Messenger and Advocate

Messenger and Advocate Has Moved

2006-06-27T21:09:00.000-07:00

Like many blogs in the Bloggernacle, The Messenger and Advocate has moved over to WordPress. It is now located here. Please feel free to stop by, and if you have suggestions feel free to leave them. Also, if you have been kind enough to link to Messenger and Advocate on your current blogroll, if you would please update your blogroll link to the new site--that would be a wonderful favor. Thank you in advance.

All future posts will be at:

New Messenger and Advocate Location:

http://messengerandadvocate.wordpress.com/

Like A Lamb To The Slaughter

2006-06-27T05:59:00.000-07:00

So described the Prophet Joseph, his last trip to Carthage Jail, in Illinois in June, 1844--162 years ago this evening. He and his brother Hyrum were jailed for exercising their First Amendment rights in their practice of Revealed Religion. While under the protection of the State of Illinios, The Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum were brutally murdered in cold blood by a mob.

President John Taylor penned the most fitting of tributes, now cannonized as Doctrine and Covenants section 135 (emphasis mine):

THE DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS

SECTION 135
Martyrdom of Joseph Smith the Prophet and his brother, Hyrum Smith the Patriarch, at Carthage, Illinois, June 27, 1844. HC 6: 629—631. This document was written by Elder John Taylor of the Council of the Twelve, who was a witness to the events.

1—2, Joseph and Hyrum martyred in Carthage Jail; 3, Preeminent position of the Prophet acclaimed; 4—7, Their innocent blood testifies of the truth and divinity of the work.
1 TO seal the testimony of this book and the Book of Mormon, we announce the ^amartyrdom^• of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and Hyrum Smith the Patriarch. They were shot in Carthage jail, on the 27th of June, 1844, about five o’clock p.m., by an armed mob—painted black—of from 150 to 200 persons. ^bHyrum^• was shot first and fell calmly, exclaiming: I am a ^cdead man! Joseph leaped from the window, and was shot dead in the attempt, exclaiming: ^dO^• Lord my God! They were both shot after they were dead, in a brutal manner, and both received four balls.

2 John Taylor and Willard Richards, two of the Twelve, were the only persons in the room at the time; the former was wounded in a savage manner with four balls, but has since recovered; the latter, through the providence of God, escaped, without even a hole in his robe.

3 Joseph Smith, the ^aProphet and ^bSeer of the Lord, has done more, ^csave Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it. In the short space of twenty years, he has brought forth the Book of Mormon, which he translated by the gift and power of God, and has been the means of publishing it on two continents; has sent the ^dfulness^• of the everlasting gospel, which it contained, to the four quarters of the earth; has brought forth the revelations and commandments which compose this book of Doctrine and Covenants, and many other wise documents and instructions for the benefit of the children of men; gathered many thousands of the Latter-day Saints, founded a great city, and left a fame and name that cannot be slain. He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people; and like most of the Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his own ^eblood^•; and so has his brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death they were not ^fseparated^•!

4 When Joseph went to Carthage to deliver himself up to the pretended requirements of the law, two or three days previous to his assassination, he said: “I am going like a ^alamb^• to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer’s morning; I have a ^bconscience ^cvoid of offense towards God, and towards all men. I SHALL DIE INNOCENT, AND IT SHALL YET BE SAID OF ME—HE WAS MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD.”—The same morning, after Hyrum had made ready to go—shall it be said to the slaughter? yes, for so it was—he read the following paragraph, near the close of the twelfth chapter of Ether, in the Book of Mormon, and turned down the leaf upon it:

5 And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord that he would give unto the Gentiles grace, that they might have charity. And it came to pass that the Lord said unto me: If they have not charity it mattereth not unto thee, thou hast been ^afaithful; wherefore thy garments shall be made ^bclean^•. And because thou hast seen thy weakness, thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father. And now I . . . bid farewell unto the Gentiles; yea, and also unto my brethren whom I love, until we shall meet before the ^cjudgment-seat^• of Christ, where all men shall know that my garments are not spotted with your blood. The ^dtestators^• are now dead, and their ^etestament^• is in force.

6 Hyrum Smith was forty-four years old in February, 1844, and Joseph Smith was thirty-eight in December, 1843; and henceforward their names will be classed among the ^amartyrs of religion; and the reader in every nation will be reminded that the Book of Mormon, and this book of Doctrine and Covenants of the church, cost the best blood of the nineteenth century to bring them forth for the salvation of a ruined world; and that if the fire can scathe a ^bgreen^• tree for the glory of God, how easy it will burn up the dry trees to purify the vineyard of corruption. They lived for glory; they died for glory; and glory is their eternal ^creward. From age to age shall their names go down to posterity as gems for the sanctified.

7 They were innocent of any crime, as they had often been proved before, and were only confined in jail by the conspiracy of traitors and wicked men; and their innocent blood on the floor of Carthage jail is a broad seal affixed to “Mormonism” that cannot be rejected by any court on earth, and their innocent blood on the escutcheon of the State of Illinois, with the broken faith of the State as pledged by the governor, is a witness to the truth of the everlasting gospel that all the world cannot impeach; and their innocent blood on the banner of liberty, and on the magna charta of the United States, is an ambassador for the religion of Jesus Christ, that will touch the hearts of honest men among all nations; and their innocent blood, with the innocent blood of all the martyrs under the ^aaltar^• that John saw, will cry unto the Lord of Hosts till he avenges that blood on the earth. Amen.

Praise to the man . . .

Praise to the Man

JOSEPH SMITH.

TUNE—Star in the East.

Praise to the man who commun'd with Jehovah
Jesus anointed "that Prophet and Seer,"
Blessed to open the last dispensation;
Kings shall extol him, and nations revere.

CHORUS—
Hail to the Prophet, ascended to heaven,
Traitors and tyrants no fight him in vain,
Mingling with Gods, he can plan for his brethren,
Death cannot conquer the hero again.

Praise to his mem'ry, he died as a martyr;
Honor'd and blest be his ever great name;
Long shall his blood, which was shed by assassins,
Stain Illinois, while the earth lauds his fame
CHORUS—Hail to the Prophet, &c.

Great is his glory, and endless his priesthood,
Ever and ever the keys he will hold;
Faithful and true he will enter his kingdom,
Crown'd in the midst of the prophets of old.
CHORUS—Hail to the Prophet, &c.

Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven;
Earth must atone for the blood of that man!
Wake up the world for the conflict of justice,
Millions shall know "brother Joseph" again.
CHORUS—Hail to the Prophet, &c.

Source: [W. W. Phelps] "Joseph Smith," Times and Seasons 5 (1 August 1844): 607.

President Hinckley At 96

2006-06-23T05:56:00.000-07:00

President Hinckley will celebrate his 96th birthday at the groundbreaking of the new alumni and visitors center bearing his name at BYU, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. Last year we all had the opportunity to watch his 95th birthday celebration at the conference center in the Church Conference Center. This year's will be somewhat more subdued, and there apparently remains some concerns about his health:

Today's milestone will likely pass more quietly, especially in light of concerns about Hinckley's health. The leader of the 12 million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will celebrate his 96th birthday "at Brigham Young University in Provo, attending an 11 a.m. groundbreaking ceremony for a new alumni and visitors center named in his honor," LDS spokesman Dale Bills said. "Family, invited guests and university leaders will host him at a private luncheon following the groundbreaking."

It will be one of the few public events Hinckley has attended since surgeons removed a cancerous growth from his colon and he has undergone chemotherapy treatments. "Things have changed and are changing," Hinckley told Mormons at the church's annual General Conference in April, mentioning his January surgery and some "residual problems."

Still, President Hinckley maintains a rigorous schedule, and continues to serve the Church membership worldwide:

"The life of a president of the church is not his own," Hinckley said. "He has very little privacy and no secrets." He maintains a regular work schedule, Bills said, which means most days Hinckley goes to his office at LDS Church headquarters in downtown Salt Lake City. He is, after all, a guy who never spent a night in the hospital before January.

In March, he traveled to Santiago, Chile, to rededicate a temple and preside over a lively cultural celebration by thousands of Chilean Latter-day Saints in an outdoor stadium. On June 11, he was in Iowa City, Iowa, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of 10 Mormon handcart companies' trek across the Great Plains and over the Rocky Mountains to the Salt Lake Valley beginning in 1856.

So, Happy Birthday President Hinckley! We're hoping for many more!

The Gospel In Iran

2006-06-22T06:13:00.000-07:00

This is not a topic one usually associates with Iran (at least present day Iran); however, the Deseret News has a fascinating article about how that Islamic republic once had a flash of the light of the Restored Gospel. The article tells the story of Jamileh Zaifnejad Hogan, an Iranian Church member, who was actually baptized in Iran back in 1975:

Joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a leap of faith for Jamileh Zaifnejad Hogan, who in 1975 was the first Iranian woman to be baptized into the Utah-based church.

"Joining the church is a challenge," said Hogan, a Brigham Young University graduate who spoke to students on Wednesday. "(But) when it is really difficult, that is where there is room for miracles."

Some of those miracles include getting a visa and passport, which allowed Hogan to come to the United States. Another miracle was being able to work with the leadership of the LDS Church in creating a mission in Iran, which lasted only a little while until violence erupted. Another was seeing her mother and sister also join the LDS Church.

Hogan, who has worked as a language analyst for the U.S. Department of Justice for 10 years on Wednesday shared the story of her conversion, punctuated with details of the political unrest that gripped her country.

As I read her story, I thought "here's an actual Latter-day Saint." You know, the kind called on to sacrifice on the scale of the early pioneers--yet her spirit was and remains incredibly optimistic (I think they call that faith).

About her baptism:

On the day she was supposed to be baptized, a student riot broke out at the university in Tehran where the 21-year-old was studying. Hogan described seeing the military move in and open fire on a group of students.

"Blood spattered on the heater (the wall)," she said. She ran to the women's bathroom and hid in a stall, hoping the soldiers wouldn't find her. After hiding for hours, she started to leave so she could make it to her 4 p.m. baptism. She went through a crowd of soldiers who pointed guns at her head and one who hit her with the butt of a rifle. Finally a senior officer told them to let her leave.

Hogan was introduced to the LDS Church through working with Lloyd Miller, an American and Mormon who was studying jazz in Tehran, and the two ended up co-hosting a radio program. Accepting an invitation, Hogan attended an LDS meeting in Iran, made up mostly of international members, not native Iranians.

That led to more questions, months of studying and finally praying to a God she hadn't ever believed in. On Jan. 8, 1975, after breaking through 3-inch thick ice on a neighbor's swimming pool, Hogan was baptized.

Kind of makes your blood run cold (literally to read stuff like this). Its also interesting that at the time in Iran's history, within a few short years they were about to depose Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran, and take American citizens hostage. This was not a fruitful time for an American/Utah based Church.

Jamileh's family, at least her parents were supportive--though her brother apparently disowned her. She essentially said good bye to life as she knew it in Iran, and left for the United States to begin an entirely new life on a grand scale:

After her baptism, Hogan traveled to the United States to visit Salt Lake City and the temple. When she arrived, she met with LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball and other church leaders who asked her to help translate mission materials and train future missionaries.

Despite being one semester away from graduating in Tehran, Hogan agreed and stayed in Utah. She enrolled as a freshman at BYU and began to work with church leaders. An initial batch of missionaries was sent to Iran but were redirected to England when riots broke out again in 1978.

Although there is no current LDS mission in Iran, Hogan said there are congregations of Iranian members in Switzerland, Italy, Ecuador and Japan — something she didn't think possible 30 years ago.

I read things like this, and get just a bit more perspective in life. I had no idea the Church even established a mission in Iran--something unthinkable today. But, as Sis. Hogan notes, it is when things are or appear the most difficult that there is room for miracles. She is now a language analyst with the Department of Justice--bet there's lots of work for her these days! You can hear her entire speech here. (Given 6/21/06).

My Senator's Response

2006-06-20T10:15:00.000-07:00

As everyone (well probably almost everyone) in the 'nacle knows the First Presidency asked LDS members to express their views to their senators about the federal constitutional marriage amendment. I posted my email letters to my senators here. Below, is the email I received this morning in response from Senator Diane Feinstein.

While she did not in accordance with my request, I did appreciate the fact that she took the time, or had someone take the time to make a formal response. I have heard nothing from Senator Boxer's office. Anybody else hear from their senators?

June 20, 2006

Mr. Guy Murray
PO Box
Nipomo, California 93444

Dear Mr. Murray:

Thank you for writing to me about the so-called Marriage
Protection Amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment
which would require that marriage in the United States consist only
of the union between a man and a woman. I appreciate you
expressing your thoughts to me.

I have continually opposed this amendment, as well as
other federal attempts to regulate marriage. In my view, enacting
such a measure would overstep the role of Congress by interfering
with the States= constitutional authority to legislate in the area of
family law. Policies that regulate families and marriage have
always been, and I believe should continue to be, a State right and
responsibility.

On June 7, 2006, the Senate voted on a procedural motion
regarding the Marriage Protection Amendment. I voted against the
motion which would have led to the Senate's consideration of the
amendment and I have attached a copy of the statement that I gave
on the Senate floor which further explains my views on this
amendment.

I recognize that people have very strong and distinct
opinions regarding the institution of marriage, and I respect your
views. While we probably will not change each other's minds on
this amendment, I hope we can still have a dialogue and find
common ground on issues where we do agree.

If you should have any further comments or questions,
please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, DC staff at (202)
224-3841.

Statement of Senator Dianne Feinstein
on the Motion to Proceed to the Marriage Protection
Amendment
United States Senate
June 6, 2006

"Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the Marriage
Protection Amendment to the Constitution.

With all the problems in the world today, the Senate is
spending valuable time debating a bill which we know does not
have the votes for cloture, which is divisive, and which, I believe,
does not belong on the national agenda.

The fact of the matter is that all family law has historically
been relegated to the States.

Marriage, divorce, adoption, custody - all aspects of family
law and domestic relations - have been the province of the States.

That's what the Supreme Court has said in case after case -
from In Re Burrus in 1890 to Rose v Rose in 1982.

In that 1982 case, the court affirmed the holding of In Re
Burrus that:

'[t]he whole subject of the domestic relations of
husband and wife, parent and child, belongs to the
laws of the states, and not to the laws of the United
States.'

Similarly, in Sosna v. Illinois (1975) the Supreme Court
wrote:

'Domestic relations [is] an area that has long been
regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the
States.'

And in 1982, then-Associate Justice Rehnquist, dissenting
in Santosky v. Kramer, wrote:

'The area of domestic relations...has been left to the
States from time immemorial, and not without good
reason.'

And just this past November, in a television interview,
Justice Stephen Breyer stated very simply: 'Family law is State
law.'

So it's clear that domestic relations have been the
jurisdiction of States - and that's where they should remain. I
deeply believe that this body should not be involved in putting
amendments in the Constitution dealing with any aspect of
marriage, of divorce, of families, of adoption, of any of those
areas. The States reign supreme.

So why is it when Republicans are all for reducing the
federal government's impact on people's lives - until it comes to
these stinging litmus test issues, whether gay marriage or end of
life - they suddenly want the federal government to intervene?

For the life of me, I don't understand why this keeps
coming before this body. It is extraordinarily difficult to pass a
constitutional amendment. We all know that. Both Houses have to
pass it by 67 votes. Then, over a seven-year period, it goes out the
States, where it has to be ratified by three-quarters of the States.

The last constitutional amendment that went out to be
ratified by the States was the Equal Rights Amendment. A simple
25-word amendment that said:

'Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied
or abridged by the United States or by any state on
account of sex.'

And guess what, they were not able to get the necessary
three-fourths of the States over a seven-year period.

So, I don't believe this constitutional amendment would be
successful, even if passed out of this body.

I haven't seen one passed in the 13 years I have been here.
And it is extraordinarily difficult to get one ratified, as I said.

Family law, indeed, is the purview of the States. So,
there's no need for a constitutional amendment.

This proposed constitutional amendment strikes at the heart
of States' rights in the area of family law, and in doing so, actually
undermines our Constitution.

Moreover, I believe that Americans believe that the States
should deal with same-sex marriage as the States see fit. And so I
do.

And, Americans are especially concerned about amending
this Constitution if it means closing the door on civil unions.

Now, why do I say this? How do I know this? Fifty-three
percent of Americans polled recently would oppose a
constitutional amendment that also bans civil unions and domestic
partnerships, such as we have established in California.

Many legal experts believe that this amendment would do
just that. The language in the second sentence of the amendment is
ambiguous, at best, stating that:

'Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of
any State, shall be construed to require that
marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred
upon any union other than the union of a man and a
woman.'

Now, some on the other side have argued that the
amendment would still allow for legal unions passed by the States
legislatures, just not those instituted by the courts.

However, when similar amendments were passed in states
like Michigan, Ohio, and Utah, domestic violence laws and health
care plans for couples - both gay and straight - were taken away.

So, we know that it has an effect. So, I really believe that
to put this on the Constitution - if it were to prevail, if it were to be
ratified by three-quarters of the States - it is very likely that all
domestic partnerships and all unions of any civil kind would be
wiped out as well. And I think that doesn't make any sense at all.

States are well able to handle the issue of marriage on their
own - without the heavy-hand of the federal government
intervening in people's private lives.

What is currently happening in the States indicates to me
that they are, in fact, actively engaged on this issue.

In fact, the numbers speak for themselves:

* To date, 45 states have acted to restrict marriage to
only one man and one woman;

* 18 of those have done so by amending their State
constitutions.

So, why are we doing this?

* This year, 7 more states are poised to join them
when they hold statewide votes on constitutional
same-sex marriage bans: Alabama in June, and
Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee,
Virginia and Wisconsin in November.

* In addition, at least 9 other states may take up
similar amendments in the not-so-distant future:
Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana,
Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania.

* And in fact, only one State - Massachusetts -
recognizes same-sex marriage. One State, that's it.

So, why all the fuss? Why is the Senate devoting its time to
this issue when one state has taken action?

I say that based on the laws of this land, that that's the
prerogative of that state, or any other state. So there's no need for
us to be considering a federal constitutional amendment,
particularly when we have important global and national problems
to address.

* Deficit -- We've got an enormous deficit in this
country. We don't spend much time on it.

* Iraq -- Things are going from bad to worse -- just this
morning we read about of an "unrelenting" kidnapping
campaign happening in the streets of Baghdad.
Thousands of Iraqi citizens are being snatched from the
streets - 56 just yesterday - all rounded up by gunmen
dressed in Iraqi police uniforms.

* North Korea - has announced that it possesses nuclear
weapons.

* Iran - is trying to become a nuclear power.

* Stem Cell Research -- Passed by the House a year ago,
still not on the Floor of the Senate. So, why, why, why,
are we doing this now when we could be doing stem
cell research? When we could possibly provide the
hope for juvenile diabetics, for Alzheimer's victims, for
cancer victims, for spinal cord severance victims?

* Appropriations -- The Senate has not taken up and
approved any of the 12 appropriations bills that it must
complete by the end of the session and it is already
June. So I can't understand why we're doing this.

* Defense Authorization and Intelligence Authorization --
We've got the Defense Authorization and Intelligence
Authorization bills. These are critical bills at a time
when our nation continues to be fighting in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terror. And we
have not passed these bills.

* Gas Prices. I was in Los Angeles last week, and it cost
more than $3.50 a gallon to fill up a tank of gas. And
we haven't taken steps to deal with that.

So there are dozens of critical issues including the
mandatory business of this body in two major authorization bill
and 12 major appropriation bill that we haven't addressed. 45
States have taken action.

And yet this body seems pressed to defend the nation, to
amend the Constitution, to provide something which is the purview
of the States and which the States are handling.

To me it makes no sense, other than this is an election year.
It makes no sense other than throwing red meat to a certain
constituency. And it certainly is not what the Constitution of the
United States is all about.

Mr. President, I hope we will vote no on cloture and I hope
we will return to business that is important to the American people.
I do not believe that this issue merits the time of this Senate at this
time.

Thank you and I yield the floor."

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

http://feinstein.senate.gov

Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the
Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov. You can also
receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at
http://feinstein.senate.gov/issue.html.

Nor is Nielsen Martin Luther . . .

2006-06-18T05:43:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, The Salt Lake Tribune, compared Jeffrey Nielsen, their latest LDS martyr, to Henry David Thoreau. Today, The Tribune's implication is that he is the modern day Martin Luther for the LDS Church. Today's Tribune article begins by painting a rather bland and mundane protrait of Mr. Nielsen:

OREM - Jeffrey Nielsen drives a red minivan, but most days he takes the bus.
He goes to his LDS ward in Orem on Sundays. He likes to read and play catch with his two youngest daughters, ages 10 and 12. Lately, he has been hooked on dominoes. Most mornings, he and his 21-year-old son go jogging.

"I'm a pretty boring person," Nielsen concedes. But that is Nielsen's private self-image. His emerging public persona is anything but boring. The part-time Brigham Young University philosophy instructor has become the subject of a steady stream of letters to the editor and who knows how many office water-cooler chats since he penned a guest column earlier this month questioning his church's support of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

That attention ratcheted up this past week when BYU opted not to rehire Nielsen because his remarks in the June 4 edition of The Salt Lake Tribune publicly opposed leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on an issue they deem of supreme importance.

Now the spotlight-shy Nielsen is being flooded with even more e-mails. His name is surfacing in even more letters to the editor. And his voice is popping up in radio interviews.

But don't label Nielsen a rebel with a cause. "I'm not a revolutionary,” he says. "I'm a very flawed human being. I'm not a spokesperson for any movement." Even so, he is speaking out - as a matter of conscience if not convenience.

A couple of questions (if I might) to the Tribune and Mr. Nielsen:

Why--if you are not a spokesperson for any movement or a revolutionary; why, if you "cherish" your LDS membership; why, if you consider yourself to be just a "boring person"; why, if you truly do not want to be the subject of newspaper columns, water-cooler conversations, radio interviews, and general "ratched up" attention; why do you continue to speak with Salt Lake Tribune reporters openly and unapologetically still criticizing the LDS Church and leadership?

Well, it appears the answer--according to Mr. Nielsen is that his conscience just won't let him keep silent:

Even so, he is speaking out - as a matter of conscience if not convenience. The 44-year-old father of four not only openly questions LDS leaders on their backing of the marriage amendment, he also criticizes church statements on wedlock. In addition, he wonders about his church's position on its past denial of priesthood to blacks, its polygamous history, its membership counts and more. Nielsen, who says he cherishes his church membership, hasn't always been the questioning type.

"I was a very conformist . . . youth," he says. Reared like many Utah Mormons, Nielsen was born in Salt Lake City but did most of his growing up in Brigham City. Everyone in his immediate family was Mormon - mom, dad, three sisters and two brothers.

He graduated as student-body president from Box Elder High, earned a scholarship to BYU and served an LDS mission to Zurich, Switzerland. There he labored in one of the highest missionary leadership posts: assistant to the president. His mind-set was much different then. "I just took the line that you don't question your priesthood leaders," Nielsen recalls.

Why is it that Mr. Nielsen's conscience compels his criticisim of Christ's Church? Despite his protestations to the contrary--does he see himself as a modern day Martin Luther sent to guide The Brethren, to reform and correct LDS doctrine and practice? If so--how fortunate for us all! Who would have guessed such a reformation would come through a part time philosophy instructor at BYU nailing copies of the Salt Lake Tribune on the Church Office Building's front door? After noting how Mr. Nielsen dutifully fulfilled an LDS mission, never questioning his leaders, the Tribune continues:

Twenty-five years later, Nielsen is doing just the opposite. He believes the foundation of his about-face was laid by an introductory philosophy class he took his last semester at Weber State University . . . The philosophy class flicked on a switch in Nielsen's brain. "It opened me up to this idea of the 'world of ideas' that I hadn't ever experienced before," he says. With that light-bulb moment, poof went Nielsen's plans to attend law school. Instead, he earned a graduate degree in philosophy from Boston College, then returned to Utah and began teaching philosophy at BYU.

