The New FTSOY: Let Them Govern Themselves(?)

October 23, 2022 by

M. David Huston lives and works in the Washington DC metro area. He is a husband and father of four who has previously written for poetry, international affairs, and LDS-related publications.

Like many, I was genuinely pleased when I reviewed the recently released For the Strength of Youth (FTSOY) pamphlet. As Elder Deiter F. Uchtdorf explains, the new “guide”—a word that did not appear on the cover of older versions of FTSOY—“focuses on values, principles, and doctrine instead of every specific behavior.” Gone are the specific lists of “standards” to which youth are encouraged to adhere. (See here for a very good comparison of the 2011 and 2022 versions of FTSOY.) Of this shift, Uchtdorf states, “Is it wrong to have rules? Of course not. We all need them every day. But it is wrong to focus only on rules instead of focusing on the Savior.” Fundamentally, it seems, the new FTSOY is premised on an idea as old as the restoration itself: prophets teach people correct principles and the people govern themselves.

But letting go of lists can be so hard — especially when the items on those lists have become a visible part of our culture.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Church Programs, Family, General Conference, Guest Post, Mormons!, TCoJCoLDS, Young Men, Young Women Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

$906 Million

October 7, 2022 by

The church recently released its 2021 Annual Report. The church’s Annual Reports detail its humanitarian and social safety-net endeavors.[fn1] These endeavors should come as no surprise: as in years past, the church has been tremendously active in providing food, clean water, education, and vaccinations, among other things. It engages in these activites on its own and it partners with other charitable organizations.

The aid it provides is unsurprising because it’s the same kinds of things the church has highlighted in previous Annual Reports.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Church Programs, Current Events, Economics, Modern Era Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Setting Apart Our Daughters to Prepare and Pass the Sacrament

September 20, 2022 by

M. David Huston lives and works in the Washington DC metro area. He is a husband and father of four who has previously written for poetry, international affairs, and LDS-related publications.

“Dad, can I ask you a question about the priesthood?” my daughter inquired on a recent Saturday afternoon. 

“Sure… let’s hear it,” I encouraged.

“In our church we believe that when women are set apart to do a calling, they fulfil that calling using the priesthood.  Is that right?”

I affirmed that she was correct. “Yes, that is what Elder Oaks explained back in 2014. He said that when women act in any calling they exercise priesthood authority in performing duties associated with that calling.”

My daughter nodded at my reply (I guess she knew she was right), and continued along these lines: “Then why can’t the Bishop just call the young women to be ‘sacrament passers’ or ‘sacrament preparers’ and then set them apart to do the calling? I mean, if the church is going to keep saying that the priesthood is needed to do those things, and if women have access to the priesthood through callings, then by calling the young women to these responsibilities and setting them apart they should have all the priesthood they need… right?” She made eye-contact with me and waited patiently for a reply.

I took a few beats to think about her suggestion (honestly something I’d never considered before, at least not in the way she presented it).  “You know what?” I said, “that makes sense to me; I don’t know why we couldn’t do that.”  And with that, my daughter gave a little shrug and walked out of the room.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Gender & Sexuality, Guest Post, Theology, Theology, Doctrine & Policy, Women, Young Women Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Adverbs of Zion

September 13, 2022 by

“Majestically? Does that have a musical definition I don’t know about?”

When my non-musical Catholic husband whispered this question during sacrament meeting a few weeks ago, he opened my eyes to one of our hymnbook’s quirks. Alongside their time signatures, every one of our 341 hymns includes an adverb.* These aren’t the traditional Italian adverbs with classical meanings, like “allegro” or “andante.” Instead they seem to be rough English descriptions meant to cue stylings separate from speed.

As an organist I find these descriptors helpful. Even if a hymn has the same time signature, I’m more likely to pull out the trumpet stop for “majestically” and the dulciana stop for “prayerfully.” When I tried to explain this musical approach, my husband started flipping through the hymnbook and making fun of all the other adverbs. “Earnestly?” “Expressively?” “Resolutely?” Would the minor word difference actually change my musical choices? He theorized a bored 1980s hymnbook editor had just pulled out a thesaurus, knowing the exact adverb meanings wouldn’t matter since amateur LDS organists notoriously play everything too soft and too slow.

