“…There’s Always One…”
Monty Python have their own YouTube channel now. Its about time.
The Mormons and Racism
Mick Stockinger has an excellent post up today discussing a bit of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and recent charges against my church of racism.
I rarely agree with Mr. Stockinger but his post is very well written and right on target. I encourage everyone to give it a read.
UPDATE: 12/12/2007 10:46PM
JasonThe from The Sidetrack in the comments below:
Yes, it would be nice to say there were no blemishes on the history of the LDS faith, or any other religion for that matter. But there are. And there will be mistakes made today demanding an answer in the tomorrow. We are not perfect in our understanding, but I also believe that is an irrational expectation. Why must leaders of any faith respond to these accusations of the past with anything more than “Hey, we’re a flawed people, just like any people, doing our best to interpret and understand what we believe to be the word of God.”
Very well said.
Mitt Romney: An Excellent Politician
Today Mitt Romney took advantage of the foolishness of those in the media who have been trying to make his religion a negative issue he needs to deal with. Truth be told there is nothing Romney could say in a speech that would mollify those who won’t vote for a Mormon. Instead of even trying to defend himself from attacks on his faith he crafted a well written attack on the tiny minority of Americans who are aggresively anti-religious. He didn’t bother to defend Mormonism and he got a huge amount of publicity for a speech that nearly every Republican primary voter can identify with. The press and Romney’s opponents may continue to try to use his religion against him but that doesn’t change the fact that Romney made very good use of this issue today in his “JFK style” speech.
I’ve never argued that Romney isn’t a very shrewd politician…in fact…I won’t vote for him because I think he’s too shrewd by half.
The Social Justice Discussion
Derek Staffanson at A Liberal Mormon has completed his three part series on the topic of Social Justice.
Post 1: The Need To Help The Poor - We need to help the poor. We don’t usually do that. That is a problem.
Post 2: The Moral Conservative Criticism of Social Justice - Conservative hypocrisy supports little basis for a moral criticism of social justice…whether publicly enforced or privately donated.
Post 3: The Libertarian Criticism of Social Justice - Libertarians are against enforcing social justice through use of government’s guns…they should make louder and more frequent arguments for private charity or else get out of the way of government efforts at social justice.
Go check out his thoughts and join the discussion. Major props to Derek for all the thought and excellent writing skills he expended on this effort!
Oh The HUMANITY!
A marching band composed of swimwear attired Sabbath breaking heathens invaded a public school in Davis County. Read all about it on the Clipper front page!
I guess we should be grateful for slow news days…but this is embarrassing. Stuff like this should only be happening in Utah County.
Read Nick Perkin’s excellent take on this story here. His cartoon basically says it all.
Mormons and Politics
The Pew Foundation has published this transcript of an interview of Richard Bushman by a whole mob of reporters from the main stream media. This is the most interesting discussion on the topic of LDS and politics in both the contemporary and historical context that I’ve ever read. Professor Bushman did an excellent job explaining the church’s role in politics and government to a sometimes openly skeptical audience. Definitely worth a read.
Hat Tip BCC
Be Christlike! (Except For The Beard)
I outed myself as a “liberal” Mormon today at work.
A co-worker was talking about a Stake Conference she attended this weekend presided over by a general authority of the LDS Church. She told the story about how the general authority during his talk called out two young men from the congregation. One of the young men had been home from his mission for a month and a half and the other young man was just getting ready to go. The speaker spoke to the young men and pointed out to the congregation differences between the young men and their physical and spiritual development then focused on the return missionary’s goatee. The person telling the story said that the speaker then scolded the young man for having facial hair and asked him to committ to shaving it off as soon as possible.
Stories like this drive me crazy. I foolishly blurted out something about how the speaker must be a complete weiner to do something like that in a stake conference. I don’t think my comment went over very well but I didn’t care and I launched into a few more complaints about situations or stories like this I’ve heard.
I’m not proud of my inability to keep quiet but I get so frustrated with examples like this that in my mind contribute to the idea that members of my religion might be more concerned with the outward display of piety than inward faith, obedience and humility.
Turning The Church Into A Partisan Tool
This bugs me. I don’t want people dragging my church into politics…even if the people trying to do it are deans at BYU, general authorities, or other famous/connected Mormons. The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints is not an arm of any political campaign even if the candidate is LDS.
I was inclined to support Romney before hearing about this. The idea that his campaign is trying to get the church involved in organizing a fundraising/campaign network for them really bugs me even if I’m not that surprised. The idea that there may be church leaders or employees attempting to facilitate this crap is quite a shock in light of the church’s constant protestations of its political neutrality. It is also much more disappointing since members of the church should be able to expect much better from them.
(Hat Tip SLCSpin)
Democratic Values?
