today. Seems there is renewed fighting in Congo. A year ago, I would have sighed, tried to remember where Congo is, remembered (dimly) little bits of history from a long ago reading of _King Leopold's Ghost_, and wondered (idly) whether Africa could ever be peaceful and prosperous.

Now it's different. For the last little while, we've had a lovely woman named Bibiane living with us. Her parents were killed the last time there was violence in Congo (violence serious enough to rate coverage in the U.S. media, that is). Her mother was Rwandan, her father was a government minister. She was a journalist, and the combination of mixed-ethnic parentage, a prominent family, and her profession made her a high-profile target. She packed a small bag, thinking she would go away for a month and return to her husband and daughters (then 5 and 11) when the "little uprising" had been put down. Of course, the uprising was not put down, the rebels became the new government, and she hasn't seen her family for more than 3 years.

So today, when I heard that there was trouble in Congo, I listened carefully to find out where; I hurried in to see if Bibiane had been able to talk to her family, if they were safe. I prayed with her for their safety. In short, I cared. It occurs to me (more forcefully than usual)that I *should* have cared before, that somehow, I have to learn to care broadly for people beyond my acquaintance, that just being vaguely and passingly sad for the tragedies I hear about every day is an inadequately Christian response. But *how* should I care? What should that caring look like? I can't care about the whole world in the way that I care about my children, or even the way that I care about my cousins or the members of my ward. Can the response King Benjamin suggests be expanded to cover this situation--can I say "I would care more if I had a deeper well of compassion, but I don't give (right now) because I don't have anything meaningful to give"? How does one go about increasing one's resources of compassion, especially compassion in the abstract or from a distance?
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by Kristine
I had a clever thought this morning while I was driving my "big kids" (Kindergarten, 1st grade) to school, and thought I'd blog about it before I forgot. However, in the time it took me to turn on my computer and remember my login name and password, this is what my 3-year-old dumped onto the kitchen floor:

1 large container of oatmeal
1 family-size canister of Swiss Miss Cocoa (that's 132 servings, in case you're wondering)
2 sticks of butter
2 lbs. of corn chips
3 priceless modeling clay figurines made by big brother

"Mommy, I'm making the floor slippery so I can ice skate!"

This is why they still teach Lamaze breathing. Everyone knows it's useless during labor, but it can prevent you from killing your preschoolers!

Anyway, sorry--I forgot what I was going to say...
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by Aaron B
This weekend I finally rented “The Devil’s Playground,” which I’d been meaning to see for several months. The film is a documentary about Amish teenagers going through “rumspringa.” For those who don’t know (I didn’t), “rumspringa” is a rite of passage all Amish youth pass through once they turn 16, when they are allowed to opt out of the rules and restrictions of Amish life and “go English.” In short, they are allowed to experience the joys of television, MTV, automobiles, drugs, sex and porn. The phase lasts from several months to several years, as the young people contemplate whether they want to devote themselves to Christ, get baptized, commit to the Amish lifestyle, and re-join the community … or instead leave the community permanently and remain “in the world,” so to speak. (Like good Mormons, they talk about the “age of accountability,” except they don’t view the magic number as “8”.)

The movie follows several Amish teenagers through this fascinating period of their lives, as they experiment with the amenities of modern life, as well as its many vices. The real star of the film is Faron, an 18-year old crystal meth addict who idolizes Tupac Shakur and revels in his freedoms, while simultaneously claiming to want to return to the Amish community (but not quite yet) and become a preacher like his father.

The film was so interesting to me for so many reasons. My previous impression of the Amish had been limited to one of butter-churning, barn-raising, fashion victims, who deplored modern conveniences as evil, and for whom the only excitement in life was Harrison Ford beating the crap out of the occasional tourist. :) The film helped me better appreciate the purpose behind the restrictions of Amish life (“boundary maintenance” from the world). And although I have no desire to become Amish myself, I think I understand better the appeal of a community that is so dead set on eliminating outside, worldly influences for the sake of maintaining community, family and tradition.

However, there was one aspect of the film that was by far the most fascinating and disturbing. To put it bluntly, the Amish appear to have institutionalized sin. “Rumspringa” isn’t just a time when it’s O.K. to drive cars and wear jeans, but Oh-we-hope-Peter-and-Molly-choose-to-remember-who-they-are-and-obey-the-Law-of-Chastity. On the contrary, it is expected that Amish teens will experiment with alcohol, throw huge parties and “fool around.” There is actually a scene where Faron spends the night with his girlfriend. An adult member of the community then explains that spending the night in the same bed with one’s significant other is encouraged (just once, I believe), and that some intimate interaction is expected. It wasn’t completely clear from the film exactly which sinful activities were encouraged vs. expected vs. reluctantly tolerated, but it was clear that Amish parents knew what was going on and rationalized it as a necessary stage – the same stage they had gone through themselves years earlier.

What to make of this? As members of the Church, we also believe in living standards that set us apart from the world. We are all subject to the same temptations as everyone, and if we succumb to these temptations, we believe we can repent of our sins and recommit to being a part of God’s community and living His standards. But we certainly don’t view the sinful phases of our lives as “good experiences” designed to help us solidify our commitments to living the Gospel. Rather, we see them as extremely risky to our eternal salvation; after all, sin can be addicting and why play with fire and run the risk that you’ll find it so enticing that you never return to the fold? Granted, many look back on their sinful pasts and decide that their experiences taught them something important, and until the recent tightening of mission standards, lots of LDS prospective elders had their own, unofficial, pre-mission “rumspringa,” if you know what I mean, but we clearly don’t institutionalize this sort of thing in the Church. The Amish have, however, and there is a certain logic to their thinking. Let the young people really know what they’re missing, and once they experience everything first-hand, they can really make informed choices as to the kind of lifestyle they want to lead, and the types of commitments they want to take on.

Finally, one of the “deleted scenes” on the DVD answered a pressing question for me: Given the austerity and restriction of Amish life, and given that “rumspringa” exposes the youth to everything “fun” under the sun, how successful are the Amish in retaining their young people as Church members? Answer: The rate of return to the community after “rumspringa” is over 90%. Pretty impressive.

So what’s the moral of the story here? By experiencing sin in all its splendor and despair, are we more likely to become committed Church members? Or does this work only for the Amish? If so, why? Is there something about being Amish that is so enticing that even exposure to the world won’t drive the youth away? The Amish youth I saw sure seemed to be enjoying their respite from Amish-ness. Do we just need to figure out what the Amish are doing right, and co-opt it? (Maybe make 100% abstinence from television a part of the new and improved Word of Wisdom?). Is there something about the Amish way of life that is more powerful than the long-term temptation of sin, even when it is intentionally indulged? If so, might it be useful to find out what it is?

Aaron B

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by Dave
I here report the results of an experiment performed Sunday in a soft, comfy chair in the pleasantly air-conditioned foyer of a chapel in the great state of Southern California. The materials used were a copy of the current Heber J. Grant lesson manual and a ball point pen (blue ink, fine point Papermate Flexi-grip model).

Methods. I reviewed the 24 lessons printed in the lesson manual's table of contents and classified each under one of the following three categories: Organizational Maintenance, Self-Improvement, and Gospel of Jesus Christ. Close calls were resolved by consulting my inner voice and making my best guess after flipping through the pages of that lesson. I was investigating the hypothesis that the majority of lessons in the lesson manual preach the gospel of health, wealth, and education rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Results. About 42% (10 of 24) of the lessons were directed at Organizational Maintenance (e.g., member recruitment through missionary work, obeying organizational leaders, improving the public image of the Church by being loyal and patriotic citizens, supporting temple and geneaological work). Exactly 25% (6 of 24) of the lessons concerned Self-Improvement (e.g., persistence, being a good example, attaining financial security, maintaining good health by observing Mormon dietary laws). About 33% (8 of 24) concerned the Gospel of Jesus Christ as one might hear it preached by missionaries (e.g., the straight and narrow path, priesthood, forgiving others, prayer, Jesus Christ). The example topics given with each category are adapted from the titles of lessons in the sample assigned to that category. I believe the results are robust and will be observed in other curriculum materials.

Discussion. The results confirm my a priori expectations based on earlier, informal inquiries along the same lines in earlier editions of similar lesson manuals. The rule of thumb is one-third for each category. I suspect Sacrament Meeting talks follow a similar distribution, although with youth speakers added in it probably pushes the percentage more in favor of true gospel topics. On the other hand, if high council speakers are included the other two categories would almost certainly get a boost.