Curious, I came home and decided to map out the hymnbook’s adverbs.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Church Programs, Media, Music Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

New Institute Class: towards a “pedagogy of the question”?

August 26, 2022 by
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

David Aubril is a French teacher and regular BCC guest blogger. He follows with great interest the contemporary debates on Gospel and Church matters from France.

I recently received an email from the Church about a new Institute class, “Finding answers to our questions“. I went through the materials and found it very interesting. Lesson 3, in particular, questions the idea that “it is inappropriate to ask questions regarding the doctrine, teachings, policies, and history of the Church” and encourages students to accept their questions as part of the faith process. Elder Uchtdorf explains: “Inquiry is the birthplace of testimony. Some might feel embarrassed or unworthy because they have searching questions regarding the gospel, but they needn’t feel that way. Asking questions isn’t a sign of weakness ; it’s a precursor of growth.”

Will that new class initiate a shift in our teaching practices?

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Guest Post, Mormon, Sunday School, TCoJCoLDS, Theology, Doctrine & Policy, Young Men, Young Women Tagged With: , , , , ,

Care and Leading of Church Musicians

July 7, 2022 by
Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash

Gail Homer Berry has served in ward and stake music roles since the age of 12. She recently moved to Indiana along with her husband, five sons, and conclave of contumacious stuffed animals.

When I was 14, I was walking out of church to go home and break my fast – when the missionaries pounced and asked me to play piano for a baptism starting in fifteen minutes. My mom pushed back, but the missionaries guilted me into agreeing. Mom sighed and promised to come back for me, then wrangled my siblings home. Halfway through the baptism, I began to feel terrible. The room spun, my vision went pixelated with black spots, and I started shaking. A good accompanist blends into the background, and a “good” Molly Mormon is modest and selfless, so I pushed through –barely– without interrupting the service. (Fortunately this medical panic was just low blood sugar from the extended fast plus puberty.) After that, I told the missionaries they needed to ask me a week in advance. Instead, they tried the same stunt three weeks later. I refused and walked away as they panicked.

I have an unusual perspective on church music callings: I was first sustained as a ward organist at 13 even though I couldn’t play the organ. I learned a lot, and I was essential to the ward’s worship, but I was also minimized, dismissed, and even exploited.  I logged many Sundays in which I put in an aggregate of 7 hours: playing for choir practice, Sacrament Meeting, Primary, a baptism, and a youth fireside, plus all the prelude and postlude.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Church Programs, Guest Post, Music, Primary Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Missionaries’ Discomfort: A Parent’s Perspective

June 23, 2022 by
Photo by Kiwihug on Unsplash

Last year, Elder Kopischke’s talk on mental health finally spoke of missionaries’ discomfort. But as things go back to normal after the pandemic, and Church leaders repeatedly ask young men to prepare to serve missions, I feel that there are some more things that need to be said.

I remember attending a youth meeting a few years ago in Western Europe. One of the highlights of this meeting was the broadcast of several videos of missionaries performing wonders: a team of sisters taught dozens of investigators by video conference, a team of Elders had made a video that had been viewed 180,000 times.  Instead of inspiring me, however, these perfect stories made me worried that any missionary who is not as successful will doubt their faith or self-worth.  Missionary work should not be measured by clicks or other quantified goals.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Church Programs, Guest Post, Missionary, Young Men Tagged With: , , , , ,

Resources for My Mixed Faith Marriage

May 11, 2022 by

Rachael lives in Arizona with her husband and three kiddos. They moved to the desert from the green hills of Virginia where she did a PhD in religious history and gender. 

