I knew that I probably shouldn’t let myself be encouraged by the unexpected news a few weeks ago that BYU was softening their stance on same-sex dating. Over the years, after all, you learn better than to hope. I remember attending my first Affirmation conference in the fall of 2015, and being blown away by the faith of so many of the people there, the confidence they had that eventually the church would make more room for them. The sheer exuberance of that hope was hard to resist. Despite my skepticism, it infected me a little. I mean, here was a crowd of LGBTQ people, surely a demographic bound for apostasy if anyone was, and more than anything it felt like EFY for queer people—complete with a dance, cheesy music, and even a testimony meeting at the end. I looked at this crowd and thought, okay, maybe I’m too skeptical. Maybe the church really will come around on these issues. How can they possibly resist this sort of faith? Read More
Praying in the Dark
At church today, the sermon was on healing fractured relationships. We need to go deep into the heart of these rifts, said our interim rector, describing the work of repair as something that needed to be both thoughtful and delicate. It was a good sermon, and hit close enough to home that I was joking with some friends afterward that I felt rather personally called out by it. I was actually a little reassured to hear a few other people share similar thoughts. I doubt any of us are not struggling with fractured relationships in some context.
The Ash Wednesday liturgy has a long list of confessions. It’s the part of the service that seems to always leave me feeling the most shaken, and sometimes quite emotional. The words are just too true. “We have not loved you . . . We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves . . . We have not forgiven . . . We have been deaf to your call to serve . . . the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives . . . our anger at our own frustration . . . our blindness to human need and suffering . . .” There’s an awful lot in it, and a lot that is awful. I find Ash Wednesday services deeply moving and powerful, but never really comfortable. “Remember that you are dust,” they say as they trace the cross made of ashes on your forehead, “and to dust you will return.” The ashes are made from burning the palms from Palm Sunday the previous year. They make me think about human fickleness: palms waved in welcome by crowds who soon be calling “crucify him.” They make me think of charred hopes, of aspirations ground to dust. It is a sobering reminder. Read More
Different Way the Handbook Says “Don’t”
I’ve noticed that there are a number of different wordings used in the Church Handbook to say not to do something. Of course, these differences long predate the new Handbook released this week. It was just the release of the new Handbook that got me to thinking about it now.
Here are seven different wordings I’ve seen in the handbook for saying “don’t.” (I’m sure this list is not exhaustive. These are just the ones I found from a quick look at a few sections.)
- Members don’t do X.
- The Church/Church leaders does/do not encourage X.
- The Church/Church leaders counsel against doing X.
- The Church/Church leaders strongly discourage doing X.
- Members should not do X.
- Members must not do X.
- Doing X is prohibited/not authorized.
Rejected Names for Church Wi-Fi Networks
It appears that the Church will be changing the name of the Wi-Fi networks in meetinghouses from “LDSAccess” to “Liahona.” I assume this is part of President Nelson’s push to not use abbreviations for the name of the Church. Would it be too impertinent of me to point out that “Liahona” doesn’t contain Jesus’s name either?
In any case, I’m sure that the powers that be considered many possible names before settling on the one they chose. Here are some of my guesses for what some of their rejected candidates might have been.
LSD Access
No Doubter Router
Broad and Spacious Band
Strait and Narrow Band
Sweet Is the Network
The Promised LAN
WiFi #19
How Firmware a Foundation
In the Internet but not of the Internet
Holy Text Temple Protocol
Moroni’s Mesh
Helaman’s Hub
Router of Riplakish
Pillar of Firewall
Modest Is Hottest Spot
Wireless Local Area Network of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
SCMC Surveillance Van
If you have additions to the list, please don’t hesitate to share them in the comments!
Old Testament Valentines
Pregnancy Prophets!
This guest post comes to us from Josiah of the blog Josiah Reckons.
We love babies at our church! Our community is excited when someone in the ward is going to have a baby. People are quick to congratulate and offer support.
My wife and I had three children while in our 20’s. People gave encouragement, clothes, toys, food, and support in many other ways. Our church can be very supportive of couples with children.