Conclusions. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a person healthy, wealthy, wise, and a good Mormon. Punctuality is optional but cleanliness is highly encouraged.
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by Steve
Many of you have already seen this article from the NY Times Magazine (registration required, etc., etc.) this weekend. Having spent the last few days in North Carolina, I hadn't read it until this morning. I was amazed at the casual promiscuity and lack of coherent social structure by the teenagers in the article. Am I just getting old, and this is typical curmudgeon behavior towards rabble-rousing youths? Or have things really changed since my day?

More to the point, what hope is there for Church youths in a modern world of sexuality? Can a "Strength of Youth" pamphlet have the impact it needs to protect teens? The Church's sexual education program is lackluster to say the least, passing the responsibility over to parents without giving them enough information on how to proceed. What can/should we be doing for our youth that we're not doing already?
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by Dave
The Deseret News has a short piece reporting remarks at the just-concluded Mormon History Association conference by two LDS historians commenting on Jon Krakauer's recent book, Under the Banner of Heaven.

Craig Foster, affiliated with the LDS Family History Library and also a FARMS author, "delved into Krakauer's family background." Here's a quote from the article:

Raised in an "atheist household," Foster said the author has openly admitted his "skepticism and cynicism" regarding organized religion, and he has "demonstrated animosity toward those of faith." * * * He ended by calling Krakauer's work an "anti-Mormon book in a fancy cover," and a "hypersensationalistic work which will soon be forgotten."

Newell Bringhurst, a past president of the MHA, was the other speaker. The article quotes him as saying, "I think (Foster) goes a bit too far in exonerating Joseph Smith for taking teenage plural wives while excoriating Krakauer for delving into a highly sensitive topic." It summarizes his comments as follows: "The fact that Foster cites Krakauer's appearances at various book signings in Protestant churches and that his book has been recommended on anti-Mormon Web sites doesn't make him 'anti-Mormon,' Bringhurst said."

Personally, I like Krakauer and enjoyed the book. I collected some of the early media reviews of UBH in my very first post at the first incarnation of my other blog. The most interesting of the bunch was the semi-official LDS response by Richard E. Turley, another LDS historian "on the payroll" (with the Family and Church History Department).
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by Kaimi
Movie editing is all the rage these days, as various companies (operating in a nebulous world of copyright) create "clean" versions of movies for the demanding (and paying) LDS customer. (For one article on the subject, see here). And what a job description -- "the person who looks for sex and nudity in movies in order to filter it out later." I'll bet they don't have difficulty filling the position of the guy who looks for the sex. (Hey, I wonder if they're hiring?)

Of course, given the content of modern media, this may seem like a fruitless endeavor. Which brings us to the subject of today's poll. To wit, we need your votes to learn what the most sublimely ridiculous movie or TV show to try to edit would be. Below is a customized list of well-known, popular entertainment that we can mentally gut of all trace of sin.

Enjoy voting! Feel free to explain your vote in the comments. (But any sex, nudity, or violence in comments will be filtered out!).


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by Kaimi


(I know, I'm using the term icon loosely -- it's not like I had a lot of material to work with here).
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by Steve
After tabulating the results of our poll (see below), most people think I should either be in the Primary, corrupting the youth, or a Ward Mission Leader, fighting a hopeless struggle.

And the winner is.... Ward Mission Leader! Ta-da! Heaven help us all. Aaron Brown, I'll be relying on your expertise to help with the rough initial transition to this calling. Wish me luck!
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by JL
The mormon world is very small. We've all had experiences of re-meeting someone from an old ward or someone who knows people in your family or who used to know your best friend, etc. This weekend, my mother came to town to see me. We went to my branch on Sunday morning. I left her to be with the adults while I went downstairs to primary. When I came back up to check on my mom between classes I ran into Bro. Richard Bushman. He told me "We've just talked to your mother, she used to live in our house in Arlington and we know Stephanie Goodson(my aunt) very well." "What? really?" I was trying to figure out when my mother lived in Arlington, Va when I found her talking to Claudia. Mom filled me in. Her newlywed sister Stephanie was already living in Boston when mom moved there after graduating from some Utah university. She rented a room in a big house in the Arlington suburb. The people she rented from moved out and the Bushmans moved in with their 5 children. She said they all had to share one bathroom! This was in the late 1960s but Claudia recognized my mother right away.

Recently, at the 15th street chapel, I ran into a brother who was in the bishopric of my ward when I was a teenager in Miami. Neither of us attend church at that building but we were both there for meetings. I knew his family very well and taught their first daughter how to swim.

So, what is your best small world story? Let's see who has had the craziest, most unlikely re-run with church people?

Jennifer J
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by Christina
That's right, I want to address the big one: from an LDS doctrinal perspective, what is the purpose of earthly life in the context of the doctrine of immortality? Just what we likely are all pondering on a Monday . . . Here is my understanding of the setup and why I think it is circular. Of course, we have the classic Moses 1:39, where God tells Moses, "[t]his is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man [sic]." Supplemental explanations include 2 Nephi 2:25: "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." (I'll dispense with all the "sics" but let's take these statements to include women)

I assume in this space that we believe that the purpose of this life is to come unto Christ, to understand his great and expansive plan for the salvation of all human beings born into this world and to live that plan, thereby gaining salvation through serving Him and our fellow persons. I'm on board with this. I believe we gain great joy in living the gospel as it is set forth in our scriptures and many of our church teachings, and I'll even buy that living that gospel can bring "salvation," to God's children, whatever that actually entails. Next comes death, judgment and for those who have come to know Christ, salvation (and, I believe, eventually that salvation comes for everyone, or nearly everyone, as we continue to progress). We don't know much specifically about what salvation entails, but we do believe in eternal progression, much like Origen and even the great Athanasius (too bad about the Nicene creed), that we can progress to the point of deification.

What I wonder about is if the point of this life is to come to know Christ and to be saved in his name, and then the purpose of immortality is eternal progression (should we continue to exercise our will to that end), then in what sense do we progress? Everything we know about salvation and spiritual progression in this life comes in the context of following Christ. Are we talking about eternally progressing through some spheres of understanding the overarching principles of existence? What are those principles? Do those also come through Christ? What exactly is the purpose of becoming gods with eternal progeny, only to replicate the process endlessly? Is anyone curious about these things?

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by Steve
UPDATE: The new calling will be posted in a couple of hours... time to place your bets and see how accurate your discernment really is!

No cheating! If you already know the answer, please supply a sardonic comment with a fake calling.



enjoy.
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by Dave
In a weblog editorial over at Crosswalk.com, Albert Mohler argues the need for Christians to practice theological triage by identifying essential Christian doctrines that need defending from the ongoing onslaught of secularism and from internal Christian doctrinal bickering. Here's what he says about first-tier doctrines:

First-level theological issues would include those doctrines most central and essential to the Christian faith. Included among these most crucial doctrines would be doctrines such as the Trinity, the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, justification by faith, and the authority of Scripture.

His set of second-tier doctrines, such as the mode of baptism, tends to mark off denominational boundaries but these doctrines aren't themselves essential to the core of Christianity. Then the third-tier issues "are doctrines over which Christians may disagree and remain in close fellowship, even within local congregations."

Naturally, the question comes up : What are the essential Mormon doctrines that would show up behind Door No. 1? I'm not sure there is a Door No. 2 in Mormonism, but I would be quite happy to see Door No. 3 (things we can disagree on but still be good friends and good Mormons) populated with several doctrinal and historical positions that conservative Mormons put squarely behind Door No. 1. So what doctrines or Mormon historical touchstones would you like to have the behind-the-scenes stagehands move over to Door No. 3?
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by Dave
Think of it as reality TV for the discriminating viewer: Colonial House, an 8-episode televised adventure of a small colony of people living as if it were 1628. From the intro page, here's the setup: "Indentured servitude. No baths or showers. Public punishments. Welcome to daily life in the year 1628!" I haven't seen an episode yet, just a preview, but it looks like fun. What a great way to teach the kids how lucky they are for simple conveniences like central heating, refrigerators, and the Eighth Amendment (no cruel or unusual punishments).

The Governor really administers laws and punishments, including being placed in stocks (limit two hours), "a ceremony of public humiliation," and a label pinned to one's clothes announcing one's transgression to the world. This offers real possibilities for a creative Home Evening lesson (and I'll bet the kids pay actually pay attention to this one!).

I don't think the real colonists brought lawyers along (probably why the colonies succeeded), but Colonial House has a long list of civil and criminal transgressions, including profanity, wicked tongues (that's scolding, not kissing, but don't push your luck), slander, lying, stealing beasts, wife beating, fornication and adultery, and lewdness to women ("Men may not make uncivil words or carriages to any woman"). There are punishments too, of course.

So when will the first Mormon-themed reality TV series pop up? And what will it be: A group crossing the plains in wagons? Cameras following a pair of missionaries as they proselyte in Peru? How about Polygamy House? You know it's just a matter of time.
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by Steve
So, I got a call the other day from a stake representative who wants to meet with me on Sunday, 15 minutes before meetings start (8:45 a.m. --- groan.... ). I said to him, "why don't you just tell me what's going on now, so that we don't both have spend the time at this meeting?"

