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:
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
We in the LDS church are fond of pointing out that we don’t believe in prophetic infallibility. At least in theory, we see prophets as human beings who sometimes make mistakes, and don’t expect them to be perfect. However, I’m not entirely clear as to what exactly what this means on a practical level. And the more I’ve thought about this, the more I’ve wondered whether we don’t believe in what I might term “practical infallibility.” In other words, while we reject infallibility as a theological proposition, in practice, it is difficult to see how our approach differs from a belief in infallibility.
If you’re around BYU, you should check this out. There’s some exciting scholarship going on in this area.
Please join us for a conference, “Exploring Mormon Conceptions of Apostasy” to be held on March 1-2, 2012 at Brigham Young University.
{{Oh snap! What a hot-button title! Don’t let it throw you off from actually reading the post!}}
I currently live in a city that used to be deep in former East Germany. I’ve seen pictures of rows on rows of historic buildings painted grey and brown, falling down in the 1980s. I’ve walked through the huge residential communist/brutalist-style neo-villages on the outskirts. And, I’ve made a few friends who grew up in the DDR and have a lot to say about what it was like then, now, and during the difficult transition.
How are you celebrating Convert’s Day?
Here are some of the funniest comments I read in the Bloggernacle in 2011.
When I walk home from the grocery store, the first thing I see as I exit those automatic doors is the towering gorgeousness of a 13th century church just inside a 12th century city wall. And every time I see it, I think, “I need to blog about that.”
This is, I’m starting to suspect, a symptom of a nascent “lifestyle blogger”–someone who blogs frequently, using usually instagramed or picniked photos, about everything from their breakfast to the way their shoes look against the pavement. Heavy on the color saturation, easy on the text. Usually with an underlying thesis of something like, “I love my freakin’ life!” Read More
At a conference earlier this year, I presented a brief (and admittedly self-serving) paper suggesting some of the reasons why Mormons need theology. I listed several areas where I saw a need for theological work, and I noted that one of the most pressing of these was our lack of queer theology. After my presentation, several people enthusiastically asked me exactly how one might go about doing queer theology, and I had to admit that I was only pointing to the need for it; I was still working out how one might actually do it. For this reason, and others, I was excited to see Taylor Petrey’s recent Dialogue article—a thoughtful approach to a topic about which most discussion produces more heat than light. I am still thinking this through, but I would like to play with some of the ideas that Taylor brings up. Read More
While driving back from a wonderfully enjoyable Thanksgiving visit with my sisters, I saw an electronic billboard by the side of the highway. It was the kind typically used to announce construction ahead. But this one wasn’t doing that. Instead, it said, “All lanes open.”
I recently saw this article linked from Facebook with some offhand, optimistic remark about the relationship between Mormonism and feminism. Always interested in Mormon feminism, feminist Mormonism, and procrastinating the final I’m supposed to be writing, I clicked on over, only to find the title “The Curious Appeal of Roman Catholicism for Certain Latter-day Saint Intellectuals” and the name in the byline, Valerie Hudson.
Hudson isn’t someone whose theology I find particularly reliable, honest, or convincing, but it is true that I enjoy a little Catholicism on the side, and I sometimes dress up as an LDS intellectual for Halloween, so I started reading. Read More
I would indeed be ungrateful if I didn’t acknowledge the contributions of my co-bloggers; Petra read an earlier draft and made a lot of great observations, many of which are included in the footnotes, and Kiskilili and Melyngoch kindly allowed me to quote them.
Many of you are probably familiar with Valerie Hudson’s talk, “The Two Trees.” (You can go read it here.) In this talk, Hudson explains that one of the things that she values about the church is its feminism. In her words, she seeks “to review the main points of LDS doctrine that make this a revolutionary religion from a feminine perspective.” I can see why people are drawn to the talk; it has some powerful imagery. I have to give her credit for arguing for an equality that in some respects goes well beyond standard Mormon apologetics about women’s roles. I like how she emphasizes roles for both Heavenly Parents, and is not shy about bringing Heavenly Mother into her scheme. I also like that both men and women are explicitly connected to spiritual power.
One of my all-time favorite movies is Ordinary People. In it, there’s a scene in which Conrad, a teenager who was hospitalized for several months after attempting suicide and is now trying to re-adjust to life, gets together with one of his friends from the hospital. He asks her, do you ever miss it? When she asks why, he responds, because no one ever hid anything there. It’s a line that’s very much resonated with me over the years.
Think about the following statements:
1) I have serious doubts about Book of Mormon historicity.
2) We need to return to the Constitution, and resist the ungodly socialist plot threatening America.
3) I have extensively researched the topic, and have concluded that the Lost Ten Tribes are on the moon. Read More
I’ve had various encounters throughout my life with anti-Mormons who were out to save me from this terrible cult in which I am a member. Needless to say, this is an attitude I find extremely off-putting—in fact, as an unorthodox Mormon who engages in plenty of my own critiques of the Church, there are fewer things that rekindle my loyalty and connection to it more than encountering people on a mission to rescue Mormons from their delusions. But this is the thing that really gets to me. That if you ask these people why they’re behaving this way, often they say that it’s out of love. That they love Mormons. All I can say is, please oh please save me from this version of love.
This is the problem. You can’t argue people into believing that you love them. Read More
I think Facebook is fun. Let me emphasize that I am not saying this to start a debate about Facebook per se–why people should or should not be on Facebook, issues of privacy, what you think of the new layout, etc. I realize it’s not for everyone, for a variety of reasons, and I don’t want to hash that out here.
What I want to specifically talk about is a particular criticism of Facebook (or social networking in general) I’ve seen multiple times which I find somewhat jarring. It goes something like this: “I don’t want to hear about the mundane details of people’s lives. I don’t have time for such inanities.” Read More
The first time I ever watched or listened to a session of General Conference was my freshman year at BYU. And no, I’m not a convert.
Growing up, since we didn’t have cable TV and lived outside of Utah, our only option for watching conference was a TV at the stake center. I’m sure many of you did (and do) this, but, for whatever reason, my mom wasn’t into the idea, and my dad, always more than happy to skip church, didn’t object. (I seem to remember my mom once saying something about resenting the idea of getting dressed up to watch TV, but I may just be projecting.) Read More
It’s not quite General Conference time yet, but the semi-annual marriage question has arisen early this fall. After last April’s Conference, the Salt Lake Tribune popped the question; this time, it’s in the Sacramento Bee, of all places. The Exponent has talked about it lately, and after a fireside with Elder Oaks on Sunday night, my Facebook feed has exploded with discussion. It’s the old menace-to-society dilemma: as the Tribute put it, why are young LDS men pushing back marriage? Read More