Spending too much time on Facebook, as usual, and a friend shared this link from the page LDS General Conference, a quote from M. Russell Ballard from October 1995 General Conference: We do not need more members who question every detail; we need members who have felt with their hearts, who live close to the ...
While the rest of us watch in horror. Or am I the only one frightened to discover that Mormons find this kind of thing amusing? As far as I can tell, this is another example of the Mormon surveillance culture that empowers anonymous snitches, got Brandon Davies kicked off a BYU team, and Brian Devine ...
Back in the days when I paid attention to General Conference, I always attended the priesthood session with my wife’s father and brother. I enjoyed the tradition of returning to report some fantastic fictional revelation to my wife and her mother. I call this a tradition because I did it every time, but I was ...
A while back another blogger asked me to submit an essay about my Mormon experience. Probably, for good reasons he changed his mind and never published it. Since it is already written and might shed some light on my argument at Times and Seasons, I might as well publish it myself. It might help some ...
A while back, I heard a rather innocuous story about honesty at stake conference (ok, so it’s not as prestigious as general conference…). I didn’t care much about the choice of story he used, since it seemed trite (it was some Chinese feel-good fable), but as I read a passage in the scriptures today (and ...
When we were members of the church, we knew very acutely how many rules and laws and words of wisdom and commandments we had to follow. Why did we keep up with it then…and why do we do what we do now? What motivates us to act? For the past few weeks, I have been ...
I’m not someone who is particularly good at following the rules, at least some rules. And believe it or not, depending on who you talk to, Mormonism had a lot of rules. What type of soda/pop to drink, what kind of music to listen to, etc. What always astounded me was the insistence on following ...
According to Harper’s, Spanish authorities are investigating Bush administration officials for torture. That includes the former BYU law professor Jay Bybee who signed off on John Yoo’s infamous torture memos. The premier Spanish newspaper El PaÃs reports that judge Baltasar Garzón is involved in the investigation. Garzon is famous for prosecuting Basque terrorists and for ...
Robert Kirby, everyone’s favorite Jack-Mormon, just posted about a new policy of the LDS religion. Apparently the leadership of the religion are now disallowing object lessons in sacrament meetings. While Kirby humorously mocks this move, I have to ask two questions: 1) Is this true? No more object lessons? 2) WTF? I mean, seriously? Just ...
I think we can all agree that the LDS religion is unique. If we compare it to a mainstream Christian religion, like the United Methodists – it is very different. Even LDS missionaries would be happy to point out the many doctrinal and organizational differences. Case and point, Methodists have paid clergy – while the ...
There is a reason why retention approaches zero. There is a reason why people can study their way out of the Church. There is a reason why a large percentage of non-American return missionaries seem to leave Mormonism. There is a reason why the United States remains the only western democracy that does not grant ...
Editorial Note: I have previously reported about rumors of Boyd Packer’s and Gordon Hinckley’s response to criticism of Julie Beck’s conference address, which has not only been discussed with a variety of points of view on the Bloggernacle and the DAMU but also by readers posting on the websites of various Utah newspapers. Thanks to ...