His reply was unsurprising, but disappointing: "I think we're supposed to meet in person for this kind of thing." I shrugged and agreed to meet him.

WHY? I don't think The Manual speaks to this point directly (though please correct me if I'm mistaken), but in any event I'm sure the rationale is that our communications mean more when done in person, or something similar. You know what would mean more to me? Fifteen more minutes of sleep on Sunday morning. Are we afraid that people will be offended by telephone or email communication? Is this some sort of anti-efficiency movement?

I see little tokens of inefficiency like this all over the church: insisting on meeting in person, guarding secrecy around callings for needless reasons, rearranging your stuff so that you can pass the sacrament with your right hand, etc., etc. It makes me wonder if we're holding on to these cultural inefficiencies for some greater purpose, as if we were deliberately trying to slow down our relations with each other, and make Church a longer experience. I'm reminded of the famous story about why we have QWERTY keyboards, a sort of inefficient but necessary relic. Although that story has been largely debunked, I wonder what the obstacles are to having a more streamlined, efficient church administration. If God is directing this Church in its structure, are the inefficiencies deliberate?
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by Aaron B
Well, to be honest, the Catholic (singular) is coming. That’s right boys and girls ... Father Hans has decided to guest-blog with us. For those who don’t know (or remember) who Father Hans is, refresh yourselves here by scrolling down to "Ecumenicalism run amok?". I’m not going to bother providing additional biographical information for now, as I hope my prior post has given you sufficient taste of who Hans is. After his brief stint with us at BCC, the plan is that he will answer “12 Questions” over at Times and Seasons.

(It is expected, of course, that all BCC regulars will then roll their eyes and moan about how the T&S crowd is so creatively bankrupt, and how pathetic it is that they have to piggyback on BCC’s fresh ideas and impressive brainpower. In fact, feel free to start the carping in the comments section forthwith!) :)

Before Hans posts (he’s probably still a week away from doing so), I wanted to point out two important facts:

(1) Hans is not interested in getting into heated arguments with anyone. He wants a completely civil exchange. Given the novelty of who he is, I don’t think it should be too difficult to come up with things to say within these parameters.

(2) Hans does not have a computer. Therefore, do not expect him to respond directly to your comments. After a time, I will relay any comments to him, and he will then respond through me.

Horribly inefficient, I know. But there it is.

Aaron B

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by Jeremy

Do not shame or humiliate a man in public. Shaming a man will cause him and his family to be anti-Coalition.

The most important qualifier for all shame is for a third party to witness the act. If you must do something likely to cause shame, remove the person from the view of others.

Shame is given by placing hoods over a detainee’s head. Avoid this practice.

Placing a detainee on the ground or putting a foot on him implies you are God. This is one of the worst things we can do.

(From a cultural sensitivity training pamphlet given to U.S. Marines last September as part of an effort to improve relations between soldiers and Iraqis; republished in the June 2004 issue of Harpers)

I realize I’m treading on volatile terrain here, or at least perhaps bringing up issues that people would just as soon put away, but the Abu Ghraib scandal has forced some moral and ethical issues that compel me to initiate a dialogue. I think I speak for the majority voice in the bloggernacle in expressing disgust at the abuses at Abu Ghraib, even if that disgust may be tempered for some by the general and inevitable ugliness of war. Sure, as some are quick to point out, the atrocities of the enemy sink far below those of the prison guards. But the Americans are supposed to be the good guys; a greater respect for humanity and human dignity is supposed to be what separates the good guys from the bad guys.

One picture to emerge from the scandal, the one of the hooded prisoner standing on a box with his fingers attached to wires (which, he was told, would deliver a shock if he fell off the box), has already become a symbol for the abuse. Despite the foul, immoral, sexually degrading (and in some cases sexually abusive) acts depicted in several of the other pictures, I found the picture of the prisoner on the box the most disturbing. At first, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it; it wasn’t so much the actual story behind the photo, but the image’s formal properties: feet together on a pedestal, robe generously draped, arms away from the body, palms facing upward, head titled slightly. A few days later it hit me, as I accompanied the young men in my ward on a trip to one of the Church’s visitor’s centers to watch a movie. Before taking us into the theater, the supervising missionary ushered us into the small rotunda housing a replica of the Christus statue; a repulsive shiver ran up my spine when I realized the unconscious sacrilege I had been committing in reading the familiar posture of the statue in front of me into the grotesque form of the abuse photo. The latter contains nothing redeeming; it represents a compounding of crimes: the alleged crimes of the prisoner, and the documented crimes of his captors. Still, the superimposition of the two formally similar but contextually contrasting images indelibly suggested to me a familiar scripture—or, perhaps, its inversion. Usually, when we read of Jesus talking about the “least of these,” we think of seeing Him in the face of the poor and needy to whom we render service. Are we compelled likewise to see Him in our enemies, even those who may have blood on their hands--and to see self-indulgent malice against them as malice against Him? In the minds of the Arab world, the soldiers at Abu Ghraib were committing the ultimate sacrilege: playing God. Not to buy wholesale into the Crusader mentality that has sometimes characterized this administration, but to what extent are we compelled, as the good guys, to do the opposite: what is our obligation to the least of the “least of these”--our enemies?

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by JL
The Manhattan temple opens imminently and has brought many things to mind. I have yet to be endowed. Not because of worthiness issues, but lack of desire. I'm not married and did not serve a mission, so I was never in a position to 'have to' get endowed. Because of this post on Kim Siever's blog, Our Thoughts, about the recent online publication of the Temple preparation manual and the ensuing comments, I have the following questions. Please do not misinterpret my questions as criticisms or doubts. I accept that the temple is a divine institution that is central to my religion, which religion I hold very dear. I seek more understanding on its importance and wonder why this isn't made more explicit in church education.

1. Most mormons get endowed because they are getting married or going on a mission. This seems such a common practice that it's assumed all active adult church members will go through the temple. So, teaching temple motivation is not a priority if it's even taught at all. (I may be wrong, I spend every Sunday in primary and not adult Sunday school so please correct me if I am.)

2. Temple ordinances and covenants are considered too sacred to discuss outside of the temple, because we don't want to "cast pearls before swine". So people usually explain things with broad expressions like, "make sacred covenants to receive greater blessings" and "learn more about the plan of salvation". Don't the scriptures contain all the knowledge we need? What motivation then does one have for taking endowments?

3. Getting endowed is a commandment required for exaltation. Marriage is also a commandment required for exaltation. Since I'm not married, I won't be exalted even if I get endowed. So does it make a difference in the end if I do?

This is the point where more knowledge would be helpful. I read the temple prep manual on-line. It quoted James E. Talmadge:“The ordinances of the endowment embody certain obligations on the part of the individual, such as covenant and promise to observe the law of strict virtue and chastity, to be charitable, benevolent, tolerant and pure; to devote both talent and material means to the spread of truth and the uplifting of the race; to maintain devotion to the cause of truth; and to seek in every way to contribute to the great preparation that the earth may be made ready to receive her King,—the Lord Jesus Christ. With the taking of each covenant and the assuming of each obligation a promised blessing is pronounced, contingent upon the faithful observance of the conditions” (The House of the Lord, rev. ed. [1976], 84).

Which leads me to ponder, how are these promises different from baptismal covenants? Don't we do the same thing when we take the name of Jesus Christ and promise to obey his laws? I take my baptismal covenants very seriously and all of the above fall under them even if not explicitly stated.

4. In the comments on Siever's blog, dp from Doctrinal:net posted this quote from Armaund L. Mauss' "Reflections on Mormon Temple Worship":
"there is no real reason that even devout Church members could not talk more about the temple ceremonies than they do, with appropriate discretion about time and place, since the oaths of secrecy attach only to the new names, signs, tokens, and penalties. Indeed, more open talk about the temple would not only facilitate understanding among both Mormons and non-Mormons in certain historical and scholarly respects, but would also infinitely improve the preparedness of initiates, almost all of whom now enter the temple with only the vaguest idea of what to expect or of the obligations they will be asked to assume."

However, the temple prep manual had this to say about the matter (I couldn't find a reference to the speaker):
“We do not discuss the temple ordinances outside the temples. It was never intended that knowledge of these temple ceremonies would be limited to a select few who would be obliged to ensure that others never learn of them. It is quite the opposite, in fact. With great effort we urge every soul to qualify and prepare for the temple experience. …
“The ordinances and ceremonies of the temple are simple. They are beautiful. They are sacred. They are kept confidential lest they be given to those who are unprepared"(Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple, 2).

