By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

Liberal Mormons love to whine and gripe about their bad experiences with Church authorities.  And seriously, who can blame them?  Think of the poor, assertive relief society sister whose perspective is dismissed or undervalued by the ward brethren.  The gospel doctrine teacher whose open-ended and exploratory style is rejected as not "spiritual" enough.  The thoughtful missionary made to endure the overbearing censure of another hyper-orthodox elder not much older or more mature than he is.  Given Mormonism’s lay priesthood, its rule excluding one of the sexes from formal positions of priesthood authority and what some would describe as a lack of checks and balances at the local level, perhaps Mormon congregational life is a ticking timebomb of bad experiences just waiting to go off!

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Why not continue the heated political topics by wading into stem-cell territory. I’m only really interested in the Church’s perspective and how Latter-day Saints might view the topic. I’ll say up front that I support more stem-cell research, but also admit to being fairly naïve on the topic and can be swayed if someone demonstrates why it’s a bad idea (hopefully with a little more than “it’s a slippery-slope”).

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And so are right wingers. The centrist compromise over judicial nominees struck by 14 members of the senate got me thinking: Should Mormons be centrists? I tend to answer that question in the affirmative. The oft spoken Mormon maxim of "Moderation in all things," seems to apply to politics as much as anything else. As Mormons we should be moderate in our politics. We should look for common ground, build on common beliefs, and avoid extremist views. However, this proposition leads to several problems.

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Kaimi has a new post on women at T&S.  Like many of Kaimi’s posts, this one harps on issues of women bloggers being somehow more inclined towards topical group blogs.  Kaimi is a smart guy, and so his post sounds somewhat reasoned and interesting.

*sigh*

Why are people so interested in issues of essential differences between genders?  Why do some church members constantly test the nature of gender?

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Announcing the creation of a new Mormon periodical –

"Archipelago: a Mormon Studies E-journal"

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Can we be both faithful in the Church and strong analytical thinkers? Here is what I see as the crux of the dilemma for me: I desire more than anything to be faithful to the Lord, the Church, and its leaders. As such, I am prepared to disavow any school of thought, abandon any premise or conclusion, if the Lord, through his prophet, informs me that it should be abandoned. This, of course, is anathema to a good analytical thinker. As a good analytical thinker I should follow the line of reasoning where ever it takes me. In fact, I simply don’t trust academics who have any agenda (any held belief that strongly dissuades them from following the evidence to any destination): it skews their work. They miraculously always arrive at the conclusion that fits their world view.

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Official announcement: our intern, HL Rogers, has successfully completed his internship.  Management, while still skeptical of HL, has agreed nonetheless to extend a permanent position to the young blogger.  All give a hearty welcome to our new permablogger, HL Rogers!

First, let me say that I’m in accord with Laurie’s sentiments below: indeed, there are many things perpetrated by the West with which we should be "outraged." I’m sure she would agree, however, that "outrage" is a two-way street, and that "outrage" is severely lacking in many other parts of the world.

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Just wanted you all to know.  Revenge of the Sith is pretty darned good.

Yesterday at Church, the topic was supposedly the Law of Chastity. Both speakers discussed various aspects of this law. I was somewhat taken back (but not really, as I’ve grown up Mormon) by one particular example of following the Law of Chastity.

This particular speaker shared a story of how her visiting teaching companion came over when she (the speaker) was not home. Naturally, the speaker’s husband answered the door and invited in his wife’s visiting teaching companion. But she (the visitor) boldly declared that she would not enter the house so that there would be no question as to what she had done with her visiting teaching companion’s husband.

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Guest submission from Laurie DiPadova-Stocks

I have been astonished by the utter lack of outrage among the American public regarding a number of things, including the treatment of prisoners by Americans in Iraq. While the national dialogue focuses on steroids, Michael Jackson, and gay marriage, we hear all too little about the ways in which Iraqi prisoners have been tortured by Americans, the methods of which have included denigration of sexual purity and religion. This is only one of many issues that, quite frankly, leaves me puzzled at best–and ashamed at worst. I am not only ashamed that fellow Americans committed these acts, but also that the majority of Americans–and Mormons apparently–cannot find it in themselves to regard these acts as outrageous.