I’m an optimistic and proud Democrat living in the most Republican state in the country. I have made it one of my goals to try to help change the existing political power structure in my state because I believe one party rule is bad for Utah. I also believe that in Utah the Democratic Party is friendlier to my libertarian leanings than the Republican Party is. I think there are lots of Utahns who think similarly to the way I think and I believe there is a great opportunity for Democrats to make great gains over the next few years as the Republican Party further shows itself to be the fraud that it really is.
Unfortunately there is a vocal element in my party which makes it extremely difficult for most people to accept the idea that the Democratic Party could ever represent them. Check out this post at One Utah (one of my favorite local blogs on the left).
I don’t think belittling people who believe in God is a winner for Democrats and yet a small vocal constituency among Democrats is anti-God (they would say anti-superstition). These people argue that the whole religious divide is a significant difference between them and the rest of us. I agree. It is a significant difference and it may just be a deal breaker for Democrats as they try to get Utahns to come aboard. People who think God is superstition typically have a very different idea about the purpose of government than those of us who think our existence is the result of the divine.
A little bit of tolerance from both sides would go a long way toward making our party more palatable to many Utahns…but as the post and corresponding comments at One Utah show…we still have some work to do.
A New Project: Blogging The Book Of Mormon
Last year President Hinckley issued a challenge to all members of the LDS Church to read the Book of Mormon by the end of 2005. I have no good excuses but I never made it past 1 Nephi 3. Thank goodness for the principle of repentance!!! I’ve decided that I’m going to take up President Hinckley’s challenge a little bit late and finish the Book of Mormon over the next six to nine months. Its going to go a little bit more slowly than it normally would (the book really isn’t that long) because I want to blog my thoughts and questions as I study and read. The point of this post is to ask for volunteers to join me.
Freedom of Religion?
Katherine Lopez of National Review wrote an article on a topic I’ve thought a lot about over the past couple years. Could the government, by expanding the definition of what discrimination is in civil rights legislation; end up coercing my religion to abandon some of its moral positions?
Catholic Charities, the arm of the Catholic Church that runs its charitable activities, recently announced it was going out of the adoption business because in some places it was being required by law to provide adoptive services to homosexual couples. Laws which prevent discrimination against homosexuals have compelled the church to run its adoption service in a way it finds morally offensive so it has decided to stop providing the service.
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More on Intelligent Design Vs. Evolutionary Biology
I’ve been told that I sound too angry lately…even that I may need to get on some anti-depressants. I’ll admit that the whole Social Security thing did get me pretty worked up…but I promise that the righteous anger that whole subject invokes in me doesn’t make me yell at my kids or curse at my neighbors. Overall I’m a happy guy though I’ll admit that I do grumble when writing my regularly scheduled tax payments…it sure stinks to be paying the whole 12% employee tax up front on your wages. Owning and operating a business can give one a new perspective on how government is funded. I don’t think it is a coincidence that most small business owners are also conservatives or small “l” libertarians.
This post isn’t about all that. I found an interesting follow up on the whole Intelligent Design (ID) being taught in schools discussion at Hugh Hewitt’s website. As I said before I’m against ID being taught in science classes because it is not science. That said, the post linked above is an interesting discussion on the nature of the argument about ID verses Evolutionary Biology (EB) from the perspective of a Christian who is bugged by the portrayal of the conflict by the mainstream media (in this case the Washington Post). I’ve included the complete text of a letter Mr. Hewitt posted in the above linked blog post because I thought it was a fun read and because it helps explain my thinking to John, a frequent and intelligent commenter on this site, who has been critical of the idea that I could maintain my religious beliefs and still support many of the existing scientific theories of EB.
UPDATE: Here’s another great discussion of these ideas from the perspective of someone who doesn’t claim a belief in ID.
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The Time I Let Religion = Ignorance
Ann Althouse published this interesting and poignant post about the teaching of creationism in public schools and an experience she had growing up. I wonder how common her experience was.
I was born and raised in Utah. I am LDS and experienced the upbringing that is typical of someone raised in a society where their religion is shared by 90% of everyone around them. I loved it and am grateful for the family, life, and experiences I had growing up. I only recently began to appreciate the fact that such an upbringing is profoundly atypical. It is an excellent way to grow upbut there are negatives.
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Thou Shalt Bless Thy Food!
I found this post at Times and Seasons and left a comment there. I’ve thought about this topic quite a few times and discussed it with my wife. She’s usually nice enough not to roll her eyes at me when I bring stuff like this up but I could tell she was tempted to remind me not to be dorky when I last mentioned the subject so I was glad to find other people discussing this stuff!
I’ve often wondered what the point of blessing food before eating it was. Especially desserts. Is my blessing going to make 150 grams of fat and sugar more healthy? Of course I’m thankful that I am able to have food on my table and we always pray before eating and express thanks for the food but I’ve stopped “blessing” the food in my pre-meal prayers.
We had a YM/YW activity on Wednesday and in the closing prayer I told the teacher who was going to pray to bless the refreshments. He did and I remembered right after giving him the assignment that I never do that in my prayers.
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