When chanson asked me to fill in for her this week, I was glad to give the hardest working Ex-Mormon blogger a well-deserved weekend off. Especially since she just got through naming Joanna Brooks the X-Mormon of the Year! What I didnt anticipate was how much I would enjoy spending…
Mormonism: a “Native American” faith?
With Mitt Romney’s nomination closer and closer, there’s a lot of talk about whether Mormonism has made it…whether it’s succeeded, been accepted by American society… I was watching a Morning Joe episode that featured Matthew Bowman, author of a new book The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith,…
Congratulations 2011 X-Mormon of the Year: Joanna Brooks!!
One more time with the disclaimer: For the purpose of this award, the “X” is a variable standing for any category of exceptional Mormon — it does not imply the nominee (or winner in this case) has left the church. Sorry to be a broken record on this point, folks,…
Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration (review)
For kicks, I decided to pass the time during my lazy, uneventful day off by watching Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration, a church-sponsored film about the life of Joseph Smith. I found it on YouTube, split into five pieces, each with a description of the video containing a…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Out of Control Edition!
Yep, the Mormon Moment is out of control. No matter how many times the LDS Newsroom answers the questions people should have asked (well, sort of), people keep asking (and answering) their own questions about Mormonism! Holding the church up to too high a standard! And unauthorized people (even professors)…
Mormonism 101: FAQ
The LDS Newsroom’s new FAQ has a somewhat defensive tone. This is probably due to scandals as of late for the Church, an annoyance that certain issues won’t go away. The Newsroom has created paragraphs of text perhaps in hopes to roundly cut off future scandals at the pass, but…
“Not in some sissy way”
Sometimes I feel like I’ve been out of Mormonism so long that I can hardly remember what it was like. Yet it’s in there — deep in the bowels of my brain — perhaps built into the foundation of my personality. Since my kids have gotten old enough to enjoy…
Personal Apostasy Research from LDS.org
Below I have compiled a list of references, along with samples (some very lengthy…OK, this entire post is VERY long – that’s why I have highlighted the good stuff) from those references, of talks and lessons that refer to personal apostasy from the LDS.org website. My primary purpose in collecting…
The Emotional Apostate: The Case for Leaving to Sin and Offense.
Within the ex-Mormon community…or at least, the ex-Mormon community as it thrives online, on websites, blogs throughout Outer Blogness, forums, etc., there seems to be this common exit narrative. (Daymon Smith has a post deconstructing the synthesis of this new identity, but I couldn’t decipher his blog post well enough…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Women’s Day Edition!!
So, the CoJCoL-dS managed to make it through a whole week without generating a new scandal!! Here’s the latest on the earlier two: In unwanted proxy baptisms, the CoJCoL-dS has solved the problem by keeping people from searching the database. So now, even if you have a legitimate reason to…