Outrage is a welcomed emotion. It denotes response to a fundamental denial of humanity. I imagine that perhaps the deepest pain suffered by the Christians when they were thrown to the lions in the Coliseum in Rome, is that people were cheering in anticipation at their fear and pain. The thread of common humanity was so thoroughly broken that people actually cheered –they were "beyond feeling"–while their fellow humans were terrified. And no one expressed outrage.

Are we today any more enlightened than the Romans at that time?

The brings to mind one of Thomas Jefferson’s personal books by Henry Home, Lord Kames, entitled Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion. Published in Edinburgh in 1751, it is located in the Thomas Jefferson Collection of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress.

The thesis of the book is that as human nature and society becomes more advanced and enlighted, so will the treatment of prisoners.

Jefferson, as stated in the Library of Congress’s official description of the work, wrote a lengthly response in his tiny handwriting in the book.

Here is the Library of Congress official description:

In Lord Kames’ essay on the Laws of Nations, he observes that they mirror the laws of nature and vary with the nature of man and are refined gradually as human nature and more sense are refined by education, culture, and relection. As an example, he discusses the evolution in the treatment of enemies and prisoners of war, noting that at the current stage of moral development it is a nation that is an enemy, not the individual prisoner. Here, uncharacteristically, Jefferson has written an extensive response, noting this as a "remarkeable (sp.) instance of improvementin the moral sense." He traces the evolution of the treatment of prisioners of war from savage nations putting captives to death to the more humanized Greeks holding captives as slaves for life to the enlightened doctrine that victors have no right to either the life or labor of prisoners. Jefferson suggests that the next step in moral refinement will require the relinquishment of the right of ransom, as well.

Several questions come to mind:

What might Jefferson’s observations be of our society today, as we consider the ways in which we treat prisoners, here and abroad? Are these issues something to be outraged about? Is it appropriate—or not–for Mormons to express outrage over these actions of our government? I live not far from the Liberty Jail. I regard the way the Prophet was treated as outrageous. So do most Mormons when we discuss this topic in Sunday School. Is our silence today less outrageous?

Your thoughts?

An article in Slate today reminds me of how mormons are often perceived as fanatical because we strongly belief in a strict system of rules and practices.  However, as the article points out, strict belief systems are themselves a source of strength for religions: "economist Laurence Iannacone makes the counterintuitive case that people choose to be strictly religious because of the quantifiable benefits their piety affords them, not just in the afterlife but in the here and now."

Is that counterintuitive?  Is that assertion applicable to Mormonism?

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It seems like one of the rules of life is that each generation has to lament the next generation and its utter lack of morals and values. “These kids today!” is often the refrain. This also seems true in the Church, where we’re sometimes presented with a vision of how life used to be straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and if only it could still be so. I frankly think this is largely nonsense. Here’s why.

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The story goes that after Adam and Eve discovered their nakedness, but before they were thrust out of the Garden of Eden, the Lord made clothing for them: "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them" (Gen. 3:21).  Elder Carlos Asay has commented that "They received this clothing in a context of instruction on the Atonement, sacrifice, repentance, and forgiveness (see Moses 5:5-8). The temple garment given to Latter-day Saints is provided in a similar context."

Our temple ceremonies give us a particular view, as laid out by Elder Asay, on the importance of the clothing given to Adam and Eve in the Garden as an instructional tool, a reminder of covenants.  But I also like to think about these coats of skins in the sense of how God prepares us for the world.

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I’ll admit it: I’m a Bill Maher fan. Sure, he can oversimplify things in nicely packaged quips. But I’m a sucker for libertarian boilerplate. On his Friday night show, he was complaining about one of his favorite targets, religion. While discussing the differences between red states and blue states, he pointed out that he knows it’s politically correct to pretend like we’re supposed to respect everyone, regardless of their beliefs and not think less of them. But, he reasoned, this is foolish. You shouldn’t respect people who believe blatantly ridiculous things. Then, he pointed out that Mormons believe in magic underwear.

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