So, it's Plato's fault! I'm sympathetic to the notion that philosophy classes can in fact open up a person's mind to ideas. I've had a few of those classes myself (but unlike Mr. Nielsen I went to law school instead of graduating in philosophy). But, isn't it equally as likely that a person's mind can and is opened up to a world (and eternity) of ideas by praying, pondering and studying scriptures, conference talks, or even attending a lowly, unsophisticated Sacrament meeting?

His current thoughts are found in The Myth of Leadership, a 2004 book he wrote that advocates leaderless organizations and peer-based management. The book rests on two premises: Real communication can occur only between equals; and secrecy breeds corruption and abuses of power.

And so it is that the LDS Church's unbending stand against same-sex marriage isn't the only issue that troubles Nielsen. He wants LDS leaders to be more open about the church's membership numbers, its finances and its history. He wants leaders to more clearly address the church's past - and future - teachings about polygamy. (The church abandoned the practice in 1890.)

And he wants LDS temple weddings open to nonmember and non-tithe-paying parents. His reasons are both moral and personal. One of his sisters left the faith when, in her view, some church teachings didn't mesh with its history. In addition, a parent of his son-in-law wasn't able to attend the young man's temple wedding to Nielsen's daughter. "I really hope the membership has the privilege to raise these concerns and not be silenced," he says. "I don't want to attack the church. I'm not an enemy of the church. I don't want to hurt the church or destroy anyone's faith. I want to do things to strengthen the church."

I think the real Mr. Nielsen begins to emerge in these paragraphs. He's not really interested, as he suggested previously, to thoughtfully question and benevolently criticize Church leaders. He wants to dismantle the entire organization from the top down (or bottom up--depending on the point of view). So, all that "revelation" stuff on Church organization and priesthood offices, that The Prophet Joseph received from God--it just breeds corruption and is an abuse of power. Mr. Nielsen would have us throw out canonized scripture (portions of the Doctrine and Covenants) received via revelation, and supplant it with his own version of the philosophies (his) of men--mingled with scripture!

Not content to deconstruct the entire current Church hierarchy, Mr. Nielsen advocates further reforms to allow non members and non tithe payers to attend temple weddings. Why stop there? Why not open the endowment ceremony to the general public? After all that would really make us all equals. But, keep in mind Mr. Nielsen isn't attacking the Church, isn't its enemy, and doesn't want to destroy faith. He wants to strengthen faith and the Church. He comes not to bury the Church but to praise it. Are you kidding?

What of Mr. Nielsen and his future now that those corrupt, power abusing BYU administrators have so unrighteously and summarily fired him as a part time philosophy instructor?

David R. Keller, a philosophy professor at Utah Valley State College, can see Nielsen's reasoning. "He was motivated through ethical concerns, not to ruffle feathers or to create a situation of animosity," Keller says. "The tone of it was really concerned about the betterment of the human condition." Keller would like to see Nielsen teaching at UVSC one day. He already has tapped Nielsen as a speaker this fall for the Orem school's Center for the Study of Ethics, which Keller directs.

Not to worry: Mr. Nielsen has a bright future at a much more enlightened educational institution--one that has real academic freedom. Then of course there is his book The Tribune promotes in almost every article it prints. It sounds as if Mr. Nielsen is a much better fit over at UVSC or any other "secular" college or university--assuming he has the academic credentials to go beyond a mere part time instructor. My question to Mr. Nielsen is why was he so untruthful with himself and BYU administrators when he signed on at BYU as a philosophy instructor--given his true beliefs about the Church and its leadership? Was that an ethical lapse of judgment by Mr. Nielsen?

The more I read about Mr. Nielsen, the less I believe his originally stated motivation that began this ridiculous series of events: to thoughtfully question and benevolently criticize Church leaders. To the Tribune I repeat: Mr. Nielsen is not Henry David Thoreau or a modern day Martin Luther. To Mr. Nielsen: if you truly are as you portray yourself to the Tribune--the smartest thing I think you can do is stop speaking with their reporters.

The Church Is Not A Democracy--Nielsen Not Thoreau

2006-06-16T05:17:00.000-07:00

The Salt Lake Tribune, predictably has joined the cacophony of voices against the Church for what it has described as Nielsen's participation in the grand tradition of "The Duty of Civil Disobedience". In this morning's editorial, The Tribune notes:

To fully participate in the grand tradition of what Thoreau called "The Duty of Civil Disobedience," it is necessary to risk retribution from the powers that be. Otherwise, you can be dismissed as just another crank. Or, if you lack amateur standing, an editorial writer.

Jeffrey Nielsen is no crank. And, though all he has lost so far has been a part-time teaching gig, he may still claim kinship with those who have risked imprisonment or worse by speaking truth to power.

The Tribune's editorial page--not always one to be bothered with the details when it writes about the LDS Church, should take another look at this one. First, Thoreau's piece (which in fact was and remains a masterpiece) was originally titled Resistance to Civil Government. Why is this important? Well, none of us have a choice about whether or not to be subject to government. We as Americans are born into our democracy. It has the power to coerce. It has the power of the purse and sword--powers that can be enforced--and often are--against the will of its citizens. Civil Disobedience as envisioned by Thoreau remains a powerful force as a check on civil governments all over the world.

The Church, is an organization with which one affiliates by choice, not force. No one has to be a member of the Church. No one even has to be affiliated with BYU either as a student, faculty, or staff. Yet, Mr. Nielsen voluntarily chose to do so--with his eyes wide open. And, as a faculty member, Mr. Nielsen knew full well what the boundaries were before he ever started philosophizing--for money--down in Provo. And, more importantly, he agreed to those boundaries, in writing.

The Tribune continues:

After this term, Nielsen will be out as a philosophy instructor at Brigham Young University. That is because he wrote, with his eyes wide open, a commentary published in the June 4 Tribune criticizing a political stand taken by his church, the church that owns BYU, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Wrong! Nielsen is out because he labeled the BYU trustees' (who also happen to be Prophets, Seers and Revelators of his Church) position on a critical moral issue already well established by the Church, "troubling, immoral, discriminatory, and based on fear and superstition." This is a big deal, considering Nielsen, claims to be a believing LDS member. The LDS Church believes that The Brethren are inspired by God, not by fear, discrimination, superstition, and immorality. By extension the implication is that these men themselves and their views on the family as the fundamental unit of society as well as gay marriage is "troubling, immoral, discriminatory, and based on fear and superstition."

Furthermore, Nielsen chose as his venue, the Salt Lake Tribune, the most public avenue available. It is one thing to disagree with the Church's position. It is quite another to publically ridicule that position in the press, and all over the world. Nielsen knew before he put pen to paper that because of his position as a part time BYU faculty member, because of the highly charged moral issues involved, because of recent First Presidency announcements on the issue, and because of the political climate that his chosen method of expression would do great harm to the Church and BYU in terms of bad publicity. Yet, he went right ahead to exercise his "freedom of speech." Choices have consequences--and Mr. Nielsen is now experiencing his.

Continuing, the Tribune opines:

BYU is a private organization, owned by another private organization. If it thinks it necessary to dismiss anyone for speaking out of school, it has that right.

It is the beauty of civil disobedience, though, that those who exact the punishment also take some risk.

BYU and the church will now be criticized in some circles as being overly harsh and for forgetting the mission of a university to tolerate and nurture different strains of thought. More importantly, Nielsen's dismissal calls attention - more attention than was raised by his initial writing - to one of his main points.

That point was that by taking a public stand in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, the church's leadership went beyond its normal role of defining moral behavior for its own faithful and sought to determine law for all Americans.

The church has an unquestioned legal right to take such a stand, but no expectation that it can do so without being itself labeled, by some, as speaking out of turn.

A self fulfilling prophecy to be certain. Thank you Tribune for joining the cacophony of criticism against the Church and BYU--never one to miss a cheap shot against the Church, one can always count on the Salt Lake Tribune to come through in its self appointed role as the LDS Church watchdog.

Continuing:

Dissent without risk, by individuals or institutions, scarcely qualifies as dissent at all. Without the possibility of retribution, dissent has little power to change anything.

This debate will continue, within the church and without, in public and in private. No matter the outcome, Jeffrey Nielsen will know that, when faced with the choice, he did his duty to his conscience rather than take the easy way out. And how many of us can say that?

Nonsense! Mr. Nielsen's duty as a part time BYU faculty member was not to breach the terms of his employment contract. His duty as a faithful Latter-day Saint was not to publically ridicule and humiliate the governing body of his Church in the time, place and manner he chose. In fact, it was he who took the easy way out, by seeking, and now obtaining his 15 minutes of fame in joining the popular political discourse of his time. He took the easy way out by taking cheap shots at The Brethren and his Church. Sorry Tribune; but, the Church is not a democracy and Mr. Nielsen is no Henry David Thoreau.

What Religion Do You Preach?

2006-06-15T21:16:00.000-07:00

The philosophies of men . . . . mingled with scripture. With each passing day I am ever more grateful for an open cannon, for living and past Prophets, Seers, and Revelators, for The Gospel Restored, for Revelation of Truth Eternal.

New Rare Bookstore To Open In Provo

2006-06-15T19:18:00.000-07:00

Brent Ashworth, a rare documents and book collector is opening a new (actually probably old) rare bookstore in Provo. According to the Deseret News:

Jason Olson, Deseret Morning News
Brent Ashworth stands inside his rare-book and collectibles store in Provo. The business will specialize in rare books and collectible documents.

Collecting rare books, manuscripts and other odd things has long been a passion of Brent Ashworth's. Now, after 45 years of dreaming and collecting, Ashworth has opened a collectibles shop, "B. Ashworth's," at 127 W. Center, Provo. "Most of those years I have wanted to share the things I have collected and the information I have gleaned," he said . . .

While most of the collectibles in the new B. Ashworth's are from Brent Ashworth's personal collection, he has a few consigned items. Among them are first and second editions of the Book of Mormon and the first hymn book of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, compiled by Eliza R. Snow. The book has no music; just words. A song by printer W.W. Phelps, "The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning" was added to the end.

Only nine copies of the hymn book are known to exist and are valued at about $500,000.
The first edition of the Book of Mormon has chapters inserted by a printer's assistant, but no verses. The second edition has the verses, and about 2,000 grammatical corrections made by Joseph Smith, Ashworth said. Smith is listed as the author. The books are valued at $75,000-$100,000.

In 1833, Church officials were printing the first Book of Commandments in Independence, Mo. A mob came in, destroyed the press and threw the pages into the street. Some children picked them up and placed them in the bushes to hide them. Later they took the pages to church authorities who were able to publish about 25 of the books. Ashworth has one of them on consignment with the words "fifth book" handwritten along the wide bottom margin, purportedly by Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Smith's scribe.

While collectible LDS items bring some of the western American history to the shop, other items are of national or international importance. For example, Ashworth has a framed document signed by Abraham Lincoln designating J. W. North of Minnesota as surveyor general for Nevada, a document worth as much as $9,000.

An 1813 framed letter from Napoleon Bonaparte to his son is another prize. Napoleon items were rare until the 1960s when 40,000 documents the French conqueror signed were found in an old barn outside Paris. The value of Napoleon items plummeted but have been coming up in recent years, Ashworth said.

He also has a page from the Gutenburg Bible. Only 48 known copies of the Bible are in existence, some not complete. One copy was so incomplete that in 1920 it was taken apart and sold page by page, starting at $200. Ashworth values his page at $65,000.

Other documents he has for sale were signed by Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, Clara Barton and Winston Churchill. Ashworth's inventory includes a section of movie memorabilia, with a monogrammed pink dress worn by Marilyn Monroe and a brown leather jacket actor James Dean wore in "Rebel Without a Cause."

What makes Ashworth's bookstore venture more interesting is his involvement in Utah, and LDS history as part of the Mark Hoffman saga. Hoffman, of course, was the skilled document forger who forged not only many early LDS documents and sold them to the Church and others; but, he also forged some early American documents as well. When things went south in the forgery business, Hoffman began a string of murders to cover up his involvement in the forgeries.

Ashworth was an attorney and rare document collector who had done business with Hoffman in the early years. Police believe, as does Ashworth that he was Hoffman's third intended target.

For an interesting recap of the 20 year anniversary of the Hoffman murders, see here. If I were still stomping around Provo, Utah, B. Ashworth's bookstore would definitely be one of my stops.

This Is Just Not A Big Deal--Nor A Surprise

2006-06-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

The AP has picked up this story, and it is now running in papers all over the country, including today's USA Today:

Brigham Young University has decided not to rehire a part-time instructor because he publicly opposed the Mormon church's stand against marriage for same-sex couples.
Jeffrey Nielsen, a philosophy instructor at the church-owned university, said in an op-ed piece for the June 4 edition of The Salt Lake Tribune, "I believe opposing gay marriage and seeking a constitutional amendment against it is immoral."

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have spent millions of dollars campaigning against gay marriage and on May 28 called on members to support a constitutional amendment banning it.

Nielsen, a Mormon, said he learned of the school's decision regarding his employment in a June 8 letter from Daniel Graham, chairman of the Department of Philosophy.

"Since you have chosen to contradict and oppose the church in an area of great concern to church leaders, and to do so in a public forum, we will not rehire you after the current term is over," the letter said.

BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins confirmed that Graham decided not to rehire Nielsen because of the op-ed piece.

Nielsen said he is sticking by his views — and his religion.

"I have no desire to be anything but a member of the church," he said Tuesday.

The Salt Lake Tribune is also running a piece today as well (Mug shog included). The Deseret News story is here. What is all the fuss? Slow news day I suppose. The fact is, Mr. Nielsen was apparently an occasional part time instructor with the philosophy deparment on campus. He taught only part time, and then only one class at a time. He likely knew when he pulled his publicity stunt his contract would not be renewed. His firing had nothing to do with anything he taught at BYU. Oh well--Mr. Nielsen, your 15 minutes are up. Time to move on.

Author Interview And Review Of Running With Angeles

2006-06-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

A great review of the moving book Running with Angels and an exclusive interview with the author Pamela H. Hansen is up over at Prayer of Faith. Please take some time to check them both out. They're both well done. Thanks to sisters over at PoF for bringing this to the 'nacle.

28 Years Ago

2006-06-09T05:56:00.000-07:00

Twenty-eight years ago yesterday, June 8, 1978 The Brethren struck down a 148-year-old policy of excluding black men from the priesthood. This was a watershed moment in the Church's history.--the first "major" revelation affecting Church practice in a significant way in my lifetime. I was pleased to hear the news. It was exciting to see revelation at work. Four months later in General Conference, President N. Elden Tanner, presented Official Declaration 2 to the general Church body. The revelation was accepted unanimously by common consent, (a concept from which this blog takes its name) and canonized now in the Doctrine and Covenants.

BYU Faculty Member Openly Challenges The Brethren On Gay Marriage

2006-06-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

Jeffery Nielsen, a part time faculty member of the BYU Philosophy Department at BYU has publically challenged the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on gay marriage. In an op ed piece published yesterday in the Salt Lake Tribune, Nielsen called the “Brethren’s” position on gay marriage, and their call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage troubling, immoral, discriminatory, and based on fear and superstition.

Nielsen begins by proclaiming his loyalty to the Church and Brethren by sustaining them in print, while preparing to thoughtfully question and benevolently criticize them by exercising his moral imperative to do so:

The leaders of my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, recently spoke out against gay marriage and asked members to encourage their U.S. senators to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting homosexual marriage.

As a member, I sustain the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as LDS general authorities; however, I reject the premise that they are thereby immune from thoughtful questioning or benevolent criticism. A perfect God does not require blind obedience, nor does He need unthinking loyalty. Freedom of conscience is a divine blessing, and our privilege to express it is a moral imperative.

After reaffirming his support and sustaining of the “Brethren” Nielsen then proceeds to call their position immoral:

When the church hierarchy speaks on a public issue and requests that members follow, it is difficult indeed if an individual feels the content of their message would make bad law and is unethical as well. I believe opposing gay marriage and seeking a constitutional amendment against it is immoral.

Without reference to specific, supporting scientific studies, Nielsen then invokes science to explain how same-sex attraction is biologically based and is as natural as heterosexual attraction:

Currently the preponderance of scientific research strongly suggests that same-sex attraction is biologically based. Therefore, it is as natural as a heterosexual orientation, even if rare. It seems it might be caused by environmental conditions in the mother's womb, before birth, triggering the DNA to give the fetus a homosexual orientation. Neither the mother nor the child has any choice in the matter; it is a completely natural process.

Is that true? Does the preponderance (meaning greater than 50%) of scientific research really suggest same sex attraction stems from biology leaving an individual with absolutely no choice in the matter? Nielsen argues that, since same sex attraction is biologically based, it logically follows that God and by extension his servants the apostles and prophets would be unjust by condemning a completely innocent person to a life of guilt:

Truly, God would be unjust if He were the creator of a biological process that produced such uncommon, yet perfectly natural results, and then condemned the innocent person to a life of guilt, while denying him or her the ordinary privileges and fulfillment of the deep longing in all of us for family and a committed, loving relationship.

I suppose that if God did in fact create gay people with absolutely no choice in either controlling their actions and/or their sexual preferences Nielsen might have a point; but I don’t think that is the case. God has created the human sexual drive for a wise purpose, to propagate the family structure; however, the human sex drive is one that must be, and has been commanded to be controlled. Life is not one big candy store, from which we are entitled to sample all the flavors. While there may be some biological element involved the fact remains that God has commanded that sexual relationships occur within the bonds and bounds of heterosexual marriage, between a man and a woman.

Elevating the evidentiary standard from preponderance to beyond a reasonable doubt, Nielsen seems to backtrack a bit:

Even if the scientific evidence does not yet establish this beyond reasonable doubt, it seems that virtuous moderation and loving kindness require us to exercise caution before making constitutionally binding discrimination against a whole class of people based only on fear and superstition. In fact, when we examine the statements opposing gay marriage, we find few reasonable arguments. It is not enough to claim that we should oppose gay marriage because historically it has never been recognized. This is the fallacy of appealing to tradition, which was also used to fight against civil rights and equal treatment of women.

So, even if there isn’t a scientific basis for gay behavior, we can’t constitutionally discriminate against an entire class of people because we and the “Brethren” are fearful and superstitious. Besides these are the same arguments used to discriminate against Blacks and women. Never mind the fact that Blacks and women are the true civil rights battles and have little or nothing to do with the so called gay “civil rights” movement.

Nielsen then argues that legalizing gay marriage will actually strengthen traditional marriage, because it will reinforce the importance of committed relationships. Are most gay relationships committed personal relationships? Do most gays even want to marry? Nielsen assumes this to be the case:

Further, to say that gay marriage will destroy traditional marriage and the family without giving any reasons why is the fallacy of appealing to fear. Indeed, once you get past the emotion, it is quite an unfounded claim. How could the union of two committed and loving people negatively affect my marriage? I believe that quite the contrary is true; namely, legalizing gay marriage reinforces the importance of committed relationships and would strengthen the institution of marriage.

Of course Nielsen did not forget to appeal to the separation of church and state. Religious leaders should not offer counsel to anyone that might be considered to be within the realm of the law or politics. That, of course is and should be reserved only for the elected lawmakers. Nielsen seems to be missing the point that the “Brethren” are advocating the people contact their lawmakers on this issue. The fact is that lawmakers in the Senate created this constitutional amendment, not the LDS Church or its leadership. The fact the “Brethren” have advocated a particular stand, on this moral issue is certainly within their rights and not a violation of church and state:

Ultimately, any appeal to religious authority to create law is misplaced. Our Founding Fathers were inspired by their study of history to separate constitutional authority from religious belief, recognizing as they did the potential for tyranny in unchecked religious influence. In our pluralistic democracy, attempting to restrict an individual's rights and privileges based upon a religious claim is a dangerous rejection of our Founding Fathers' wise insight, and it should be unacceptable to all Americans.

The final portion of Nielsen’s article lambasts the Church for its inconsistency on its past practice of polygamy over 115 years ago. His argument is essentially the Church, can’t with a straight face reserve marriage now between a man and a woman, since it allowed the practice of polygamy in the 18th century. This seems to ignore the place of continuing revelation in the Church, and also ignores the real fact that plural marriage was always practiced between men and women, not same sex couples. Nielsen also takes time to complain about the way the Church deals with plural marriage in its history, though I must confess I don’t see how this (even if true) relates to gay marriage today:

As for the statement by church leaders that God has ordained marriage to be a union between a man and a woman, I find it quite troubling. It sidesteps the role of polygamy in past and future church teachings. It seems to me that if church leaders at one point in time, not very long ago, told members that the union of one man with several women was important for eternal salvation, but now leads them to believe that God only recognizes the union of one man to one woman, then some explanation is required. (I am not endorsing polygamy.)

God is not the author of incoherence or injustice, but we humans often are. We in the LDS Church must be more honest about our history, including the past and future practice of polygamy in our official doctrine. This will be difficult, for it will reveal that we have been less than truthful in our public relations, and it will show our inconsistency with current statements opposing gay marriage.

We can no longer afford to teach only what is useful and hope people won't discover what is true. In this day of easy Internet access, a person can find more real history of the LDS Church in 30 minutes online than the same person would in a lifetime studying approved church materials.

This is not right. Too many individuals have suffered a loss of faith when they were forced to choose between the truth or their family after innocently discovering the discrepancy between genuine history and the official story of the church.

We need to trust the membership of the church and treat them as adults, as equals. We are a church of brothers and sisters, not one of the few privileged leaders and the many subordinate followers. There might be a diversity of roles and responsibilities from prophet to Sunday School teacher, but we are all peers with one another and equally irreplaceable in God's thoughts and affections.

Nielsen’s conclusion here is absolutely stunning. Church members are adults. The “Brethren” need to treat them as adults, not as privileged leaders and subordinate followers. Perhaps, Nielsen has forgotten it is the role of the “Brethren” to counsel just as they have for many, many years on this and other similar subjects. We, as Church members are free to choose how we respond. That choice is never taken away from us.

What is most interesting to me about Nielsen’s article is his position as a part time faculty member of Brigham Young University. I think everyone has an inviolate right to an opinion on any matter, Church related or not. Everyone has a right to question the “Brethren’s” counsel; however, not everyone has the right to question and ridicule that counsel in a public forum, when their salary as a part time faculty member at Brigham Young University is paid out of sacred tithing funds. Mr. Nielsen has exercised his God give right to choose a course of action–publishing an article openly critical of the “Brethren.” Now, it is time that he face any consequences that follow. My hope is that there are some.

Not A Headline Of Which To Be Proud

2006-06-03T22:50:00.000-07:00

As President's Poll Numbers Fall, Many in Utah Stand by the Man. Only in Utah . . . and Provo of all places. Most disturbing is some of the rational:

"When I watch him, I see a man with his heart in the right place," said Delia Randall, a 22-year-old mother from Provo, the hub of a county that gave Senator John Kerry just 11 percent of the presidential vote in 2004. "I like George Bush because he is God fearing, and that's how a lot of people in this area feel."

The redemptive narrative that Mr. Bush has often told about his life — a frequent drinker who found God and his political purpose in early middle-age — has greater resonance here than in other parts of the country. And people say they are willing to overlook major problems, or not blame Mr. Bush for trouble spots, because they like his personality.

"He's strong, and he doesn't waver," said Jaren Olsen, 18, a freshman at Brigham Young, the nation's largest religiously affiliated private university, who is from Albany. "I like that he is for the family, that marriage should only be between a man and woman. And the war, we need to finish what we started."
Another student at Brigham Young, Danielle Pulsipher, a junior, offered blanket approval of the president. Asked to name which of his actions as president she liked most, she was hard-pressed to answer.

"I'm not sure of anything he's done, but I like that he's religious — that's really important," Ms. Pulsipher said.

"When you get down to almost 50 percent in Utah, that's the canary-in-the-mine-shaft of all warnings for Republicans," said Kelly Patterson, director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young. The walls of Mr. Patterson's office bear a headline from the last time a Democrat won Utah in a presidential race — it was Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1964.

