Bishops on Abortion

September 12, 2022 by

Chris Kimball is a friend of BCC and former bishop.

INTRODUCTION

Abortion is controversial. Controversy presents an opportunity and challenge for hard thinking. This is one small corner of the hard thinking, focused on the role and practice of a bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is not a global statement or manifesto, and not intended as an invitation to debate all the issues with abortion. 

As an introduction, here is the LDS Church’s position from the General Handbook of Instructions as of September 2, 2022, followed by my personal views and position.

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Filed Under: Children, Current Events, Doctrine & Policy, Family, Guest Post, Health & Medicine, Women 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)

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

The Pain of Being in Pain at Church

March 27, 2018 by

Mandi Eatough is a senior at Brigham Young University studying Political Science.  She is originally from Redmond, Washington.  She writes this guest post as an Open Letter to Latter-Day Saints About Growing Up Sick in A Church That Emphasizes Healing as The Result of Faith.

I was born sick.

For a long time nobody knew how sick I was. When I was three it was just asthma. When I was ten it was just growing pains. When I was thirteen it was just in my head. When I was a junior in high school it was just pneumonia. When I was a freshman in college I just wasn’t eating right.

When I was a sophomore in college it was a clearly late diagnosis of autoimmune disease and a nervous system disorder that had been destroying my body for more than twenty years without treatment.

I was so angry. I was angry at my doctors for dismissing the pain of a child that had no way to defend themselves. I was angry at my parents for believing the doctors when they said there was nothing else they could try. But most of all, I was Angry at God for not healing me. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Post, Health & Medicine, Mormon Tagged With:

And There Was No Sick Among Them

June 24, 2017 by

“And remember in all things the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, for he that doeth not these things, the same is not my disciple.”  D&C 52:40

I remember the day – 10 years ago this month –  I first realized that government-sponsored healthcare might not be inherently evil.

A British friend and I were engaged in an impromptu debate on social policy.  I started lecturing him on the defects of British healthcare compared to true red-state and Mormon principles of self-reliance.  Any form of welfare, especially government-sponsored healthcare, perpetuated a cycle of dependence.  If an individual legitimately needed help, family, friends, and nonprofits should step in.  Government involvement was wasteful, anti-capitalistic, and coercive –  it could never heal society.

He offered a pithy response: “I can think of nothing more barbaric about America than that you let people die because they can’t afford healthcare.”

“Barbaric” hit me with a jolt. What an absurd word!  And yet, one with truth. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Doctrine & Policy, Economics, Health & Medicine, Mormon, Politics, Theology, Doctrine & Policy Tagged With: , ,

The Dead Thing in My Can of Tuna

September 20, 2008 by

Guest Blogger, Steven Peck is an associate professor and evolutionary ecologist at BYU who blogs on issues of science and faith at the Mormon Organon. He is currently doing a year sabbatical with the United Nations in Vienna, Austria working on African tsetse fly population ecology.

After class one day, I guiltily grabbed one of those over-packaged lunches so indispensable for those in a hurry to gulp down something quickly. This one was canned tuna salad and crackers. I felt guilty at the amount of unnecessary material piling up as I squirreled through the packaging to find my meal. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Economics, Mormon, Navel-Gazing & Poetic Observation, Religion, Society & Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,