Doctrine

The headline is clear. Community of Christ will provide sacramental ordinances of marriage, commitment ceremonies, and ordination independent of sexual orientation in the USA. Specifically, after two days of discussion, the USA National Conference formally approved by a required 2/3rds majority the following recommendations to the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve: The 2013 USA [...]

People refer to weak apologetics as mental gymnastics, being willing to cling to the improbable or outright absurd rather than cutting through the crap to the logical (yet possibly faith-shaking) solution.  And yet, we are also told that truth is stranger than fiction and that with God nothing is impossible, which gives eternal hope to [...]

1 Sam 8:18-22 18  And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day. 19  ¶Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; [...]

How much detail is appropriate in a confession?  When does a leader go from being helpful to being pruriently interested in the lurid details of a confessor’s love life?  Where do you draw the line? Discuss.

This past week, Peggy Fletcher Stack wrote an excellent article entitled ”How Beards Became Barred Among Top Mormon Leaders.” I encourage you to read it. In the end, I have nothing more to add to it than the personal observations that sre very near and dear to my face. I grew my beard during a [...]

Several years ago, before the movies and the hype, I somehow stumbled into The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  After finishing it, I immediately read the second book in the trilogy, which had just been translated into English, but it ended in a cliff-hanger and wouldn’t be available in English for another 6 months or [...]

The Ten Commandments was one of the first Biblical epics to command a mass audience, and so my parents took me into downtown Detroit as a boy to be sure I saw it in its full widescreen glory in one of the few theaters capable of so screening it. The movie was well worth the [...]

The traditional Jewish celebration of the Passover, which started Monday night, can illustrate the rich symbolism found in the Old Testament and show how the symbolism of the Passover points directly to Jesus Christ.  Please note that the original Passover observance is described in Exodus, chapters twelve and thirteen.  The modern Seder evolved from this [...]

Shenpa Warrior discusses evil from a psychological view In the 5th installment of the Psychology of Religion series.

I was exposed to this idea on a couple different occasions:  disaffected or disbelieving members share their experiences that led to their de-conversion in a group setting.  It made me really uncomfortable, essentially for the same reasons that Testimony Meetings make me uncomfortable. Here are a few hallmarks of both testimony and untestimony bearing: Pressure [...]

Brother Jake writes a guest post (AND makes a video!) on the assumed “simplicity” of the gospel. Is it really that simple though?

I recently had a visitor in my Sunday School class, a young Beehive who currently lives in Bali, Indonesia.  I know from personal experience that there is no LDS branch in Bali.  This girl said that her family just attends another Christian church that is in their neighborhood.  This reminded me of when I was growing [...]

Salt Lake City sees General Conference every six months. In the CofChrist, “World” Conference occurs every three years, and 2013 is the lucky year. A Community of Christ World Conference is far more of a legislative exercise than its Utah LDS analogue. It features worship, of course, and normally will have approval to changes and [...]

We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, repentance; third, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Articles of Faith 1:4) Another of the unique doctrines of the Church of [...]

Today’s post is by new perma and longtime commenter, Hedgehog.  On 10 January, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf addressed young single adults at the firstCES devotional of the year.  The title of his address is ‘What is truth?’.  This has also been addressed by David Taymon who was rather quick off the mark. Truth, as a topic, [...]

To many, “do you believe in the gospel?” means “do you cognitively accept this set of propositions to be a map of reality?”

We recently had a discussion about this on another thread. LDS Anarchist said:  “Now, we know that there is a law given in heaven and that He is the one who gave it. And we know that His law is based upon agency, not coercion. So, we have a law (created by God) based on [...]

Daniel faced a serious problem.  Darius the king had been tricked by his princes into outlawing prayer.  But Daniel felt beholden to pray to his God.  The society in which he lived restricted his personal freedoms more than his religious society did.  In fact, his religious community went underground due to the persecutions and restrictions of the [...]

A few weeks ago, in Gospel Principles Sunday School class, I taught about the importance of scripture. The conversation was interesting because there were some investigators (people considering joining the Mormon church) as well as some “seasoned” Mormons in attendance.  When I asked questions about the importance of scripture, I noticed that most of the [...]

2013 has seen the launch of new lesson manuals for the youth:  YW, YM and Sunday School.  People have long been requesting that the youth manuals be updated.  But there has also been criticism that the YW manuals are all written passively in comparison to YM, to reinforce sexual stereotypes.  The manuals are also much [...]