By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog
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Last night I attended a small interfaith dialogue dinner between Muslims and Mormons at Georgetown University. It was lovely. I made new friends.
One anecdote made me laugh. Prior to the event, Georgetown’s imam told Georgetown’s Mormon interfaith coordinator to —not— post the flier to Latter-day Saint groups and listserves in DC. Why? “Because if you do, then too many Mormons will show up.” [Read more…]
Come Follow Me Manual Recommended Readings: Matthew 3 (quoting Isaiah 40); Mark 1; Luke 3; John 1.
Upfront Note: In preparing my BCC Sunday School lesson this week, I realized my content was divided into two major chunks — one whimsical about Godspell, and one academic about the history of baptism. For ease of use and commentary, I’m publishing them as two separate back-to-back posts.
Come Follow Me Manual Recommended Readings: Matthew 3 (quoting Isaiah 40); Mark 1; Luke 3; John 1.
Upfront Note: In preparing my BCC Sunday School lesson this week, I realized my content was divided into two major chunks — one whimsical about Godspell, and one academic about the history of baptism. For ease of use and commentary, I’m publishing them as two separate back-to-back posts. Part 2 is here.
In discussing the advance of women’s rights, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has often remarked that when we set women on a pedestal, we actually lock them in a cage.
I’ve been wondering lately whether the same could be said about God. (And even more so, Heavenly Mother.) When we consign our Heavenly Parents to a throne of glory in the distant heavens, we’re actually locking them behind human constructs of divinity. We’re building a wall of checkpoints and purity standards, then barring all we deem unholy or unclean from approaching their mercy.
Our all-to-common vision of God on a celestial pedestal gets it all backwards. To borrow a phrase from Rachel Held Evans’s latest book Inspired: our God stoops. [Read more…]
Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.
For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him. (D&C 18:10)
I learned an important truth this year: the worth of souls bears no relationship to a soul’s “worthiness.”
A year ago I left the corporate world to pursue my civil rights lawyer dream. One aspect of my new work is fighting for Muslims’ right to follow the pillars of Islam in prison. My first visit to prison will forever stand as one of the most spiritual days of my life. I met with humble men who frankly admitted their mistakes, implored God to grant them the mercy to improve, and asked for an opportunity to practice their faith in peace. They sought to better the religious experience not just for themselves, but for all of their brothers and sisters. Sitting with them, I glimpsed the depth of God’s abundant love.
I may have been physically sitting with convicted criminals behind seven layers of lockdown security, but spiritually I stood with angels on hallowed ground. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. (Romans 8:38). Prisons that day became my temples. For I was in prison, and ye visited me. (Matthew 25:36). [Read more…]
In 2019, By Common Consent will enter its 15th year of Bloggernaccle existence. The state of our imperfect union of informal bloggers is strong: 2018 clocked in as second only to 2015* in total traffic. As the sun sets on 2018 , I thought I’d compile some highlights. [Read more…]
The Victory-for-Satan Newsroom announced this afternoon that sister missionaries can wear dress pants.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!
But as I take a breath between celebrating, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect. [Read more…]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints just published a glossy series of 90-second explanations of our core temple practices.
I’m amazed at how much demystifying content these videos succeed in outlining in less than seven minutes of total video time.
Here are the highlights.
It’s holiday party season! Which means your friends and coworkers, in joyful and relaxed environments, may foist upon you cocktails, wines, and dessert bar coffee.
You’re all experts now at saying “no thank you.” You’ve read my summer guide for professional Mormons navigating “coffee breaks” and “happy hours.” There I explained that in the vast majority of circumstances, no one will notice or care that you’re not imbibing coffee or alcohol.
Sometimes, though — especially with amiable colleagues and jokester friends who know you’re a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — the religious dimensions of your teetotaler ways might surface. You can sidestep the topic if you want. But you don’t have to!
Let’s take a common scenario. Over brunch, a colleague might make an offhand remark while stirring her latte. “Mormons aren’t allowed to have caffeine, right? I don’t know how you survive.”