If Mauss is correct, then why are we so silent about the temple ordinances?
What does being unprepared mean? I'm temple worthy and once had a recommend to take out endowments, but I didn't get around to it. What lacks in me as far as preparedness goes is the burning desire to be endowed and an understanding of the need for it. But that doesn't mean I'll defame them or trod them into the mud. Maybe I am a spiritually insensitive boar who has hardened my heart to the call of the temple, but how many people got endowed purely from desire or felt fully prepared? (If you did I'd like to hear how it happened for you.)

Do church members take the sacredness too far, turning it into uneccessary secrecy as Mauss suggests? And who is going to "great effort to urge every soul to qualify and prepare for the temple experience?" Is more effort and education needed to give people a greater understanding?

Jennifer J
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by Dave
I think John's prior post on "the spouse problem" deserves another go-round, since it raised more interesting issues than one thread could address. The unusually personal responses in the comments suggest that mixing faith and marriage, which looks easy on paper, is often something of a challenge in Mormon marriage. I'll note as well that mixing faith and singleness in The Family Church has its own challenges, but that topic deserves a separate post. Here are some concepts I came up with reflecting on the prior post and comments:

Compromises. Most agree one of the secrets of a successful marriage is a mutual willingness to compromise. That works for some issues, such as what to rent for the Friday night movie. But when it comes to "gospel issues," compromise often feels like failure to at least one party (see John's original comments on moral absolutes). Tithing or church attendance, for example, are issues on which most active Mormons would view any compromise as an unacceptable moral compromise rather than a "win-win" marriage compromise. Compromise, after all, has two opposing meanings: in negotiations, compromise is generally desirable and productive; in morality, compromise is generally equated with a moral lapse or sin.

I Am Third. For those of you under 30, the quote comes from a football player whose motto was God is first, my friends are second, and I am third. But marriage is different--no spouse wants to be third on the list; even second feels like a snub. "The Church is first, my children are second, my spouse is third" won't work. Neither will "My job is first, golf is second, my spouse is third." Third just won't do.

Mismatched Devotion. One spouse "losing faith," as discussed in John's prior post, is the most visible example of mismatched devotion to the Church between spouses, but it is not the only case. What if a super-devoted spouse insists on going to the temple every Friday night, whereas partner is a once-per-monther or less? What if one partner dreams of a senior-couple mission but the other just isn't there emotionally or spiritually? I think the challenge of divergent levels of devotion crops up in a variety of LDS contexts.

I don't want to sound pessimistic--this isn't a marital doom and gloom post. Most couples find a way to muddle through their differences, even deep and personal ones. Hopefully reflecting on the subject makes the "muddling through process" easier and more likely to succeed.
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by John H
One of Robert Kirby’s greatest newspaper articles tells the story of his friend Boone. Boone it seems, lost his faith--if only temporarily. At the very least, Boone was having some very serious doubts about the Church. His wife was, naturally, deeply troubled. She was so troubled in fact, that she was threatening divorce.

Mormonism complicates marriage because of our moral absolutes. For example, Glen Lambert, a marriage therapist, mentioned during a session of Sunstone that he’d met with a couple who was struggling. The husband had seen an R rated movie, and his wife was thoroughly appalled. He points out that because she was dealing and viewing the world with moral absolutes, there was no room for the compromise or negotiation that is so essential to marriage. What he had done was wrong, period. There could be no discussion, there could be no understanding – at least, no understanding beyond he had sinned.

How might couples navigate this tricky road, especially when faced with the loss of faith? If there’s one "moral absolute" in Mormonism, it’s that the Church is God’s kingdom and being a part of it is a pretty important step to the Celestial kingdom.

For my part, I see both sides of this issue. For the one who loses faith, or questions, it’s an impossible situation. As Kirby mentions, you can lie to your spouse or be honest with yourself. Believe me, as one who’s been there, no one wants to question their faith. It isn’t fun and it isn’t done deliberately, or to be an apostate. On top of such a difficult dilemma, the one person who is supposed to be supportive, is supposed to understand, is perhaps the one most troubled by this lack of faith.

On the other side of the coin, the believing spouse is thoroughly convinced that their husband/wife is jeopardizing their families eternal togetherness. They married this person in the temple, made very serious promises and covenants with them, and now they’re backing out. Friends might not know how to act around you if your spouse left the Church. Your spouse might start drinking alcohol; they might stop wearing garments. Soon enough, the person you’re living with doesn’t resemble the person you married.

Is divorce too extreme in such a scenario? Should spouses be understanding of another’s doubts and perhaps even a total loss of faith? Is there anyway to compromise or negotiate what seems like opposite ends of the spectrum?

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by Kaimi
Your chance to sound off about the demigod of Mormon authors:




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by Aaron B
Last Sunday, I taught my Gospel Essentials class on "Priesthood Organization." One of the sub-themes of the lesson was the role of the "Patriarch." The Bishop plugged "patriarchal blessings" for the new members, and listed the duties of the patriarch, including that of "assigning lineage." A recent African-American convert approached me after the lesson, informed me that she had recently received her own patriarchal blessing, and asked: "Brother Brown, what exactly does it mean to "assign lineage"?"

What should I tell her?

Aaron B
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by Steve
enjoy!


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by Steve
I love the way this piece about telecommuting opens: "Work is no longer a place but an activity." For most of the work I do, there is little reason for me to be in the office; only the occasional human interaction (i.e., a call to my boss' office) necessitates my presence. I find that I can communicate as meaningfully, and effectively, over electronic media as I can in person.

I think we should consider electronic worship, at least as an alternative forum for those without access to meetinghouses. What are the bars to members meeting on-line, worshipping together on-line, and teaching each other on-line? Are we really going to suggest that the Spirit can't work effectively over the Internet? Are we more concerned with human interactions? Because I can see how communication online would smooth our interpersonal relationships, not remove them. Let's ignore for the moment problems of economic disparity within the Church; in North America, at least, those problems are minimal. Certainly we're making strides towards minimizing the amount of time spent in needless meetings -- the e-council is something I've blogged about before. But what's to keep us from saying, "Church is no longer a place but an activity"?

On a side note, why are there no LDS televangelists?
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by John H
For the few that might not be familiar with post-Manifesto polygamy, a very brief overview might be in order. Today members of the Church look at the 1890 Manifesto as the revelation that ended polygamy. However, Wilford Woodruff and those around him, although they may have believed the Manifesto (or at least the idea of issuing the Manifesto) to be inspired, they definitely saw it as a political document meant to save the Church in the short-term. It was not issued to declare the conclusive end to polygamy. And in fact, polygamy continued to be sanctioned and practiced at the highest levels of the Church until at least 1904. Apostles such as George Teasdale, Abraham Cannon, John W. Taylor, and Matthias Cowley took additional wives during this period, while they and other apostles continued to seal men and women in plural unions.

I’ll only briefly say that this history of new plural marriages might at first look ominous, and as evidence of lies and deceit on the part of Church leaders. It is true leaders were not always as forthright, candid, or perhaps as honest as they could have been when it came to the subject of post-Manifesto polygamy. However, I believe a more sensitive, albeit complex, view is in order. The many facets of this view cannot be enumerated here, but suffice it to say, I believe it is possible to judge Church leaders as righteous, honest men, despite the dilemma of post-1890 plural marriages.

So with that all-too lengthy introduction, I come to the lingering legacy of post-Manifesto polygamy. I’ve only begun now to appreciate the huge, in fact, enormous impact these marriages have had on Mormonism and how we are today.

First and foremost, post-Manifesto polygamy forced an answer to the “Mormon problem” as it was called. It came in the form of the Smoot hearings – perhaps the most important recognition given to the Church that they could be considered a part of American culture and society. In fact, I would argue that the outcome of the Smoot hearings was more important than granting Utah statehood. Kathleen Flake, in her new book and in her dissertation, has argued quite convincingly that the Smoot hearings created the compromise between the Church and the government that allowed the Church to continue. As testimony in the trial quickly indicated, polygamy was still very much alive in Utah, much to the dismay of the rest of the country. The Church finally gave up polygamy, and even sacrificed two of its own, John W. Taylor and Matthias Cowley, as evidence of their willingness to obey the law. This, I believe, is the beginning of the respect and admiration the Church has grown to have in the 21st century.

Quite ironically, we are almost the exact opposite of what we were 100 years ago. Then we were fighting against a constitutional amendment defining marriage, now we support such an amendment. Then we were arguing for a broader approach to marriage, now we are perhaps the most representative group of the nuclear family. Then, we were separate, despised, and looked upon as a threat. Today, we are respected, and are seen as an important ally to those wanting to preserve the status quo. Then, we were hardly patriotic; we reviled the government and looked upon their treatment of us as injustice of the worst kind. Today, we are counted among the most patriotic; our Boy Scout troops proudly place flags on the lawns of Church members every holiday. We stand as one of the very few Churches to support war in Iraq, even as most others spoke out against it. I would argue the change began with the death of post-Manifesto polygamy.

