Posted by Vada
Not Ophelia put up the text of President Benson’s 1987 talk about women not working outside the home over at FMH today. I had some thoughts after reading it, and I decided they were long and involved enough (and a little off-topic enough) that it would be better to put them up here as their own post. But they’re a reaction to the talk, so go read (or at least skim) it first.
While I always knew about this talk, I don’t recall ever being taught it much (though it’s possible I simply blew it off if/when it was taught and that’s why I don’t remember it), luckily. And I’m very grateful that my mother (who is very faithful, orthodox, conservative, and was always a SAHM mom) not only didn’t teach it, but didn’t listen to it. Or rather, that she didn’t let it keep her from making the choices that she thought were best for herself and her family. Read more…
Posted by Kiskilili
A. I’m completely orthodox. I believe and advocate everything the Church teaches (if understood correctly).
B. I don’t believe or advocate x.
C. Therefore, the Church must not teach x, regardless of the evidence. Since I don’t accept it, x must be folk doctrine, or “culture,” or a misunderstanding of what Church leaders actually meant.
What’s wrong with this line of thought? Ideally, we should maintain an ability to evaluate what the Church teaches separately from whether we agree or disagree with it. Rather than taking our personal orthodoxy as axiomatic, we should evaluate our orthodoxy as part of our conclusions.
Posted by Seraphine
I’m at a point where I have never felt more free to choose the path I want my life to follow. In many ways, this is a wonderful thing, but my biggest dilemma is that I’m struggling to figure out what I want. I know I love teaching high school English and want to continue in this profession. And I know I eventually want marriage and motherhood. Recently, however, I’ve been thinking about my patriarchal blessing, and doing some reevaluating. Read more…
Posted by ZD
Check out this new blog–some academic-type Mormon women writing about women’s religious history, feminism, and other fun things. They’ve kicked things off with a discussion of the Pink Issue of Dialogue. Looks fabulous.
Posted by Katya
2009
Of the nine plays I (originally) found that met my criteria, I think it’s no accident that almost half of them have premiered since 2008. Whatever the tensions were between the LDS Church and the gay and lesbian community before that year, the heated battle over California’s Proposition 8 has increased them exponentially. Whether or not any of these plays was written specifically because of or in response to those events, the environment of anger and resentment must have been on the minds of anyone with ties to either community, let alone to both. Read more…
Posted by Seraphine
So, various people have expressed interesting in hearing how my experiences with dating (especially on-line dating sites) have been going. I thought I’d do a quick review of my experiences with the three sites I’ve used, and also talk about how I’ve been approaching the whole on-line dating thing more generally. Read more…
Posted by Katya
1999
Banging the Bishop: Latter Day Prophecy, by Dustin B. Goltz
Goltz was raised as a Reformed Jew, but became Mormon as a young man when missionaries came to his door. As a Mormon, he felt that he could be a good person who had a mission in life and divine potential. Also, he was told that his homosexuality was a result of excessive masturbation, and he would be welcomed into heaven if he’d stop. He couldn’t. And he didn’t stop being attracted to men, so he eventually decided he didn’t belong in the Mormon heaven, and he left. Read more…
Posted by Katya
Note: I originally intended to make this all one post, then realized that it was over 3,000 words long, so I’m splitting the topic into multiple posts.
A few weeks ago, I learned that a friend of mine is raising money to stage a production of Melissa Leilani Larson’s Little Happy Secrets next year. The play is about a lesbian Mormon who is trying to reconcile her sexuality with her faith. (It’s really unfair of me to condense such a thoughtful and nuanced play into a one-sentence summary. I promise I’ll say more about it later, or you can read about it and their fundraising efforts here.) It was staged last year in Provo, but Dave Mortensen (my friend) and Melissa would like to put on a larger production in Salt Lake City.
I decided that I wanted to write a blog post about plays by Mormons with gay and lesbian Mormon characters, both as a way of helping to draw attention to Little Happy Secrets and because of the topicality of how the Mormon community and the GLBT community interact. Read more…
Posted by Lynnette
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote up a summary of the first day of the inter-religious diplomacy conference last month at USC. Then I got distracted by other life matters and never got back to the second day. I thought after slacking off this long I should maybe not bother with part two, but Eve told me to do it anyway, and I’ve heard one should listen to one’s older sisters. So here it is. (This is probably less a summary of the talks—which would be very difficult to do justice—than a mention of some of the points I found interesting.) Read more…
Posted by Kiskilili
(See here.)
It would seem to me that this idea arises fairly naturally from the notion that God has crafted individual plans of salvation in addition to his general plan, and that salvation (more precisely: exaltation) is facilitated by marriage.
Does God tell us whom to marry? Should we wait to marry until God confirms our choices? Where does this leave singles, or people in unhappy marriages they feel God inspired them to enter? What have your experiences been?