Specious Signs
In our excitement, we love to talk about pregnancy and babies with expecting parents, but we can get carried away in our enthusiasm. Sometimes we start to think we are pregnancy prophets. We think we are seers seeing the signs of the times. And sometimes we say things that lead to awkward revelations like “Not Pregnant!”.
Being sick last week, and bloated this week is not the same as being pregnant. Gaining a little weight is not the same as being pregnant. Not bouncing back to pre-pregnancy weight ‘fast enough’ is not the same as being pregnant again. Working a couple of weekends and then showing up to church looking tired is not the same as being pregnant. Use your imagination, there are lots of possible reasons a person might look similar to someone in the early stages of pregnancy.
Nacle Notebook 2019: Funniest Comments
This post is my annual compilation of the funniest comments and bits of posts that I read on the Bloggernacle in the past year. In case you haven’t read them yet, here are links to compilations for previous years: 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008.
Most of these are excerpts from longer comments or posts. I’ve made each person’s name a link to the original source, so you can go and read them in their original context if you want. Also, the comments are in roughly chronological order.
Comments on Sam Brunson’s post “Call for guest posts: #TeachingPrimaryCFM” at BCC:
- JR:
[responding to the suggestion that a child could only sit still for as many minutes as they were old]
Great suggestion. I’ll be 72 this year and not old enough for 2-hour church.
- Cate:
I taught the Valiant 9 class last year . . . . [at] the monthly teacher council, . . . . we all came in there with different challenges. The gospel doctrine teachers are asking themselves, How can I make this new and interesting to people who have heard it so many times before? The youth teachers are asking, How can I get my kids to see that this really does apply to them? And the primary teacher is asking, How can I get my students to sit at the table instead of under the table?
- GG:
I was teaching 8 yr olds . . . about the miraculous occurrences at the Kirtland Temple dedication. I was using all of my story telling skills in hopes of providing a relatable experience for about ten. After telling the kids about some at the dedication speaking in toungues, the appearance of an angel, and the visions and miracles that occurred, the kids were quiet, still, and ostensibly attentive. I thought I had ‘em. Then one boy raised his hand. I knew him to be a smart kid. I expected him to ask who the angel was. When I called on him, he very matter of factly asked, “Brother G, did you know I’m going to Disneyland next week?”
Praising God
Praising God is a staple of Christian worship. In the various Pentecostal churches I’ve visited, I’ve found that people are more likely to greet you by saying “Praise the Lord” than by simply saying “hello.” In churches where higher levels of congregational exuberance are the norm, it’s not uncommon for people to call out “Hallelujah” or “Praise the Lord” during the sermons and to have bands spending a lot of time on praise songs (“Our God is an Awesome God”). Episcopalians are more sedate, but every Sunday mass has a song of praise at the beginning (though my parish tends toward more traditional music). “Glory to you, beholding the depths; in the high vault of heaven, glory to you,” we sing. Read More
New Church Policies for a New Year
Some of my sisters visited me over the holidays, and together we came up with a list of goofy Church policy pronouncements that we’d like to hear this year.
Twinkies are permitted for use in the sacrament (see D&C 27:2), but 
only if it is preceded by a disclaimer that their use does not imply any endorsement of the Church or its priesthood by the Hostess Corporation.
The Church wishes to state clearly so there can be no confusion that it has no connection with the dating app Moroni’s Bosom.
Christmas Carol Confusion
When I was a kid, I was deeply confused by the lyrics of some of the Christmas carols that I heard or even sang. For example, in the chorus of “What Child Is This?”, this line got me stuck:
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud
Laud? What the heck is laud? I remember wondering if it was a long-ago time, and since food wasn’t as abundant as it is now, maybe what Baby Jesus needed to have brought to him was lard. Not that tasty, but it would keep him and his family alive for a while. Also, I reasoned, perhaps people were just singing the word with some kind of weird affected accent.
