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Some recent Facebook bloggernacle conversation has gotten me thinking once again about an issue that I’ve been meaning to blog about for a long time. (I probably started this post during the Prop 8 Blog Wars, but in classic ZD fashion, never got around to finishing it.) My original title was something like “Should We Have Compassion for Gays?” I changed it because I didn’t want to deal with the people who only read the title of the post before commenting. But that is in fact the question I want to think about.

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How do we describe women’s participation in the Church to non-Mormons? There have been a few recent published statements that have all attempted this and have, in my view, all gotten it wrong in the same way.

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Just for fun: Read More

If you follow the bloggernacle, by this time, you are likely familiar with Ralph Hancock’s recent two-part article at Meridian Magazine (parts one and two) about Joanna Brooks’ memoir, The Book of Mormon Girl. (See discussions here, here, and here.) I know I’m a bit late to the party, but I found this essay seriously troubling, and I wanted to add my two cents. There is a lot to consider, but I want to focus on a few things I found particularly problematic: Hancock’s condescending tone and generally dismissive attitude toward Brooks, and his approach to issues of gender and feminism. Read More

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Recently the ZDs brought together a panel of experts in male reproductive health to discuss an important but sensitive issue that affects all of us, with implications for religion, hygiene, and public policy. This is an abridged transcript of that discussion.

Myrtle-Jane Merryweather, moderator

Harriet Appleworthy, MD

Lucy Quackenbush, PhD, child psychology

Rachel Goldfarb, professional mohelet

Eliza Piddlewit, author, Intact Makes a Comeback!

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More than ten years ago, now, I went through the most brutal emotional experience of my life—one that still haunts me on an almost daily basis. Under the circumstances, I was temporarily numb to almost any emotion.

The next Sunday, before Sacrament Meeting, a friend of mine in the ward came over to say hi and cheer me up a bit (although he knew nothing about my situation). In the course of our conversation, he made a joke and, for the first time in days, I laughed.

Loudly.

My roommate immediately shushed me and rebuked me for not being reverent.

***

If whispers and soft music and seriousness float your boat, I don’t mind and I really will do my best not to disturb you. But I come from a family that’s been through all kinds of hell, and we’ve learned to laugh, because it sure beats crying.

When I was a teenager, I didn’t really like poetry. It seemed like a language I didn’t speak, a secret code that I couldn’t figure out. I dutifully read it for my English classes the way the way that one duly eats your vegetables, because they are Good For You–and, of course, because I was required to do so. When people (like my older sister Eve) told me that they genuinely enjoyed poetry, that just didn’t make sense to me.

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Now that I have made some general comments about the overall theological approach of An Experiment on the Word: Reading Alma 32, I would like to engage some of the specific content. As I said in my last post, there is a lot of great material. But two subjects in particular caught my interest: faith, and creeds.

Faith often gets talked about as a cognitive effort, a sort of forcing yourself to believe despite a lack of evidence. If something doesn’t make sense to you, or seems problematic, you might be told to “just have faith.” In such an understanding of faith, it is primarily intellectual in nature. It represents a lack—you only have to have it because you don’t have knowledge.  It requires you to ignore doubt, or see it as a threat. This kind of faith is fearful of new information which might challenge it. And notably, in such a model faith is a quality possessed by an individual, outside the context of any relationship.

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An Experiment on the Word (ed. Adam S. Miller, Salt Press 2011) is a product of the Mormon Theology Seminar, a short-term collaborative project in which a small group of people engage in a close read of specific texts. This particular book focuses on Alma 32. It includes a jointly-authored summary report of the conclusions reached by the participants in the seminar, as well as six individually-authored essays approaching the text in a variety of ways. Read More