Second, post-Manifesto polygamy single-handedly contributed to the many fundamentalist schisms that exist today and that still force the Church to confront its polygamous heritage. Polygamy after 1890 was practiced among knowing winks and nods, among double-speak and an environment where one thing was said to outsiders, another to insiders, and still another to those in leadership positions. Because of this environment, fundamentalists today still argue that the Church never intended to abandon polygamy, but that some leaders were simply not strong enough to resist the pressures of the world. The legacy of post-Manifesto polygamy gives them tremendous ammunition in their fight to convince us of the legitimacy of their claims.

These fundamentalists continue to be a thorn in the Church’s side to this day, causing embarrassment and reminding the world that Latter-day Saints practiced polygamy. They’ve forced us into a very uncomfortable position – one in which we have to say polygamy was inspired (otherwise there are some very unpleasant implications for Joseph Smith), yet we also have to confess our own lack of desire to practice it, and we are ambiguous about its future in the Church.

Third, although the practice of saying one thing to outsiders and another to insiders had been practiced in the Church before, it reached its height during the years following the Manifesto. Today, the Church continues to exhibit such a practice. President Hinckley has gone on national television and conducted interviews with high profile magazines, announcing to the world that the Latter-day Saints don’t believe in some of the doctrines that make us most unique. Then he returns and while speaking in General Conference, with a smile and while getting a big laugh, announces that he knows the doctrine of the Church just as well as anybody. From my perspective the message was clear: We’re going to tell them certain things to move the work of the Lord forward, but don’t you all worry about it.

Finally, I believe post-Manifesto polygamy has helped contribute to an environment of shared secrecy and of circling the wagons. Many, many Church members descend from such marriages. Yet they normally keep it quiet. For a Church that prides itself on ancestry and our rich past, those whose grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents were part of post-Manifesto unions are normally silent. We keep our secrets in the Mormon Church – we don’t let the skeleton out of the closet. Post-Manifesto polygamy, ironically, is one of those great secrets.

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by Kristine
Last night I played in a really fun concert--the Cambridge Institute Choir put together a pickup orchestra, borrowed itself a space with no rugs on the floor or burlap on the walls and a REAL organ and put on a concert of Mack Wilberg's hymn arrangements. The choir was very good, as were most of the musicians (there was that one 2nd violin who sounded like she hadn't really practiced since her first child was born 7 years ago :)). Anyway, it occurred to me that orchestral settings of hymns as a concert is a very strange sort of musical escapade, and possibly unique to Mormons. There are plenty of hymn tunes that show up in symphonies, lots of hymn anthems written for organ, choir, and some smallish group of instrumentalists and performed as part of a church service, and of course there are masses one would hardly hear in church (Verdi's Requiem, say). But I can't think of any setting other than BYU concert halls or the Tabernacle (Music & the Spoken Word) where one would hear hymns with full orchestra as a concert program.

Or am I entirely ignorant of a whole genre somewhere? (Isn't blogging great? One can actually *broadcast* one's ignorance to thousands of people...)
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by Dave
Not a term you hear too often. The idea of "reform" of the Church is utterly alien to the orthodox LDS perspective, as if a "restored" church couldn't possibly ever be in need of reform. I just finished The Catholic Church: A Short History (Modern Library, 2001), by Hans Kung, the noted Catholic theologian. I'm surprised at the extent to which "reform" as a theme dominates modern Catholic history: it ignored 16th-century Reformers and lost half of Europe, then adopted some reforms in the Counter-Reformation, then successfully opposed accommodation to modernism in the 19th and half of the 20th century, then finally made some major reforms following the decrees of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

Catholicism has the institutional resources to accomplish reform: a tradition that recognizes Councils as an independent source of authority to the episcopal hierarchy and church bureaucrats (the Curia); and independent Bishops, Archbishops, and Cardinals who are capable (some of them, in their better moments, on some issues) of recognizing when reform is required and pressing for it.

Mormonism lacks these institutional resources: the tradition offers no countervailing source of authority to the GA hierarchy, whether concilar or otherwise, and the none of the local leaders, regional leaders, or GA quorums possess any real independence of outlook or authority from the senior leaders in the hierarchy. Anyone who attempts a serious dialogue attempting to identify doctrines or practices needing (in their opinion) reform is quickly marginalized and possibly expelled. So the Church is effectively insulated from any threat of reform. You may see that as a potential problem, a non-issue, or a blessing.

I won't make a list of potential reforms--that's not the point. Maybe the point relates to Nate's fine post about a centralized institutional structure, this being a consequence of such a structure. Or maybe it's a more general question of whether the Church is truly immune to earthly flaws and thus beyond any possible need of reform? If not, where institutionally does recognition of and motivation for reforming change come from?
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by Karen
Have you all been following this story in the SL Trib?

http://www.sltrib.com/2004/May/05062004/utah/163696.asp

Apparently Warren Jeffs, prophet of the FLDS church has purchased a large ranch in West Texas, hoping to create an isolated compound for him and his closest followers. It's scaring the stuffing out of the local Texas residents, a situation not helped by the fact that the FLDS buyer lied about the purpose of the purchase to the previous owner. Now the FLDS hierarchy is trying to do damage control with the local residents and authorities.

And here is the titular fabulous irony: According to the caption in the picture accompanying the article, apparently the Steed family is among the upper echelons of FLDS culture. Now, although I'm sure you're all too sophisticated to be familiar with a certain blockbuster Mormon fiction publication--perhaps the name "Work and the Glory" rings a bell? For the uninitiated, the series follows the fictional, and amazingly righteous yet syrupy, Steed family through the restoration to the trek West in 1847. The story ends there.

Or does it? Perhaps the intrepid author needs to write a follow up, a sequel detailing the fall of the Steeds and their affiliation with apostate polygamous groups. Here, I'll get him started. "Able to weather the scandal of the fall of the Kirtland Safety Society, but unable to accept the manifesto....."
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by JL
My mother lectured me on the phone recently. It might've been cute in a nostalgic way if it hadn't annoyed me so much. What prompted this trip down childhood lane? I told her that I have no intention of ever paying my parking tickets. I now owe the city more than my car is worth. I'm basically waiting for the city to tow it so I don't have to move it for alternate side street parking anymore. My mother found this appalling. She told me I was raised in a law-abiding household and she didn't understand how I could just not pay my tickets. When I said that I live a very different life from hers she said, "Yes, but we both have the same beliefs, beliefs that include obeying the law. At least I hope we do." Yes, mother.

I have no qualms about not paying stupid parking tickets that I got because my car is dead and the street-sweeper comes too early in the morning for me to get up and beg for a jump-start. I've also had some bogus tickets, including one for "missing or impaired equipment." Someone ripped off my side-view mirror and I got a ticket for it. How is it a traffic violation to have a _parked_ car with a missing mirror?

I found it supremely annoying to have my mother question my religious conviction because I am not going to pay for my parking tickets. Where in the scriptures does it say I have to obey every stupid nit-picking law? OK, The Articles of Faith are in the Pearl of Great Price. But they are not presented as commandments. Joseph Smith wrote them as PR for people interested in our religion. Does the fact that they are in the Pearl of GP make them commandments? They sound more like admonitions, in the same way that article 13 says we believe in following the admonitions of Paul. Am I going to be judged for not following every law of the land? Do I need to repent for not moving my car every Tuesday and Friday between 9:30-11 am?

Are we commanded to obey the law of the land? Did I miss that somewhere?

Jennifer J.
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by Aaron B
My wife and I are about to celebrate our 5th Wedding Anniversary. We wanted to go out of town to celebrate, but we've been invited to a wedding in Salt Lake City the weekend before the big day. Thus, we've decided to attend the wedding and celebrate our anniversary during the same weekend, effectively killing two birds with one stone. But what this means is we'll be celebrating our anniversary .... in Utah! Ugh! We don't really have any immediate family there, so it isn't an obvious destination for us. We haven't been back in years (O.K., we drove through once two years ago). We pride ourselves on not ever setting foot in that "cultural wasteland." Our sense of identity and self-worth is largely a product of our being able to make snide remarks about that place. How will we answer the question "What did you do for your 5-year Anniversary?" without hanging our heads in shame?