You could say “that’s essentially correct.” Or you could dangle a half-answer as bait.
“Technically, the Mormon prohibition is not on caffeine.” [Read more…]
This post started as a reaction to President Dallin H. Oaks’s commentary on religious freedom published Tuesday in the Deseret News. It morphed into a Christmastime commentary on social justice. It still dissects Oaks’s words, but that’s relegated to the very end.
Born into humble circumstances. Trained as a carpenter. Rejected as a prophet. Crucified as a rabble-rouser because he dared speak truth to both secular and religious oppressive power. Jesus Christ is my model of an activist. [Read more…]
I’ve always accepted the scientific consensus surrounding carbon emissions, greenhouse gasses, the ozone layer, and climate change. But for a long time I elected to not care.
Why? Because I bought into the folk doctrines that God created the Earth’s resources to be used, that a global temperature rise of 1-2 degrees over 100 years isn’t material, and in any event, Christ’s imminent Second Coming would renew the Earth and fix everything before disaster struck.
As a religious studies student in college, I once wrote a paper on Isaac Newton’s eschatological prediction that the Second Coming would happen in 2060. Thereafter in casual conversation, I used the 2060 date to support my religious opinion that climate change would never matter. (“The worst predictions don’t even start until 2100 — Jesus will have come back well before then!”) One afternoon at the Indiana University LDS Institute, I tried that line on a Ph.D. student studying ecology. Our resulting discussion did not end well for me. [Read more…]
I’m married! Which means some of my acquaintances have mysteriously stopped calling me “Carolyn Homer” and started calling me variations on “Mrs. Carolyn Jones.”
My name has not changed. It will not change. I am “Carolyn Homer” for life. I anticipate and will be amused by occasional mix-ups — but my name is my name. Names matter.
Hopefully my decision is no longer viewed as a big deal. But I’ve gotten a bit of pushback from more conservative/traditional corners, including from within the Church. So for slightly whimsical explanatory sake, here are the reasons why I’m keeping my name, ranked.
15. Jones is a boring last name. It’s a Top 5 most common surname in America, held by millions. I am not a boring person.
14. I never want to be the target of a “keeping up with the Joneses” joke. Ever. [Read more…]
With the Vatican’s approval, I’m marrying my Catholic fiancé in St. Mary’s Basilica in Old Town Alexandria this Saturday. Yay! I’m so excited to celebrate true love, surrounded by my family and friends.
Some of those family and friends are a little befuddled. As a former hyper-devoted Mormon, I can see the confusion in their eyes, the unstated curiosity about why I’m not marrying in the temple. Only a few have ventured to ask the question directly.
I believe it is important to give an honest answer. This is my story. [Read more…]
My sister Cheryl called me this morning, annoyed at a procedure her Indiana stake just used to call a new counselor in her Stake Presidency. An old counselor had moved and been released between Stake Conferences, so the new one was called and sustained during an interim Stake Priesthood meeting.
“This isn’t like an Elders Quorum President,” Cheryl mused. “A Stake Counselor doesn’t just serve men in his quorum, he has stewardship over the entire stake. But he can be set apart without a single woman knowing about the calling or sustaining him?” [Read more…]
“Do you have Priesthood approval for that gathering?”
It’s a question I’ve heard numerous times, and it’s always bothered me.
Over the years, across the country and even the world, I’ve participated in many informal gospel study groups. They’ve often sat at the core of my social circles and been the site of some of my powerful spiritual insights. [Read more…]
Dear Elder Holland,
A week ago I expressed concern with your Facebook post that included some marriage advice. I was most concerned about how victims of abuse would hear rhetoric that “you can make the marriage you want” and “your priesthood leaders will know” when “there is a legitimate exception” justifying divorce.
Yesterday, I was grateful for your talk on peace. Christ is the Prince of Peace, the source of healing for all pain and for all contention. We should live together in love, and seek forgiveness and reconciliation with our imperfect brothers and sisters. This is a core gospel truth.
Amidst this message on peace, I appreciated that you acknowledged what healing and forgiveness is, and what it isn’t. [Read more…]
Dear Elder Holland,
We need to talk about today’s Facebook post.
