Race Relations

A congruence of comments on my last post, and media broadcast/articles on this subject resulted in my selection of this topic. Hawkgrrrl commented: “Interestingly, we are now in a position to have to tell converts in countries that allow polygamy that we don’t allow it as we spread to African and Asian countries. India allows [...]

Human brains naturally use locations in space and time to make sense of events. Why should we expect eternal spirits to follow that protocol? The question has always bothered me. What follows is speculation about a different way of looking at the relationship between the physical and the spiritual than the Restoration faiths adopted in [...]

I wanted to start a new series on the book Mormon Doctrine, by Bruce R. McConkie.  Some have referred to this book (no longer being published) as “Bruce’s Doctrine.”  In Greg Prince’s biography of David O. McKay,  Prince cited a study by some general authorities that the book had over 1000 errors.  The first edition of [...]

I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ 1996 documentary series on The West.  It’s a 9 part series, so it takes a bit of effort to get through.  Of course Burns spends some time discussing the Mormons, and I found his treatment of Mormons within the context of the western United States very interesting. In Part 4: [...]

When I was a pre-teen, I remember overhearing a conversation between adults about the ERA, the political push for women to have equal rights in society and in the workplace.  I was proud to think that while others of my friends belonged to churches that led by fallible men, we had God at the helm, [...]

Well, not really. However, with recent reports that the US birthrate has fallen to a level not seen since 1920, one starts to speculate. As Pew’s research organization reports: “The U.S. birth rate dipped in 2011 to the lowest ever recorded, led by a plunge in births to immigrant women since the onset of the [...]

As  child, I always wondered what the bumpy image on the hymn book was.  I had never seen the tabernacle, and had no idea the image was organ pipes.  As I would make rubbings of the image with a crayon or press it with silly putty, I envisioned it being some sort of temple ruin [...]

The past General Conference marks the 34th anniversary of the ratification of Official Declaration 2, removing any restrictions on priesthood with regards to race.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been reading the Lengthen Your Stride: Working Draft.  Chapter 22 provides more information than is available in Lengthen Your Stride by Edward Kimball. [...]

A recent Huffington Post article discussed the difficulty the Mormon church has in making an official apology for the Priesthood Ban, and according to the article, the reason is not racism.  This will come as no surprise to most Mormons who are not racist but hesitate to completely throw revered prophets and church leaders under [...]

My wife seldom takes me to a movie, and never to a documentary.  So I was truly amazed last Sunday when she impulsively bought tickets to the documentary 2016: Obama’s America for a showing less than three hours in the future. I was already familiar with the books on which the documentary was based, and hadn’t [...]

Seth Adam Smith, a private videographer who creates LDS-themed material and makes it available on YouTube, has written about the political and social connotations of being Nephite or Lamanite in a recent blog post. He makes some compelling connections to modern day with Christians and Muslims using the words of modern prophets, as depicted in [...]

I am discussing four items of a political nature today that has caught my eye this past week or so in the News. Mitt’s In! So it appears that the United States will have its first real Mormon Presidential candidate that has a chance of winning the Presidency in Mitt Romney as Rick Santorum drops [...]

Based on the controversy surrounding the Trayvon Martin case, it seems clear that we have not achieved a color blind society here in the US and we have a long way to go in race relations in this country.  And as we approach Easter this coming weekend, it is a shame the simple lessons of [...]