Early in our marriage, my husband and I joined the growing ranks of mixed faith marriages when it became clear his spiritual path no longer tracked with the LDS church. Such marriages have risen from around 20% in the 1960s to around 40% or more today, but while we are in considerable company, that didn’t make me feel better about our prospects. Naomi Schaefer Riley’s survey of interfaith couples in Til Faith Do Us Part not only found these marriages were significantly more likely to end in divorce, but in those that remained intact, the families tended to be less religiously observant and parents were more likely to delegate their children’s religious instruction to institutions outside the family.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Children, Comparative/Ecumenical, Family, Guest Post, Marriage, Primary, Religion Tagged With: , , , , ,

Gender and the LDS Church in the Global South, Part 2

March 16, 2022 by

Participants in various geographies valued their church membership for helping them differentiate themselves from the ‘outside’ culture. Fijian participants valued the church’s progressiveness (see Part 1); US and NZ participants valued the church’s respect for motherhood. Furthermore, responses to the 2019 temple updates reveal a gap in priorities between Fijian, US, and NZ participants.

An ethnographic introduction to issues of gender and religion in the Global South.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Children, Church Programs, Doctrine & Policy, Family, Gender & Sexuality, Marriage, Men, Modern Era, Mormon, Mormon Studies, Women Tagged With: , , , , ,

“Lead Out in Abandoning Attitudes and Actions of Prejudice”

February 8, 2022 by

Note: between when I drafted this post and when I scheduled it to go live, Bro. Wilcox apologized for his statement. And it’s a real-deal kind of apology, not a squishy avoiding-blame one; in fact, it’s a model for one step of precisely what I hoped for. I’m still going to posting for two reasons. First, while apology is a critical part of repenting, it is not the only step. And second, I don’t think this was primarily an individual problem–there is an underlying institutional problem that his comments highlighted and his apology didn’t and couldn’t change. But I’m making some changes to what I previously wrote in light of his apology.

Last weekend, Bradley Wilcox, second counselor in the Young Men’s general presidency and associate teaching professor of ancient scripture at BYU-Provo, gave a youth fireside in Alpine, UT. Somewhere in the fireside he asked, rhetorically, why Black church members didn’t get the priesthood until 1978. (To be clear, his framing of the question is wrong: in the first decades of the church, a number of Black men received the priesthood; it wasn’t until 1852 that Brigham Young imposed the priesthood-and-temple ban on Black members.)

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Current Events, Internet & Social Media, Modern Era, Mormon, Mormons!, Race, Society & Culture, Young Men Tagged With: , , , , , ,

She shall believe or she shall be destroyed: D&C 121 and 132

October 28, 2021 by

Laura Brignone (PhD, MSW) is a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley where she studies technology and domestic violence. This is Part 4 in a six-part series on the domestic violence implications of D&C 121 and 132. Find Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5 and Part 6 here.

Doctrine and Covenants 132 introduces the law, covenant or doctrine of plural marriage. It poses a significant challenge to many readers and teachers in the church, especially women, and especially domestic violence survivors. Originally articulated as a private document in 1843, it was the only surviving written record explicitly describing plural marriage after Joseph Smith’s death. [1] Joseph F. Smith reflected in 1878 that, when written, the text “was not then designed to go forth to the church or to the world. It is most probable that had it been then written with a view to its going out as a doctrine of the church, it would have been presented in a somewhat different form.”

Time and language have only evolved since 1878; read now, the language used to present D&C 132 mirrors the rhetoric and origin of abusive relationships. While the language in D&C 121 relates to the priesthood and abuse across a wide variety of relationships, the language in D&C 132 specifically mirrors the origin and pattern of intimate partner violence against women, or, abuse perpetrated by a man against a woman he has ever dated, been married to, or with whom he shares a child in common.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Doctrine & Policy, Guest Post, Joseph Smith Era, Modernly Revealed, Mormon, Mormon Studies, Pre-Manifesto Era, Scriptures, Sunday School, Theology, Theology, Doctrine & Policy, Women Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Grading the Church’s Pandemic Response

August 4, 2021 by
Photo by Daniel Schludi on Unsplash

Almost a year and a half into the pandemic, I’ve been thinking about how the church has responded to it. And [deeply fatherly voice]: I’m so disappointed.