Another song that caused me confusion was “The First Noel.” This line in particular:
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay
For the longest time, I thought that the word certain here was a verb, and this was some as-yet-unknown-to-me usage that meant “to make more certain.” So the angel appeared to the shepherds, who were in doubt and fear, and the angel reassured them to make them certain that all would be well. I admit that I’m still kind of disappointed at its actual meaning, where it feels like a filler word. Like, was it really important at all which shepherds heard the news of Jesus’s birth? Not really. It could have been any old shepherds. Or people of any occupation, really. The important point is just that the birth was announced. It’s not like they were the certain Wise Men who came from the east or anything. So it wasn’t really certain poor shepherds. It would work just as well to say random poor shepherds. I still like my childhood interpretation better. I imagine that we all like shepherds have need of being made more certain, and an angel comes down and provides that certainty.
What to do with the earnings on $100 billion
So, it appears that the Church may have an even bigger stack of investments than many of us thought. In this post, I’m not interested in the possible tax law issues of this giant fund, but rather just the size of the fund. To be blunt, I find it appalling that the Church has this much money available at the same time that General Authorities continuously harp on members to pay tithing, not to mention that they pass other costs on to members like the recently-announced increase in the cost of serving as a missionary and the ongoing requirement for members to clean church buildings.
I was so irritated by this revelation that I started going back through Conference talks and Ensign articles to try to make a comprehensive list of all the times GAs have told stories of members valiantly paying tithing instead of paying for food or rent. But I got sidetracked by a really interesting talk that President Monson gave in 1990 where he discussed changes the Church had made over time to reduce the financial burden on members. He said,
The newly announced local unit budget allowance program is but one of several carefully studied and prayerfully implemented steps taken by the Church to relieve the membership of financial burdens which some simply could not carry.
He then went on to list four changes made in the previous years that were designed to reduce the financial burden of Church membership on members:
- The consolidated meeting schedule was introduced (I assume reducing transportation costs).
- The Church went from paying 50% of the cost of new buildings to 60%, 70%, 96%, and finally 100%
- The per-capita welfare assessment was eliminated.
- Ward/branch budgets became completely funded by the Church.
Who bears their testimony in F&T meeting?
Who bears their testimony in fast and testimony meeting? I’m interested in this question not so much in the sense of which particular people do (“Oh, no, it’s Brother Mansplainer!”), but in the sense of whether it’s the same ten people every month or an ever-changing group.
To get some data on this question, I noted who in my ward bore their testimony in each of the 12 fast and testimony meetings in 2019. Of course it would be much better to have data from hundreds or thousands of wards and branches in different locations, but that would be really hard to get, so I decided to start with what I have. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted data for one month when I got a new phone and factory reset the old one, so what I’m working with is 11 months of data. I excluded the testimony that’s always borne by the bishopric member who’s conducting the meeting, as I was interested in tracking testimonies borne by people who chose to do it, and bishopric members are pretty much expected to do it as a matter of course.
In the 11 F&T meetings, 99 testimonies were borne, or an average of 9 per meeting. These 99 testimonies were borne by just 44 people, so the average person who bore their testimony bore it 2.25 times in the year. The maximum number of testimonies borne by any one person was 9, and this was achieved by two people, so together they accounted for over 18% of all testimonies borne. Of the 99 testimonies, four came from visitors and two from missionaries serving in the ward.
Before I get more into the question of the same ten people, I thought it might be interesting to look at a breakdown of the testimonies by age and gender, which is shown in this graph.
Most of the testimonies (82%) were borne by adults, with some teens (age 12-17) and only one child (age < 12). Women and girls bore more testimonies in all age groups (58% of adults, 76% of teens, 100% of children).
Going to the Edge
CW: Suicidality
To start with, it was my birthday, and even in good years I don’t like my birthday. It comes just after New Year’s, after everyone is burned out on holidays and get-togethers and eating too much rich food, and has moved on to New Year’s resolutions about healthier living. It’s only two weeks after the winter solstice, and the light is barely making any headway against the still-dominant darkness that somehow seeps into everything. And by that point I am usually tired of people and celebrations, and feel cranky and just want to hide. In bad years, I am also deeply upset about being alive, and the anniversary of my birth feels like a bleak thing to be noticing, let alone pretending to be happy about. Read More
Do Scripture Stories ever depict heavenly people of color?