Posted by Eve
[Recent reflections at FMH hereby prompt me to broadcast my own half-baked reflections on parenting theories. That said, this isn't a critique of either Stephanie's or Not Ophelia's approaches to parenting, both of which strike me as eminently reasonable; in any case, the content substantially predates their posts. Rather, this is my current take on parenting, such as it is, which is very clearly a result of my particular temperament and circumstances. Like all of my views, it's worth every red cent you paid for it, and I fully expect it to be substantially revised in three years, downright unrecognizable in five.] Read more…
Posted by Seraphine
If you’re a single woman in the church (late 20s or older), people are kind to you (likely more kind than they are to your male counterparts). However, you have also been an object of pity more times than you can count. The problem is that most of this pity is not direct–instead, it’s usually manifest through attempts to comfort you (because of your poor, pitiful, single status). I call this pity-disguised-at-attempts-to-comfort-the-sad-women-who-are-struggling-to-find-meaning-in-their-lives. Read more…
Posted by Ziff
Last year I compiled some of the funniest comments I had seen in my reading of the Bloggernacle in the previous year into a post. I got a lot of positive comments on the post, so I’ve decided to try it again. Here’s my list of some of the funniest comments I read in the Bloggernacle in 2009. Of course, I’m only one person and I can only read so much of the Bloggernacle, so I’m sure I missed a lot of good stuff. If you’re so inclined, please feel free to share other funny comments from 2009 in the comments.
Read more…
Posted by Lynnette
I see that a couple of people have already posted about the Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy conference last weekend (see here and here), which reminded me that I’d told a couple of people I’d post some of my thoughts about it. It was really fun to go to the conference; I’ve been kind of obsessed with issues related to pluralism for the past decade or so, but most of my conversation about the subject has been done in a non-LDS context, so I especially enjoyed thinking about them with reference to Mormonism in particular. (Not to mention that I got to hang out with cool people and hide from my dissertation.)
Read more…
Posted by Ziff
In Mark Brown’s post “Mormon Buzzwords” (“on words and phrases we don’t need”) at BCC last month, a number of people suggested that our frequent use of appositive phrases beginning with “even” used to describe Jesus or the prophet is particularly annoying. Here’s an example from President Uchtdorf’s otherwise excellent talk “We Are Doing a Great Work and Cannot Come Down,” given in April 2009 Conferece:
I have witnessed with my own eyes and joyfully testify that in our day, God speaks through His prophet, seer, and revelator, even Thomas S. Monson.
So who started this usage of “even”? And who’s perpetuating it among current General Authorities?
Read more…
Posted by Vada
I decided to pull this draft out because it was voted for — twice! — as one people would like to see finished. It was the only one of mine voted for (not too surprising, since my drafts make up about 1% of the total drafts), and I haven’t posted anything in a while, so I figured I should not only blog something again, but listen to the opinions of our commenters. So here you go. (Also, it was started a long time ago, but what was already there still applies.)
I’ve been reading this thread over on FMH. It had me thinking about presiding in my own marriage, and since I didn’t want to threadjack (and since the blog has been a little dead lately), I decided to post my thoughts here. Read more…
Posted by Ziff
In last month’s Conference issue of the Ensign, (PDF complete–note it’s 6 MB) for the first time I can remember, the pictures were all in color. Not just the pictures of the speakers, but the candid shots of people in and around the Conference Center and Temple Square, and watching Conference in other parts of the world. I’ve always really enjoyed these candid pictures, and I appreciate the work of the photographers who I assume must take hundreds or thousands of pictures each April and October to be able to pull out and publish such fun and interesting ones. I’m going to miss the black and white format of the pictures, though. I don’t know the first thing about photography, but it does appear to me that black and white photographs can emphasize interesting patterns of light and dark in ways that are overwhelmed by different colors in color photographs.
Read more…
Posted by Seraphine
So, I’ve been having a hard time with all things church-related for about six months now. Not in an angst-driven way (the anger/hurt of last year has subsided), but in a I-just-don’t-want-to-be-religious-for-no-explicable-reason kind of way. I did know that I wanted a bit of distance from God after what happened last year, but this past week, as I thought through why I was skipping church yet again, and as I thought about where I am with my dating life, it all finally clicked for me.
I’m struggling with the law of sacrifice. But let me back up just a bit. Read more…
Posted by Seraphine
So, my series isn’t over, but until I have a chance to finish another post in the series, I need some advice.
Like I mentioned in an early post, I have re-entered the world of dating, and I’m currently signed up for a couple of on-line dating sites. I just recently signed up for match.com, and I’m currently facing a small dilemma. Read more…
Posted by Seraphine
Last April/May is when my life hit rock bottom: my ex and I permanently broke things off, and I was left facing not only an emotional mess, but a religious crisis of unprecedented proportions. Because yearly anniversaries tend to resonate with me, recently I’ve been pondering my life and revisiting where I was a year ago. Read more…