It didn’t have to be this way, of course. The church started out great, cancelling all church meetings at the front end of when we (in the U.S., anyway) realized this was a serious problem. But since then, it hasn’t done a lot to deal with this unprecedented (in recent memory, anyway) worldwide issue.

There are two main areas that really stoke my fatherly disappointment: vaccines and the return to the status quo.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Church Programs, Health & Medicine, Modern Era, Mormon Tagged With: , , ,

Prejudice Against Me Among Professors of Religion

January 12, 2021 by
Ben P L, “The First Vision.” Public domain

Sunday evening, my family and I were reading Joseph Smith–History in a not-quite-too-late bid to keep up with the Sunday School reading. And, although I’ve read the first 26 verses plenty of times before, something whetted my curiosity this time.

See, in v. 19, the Personage tells Joseph that all of the creeds were an abomination and that “those professors were all corrupt.” A few verses later, Joseph talks about how his story “excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion.”

I’d always taken for granted that these professors of religion were religious elites, presumably teachers at seminaries or colleges–the caretakers of institutional religion at the time. After all, that’s kind of how we collectively teach and read these passages. (Don’t believe me? Well, the footnote to “professors” in v. 19 references “False Prophets” in the Topical Guide, which at least implies some degree of authority and religious eliteness.)

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Joseph Smith Era, Mormon, Sunday School Tagged With: , , ,

No More Disposition to Speak Evil: A Lesson Plan to Address Racism in the Church

January 9, 2021 by
Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

Here is a lesson plan for BCC readers who need a Sunday School or Relief Society/Elder’s Quorum lesson to address white nationalism. I welcome constructive feedback and will update this lesson plan periodically to incorporate it, so that it can be a living resource for the future.

Opening Hymn: “I’m Trying to be Like Jesus“

Objective: Teach members how to use the peaceable doctrine of Christ to confront concrete examples of racism in their everyday lives.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Anciently Revealed, Church Programs, Current Events, Doctrine & Policy, EQ/HP, General Conference, Modern Era, Modernly Revealed, Mormon, Race, Relief Society, Religion, Scriptures, Society & Culture, Sunday School, Theology, Doctrine & Policy, Young Men, Young Women Tagged With: , , , , ,

Birthday, Baptism, Pandemic

August 20, 2020 by

My son was supposed to be baptized a few months ago. His grandparents had tickets to come to Chicago. He was ready to invite his best friend from school and some other friends who, while not Mormon, have come to all of my kids’ baptisms to love and support them.

And then a global pandemic hit. My parents had to cancel their flight. The church shut down its meetings and its buildings. We worked to recover.

These days my son goes back and forth on when he wants to be baptized. He’d really like to wait until his grandparents can share the day with him but, because of age and health conditions, his grandparents can’t really travel here until there’s a vaccine and they’re able to get the vaccine. While we’re hoping for early 2021, who knows if it will happen before another birthday rolls around.

Which leads me to a question: what is the church going to do about these pandemic-delayed baptisms? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Children, Doctrine & Policy, Primary Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Toward a Humble Church

July 13, 2020 by

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A decade ago, I sat despondent in Relief Society during a lesson on humility. Law school exams were fast approaching and I felt overwhelmed. An arbitrary system was about to base 100% of my grades on half-day tests. Regardless of my objective mastery of the material, the system was designed to force competition against my smart and talented peers. I would be graded on a strict curve. Those grades would then be aggregated to assign my relative class rank. Without a sufficiently high class rank employers would flick my resume into the recycle bin. My future career was at stake. The legal job market was deep in a recession. I feared failure, and that my student loans would never be repaid.

