I’ve never quite committed to memory the algorithm for figuring out the date of Easter each year (other than “look on my calendar”). Anyway, it appears to be Easter here in Switzerland today, and probably elsewhere. Also, many people celebrated Earth Day as well. In the holiday spirit, it has…
Author: chanson
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Gender Equality Edition!
When LDS spokesman Michael Otterson decided to describe what Mormon equality looks like, which led to a fair amount of commentary. (On a related[?] note, there was some new interest in the question of why people don’t like Mormons and problems with LDS PR stragegy.) The General Conference commentary isn’t…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Other People’s Opinions Edition!
This week’s journey through Mormonism covered the ground of caring or not about others’ opinions and possible reactions. Sometimes it’s fun to make a big stink and a smackdown. And Simply Sarah and Andrew S are simply examining and expressing their own place in the X-Mormon journey. Some nevermos get…
Struggling in the depths of Mormon faith: Stephen Carter’s “What of the Night?”
I also learned that the great stories of the world have second acts. This may seem like a silly thing to say, but so many stories set up the problem (the job of the first act) and then resolve it (the job of the third act) with little to no…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: The Mormon Moment Edition!
It’s not just a musical anymore, it’s in sci-fi films, books, and other interesting plays, even politics — everything is coming up Mormon!!! Meanwhile — rather than capitalizing on it with another shocker-conference — the CoJCoL-dS decided to go with their previous conference strategy of boring the pants off everyone…
My place in Mormon history
A lot of people — upon leaving the CoJCoL-dS — are amazed to discover how fascinating LDS church history really is. It’s not just that the whitewashed history in Sunday School is incomplete and inaccurate. It’s that you’re force-fed this watery-porridge version of church history that inoculates many people from…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: What do Mormons believe? edition!
First and foremost — Outer Blogness has gotten a major technical upgrade!!! This is such a huge and vibrant community that it deserves its own page where you can get a clear view of what’s up. It also means faster loading of our main page and more space in our…
Johnny Townsend’s Mormons in life and imagination!
Have you ever wondered what spirit prison would be like? Mormons believe that when people die, their spirits go to either “spirit paradise” or “spirit prison” to await Judgment Day. They also believe that missionaries from spirit prison can teach the gospel to spirits in spirit prison (who can be…
Wednesday in Outer Blogness: Pi Day Edition!
OK, so I missed Sunday (and I actually missed Pi Day, too), but — since I was busy last Sunday and I’ll be busy next Sunday — I figured I’d try to shoot for a round-up somewhere in the middle. Sorry for any inconvenience. Anyway, as you know, the big…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Honor Edition!
Naturally, the buzz this past week was about the big news that a BYU basketball player had sex with his girlfriend — if you can believe it! This led to lots of very amusing discussion about control and the BYU honor code, musings on parenting, and the obvious observation that…