Still, because voters in the state are strongly religious, with a huge majority belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and strongly Republican, the well of support for Mr. Bush is deeper here than in almost any other place in the country.

Religion and political views go hand in hand here, voter surveys show. The state has the nation's highest birth rate and the youngest population. Voters tend to be better educated than in many states, and about 60,000 people a year go on Mormon missions overseas, giving them a different view of the world.

In Provo, a prosperous city of just over 100,000 people built around Brigham Young, about 8 of every 10 voters are registered Republicans. Last year, Provo was rated the most conservative city in America by the nonpartisan Bay Area Center for Voter Research.

"This is a community committed to faith, family and freedom, and that translates to consistent popularity for George Bush," said Mayor Lewis K. Billings of Provo.

"People here like so much of what George Bush has done," Mr. Billings said. "I think he's got support on almost everything — except immigration."

Well, just for the record, this BYU educated, returned Mormon missionary does not now, and has never supported Mr. Bush, regardless of his religious beliefs. I find it disturbing the impression this story may give to the world at large about the core of the LDS population in Provo: That most LDS members, at least there, like and support Mr. Bush because they believe he is a man of faith and God. Even if he were such an individual, his complete and total failure while in the Oval office, and the disastrous path upon which he has placed America is unforgivable. Most of America, even Mr. Bush's more ardent supporters outside the Chuch can see these failures, as reflected in his lowest approval ratings ever, see here and here.

A Stone Cut Without Hands

2006-06-03T07:10:00.000-07:00

From today's Deseret News, this article by Jerry Johnston gives that verse a whole new meaning:

Dan Brown, author of "The Da Vinci Code," is hard at work on another thriller. This time, he says, the book will explore the inner world of the Masons and the Mormons.
I'm sure it will be a blockbuster filled with symbols and assassins and sultry seductresses.

I'm sure the Masons and Mormons can't wait.

When I read about Brown's new book, however, my mind flashed on something else — something I came across in one of those magazines that explain the Bible. According to more and more scholars, the trusty King James Version got it wrong — again. When Jesus goes back to Nazareth and the people say, "Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary," the text should really read, "Is this not the stonemason, the son of Mary."

Jesus, scholars say, was a mason. He worked in stone, not wood. Instead of saws and nails he handled squares and compasses, chisels and hammers. And he would have been built, himself, like a block of granite.

How scholars know this, and which scholars know this isn't quite clear to me; but, as Jerry notes changing Christ's vocation from carpenter to stone mason would certainly impact the stories told in the Gospels:

When Jesus said he would tear the temple down and build it up in three days, of course they would have thought he meant Herod's temple. The man was a stone mason.
When he tells the haughty Jews that God could raise children of Abraham from the stones, did he mean "hew children of Abraham" from those stones?
When he says to give our hungry sons bread — not stones. When he talks of millstones around a neck and buildings where one stone will not be left upon another; when he describes himself as a stone the builders rejected who will become the cornerstone.
When he gives Simon the nickname Peter — a word that comes from "petrify" — a nickname that means solid, hard, resilient. A nickname that means "stone."
When Jesus did all of that, was he drawing from his childhood and his own personal experience?
When he worked his square and compass on rock did he see eternal truths at work?
When he chipped and chiseled blocks of marble did the fashioning of worlds come to his mind?
Modern scholars say there's a good chance of that. They say there's a chance Jesus was, indeed, a mason.
And as for Brown and his latest book, what slippery thoughts are running through his mind? As with "The Da Vinci Code," will he find a way to pull Jesus into the plot — to see him as the "cornerstone" of all things Mason and Mormon?
Stay tuned. We'll find out together.

Well, this of course is all news to me. I'm one of the few on the planet who hasn't either read Dan Brown's "code" book, or seen the Tom Hanks "code" movie . . . though my wife is dragging me to the movie today. I guess it's too late to read the book first. And, I really prefer to do that so I get a better understanding of the movie. Oh well, maybe I can do the stone mason book first and hope for a movie as well.

An Open Letter To The Brethren

2006-06-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

Dear Brethren:

In response to your letter released 5/26/06, it appears to be the collective wisdom of some of the more vocal denizens of the “bloggernacle” that your suggestion we communicate our support for traditional families and marriage to our elected representatives is misguided, misplaced, uninformed, or somehow just inappropriate. There are a variety of reasons for this, and I will attempt to highlight just a few in the hope that we, the collective “bloggernacle” might be able to educate you, Prophets, Seers, and Revelators all, on the real issues relating to marriage and families.

First, your letter is just incredibly ambiguous. You don’t really tell us exactly what you want us to support. Yes, we know you have pointed out and archived on the Church’s official website a history of the Church’s support for traditional marriage between a man and woman, dating all the way back to 1995 when President Hinckely issued his Proclamation to the World about families, marriage and a great deal more.

Yes, we know that you also issued other similar official pronouncements archived on the Church’s official website about traditional marriage between a man and woman, including these:

A Proclamation to the World; General Relief Society Mtg., Sept. 23, 1995

Oaks, Dallin H., “Same Gender Attraction,” Ensign, Oct. 1995, p. 6

Hinckley, President Gordon B., What is your Church’s attitude toward homosexuality?, in response to question from Larry King on Larry King Live, Ensign, Nov. 1998, p. 70

First Presidency Statement - Marriage, 7 July 2004

"LDS Church Supports Gay-marriage Bans" Deseret Morning News, 8 July 2004

First Presidency Statement - Same-Gender Marriage, 19 Oct 2004

Yes, we know all these references are archived on the Church’s website here. Yes, we know you have apparently been crystal clear that the only proper marriage is between a man and a woman. Yet, despite all these past pronouncements, despite the fact that the United States Senate votes in just five days on this very same issue, we just can’t seem to connect the dots and determine whether you really want us to support this amendment.

Of course, we know all too well that while the spirit is willing, the flesh is indeed weak, as are we the body of bloggernacle saints. In fact we might even be the weakest of all saints, who are or can be called saints. So, we need you to be more specific and more clear. Do you really, really want us to support this particular amendment? If so, then why didn’t you specifically say so in your letter? You must know by now it is meet that we be commanded in all things.

Perhaps in future letters to the saints on this subject you might be just a bit more specific, and perhaps you could go so far as to suggest exact wording for the House and Senate to consider. Because of your letter’s ambiguity, we’ve spent a countless hours trying to figure out your cryptic counsel to us. You can see our most sincere efforts of pondering, praying, and coming to an understanding of your counsel in some of the comments that are archived here, here, here, here, here, and of course here.

I’m sure once you have all had a chance to review all the insightful posts and comments on this issue we have generated in our discussion you will note that we, the collective bloggernacle, are a pretty bright bunch of folks. I mean, we’ve got lawyers, maybe even some doctors, and lots of PhD’s, and I think even some more lawyers. So, you can see, we really are pretty smart. We read and generate lots and lots of posts and comments in the bloggernacle. We know a great deal about a lot of things (likely more than you do). Perhaps you might want to consult with some of us before issuing more of these future proclamations.

The other thing you may want to consider, is keeping your political preferences private. You see, counsel from the “Brethren” is most appropriate when it is kept within the bounds of doing home teaching, food storage, keeping the commandments (those we like), and that sort of stuff. It is really inappropriate and annoying to many of us for you to mix Church and state, and tell us how to vote. (Though really we want more clarification on this amendment thing—is this the one or what)?

So, rather that writing our senators we’ve decided just to write you and let you know why we have chosen to hearken unto ourselves.

Best and Warmest Regards,

The Collectively Wise Bloggernacle.

(On a more serious note). For one of the most thoughtful and reasoned posts I have read on this subject, please see Dave's Mormon Inquir y.

The Gay Response To The First Presidency's Call

2006-05-31T05:30:00.000-07:00

Not surprisingly, the gay community had no trouble figuring out what the First Presidency's letter meant. The Deseret News reports today that Utah gay and lesbian activists intend to use this weekend's "Utah Pride" celebration to oppose the Church's most recent call to support traditional marriage, between a man and a woman.

In an e-mail to about 4,000 people on Tuesday, Jere Keys, coordinator of Utah Pride, asked those joining the Utah Pride Celebration to "send a message for fairness and equality" to their elected officials by expressing their opposition to a proposed federal marriage amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

The e-mail was in response to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' First Presidency statement reaffirming its support of the proposed marriage amendment, which the Senate could debate and vote on next week.

"Let's not be coy, when the LDS Church says jump, thousands of Utahns ask 'how high?' " Keys' e-mail said.

The church's statement, which was to have been read Sunday to congregations throughout the United States, said in part, "We urge our members to express themselves on this urgent matter to their elected representatives in the Senate."

Let's not be coy here Jere. When you send an email to about 4,000 gay and lesbian activists saying jump, you too want them to jump just as high as you claim LDS members are jumping. Please--as if trying to communicate your message somehow vitiates the message!

Keys said as many as 20,000 people could attend the annual Utah Pride Celebration in downtown Salt Lake City on Sunday and predicted more will watch the Pride Parade.
"I think it is important that people get involved," he said. "There is a real difference that can be made. . . . We are a large and thriving community."

So, it's ok for the gay and lesbian folk to "get involved" but not the LDS folk? Does the First Amendment only protect gay and lesbian activists and their message? I think not Jere.

I find it ironic how many in the "bloggernacle" have wrung their hands so hard over the meaning and intent of the First Presidency's letter that they've essentially tied themselves into knots over this issue. The "Brethren's" meaning doesn't seem to be very lost on the gay pride community.

One final thought. I've always been intrigued by the use of the term pride in this context. It reminds me of the use of the word pride in another ancient context as well. But hey . . . what do Prophets, Seers, and Revelators know anyway?

In Defense Of Traditional Marriage

2006-05-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

On May 26, 2006 The First Presidency and The Quorum of The Tweleve Aposltes released the following letter to Church leaders in the United States:

Letter from First Presidency of the Church to Church Leaders in the United States

We are informed that the United States Senate will on June 6, 2006, vote on an amendment to the Federal constitution designed to protect the traditional institution of marriage.

We, as the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, have repeatedly set forth our position that the marriage of a man and a woman is the only acceptable marriage relationship.

In 1995 we issued a Proclamation to the World on this matter, and have repeatedly reaffirmed that position.

In that proclamation we said: "We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society."

We urge our members to express themselves on this urgent matter to their elected representatives in the Senate.

As the letter notes, the Church has long supported the traditional definition of marriage, and has recently come out in support of a Constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage. I have sent the following letter to California Senators Feinstein and Boxer:

Dear Senator Feinstein/Boxer:

On June 6, 2006, The United States Senate will vote on an amendment to the Federal Constitution designed to protect the traditional institution of marriage. I believe that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God. I further believe that children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Finally, I believe that the marriage of a man and a woman is the only acceptable marriage relationship.

I urge to you vote in support of an amendment to the Federal Constitution that protects the traditional institution of marriage: a marriage between a man and a woman.

I vote in all elections. I will take your vote on this critical issue into consideration when you next run for election.

Sincerely,

Guy W. Murray

If you live in California you may send a similar letter, or a copy and paste of the above if you like to Senator Feinstein here, and Senator Boxer here. If you live outside California you may research the email sites for your respective senators here.

One version of the amendment states:

109th CONGRESS

1st Session

S. J. RES. 1

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

January 24, 2005

Mr. ALLARD (for himself, Mr. INHOFE, Mr. LOTT, Mr. ENZI, Mr. DEMINT, Mr. SANTORUM, Mr. CRAPO, Mr. SESSIONS, Mr. VITTER, Mr. THUNE, Mr. ALEXANDER, Mr. FRIST, Mr. TALENT, Mr. BURR, Mrs. HUTCHISON, Mr. KYL, Mrs. DOLE, Mr. MARTINEZ, Mr. ISAKSON, Mr. MCCONNELL, Mr. HATCH, Mr. ROBERTS, Mr. CORNYN, Mr. STEVENS, and Mr. COBURN) introduced the following joint resolution; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:

`Article--

`SECTION 1. This article may be cited as the `Marriage Protection Amendment'.

`SECTION 2. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.'.

The most recent verison states:

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage. (Reported in Senate)

SJ 1 IS

Calendar No. 435

109th CONGRESS

2d Session

S. J. RES. 1

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

January 24, 2005

Mr. ALLARD (for himself, Mr. INHOFE, Mr. LOTT, Mr. ENZI, Mr. DEMINT, Mr. SANTORUM, Mr. CRAPO, Mr. SESSIONS, Mr. VITTER, Mr. THUNE, Mr. ALEXANDER, Mr. FRIST, Mr. TALENT, Mr. BURR, Mrs. HUTCHISON, Mr. KYL, Mrs. DOLE, Mr. MARTINEZ, Mr. ISAKSON, Mr. MCCONNELL, Mr. HATCH, Mr. ROBERTS, Mr. CORNYN, Mr. STEVENS, Mr. COBURN, Mr. COCHRAN, Mr. SHELBY, Mr. ALLEN, Mr. BROWNBACK, and Mr. DEWINE) introduced the following joint resolution; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

May 18, 2006

Reported by Mr. SPECTER, without amendment

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:

`Article--

`SECTION 1. This article may be cited as the `Marriage Protection Amendment'.

`SECTION 2. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.'.

Calendar No. 435

109th CONGRESS

2d Session

S. J. RES. 1

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage.

May 18, 2006

Reported without amendment

There are several LDS Blogs where the debate is already raging about how uninformed and backward the First Presidency and Quorum of the Tweleve Apostles are for offering the Saints this wisdom and counsel. Since, I'm not nearly as intellectually gifted and bright as are they who mock and scorn this counsel from our living prophets seers, and revalators, I will do what small part I can, and just write the letter.

America's Finest

2006-05-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

To the men and women of America's Military the world over: Thank You, and may God Bless!

Gone Fishin'

2006-05-21T12:58:00.000-07:00

Utah's Quarter Design Finally Resolved

2006-05-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

Another flash back, Utah has finally decided on the design for its quarter. There was quite a stir when the beehive symbol was suggested. You can read some of the prior discussions here, here, and here. The final design, as reported by the Salt Lake Tribune, is the Golden Spike, Crossroads of the West Design. Governor Huntsman is even participating in a recreation of the "golden spike":

For weeks, Utah leaders have been poised to unveil the design for the state's commemorative quarter.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is supposed to re-enact the driving of the Golden Spike - the completion of the transcontinental railroad - in Promontory today. "Major Announcement Planned," his schedule says.

Hmmmm.

While still coy Tuesday, Huntsman spokesman Mike Mower pretty much confirmed the governor picked the Golden Spike "Crossroads of the West" design over two other finalists.

"It would be a long way to drive to announce the snowboarder or the beehive - and in front of a crowd that would likely be disappointed with that announcement," Mower said.

The announcement will end a three-year selection process that narrowed 5,000 potential designs down to three final drawings. The quarter will be submitted to the U.S. Mint and released in October 2007.

This is actually a good choice; but, the Trib just couldn't pass up a couple of jabs at the beehive symbol that was once considered. Of course, their editorializing the beehive was instrumental in making it the controversy it was--but really shouldn't have been.

BYU Student Protesters Face Disciplinary Action

2006-05-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

If you recall, Soulforce, a pro gay activist group recently visited BYU, along with a host of other Christian universities across the United States. At that protest visit, at least five BYU students actively participated in the "die in" protest on campus where they fell down and pretended to die.

The Deseret News reported that these five students now face disciplinary action for possible honor code violations:

The other 24 arrested included four BYU students and two former students, BYU Police Capt. Mike Harroun said. They were arrested April 11 when they staged a campus die-in, a protest that consists of falling to the ground as if dead.

The Honor Code Office review, confirmed by BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins, could clear the students or result in punishments that possibly could include expulsions.

"We were supposed to find out (Tuesday)," said Lauren Jackson, a freshman from Baxter, Tenn., "but none of us heard."

Jackson is taking spring classes while she awaits the decision. The other students arrested were Alexander Liberato, 22, Matthew Kulisch, 24, and Timothy Burt, 18. Kulisch told media he is gay and Jackson worried that could lead to a more severe punishment.

"I'm mainly just nervous for Matt, the individual who came out," she said. "He's at the highest risk, I think."

Jackson and Liberato participated in the demonstration to urge other students and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns BYU, to avoid treating gays harshly.

"I feel like (the Honor Code Office reviewers) were very receptive to my message," Jackson said. "I participated to raise awareness or increased understanding for individuals who suffer from problems because individuals isolate or mistreat them."

Haven Herrin, co-director of the Equality Ride and coordinator of the BYU stop, said she understood a fifth student, who marched with the group at BYU but did not participate in the die-in, was under review for a possible honor code violation.

Jackson confirmed that and BYU's Jenkins said five students who participated were under review.

Herrin said the results of the review will carry weight beyond the fate of five student careers at BYU.

"Whatever stand BYU takes will more clearly define where the university stands," she said. "Many of the students I spoke to are not clear on BYU's stance regarding the treatment of gay people or of the church's policy. This will probably be a defining moment for them."

Jenkins expressed surprise at Herrin's statement.

"I was there when they were mingling amongst our students and overheard conversations and our students explained our honor code very accurately," Jenkins said.

Soulforce alleged wrongly in a press release after the BYU arrests that BYU does not allow gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual students to enroll. The honor code does not ban those students, but bans sexual activity outside marriage and advocacy of a gay lifestyle.

"The honor code is directed toward behavior, not orientation," Jenkins said.

The actual honor code provisions that discuss homosexual behavior, which you can read in full here, states:

Sexual and similar misconduct

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and BYU affirm that sexual relationships outside the covenant of marriage are inappropriate. Examples include but are not limited to the following:

Extra-marital relations
Promiscuity or predatory behavior
Aberrant behavior
Solicitation of sex
Homosexual conduct
Cross-dressing

Any level of sexual or similar misconduct at BYU is significant and may lead to a separation from the university.
Homosexual behavior or advocacy

Brigham Young University will respond to student behavior rather than to feelings or orientation. Students can be enrolled at the University and remain in good Honor Code standing if they maintain a current ecclesiastical endorsement and conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code. Advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle (whether implied or explicit) or any behaviors that indicate homosexual conduct, including those not sexual in nature, are inappropriate and violate the Honor Code.

Violations of the Honor Code may result in actions up to and including separation from the University.

There has been a great deal of discussion about what some of these provisions mean; however, I think a legitimate argument can be made that actively participating in this particular demonstration and "die in" violates the honor code. I think the BYU five who, purposely, voluntarily, and actively went out of their way to "die" in this protest were "advocating" a gay lifestyle.

I don't necessarily think this activity warrants expulsion from BYU; but, I do think it warrants some lesser disciplinary action by BYU against these students.

I agree with Haven Herrin's statement to the Deseret News, that BYU's actions will have implications beyond the current five students who participated in this protest. I also think it will help further define, what I also believe are some rather vague provisions in the honor code. Perhaps it will prompt some actual revisions by BYU's administration in this portion of the honor code.

4000 And Counting

2006-04-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

Update: The Deseret News also had a nice write up on this milestone here. I had heard about this; but, with my weekend's scouting activities, I forgot to watch the Tabernacle Choir's 4,000th broadcast this morning. From KSL's write up it was acknowledged all the way to Washington D.C. Congratulations to the Choir and all those behind the scenes that make the weekly broadcast possible:

And now, I'm honored to announce your next performance 'Come, Come, Ye Saints'..."

President Bush became part of a historic moment here in Utah as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir celebrated its 4,000 broadcast this morning.

"Music and the Spoken Word' is the longest running program on nationwide network radio -- KSL-TV has aired it for 40 years.

"From the crossroads of the west, we welcome you to temple square in salt lake city for the 4,000 broadcast of 'Music and the Spoken Word' "

The group known as America's choir passed a broadcasting landmark that began July 15th, 1929...

"How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord..."

Pres. Bush: "You have brought music and inspiration to generations of Americans and I wish you continued success in the future...."

360 voices and many behind-the-scenes for 77 years.

Craig Jessop, Music Director, Mormon Tabernacle Choir: "It represents the collective efforts of thousands: of singers, directors, organists... It's really quite a remarkable legacy to be a part of."

The spoken word represents, to many, an inspiring non-denominational message first given by Elder Richard L. Evans, then Spence Kinard and how Lloyd Newell.

It was an historic day for members of the choir, their President calls them an army of volunteers. Their church leaders call them musical missionaries.

Brian Roberts, Mormon Tabernacle Choir: "I'll bump into people and if I have my bag with me and it says 'Mormon Tabernacle Choir' on it, and they'll go,'Oh, you're with the choir?! I love the choir, they're so wonderful!' "

When the choir travels, 'Music and the Spoken Word' has originated from worldwide locations, London, Geneva, Barcelona...loved by audiences abroad and at home.

Emmaline Johnson, Midvale, Utah: "Sunday mornings I look forward to listening to it and it kind of gives you a calmness and something we don't get everyday..."

Bruce Reese, CEO, Bonneville International Corp.: "Music and the Spoken Word' draws bigger audiences in its rated TV markets than any other devotional program..."

Jon M. Huntsman, Jr., Governor of Utah: "I express my heartfelt appreciation for the way in which all involved with 'music and the spoke word' represent the state so prominently and so proudly throughout the world."

The audience recognized President Gordon B. Hinckley, the choir's advisor for 35 years.

Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley: "All of you who serve in any way in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, accept of our thanks, of our gratitude, of our appreciation and of our blessing."

President Hinckley told them to continue, always improving the quality of their performances.

It takes about 19 years to do 1-thousand weekly broadcasts, so, that means the choir will celebrate its 5-thousandth performance of 'Music and the Spoken Word' in the year 2025.

It seems as though the Choir is one of those Mormon Icons that almost always brings a positive response. How refreshing in today's climate! Hope we're all around for their 5,000th program!

LDS Almost March To Protest Religious Bigotry

2006-04-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

From today's Daily Herald, a story about a group of LDS protestors about to march in opposition to religious bigotry over questioning of movie goers outside a showing of Richard Dutcher's States of Grace. If you can believe this the theater owners instructed employees to caution movie viewers that the film was not a "Christian" film; but, it was a "Mormon" film--further evidence of continuing religious bigotry and hatred by our so-called "Christian" brothers and sisters:

Signs on sticks, marching, chanting.
"Grace is for Mormons, too."
"Mormons (heart) Jesus, too."
"Mormons are Christians, too."
About two dozen members of the LDS faith, some from as far away as Utah and Texas, had planned to spend their Wednesday evening protesting outside the Horton Plaza 14 Theater in San Diego. The protest targeted what the members say is discrimination against the LDS Church and the movie "States of Grace," which is playing at the theater.
The story started on Monday. Armand Mauss and his wife drove 85 miles to see "States of Grace" at the theater because it wasn't playing where they lived.
Mauss walked up to the ticket counter and asked for two tickets.
"Are you Christian?" the girl at the ticket counter asked.
Mauss was surprised but responded in the affirmative. It was her next statement that surprised him.
"She responded, 'Well you need to know that this film, it's being advertised as a Christian film, but it's really a Mormon film.' "
From further questions, Mauss learned that the theater's supervisors had told their employees to "warn" ticket buyers about the film. They had complaints from people upset because the movie wasn't what they expected.
"I asked (movie theater employees) if it was a Catholic film, would you say, this isn't a Christian film, it's a Catholic film?" Mauss said.

Can you imagine the outcry from the gay community if theater owners instructed employees to ask movie goers what they thought of gay cowboys, prior to a showing of Brokeback Mountain? People thought it outrageous when Larry Miller made the decision he wouldn't show the film at all; but, at least he didn't pull what went on here in San Diego.

Apparently Richard Dutcher stepped in at the last minute asking the LDS protesters not to picket the theater:

It was a phone call from Dutcher on Wednesday telling them to not make a scene and to put the brakes on the protest outside the theater.
"I was kind of riled up and everyone else was kind of riled up," said Steven Greenstreet of "This Divided State" fame. "But I guess that's kind of the point of the protest -- I guess the way we were approaching it wasn't the most Christian way. We decided it would look better to turn the other cheek."
They still went to the theater, but with fewer signs and a smaller group to talk to California media . . .