I sighed and decided to interpret the lesson as a chastisement. I needed to repent and learn humility. I needed to learn “a modest or low view of my own importance.” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Comparative/Ecumenical, Doctrine & Policy, General Conference, Liturgy, Mormon, Relief Society, Religion, Scriptures, Theology, Theology, Doctrine & Policy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Religious Freedom vs. Public Interest (Working Women)

July 9, 2020 by

I dissent.

Let me start off by being clear that I am not a lawyer (on a blog with many lawyers). I have multiple decades of experience as a business executive in large corporations, overseeing the employment of thousands of people. As an executive, I understood very well what the applicable anti-discrimination laws were. Now that I’m a small business owner, I also recognize that many of those laws are not required for me, but based on my personal conviction and principles, I still run my business as if they do.

In a 7-2 decision, SCOTUS recently upheld a completely discriminatory ruling to allow employers (that are not directly affiliated with any church) to refuse to cover birth control in their employee healthcare plans. This decision rests firmly on a few shaky foundational assumptions: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Children, Church Programs, Current Events, Economics, Education, Family, Gender & Sexuality, Media, Mormon, Politics, Rants, Religion, Society & Culture, Theology, Doctrine & Policy, Women

Review: 1st Nephi: a brief theological introduction

May 27, 2020 by

Joseph Spencer, 1st Nephi: a brief theological introduction (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2020)

If you’re anything like me, you can relate the story of 1st Nephi in your sleep. Lehi, a goodly parent, has a dream that warns him to leave Jerusalem with his family. They go into the wilderness, at times grudgingly, at times not. His four sons return to Jerusalem twice, first to retrieve a record and next to retrieve a family. There are conflicts and blessings in the wilderness, they arrive at the sea, they build a boat, and they end up in a promised land. Lehi, in effect, leads an exodus of two families from the once-promised land into a new promised land.

And not infrequently, that’s the level at which we engage with the Book of Mormon. We take Nephi’s authorial voice as authoritative and objectively true. We find lessons in is obedience and his brothers’, well, grudging obedience. And we plow through the text again, annually or every four years, or when we remember.

In his brief theological introduction to 1st Nephi, Joseph Spencer doesn’t argue against reading the plot of 1st Nephi, and gleaning didactic lessons from it. It’s what we do, and there’s doubtless value in it.

But he argues—convincingly—that if our engagement with the text stays solely plot-focused, we’re missing important depths of the Book of Mormon. We’re giving up theological lessons that we could enjoy. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Books & Journals, Media, Modernly Revealed, Mormon, Mormon Studies, Scriptures, Sunday School Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Temporal Urgency of Faith

April 4, 2020 by

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Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

Introductory Note:  Several years ago during General Conference I started journaling the messages my soul most longed to hear.  I posted one of those last Conference.  I’m doing so again now.  This requires a suspension of disbelief:  it contains a mix of true and aspirational content, and is written as if I had been asked to speak during General Conference.  I do not purport to actually have any authority to speak on behalf of the Church. 

Faith without works is dead.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to cast our spiritual burdens upon the Lord, rely on the grace of his Atonement, and put our faith in him during adversity.  But the Gospel also preaches that our spiritual health is intertwined with the physical welfare of our neighbors.  Pure religion looks not just to eternity but to now.

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them:  ‘Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled’; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.  (James 2:14-17)

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Current Events, Doctrine & Policy, Economics, General Conference, Health & Medicine, Mormon, Religion, Theology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Eighth Day

April 2, 2020 by

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Jennifer Champoux is a lecturer in art history at Northeastern University and vice president of Mormon Scholars in the Humanities.

The old and familiar patterns are disrupted. Some among us are facing serious health risks from coronavirus. Others are busy tending to the sick. Many are facing emotional or economic stress as we hunker down in our homes. Businesses are closed, schools shut down, and church meetings cancelled. The situation is grave. And yet, although our current condition seems like an ever-growing accumulation of limitations and endings, it might also be an opportunity to respond to life in new ways. Rather than a sad ending, this unprecedented time can be a hopeful beginning, a Sabbath-like time outside of time, and an unexpected break from the bustle of “regular” life offering a chance to refocus our priorities.