I love that you and Pat have such an amazing marriage. I love your folksy and relatable advice about laughing at mistakes, and being quick to forgive, and remaining committed to conflict resolution and a long-term vision of happiness.
I appreciate, too, that amidst the cheerful marriage advice you throw in an exception: “I realize there may be an abusive or violent situation giving a legitimate reason to get out of a marriage.” I have long noticed, and appreciated, that you are consistent in condemning verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse and recognizing that exception.
It is out of respect for your advocacy that I am writing. Because your next sentence, no matter how well-intentioned, will be destructive to many abuse victims: “When there is a legitimate exception, you’ll know, your priesthood leaders will know, and God will know.” [Read more…]
The first time I heard the word “masturbation,” I was 12 years old and sitting in my bishop’s office.
I believe we were discussing a limited use recommend for an upcoming temple trip. I remember the bishop walking through the 1990 version of For the Strength of Youth, which used a lot of large, sexual words I did not know — like “petting” and “perversion” and “pornography.”
My bishop defined them for me. When he realized I had no idea what he was talking about, he apologized. He explained how due to the evils of the world, children were getting exposed to sex and having their innocence corrupted by Satan younger and younger. As much as he hated the topic, he felt like it was his pastoral duty to make sure the youth knew what constituted sin.
I don’t often bear my testimony in Church, but when I do, it’s about Christ’s love.
This last Sunday, I bore my testimony because I was struck by how beautiful the practice of fast and testimony meeting is. I know we often crack jokes about it being “open mike Sunday,” where our fellow congregants make some of the kookiest statements. But for me, the fact that every single member is invited to speak about faith and struggles and answers to prayers is what makes each first Sunday so refreshing. It’s the favorite meeting of my Catholic fiancé, too, because it so starkly contrasts from high-church liturgy and Priest-perfected edicts.
I find testimony meetings beautiful because they’re so imperfect. We talk about the Church being “true,” but what resonates as most “true” to me is the frank acknowledgment of community imperfections. [Read more…]
Every few years, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announces that “Mormon” is a term that should not describe us. See 1979, 1990, 2011. (See BCC coverage of the last attempt.)
Rather, as today’s announcement proclaims, we are members of the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”, or “the restored gospel of Jesus Christ” for short. The new style guide also states the “LDS” abbreviation is disfavored.
These attempts to set aside “Mormonism” as a descriptor have never stuck. I am all in favor of talking, preaching, and prophesying of Christ more frequently. But “Mormon” is too deeply embedded in our lexicon to write out. It’s a pithy shorthand for our most distinguishing characteristic — belief in the Book of Mormon as another Testament of Jesus Christ. [Read more…]
Indiana is my home. I grew up north of Indianapolis, in the suburbs of Hamilton County. This is what my part of Indiana looks like — abundant greenery, small country hills, midwestern sunsets, cornfields.
Hamilton County is one of the reddest counties in a red state. It’s filled with upper-middle class suburbs, booming megachurches, top-tier public school districts, and well-funded infrastructure and government. It’s an amazing place to raise a family. I learned love and community and hard work there.
[Read more…]
For as much as Mormons appropriate from evangelicals, I’m surprised we’ve never stolen the Proverbs 31 woman.
In A Year of Biblical Womanhood, Rachel Held Evans dedicates a chapter to the evangelical emphasis on Proverbs 31 as a guide to all things righteous feminine. “Visit a Christian bookstore, and you will find entire women’s sections devoted to books that extol her virtues and make them applicable to modern wives. At my Christian college, guys described their ideal date as a ‘P31 girl,” and young women looking to please them held a ‘P31 Bible Study.’” The Proverbs 31 woman “looms so large over the biblical womanhood ethos” that many Christian view the passage “as a task list” to which they must comply in order to become perfect housewives and win the favor of men. [Read more…]
The White House commemorated Pioneer Day yesterday.
Its issued statement is thick with irony, however, as it omits any indication that the White House actually understands the lessons learned from our blessed, honored Pioneers.
