Any etiquette book will tell you: there are certain topics you just don’t bring up in polite society. Any Mormon will tell you: we have a few topics of our own to add to that list. And one of them is the issue of blacks and the priesthood.
Month: March 2005
From the Archives: Losing a Child
Today is my first son’s birthday. Last year on this day, I posted some recollections of our time with him. After reading Russell’s moving post about Tessa, I decided to bring my post out of the archives. You can find it here. My prayers go out to Tessa’s parents.
The Consolation of Doctrine (For Tessa, and All Who Love Her)
Last week my newest niece, Tessa Alene Fox, was buried. I never saw her alive. Neither did anyone else in my family, nor did her parents, though they got to know her, at least little bit, during the nine months she grew inside my sister-in-law’s body. One afternoon, only days before Tessa’s due date, she stopped moving; by the following morning, their doctor confirmed their fears: Tessa was dead. My sister-in-law was induced, and gave birth to her child’s lifeless body without complications later that day. The umbilical cord was wrapped around Tessa’s neck not once, not twice, but four times. It was so tight that the doctor couldn’t unwrap it, but rather had to cut it off.
Mormons and the Law, an Email
Yesterday, my father, who is a currator at the Church Museum in Salt Lake City, asked me to respond to an email that he had recieved from a young man that he had met through his work who was investigating the Church. The young man had heard his LDS girl friend declare that Mormons believe that one should always obey the law, but the young man had heard something about Mormon resistence to polygamy in the 19th century and thought that Mormons had taught that Mormon law always trumped Gentile law. What follows is the email that I wrote to him:
MHA in Vermont
I am planning on attending the MHA Conference in Killington, VT, May 26-29. For details, see here. I see that T&S blogger Kristine is presenting; is anyone else from the Bloggernacle going to be there?
The Weekend With Morrie
In keeping with my general practice of coming very late to cultural phenomena, I finally read Tuesdays With Morrie last weekend.
An undiscovered continent
Overheard in passing — “No, no, we’re an archipelago. Not like those monolithic group blogs. We’re not Wal-mart or Target; we’re a mere loose association of web sites. It’s not like we have a group web page or anything . . .” . . . Welcome to the dark side, boys.
Church and State
Does my religion (Mormonism) affect my politics? Of course it does.
The Problems of the Great Apostasy
One the bed-rock doctrines of Mormonism (to the extent that we have any bed-rock doctrines) is that the church set up by Christ fell away from the true gospel, lost its priesthood authority, and slipped into apostasy. It seems to me that we have two fundamental problems with the doctrine of the Great Apostasy.
Nauvoo Trivia
My family moved to Illinois in 1965 when I was seven years old. Every year for vacation we drove back to visit relatives in Utah, and every year on the way we spent a couple of days in Nauvoo and Carthage. I continue to live in Illinois, so I’ve been there at least a couple of dozen times now.
Gizoogling Times and Seasons
Do you ever find yourself wondering, “whizzay is a Proclamizzles anyway?” Did you ever want to read lines like “England took tha position that tha marriage relatizzles in tha Celestial Kingdom wizzle be monogizzle not polygizzles”? Or want to hear Nate Oman wax eloquent “In Memory of tha Metaphysizzle Elda”? You’re in luck.
Self-Aware Blogging?
There’s a new meme in the bloggernacle, and it’s self-awareness. The folks over at Various Stages are discussing the concept of self-consciousness (with some input from itinerant philosophers). Meanwhile, Ebenezer is wondering (in between some scandalous confessions about kissing) exactly how and why we construct our own bloggernacle identities. Finally, Geoff has a heartfelt post asserting a claim with which I wholeheartedly agree: God reads the bloggernacle. It’s an interesting confluence of posts: Are we self-aware? Should we be self-aware as we blog? Is God watching us? Should he be? Should we be “ourselves” on our blogs? Or is that even possible? I’m sure that there are interesting answers to these questions. However, I’m not certain that I’m self-aware enough myself to have any of those answers.
Book Review Schedule
If you want to review a book, send me the title and your street address. There’s a category called Book Reviews for your posts. When you post the review, I’ll send the link to the publisher. Please don’t sit on the book forever. I’ll keep a running list of everything requested. God on the Quad (Adam) (St. Martin’s Press) DONE Black and Mormon (Julie) (U of Illinois) DONE The Latter-day Saint Experience in America (Julie) (Greenwood) DONE David O. McKay: Beloved Prophet (Julie) (Covenant) DONE David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Julie) (U of Utah) A Different Jesus? The Christ of the Latter-day Saints (Julie) (Eerdmans) Eve and the Mortal Journey (Julie) (Deseret) DONE Women of Eternity, Women in Zion (Julie) (Cedar Fort) Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Matt) (Oxford) Sexing the Church: Gender, Power and Ethics in Contemporary Catholicism (Melissa) (Indiana U Press) Faithful Transgressions in the American West (Melissa) Women in Mark’s Gospel (Julie) (T & T Clark International) DONE Back to the Well: Women’s Encounters With Jesus in the Gospels (Julie) (Westminster John Knox) Opening the Heavens (BYU Press) (Kaimi) DONE Qualities that Count (BYU Press) (Julie) DONE A…
Celestial Polygamy
About 18 years ago, Eugene England published his essay, “On Fidelity, Polygamy, and Celestial Marriage,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 20/4 (Winter 1987): 138-54, which has since been reprinted in a couple of different venues. A copy is available at the University of Utah Dialogue archive, here. This article was an exercise in speculative theology, in which England took the position that the marriage relationship in the Celestial Kingdom will be monogamous, not polygynous.
Richard Dutcher on Mormon Cinema
Noted LDS filmmaker Richard Dutcher recently addressed the Southern California-based Miller-Eccles Study Group.
Respite
Sundays are a nice break during the session. Though I like being stopped by constituents to discuss issues in the store or at a restaurant, I used to bristle that every other conversation at church is on some issue the legislature is facing. I thought there should be one place I could just relax.