Just chatted with two lovely missionaries in East Lansing. They were surprised I knew about the angel Moroni and the tablets.
They asked me if I read the Book of Mormon and I didn’t tell them I stole one from a Marriott in Providence, RI. But I did tell them I had trouble following and felt like I needed the cliff’s notes version. Do they have a cliff’s notes version?
I should really be working on my essay…RIGHT NOW. About soap operas not about mormonism.
SLC = Salt Lake City!
This article really enlightened me
At the moment, Massachusetts is the only American state where civil marriage is legal for gays and lesbians. But surprisingly, Holly and P.R.’s wedding was more than just a public demonstration of their commitment. In September 2005, Salt Lake’s then mayor, Rocky Anderson issued an Executive Order granting same-sex partners in the City proper the same health and other employment benefits available to heterosexual couples. Executive orders have the force of law based on existing statutory powers, and require no outside backing for them to be enforced.
I had NO idea that this law was enacted. Neither did I think that Mormon SLC could *perhaps* lead the way for some gay rights laws.
219 women and children removed from the Fundamentalist LDS compound in Texas:
Texas officials removed more people on Sunday from a ranch belonging to a breakaway Mormon sect linked to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs but have yet to find a young woman whose complaints sparked the raids.
“We have now removed 219 people,” said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. He said that the breakdown was 159 boys and girls and 60 adults. via
Hinckley, a grandson of Mormon pioneers, was president for nearly 13 years. He took over as president and prophet on March 12, 1995, and oversaw one of the greatest periods of expansion in church history. The number of temples worldwide more than doubled, from 49 to more than 120 and church membership grew from about 9 million to about 13 million. via
This article from yesterday’s NYTimes magazine is a pretty good assessment of Americans’ attitudes toward Mormonism via Mitt Romney.
Yet the Mormons’ political loyalty is not fully reciprocated by their fellow Republicans. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans told the Harris Poll last year that they probably or definitely would not vote for a Mormon for president. Among evangelicals, some of the discomfort is narrowly religious: Mormon theology is sometimes understood as non-Christian and heretical. Elsewhere, the reasons for the aversion to Mormons are harder to pin down — bigotry can be funny that way — but they are certainly not theological. A majority of Americans have no idea what Mormons believe. Via
And of course, I am more than curious to find out what happens tomorrow in New Hampshire…We’ll see.
I am also weirded out by Romney’s new term for Obama as the “senator killer”…hmm yeahh. That’s not a calculated term at all.
“Making Mormon History” published in the Boston Globe over the weekend was written for me. Or so I like to think! Its been obvious for the past few years or so with Jon Krakaur’s book, the series Big Love, the pbs special, and the notable politicians Harry Reid and Mitt Romney that Mormonism is an official part of popular culture.
What I’ll concentrate on in this post is how Mormon and non-Mormon scholars approach the religion’s history. One of the main but overlooked differences between Mormonism and other Christian religions (yes, I label it as a branch of Christianity) is that Mormons are not open about their history. Mormons are quick to tell you about their religion but they are not open to various interpretations of it. In fact, their archives are not free to the public. What else sets Mormonism apart it the secretiveness and ritual of the religious ceremonies. Additionally, Mormon officials are quick to officially exclude, or excommunicate, members who write questionable materials about the religion’s history.
A decade later, in 1993, the church excommunicated several scholars, including D. Michael Quinn, a tenured historian at Brigham Young University who had written a number of controversial works, including one about the persistence of church-sanctioned polygamy after its official ban in 1890. via
It’s not only a scholar’s research about Mormon history that raises eyebrows but its an individual’s political identifications that also causes potential issues. It is believed that an invitation to speak at BYU was denied to acclaimed historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich because of her self-identified feminism.
The Mormon unwillingness to discuss the past was also evident in Mitt Romney’s speech last week.
Serious analysis of Mormonism has never been more important, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy. In Romney’s speech on faith last week, for example, the candidate spoke movingly about religious tolerance, and tried to highlight similarities between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity, but he said nothing substantive about Mormon theology or history.