Mormon Pioneers are best honored by putting our shoulder to the wheel and crafting policies that enable modern-day Pioneers to thrive. Today’s Pioneers are immigrants and refugees.
So here you go, White House, I rewrote your statement for you: [Read more…]
Ah, summer. That glorious time of year when young Mormons break out of their BYU / CES cohort cocoons and take internships and entry-level jobs amidst us coastal heretics.
Every year since I, a young grasshopper, first engaged in this ritual 10+ years ago, I hear Mormons ask the same questions time and time again. For those just leaving Zion and entering Babylon, I’ve prepared this handy guide to common workplace dilemmas.
The “Coffee Break” Problem
Yesterday I was asked to give a two-minute speech at the protest iftar in front of the White House. The entire event featuring Muslim and interfaith leaders was livestreamed. (My speech alone is here.) The protest iftar’s purpose was to highlight that the Trump Administration had intentionally excluded American Muslims from its contemporaneous iftar.
As-Salaam Alaikum and Ramadan Mubarak. My name is Carolyn Homer. I am a Mormon and a civil rights attorney at CAIR.
When Donald Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” the Mormon Church responded by proclaiming that we are “not neutral in relation to religious freedom.” I took action by joining CAIR. It is my faith that compels me to defend the Constitution against this Administration. [Read more…]
In every singles ward I’ve ever attended, there have been predators.
Often they are charming, talented, witty men. Often they are proactive about quoting prophets and volunteering for service projects and asking women on dates. To their fellow Elders Quorumites, the predators are often indistinguishable from ordinary Priesthood holders.
But women suspect trouble. Stories of terrible dates, of over-aggressive advances, of nasty breakups and refusing to respect boundaries, quietly percolate among Relief Societies. When these women see a creepy or known threat approaching a friend, they quietly pull her aside and whisper a word of warning. [Read more…]
Lesson Objective: To understand the Judges pride cycle, and celebrate the leadership of righteous women.
Introduction: This lesson attempts to grapple with a lot of material — the entire Book of Judges. Judges is a mish-mash of Biblical stories, told in dramatic narrative but not necessarily chronological order, falling between the eras of Joshua and Solomon. [Read more…]
“Whoever witnesses the crescent of the month, he must fast the month.” [Al Baqarah, 2:185]
Wish your Muslim friends a blessed Ramadan today. Then ask them whether they are fasting starting today or tomorrow. Prepare to be fascinated by their answer.
Why? Because the official start of Ramadan is a subject of mass theological, scientific, and geographic debate. The best Mormon analog I’ve come up with so far is our spirited conversations about the nuances of the Word of Wisdom.
The #MeToo movement is a stone cut from the mountain of silent victims’ pain, rolling forth to break in pieces the corrupt and powerful institutions of this world.
Abuse is no respecter of victims. Religious and secular, clergy and celebrities, liberal and conservative, rich and poor, women and men. #MeToo stories infect every community — our friends and families, our churches and coworkers. Hypocrisy is rampant.
Victims who speak out are prophets, calling the world to repentance.
The world is listening. You are listening. As #MeToo has erupted, I hear the same questions again and again from concerned observers with desires to help.
I believe victims, I know abuse happens, but I don’t know who they are.
Someone close to me is in a terrible relationship. I’m listening, but I don’t know what to do.
How can I help? [Read more…]
Carolyn at the impromptu Muslim Ban protest march on January 29, 2017
The Supreme Court hears arguments on the Muslim Ban tomorrow. I’ll be in the courtroom, and with hundreds of civil rights supporters at the rally on the courthouse steps. Join me. As the Fourth Circuit has declared, the Muslim Ban violates the Establishment Clause and is “unconstitutionally tainted with animus towards Islam.”
Everytime I talk to Muslim friends, colleagues, and even taxi drivers, I hear the same themes over and over again – children bullied as “terrorists” at school, women harangued for wearing headscarfs (with aggressors sometimes forcibly yanking religious headcoverings off), graffiti and vandalism to businesses, threats and firebombs at mosques.
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