A big fan of Dutcher, Greenstreet took off to San Diego immediately after hearing the story to protest with others who were upset over the separation between Mormons and Christianity.
He spent his Wednesday calling people and making the signs. He was excited, and ready to be peaceful, saying before the protest that if anyone asked the group to leave, they would.
However, at 6 p.m., thirty minutes before the protest, Dutcher called. The filmmaker told protesters that he would handle business with the theater privately.

Dutcher's approach was likely the more "Christian" approach to diffuse this situation; but, I am irritated by the religious bigotry and intolerance of many of our so called "Chrisitan" brothers and sisters when it comes to LDS views and practices. We need the equivalent of a Mormon Anti-Defamation League.

Gallop Survey Says Mormons Strong On Meeting Attendance

2006-04-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

A recent Gallop survey noted that Mormons, among others, are significantly above others in church attendance. You have to subscribe to read directly from the Gallop website; but, they do share this much:

A special Gallup analysis shows that Mormons, evangelical Protestant groups, and Baptists are significantly above average in their self-reported church attendance, while Jews and Episcopalians are significantly below average. Catholics and members of mainline Protestant denominations other than Episcopalians attend church at about average rates.

Also, from World Magazine:

Members of the Church of Christ and Mormons came out on top in a Gallup analysis of worship attendance between 2002 and 2005, with Episcopalians near the bottom. Percentage of members who attended services weekly or almost weekly, by denomination or group: Church of Christ, 68; Mormon, 67; Pentecostal, 65; Southern Baptist, 60; nondenominational, 54; Catholic, 45; Methodist, 44; Presbyterian, 44; Lutheran, 43; Episcopal, 32; Jewish, 15.

Not bad at 67%. I'd be curious to read the Gallop question to know how they defined regular church attendance, and how they factored into their analysis the three hour block, etc. etc.

Welcome To annegb's Just Sayin'--A New 'Nacle Blog

2006-04-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

Welcome to annegb over at Just Sayin'. Everyone and anyone who reads most any of the blogs in the 'Nacle have seen comments from one of the most popular if not the most popular commentor, annegb. Well, she has also begun bloggin' in ernest over at her own site now, Just Sayin'. Please drop by and say howdy, and also welcome her as one of the 'Nacle's newest bloggers. She has some pretty interesting personal history up now, and her posts are as fascinating as her comments. Her photo is pretty cool too! Welcome annegb!

The Resurrection's Reality

2006-04-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

Christ's Resurrection has no more powerful reality than that testified to by the Spirit; however, it is a matter of historical fact that thousands literally saw the Resurrected Christ. Many of those thousands physically thrust their hands in His side, and felt the prints of the nails in His hands and in His feet. Some even break bread and ate with the Savior of the world after rising from the dead. Listed below (with great thanks to Elder Talmadge's Jesus the Christ) are some of those who so testified from personal knowledge.

1. Mary Magdalene, near the sepulcher (Mark 16:9-10; John 20:14) 1 person

2. The two Marys, somewhere between the sepulcher and Jerusalem (Matt 28:9) 2 people

3. Two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Mark 16:12; Luke 24:13) 2 people

4. Peter, the apostles and others in or near Jerusalem (Luke 24:36; John 20:19) 13 persons

5. The eleven apostles and others at Jerusalem (Mark 16:14; John 20:26) 12 people

6. The apostles at the Sea of Tiberias, Galilee (John 21) 11 people

7. The eleven apostles on a mountain in Galilee (Matt. 28:16) 11 people

8. Five hundred brethren at once (1 Cor. 15:6) 500 people

9. To James, the other 10, and Paul (1 Cor. 15:7) 12 people

10. The eleven apostles at the time of the ascension, Mount of Olives (Mark:16:19; Luke 24:50-51) 11 people

11. A great multitude of the Nephites (3 Nephi 11:8) 2500 people

12. Spring 1820 Joseph Smith (Joseph Smith 1:5-26) 1 person

13. Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon February 16, 1832 (D & C 76:11-24) 2 people

14. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdrey April 3, 1836 (D & C 110:1-11) 2 people

Approximately 3079 personally saw and bear record of the reality of Christ's Resurrection. And, though I am not numbered with them, never have I personally felt the reality of Christ's Resurrection greater than I have at this time in my life. May the blessings of Easter's message of Hope, Renewal, Revival, and Resurrection be with us always.

That We Always Remember HIM

2006-04-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

Some 2000 years ago today, He Atoned for our sins, that we might all live. Thank You!

May we be willing to take His name upon us; that we will always remember Him, and keep His commandments, that we may always have His Spirit to be with us.

The Pope Comes Out Swinging

2006-04-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

Pope Benedict XVI, as part of his Good Friday message has come out swinging against modern culture. Ruth Gledhill of the London Times Blog, Articles of Faith has a great post on this timely message. I love the title, taken from the remarks: Inane Apologia of Evil. It grabs the attention.

Some of the more memorable critiques of our modern culture include:

'Lord, we have lost our sense of sin! Today a slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil, a senseless cult of Satan, a mindless desire for transgression, a dishonest and frivolour freedom, exalting impulsiveness, immorality and selfishness as if they were new heights of sophistication. Lord Jesus, open our eyes: Let us see the filth around us and recognise it for what it is, so that a single tear of sorrow can restore us to purity of heart and the breath of true freedom.'

'Lord Jesus, our affluence is making us less human, our entertainment has become a drug, a source of alienation, and our society's incessant, tedious message is an invitation to die of selfishness.'
'Surely God is deeply pained by the attack on the family. Today we seem to be witnessing a kind of anti-Genesis, a counter-plan, a diabolical pride aimed at eliminating the family. There is a move to reinvent mankind, to modify the very grammar of life as planned and willed by God.'

'Lord Jesus, purity has everywhere fallen victim to a calculated conspiracy of silence: an impure silence! People have even come to believe a complete lie: that purity is somehow the enemy of love.'

This is good stuff, and could have (and in fact has in one form or another) come directly across the pulpit at General Conference. Good for the Pope! I like this guy. I wonder if he's read the Book of Mormon, or the Family Proclamation. This is a message, like so many others that will not be well received by the world at large as it wallows away it its own sewer.

Gay Protesters Disrupt BYU Provo Campus

2006-04-11T05:38:00.000-07:00

Soulforce, a "so called" group touting "freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political, oppression through the practice of relentless non violent resistence" purposefully and illegally demonstrated on BYU Campus on Monday, April 10, 2006:

"We really feel that these students don't understand our message," said Jacob Reitan, 23, co-director of the Equality Ride. "They have gross misconceptions about what it means to be gay, what gay and lesbian people are seeking in this country. We need to address those misconceptions."

Though Monday evening's rally was held off campus, Reitan and other Soulforce members took that message on to BYU's grounds earlier in the day. That visit resulted in five people — including Reitan — being escorted off campus by BYU police.

Reitan said he could not reach an agreement with BYU officials that would let him give a speech on campus, so he did so without their permission. The result, he said, was being arrested.

BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said the Soulforce members were issued citations for trespassing and transported back to their hotel. No handcuffs were used, she said.

Soulforce had followed the rules, obtained the proper permits, and apparently acted appropriately to be able to hold a rally off campus at Kiwanis Park ; however, when it came to respecting the rights of 30,000 BYU students, as well as faculty and staff, they decided to break the rules, break the law, and unlawfully demonstrate on BYU and Church property. As a result, five Soulforce members had to be escorted off campus by BYU police:

Five gay activists were peacefully escorted from Brigham Young University's campus Monday after raising a mild ruckus in front of a gathering of students.

The five are members of Soulforce, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender group. BYU police loaded them into a van after the demonstrators yelled to a campus crowd that policies of the LDS Church, BYU's owner, were killing gays.

"They made us aware of their intentions, and we told them it would go directly against our policy,” said BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins. “The officers approached them and asked them to stop and asked them to leave.”

When they did not, they were escorted off campus, placed under arrest, cited for trespassing and delivered to their hotel, said Jacob Reitan, one of the five. Other members of the group, which totaled 33, were allowed to remain and meet with students.

Just how is it that BYU and the Church have gross misconceptions about what it means to be gay, and what gay and lesbian people are seeking in this country? Why is it not the case that it is Soulforce, and its own membership who are the ones who have the gross misconceptions about what it means to be gay? Just over a week ago, a living Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, and Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ delivered a message of truth and light about this lifestyle in a talk entitled "I Will Remember Your Sins No More:"

It is a wicked, wicked world in which we live and in which our children must find their way. Challenges of pornography, gender confusion, immorality, child abuse, drug addiction, and all the rest are everywhere. There is no way to escape from their influence.

Some are led by curiosity into temptation, then into experimentation, and some become trapped in addiction. They lose hope. The adversary harvests his crop and binds them down.

Satan is the deceiver, the destroyer, but his is a temporary victory.

The angels of the devil convince some that they are born to a life from which they cannot escape and are compelled to live in sin. The most wicked of lies is that they cannot change and repent and that they will not be forgiven. That cannot be true. They have forgotten the Atonement of Christ.

"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 18:11).

Christ is the Creator, the Healer. What He made, He can fix. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the gospel of repentance and forgiveness (see 2 Nephi 1:13; 2 Nephi 9:45; Jacob 3:11; Alma 26:13–14; Moroni 7:17–19).

"Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" (D&C 18:10).

The account of this loving father and a wayward son, drawn from the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, is a type, a pattern, an example.

Each of us has a loving Father in Heaven. Through the Father's redeeming plan, those who may stumble and fall "are not cast off forever" (Book of Mormon title page).

"And how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth!" (D&C 18:13).

"The Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance; nevertheless" (D&C 1:31–32), the Lord said, "he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more" (D&C 58:42).

To me, the key to the Truth about being "gay and lesbian, or gender confused" is the Atonement of Christ. As Elder Packer pointed out, those who proclaim (like this Soulforce group) they are born into a certain lifestyle, and cannot change, deny the efficacy of Christ's Atonement. They deny the power of Christ to bring change into any life, into which He is invited. They are deceived into the belief that they are born into this lifestyle; that they have no choice, and cannot change. In reality, those are the gross misconceptions about what it means to be gay. And, those are the misconceptions that Elder Packer addressed to all people everywhere.

I was very pleased to read in the press accounts the only un Christian conduct was exhibited by some of Soulforce's members, and not BYU students. There was some discussion over at T & S about BYU students treating the protest group with kindness and love. It appears that was how they were treated, even while they were breaking the law and being escorted off campus.

I suppose it was just too much to ask that the Soulforce folks follow the rules, and obey the law. They have taken upon themselves the mantle of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ghandi. They have wrapped themselves in the fabric of the true civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's, trying to make people believe their cause is just like that of racial equality and the earlier "freedom riders" who were engaged in the early civil rights struggles in this country. That too is simply another falsehood, meant to obfuscate rather than educate.

Other press coverage:

BYU's Daily News (About 3 min. 25 seconds into the newscast--well done)

Elder Russell M. Nelson Remarries

2006-04-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

Update 4/10/06--A photo of the happy couple, I found over at BYU Newsne t.

Elder Nelson and Wendy L. Watson were married 4/6/06 in the Salt Lake City Temple:

Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Wendy L. Watson were married today in the Salt Lake Temple. This is the second marriage for Elder Nelson and the first for Wendy Watson.

Elder Nelson's previous marriage was to Dantzel White Nelson, who died 12 February 2005. Their family includes 10 children, 56 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.

Ordained an Apostle on 12 April 1984, Elder Nelson received his B.A. and M.D. degrees from the University of Utah and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. A renowned surgeon and medical researcher, Elder Nelson served as the former president of the Society for Vascular Surgery and also as former chairman of the Council on Cardiovascular Surgery for the American Heart Association.

Wendy L. Watson, originally of Raymond, Alberta, Canada, is the daughter of the late Leonard David and Laura McLean Watson. She is a professor of marriage and family therapy in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University (BYU) and will retire 1 May 2006. She received her R.N. in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, her B.A. from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, her M.Sc. from BYU, and her Ph.D. from the University of Calgary. She served as chair of BYU Womens Conference for 1999 and 2000, and is the author of several books and addresses recorded on CD, including Rock Solid Relationships and Things Are Not Always as They Appear.

Best to them both!

176th Annual LDS General Conference Sunday Afternoon Session

2006-04-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

1:00 p.m. James Faust, Second Counselor First Presidency conducted. This is the fifth and final session of conference this afternoon.

1:03 p.m. The choir opened with Sing Praises to Him

Invocation Lance B. Whitman, Quorum of the Seventy

1:09 p.m. Choir sings Jesus Lover of My Soul

1:13 p.m. M. Russel Ballard, Quorum of the Twelve Had bilateral knee surgery a few weeks ago. (I'm amazed he can stand). He better appreciates the pain Christ endured as a result of the Atonement. We have been given much because of Joseph Smith. Restoration taught that there are eternal truths outside the Bible. Without restoration no valid Priesthood ordinances, or constant Holy Ghost companionship. We experience a mighty change in our hearts. We sing the song of reedeming love.

Many Missionaries enter MTC with well read and worn copies of Preach My Gospel. Missionaries now need more people to teach. Better teaching results when members participate in the process.

Christ showed way, when he showed his disciples where he dwelt. He was teaching, when he invited them to visit with him. Our homes can also be gospel sharing homes. People who visit can experience gospel first hand. This will bless others who come to our home, and also us who live in that home. Our understanding of gospel will improve.

Gospel sharing home we pray for guidance for ourselves and well being of others. In Alma's time they prayer for investigators of gospel.

Gospel sharing home are ordinary homes--not perfect. It is where family members love each other.

It is not, a program, but a way of life. Friends will come naturally into our lives this way. Friends will accept that this is part of who we are, and will feel free to ask questions. We pray for all missionaries, including our own.

Many join church from experiences of those who go to gospel sharing homes. Church DVD's are a tool. Nothing more effective than for us to say to our friends to come and participate in sacrament meeting.

1:31 p.m. Richard G. Scott, Quorum of the Twelve Preach My Gospel important manual. Better overall missionary work results. Process begins in the home long before missionary age to prepare a young man for a mission. Talk about when he or she goes, not if. In the home the armor of truth is tailor fit to each child.

In the home a girl can learn her primary role is to be a wife and mother. They can also serve as missionaries full time too, if they follow the First Presidency guidelines. They are not to be pressured and not to interfere with marriage prospects. Parents also use Preach My Gospel in the home. It can help young women to prepare to be a wife and mother.

Over a million copies distributed of Preach My Gospel. His own daughter served a good mission is Spain, upon the prompting of her bishop.

There is an urgent need for full time couple missionaries. His own mission meant a great deal to him personally. He grew up in a part member family. As a young man he didn't have any way to judge the importance of a full time mission. He served in Uruguay (yea . . . mine too!)
He learned esssential doctrines, what it meant to be guided by spirit. He became converted in essence. His prayers were answered to be a better missionary. All that he holds dear in life began to mature in the mission field.

He would not have had his professional opportunities without his mission experiences. His life has been blessed beyone measure because he served a full time mission. He wants to motivate young men to serve a full time mission, as well as older couples, and some young women as well.

You will never regret serving a mission; but, will most likely regret not serving if that is your ultimate choice. Full time missionary service is a great blessing.

1:49 p.m. David R. Stone Quorum of the Seventy. How useful to have an early warning system to warn us of upcoming evil. We see Babylon now everywhere; yet, we need to create Zion in its midst (though I have always thought they cannot co-exist). We are surrounded by the waves of idolatry today.

Ancient Israel forgot the Lord who led them out of Egypt. As today, we forget God because of our modern day culture. Customs acceptable in one, are not in another--same with language. Self satisfied, self deception--good quote for people moving about in their own little worlds.

Too often we are like puppets on a string, as the culture determines what is "cool." But, we should pay attention to the culture of the people of God--the Royal Priesthood.

We can create Zion by limiting the extent Babylon will have on our lives. Seduced by our culture, we hardly recognize our idolatry. (very good and timely quote--Hugh Nibley would very much agree). We can create a Zion in the midst of Babylon. We can and should create our own standards.

We can live a Zion life if we want to; however, the waves of Babylon beat incessantly on our shores. Most of Babylon is evil, and we won't have any early warning system. Zion is the city of God. Babylon is the city of the world. Zion is the pure in heart, regardless of physical location.

2:02 p.m. Choir and congregation sing How Firm a Foundation (another 7th inning stretch!)

2:04 Robert S. Wood Quorum of the Seventy Voices are growing ever more strident. God has warned us that Satan would stir up people's heart to anger. Deluded and wicked men in Book of Mormon stir up men and women to anger. The time of Christ's birth and second comming will be days of vengance.

Be aware of those who stir us up to anger so that calm reflection and thought are lost. Andrew Jackson said, elevate your guns a little lower. Many of us need to do the same. We need to raise the level of public and private discourse. We need to uphold wise, honest, and good men and women--wherever they are found. Culture of slander, stereotyping. Spirit of mocking of those with whom we disagree, are those who occupy the large and spacious building. There are mockers in the last times who walk after their own ungodly lust.

Cynicisim closely related to mockery. Display disblief in sincerity.

When your polictics cause you to speak unkindly of your brethern, you are on dangerous ground. It is not our duty to find fault in others. But, in kindness and love we help them find truth that God has revealed in latter days.

We cannot be caught up in a world that takes and gives offense. We should rejoice in the truth, and the pure love of Christ, which we represent. President Hinckley has counseled that we may give opinions; but, to have hatred or ill will as a result of political differences.

2:17 p.m. H. Bruce Stucki Quorum of the Seventy. Related story of Christmas gift of bow and arrow, and taking it out to hunt rabbits. The arrow missed the rabbit. He looked all around but could not find his arrow. The sun was setting and didn't want to be late for home, breaking a promise to his mother. He prayed that he not lose his new arrow. While still on his knees he opened his eyes and found his arrow, which he grabbed and ran for home arriving before dark. God had answered his prayer.

Prayer is a two way communication. It is one of the stepping stones on the path leading to eternal life. Faith is another stepping stone that is critical. The veil between this and the next is very thin. No better time than now to begin to follow the counsel to "pray always"

The family third stepping stone to lead us back to God. The family is by divine origin. Family is the unit and vehicle to be sealed and return to our heavenly parents.

2:30 p.m. Joseph B. Wirthlin, Quorum of the Twelve. Snowman the horse, eight when bought, and badly treated. Harry let Snowman jump, and entered him into a formal competition. He won the competition and was an example of hidden untapped potential hidden within each of us.

The happiest people he knows, who have abundant lives have certain characteristics:

1. Drink deeply of living waters--Christ and his words. The gospel is not a religion of boring and gloom. It is a gospel of wings. Do we wish to partake of this living water? Forsake our weaknesses, and drink deeply of the living waters of Jesus Christ.

2. Fill our hearts with love. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Serve others. We are all busy; but let's not be too busy for shallow lives. We are happiest when our lives are connected to others.

3. With God's help create masterpiece of their own lives. Love God with all our hearts, might, mind and strength.

The abundant life does not come packaged and ready made. It comes through faith, hope, and charity. It is a magnificant journey beggining a long time ago, and will never end. This life just one step in our search for abundant life and eternity. Abundant life within our reach.

2:47 p.m. James E. Faust expresses thanks for all who participated during conference, including all choirs.

2:48 p.m. President Hinckley, Prophet, Seer Revelator. Music magnificent, and talks inspired during this conference session. They have confirmed our faith. As we return to our homes and lives, let us remember the counsel we have received. May we live together as husbands and wives, and children. God Bless you by beloved brothers and sisters. May heaven's blessings rest upon you.

2:50 p.m. Choir sings Abide With Me Tis Even Tide

2:55 p.m. Benediction

176th Annual LDS General Conference Sunday Morning Session

2006-04-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

9:00 a.m. Choir opens with Rejoice the Lord is King. More beautiful shots of the conference center outside as conference begins. It looks very spring out there.

9:01 a.m. President Monson conducting.

9:03 a.m. Choir performs He Sent His Son--The choir really sets the Spirit for these conferences, from their introductory music to the main musical numbers throughout the conference. They truly are an American Classic.

9:06 a.m. Invocation H. Brian Richards Quorum of the Seventy

9:10 a.m. Choir performs I Stand All Amazed--great color contrast again in the choir with the women all in red and the men in black (wait . . .wasn't that a movie once?) Singing this particular hymn makes me think of a huge sacrament meeting. Which brings up the question, why not do a huge sacrament meeting at conference? Perhaps the logistics are too difficult with 25,000 plus in attendance. Just a thought.

9:15 a.m. James E. Faust, Second Counselor First Presidency. We care about all of God's children, whether alive or dead, regardless of religious belief or nationality (more on the diversity theme here . .this is good). President Oaks quoted about the fact we have differences with other Christian Churches which is why we send missionaries and build temples.

Faust to speak of Fullness of Gospel. He begins with the apostasy. Quoting Paul, there must come a falling away first. With it came a loss of priesthood keys, baptism by immersion, Godhead three distinct personages, all mankind to be resurrected, temple work for living and dead, continuing revelation.

Peter spoke of a restitution. In the centuries following, many Christians recognized the apostasy. Reformers saw this, and played an important role. John Lathrop, from who Joseph Smith descended, recognized no apostolic keys on the earth. He was imprisoned for his belief. (sound familiar?) Roger Williams founded Rhode Island--no regularly constituted Church on the earth. There won't be until Church reconstituted or restored.

Apostle John saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven with the fullness of the Gospel. In restored Church we now have apostles and prophets. Priesthood, MP and AP restored. AP May 15, 1829 by John the Baptist. MP restored by Peter, James, and John a month later was restored.

April 3, 1836 Moses appeared gave keys to Joseph Smith, for gathering of Israel, Elias and Elijah followed appearing in the Kirtland Temple, all presenting their keys to the Prophet Joseph to restore all things in the last days. Tithing and offerings also restored.

Temple worship restored. Temple very much a part of Christ's life while on earth. Temples important now in LDS belief and theology. The most sacred work is performed in them. We received the solemn answers of life in the Temple. We came from God's presence and prepare to return to His presence. We make covenants in the Temple and are sealed with Priesthood authority.

Apostle John discussed those in White robes. God's work to bring to pass and immortality of mankind. All will hear Gospel in this or the next life. Paul saw baptism for the dead in Corinthians. No person's choice or agency is taken away. The dead may accept of reject these ordinances as they wish.

Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph, and directed him to the golden plates, resulting in the Book of Mormon's publication. It is another testament of Jesus Christ, and has restored doctrines of the fall, resurrection, and others. Heavens have been opened once again.

Doctrine and Covenants, contains further insights about principles and ordinances and structure of Priesthood. Pearl of Great Price, with Moses and Book of Abraham. We learn about these prophets as well as the creation. Gospel has been taught since Adam's time. This Church is the restoration of Christ's early church, founded on apostles and prophets. We are not a break off of any Church. But we are NOT to feel superior to any other person or church.

We believe the great religious leaders, and great philosophers all received a portion of God's light to enlighten whole nations and individuals. Thus we have respect for religious belief of others, and request the same from them.

Testifies of restoration, and its truth and importance today.

9:30 a.m. Jeffery R. Holland, Quorum of the Twelve. Blessed are the poor in spirit--for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Those whose lives are broken, to those he speaks. Christ said, come unto me, all that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.

Come unto me is crucial part of this invitation. Christ told his early disciples to "come follow me" It is clear that our duty and our requirement is captured in this phrase. He says, trust me, do what I do. If we follow Christ, he will lead us out of darkness. He will give us peace. There is no other way for us to find peace and happiness.

How do we come unto Christ? Scriptures give examples. Most basic form of faith, just desire with our hearts, i.e., Alma Chapter 32 discourse shows what is enough to begin. Just hope, for things not scene in our lives, but which are truly there. That simple step, will always the first principle of His eternal gospel.

Second, we must repent. We must change that what needs to be changed. Repentance the most hopeful word in Christianity. Anything we can change we much change--then forgive the rest.

