Mormon

I recently took an online test to determine if I am a helicopter parent.  Ironically, it was a helicopter quiz!  After every question, it gave me immediate, condescending feedback about whether my opinion was right or wrong.  And with several of the questions, I didn’t like ANY of the options; they were all too helicopter-y [...]

I wanted to continue Ken Burns’ discussion of the aftermath of the Mountain Meadows as part of his series, The West (available on Netflix.)  In Part 6, he discussed the trial of John D. Lee.  At the beginning of part 6, he begins with this introduction. By 1874, Washington had launched still another assault on [...]

How much is too much?  How much is not enough?  How often do you go to the temple?  Do you think you should go more often?  Why or why not? Discuss.

I considered myself unpopular at BYU.  My hair was very short, kind of a punk rock ‘do with bleached bangs.  I often wore tie-dyed jeans and a men’s thrift store blazer with a concert tee underneath.  In Pennsylvania, I never had a shortage of guys who were interested in me, including lots I thought were [...]

Last week, Stephen Marsh at Wheat and Tares posted about how arguments about Guns and Gays are similar.  Steve specifically said “people post disputed statistics for the harm caused by the parties they wish to regulate or deny. In both cases, those opposing regulation point to contrary statistics showing how good either guns or gay [...]

We’ve been cleaning the chapels in most areas (except where it is not feasible) for many years now, although most of us remember a day when the church employed professional janitors to keep the building sparkling.  With so many people out of work, should the church change back to professional help? Discuss.

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 [...]

The ordain women movement is focused on asking why females should not be ordained.  Let’s flip that around and ask why males are ordained. Discuss.

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; [...]

Feminism makes some men very nervous.  They are afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing and being labelled a sexist.  They may feel like outsiders, unclear of their own standing as these conversations unfold.  Men and women alike may not be sure what feminism entails, but it can seem like a daunting list, one [...]

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.

In January 2012, I did a blog post about topics women in the church were discussing.  I identified 10 practices that some women saw as unnecessarily discriminate or that were in other ways causing women to question their value in the church.  This was in response to a request Pres. Beck made of Mormon Mommy [...]

Just prior to General Conference, Utah Valley University hosted a Mormon Studies Conference titled “The Expanding Canon”.  I wish I could have attended more of the sessions, but enjoyed the sessions I attended.  I was surprised that the LDS Instituted of Religion hosted one of the sessions.  I attended Institute when I was in college, [...]

It’s tough to be the leader trying to fill volunteer assignments in the ward:  food to take to the sick or bring to an activity, helpers for a scouting drive, people to clean the church, people to feed the missionaries. It always seems like the same handful of people do all the work. Some leaders [...]

Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune said “that LDS women are scheduled, as of now [Mar 18, 2013], to offer invocations or benedictions at next month’s General Conference”.  Which session will it be?  Will it be an invocation, or benediction.  My bet is a benediction for the last session, so there won’t be [...]

Who determines worthiness in the temple recommend interview?  The bishop?  The individual?  The questions? Other methods of discernment?  Can the bishop rightly withhold a temple recommend based on nothing more than a hunch or the Spirit even if probing reveals no wrong answers? I recently read a blog post written by a group of ex-Mormon [...]

A 73 year old man with arthritis, failing kidneys, and other health problems died last Tuesday. I didn’t know him very well (I’ll call him Gene), but I knew his daughter. During the funeral yesterday, his daughter recounted his life and said she was glad that he had left his bodily prison, but at the [...]

In the 1980s, a talk counseled members not to attend R-rated movies.  Of course, they didn’t say anything about M16 or M18.  They didn’t mention M15 either.  Did this counsel affect your movie-going practices? Which R-rated movies do you consider “must see” if any?  What movies did you hate?  Which did you love? Discuss.

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 [...]