We tend to talk about the Sabbath as a time of rest at the end of something. Yet in the scriptures, the Sabbath is both an end and a beginning. In Genesis, God rested on the seventh and final day as an end to his work of creation (Genesis 2:1-3). But in Acts, the followers of Christ recognized the Sabbath as the first day of the week in remembrance of the day Christ was resurrected and as a symbol of new life (Acts 20:7). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Family, Guest Post, Mormon, Scriptures Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Top 10 General Conference Background Suggestions

March 15, 2020 by

While Covid 19 is a threat to public health and is a disproportionate economic threat to some industries, one company that seems poised to win is Zoom. Zoom provides an easy-to-use virtual meeting platform that includes novelty backgrounds for the speaker to use, resulting in many educators finding themselves spoiled for choice, deciding what attention-grabbing background to use in their new virtual teaching environment. One of the most popular options is a Hogwarts background.

The next obvious question is, with a “virtual” approach to General Conference, should Church leaders consider backgrounds that will keep us riveted to their counsel? Here’s a list of my own top 10 choices for consideration: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Media, Mormon, Society & Culture

I am hyper-social. I am social distancing.

March 15, 2020 by

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Last May I had an extended business trip that took me to the West Coast for twelve days (Los Angeles, then San Francisco, then Anchorage, then Seattle). While on business, I did what I always do: I looked up my friends in each city, individually texted them, and then scheduled every hour of free time as meals and visits to catch up.  I shaved two or so hours off of my sleep schedule each day so I could pack in catching up with more friends.

I love people.  One of my most persistent complaints is that there is not enough time in life to be best friends with everyone I think is amazing.

For my own curiosity on my flight back to D.C., I counted the number of friends I had “meaningfully” interacted with in that twelve day period. I defined “meaningful” as “engaged in conversation for at least one hour while hanging out in a group of four or fewer.”  The answer was forty-seven. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Current Events, Family, Health & Medicine, Science Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Traditions of Their [Mothers]: Girls Should Be Passing the Sacrament

February 18, 2020 by

A little over two years ago, I wrote a post explaining that our current rule that only priesthood holders can pass the sacrament has no basis in scripture. D&C 20:58 explicitly says that teachers and deacons lack the authority to “administer the sacrament”; ergo, if we allow teachers and deacons to prepare and pass the sacrament, those things must not be part of the administration of the sacrament.

And if they’re not, then the Handbook’s requirement that only “[d]eacons, teachers, priests, and Melchizedek Priesthood holders may pass the sacrament” is based, not on scripture, but on tradition. Now, tradition is certainly not always a bad thing, but the Book of Mormon warns us that tradition can potentially impede our ability to know and understand God. I think that’s doubly true when the tradition actively harms a person or group of people by, for example, not allowing them to participate and serve fully in our religious community. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Gender & Sexuality, Modern Era, Mormon, Sunday School, Women, Young Women Tagged With: , , , , ,

In Praise of Boring Sunday School Lessons

January 16, 2020 by

 

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Shawn Tucker is an Associate Professor at Elon University and occasional voice of bloggernacle satire. 

Imagine a ship made with millions of popsicle sticks intricately bound together with dental floss. The many rows of wooden sticks make it waterproof and seaworthy. It is not a flashy boat, but it can move forward in the water toward a destination. That boat is how I imagine the church—each popsicle stick is a member, and the members are all tied together with bonds of testimony, commitment, and love.

I describe the church in this manner to do something perhaps unexpected—to praise boring Sunday School lessons. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Guest Post, Mormon, Sunday School Tagged With:

I’m terrified about having kids.

January 6, 2020 by

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I just spent the holidays with family. I’ve been married a year. I’m approaching my mid-30s. And due to an unrelenting year at work, I’ve gained some weight. So perhaps unsurprisingly, the last few weeks have featured a conversational dance of hinted “are-you-pregnant” questions.