Third, in as many ways as possible, we take upon us His identity, including His name. Start with Baptism and conclude with Temple Covenants. Taking the sacrament we renew these covenants. Follow the Son, take upon you Christ's name. Following these teachings, prayer, fasting, scripture savoring, love with pure love of Christ, which never fails. All will take and lead us to Christ. He is anxiously trying to reach us.

All of us can and should have straight forward experience with Christ. Are we battling addictions of tobacco, pornography, gender identity issues, disease, depression, death? Come first to Christ. Trust in His promises. Whoever trusts God will be supported in their troubles and afflictions.

Christ's Atonement can and will lift us. Christ will not turn his back on us know. He means that He knows the way out and up--because He has walked it, and He is the way. What ever our distress, don't give up--don't give into fear. Be not afraid, only believe. Only when Peter began to doubt did he sink.

Christ is the solution to every discouragement and disappointment. Oh thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt--Christ to Peter. If we are broken we can be mended. (Very powerful spirit in Elder Holland's discourse). May all of us come unto Him and be made whole.

9:46 a.m. Earl C. Tingey Presidency of Seventy. Why not speak of the Atonement. The great plan of happiness is the Atonement. Each of us will die. Is there any happiness in death? Atonement rescues us from death.

1. Knowledge of plan of salvation means there is a God and Christ. This confirmed by Joseph's experience in the sacred grove.

2. Knowing Father and Son, helps us know we are on earth for a body, experience, and to eventually to return to God. We will sin and we will and do need to repent. The Savior can remove the rocks of sin from our lives.

3. Through Atonement we can overcome sin and become clean again. This is by eternal law of mercy. Without Atonement and repentance, then we are all subject to law of justice. Mercy cannot rob justice. Mercy can satisfy justice, but there must be repentance and acceptance of Christ. Adam and Eve transgressed the law and were cast out of the garden. My eyes are opened said Adam, as did Eve. But not for our transgression we would not have had increase and knowledge

4. Adam and Eve's fall brought two deaths--Spiritual and physical. Spiritual death is separation from God's presence. We are currently all in spiritual death, in that we are separated from God. Christ's Atonement overcame both deaths. Resurrection is universal, applying to entire human family. This is an unconditional gift from God. But it doesn't overcome the second death, which requires repentance. This life is the time to prepare to meet God. Our same spirit will

5. Christ was born of earthly mother Mary. He inherited her capacity for death. From God He inherited immorality. Christ condescended to come to earth, to be tempted, tried, mocked and crucified. He had power to prevent all these things, but chose not to. Christ descended below all things, to raise other above all things.

Atonement means to restore, or to come back. It reunites families, and families to God. If we understand the plan of happiness then we should follow it. What happens in the world will NOT determine our happiness.

9:58 a.m. Choir and congregation sing Reedemer of Israel (7th inning stretch folks . . get up and walk around!)

10:01Anne C. Pingree Second Counselor Relief Society. Accompanied Sister missionaries to home of a non member. Helaman sons, Nephi and Lehi after forebearers. We must all grow up unto the Lord. Maturing spiritually will only happen after we choose to put away childish things. We put away childish things as we become more Christ like. Those who are baptized are those who take upon themselves Christ's name. Service to others required for those who want to grow up unto the Lord.

Relation of stories of true service. Discussion of visiting teaching message, examples of service. Heats knit together in unity of love.

Besides service, our willingness to press forward in faith shows our willingness to grow up unto the Lord. Example was Nephi building a ship, even though he probably didn't know what to do. Nephi's response, though, was what do I do to make the tools--not, are you crazy--I can't build a ship? God will provide the means to accomplish His means. Nephi looked for a solution. He knew God would help him accomplish what He commanded.

When told her mission called had been changed to Africa, her response--I can do that. This willingness showed her wanting to grow up unto the Lord. Challenges may be formidable and the route unknown--but if we will press forward in faith, we can and will succeed.

10:13 a.m. Elder Dallin Oaks, Quorum of the Twelve. Book of Mormon challenge allowed many to grow, and learn. What was learned depends on the reader. It depends on how in tune we were. He learns how much God loves His children in all nations. (more on the diversity there here--good.)

Book of Mormon on Atonement

The Atonement prepared from foundation of the world for all mankind

All men are redeemed

Salvation given free to all men. None are forbidden.

His blood atones for all who have sinned, and for little children.

This contradicts view that Christ's grace is only for a few. It is, in fact for all. Christ invites children of all men to come unto Him--2 Nephi.

Christ also invites both Bond and Free. Bond includes those addicted to substance or practice, or held down by custom or tradition contrary to God's commandments. We preach to liberate the captives--Joseph Smith.

All are alike unto God. God will manifest himself to all who believe in Christ. These promises of manifestation to all nations, kindreds, and people. This includes those who are not Christian, or have not been Christian. Some in Russia are seeking out Gospel. Some in India also seeking out Christ and Gospel. Woman in Thailand met missionaries, and confirmed her feelings toward God.

Only 5% of Cambodian's Christian. Mongolia also has people yearning and seeking out Christ.

The great Creator died for all men. We must comply with Christ's conditions: Faith, repentance, baptism. All men must hearken unto Christ's voice. He desires all men to come unto him. Come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. Deny yourselves of all ungodliness.

Abrahamic covenant opens door to God's children everywhere. If we be Christ's we are heirs to Abrahams promises. We are God's covenant people. No privileges of birth should make us think we are better than another (more on diversity).

Abraham's decedents scattered over the entire earth. Christ has said he will appear to lost tribes of Israel. Book of Mormon declares Christ will manifest himself unto all nations, and all men. He remembers those everywhere, all nations of the earth.

Christ commands that those to whom he appears, should write his words. All nations shall write His words. Eventually all nations will have the writings of all other nations. This includes Christ to lost tribes of Israel.

Don't reject God's writings because we already have a Bible. God's work not yet finished, and won't be until the end of man. The Gospel is meant for all men and nations (at this point there is a shot on the screen of the entire earth in space). Book of Mormon testifies of Christ to all nations.

10:30 a.m. Choir sings

10:34 a.m. President Monson thanks Choir for music this session, and those who particpiated.

10:35 a.m. President Hinckely is the concluding speaker. He thanks all members for their prayers. When man reaches this age, he reflects upon what has brought him to this stage. His talk different from all previous. He faces the sunset of his life. He recently had major cancer surgery. It is the first time a patient in a hospital. He doesn’t recommend it. He still has residual problems. (more cancer?)

We all have challenges in this life. The road not taken quoted. I took the one less traveled by. Christ: Seek ye the kingdom of the Lord, and all these things shall be added unto you. 43 years ago sustained as a General Authority. Has given over 200 talks, and testified of Christ.

Things are changing. His companion has died, and he misses her more than he can describe. Everything good that has happened to him he owes to activity in the Church. Presidents of the U.S. have come to his office because of the Church. He gave Book of Mormon to President Regan. Bush awarded Medal of Freedom. He has been to the White house. From President Grant to Hunter he has worked with all presidents of Church.

He is dealing with books and artifacts he has accumulated over the years. He came across an old journal, which he re-read, and quoted from over pulpit from various entries.

He has seen many of the great men of the Church come and go. He had remarkable relationship with FP and Q of 12. He has walked with the impoverished, and also with those who have wealth and privilege.

Received patriarchal blessing as young man. A remarkable document, and shares:

"The nations of earth shall hear thy voice and be brought to knowledge of the Truth."

Has lifted his voice on every continent for Christ. It is all a miracle. He asked members last year to read the Book of Mormon. I told the brethren the Book of Mormon was most correct on earth, the keystone of our religion and man will get closer to God by reading it than any other book.

Hopes we have grown closer to God by reading Book of Mormon. He had privilege in participating in Joseph Smith tribute. Appreciates Church. Heart overwhelmed with gratitude and love. Please don't regard what I have said as an obituary. Looks forward to speaking to us again in October. This is God's holy work. The first vision was real, not imaginary. Both Father and Son spoke to boy Joseph. Resurrected Christ introduced by God the Father.

Book of Mormon is all that it purports to be. It is a work recorded by prophets to convince all that Jesus is the Christ, manifesting himself to all nations. Priesthood has been restored to the earth. Joseph Smith is and was a prophet. He leaves testimony witness and love in Christ's name.

10:52 a.m. My Redeemer Lives

10:56 a.m. Marlin K. Jenson Benediction

My observations: I haven't felt as moved in a conference address as much as I was in President Hinckley's this morning. I know he specfically said it was not meant as an obituary, and I hope in fact it was not--though both my wife and I felt as though it was a farewell address. His reference to further problems is not a good sign, in a man his age. But, we'll see.

It was a good conference session. One of the recurring themes seems to be the one of diversity. It has been voiced by more than one speaker and more than one time. Good counsel from all, for a world in desperate need of vision and direction.

176th Annual LDS General Conference Priesthood Session

2006-04-01T19:52:00.000-08:00

Note--Bryce over at M* also has posted his notes, of this session. They are very, very good. See here.

Note 2--Dave over at DMI has also posted notes of this session. They too are very, very good. Please see them here.

5:00 p.m. Thomas Monson Conducting. Pres. Hinckley attending and presiding. Priesthood Choir Orem and Salt Lake Institutes of Religion

5:02 p.m. Awake Ye Saints Of God Awake

5:05 p.m. Invocation

5:09 p.m. Choir The Lord is My Shepard.

5:15 p.m. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Quorum of the Twelve. Priesthood is wonderful force for good. We live in a time of opportunity. Correct choices requires discipline and good outlook. (Choice is a big theme this conference) If we trust and obey the Lord His hand will be over us, and He will help us see the end from the beginning.

As a boy he left East Germany for West Germany overnight. He was a laundry delivery boy, and needed a bicycle. He had always dreamed of a shiny new bike. Instead he got just a black steady work horse, which he used to deliver laundry before and after school. He did his part because the family needed income and he wanted to contribute. Back then he couldn’t see the end from the beginning, and it was hard to live. He got so tired and worked so hard his lungs would literally burn from delivering the laundry. He didn't like it.

He joined the air force to be a pilot. He took the medical exam, and told him he had scars on his lungs from his teen aged years. The treatment that helped him recover, was the exercise and fresh air as a laundry boy, which he didn’t even know at the time, or until later. Without that experience as a boy he would not have become a jet fighter and later commercial pilot.

Discouragement may creep into our life along with doubt about the value of our work. Satan will plant seeds of doubt that we will never make a difference. He will try to prevent us from seeing the end from the beginning. As priesthood holders we are taught by prophets, seers, and revelators of our day. The decisions we make now will determine what will follow in this life and through out eternity.

He is grateful for Pres. Hinckley’s leadership. His prophetic view helps us see the end from the beginning. God loves us, so that he gave us prophets to give us guidelines. For the Strength of Youth are some of these critical guidelines. The principles contained therein are priceless. If you don’t have one get one. It is a gem for any aged group. All these youth, and leader guide books and temple recommend have symbol of Salt Lake Temple. The Temple binds us together, past, current, and future generations. Eternal questions answered in the Temple, divine Truths are taught in the Temple.

Our temporal bodies are also sacred, as are the Temples of God. We are not our own, as we have been bought with a price (Christ's Atonement). Use our thoughts, minds, hearts, and bodies with respect and dignity. As we keep Strength of Youth standards, we will perform life’s work with greater skill. We will be temple worthy.

God keeps promises. We need to fulfill our part to receive His blessings. When we are blessed it is because we obeyed the law upon which it is predicated. To go to the Temple you will be interviewed by a Bishop. Are you honest, morally clean, keep word of wisdom, pay tithing, sustain Church leadership? These standards are similar to those found in Strength of Youth. These along with guidance of Holy Ghost will help us decide on education, friends, media, dating, sexual purity, and a host of other choices we do and will make.

As we keep the standards we will see beyond the “moment” We will endure and work hard. The youth will then serve missions. Upon their return they will plan their lives, and prepare for marriage and eternal families. Your priorities in life will change. You will be able to see the end from the beginning. Write these standards into your hearts and minds. Compare the standards with where you are today. The Spirit will let you know what changes you need to make. Use true repentance and Christ’s Atonement to achieve your potential.

Know thou my son that all these things shall give you experience. This was a lesson taught by Christ to Joseph, and by extension the saints.

Teaching by example is the best way to teach. Teach our youth by being a Temple worthy leader. This will be of great help to our youth, and help them see the end from the beginning. He promises that when we follow this pattern God will help us make more out of our life than we can by ourselves. He will help us see the end from the beginning.

5:31 p.m. Ronald A. Rasband Presidency of the Seventy. 122 temples now available to the saints worldwide–more have been announced and are coming.

In the Book of Mormon, King Benjamin called families together for counsel from him. They came up to the temple with their tents, and the doors toward the temple so they could hear King Benjamin’s words. Are our doors pitched toward the Temples that we love in our own homes?

Families received his word with enthusiasm and commitment. They entered a new covenant to follow Christ. Unfortunately the little children at the time did not understand his words, since they were small children. The did not believe the traditions of their fathers? Why did they not accept them? Do we have reason to be concerned of our rising generation of youth?

President Hinckley has praised our youth. They look to the Lord for His guidance and help. But there are warnings too. Many youth are mature; but they are sorely tested, with the tests to become more severe. Does this get your attention? It should. As fathers and leaders we need to respond to the call “All hands on deck.” We need to teach and fortify fathers and mothers, to help them teach the children in the home.

Now is the time to increase our awareness, and to be influences for good in their lives. When first called to the Seventy, he took his family with him to England to preside in an area presidency. He included his family in his Church work, which brought them together. They performed baptisms for the dead in the Temple, which also brought them closer together, more so than all the prior football games of other temporal activities.

Nephi understood commitment to children of the upcoming generation. We teach Christ, to our children so they know to Whom they may look for a remission of their sins.

5:43 p.m. Elder Richard G. Hinckley Quorum of the Seventy. President Hinckley’s son (he does look like him.) He began his talk by stating he is likely the only General Authority sustained by the entire Church membership, over the protest (tongue in cheek) of the prophet. His mother passed away two years ago just after April conference. He can honor her now only by how he lives. He loves his father, and honors him. He recalls some of his youth and interaction with his family. He recalls laughter and love. His father, President Hinckely is kind and wise.

What my membership in the Church means to me. List the thoughts that come to your mind. You will soon have a growing book that helps you understand your membership in the Church. It may help you in future talks.

Tonight he talks about repentance. It is not a harsh principle. It means to turn, or to return to God. Jehovah asked Israel to return, repeatedly. All they needed to do was acknowledge their sins.

When we acknowledge sin, forsake, it, and change our hearts, then God will and does forgive us. Atonement makes repentance possible. His Church membership means everything to him. It gives life meaning.

5:52 p.m. James C. Faust Second Counselor in First Presidency It is always a great privilege to address the priesthood of the Church. The young men are blessed to hold the Aaronic Priesthood. The lesser priesthood doesn’t mean there is anything small about it. Upon taking of the Sacrament members take Christ’s name upon them.

Some deacons became careless in passing the sacrament. One Sunday, the High Priests of the ward sat on the deacons row, to pass the sacrament. The young deacons learned by example that passing the Sacrament was a sacred trust, and a great honor. Peter called the Priesthood a Royal Priesthood. The Aaronic Priesthood holds keys for administering of angels. In ancient and modern times angels have appeared with warnings and instructions. At times our relatives who have passed on may be such angels in our lives.

Alma the Younger had an experience with ministering of angels. Alma was so overcome that he fainted and was carried to his father. He subsequently repented and was born of the Spirit. He went on to become one of the Church’s greatest missionaries. Miracles don’t always convert people. Laman and Lemuel are prime examples. Aaronic priesthood holder obligated to qualify for the Melchizedek priesthood.

Upon ordination the Aaronic Priesthood holder can administer in certain ordinances. Duties of different quorums reviewed. Home teaching companions to their fathers helps to watch over the Church. You need to have spirit with you in your lives as you perform your priesthood duties. You must avoid all types of addiction: drugs, alcohol, tobacco, pornography. Some addictions are mind altering, and can inhibit reason from guiding you.

6:07 p.m. Choir and congregation sing We Thank Thee O God For a Prophet.

6:10 p.m. Thomas B. Monson First Counselor First Presidency. Remember it is a great blessing to hold the priesthood. All should honor the priesthood. We should know what we believe. We should be ready to answer those who wants to question our beliefs. When the time for performance arrives, the time for preparation has passed. We should prepare now.

Are we ready to answer questions and declare truth? We should be prepared. Pres. Mckay asked what beliefs set us apart from others? He responded that it is divine authority by direct revelation. Perfect example is First Vision of Joseph Smith.

John Baptist in May 1829 ordained Joseph and Oliver, to the priesthood of Aaron, which he held on earth. He was acting under Peter, James, and John who held keys of Melchesidek priesthood, another example of divine authority and direct revelation. Apostles sent by God ordained Joseph and Oliver to be specially witnesses of Him.

We carry the requirement and duty to be true to the trust we have been given. Priesthood is the power of God delegated to man for man to act toward man’s salvation. This is authority given in this day by ministering angels, direct from presence of Almighty God.

When he was 17 he was to be ordained an Elder. He went to Stake President for his interview. The SP was a scriptorian, and felt others, should also be. He was told by SP to come two hours before sacrament and to bring his personal scriptures. SP asked to see his scriptures. He commented “well read”. He asked Monson, have you ever had an angel minister to you? Well, I’m not sure. Then citing 13th section of D & C, this priesthood holds keys for administering of angels. At the end of a “long” interview SP passed him, and said he would be ordained an Elder. Remember that the Lord blesses those who serve him.

Oath and Covenant applies to all priesthood. It is a pronouncement to Aaronic priesthood of future duty. If you obtain these two priesthoods you are sanctified. He that receives this priesthood receives my servants, and my Father and His kingdom.

Two main requirements. First faithfulness and obedience. Second to magnify ones calling–to honor and glorify your calling. To increase the importance of your calling.

Prophet Joseph asked what does magnify calling mean:? To hold it up. To elevate it. To perform your calling.

Aaronic priesthood should be given opportunity to magnify their callings. We should not doubt, but believe. The priesthood is not a gift, but a commission to serve and bless the lives of others.

Melchizedek priesthood are shepards watching ovaer Israel. Are we prepared to feed flock of God? We must recognize worth of human soul. Never give up on any of God’s children. When priesthood callings are magnified, the power of God brings to pass his purposes. For whom God calls, He qualifies.

6:35 p.m. Reminders of tomorrow’s sessions, day light savings time tomorrow 2:00 a.m. President Hinckley concludes

6:35 p.m. President Hinckley. He remarks how President Monson is a difficult man to follow. Full of humor but also sincerity. When a man grows old he develops a softer touch. He emphasized how he has thought a great deal about that recently. Why there so much hatred? There are terrible wars. At home there is contention. Fathers who make wives weep and children fear. There are racial tensions. I cannot understand how this can be. He recalls the 1978 revelation on priesthood to all worthy males. There are racial slurs and remarks heard amongst the saints. True disciples of Christ do not participate in them. No man holding MP can arrogantly assume he can hold MP but another whose skin is different cannot. We have a diverse society, and we must accommodate this diversity.

Each is son or daughter of God, who loves all children No basis fro racial hatred in this church. If you so indulge you need to ask for forgiveness.

Receives letters about issues to discuss at conference. One from a woman who divorced then remarried. Husband quit job and refusing to work, while wives provide for households. If one so does, they deny the faith and are infidels. Women have claim on their husbands for maintenance, as do children till they are of age. Husbands considered breadwinners for family. A man who refuses to work to support family, is not in good standing.

Knows that conflicts of th world are of adversary. From time of Church’s organization Satan has been at work.

Story of young man growing up in community not members of church. Some of his LDS associates belittled him. He hated Church. At 17 he enrolled in college, after his father died. One friend asked him to join a club. For first time in his life someone wanted me around. This was good feeling for this brother, and after 16 years he finally had a friend.

His friend read the Book of Mormon, and he asked about it. He asked what was so important in Book of Mormon. H didn’t want to touch the book, only what was in it. Richard, his friend asked him to attend and sing in choir. He was promised the first time if he read the Book of Mormon he would know it was true. He did read the book, and was eventually baptized.

Recently he was married in the Salt Lake City Temple. Elder Coleman performed the ceremony. It is unfortunate how his early Mormon friends treated him. It was only afterward when another Mormon treated him better than he was converted.

Why do we have to be so mean? Why so much animosity? It is not part of Christ’s gospel. We must forgive others their trespasses. We all sin. We are members of God’s church. We are obligated to Him and others. The world needs men of strength and righteousness. Most LDS though show outpouring of love and concern for others. Relief Society does vast good all across the world. Welfare program provides clothing, food and other temporal things for those in distress.

Perpetual education lifts thousands out of poverty into sunshine of knowledge. No end to the good we can do. Don’t dwell on critical or negative. Pray for strength and capacity to assist others. Radiate light of Gospel all times and places. Spirit of Redeemer to radiate from us to all others.

6:55 p.m Choir Closes Come Oh thou king of kings.

Benediction.

I was particularly struck by President Hinckley's remarks. He spoke plainly, clearly, and with conviction. He clearly is dismayed at the level of contention in the world. He is greatly disturbed at how we treat each other, the wars that rage unchecked, the meanness of spirit with which we treat each other. He asked a couple of times Why? I got the sense he was truly concerned with hate, contention, war, and unchristian conduct. He decried it on a national level, and at home, as well as by members of the Church. I very much appreciated hearing these comments, and felt them a strong reminder to live a more Christlike life. We can all do with more charity in our actions, thoughts, and deeds. We truly were fed by a Prophet of God this evening.

176th Annual LDS General Conference Saturday Afternoon

2006-04-01T12:58:00.000-08:00

1:00 p.m. Conference begins. There are always beautiful shots of the flowers outside on Temple Square and the conference center. Combined choir from BYU will provide this sessions' musical numbers.

Thomas S. Monson, First Counselor in the First Presidency will conduct, at President Hinckley's request.

1:02 p.m. The choir sings I Saw A Mighty Angel Fly

1:06 p.m. Cecil O. Samuelson gave the invocation. The limitless magnificence of the Atonement. I liked this phrase in the prayer.

1:08 p.m. Choir Sings Have I Done Any Good? I like lots of music in the conference sessions. I especially like it when I know the music. So far I've recognized most all of the numbers. Of course I suspect it would not hurt to broaden my horizons and musical knowledge. Wake up and do something more than dream of your mansions above! Words to live by (or would that be sleep by?)

1:13 p.m. President Hinckley requests presentation of the General Authorities of the Church. President Monson presents all General and Area Authorities, with the following sustaining votes. There was a day when during this portion of the conference that protesters would interrupt and voice opposition. This was back in th 70's when the Equal Rights Amendment was a hot topic. The "Brethren" are sustained as prophets, seers, and revelators. This must be almost an awful responsibility for these men.

Several of the Seventy were release and new Seventies called to the Quorum as well. There are several non-American foreign brethern sustained. This is a great sign of the world wide Church. I am pleased to see this type of diversity. The sustaining was unanimous. The new authorities came to take their place on the stand. There are quite a few! They'll have to build a bigger stand if they keep calling them like this.

1:19 p.m. Robert W. Cantwell Managing Director Church Audit Department. This is independent of all other Church departments. It consists of CPA;s D & C 120 accounting. Contributions, expenditures, and assets are recorded and administered consistent with accounting principles.

1:21 p.m. Report on 2005 Church Statistics (Thanks Justin B for helping out on the stats--I got behind)

2,701 Stakes

643 Districts

27087 wards

12,560,869 members

93,150 children of record baptized

243,108 converts baptized

52,060 full time missionaries serving

3 New Temples Dedicated

1 Temple rededicated

122 Total Temples in operation

1:23 p.m. Boyd K. Packer, Acting President Quorum of the Twelve. Story of Alma and Corianton his son. See Alma Chapter 39 Alma was very disappointed. Corianton forsook his ministry and affiliated with a harlot. Ye cannot hide your crimes from God. These actions hurt the Church. When they saw your conduct they would not believe my words.