I jest, of course, but not completely. The truth is, my wife and I have been making jokes about this all week, and this has got me wondering: Why do I hate Utah so much? Or perhaps an even better question: Do I really hate Utah at all, or is it just something I've become so used to saying that I don't even think about it anymore? Is my Utah-bashing just a knee-jerk habit formed during my BYU sojourn all those years ago? Is it the product of any legitimate gripes, or is it just a tired, trendy "issue" that I have? (Remember in highschool when the only thing "trendier" than listening to Top 40 music was ... NOT listening to Top 40 music? Same kind of thing, perhaps?) Let's brainstorm together, folks:

1. Utah is very beautiful in parts, at least outdoors. I do have fond memories of camping at Arches and other assorted places. Nothing to hate about that.

2. Back when I pretended I could snow-ski, I couldn't get enough of Alta and Sundance. Fond memories for sure. I don't ski anymore, and while that's partially because I was never any good, it surely has something to do with the relative let-down that Snow Summit or even Mammoth would be. You gotta love Utah for its snow sports.

3. On the other hand, the urban landscape in virtually all of Utah is a boil on the face of God's green earth. Flying into Salt Lake City, I used to think "this is what Mel Gibson's "Road Warrior" world would have looked like from the air, if it were a bit more populated." O.K., some of the temples are nice architectural specimens, but let's not pretend they make up for the rest of the urban blight.

4. Despite all my bitching and moaning about various aspects of BYU, it's not like I had a bad time of it there in general. Day to day, I actually enjoyed myself most of the time. Do I just like to dwell on the negative?

5. The "people." Ahh, now maybe I'm on to something. Are they really just a bunch of close-minded, insulated, naive simpletons who pronounce "wards" funny and who need to get out of town more often? Does every other Mormon housewife really look and act like an extra from "The Stepford Wives"? Or is this a problem everywhere in the American Church, and it just seems worse in Utah because of the heavier concentration of Mormons there? (Or is the real problem that I'm just a pompous, pretentious, self-righteous pseudo-intellectual with a faux-culturally snobby affectation?)

6. I am a Southern California Mormon from a wealthy L.A. suburb who was raised in a culture that took for granted our "cultural superiority" to those not living on the coasts. (You know the type). So maybe I'm the close-minded one?

7. In all seriousness, is there something about being a member of a majority religion that makes one insensitive, ignorant or just plain "weird" when it comes to one's religious views and interactions with outsiders?

A few days ago, I spoke with a cousin's husband in Provo and let him know that we'd be passing through. I casually made reference to the horror of spending my anniversary there, and then promptly realized that I was talking to a Utah native and resident. He graciously acknowledged that "Utah is for some people and not for others," and I fumbled a "clarification" of my views so as to pull my foot out of my mouth (I don't think it worked). Perhaps I just need some free therapy from all you readers to help me get over my bigotry and appreciate Utah in all its splendor.

Aaron B

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by Dave
Our Fearless Leader recently encouraged The Twelve Bloggers of Bcc to step up and blog a bit more. So I'll pitch in by sharing my patented "3 Paragraph System" for pasting together a friendly blog post in ten minutes or less. Para. 1: "There's a short article over at Site X talking about this interesting new idea blah blah blah." Para. 2: "Which makes me think of this clever idea, blah blah blah." Para. 3: "So there you have it: Might work, might not. What do you think?" Let's give it a whirl on the story of the week.

[1] There's a nice group of articles over at the LDS.org Newsroom on the new Manhattan temple, with some nice photos too. Early stories I read made it sound like several floors of an existing building would be refurbished and dedicated as a temple; this story and photos make it clear that the new temple is a free-standing six-story building. It even has an address: 125 Columbus Avenue, New York, NY, 10023. I suppose they all have addresses, but New York is the only place you would actually need an address to find it.

[2] Now that the Church is broadening the idea of "sacred space," new possibilities beckon. How about a floating temple? Remodel a cruise ship (and paint it white) to bring a temple to all those island-bound Saints in the Pacific. And senior citizens could book temple cruises--an AM session, shuffleboard, body massage, PM session, then dinner with the captain. Make the tickets affordable and this might be the most popular temple in the Church! And, come to think of it, those Disney cruise ships are chronically underbooked. It doesn't take Mitt Romney to see the possibilities here.

[3] So there you are: From landmark temples to mini-temples to urban temples to . . . mobile temples? Or maybe you have a better idea for the next cycle of temple innovation.
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by Dave
Last month, I took the family on a mountain biking trip to Southern Utah, and took in a few Church History sites along the way (chatty first installments in this series here and here). To round out the Church History tour, on Friday afternoon DW and I pointed the SUV northwest and drove the thirty miles to the Mountain Meadows site. About five miles out of St. George a really nasty hailstorm slammed into us (a sign or just a hailstorm?) and we got off the road for two minutes, but it blew through and we continued on.

At Mountain Meadows, there are two small sites commemorating the awful events of September 1857. For details, go here or read this short review article by writer Sally Denton. I'm only going to describe what I saw on my visit. At the crest of a small hill overlooking a broad, sparse valley is a small site established by the State of Utah, with explanatory tableaus, some viewing tubes that identify locations in the valley below, and a twenty-foot long granite wall that bears the names of roughly 120 men, women, and children who perished there. It's disturbing to note the number of children, listed by family, name, and age (although the youngest were spared and evenutally repatriated to relatives in the East). The following statement is etched in the granite wall: "In the valley below, between September 7 and 11, 1857, a company of more than 120 Arkansas emigrants led by Capt. John T. Baker and Capt. Alexander Fancher was attacked while en route to California."

About a mile below, in the valley but not too far from the foot of the hill, is a rebuilt rock cairn gravesite surrounded by a cement walkway with explanatory plaques. This is the site owned by the Church; it was refurbished and rededicated in 1999. Several plaques give general information. One reads in part (photo here): "Complex animosities and political issues intertwined with religious beliefs motivated the Mormons, but the exact causes and circumstances fostering the sad events that ensued over the next five days at Mountain Meadows still defy any clear or simple explanation." As corporate apologies go, that's about as good as you get.

I'll keep my usual editorializing to a minimum, and just note that a visitor is likely to find a 30-minute self-tour of the two sites to be rather sombre and reflective. I think it's worth the effort to make the drive on your next trek through St. George.
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by Jeremy
Gordon's recent thread at Times and Seasons on corporate social responsibility and institutional philanthropy got me thinking about a charity for which I feel a strange combination of enthusiasm and suspicion: the Hunger Site. In case you've not familiar with the site, here's how it works. Arriving at the main page, you click on a button that says "Give Free Food. Click Here." Once you click through, another screen appears featuring ads for a number of sponsors. By simply allowing yourself to be exposed to a screen full of advertisements, you donate the equivalent of 1.1 cups of staple food for hunger relief (through Mercy Corps and America's Second Harvest).

On the one hand, something seems wrong with this--or at least, this seems on the initial gut-reaction level to manifest something wrong with society. I mean, if the sheer abstract possibility that I might buy something can be exchanged for the equivalent of one meal for a starving person, the world is an obscenely inequitable place. (Incidentally, though I have probably visited the site nearly 1000 times, I have only clicked through to a sponsor's site perhaps on a dozen occasions, and I've never made a purchase.) Also, it's apparently a for-profit site; so, it's my eyeballs for three seconds minus overhead and profit margin that equals 1.1 cups of food.

On the other hand, this past Saturday visitors to the Hunger Site and its sister sites, the Breast Cancer Site, the Child Health Site, the Rainforest Site, and the Animal Rescue Site, respectively, supplied 85,779 cups of staple food for the hungry; funded 2.3 mammograms for underprivileged women; helped 834.3 children (720.8 doses of vitamin A for disease prevention, 103.4 infant emergency oral rehydration kits, 9.2 maternal AIDS tests, 0.8 eye surgeries or prostheses); protected 547,040 square feet of endangered rainforest; and bought food for 52,194 animals in shelters--all at no cost to any of the visitors to their site.

It seems odd to be leveraging my status as a glassy-eyed, internet surfin', DSL-usin', credit-card-havin' consumer to help the needy. And it certainly doesn't give me the kind of satisfaction that would make me less inclined than I otherwise would be to take advantage of any subsequent opportunity to perform an act of charity-- one requiring some discernible effort or sacrifice on my part. But at the same time I can't figure out how the results above could be construed as anything other than praiseworthy and of good report. So, I continue clicking daily.

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by Steve
I've been thinking about this passage from D&C 137: "All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God."

This scripture is a hallmark of what mormonism offers to the world: a reasonable Deity, who affords to all the chance to listen and choose the Gospel. It sets us apart from religions that cannot offer anything to those who die without a knowledge of God, or who damn those who could not receive God's sacraments. It's also a challenge to members, I think, in that it suggests an afterlife of teaching and proselytizing that is very unconventional. But the scripture leaves me with a couple of questions, which maybe you can help me answer:

1. What constitutes "a knowledge of this gospel"? It seems to refer to some common-sense notion of a turn at bat, but it's fairly ambiguous. If I knocked on someone's door in France, and they slammed it in my face, did they reject the gospel? Alternatively, if someone has received the missionary discussions but dies uncertain in their convictions, have their had their chance? At what point do we have the knowledge requisite to damn or save us?