One of the endlessly entertaining topics in Mormonism is the conundrum of figuring out what exactly constitutes “official doctrine,” and how we make that determination. I found myself seriously grappling with this dilemma early on in my theological studies, when I first attempted to write an academic paper on Mormonism for a non-LDS audience. I wrote, “LDS doctrine is x”—and then I wondered how I knew that, and what reference I should cite.  Of course, we have a lot of official-ish sources.  The scriptures certainly have a strong claim to authority—but sometimes they contradict each other, there is widespread disagreement regarding how many of them should be interpreted, and there are plenty of things in the canon (especially the Bible) that we overlook altogether.  The same could be said for the teachings of church leaders. I often look at recent publications or conference talks to get a sense of what is being currently taught and emphasized. But the boundaries of “official teaching” remain somewhat murky.  I do not see this as necessarily a bad thing. But the situation nonetheless poses challenges for anyone trying to say something coherent about LDS beliefs. Read More

Before commenting, I’d like to request that people please review the policies – please refrain from giving me advice (the questions I ask here are meant to stimulate discussion, they are not me actually asking for people to give to me personally solutions), questioning my testimony, or challenging my faith.  Any such attempts to do so will be moderated.

I was a junior in college when I first saw the movie The Incredibles.  It was a Saturday afternoon, I’d had a really bad day when plans for a project feel through in the last minute, and I was in a foul mood.  Wanting only to spend money on indulgence, I took a bus to the mall to see a movie.  I picked The Incredibles – it was new, it was popular, and it got great reviews.  What could I lose?

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The following fantastic, inspirational, and hilarious video-parody brought to you by Alice Paul, Harry Burn, the Women’s Suffrage Movement…and Lady Gaga.

You won’t regret clicking this link.

So what happens when the Washington Post writes, “The LDS Stance on Women,” and contacts a BYU religion professor who explains that women are too spiritual to need the priesthood; women are highly valued in LDS theology because men can’t be exalted without them; women are actually blessed by not having to deal with the responsibility of holding the priesthood; he personally loves and honors his wife, so everything is clearly fine; even though women can’t hold the priesthood, look! they get their very own organization! (under the direction of the priesthood); a woman’s important role is to be a righteous influence on men; LDS theology is liberating for women because of the doctrine of a Heavenly Mother, even though we can’t talk about her because Heavenly Father is protecting her delicate sensibilities; and so forth? Will we get widespread cries of outrage, complaints about the condescension of such comments, a call for the professor in question to be disciplined, a statement from the dean clarifying that these comments do not reflect the teachings at BYU, and hurried responses from the LDS Newsroom?

I’ve been married for a little over two years now and I don’t have any children yet. I realize that isn’t unusual, even in Mormonism, and no one around me has put any pressure on me to start, with the possible exception of my mother, who I am pretty sure is joking. Mostly.

I’m sure we’ll have children eventually, though I’m a little less sure I can articulate the reasons why: we’d be good parents, at least to an emotionally tough child; people who have children seem to enjoy them; they’re the future, my genes are fantastic and deserve to be passed on, etc etc. This has been in my mind a lot lately, though: why aren’t we having them (or even thinking about having them) now? We’re in our late twenties, healthy, in a good marriage, and financially stable. In some ways, timing really couldn’t get better. Read More

FYI–this looks like fun.

We must read, and think, and feel, and pray, and then bring forth our thoughts, and polish and preserve them. This will make literature.”—Orson F. Whitney

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I love the idea of tithing.  It reminds me that money is just money–and if I can’t give it away then I don’t own it, it owns me.  It’s a wonderful reminder to set aside a percentage of my income to help those around me who are in a rough patch.  It makes me a better person to think outside of myself and fight any latent financial greediness that might creep up on me in the long term.

At the same time, I’ve had a complex relationship with tithing the past three years.   Read More

Hey, all you scholars of Mormon history. Check this out. Prizes! Money! Everlasting fame!

From the Mormon History Association:

The Mormon History Association will give its yearly awards for the best books, articles, dissertation, thesis, and student papers published or written on Mormon history during 2011 at its annual 2012 conference, which will be held in June in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Read More

If you could change one thing about the church, what would you change, and why?

No, you don’t have the power to change the church. But there’s value in making your voice heard anyway: to you, to others who share your issues but think they’re aberrant, and maybe even, eventually, to people in leadership positions:

Latter-day Saints for Change

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As a topic, motherhood has been written about so poorly and at such length that it is very difficult to write about well. It is especially difficult to write about well, and even more difficult to write about at length, when one actually is a mother and subject to incessant interruptions. Read More