Alma then taught his son, because the preaching of the Word had greater impact on the minds of man than anything, even the sword. Alma started teaching Corianton of Christ, and His coming. He teaches his classic on the life after death. See Alma Chapter 40 in the Book of Mormon. The same spirit that inhabits the body in life, is the same spirit that leaves it upon death--no miraculous changes will take place.

Alma taught about justice and mercy. The Atonement was critical and required. So God Himself provided such an Atonement for all his children. Repentance not possible without punishment. Alma knew from personal experience the pain of punishment and the power of repentance. He too was a rebellious youth, disappointing his own father. An angel was sent to him as a result of the prayers of a loving family and father.

Don't excuse yourself because of your sins. After sufficient repentance, Corianton was able to return to the mission field and resumed God's work. Twenty years later he continued laboring in the Gospel. Gender confusion, pornography, and like lifestyles lead to addicting lifestyles. Some claim they are compelled to live in sin. This denies the Atonement of Christ. It denies Christ's power and Atonement. It is a lie, propounded by Satan. I the Lord will remember their sins no more.

1:39 p.m. David A. Bednar, Quorum of the Tweleve Apostles. Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins is the introductory ordinance of the Church. It is preceded by faith in Christ. Except a man be born of the water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. His message will focus on the baptism of the Spirit.

A covenant is contract between us and God. God decides the elements, terms and conditions of the covenant--not man. At baptism we take upon ourselves Christ's name, remember him always, and in return we will have His Spirit to be with us always.

After baptism we each were confirmed members of the Church. Receive the Holy Ghost is the injunction that completes the second part of the baptism ordinance. We are baptized by immersion in water. We then need to be immersed in the Spirit for the true remission of our sins. Strong dramatic spiritual manifestations are not the norm. The Spirit communicates through the "still small voice." It will usually be subtle, not dramatic.

We need to recognize and respond to promptings as they come to us. When we withdraw from the Spirt it cannot guide us. We need to recognize when that happens. The standard is clear. If something we see, hear, do, think distances us from the Holy Ghost, then we should stop whatever it is. The spirit cannot abide that which is vulgar, crude, or immodest. We should shun those activities, thoughts, or anything else than distances us from the Spirit.

The Spirit can be with us more than it is not with us. It is up to us. Having the Spirit as our Guide is essential for our spiritual growth in this world. The promise to have His Spirit with us is available to every member of the Church.

Liahona symbolic of how to use the Holy Ghost in our lives today. The same principles that caused the Liahona to work for Lehi, will allow the Holy Ghost to work in our lives today. As we study the Liahona principles we can and will be blessed with the Holy Ghost's direction. It pointed the way Lehi and his family should go toward the promised land. It worked when the family was righteous and kept the commandments. It ceased when they were contentions. It provided direction in their lives. Faith and diligence were required for its proper function, as they are required today in our lives for the Holy Ghost to properly function.

The Spirit of the Lord can be our guide. We invite the Holy Ghost through meaningful family prayer, virtue, humility. We should avoid that which is crude and vulgar. Partaking of the Sacrament will also help the Holy Ghost guide us in our lives. We are reminded weekly that we can ALWAYS have his spirit to be with us by partaking of the sacrament.

Prophet Joseph appeared to Brigham Young in a dream, and told him to tell the Saints to keep the Spirit of the Lord close. He emphasized the importance of obtaining and keeping the Spirit of the Lord.

Very powerful talk on the Holy Ghost from this new apostle. Very well, done. The spirit was strong throuhout that talk.

1:56 p.m. The Choir Sings Come Ye Children of the Lord

1:59 p.m. David F. Evans Quorum of the Seventy. He has been a Seventy for a year. He testifies of the reality of prophets and apostles today. Missionary story about arriving for mission interviews during a snow storm. They were happy and cheerful regardless of the weather. By serving the Lord in his cause they felt a love hard to describe.

That night missionaries went out preaching the Gospel despite difficult circumstances. They were happy doing that which they had been called to do. This is the greatest generation of missionaries the world has known. This results from "raising the bar" and shows why it needed to be raised.

President Hinckely's mission story recounted. He recommitted after receiving a letter from his father, encouraging him to lose himself in the Work. He began to see the beauty of the land and the people. If you want to be happy, then forget yourself and help other people. Come and join as a missionary for the Lord. Commit two years of your life to God, and you will love those whom you serve. It will be difficult work, but with satisfaction as well.

Not only young elders are entitled to missionary blessings. Older couples and sisters also are able to serve.

(This is a great talk for the youth of our ward, and I'm sure others as well. What can we do as youth leaders to help these young men and women see the importance of missionary work? It can and will be the most important formative years in their life.)

The fog can and will lift if you serve the Lord diligently on a mission. Come and join with us. Come and be clean and be happy. Be part of the greatest generation of missionaries the world has ever known.

2:06 p.m. Wolfgang H. Paul, Quorum of the Seventy. He saw a bumper sticker "I do want I want." This is supposed true freedom, total freedom. Today's media and popular culture teach that if you do what you want you have real freedom. Satisfying our desires is that is important.

But, it is God's plan that provides true freedom and happiness. Because of the redemption we are free forever. (otherwise we would be subject to death). We can choose life. Satan wants man to be miserable like unto himself.

Free agency allows us to make decision. Agency is an eternal law. A law that has always existed from all eternity, to all eternity (paraphrasing Brigham Young).

God taught Abraham about the eternal nature of spirits. He taught about the importance of mortal life, and our test period to exercise that agency. We will create a world to prove them herewith. Knowledge of Good and Evil important. Choices critical, as are the consequences.

Christ set a perfect example of how to use agency. In pre-mortal life he said Father Thy Will be done and the glory Thine forever. It is this attitude with which we should approach life--do what the Father wants--not what we want. By submitting to the Father's will only will we find true freedom. Great testimony. It's good to see these non-American brethern fill the ranks of General Authorities.

2:15 p.m. Russell M. Nelson, Quorum of the Twelve. Recites story of a loving wife, and the oblivious husband too busy with his "game boy" (how often do we go through life like that?) He knows that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God. The Family is the central unit of eternity. Satan's attack on family and marriage seeks to undermine both.

Couples at times let their romance become rusty. (we can all do better here--I know I can.) In due time, all blessings will be available, even if not now married.

1. Couples need to comprehend doctrinal foundation of a marriage. One man and one woman. D &C 49:15-16. Worldly trends to define marriage differently will destroy marriage. Marriage is an eternal and everlasting covenant. It embraces husband, wife, and God. Marriage is but the beginning bud of family life. Families can be eternal as God Himself. (interesting the reference to one man and one woman. I think this is in response to all the Big Love hoopla). True happiness depends upon purity within the relationship. Avoid crudeness and pornography. Be clean in marriage.

Priesthood meant to exalt families. Men need to nurture their marriage.

2. Actions to strengthen a marriage. Appreciate, communicate, contemplate.

Appreciate. Say I love you and Thank You. This is not difficult. This is a sign of sweet civility. Look for the good in your partner.

Communicate. Good communication requires planning together. Observe, talk, and listen to each other. Make mutual goals. Use prayer and remember your spouse.

Contemplate. This is a deep word. If couples contemplate in the temple covenants will better be kept. Temple attendance will strengthen each other. This will nurture marriage and God's Kingdom as well.

Each partner should consider these suggestions. Begin with a desire to bless your unity and purpose. Do not be selfish. Be generous. Celebrate and commemorate each day together as a treasured gift from heaven.

No other success can compensate for failure in the home (David O' McKay--haven’t heard that in some time.) Great counsel for better marriages. We can all do better I'm certain in our marriages.

2:30 p.m. President Monson reminds everyone of General Priesthood tonight. Also he reminds us to set clocks forward tonight.

2:31 p.m. Elder L. Tom Perry Quorum of the Twelve. Visited the Logan institute of religion. In renovating the building they found an old sacrament tray, with actual glass sacrament cups. (Even I don't remember these--always paper or plastic in my life time). The workers presented this glass cup to Elder Perry.

He related how on his 12th birthday, on a Sunday. He had an interview and read D&C 13 about John the Baptists conferring the Aaronic Priesthood to Joseph and Oliver. His father the Bishop conferred the Aaronic Priesthood on him, and was sustained in his Deacon's Quorum. An evening sacrament meeting (those I do remember) was the first time he exercised his priesthood authority. He noticed how different people approached taking the sacrament differently. Some were just routine, others approached it as a very sacred ordinance.

Christ instituted the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the night before His Ultimate Sacrifice. Matthew 26 sets for Christ's passing of the First Sacrament. Take eat this is My Body. Take drink, for this is My Blood. 3 Nephi 20 also has an account of Christ's administering the Sacrament, this time to the Nephites in America. If you do always remember Me you shall have My Spirit to be with you. (this is a recurring and important theme in this conference, and one which I have pondered over the last several months--direct revelation and direction to an all to often unwise, and unworthy servant.)

The purpose of taking the sacrament is to renew our covenants with Christ. We renew all covenants (not just baptism i.e., temple covenants) when we partake of the sacrament. It is one of the most sacred ordinances of the Church. Casual taking of the sacrament, results in lack of spiritual growth.

Parents have responsibility to teach importance of attending Sacrament meeting weekly. May we have an increased reverence for the Sabbath. May we always remember Him, keep His Commandments, and we will have His Spirit to be with us.

Great discussion on an important ordinance (one of the most sacred) in the Church. Very spiritual delivery--well done. President Hinckely has yet to speak. I think his absence from the pulpit is deliberate, and not a good sign--in terms of his physical longevity in mortality. Yet, he will have another important mission to follow.

2:48 p.m. Choir Closes Come Follow Me--a very powerful rendition. All of their hymns have had just a bit different arrangements than that in the regular hymn book. The music at these sessions are as important as are the talks. The Spirit speaks as much through this music as it does when prophets, seers, and revelators instruct the body of the Saints.

2:54 p.m. Elder Glen L. Pace Quorum of the Seventy offers the Benediction.

176th Annual LDS General Conference Saturday Morning

2006-04-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

Today the Church celebrates its 176th annual General Conference. It is held in the conference center, located in downtown Salt Lake City. There are at least two blogs which will have open threads on conference where you can go and discuss within the Bloggernacle community the conference talks, share ideas, comments, questions, and the like. See here and here. If I locate more I will add them.

9:00 a.m. Conference begins at the conference center in Salt Lake City. The Choir provides music for this session. James E. Faust, second counselor conducts this session of conference. He looks good, as does Pesident Hinckely--though President Hinckley looks older than he has in the past. I'm sure his surgery has taken a great deal out of him--but it's good to see him make the session.

9:03 a.m. The Choir opens with Dearest Children God Is Near You. Nice color contrast between the sisters and brethren in the Choir, black and white. Blogger is very slow this morning, and live blogging is likely to be more difficult as a result.

9:06 a.m. Opening Prayer

9:07 a.m. Choir Did You Think To Pray. I like this hymn. Something too often I don't think to do before leaving the house, or beginning a day a work, or performing any task worth doing well, Church related or not. When your soul was full of sorrow, Balm of Gilead did you borrow? Umm. Prayer changing the night to day. I've always marveled at those organists.

9:14 a.m. Robert D. Hales, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles--expresses gratitude for the Prophet and his Book of Mormon challenge. Lehi, another prophet also chose to follow the lord, despite discord amongst his own sons, Laman, and Lemuel, who misused their free agency rebel.
Lehi blessed all his children before his death. To Jacob, he taught about the Plan of Salvation and Free Agency. Prior to this earth life we learned about good and evil. We were given free agency to see if we would follow God's plan.

Satan sought to destroy man's agency, which cost him and one third of heaven used their agency to reject God's plan. They had their freedom of choice, but couldn't choose the consequences.

On earth we have opposition in all things. It brings about God's eternal purposes. Man must act for himself. Adam and Eve first to experience temptation, and to exercise their free agency. Adam fell than men might be. Men are that they might have joy. Only by yielding to temptation will we lose that joy, which is Satan’s desire.

The adversary has no joy, unless we sin. He must have incredible joy given the state of this world.

Satan cannot make us do anything. We alone have the power to chose. The adversary must depart if we tell him to depart. He can only affect us if we allow him to do so. We do not have to yield to his enticements.

We have the Holy Ghost for a reason. It will keep us holding onto the "Iron Rod." All of us make mistakes. This is why Lehi taught Jacob and all of us about the Plan of Salvation. Because of the fall we can act for our selves, rather than be acted upon. In today's world we need to act to avoid evil, in order to avoid being acted upon.

When the promptings come, it won't be with a voice of thunder. It will be a thought to our minds, or a feeling in our hearts. If we ignore them, then the spirit's light fades, and we walk in spiritual darkness at noon-day. We become bound by the chains of sin.

Debt binds us. Breaking the law binds us with temporal prison. Spiritual prison is similar. Daily we must exercise choice wisely. We must exercise agency wisely.

Addiction and destructive behaviors make it almost impossible for light to penetrate. How do we escape these addictions? We reclaim agency by acting in faith.

1. Choose to accept God loves us and we are his children.

2. Choose to put everything on the altar before God. Use our agency to do His will. Never give up.

3. Choose to pray and read the scriptures to enhance the Spirit. When we feel the Spirit we are being cleansed.

4. Choose to obey and keep the commandments. Partake of the Sacrament.

5. Choose to attend the Temple.

6. Choose to believe in Christ's Atonement. He has power to remember our sins no more.

7. Choose to reject shame for the past and sins repented of. Satan desires that we be miserable.

We should use our agency to lift and strengthen others. We and others can lose our agency through the unwise use of our agency and poor choices.

Agency was manifest in Heaven before this life. It allow us to be tested and tried. It allows us to express our inward spiritual desires in outward Christlike lifestyles. Agency allows us to live in joy in the present. Agency determines who we are, and what we will be.

Agency leads us to act, seek and find, knock, and receive. Christ is the source of all light. His light will grow within us as we use our agency correctly.

9:31 a.m. Bishop H. David Burton. Relates story of Prophet Joseph Smith. Millions last year responded with generous contributions to the less fortunate. Bishop Burton relates stories of various relief efforts by Church membership worldwide, with videos and stories. What a great missionary tool while at the same time helping our fellow brothers and sisters in a time of need.

We need to lift those downtrodden and oppressed, regardless of church membership, or religious affiliation. This demonstrates the "pure love Christ." That which we give, will again be meted out to us. On behalf of the Twelve and First Presidency expresses "Thanks" which in a way is almost trite. Nonetheless--gratitude to all is expressed humbly in Christ's name.

9:46 a.m. Choir sings Now Let Us Rejoice--it's the Seventh Inning Stretch Folks--or at least the conference equivalent. Nice shot of Moroni on top of the Temple outside. Interesting how one can experience the "spirit" and power of this hymn as sung by the choir, literally 1000 miles away. I cannot explain it. Come home indeed. The conference center looks very full. I suspect they still use the ticket system to get in.

9:50 a.m. Sister Julie B.Beck, First Counselor Young Women's Presidency. This is the beginning of the blessing about to be poured out on my people--referencing the restoration of keys back in the Kirtland Temple. Priesthood interwoven into who we are--men and women alike. We are given equal partnership and blessings. The priesthood restoration provides blessings to all men and women alike. We are all equally blessed by priesthood ordinances:

1. Blessing name of children

2. Baptism same for boys and girls.

3. Gift of Holy Ghost given same gift to all baptized members, male and female.

4. Priesthood blessings available to all.

5. Patriarchal blessings also available to all.

6. Temple worship and endowment is for all who want to qualify for these blessings.

7. Temple marriage covenants are shared equally by the man and the wife. Each are blessed to be exhalted at some future time.

All faithful members equally blessed through blessings of priesthood restoration. Some gifts are given to certain individuals; but given from the same God.

God is no respecter of persons. We all have the gospel, same baptism, same gift of Holy Ghost, same opportunity to utilize Priesthood blessings. We are equal partners through Priesthood woven in, through, and around our lives.

Sister Beck clearly sought to stress the equality of men and women in the Church, in certain areas. Watch for the hue and cry of some in the 'nacle about how we are unequal. It has already started to some degree, and will likely be a lively discussion in the not to distant future.

10:01 a.m. Choir sings For the Beauty of the Earth

10:05 a.m. Elder Henry D. Eyring, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Ancient apostles, for example, Paul, have seen our times. They have seen the latter-day wickedness of our times. There is hope, though, in a place of safety from the storms ahead.

It is upon the Rock of Christ that we must build our foundation. When the hail and storms beat upon us, they will have no effect be cause of the Rock of Christ. It has never been more important than now to build on this rock.

King Benjamin saw us and our descendants. He was a holy man, and knew how to build of the rock of Christ. His final discourse is full of his insights. Because we are free to chose between right and wrong, we face hazards.

He described the consequences of our choices, depending on how we choose. We may drink damnation to our soul, and everlasting punishment, unless we repent. The demands of justice will awaken us to our guilt, and cause us to shrink from God. He spoke plainly and clearly.

We can and must become as a little child. Most though want to be strong, and less childish. To be like a child, is to be like Christ. Our nature must be changed to be come strong so that we are safe in times of moral peril.

The natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam. King Benjamin taught this. We must become like a child, meek, full of love, submissive to all that God seeks to inflict upon us.

Elder Eyring related a story of prayer of submitting his will to God's. Only when a submissive heart seeks, will the Spirit manifest itself unto that heart. We much change our hearts to be more submissive to Christ and His will.

There is no other way given or name given other than Christ. We must have faith in Christ. We must know Christ. Yet, how can we know Him if we have not served Him? We will come to love those we serve. To be called to serve is a call to change our very natures.

To remit our sins we must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, help those who need our help. We must avoid contention. We must take heed and pray always. Through sin the Spirit can be lost. We are responsible for ourselves. The Holy Ghost can lead us to truth and away from sin.

10:23 a.m. Choir sings Consider the Lilies

10:28 a.m. Elder Faust resumes conducting. President Monson will conclude this session. The Choir will sing High On A Mountain Top

10:29 a.m. President Monson, First Counselor First Presidency. Satan has created traps for the unsuspecting. He attempts to entice and ensnare us. Once grasped, it is difficult to escape. We must recognize his traps and avoid them.

Immorality is constantly before us. Many believe what was once evil is no acceptable. They are mistake. Chastity and virtue are precious above all things. 1 Corinthians 10:13--God will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able to bear.

Pornography is also another snare. His lie is that viewing pornography hurts on one. It is acceptable and normal. Some publishers and printers prostitute their presses with pornography. The most readily available source today for pornography is the Internet. It is enticing and habit forming. It is foul sleaze that make its exploiters wealthy--per President Hinckley. Long gone are the restraints of yesteryear. Avoid any semblance of pornography.

Drugs and Alcohol are another snare. They cloud thinking, remove inhibitions. They are purposely placed in the pathway of vulnerable youth. Paul taught that we are the Temple of God and that His Spirit dwells within us. We need to keep our physical temples clean and pure.

Excessive Debt another snare. We live in a time of borrowing that is too easy. Home equity loans very popular. But, this is a second mortgage. If we live beyond our means, the day of recononing will come. Many enter into long term debt, and then changes occur. Jobs are lost, health may be lost. Debt payments can't be made. We need to live within our means. We will be happier than if we are consistently worrying about paying our debts. We should release ourselves from bondage.

Beware of the detours, traps, and snares, which beckon us to grasp them. Pause to pray. Listen to the still small voice.

Yet, there will be those who will not listen. They will grasp the snares until they cannot let go. The clamor for prominence and prestige, the quest for wealth is not worth the price.

Surrounded by challenged of modern living we look heavenward for direction.

10:50 a.m. Choir closes singing High On A Mountain Top

I enjoyed this sessions. Talks were timely, even if we've heard them or some of the concepts before. I continu to maintain that once we start living more fully that which the the Prophets teach, then we'll likely hear more new material.

At least two other blogs have mentioned a well written ariticle in the London Financial Times dealing with pornography. As that is a timely spiritual and now secular topic, I will reprint the entire article below, with a link to the original source. Sometimes papers pull articles offline after a period of time--hence my reason for reprinting it in its entirety. The original link is here.

The story below:

Not tonight darling, I’m onlineBy Adrian TurpinPublished: March 31 2006 15:19 Last updated: March 31 2006 15:19

On a winter afternoon in Trafalgar Square, Michael (”Please don’t use my second name”) is trying to explain how the internet has changed his life and the lives of thousands like him.

“How many men are there here?” he asks, standing on the steps of St Martin in the Fields church. He surveys the tableau of anonymous office workers muffled against the cold. “Say there are 100, 200, 500...? How many will go home tonight and, with or without the knowledge of their partners, look at porn on the internet? You’d be surprised. Timothy Leary said about Sixties drug culture, ‘tune in and drop out’. The modern equivalent is ‘log on and get off’.”
He draws a line in the air between Nelson’s Column and the National Gallery. “You might think they don’t look the sort. Well, I don’t look the sort - but I’ve spent whole weekends with the curtains drawn, sitting in the dark apart from the blue light of the screen. It seems so creepy when it’s put like that.” He laughs and shrugs. “But everybody’s at it. Aren’t they?”

The question is all the more unsettling for being rhetorical. Can it be true that a great swathe of the UK population is spending its spare moments surfing for naked flesh and, if so, what effect might that have on the nation’s collective psyche? What does it say about our emotional lives? You don’t have to look far to find evidence that Michael’s “everyone’s at it” contains more than a kernel of truth.

Dr Marios Pierides is a consultant psychiatrist with the Capio Nightingale hospitals in London, who specialises in treating patients with addictions. “The man who tells you he hasn’t looked at pornography on the web is the man who tells you he hasn’t masturbated,” he says.

According to the internet filter company N2H2, its database of pages identified as pornography grew from 14 million in 1998 to 260 million in 2003, a 1,800 per cent increase. Type “XXX” into Google - a rough and ready reckoner of the number of adult sites - and you will get millions of results, while in January this year, The Washington Post reported that the online porn business was worth $2.5bn a year, compared with just $1.1bn for music downloads.

“One of my colleagues calls internet porn the crack cocaine of the internet,” Pierides says. “It would not be unreasonable to call it an epidemic. In the past 12 months, I’ve seen an explosion in the number of people referred to me with issues about it. It has tripled. This is causing real problems.

“I’ve had many wives complaining about it and simply going along with it, and the number of people in offices is startling. It’s now not at all uncommon for me to be consulted by high-flying professionals who fear their addiction will lead to them losing their jobs.”

The psychiatrist’s views find accord in the US. According to Mark Schwartz, the clinical director of the Masters and Johnson Clinic in St Louis, “Pornography is having a dramatic effect on relationships at many different levels and in many different ways - and nobody outside the sexual behaviour field and the psychiatric community is talking about it.”

Statistics about internet usage are often sketchy and raise as many questions as they answer. Still, the dots are there to be joined. In 2001, the internet tracking company Netvalue made headlines when it reported that more than a quarter of Britons who had access to the net from home had looked at adult websites over the course of a month. Of those, students (23 per cent), manual workers (15 per cent) and professionals (almost 13 per cent) were the most frequent visitors.

Now consider the near exponential increase in internet access in the past decade. The Office for National Statistics recorded that just 9 per cent of UK households were online in 1998; by 2004 that figure had risen to 52 per cent. The amount of time spent online seems to be expanding too. Last month, Google claimed that the average Briton now spends more time trawling the web (164 minutes a day) than watching television (148 minutes). It seems fair to assume that not all this time was spent innocently shopping on eBay or doing homework.

Given such growth, talk of pornography flooding into Britain’s homes as never before is neither hyperbolic nor judgmental; it’s a statement of fact. The internet has released a genie from the bottle. Once pornography had to be actively sought; now it is accessible and affordable for the majority of the population, anonymity guaranteed at the click of a mouse. The consequences are staggering. In 2004, the American internet tracking service ComScore revealed that more than 70 per cent of men aged 18-34 visit a pornographic site in a typical month. “It’s a high number,” one of the company’s analysts told The New York Times, “but it won’t shock anyone who’s worked in the industry.”