2. What's the purpose of this life's "probationary period" if we can get multiple bites at the gospel apple? Doesn't this idea of the unrighteous dead getting saved devalue the efforts of the people who have had to endure to the end?

I realize we know very little about what happens when we die, and this is largely speculative stuff. But I'd appreciate your insights.

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by Christina
When I was in law school, I took a course on the history of women in the law (what history, you might ask!), and I got very interested in divorce in the church ranks during the height of polygamy 1860's - 1880's. It turns out that divorce was not only pretty high in Utah during this time, in fact, Utah became the Las Vegas of its time because of the ease with which one could obtain a divorce. Interestingly, divorce was not exactly frowned upon as a solution to unhappiness in those days in the church.

I propose that one reason for this acceptance of divorce stems from our earliest church history. As you may all recall, part of Joseph Smith's introduction of the conception of celestial marriage was that members of the church who were unhappily living in existing marriages at that time could consider themselves "unbound" from each other because marriages sanctioned only by earthly authorities were null in the eyes of God.

I don't recall how much divorce took place in those first years when only JS and a few others were practicing polygamy, but I do know that the figures rose astronomically as more and more members of the church took part in polygamous marriages. And I think part of the reason for this rise is fundamental to the way that at least Joseph Smith seemed to have taught (viewed?) marriage that was peformed outside the covenant.

I'm not going to get into the progression from polygamy to monogamy, I think we are all familiar with it, but I think the divorce phenomenon highlights yet another way in which our church views on marriage and the primacy of it to the practice of our religion, have changed over time.

Is there a way to reconcile these things besides invoking the idea that revelation is only fitting for each epoch (divorce and polygamy good for Eliza R. Snow and her counterparts but not for us)? And then it just all begs that other question of why marriage itself is so darn important to our current theology.
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by Kristine
It's finally spring in Massachusetts--time to start checking my children's pockets for pebbles, moss, shells, worms, and lizards before doing the laundry. (If you've never found a lizard in your dryer, well...just remember to add that to your list of blessings next time you're counting!). This, of course, has me thinking about the story of Mary and Martha.

My husband, you see, does not check pockets. He also does not pre-treat stains, use different temperature water for different kinds of loads, remember not to put wool sweaters in the dryer, etc. He also does not carry in his head a list of which child needs which new clothes, what clothes need to be sent off to cousins; he often can't distinguish which clothes belong to which child. In other words, though he is willing to throw in a load now and then (pretty often, actually), he is not "careful and troubled" about the laundry, or much of anything else in the household. Even my friends who have less traditional, more egalitarian divisions of labor in their households often lament that they carry the "psychic burden" of homekeeping and childrearing.

Part of what I love about the story of Jesus with Mary and Martha is that it neatly subverts the traditional gendered lines of these roles. And, of course, I've always loved that Mary is praised for sitting and listening, conversing, THINKING about the gospel. But now that I am a mother, and a provider of meals, clean clothes, repaired toilets, etc. for a household, I am more troubled than I used to be by Christ's gentle rebuke of Martha. After all, he was planning to eat the meal she cooked, wasn't he? (We can, of course, soften the story by imagining that Martha was doing something more elaborate than necessary, but that is ultimately unsatisfying to me: even making a simple meal requires a good deal of care and labor--this would have been even more true in a time and place that lacked running water and food processors!)

It seems to me that "choosing that good part" almost inevitably requires having someone else to do the less good part--the Relief Society makes dinner for the leadership meeting, mom and a daughter or son are stuck in the kitchen Thanksgiving morning while everyone else plays football. Or, on a larger scale, I am freed to do academic work while someone else is paid minimum wage to care for my children and my household (this, btw, is a big chunk of the reason I'm NOT doing academic work right now). It's the dilemma that animates _Howard's End_ and floats around the edges of Forster's work (and others'): leisure for a contemplative life is often purchased at the cost of someone else's freedom to indulge in such pursuits.

So what is the lesson (if there is one) for us in the story of Lazarus' sisters? Is there more to the story? I confess that I have a recurring fantasy of someone finding a scroll in which Jesus says, "Come on, Mary, let's go chop vegetables while we talk..." But the scriptures deny that easy ending, and leave us with the questions.
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by Karen
I have a confession to make. I voted for Bill Clinton. Twice. Actually, to be accurate I supported and voted for Paul Tsongas in the primary in 1992, but when he was defeated, I stepped onto the Clinton bandwagon and helped to defeat George Bush. (Again, let's be accurate, I was voting in Utah, and so my actual vote was translated into Republican electoral votes, so I did not technically help to defeat George Bush, but, my friends, it was a psychic victory, so I claim a part in it.) This is somewhat of a sore point for my conservative family. My dad growls that I'm cancelling his votes, my mom tries not to think about it too much. My extended family thinks I'm a little bit crazy...probably because I've been single for just too darn long.

But I digress, here's the point. Let me tell you what happened on election night 1992. I was sitting in the basement of T-Hall in Deseret Towers--BYU freshman dorms--full of zeal and excitement at the democratic process leading to a Democratic victory. Incidentally, I was the only one in the room that was feeling particularly excited. Doomsday predictions were coming at me from every corner, and being younger and more salty, I was 'fessing up to my political beliefs and answering with support for the Democratic platform. I'd like to think I was being polite and calm, but frankly I can't remember. I went back up to my dorm room when the election had been called, and found a picture of steaming dog crap on my door.

That pretty much sums up my impression of being a Democrat at BYU. Taking a lot of crap. What is it about politics that makes people resort to "discourse" that they would never otherwise engage in? What is it about being a part of an overwhelming political majority that makes it seem okay to rudely invalidate someone else's minority-political opinion? (And I know this happens the other way around on other campuses. Some of my conservative friends really took a lot of hypocritical abuse from liberals on the Harvard Law School campus. That intolerance angers me just as much as my treatment at BYU.) Why, when we are celebrating the learning potential that free speech fosters, do we feel that silencing others is an appropriate response? Finally, someone please tell me that things are changing at BYU....
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by Steve
Been to lds.org lately? The newsroom has added a highly amusing section, called "Mistakes in the News", where the Church p.r. department provides rebuttals and corrections to news articles it considers erroneous. Some hot-button issues in there -- MMM, Utah Theocracy, DNA evidence of the Book of Mormon... makes for a fun read! The level of aggressiveness in some of the replies is surprising to those who associate the public persona of the Church with a demure and passive quality. Check out this reply to an article in that anchor of newsmaking, The Scotsman: "Another religious leader was charged with sedition and blasphemy and portrayed as a drunkard and troublemaker. His name was Jesus Christ. These assertions were no better founded than your accusations against Joseph Smith." Wowza.

Incidentally, does anybody know what the threshold popularity level is for generating this kind of response? I doubt they'd put up anything to correct the occasional heresy in the Bloggernacle.
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by Kaimi
I was just on CNN and the sidebar (the place that carries ads) was showing an ad for a book called "The Mormon Conspiracy." I'm always eager to learn what I've been conspiring about lately. So, I surfed over to the website, mormonconspiracy.com . And I have to say-- wow, where do these people come from?

Apparently, the church is part of a conspiracy to take over and "Mormonize" the United States. (So that's why we've been training with rocket-propelled grenades during Sunday School lately). Some of the scary bullet points on the web page:

"Over sixty thousand fully-trained, adequately financed and prepared Mormon missionaries are serving in all parts of the United States and in over 124 countries around the world." [Hah! This guy has clearly never met any actual misisonaries. I'm trying to think of anyone on my mission who I would call "fully-trained and prepared" . . . hmm, drawing a blank. Of course, it sounds lot less frightening to say, "They send out a legion of frightened nineteen-year-olds who have seven weeks of Spanish training and a vague idea that they're supposed to 'build relationships of trust.'"]

"Just as the United States Army has its military academy, and the United States Air Force has the Air Force academy, the Mormon Church has Brigham Young University for training its future leaders." [Dang it, I guess I'm excluded from being a future leader. I wonder if the future leaders include students who had beards or did the funky chicken.]

"There are at least 100,000 leadership positions for Mormon priesthood holders to assume, including bishops, stake presidents, mission, district and branch presidents and the General Authorities." [Yep, we've got Deacon's Quorum President -- "You guys want to go out for donuts after Sunday School?" -- Teacher's Quorum President -- "So, let's discuss who the cutest Mia Maids are" -- Priests Quorum President -- "I just got my license, guys, let's go spin out in the parking lot." Also, there's the Elders Quorum Presidency, which largely consists of entering zeros on home teaching reports.]

