By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

Yesterday, we had a combined Relief Society-Priesthood meeting during the third hour where the local directors of the Washington-British Columbia Service Mission came to explain Service Missions and troll for participants. Service Missions are, I think, one of the most important developments in the Church since correlation. Read the rest of this entry »

In reviewing PBS’ The Mormons (to be aired on Monday and Tuesday evening this week), the Mormon church-owned Deseret News is fairly positive, considering it a balanced portrayal of a complicated faith. However, Read the rest of this entry »

The first time I heard a Catholic friend refer to a fellow parishioner as a cafeteria Catholic, I had to have the term explained to me. It was used as a mild pejorative, and in a way that was meant to convey disapproval for someone who was perceived to be picking and choosing which doctrines and practices of the church to accept, in the way one would go through a cafeteria line selecting some dishes and rejecting others.

I have now also heard people talk about cafeteria Mormons, and I’ve wondered if it is legitimate for us to borrow the term. I have concluded that it is not. In the first place, it lacks the catchy alliteration the Catholics get. But there is a larger, more important reason, and it is one of the great secrets of the church. Lean in closer, and I’ll whisper in your ear.

Psst! We are ALL cafeteria Mormons. Read the rest of this entry »

Austria has many charms. PBS is not one of them. Having an insatiable desire to watch The Mormons, I invite kind, DVR/DVD-R savvy BCC readers to email me: ronan at jhu dot edu. I’d be very grateful. As a token of thanks: Austrian chocolate.

Like any other subscriber, I have my first glimpse of each new, freshly printed issue of Dialogue only when it arrives in my mailbox. As editor, I have of course read everything in it perhaps a dozen times already. So I give it a final quick check for errors and, hopefully finding none, set it aside. But when a copy of Sunstone arrives in my mailbox, I soon find time to settle down for a pleasant session of seeing what Dan Wortherspoon and his crew have come up with this time. It’s always a stimulating experience.

For example, in the latest issue of Sunstone, March 2007, I find a brief notice of a new book by Vern G. Swanson, titled Dynasty of the Holy Grail: Mormonism’s Sacred Bloodline, which asserts “that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that Joseph Smith is a direct descendant of that couple” (77). That is a doctrine that continues to startle me even though I can’t even remember how long ago it was when I first encountered it. I don’t think I am bothered by the Jesus/Mary Magdalene marriage business so much as by the direct descendant idea. It seems we Mormons have a need to magnify the Prophet by anointing him with a genetic relationship to Jesus that the rest of us don’t have. Read the rest of this entry »

Can the crazy be saved? Read the rest of this entry »

Tears have not always come easily to me. I remember being at my grandfather’s funeral when I was 14, feeling miserable and wishing I could cry but not being able to summon tears. It had little to do with feeling too manly: my testosterone-overload of a football coach cried before and after every game, while my incredibly sensitive and caring father has cried only once in my presence. In my late 20s, a clutch of tragedies befell people I knew well, and I found I had acquired the ability. And now I can’t stop. Read the rest of this entry »

Every year for Earth Day, I give up a bad habit, some indulgence I love, for my good old friend, the Earth.

It’s like Lent for me and the Earth is Jesus, except the earth never gives me an Easter, resurrection, or the day I can finally go back to my old self again. It’s rough, but somehow I manage in giving these up permanently.

This year, I’ve decided to Read the rest of this entry »

I attended a wonderful funeral this week, wonderful in the sense the Puritans would have intended, a dramatic and frightening occurrence that connected participants to God, both his power and his grace. Read the rest of this entry »

WXRT, Chicago’s premier alternative rock station, does a “Saturday Morning Flashback” each week. Today they are focusing on 1976, the year I graduated from high school. Hearing Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” immediately brought my mind back to my youth growing up in DeKalb, IL. The following is a (slightly edited) memoir of what it was like for me to grow up in the branch there, later a ward, which I wrote for a Ward reunion almost a decade ago. My hope is that others will similarly share reflections of how the wards of their youth shaped them. Read the rest of this entry »

This is an illustration of my bad habit of assuming that people of course already know what I know when responding to questions. Read the rest of this entry »

Whatever else he intended by his comment, I doubt Richard Dutcher was hoping to provide fodder for my blog posts. Nevertheless, Richard’s spiritual journey away from orthodox Mormonism has caused me to reflect on a question that I ponder from time to time: From an LDS perspective, is it heretical to believe that God might have a plan for at least some of His children that entails something other than their joining (or staying a member of) the LDS Church?
Read the rest of this entry »

Those of you lucky enough to be in Salt Lake City this weekend should check out an opening at the David Ericson Gallery. My friend Nathan Florence has a solo show opening there, with an Artist Reception on Friday (April 20) from 6-9. He is a fine fellow, and terrific painter–go see!! Details, and some of Nathan’s work at his website.