Michael is not shocked either. But nor is he entirely comfortable with his own situation. “When I talk to you about this for the first time, I feel queasy. It’s not quite a moral queasiness. I’m not talking about the ethics of pornography or the exploitation of women. Whatever I ought to feel about that, that’s the easiest bit for me to rationalise.

“It’s not sexual guilt. It’s more a sense of waste and puzzlement. What am I lacking in my life and my marriage that I need this? You are meant to get to know yourself as you get older. I’m 32 and sometimes I think I’m getting more confused, lost in cyberspace. But the most baffling thing is that I can say all this to you, but when I go home tonight I’ll probably boot up my machine and start all over again.”

I had found Michael through a friend of a friend, and e-mailed him a couple of weeks before our London meeting. I told him I was writing about how the internet had affected people’s relationships - more specifically about how the online revolution had brought the guilty secrets of pornography into men’s erotic lives. His first response was: “Why me?” His life was so ordinary. “Exactly,” I replied. “That’s the point.”

Michael was right about not seeming “the sort”. At first, we exchanged e-mails. For someone who spent so much time on line, he seemed awkward, cool to the point of terseness. It took a while before he told me his background: a happy childhood; two degrees - a bachelor’s from a red brick university and an Oxbridge PhD; a relatively high-flying job in academia that he liked rather than loved.

The really personal stuff was left until we met face to face - a face that seemed the antithesis of the pasty-faced onanist: shaven head, broad smile, good-looking in a slightly ruddy way with a self-deflating sense of humour.

Had he ever had problems establishing relationships with women? “I wasn’t Casanova,” he deadpanned. “Eight or ten relationships, flings, whatever, since I left university.” He met his wife five years ago, marrying in 2003. They have no children. “It’s a comfortable relationship,” he said. “But I would never tell her about the porn. It’s something I’d dabbled in occasionally for a long time. When I lived in London I would occasionally get magazines from a news stand outside Victoria station, always at night. But it was only really when I got the internet that I got serious.”

In the days before broadband, downloading pictures was painfully slow. He instead turned to MSN’s chat rooms, which have since closed down after the internet service provider became nervous about their ability to police paedophile activities. “I can’t remember the first time. But I can still remember the feeling. There was a sort of tingle of expectation - adrenaline - perhaps as the modem started to whine. I once read that some people get turned on just by hearing that sound. I can believe it.

“I’d be seeing a girlfriend but I’d choose to spend time getting aroused online rather than with her. It wasn’t always the case. Sometimes I’d go for weeks without logging on. But I’d always relapse in little bursts. A couple of hours a night for a week, if I got a chance.” By the time he was married the sessions sometimes lasted until three or four o’clock in the morning, after his wife had gone to bed. “Was it a sign that something was wrong with my relationship or that something was wrong with me?”

These days, Michael spends little time in chat rooms and more downloading pornographic pictures and videos from websites (he says that he prefers websites that show more natural, less silicone-enhanced women). His wife’s absence on business trips gives him time and opportunity to seek them out.

Has his online life changed the way Michael relates to her? “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I know I love her, although our sex life seems to have tapered off as I watch more. On a bad day, I feel it’s gnawing away at some human part of me.”

Jane Haynes knows all about the vagaries of human behaviour. For almost 20 years, she has practised as a relational psychotherapist, having trained as a Jungian psychoanalyst. Her consulting room at the Group Analytic Practice in London is discreetly tucked away in a mansion block near Marylebone Road. A box of tissues on the arm of the sofa suggests the hidden dramas that take place here, but Haynes radiates a soothing calm.

Never judgmental, she expresses wry wonder at the tangles in which people find themselves over sex. She used to be an actor. Now she often comes out of sessions with the words of A Midsummer Night’s Dream ringing in her head: “Lord, what fools [we] mortals be!”
She stresses that she speaks as a clinician rather than an academic, and she tells it as it is rather than as it ought to be: “In the last few years, the issue has come up more and more among the women I see professionally. I’m generally talking about women aged 30 to 40 who are outraged to find out that their husband is looking at some website or other. I hear it so often I sort of want to smile.

“In my work, I find it’s men who are bored by straight sex and women who say, ‘Why on earth, when I’ve only been married for a year, does my husband want me to take another woman to bed with us?’ So for me the big question is: what is the easy availability of porn doing to people’s minds and expectations?”

She is reluctant to take an ideological stance, pro- or anti-porn: “In my line of work I try to get people to understand that there are differences between men and women. And it may be that that, in the sexual arena, those differences are very profound.

“I have mainly found pornography to be a male problem. Unlike men, for example, very few women have problems that they’re more turned on by porn than by their partner. But then I don’t think men are naturally monogamous. So perhaps for them pornography is an attempt to come to terms with that without rocking the boat of their relationship. Domesticity is an enemy of the erotic life. I should also say there’s an important distinction to be made between porn used alone and pornography used together as a couple: sometimes consensual porn can actually enhance a relationship because it is shared and not split off into a private world.”

To some men, Haynes argues, clicking on porn is simply a way to pass the time. “It’s a hobby. Once they’d idly play solitaire; now they idly click on a porn site.” Others, though, succumb to addiction: “It isn’t just lonely, perverse men this happens to. It doesn’t just hit because men haven’t got a relationship. A man can be interacting well with his partner, but at the same time he’s addicted to these sites. That can be very distressing for him. Most addictions are to do with internal emptiness, wanting to fill up dead space, and addiction is always destructive.”

One problem is defining where normal behaviour ends and addiction begins - especially when so many people seem to be indulging. One much-quoted American survey labelled someone who looked at internet porn for more than 11 hours a week as a compulsive user. Using a similar benchmark, a study in 2000 by psychologists concluded that 200,000 people in the US were internet sex addicts.

Testifying to a US Senate committee in 1999, Dr Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the University of Pennsylvania’s sexual trauma and psychopathology programme, said that “even non sex-addicts will show brain reactions on PET [Positron Emission Tomography] scans while viewing pornography similar to cocaine addicts looking at images of cocaine.” The implication is that the human brain is hardwired to crave porn. Given the opportunity, we may all have the potential to become addicts.

I phone Michael. Does he think he’s addicted? “I haven’t bankrupted myself with subscriptions to porn sites. I’m still in a relatively stable relationship. And I’m not seeing a therapist, although I’ve thought about it,” he says. “But, yes, I know there’s an element of compulsion there.”
I tell him about how Pierides’ colleague described pornography as the crack cocaine of the internet. “I don’t feel like a crack addict, more like a binge drinker,” he replies, speaking low so that his wife can’t hear him in the other room.

“I know it’s not doing me good or making me happy at some level and I’d be embarrassed to let anyone know how much time I was spending online looking at porn. It’s like when the doctor asks how many units you’re drinking and you halve it.”

In the US, the debate about porn’s effect has been energised by the publication of Pamela Paul’s book, Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families. Paul, a contributor to Time magazine and The New York Review of Books, describes herself as a liberal who had never really given pornography much thought before she came to write about it. “I set out to do a book that wasn’t politicised because I felt that people’s perceptions of the subject were set in stone.”

Her conclusions, however, echo many of the concerns of old-school feminists and the Bible-bashing right. “In America at least, a veil of political correctness has fallen over the subject. People think it’s either harmless entertainment or that it’s empowering or good for a relationship.”

What gives Paul’s polemic weight is the number of interviews she has done with users and those around them. “My starting point was that we knew about the supply but very little about the demand,” she says. If she thought that porn fans would be another species, she was soon disabused. One of the author’s first finds was Jonah, a religious school teacher who enjoyed looking at images of genital torture.

“I found him on the internet absolutely anonymously,” she says. “But it turned out that he used to work with me. He would have been the last person who I’d have thought would have been into that kind of thing.”

The words of Pornified’s female interviewees make uncomfortable reading. There is Ashley, whose boyfriend is quite open in his use of pornography but finds it hard to maintain an erection. Every man she has dated fixates on porn: “Their view of sex is really skewed. It’s gotten dirtier, raunchier. They want you to do a lot of degrading things.”

Bridget, a 38-year-old accountant from Kentucky, feels rejected by her partner: “When I found out he was looking at all this porn I just felt thrown away.”

Variations on this story recur repeatedly in Paul’s book - and are echoed on hundreds of websites about the subject. Typical are such women as marriedlove, who logged on to the “Husbands and internet porn” discussion board at www.aphroditewomenshealth in February. “I’m often struck in these (increasingly common!) debates over porn, how often female frigidity is referred to as cause for frequency of male porn use,” she writes.

“I’d be happy to engage in some form of sexual play or another with my partner multiple times per day, but he still looks at porn alllllll the time. Maybe I’m unique in this, but I don’t think so.”
In Pornified, however, it’s the testimony of the men that is most striking. “Overall one of the surprising things was the extent to which men would talk to me,” Paul said. Kevin, a 32-year-old photographer from Colorado, describes how, having broken up with his fiancee, he began to go online looking for porn almost daily: “I would want more and more. It wasn’t enough to see bare breasts, it had to be bottoms, then it had to be couple, anal and group sex, multiple men and multiple women, bisexual.”

“More than anything else it was making me jaded,” Kevin tells Paul. “I wasn’t finding pleasure in the little things, with women or with life in general. Things that used to be erotic bored me.”
Harrison, a graphic designer, finds his appetite for porn interfering with his libido: “I’ve gotten used to a certain heightened level of stimulation, and when compared with porn, real sex just isn’t that exciting.” (Jane Haynes knows this pattern only too well: “I see it time and again clinically. Porn doesn’t enhance libido, it tends to drain it, which is what drives thinking men to despair.”)

Pornified is subtle enough not to depict the world in black and white. There are men, couples and occasionally even solo women who profess to love porn, use it, and believe they have no problem controlling any demons it might unleash. But the overwhelming tone of the book is of male melancholy, best summed up by Kevin. “I don’t know if porn was an addiction for me,” he tells Paul, after deciding to stop looking at adult material online. “I don’t think so. But it was certainly a depressant.”

For Paul, the problem with porn is as much about self-harm as it is about objectifying women. “It’s like before [Eric Schlosser’s book] Fast Food Nation or [Morgan Spurlock’s film] Super Size Me people didn’t know junk food was bad. They just thought it tasted good. They didn’t know about the odd chemicals and cooking processes that go into a chicken nugget.” The difference is that where McDonald’s or Burger King can only be found on the high street, the majority of homes now offer the means to view internet porn.

For Michael, however, ease of access is only part of the problem. “It’s easy to think of the internet as just another medium,” he says, “a high-tech version of dirty magazines or films. I think that’s fundamentally wrong.

“To me, the most disturbing thing about the internet is that it has the perfect structure to promote dissatisfaction. You click on an image, it’s not quite right. So you click on another, then another. It’s completely open-ended. If you just keep looking there’ll be that image that’s just right. But the more you look, the less you get turned on by the stuff you did before. So, you have to search harder.”

You don’t have to be a moralist to see a downside in millions of men regularly seeking oblivion in an activity that is doomed to disappoint them and which (if Paul’s interviewees are typical) frequently depresses them.

However you judge it, the scale of this flight into fantasy is strange. To some it may look like both symptom and symbol of a wider malaise, marking a collective failure to connect with one other and engage with reality. Has an addictive, acquisitive society lost sight of what makes it happy beyond the next serotonin-inducing surfing session?

Pornified’s most memorable quote pursues a similar train of thought. “The metaphor of a man masturbating at his computer is the Willy Loman of our decade,” says Mark Schwartz of the Masters and Johnson Clinic, referring to the spiritually rudderless protagonist of Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman. “In a sociologist’s terms, it’s anomie - the completely lonely, isolated man having sex with an airbrushed woman on a computer screen. It’s truly pathetic, even tragic.”

What might this mean for children and adolescents learning about sex? Pamela Paul quotes the feminist writer Naomi Wolf: “Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training - and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.”

Certainly, familiarity with adult material appears to be starting earlier. “It’s not uncommon for children to be talking about internet pornography in the playground,” says Dr Pierides. A 2003 study for the London School of Economics (LSE), “UK Children Go Online”, found that 75 per cent of nine- to 19-year-olds have accessed the internet from home. Of these, 57 per cent say they have seen pornography online, 36 per cent have accidentally found themselves on a sexually explicit website, and 25 per cent have received a pornographic e-mail.

But the effect of such exposure is almost impossible to quantify. “There just isn’t the data,” says Sonia Livingstone, who co-authored the LSE report. “The ethical problems of conducting research involving children are so great it’s hard to identify the areas for concern.”

Unflappable as ever, Jane Haynes counsels against a moral panic. “To some degree, where there is more openness about sex, boys are probably less driven in wanting to explore it. My 14-year-old grandson has seen a lot of porn on the internet and he is completely dismissive of it.
“You could say, though, that we are undergoing a huge experiment. This is the first generation who are flicking on pornographic websites in front of their parents - when it comes to 18-year-olds, you’ll find that a lot in professional families. I think it will take years to know what the implications are of young people having absolutely easy access to this material.”

If the genie of instantly accessible porn can’t be recorked, what can be done about it? For Haynes, used to picking up the pieces, that question is about as useful as asking what to do about the weather. “You can stop people watching pornography in offices,” she says. “You can stop people watching it in schools. But it’s there and it’s only there because there’s such a huge demand for it.”

Marios Pierides - dealing with the sharp end of addiction - prescribes psychotherapy and sometimes drugs. “Interestingly, a number of studies show that some antidepressants can have an effect on the problem,” he says.

Pamela Paul advocates what she terms “censure not censor”. The tub-thumping conclusion to her book is a call to arms against liberal relativism. “Pornography,” she declares, “is a moving target and it’s time we catch up with it. For years, the pornography industry and the pornified culture have told women to shut up or turn a blind eye. They have accused anti-pornography activists, or even those who have dared question their profit equation, of being anti-sex and anti-freedom... Those who are quiet must now speak out.”

For Michael, at least, the process of speaking seems to have been therapeutic. A couple of weeks after our meeting in Trafalgar Square, an e-mail from him arrives. “Cold turkey”, reads the header. With his wife trying for a baby, he’s been thinking about his online pursuits and it seems like a good time to stop.

For the immediate future, he intends to keep his study door open and avoid working at home while she is out of town. The credit card subscriptions have been cancelled and the history of the internet sites visited erased from his computer for the last time, or so he hopes. “One down, several million to go,” Michael drily concludes. “Failing that, same time, same place next year?”

Church Growth And Blogging As A New Trend

2006-03-31T18:24:00.000-08:00

According to the 2006 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, the three fastest growing churches in The United States are the Assemblies of God at 1.81 percent growth rate, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) at 1.74 percent, and the Roman Catholic Church at 0.83 percent.

It will be interesting to compare that statistic to the ones provided at General Conference this year to see if there are any differences in the reported growth rate. Still, it's good to know the Chruch is growing--even though it is not the "fastest" growing Church in the United States. (Can we bear to think of the Church as coming in second place in the growth race?) Come to think of it, the General Conference statistics will be world wide, not just the United States. Does anyone know if the Church's statistics are broken down further by country?

The other interesting aspect of this article on trends in American denominations is the use of blogs in spreading the word:

This year’s findings also spotlighted a new trend among churches and pastors. Blogs – online journals – are an increasingly popular medium used by the emergent churches. Examples of EC pioneers are Brian McLaren, founder of Cedar Ridge Community Church near Washington, and Spencer Burke, founder of The Ooze (http://theooze.com), "dedicated to the emerging Church culture."

"Blogs are particularly well-suited to communicating a nuanced religious viewpoint and fostering thoughtful conversation," said the Rev. Dr. Eileen W. Lidner, editor of the 89-year-old annual publication since 1998.

Of course the Church doesn't have an official blog--though perhaps it should? I don't know. It's an interesting thought. Would it have to be correlated and approved as are the other official publications? It might not make for good blogging. But, we do have the bloggernacle which I think fills a similar purpose for the LDS community as do the blogs utilized by the other American denominations. We do serve that purpose right--communicating a nuanced religious viewpoint and fostering thoughtful conversation?

In Anticipation of General Conference

2006-03-30T19:06:00.000-08:00

In my case . . . it is with great anticipation that I await this weekend's General Conference. A great deal has transpired in my life since the last conference in October. Most significant was my Dad's death, in January of this year. Since that time it seems as though at every turn my faith has been tested and tried more than at anytime in my life since returning to the Church after a decade long absence. There is something about death, particularly of a close loved-one that bends and contorts faith almost to a breaking point. I look forward to feeling the soothing Spirit that General Conference can and does bring. I long for the spiritual rejuvenation my life so desperately needs at this time. Yet, 15 years ago, I wouldn't have given General Conference even two minutes of my self-important and selfish lifestyle. Seasons change . . . and I'm grateful they do.

I know many feel we always hear the same things over and over again each conference. And, maybe we do. Perhaps we continue to hear the same things because we don't learn or don't live the truths God imparts over and over again in each conference. But, in many of the talks I will undeniably feel a Spirit of Truth, of direction, of further light and knowledge. A Spirit gently prompting, pushing, and pointing to a path of better direction. Will I heed that Spirit? Will I enlarge my soul with the further truth, light and knowledge it wants to impart?

During this prelude to Easter, I can think of no better time for rededication and renewal leading to the celebration of Christ's Atonement and Resurrection. General Conference is the portal through which I hope to do some of that rededicating and renewing, with hope and faith in the efficacy and application of Christ's Atonement in my own life.

E-Mail Campaigns Just Don't Work

2006-03-29T05:29:00.000-08:00

Over at Tales From The Crib, Carrie has an interesting post about a recent email campaign by certain LDS members against HBO's Big Love series. Her post reprints the email in its entirety, and is an interesting read.

Now, the Salt Lake Tribune picks up the story (who knew Trib editors read TFTC?) and further publicizes that which the emailer's most likely would not care to have publicized--at least in the media (want to bet whether further media outlets now pickup the Trib's story?):

The unidentified authors of the e-mail hope the campaign will give "Big Love" the ax in the way many conservative groups take credit for canceling NBC's "The Book of Daniel," a controversial drama about a pill-popping Episcopalian priest. (While NBC received more than 600,000 e-mails complaining about "The Book of Daniel," the show was canceled for low ratings, according to the network.) . . .

While HBO has not yet announced whether "Big Love" will be renewed, the ratings make it likely. That won't be good news for Nicki Rime, a 25-year-old project manager from Orem who received the e-mail Monday and instantly forwarded it to 30 of her friends and family, even though she hasn't seen the show . . .

Justin King hasn't seen the show either, but the 24-year-old Brigham Young University student also spread the e-mail to more than a dozen friends and family members.

"Whenever people talk about the Mormon church, there are quite a few negative views that the church still practices polygamy," he said. It's not known where the e-mail campaign originated. LDS spokesman Scott Trotter said the e-mail did not originate with the church. But Mormon leaders had earlier expressed concern that viewers might mistake the fundamentalist family depicted in the show as Mormon, even though a disclaimer shown at the end of the premiere episode described the differences.

Personally I don't think these types of campaigns work. I also think it makes the Church and the members look bad, particularly when many participating freely admit that haven't even seen the show. HBO couldn't have paid for better publicity either leading up to the series or now that it is in full swing. All this hoopla has probably had the exact opposite effect than the original email'ers actually intended.

Big Love Viewed From Polygamists' Eyes

2006-03-28T05:36:00.000-08:00

Today’s New York Times reviews HBO's Big Love from an actual polygamists' view. The consensus is mixed:

The five women watching the show — covering their eyes during the sex scenes, chiding the competitive wives, urging Bill to take control — were critics with special credentials: a current or past polygamous marriage.

If ever there was a question that the show seeks to advance a cultural message or theme, it may have been answered in last Sunday’s episode. In that show, Juniper Creek’s “prophet” Roman Grant is interviewed by reporters from the Los Angeles Times. He told these “fictional” reporters that if courts grant gay rights, including privacy and marriage rights, then too should they grant polygamists the same rights.

The polygamist critics agreed:

And despite the show's flaws, these women called "Big Love" a cultural benchmark, one with the potential to cast a warmer light on their lives.

"It's a more realistic view of a polygamous family that lives out in society than people have known," said Anne Wilde, a widow who was part of a multiple family for 33 years. "It can be seen as a viable alternative lifestyle between consenting adults."

Many have questioned whether the shows creators have an agenda. I now wonder if perhaps they do. It may not be as sinister, and many will argue it is not a frontal assault on traditional families and traditional family values; however, it does seek to portray polygamists and their lifestyle as just another among several which are appropriate in this day and age. A lifestyle that, like a gay lifestyle is entitled to court sanction and societal approval.

This is the nexus that I have argued implicates the Church’s Proclamation On The Family. Advocating that the gay lifestyle and by extension polygamy is just another valid choice slips one step further down the slippery slope, which many argue does not exist. I'm begining to wonder. (As do others). And, while I have absolutely no objection to what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes, I do object to their re-definition of marriage for all of society as a marriage between one man and one woman, and the slow erosion it has and will continue to have on society’s basic unit: the family.

The show’s agenda coincides with the message the pro-polygamists want to spread:

For the women gathered in a hotel room here at the request of The New York Times to talk about the intersection of their lives and popular culture, more is at stake than good ratings. "This is a glimpse of a family that is mainstream," Mary Batchelor, a 37-year-old mother of seven and director of "Principle Voices," a leading polygamy advocacy group, said of the Henricksons. "There are hundreds of these families. It shows an aspect of polygamy nobody ever sees. Before, you saw families in crisis." She referred to media images of men being carted off to jail for beating women or children or marrying child brides.

"This is making all of America say 'Why is there a law against polygamy?' " said a 55-year-old woman who wanted to be known only as Doris, because she feared repercussions at her new job after years of staying at home with her 14 children in suburban West Jordan. "This guy is just trying to support his family, and the family is just trying to make it."

While the women said "Big Love" had too much skin and not enough religion or humor for their taste, they agreed that it portrayed the Henricksons like any other American family, especially in an era of mixed marriages of all sorts, gay partnerships, single parents and serial monogamy.

In addition to Doris, Ms. Batchelor and Ms. Wilde, the women watching "Big Love" on this night included Linda, a 53-year-old widow and mother of four who said she lived for 30 years "in a plural situation" with 12 other wives; and another Mary, 52, who has been married for 10 years, has five children and whose sister-wife ("my best friend") lives up the street in a town called Bluffdale. She is an artist and high school teacher.

The other issue is the show’s impact on the Church. While there are disclaimers both from the show’s producers and also in the press, there are unmistakable links to the Church–at least its past. In Sunday’s episode, “prophet” Roman Grant led the Los Angeles’ Times reporters on a mini tour of the compound. This included a brief discussion, with a mural for show and tell effect of how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon; How Joseph received the revelation on plural marriage; How it was continued by Brigham Young after arriving in Utah; How in 1890, the then leadership of the Church went astray and buckled to pressure and abandoned “ the principle.”

While each episode, after discussions between HBO and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, includes a disclaimer that the Mormons long ago renounced polygamy, thousands of polygamists who call themselves Mormon fundamentalists say they are following the church's original teachings on marriage, called "the principle." Some live in religious communities, others live independently.

The other LDS connection is in the introduction of each episode. There is a brief scene of Bill and each of his wives meeting at what appears to be a white transparent veil. Afterward they are portrayed as sitting together in a constellation of planets: almost like a creation scene. For those familiar with LDS theology, these are very symbolic references in the LDS community.

The article also quotes the ex-communicated professor Michael Quinn on polygamy’s history:

C. Michael Quinn, a historian and former professor at Brigham Young University, said his research shows that the devotion of fundamentalist Mormon teenage girls to polygamy helps keep the practice alive. Dr. Quinn, the author of several scholarly books on Mormons, said the girls from polygamous families cannot imagine another life. The boys, he said, cite the difficulties in supporting a big family but find wives among the girls in their community.