"Spirits waiting to enter mortal existence was another one of Joseph Smith’s creations arising from his remarkable imagination. The idea, no doubt, had the ulterior motive of increasing membership in his church by encouraging members to have large families." [No doubt. We suckered Wordsworth into it too -- all that "trailing clouds of glory" stuff. But I can't believe he forgot to mention the worst, most despicable indoctrination of all in this area -- Saturday's Warrior!].

Anyway, the list goes on, and on, and on. It makes for somewhat interesting reading, if you're willing to apply your own Mystery Science filter and have some fun. And hey, being accused of conspiracy puts us in good company -- Jews have been accused of such stuff for millenia.
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by Dave
Two recent weblog articles discuss polygamy from a purely secular scientific and legal perspective. First, Polygamy, the Naturalistic Fallacy, and Gay Marriage at jonrowe argues that even a cursory review of human cultures shows that polygamy is quite natural, but to argue that it is thereby established as good is an example of the naturalistic fallacy. He sees monogamy as socially preferable for reasons detailed in the post. He is interested, I think, in distinguishing secular arguments supporting polygamy from other secular arguments supporting gay marriage.

In response, Sex and Nature at Freespace argues that one shouldn't dismiss an argument from nature as a "naturalistic fallacy" without properly understanding what the term "nature" refers to in ethical discussions about human behavior. Given the roughly equal proportion of males and females in human populations, he sees "patriarchal polygamy" as an unlikely outcome if women are given a fair say in choosing forms of marriage, and everyone having a fair choice rather than being subject to coercion by the state or social institutions is his concept of "human nature." Briefly, he thinks most women would choose one husband over, say, 1/10th of a husband, so if women are unconstrained polygamy will not persist.

Since neither of those two weblogs offers comments, this seems like a nice forum for discussing the ideas they raised in these posts. And polygamy does come up here from time to time, doesn't it?
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by Aaron B
The Vatican is upset. Apparently, large numbers of American Catholic congregations are allowing unordained lay people to participate in Mass in semi-official capacities. Thus, too many non-priests and non-deacons are delivering sermons and preaching the gospel, when these important tasks should be left to the proper authorities. You can read about it here. This whole episode has me wondering ... What would Pope John Paul think of my good friend Father Hans?

Father Hans is a "Catholic" priest whose congregation meets in Hollywood. I use the scare-quotes because Hans is an adherent of "Old Catholicism," a schismatic movement that broke with the Roman church in 17th Century Holland. The Old Catholics retain the traditional, elaborate Latin liturgy, with all its bells and whistles, but seem more evangelically Protestant than Roman Catholic in theology. To cite its own sources, Old Catholicism values "collegial episcopacy, flexibility, moderate discipline, placing more responsibility on the individual to elicit a mature and free response from the individual," rather than Roman Catholicism's "exaggerated papacy, monarchical pyramid structure, with a burgeoning bureaucracy, legalistic mentality resulting in a multiplication of canon laws." Hans rejects "Mary-olatry," papal infallibility and Saint worship. He really likes Jesus, baptism by immersion and personal scripture study.

What makes Hans REALLY interesting, however, is his love for Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and Gordon B. Hinkley. (He's less fond of some of Brigham Young's teachings, the Book of Abraham and King Follet -- you understand). He's been studying Mormonism for years, and he's a better missionary for the Restoration than me or you. He hands out Books of Mormon at his work (yes, he has a job outstide of Church). He refers religious seekers to the Mormon missionaries rather than inviting them to his own services. When I introduced him to Blomberg and Robinson's _How Wide the Divide_, he practically had a heart attack he loved it so much. Hans is a "Dry Mormon" par excellence. The fact that he ministers to his own congregation every Sunday, AFTER attending "his" own LDS ward, makes him all the more fascinating.

About a year ago, Father Hans approached me with an unusual request. Convinced that LDS missionaries are "angels," and that they obviously love and follow Christ more than anyone in his congregation could ever hope to, Hans wanted to organize a Catholic-Mormon "hybrid" Mass. He proposed that my four full-time missionaries and I (the Ward Mission Leader) play an active role in his services. He would conduct as usual, waving the incense, reciting the liturgy and preaching a short sermon (complete with occasional Book of Mormon or D&C quotations - without attribution). We would stand on the stage with him as representatives of Christ, read excerpts from the Bible at key junctures and offer the closing prayer. I talked this idea over with my Bishop, and he agreed it would be an interesting idea. We have now held three of these ecumenical worship services. The Los Angeles Mission President was invited to the last one. He came, gave the sermon in place of Father Hans, and seemed to enjoy the afternoon enormously.

Needless to say, these were very unusual experiences. They were both spiritual and awkward, simultaneously moving but bizarre. A thousand questions were occurring to me that I would never otherwise have occasion to think about. Do we recite the ritual language, along with everyone else? Or do we stay silent? Or do we merely omit the theologically-incorrect phrases? Do we lightly bow to the Crucifix as we approach our seats, just as Father Hans just did? How do we refuse the chalice of sacramental wine when it is offered to us? (One naive elder almost took a swig, until I stopped him). What will the parishoners think if we do? Or if we don't? What do they make of Mormon missionaries co-officiating in their services to begin with?

But there are even deeper questions to ponder. Is it appropriate for priesthood holders of God's "true church" to be co-officiating in a Catholic Mass, complete with sacrament service? Even though we didn't bless or pass the sacrament, we appeared to be endorsing an "apostate" ordinance. Were we using our priesthood inappropriately to jointly preside over the service? (Hans was adamant that we were "conducting" with him). Or were we, by definition, not really exercising our "priesthood" at all (which is how we saw things)? Then again, if we were introduced as representatives of Christ by Hans to his followers, does it even make conceptual sense to divorce our "priesthood" role from our "representative of Christ" role? I actually discussed some of these questions at length with Hans prior to the first Mass. He insisted that he saw us as his equals in our capacities to represent the Lord. I told him that we could not reciprocate the compliment, given our views on priesthood authority. He understood, and said he didn't care.

So what does everyone make of all this? Maybe it's time for President Hinkley to issue an encyclical and help me out.

Aaron B
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by JL
Steve has asked me to guest blog for a bit. I think I'm supposed to be the voice of young single women in the church. I don't think I can speak for all of them, but I have a voice. By way of introduction, my name is Jennifer, I don't do anything special like run a magazine. I'm just trying to finish my graduate degree and I work in the primary presidency of my branch.

For my first post, I'd like to discuss the way we teach our children about families. There is an absence of material in the primary manuals for the many children who come from broken homes. This silence translates into insensitivity. My family had a lot of problems when I was growing up. My parents lived at opposite ends of the house and there was constant contention. I hated the primary song, "Families Can be Together Forever". Some Sundays it made me cry. I didn't want my family to be forever, not the way we were. I probably knew instinctually that our family would break up before we all died.

Almost twenty years have passed since my tenure in primary. I've worked in the primary of every ward I've attended for the past eight years. The lessons about families have not changed. The songs have not changed. At least now we have pictures of children and families that aren't white americans, finally. This year the primary theme is on eternal families. I looked for something in the materials that addresses our children who don't have two parents, or who live with extended family. There is nothing.

How does it feel to be a child who hears how wonderful heaven is because we'll have our families, but she has never met her father? Or, what must it be like for the child whose parents aren't members so they don't have a temple marriage? We teach them that they don't have an eternal family. They lose their families when they die. How many children have divorced parents? What about the children with one excommunicated parent? What do we teach them about their families? Nothing. Not one word. My parents finally divorced and I still don't know where that leaves me in terms of my eternal family. They broke their temple seal, so does that mean I'm not sealed to either of them? And what about my grandparents? Am I sealed to them? I can't answer their questions about non-traditional families because I don't know the answers. It shouldn't be this hard.

When it's my turn to do sharing time I try to be sensitive to the feelings of those from non-traditional-nuclear homes. But, I wish I had some help from the primary leaders in Salt Lake. I still find it hard to teach these "happy-happy-joy-joy" eternal family lessons. When will the church education catch up to the reality of what 'family' means to more and more children the whole world over?

I'm not sure what that would entail. At least we should have answers to questions about non-eternal families and what qualifies as such. I'm not suggesting the church stop teaching family principles. I just wish we could recognize that some lessons are insensitive. We should include something for the other children, those without eternal families. I still remember how sad those family lessons made me feel. I don't want to do the same thing to another child.
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by Dave
A recent Albert Mohler editorial gives a straightforward summary of the conservative Christian view of gender formation. He aims to "tell the truth about what God has revealed concerning human sexuality, gender, and marriage," which any LDS commentator would follow with a quote from the Proclamation