I’ve ignored the hints and laughed off the passing comments about future grandchildren. What I haven’t responded with is my honest answer: I’m terrified about having kids. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Children, Church Programs, Doctrine & Policy, Family, Gender & Sexuality, Health & Medicine, Marriage, Modern Era, Mormon, Relief Society, Theology, Theology, Doctrine & Policy, Women, Young Women Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Practicing What We Preach: Ministering Charity Globally

December 24, 2019 by

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Today’s Guest Post comes from Dr. Warner Woodworth. He is a Global Social Entrepreneur and Professor Emeritus of the Department of Management at the Marriott School of Business, Brigham Young University where he designed and taught the first U.S. courses in Microcredit and Social Entrepreneurship.

Did you enjoy General Conference in October? Reflecting back today, I feel more strongly than ever that Conference was a blessing to me, and I hope my friends within and beyond the LDS Church had similar experiences.

In the weeks before and since Conference I’ve labored among the poor, refugees and the disenfranchised in the Middle East, Croatia, upstate New York, Romania, Native American reservations, and just returned two days ago from Indonesia. Abundant conference themes that stood out to me included an emphasis on faith, hope and charity. I especially was inspired by President Russell M. Nelson’s Sunday talk in the morning session as he emphasized our mission as Latter-day Saints to serve the poor and reduce human suffering. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Mormon Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Church of Contrition

October 9, 2019 by

“And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost.” (3 Nephi 9:20)

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Note:  During the last few General Conferences, I’ve pondered what message my spirit most yearns to hear.  Today I’m writing out that message for others, as if I had been asked to speak during General Conference.  This writing requires a suspension of disbelief: I do not purport to actually have any authority to speak on behalf of the Church. 

I speak today to apologize.

I believe a sincere “I’m sorry” is second only to “I love you” as the most powerful sentence anyone can utter. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Doctrine & Policy, General Conference, Mormon, Religion, Scriptures, Theology, Theology, Doctrine & Policy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Women Witnesses for Ordinances

October 2, 2019 by

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced this morning that women can now serve as witnesses for baptisms and temple sealings.

I’m thrilled about this change.  As I wrote two years ago, the Church’s longtime refusal to let women serve as witnesses contradicted Jesus Christ’s own example of choosing women to be the first witnesses of his Resurrection.  And as co-blogger Jonathan Stapley  details, women as witnesses has long precedence in the modern Church as well.

This change matters.  It’s not just a technical hand-waving exercise.  Women witnessing our saving ordinances matter. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Doctrine & Policy, Family, Gender & Sexuality, Marriage, Mormon, Relief Society, Religion, Scriptures, Theology, Theology, Doctrine & Policy, Women, Young Women Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Foot Shelf

August 12, 2019 by

About ten years ago, we were renovating our master bathroom, making the shower larger with a stone surround, and adding a big sunken garden tub (that literally has been used TWICE since we put it in, grrrr). As we discussed the options with the builder, he quoted a set amount to add a “bench” to the shower.

My husband, looking to save money perhaps, quickly said, “We don’t really need that. When do I ever sit in the shower?”

I interrupted to explain. “That’s not for sitting. I need a place to rest my foot when I shave my legs. It’s a foot shelf!” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Education, Family, Gender & Sexuality, Men, Mormon, Politics, Rants, Religion, Society & Culture, Women

“You have been scheduled . . .”

August 7, 2019 by

Emily Jensen is a former BCC permablogger and friend of the blog.

“You have been scheduled to meet with XXXXX XXX for a meeting Tuesday June 18th at 7 p.m. for your ministering interview.”

“Your family has been scheduled to clean the church on Saturday, June 22nd at 8 a.m. Please meet with the XXXX family up at the church.”

Ok, hopefully this is only happening in my ward, but in case it’s not, let’s talk about the new, and dare I say, rude habit of scheduling people to do things in the church without first asking if they are even available. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Church Programs, Family, Guest Post, Mormon, Rants Tagged With: ,
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