There is a post up at Feminist Mormon Housewives that discusses the Kathy Sierra saga and draws lines between “benevolent sexism” and “violent misogyny.” To some degree, whenever I encounter posts like that, my response is always “and…?”

Humans are ethical animals and, as a result, we make value judgments all the time. We all do it. We argue that there are superior and inferior modes of address, dress, behavior, thought, emotion, and so forth. That there are particularly virulent versions (violent misogyny, racism, etc.) doesn’t stop all of us from using milder forms of discrimination. We all judge; it is what we do.
Read the rest of this entry »

Having decided that BCC needs more sauna-talk, M. Norbert Kilmer, our resident Yank-in-Finland, has been permablogged.

Yip Yip!

With Sam’s recent post on alternative therapies in the Mormon corridor, I can’t help but think of our progenitors and their approach to healing. Many in the 19th century hierarchy championed Thomsonian remedies, but even with the professionalizing of Deseret’s medical arts during the latter part of that century, the Saints had great faith in the healing properties of consecrated oil. Read the rest of this entry »

My friend Lloyd is 78 years old. He is English but has lived in the Baltic region since the early 60s, a widower since 1992. He is a complicated man with some major moral flaws, but I adore him, and he is a part of our family. We have lunch together regularly, he often comes to our home in the evening, and when I have time I join his oldtimers’ cafe newspaper reading group. Read the rest of this entry »

In light of recent conversations I’ve had relating to the Mormon culture region (MCR), I wanted to pose a question to the Blogdom. I have been impressed on my encounters here in the MCR to what extent the faith necessary to accommodate golden plates and resurrected angels has been sufficiently strong to encompass other exciting intellectual assertions, like the healing efficacy of silver, the restorative power of chiropraxy (so much more than a backrub but so much less than a religion), and the enormously tempting lucre of nutraceuticals and “health drinks.” MCR Mormons seem to love what is now termed Complementary-Alternative Medicine (CAM) in the canon of social science. Read the rest of this entry »

From time to time I try to encourage people both to subscribe to Dialogue and to contribute manuscripts for publication. Well, now is an excellent time for those who are either students of any age or younger (30 or under, whether or not a student) to try their hand at the latter. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was in the second grade, I entered and won the school Reflections contest. A blue ribbon and a silver dollar. My story was called The Frost Princess and it was about a land perpetually in summer. The sun was always shining, the flowers were in constant bloom, everyone was perfectly happy. Contrary to what you’d expect, the trees and bees and flowers couldn’t take it anymore. They were exhausted by all the upbeatness of summer. They complained to their local princess, every land has one, and she said she knew of a special princess that could help them out. The Frost Princess. After much begging, the Frost Princess finally came and offered winter to the flowers and the trees. She told them they would die a little bit, that it would be cold and snowy and some of them wouldn’t make it through, but summer was so hot and happy that everyone chose winter. Winter came on all the land and the trees and flowers and grass finally got to rest in the cold, snow-covered ground.

At age 8, I believed that I won because each word (word!) was written in a different magic marker color but now I think I must have struck a nerve with some frazzled Mormon PTA mom, longing for a rest. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a dozen thoughts I had the other night, working as a veil worker: Read the rest of this entry »

I was looking for someone’s name in one of my old journals and starting skimming; I came across this entry:

Feb. 7 1997

Last night was stake priesthood. A farce. First talk starts with ten virgins and prodigal son and uses them to say we should be careful with our resources. Is that what Christ meant? Hmm. Then talked about 401Ks and mortgages and whatnot. Very practical I guess. Next was the importance of appearances. White shirts! Get your haircut! No references to scripture. Then came how Christlike attributes will make you more successful in your career, and some advice on career planning for boys. Apparently Monson doesn’t care for basket weaving [1]. Last was an appeal for more fast offerings. No problem, but not spiritual. I can’t believe I dragged [named some YM] there. Like a bad joke by Mencken [2], or from a Sinclair Lewis novel. These are not my people [3]. Weren’t we supposed to consider the lilies?

[1] I think this obscure statement was responding to an anecdote about President Monson, but I don’t recall.
[2] H.L. Mencken: ‘Perhaps the most revolting character that the United States ever produced was the Christian businessman.’
[3] This is a phrase that runs throughout my journals when talking about the church. It’s from a Joe South song.

Read the rest of this entry »