In May 1984, a closeted gay man in a small town in southeastern North Carolina went to see the pastor of his United Methodist congregation. The man Adam was upset and announced that he was leaving the church. When the pastor asked why, Adam replied that he could no longer…
“We do not need more members who question every detail.”
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,…
Preserving Mixed Faith Relationships
Reposting from my blog:http://www.lifeaftermormonism.net/profiles/blogs/preserving-mixed-faith Introduction When you first arrive to the other side of faith, or at least to an opposing side to one or more of your family, friends or acquaintances, there are a few pitfalls in which one could accidentallysabotagean otherwise desirable relationship and fellowship with them. Hopefully…
BOM: The Most Correct of Any Musical?
Joseph Smith famously declared that “The Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth,” which was not to say that it was without error, but simply that “a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” The Book…
Celestial Glory Shall Be Mine
Celestial glory shall be mine if I can but endure. One of the very first songs a Mormon child learns to sing is I Am a Child of God, a very sweet little song that contains within its simple melody and honeyed phrases the essence of Mormon theology. At a…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Surprise, Surprise Edition!
At first I tried not to gather up all the posts about the rapture — partially because it’s too easy to make fun of these folks (and point out the similarities with respectable religion), but also because we’re talking about people who were conned and ripped-off. But I eventually gave…
SAHMs: Who’s got your back?
Parents invest more time and money in their kids than ever, but the shocking lesson of twin and adoption research is that upbringing is much less important than genetics in the long run. There are so many things wrong with Bryan Caplan’s reasoning outlined in this article. I think the…
Masks: Lesbians and Landing Gay Side Up
This post features a Mormon lesbian’s “struggle to be free” and a discussion of Orson Scott Card’s comments on homosexuality. Both accounts originated in comments left on a MetaFilter post. For the last couple of days, I have written about how pleased I was to discover that some of my…
Masks: Its the Longing that Gets You
Mormons are sometimes accused of being insular. Even when we Mormons disagree with or among each other about a policy or practice or doctrine of the LDS Church, we tend to think of these policies, practices and doctrines in uniquely Mormon ways. This is one reason I was delighted to…
Beards, Masks and MetaFilter: New Perspectives
The use of Mormon Beard or beard perpetuates a second class status to ALL straight wives married to gay men, and denotes an ugliness. So wrote a commenter to a post I published last Friday, which was the fifth in a series of posts whose titles began with the words,…