I couldn’t agree more that now is the time that real work into the historical analysis of Mormonism is needed. It is also time to do some real comparative studies into similarities between Mormonism and other religious groups/minorities that are unique to the United States. I hope to do some of that work.
(1) Prez hopeful Romney is finally going to address the ISSUE at hand!
Trying to save his presidential campaign from an Iowa swoon, Republican Mitt Romney on Thursday will take on the issue of his Mormon faith by stressing America’s tradition of religious tolerance.
Romney is to make remarks at the presidential library of former President George H.W. Bush in College Station, Texas, not far up the road from Houston, where Democratic candidate John Kennedy in 1960 used a speech to ease concerns about his Catholic faith and went on to win the presidency.
I love how everyone is so quick to compare him to Kennedy on the religion issue and obviously his PR team is doing some great work by having him give this speech in Texas, at a presidential library to boot. But here is what I don’t understand, the complete disregard (on the side of the media) to weigh in on differences between Catholicism and Mormonism. The first one being that Catholicism is a VERY, VERY old religion and well Mormonism hasn’t even hit its second centennial (is there a better way to write that?)
I’ll be looking into that news story tomorrow!
(2) What is going on with beauty pageants?
Miss LA gets told she ain’t Miss California THEN has to call the actual winner and tell her.
And then the whole pepper spray incident…
Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling us that there is more to life than winning beauty contests. I am so a feminist!
(Posting will still be light)
Warren Jeffs admits he’s not THE prophet!
Learned this while watching CNN, AC 360 to be exact. Andy Cooper said this stuff goes on unnoticed in the US. Yeah, if unnoticed means “every night on CNN.”
But this is a huge revelation for the Short Creek gang. Wow.
More commentary later.
Tracy Press asks the tough questions.
The advantages of conversion in politics versus non-conversion.
Catholics in Utah before the Mormons…what!
Mormon.org is where its at when it comes to conversion.
Auditions for the Choir…the ONLY CHOIR!
Fast Food Nation author disappointed in Utah.
Mountain Meadows lot OPEN for new development!
Romney ain’t no puppet!
Fired Mormon lawyer didn’t appreciate bawdy, locker-room talk.
“I discovered how empowered women in early Mormonism were — to heal, speak and make decisions.”
Mormon history dominates Utah history.
MORMONISM, FEMINISM AND ACTIVISM: My head will explode!
LDS scholar Richard Lyman Bushman will start a Mormon studies program at the Claremont Graduate School in California.
Three part series about fundamentalism in Southern Utah.
The term “Mormon” is commonly used in reference to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, “Mormon” can more broadly describe a variety of groups derived from the church founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. in 1830, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The largest of these groups is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - at more than 13 million members - followed by the Community of Christ, formerly The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - at more than 250,000 members - and a variety of fundamentalist groups - with about 20,000 adherents collectively - according to www.lds.org, www.cofchrist.org and Marianne Watson, a self-employed historian and Lehi resident who specializes in fundamentalist topics.
There are about 30 groups, as well as large, independent families, practicing plural marriage under the banner of Mormonism, Watson said.
I am a Democrat because I am a Mormon.
Six hundred images of child pornography or what one Tabernacle Choir member does for fun!
Jesus + America = what makes Mormons different.
Mormons and Amish evading American laws.
Of marriage and massacre: He’ll go home to Utah, go to college, find a career and a girl to marry.
Mormon and South Carolina don’t mix.
Poor Mormon boyz!
Using Mormons for their genealogical services.
Just as Day did for Catholics, Van Wagenen would like to awaken Mormons to the “virtually forgotten radical elements” of their doctrine and history - namely, the mandate to “have no poor among you.”
To that end, the 29-year-old Salt Lake City stockbroker and several friends have just published the first edition of The Mormon Worker, a bimonthly newspaper devoted to “promoting Mormonism, anarchism and pacifism.”
