Posts Tagged ‘ church policy ’

“Bring a miracle and request a table. Those you heal must accept you into their homes….The deliberate conjunction of magic and meal,  miracle and table, free compassion and open commensality,  was a challenge launched not just at Judaism’s strictest purity regulations,…but at civilization’s eternal inclination to draw lines, invoke boundaries, establish hierarchies, and maintain discriminations…. [...]

“Brothers and Sisters.  I’d like to bear my testimony.  I don’t know this Church is true…” Have you ever heard a testimony like this?  And what would you think if someone got up next Fast Sunday and started their testimony like that?  Before getting into what a testimony like this might really be saying, I [...]

In my field of medicine, I often see people in various states of undress depending on why they are there.  I may see someone’s leg or shoulder or arm or back.  And a lot of people have tattoos (even here in Utah).  Over the years, I’ve come to truly appreciate tattoos.  I almost always ask [...]

There are some nutritious and delicious meals that you would never eat if you knew what was in them before you sat down at the table. I would never have had scrambled eggs, for example, if they’d first been described to me as ground-up unfertilized bird embryos. I had heard bad things about the Jesus [...]

Just over a week ago was the Royal Wedding.  Unlike my mother (who actually stayed up from 2-6 AM to watch it live), I watched selections of it through the beauty of DVR and and, strangely enough, I was actually captivated by portions of it.  One of the main things I appreciated from the wedding [...]

Some people make the current format of garments into a “Sacred Molehill”  I would change them.  Before immediately discounting this, there is a very good rationale, so please read on.  And as mentioned in last week’s introduction to this series entitled “Stop Counting Earrings“, I don’t actually suggest changing anything doctrinal, so the suggestions regarding [...]

This is the start of a new series which will run intermittently with the Science & Religion posts.  It is based on some of the comments from a previous post (Good vs Great: Iomega and General Conference Statistics) discussing Church membership statistics and where the Church may or may not be heading if recent trends [...]

I was in high school when the original Star Trek television series premiered. As nerdy then as I am now, I watched every episode, and every re-run, and every afternoon syndication for years. I finally stopped — not because I wasn’t interested in the Star Trek universe, which was infinitely expandable (as multiple incarnations have [...]

Many of you will have followed the controversy surrounding the film The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham-Carter.  The Oscar-winning film is about a reluctant future king of England who speaks with a stutter, a major difficulty for someone whose main duty is speech-making.  What is unusual about this ratings controversy [...]

First, I must start with a confession.  I haven’t yet watched General Conference.  Despite living in the future here in Asia, we are living in the past in terms of General Conference which will be aired at the local church next weekend (or alternatively, live on-line now).  However, I have read some of the recaps, [...]

I received a wonderful surprise in the mail a few weeks ago.  I received an advance copy of The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History from Signature Books.  It will be released on March 24, and I just added it to my Books and Movies page.  If you pre-order, Amazon is offering it for 34% [...]

In discussions on the bloggernacle, the subject of how change happens in the church often comes up.  We often talk past either other when it comes to defining “changes” within the church.  There seem to be different views about policy vs. doctrine and why change happens in the church: View 1:  Policy changes are just [...]

In the two-story church building in Yamaguchi Japan (it’s seriously in the middle of a rice paddy), I picked up the Teachings of Harold B. Lee and read this quote: “Now the only safety we have as members of this church is to do exactly what the Lord said to the Church in that day [...]

A recent post at neighboring blog, BCC, talks about the rising percentage of 20- and 30-somethings who claim “none” as their religion.  Historically, the church has experienced a lot of attrition in this age range, either YSAs (Young Single Adults) who find the strict adherence to the law of chastity increasingly difficult to navigate or [...]

Today’s guest post is by TH, who is a woman serving in the Office of High Priest in the Community of Christ. Since this portion of the Restoration has ordained women to priesthood for nearly a generation, she offers a prospective “after the dust has settled” on a topic which remains controversial to both traditional [...]

During the first 10 days of November, the Community of Christ made two historic transitions that profoundly alter its relationship with both Mormonism and Protestantism. First, the church issued new guidance entitled “Baptism, Confirmation, and Church Membership”. Then, a few days later. the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA — usually [...]

I was listening to a talk given by President Gordon B. Hinckley on November 4, 1969 entitled “The Loneliness of Leadership.”  The audio is here.  It was given at a BYU devotional.  It is a very interesting talk, as he begins by discussing President Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War. He alludes to be somewhat [...]

Last spring at its 2010 World Conference held at its Independence Temple Complex, the Community of Christ canonized Section 164 of its Doctrine and Covenants to address serious controversies within the church. The major point of the revelation was to call the church to separate fundamental, world-wide principles of the gospel from the culturally-dependent problems [...]

If you are a member of a stake presidency, stake clerk, stake executive secretary, high councilor, stake Relief Society, Young Men, Young Women, Primary or Sunday School presidency, bishopric, ward clerk, ward executive secretary, high priest group leader or assistant, elders quorum presidency, ward Relief Society, Young Men, Young Women, Primary, and Sunday School presidency [...]