Well sure they do! For example, here’s a picture from New Testament Stories that shows the pre-mortal existence and includes a black boy, and here’s another picture from Doctrine and Covenants Stories that shows people going to the Celestial Kingdom, and they’re not all white.
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Other than those two, though, no.
Book Review: Crossings, by Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye
Necessary disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
There’s a grand tradition of Mormon (and ex-Mormon) women writing memoirs, from polygamy and temple tell-alls to coming-of-age stories to narratives of faithfully enduring the tragic to tales of everyday life and motherhood. Crossings: A Bald Asian American Latter-day Saint Woman Scholar’s Ventures Through Life, Death, Cancer & Motherhood is Melissa Wei-Tsing’s entry into the genre, and the title right away tells you that the author is not your average everyday Latter-day Saint woman. (Is there even such a thing? A topic for another essay.) Hers is a unique life, and, with a slightly more academic audience, Crossings could have easily been called Intersections, as the work touches on what it’s like to wear multiple identifies, as Inouye slips between fitting in and standing out and always works to ground herself in what matters to her.
Conference Review, October 2019
This post has some of my favorite and least-favorite things from this last General Conference. I’m sorry it has been a few weeks so it might be largely forgotten. Anyway, please share your favorites and least favorites in the comments if you’d like.
Best story: Elder Alliaud’s story of his non-member mother quizzing him when he decided to get baptized, including asking him, “Do you have any idea how long church is?”
Worst story, hedge about the law category: Elder Christofferson’s story of the paralyzed patriarch where he carefully made it clear that it was a priesthood holder and not some unwashed heathen (or worse yet, woman), who supported the patriarch’s hands when he gave blessings.
Worst story, endlessly serving woman category: Elder Christofferson again, although this time sharing a story he heard from Elder Bednar and his wife about a very recently widowed woman who of course still served as an usher at a temple dedication, thus helpfully normalizing the idea that women should be forever serving and never thinking of themselves.
Best visual aid: The Del Parson painting of a smiling, welcoming Jesus included by President Aburto in her talk “Thru Cloud and Sunshine, Lord, Abide with Me!”
Worst visual aid: The picture of a (to me) comically distressed-looking Moses included by Elder Stevenson near the end of his talk “Deceive Me Not”
Worst visual aid, missing category: Elder Uchtdorf made mention of Hobbits throughout his talk, but didn’t show us a picture of even one Hobbit!
Best laughs: Elder Holland’s report of the little boy who laid on the floor and raised his foot during the sustainings last General Conference; Elder Gong’s story of the longsuffering Primary teacher who didn’t interrupt the child who prayed and expressed gratitude for each letter and number.
Worst laugh: President Oaks making light of a woman’s concern over whether she would have to share a house with a sister wife in the next life.
Re-Thinking the Covenant Path: What Baptism in the Episcopal Church Meant to Me
(This is adapted from something I recently wrote for a writing group.)
A phrase that seems to have become popular in the Mormonism of recent years is “covenant path.” It’s after my time; I don’t recall hearing the term much, if ever, during my years in the church. But even from my vantage point outside the church, I’ve noticed the phrase appearing more and more. Honestly, it makes me flinch. I have some old baggage with the notion of covenants, and the phrase “covenant path” seems to be used, as often as not, to weigh in on the failings of those who are not on it. People left the covenant path, and terrible things befell them; the tale is told in many ways and in many contexts, but the moral remains the same. Read More
Some Thoughts on the Changes in One of the Temple Recommend Interview Questions
President Nelson introduced an updated set of temple recommend questions in Conference on Sunday. The change that stood out to me the most was the revision to the question about affiliation with apostate groups. Here’s the old version of the question:
Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
And here’s the new version:
Do you support or promote any teachings, practices, or doctrine contrary to those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
(I’ve taken the wording for both from WVS’s handy side-by-side comparison at BCC.)
The old version of this question has been the subject of lots of discussion on the Bloggernacle, particularly when a dissenting group (e.g., Ordain Women) has been in the news. It appears that the original version of this question was aimed at members of polygamous groups who wanted to have access to LDS temples, and much of the discussion has focused on whether the question is still about polygamous groups, or whether it includes all kinds of groups that might oppose Church teachings.
The Selfish Gene (-ral Authority)
How often do General Authorities call their relatives to also be General Authorities? A friend asked me this question, and I thought it might be an interesting one to look at. Off the top of my head, I thought the answer would be that this happens a lot. For example, I remember President Hinckley protesting that he had nothing to do with the calling of his son as a Seventy, and I know about historical examples like Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Parley and Orson Pratt, and Bruce R. McConkie being Joseph Fielding Smith’s son-in-law.
To make the question more manageable, I decided to look only at members of the Quorum of the Twelve rather than all GAs. This includes nearly all First Presidency members too because I looked at data at the person level (meaning that each Q12 member was counted only once, versus for example looking at the composition of the Q12 each year or something like that) and nearly all FP members were also Q12 members at one point.
The first analysis I did was kind of a quick-and-dirty approach that I think is nevertheless kind of fun. I listed the last names of all Q12 members, and then checked whether each, at the time of his call, brought a new last name to the Quorum. For example, two Johnson and two Pratts were called in the original Q12, so among the four of them, they brought only two unique last names. In this analysis, I counted Smith as being a duplicate the first time it was used, given that Joseph Smith was the head of the Church, even though he wasn’t a member of the Q12.
The graph below shows, across time, the cumulative count of number of Q12 members called (blue line), and the cumulative count of unique last names for those Q12 members (red line). If every single Q12 member had a unique last name, the two lines would be on top of each other. They separate to the degree that new Q12 members have last names that duplicate last names of previous Q12 members. Note that on the horizontal axis, I separated 1835 out as its own bin, because that’s the year the original Q12 were called. After that, I grouped years into 15-year bins, which I know is a little odd, but the calling of new Q12 members is such an infrequent event that when I used 10-year bins, there were several decades with few to no new calls.
Book of Mormon Story Titles, Very Slightly Revised
Earlier this year, I wrote a post where I rewrote familiar Mormon titles by adding, subtracting, or changing a single letter, and then briefly wrote what the resulting story would be. For example, The Work and the Glory became The Work and the Gory, a dramatized version of early Mormon history, with special focus on the Danites. I thought it might be fun to try this with Book of Mormon stories too. As these stories could be given many different names, I used the chapter names from the Church’s Book of Mormon Stories for children as a starting point. I broke my one-letter rule a couple of times, but mostly I stuck to it. Please add your revised Book of Mormon story titles in the comments if you’d like.
Lehi Warms the People — Rather than jumping right into condemning them for their wickedness, Lehi opens his preaching to the people of Jerusalem with a few jokes.
Lehi Leavens Jerusalem — Before leaving Jerusalem, Lehi adds leaven to all the residents’ Passover bread, and brings down their wrath on him even more than his preaching had.
The Brass Pilates — Concerned that his family will get flabby while trekking in the wilderness, Lehi sends his sons back to Jerusalem to recover the secret of an ancient physical fitness system, the details of which are engraved on metal plates.
Lehi’s Ream — Lehi’s family makes it out of Jerusalem with 500 sheets of precious papyrus that they plan to keep records on. Unfortunately, they have to change plans and use metal plates when Laman and Lemuel wickedly use all the papyrus to make spitwads and papyrus airplanes.
Building the Shiv — When Lehi and Sariah’s family find themselves imprisoned in the land Bountiful, Nephi receives a series of revelations that allow him to build a shiv, which he uses to behead enough prison guards that the family is able to escape.
eOS — While hunting beasts in the forest, Enos prays for many things including the forgiveness of his sins, and for God to watch over his people. All of his desires are granted except for his wish to develop an operating system that will unseat Apple’s flagship OS on their own hardware.
Bling Benjamin — An aging king wants to give a farewell address to his people, but their numbers are so large that his voice cannot reach them all. He sends written copies of his speech out so his people can know his words, and he also delivers the speech from the top of a tower while wearing as much bling as his aging body can manage, so that even people far away can see him shimmering in the sunlight.