"They believe polygamy was a commandment from God to the Mormon founder, Joseph Smith Jr., in the 1830's," explained Dr. Quinn, himself an excommunicated Mormon from a Mormon family that goes back seven generations. He estimates that one-third to one-half of about 30,000 to 50,000 Mormon fundamentalists are also polygamists; Tapestry Against Polygamy estimates that there may be as many as 100,000.

It seems that the shows producers and writers seek to provide more than just entertainment in this new series. There are unmistakable attempts to portray modern day polygamy as just another choice on how to live and raise your family. Am I wrong?

Gay Day At The Y

2006-03-23T06:34:00.000-08:00

Times have changed since I attended BYU. A so called group for the freedom of "gay" folks from religious and political oppression is making its way across the country stopping a various campuses in an effort to spread their message. One of their stops will be BYU, on April 10, 2006. This morning's Tribune notes:

Preachers and proselytizing are nothing new at Brigham Young University. But the missionary force due on campus next month is spreading a doctrine rarely if ever heard at the LDS Church-owned school.

Their message: BYU discriminates against gays and that's not OK.

Soulforce - a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy group - is scheduled to visit the school April 10 as part of a nationwide Equality Ride tour. After previous stops at other religious schools and military academies, more than 30 advocates plan to comb the Provo campus to talk to students about how BYU allegedly oppresses homosexuals.

Two immediate problems I have are:

1. Gays are a constitutionally protected class in the same sense as are religious groups, women, and other minorities;

2. BYU is involved in unlawful discrimination.

I know it is politically popular to jump on the gay rights bandwagon, and many courts have done so; however, I think it an incredible stretch to reach the conclusion that gay sexual behavior places someone in a constitutionally protected class of individuals, meriting the same constitutional protections you are afforded if you are black, a woman, or a political or religious minority. I don't believe the Church (from where BYU gets its guidelines) or BYU specifically discriminates against gays, solely for being gay:

"All these schools teach history, and history shows a wealth of information that religion has been misused time and again to discriminate against people," said Jacob Reitan, co-director of Equality Ride. "Is it really OK that I couldn't be a student at BYU simply because I'm gay?"

BYU's Honor Code - which prohibits extramarital sex and drug and alcohol use - addresses homosexuality in this way:

"Brigham Young University will respond to student behavior rather than to feelings or orientation. Students can be enrolled at the university and remain in good Honor Code standing if they maintain a current ecclesiastical endorsement and conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code.

"Advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle [whether implied or explicit] or any behaviors that indicate homosexual conduct, including those not sexual in nature, are inappropriate and violate the Honor Code."

I think this is an incredibly fair approach by the Church and BYU. They will respond to actual student behavior, rather than belief or feelings. Once you cross that line, whether it is a gay lifestyle, or drinking, drugs, or even prohibited heterosexual conduct, then you subject to discipline. Gays are, and should be treated just like anyone else in terms of inappropriate conduct by BYU students who have expressly agreed to abide by a specific honor code.

I also don't believe BYU engages is unlawful discrimination against gays, or anyone else. It is clear they target specific behavior. The specific gay behavior they target, is as taught by the Church, a sin. Churches have the right to proscribe certain conduct as sin. Our Church has done this with all sexual conduct outside the bonds of marriage, whether gay or hetrosexual. Like the Boy Scouts of America, I believe the Church and BYU have an absolute First Amendment right to exercise their religious beliefs by disciplining conduct they have categorized as a sin. Gay sex happens to fall within that category.

That said, I believe that if Soulforce behaves and complies with BYU's regulations they should be allowed on campus to spread their message. Alternatively if they go beyond BYU's requirements for off campus groups visiting campus, they should suffer the consequences of those choices. BYU and some of the students body apparently feel the same way:

In her message, Vice President of Student Life Janet Scharman told students and faculty that BYU's campus is open to all visitors as long as they are courteous and engage in nondisruptive, civil dialogue.

"Individuals may not, however, harass our students, faculty or staff or use our campus as a public forum in violation of BYU's public-expression policy," she wrote. "This policy applies to anyone or any organization that wishes to come onto our campus."

BYU junior Matt Snow doesn't mind Soulforce advocates coming to campus. "If anything, it should solidify how we feel about the matter," said the exercise-science major.

Scharman said BYU has told Soulforce the school will not change its policies or practices to accommodate the group's desire to promote its initiatives. She added if Soulforce activists follow BYU's policies, then students and faculty should show them the same civility.

"They should be treated fairly," said BYU freshman Jessie Cook, a Houston native. "Just because we don't believe in what they're doing doesn't mean we think they're bad or we're discriminating against them."

There was a time where this type of interaction was unheard of at BYU, like when I attended. I did have a friend who was gay, and who lived for a time on campus. He was a student, and later worked at BYU for a time as well. Of course he kept his sexual orientation to himself--for the most part. This was back in the mid 70's to early 80's. Gays would meet in private homes, or apartments. So, it's nothing really new at BYU--though it is becoming more open. I don't know whether that is a good thing or not.

Sacramento Temple Tours This Summer

2006-03-20T18:51:00.000-08:00

The Sacramento Bee reports that the Sacramento Temple, actually located in Rancho Cordova, a small unincorporated suburb of Sacramento, is about 70% completed, with tours to begin this summer 7/29 through 8/26:

He is the unofficial symbol of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Angel Moroni, in flowing robes with a horn pressed to his lips, appears on everything from church pamphlets to the grave markers of Mormon servicemen.

This week, a 10-foot gold-leaf statue of Moroni was installed at the new Mormon temple in Rancho Cordova.

The statue is also a sign that the temple is nearing completion. It will serve more than 80,000 church members in the region and is "about 70 percent done," says West. It is expected to be completed by summer.

President Hinckley is scheduled to dedicate the Temple on 9/3/06. Like the Newport Beach Temple open house, the public will need tickets for the open house; however, my experience at the Newport Beach open house suggested to me, at least, that tickets were not strictly enforced for actually attending the open house:

Church officials announced this week that the temple will welcome the community during a free open house from July 29 through Aug. 26, excluding Sundays. Open-house tickets will be available beginning June 26.

Gordon Hinckley, the 95-year-old president of the church, is scheduled to dedicate the temple Sept. 3. After the dedication, the temple will be open only to faithful church members.

There is a temple cam where you can monitor the construction, in the link below:

Church members have been watching the temple's progress by accessing the so-called "templecam" at www.sacramentotemple.net, which has a live camera at the construction site. They've also been able to see updated weekly photos of the construction site at www.lds.org. This site also features photos of the interior of the temple.

I'm looking forward to the open house, and plan to take a day off to take the tour. The Newport Beach tour was very worthwhile as well.

The Not So Lovely Big Love

2006-03-17T17:01:00.000-08:00

The byline to the London Times article reads:

Polygamy is played for laughs on the small screen, but for many women the reality is bleak.

A sobering reality check to all the fun, glitz, glamour, and giddiness leading up to HBO's Big Love premiere. The Times article explores some of the realities behind some of the communal polygamists as opposed to the Hollywood version--and those realities are stark. The Times points out that Big Love is based on a breakaway group from the LDS Church, known as the Apostolic United Brethren:

Loosely based on a brand of polygamy practised by the Apostolic United Brethren, a breakaway Mormon group that has its headquarters half an hour’s drive south of Salt Lake City in Bluffdale, Big Love should prove “bizarre enough to get an audience”, says one former member of the group.

But it masks a far bleaker reality endured by many women trapped in fundamentalist sects across a swath of North America from British Columbia to Arizona.

Another hour’s drive into the mountains from Bluffdale, Pauline Strong and her daughter, Rachael, live as outcasts from their former congregation, the True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days (TLC), in Manti, a farming town founded by Mormon pioneers in the late 19th century.

Until last year, Pauline, 60, and Rachael, 21, were both married to Jim Harmston, a former property developer and lobbyist to the Reagan Administration, and founder of the TLC.

Rachael was 11 when Pauline left her first husband to become Mr Harmston’s third wife. Later, the TLC’s self-styled prophet told Rachael he had known he would marry her from the first day he saw her.

She was 17 and already unhappily married to a much younger member of the church when Mr Harmston convened a meeting of his wives and told them that Rachael needed to be married to him to receive “ordinances” from Christ.

In 2004, she was, bringing Harmston’s number of wives to 21. Like all his marriages except his first, this was not legally binding, protecting him from prosecution for bigamy, which remains a felony throughout the US. But it made Rachael his.

“He said I had to marry him right away because the end was coming and he had to set the house in order,” Rachael says. “And then I had to sleep with him right away.” She moved in with Angie, at 16, Harmston’s youngest wife.

“He made schedules; he gave us our calendars and scheduled our nights. And he’d just come over on those nights, sleep with us and get up really early in the morning before anyone was up.

“Growing up (in Manti) he made me call him Dad. He played my stepfather, he did all the things a stepfather does. To go from that to having to sleep with him was absolutely the most horrifying thing anyone could do.

This is not your father's Big Love series by any stretch. I'm glad to see at least one article focusing more on the realities of polygamous life than Hollywood's creations. Watching only HBO's version of polygamy on TV limits my understanding of the polygamous live of thousands all over the southwest, and to an extent in Mexico and Canada. Yes, I know there are the compound scenes in Big Love, which are indeed interesting; but, the series clearly focuses on the more "normal" and "acceptable" versions of polygamy as found in the Hendrickson families.

The troubling part, at least for me, about Big Love, and polygamy's acceptance is the tie in with gay marriage, its legalization, and subsequent deconstruction of traditional marriage, and the fundamental unit of society: The family. The relationship is overt, and has been discussed in the national press, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. (I'm sure I've probably missed others--feel free to post them in comments if you wish.) Here's a couple of more I just located, Charles Krauthammer:

WASHINGTON -- And now, polygamy.

With the sweetly titled HBO series ``Big Love,'' polygamy comes out of the closet. Under the headline ``Polygamists, Unite!'' Newsweek informs us of ``polygamy activists emerging in the wake of the gay-marriage movement.'' Says one evangelical Christian big lover: ``Polygamy rights is the next civil-rights battle.''

Polygamy used to be stereotyped as the province of secretive Mormons, primitive Africans and profligate Arabs. With ``Big Love" it moves to suburbia as a mere alternative lifestyle.

As Newsweek notes, these stirrings for the mainstreaming of polygamy (or, more accurately, polyamory) have their roots in the increasing legitimization of gay marriage. In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as gay marriage advocates insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement -- the number restriction (two and only two) -- is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice.

For a couple of different takes see Ann Althouse, and Eugene Volokh. See also Volokh's law review article here.

It has also been discussed overtly in the bloggernacle, here, here, and here. (If there are others, please let me know so I can add and acknowledge). Many may not share the belief of a relationship between gay marriage, polygamy, and the deconstruction of traditional marriage and family; however, I think it unmistakable. And, it's not so much I am opposed to polygamy per se. I'm opposed to its use by so called "civil rights" activists to deconstruct that which recorded history for thousands and thousands of years have proven to be successful; however, in a sense I feel that polygamy is much more a civil rights issue than is same sex marriage.

That said, I still fall back on the Proclamation as the guide to which we need to adhere in traversing these stormy waters. I think the years to come (and not too many of them) will vindicate the argument that traditional marriage, and the basic family unit is in fact under serious and relentless attack from very real forces of evil. Quite frankly--I'm not all that optimistic.

RSS Feeds Available On Selected Church Web Pages

2006-03-17T09:20:00.000-08:00

The Church has announced that RSS fees are now available on selected Church web sites. Check it out here.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2006-03-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

To all the Irish and/or adopted Irish 'naclers out there . . Here's to ya on your day. Have a great one! BTW . . . isn't this supposed to be a holdiay somewhere? Shouldn't we all get the day off?

Big Love Fools New York Times Readers

2006-03-15T08:06:00.000-08:00

This is too funny. HA! Did anyone pick up a Sunday Times? Any chance you can scan in the ad? UPDATE: Thanks to Justin B over at Mormon Wasp for providing the copy of this ad! You really need to click to enlarge the photos so you can read the ads. They are a crack up! Great job Justin!

Also HBO's site now has an entire wedding page here.

An advertisement for HBO’s latest series “Big Love“ snuck in under the radar in the Times’ most exclusive section -- the wedding page.

Anyone who picked up a Sunday "New York Times" this week might have noticed a series of wedding announcements that looked curiously similar.

In fact, the same man was in all three of them.

No, it wasn't a mistake; it was a cleverly disguised ad for the new HBO series "Big Love," about a troubled Mormon polygamist.

The ad mimics the house style of the Vows section right down to font and picture placement, but, as in the series, there's only one husband.

It's not the first time Vows has been used for promotions; in 2004 the distributors of the film "Napoleon Dynamite" bought space on the page to plug the extended ending to the oddball Idaho comedy, which involved the wedding of characters Kip and LaFawnDuh.

Big Love's Gay Marriage --To No Marriage

2006-03-13T05:54:00.000-08:00

The editorials and opinion pieces following Big Love's premier are again making the case that Big Love is as much about a gay marriage (maybe even more) as it is about polygamy. Stanley Kurtz over at National Review Online leads the way, by stating right up front that he takes the people behind the series at their word. In fact, Kurtz argues that Big Love is another slip along the slope of the complete deconstruction of traditional marriage and the family, and its replacement by an infinetly flexible "partnership" system. I personally think he makes a good argument:

It's getting tougher to laugh off the "slippery slope" argument — the claim that gay marriage will lead to polygamy, polyamory, and ultimately to the replacement of marriage itself by an infinitely flexible partnership system. We've now got a movement for legalized polyamory and the abolition of marriage in Sweden. (See "Fanatical Swedish Feminists.") The Netherlands has given legal, political, and public approval to a cohabitation contract for a polyamorous bisexual triad. (See "Here Come the Brides.") Two out of four reports on polygamy commissioned by the Canadian government recommended decriminalization and regulation of the practice. (See "Dissolving Marriage.") And now comes Big Love, HBO's domestic drama about an American polygamous family.

Speaking to The Washington Blade, Olsen said he and Scheffer wanted to address our culture war over the family by trying to "find the values of family that are worth celebrating separate of who the people are and how they're doing it." In other words, family structure shouldn't matter as long as people love each other. Scheffer adds that what attracted him to the Big Love project was "the subversive nature of how we deal with family values....I think what's really exciting about the show is the nonjudgmental look we have on our characters." Now maybe cultural radicals are mistaken when they claim that they can change society just by shaping the movies, plays, and television we watch. But clearly this kind of cultural transformation is exactly what Scheffer and Olsen have in mind.

Kurtz points out that even the Big Love cast feels there are deeper social issues at stake, beyond providing American homes with entertainment:

It isn't just Big Love's co-creators who think of it as something that will influence our cultural, legal, and political battles. Big Love's actors seem to feel the same way. Ginnifer Goodwin, who plays one of the wives of Big Love, says that for many women, polygamy "is the answer to their problems, not a problem in and of itself." Big Love lead, Bill Paxton, says: "This show talks about the freedom in this country. Are we free to choose who with want to live with? Well, yes, but we can't have legal rights together." Paxton seems to be pretty clearly arguing for decriminalization of polygamy, and probably for direct legal recognition as well.

This is where Kurtz points out he is merely taking the folks behind Big Love at their word. He also highlights a story from yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune discussing whether the "polygamy debate" will ever be the same again:

We don't need to talk about all the claims for the cultural significance of Will and Grace or Brokeback Mountain. Have a look at this fascinating piece from the Salt Lake City Tribune, "Will the polygamy debate ever be the same?" The Tribune draws an analogy between Big Love and the first appearance by a black in a television commercial. That appearance was arranged by Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, through his then intern, Ed Frimage. Now a law-professor emeritus at University of Utah's law school, Frimage has long advocated the decriminalization and regulation of polygamy. Once you get an black on television to sell refrigerators, argues Frimage, "the game is over." The Salt Lake Tribune wonders out loud whether, after Big Love, the same might now be true for polygamists. As the Tribune reports, there are already legal challenges to anti-polygamy laws based on the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision. It's likely we'll see more in the future. It's hard to believe that changing public attitudes in the wake of Big Love won't have an influence on those battles in years to come.

Over at the Oregon Daily Emerald, writer Ailee Slater also discusses the social and legal implications of the recent Big Love polygamy push by HBO. In part she writes:

When television picks up on not just a set of characters, but an entire lifestyle, there is usually some factor of social fascination at work. “The Sopranos”, “Six Feet Under”, “Desperate Housewives”: Each one of these shows draws its immense audience by exposing them to little-known social realities such as the mob, the undertakers and the wealthy women of suburbia. HBO’s newest lifestyle-turned-television-show just might blow the rest of them out of the water, in terms of viewer curiosity and cultural relevance . . .
Polygamy has been forbidden since 1878, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the practice of polygamy violated criminal law, and was not protected under the freedom of religious expression. Although that legal precedent still stands, polygamous relationships are rarely prosecuted; instead, the law tends to focus on punishing the instances of polygamy wherein children are endangered or incest occurs.

Because of the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case, wherein a gay couple was seen having sex in their apartment and arrested for that act, the Supreme Court has already set a precedent allowing citizens to “engage in private conduct without government intervention.” The prosecution in Lawrence v. Texas was unable to persuade the court that a violation of sodomy law ought to outweigh the right to privacy; similarly, polygamist families and organizations plead their case for legalized polygamy on the basis that the marriage laws themselves are outdated, and that side problems such as statutory rape can be solved through criminal laws . . .

Polygamist families make a convincing argument, especially considering that the reason polygamy was originally prohibited had as much to do with religious oppression as it did marital norms. Joseph Smith, the man who stared at gold plates and translated what they were telling him into the book of Mormon, believed that God had commanded him to take more than one wife and establish the tradition of plural marriage. Although Smith could certainly be termed mentally ill for his belief in this personal connection with God, there is no reason besides religious favoritism that the U.S. legal system chooses to accept the Biblical One Man One Woman norm, yet refuses Smith’s call to polygamy. Historians often comment that the move to outlaw multiple spouses was meant as an attack on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which encouraged polygamy before it was outlawed. (Since then, the church has split into three groups, and the smallest group — fundamentalists — still believe practicing polygamy is OK.)

I think Ms. Slater is spot on in her analysis here, particularly her discussion of frontier America's legal attack on polygamy, and The Supreme Court's outlawing its practice. We are now poised in the "culture wars" to completely deconstruct the traditional family concept of marriage and the very fundamental family unit itself. The Brethren accurately forsaw this as far back as 1995 in their, The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Since that time, and even before we have seen an unprecedented assault on the family, and the institution of marriage, the consequences of which I don't think will fully be understood for decades to come.

Justice Scalia, with whom I often disagree, I think got it right in his Lawrence dissent where he noted among other things:

This reasoning leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. Justice O’Connor seeks to preserve them by the conclusory statement that “preserving the traditional institution of marriage” is a legitimate state interest. Ante, at 7. But “preserving the traditional institution of marriage” is just a kinder way of describing the State’s moral disapproval of same-sex couples. Texas’s interest in §21.06 could be recast in similarly euphemistic terms: “preserving the traditional sexual mores of our society.” In the jurisprudence Justice O’Connor has seemingly created, judges can validate laws by characterizing them as “preserving the traditions of society” (good); or invalidate them by characterizing them as “expressing moral disapproval” (bad).

Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct. I noted in an earlier opinion the fact that the American Association of Law Schools (to which any reputable law school must seek to belong) excludes from membership any school that refuses to ban from its job-interview facilities a law firm (no matter how small) that does not wish to hire as a prospective partner a person who openly engages in homosexual conduct. See Romer, supra, at 653.

One of the most revealing statements in today’s opinion is the Court’s grim warning that the criminalization of homosexual conduct is “an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres.” Ante, at 14. It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed. Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as “discrimination” which it is the function of our judgments to deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession’s anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously “mainstream”; that in most States what the Court calls “discrimination” against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal; that proposals to ban such “discrimination” under Title VII have repeatedly been rejected by Congress, see Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1994, S. 2238, 103d Cong., 2d Sess. (1994); Civil Rights Amendments, H. R. 5452, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. (1975); that in some cases such “discrimination” is mandated by federal statute, see 10 U.S.C. § 654(b)(1) (mandating discharge from the armed forces of any service member who engages in or intends to engage in homosexual acts); and that in some cases such “discrimination” is a constitutional right, see Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000).

Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means. Social perceptions of sexual and other morality change over time, and every group has the right to persuade its fellow citizens that its view of such matters is the best. That homosexuals have achieved some success in that enterprise is attested to by the fact that Texas is one of the few remaining States that criminalize private, consensual homosexual acts. But persuading one’s fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one’s views in absence of democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a State to criminalize homosexual acts–or, for that matter, display any moral disapprobation of them–than I would forbid it to do so. What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new “constitutional right” by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that “later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,” ante, at 18; and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.

One of the benefits of leaving regulation of this matter to the people rather than to the courts is that the people, unlike judges, need not carry things to their logical conclusion. The people may feel that their disapprobation of homosexual conduct is strong enough to disallow homosexual marriage, but not strong enough to criminalize private homosexual acts–and may legislate accordingly. The Court today pretends that it possesses a similar freedom of action, so that that we need not fear judicial imposition of homosexual marriage, as has recently occurred in Canada (in a decision that the Canadian Government has chosen not to appeal). See Halpern v. Toronto, 2003 WL 34950 (Ontario Ct. App.); Cohen, Dozens in Canada Follow Gay Couple’s Lead, Washington Post, June 12, 2003, p. A25. At the end of its opinion–after having laid waste the foundations of our rational-basis jurisprudence–the Court says that the present case “does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter.” Ante, at 17. Do not believe it. More illuminating than this bald, unreasoned disclaimer is the progression of thought displayed by an earlier passage in the Court’s opinion, which notes the constitutional protections afforded to “personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education,” and then declares that “[p]ersons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do.” Ante, at 13 (emphasis added). Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is “no legitimate state interest” for purposes of proscribing that conduct, ante, at 18; and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), “[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring,” ante, at 6; what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising “[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution,” ibid.? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry. This case “does not involve” the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court. Many will hope that, as the Court comfortingly assures us, this is so.

The matters appropriate for this Court’s resolution are only three: Texas’s prohibition of sodomy neither infringes a “fundamental right” (which the Court does not dispute), nor is unsupported by a rational relation to what the Constitution considers a legitimate state interest, nor denies the equal protection of the laws. I dissent.

So, after all this discourse, where am I in all this? I have very strong feelings that the traditional family is the critical unit in the makeup of society. I believe that the traditonal family, and traditional marriage as defined as between one man and one woman is under a ferocious assault from the forces of evil. I believe that part of this assault to a degree is contained within the HBO series Big Love for the arguments presented in the authors cited in this post. Still, I enjoy watching the series, or at least enjoyed the first episode. I will likely watch future episodes to see where it takes the story line.

I am curious about almost all things Mormon, and LDS. I have read authors and pieces not at all complimentary to the Church, yet I rationalize this by thinking I can and do set apart certain ideas, writings, or entertainment programs from my core beliefs and thinking of right and wrong. I don't know if this is entirely consistent--but I am at times an inconsistent person. I suppose like most, I am a work in progress, and like the Prophet Joseph, I am being molded and shaped in life as my rough edges are worn and polished as I roll through life.

HBO's Big Love Big Night--My First Impressions

2006-03-12T22:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I missed the east coast feed on HBO, so I'm watching the much later west coast feed. So far, it's pretty entertaining--meaning very Hollywood. I liked the scene as Bill is negotiating a business deal in a boardroom somewhere, with the Salt Lake Temple in the background. Again, if not real . . .certainly entertaining. But hey, I guess that there are a fair amount of deals consummated with the Salt Lake Temple in the background--at least in Salt Lake City.

For our "feminist" sisters, there was Barb's defiant moment of refusing Bill "demanding" that she put her check in the family account in the bank. There seems to be even a feminist twinge to Big Love.

"I think chastity takes courage." Nice line, as the teenagers sit at "Debs", what clearly looks like a take off of the old Dee's hamburger stands in the Salt Lake Valley.

The compound does look creepy though. That depiction is probably more realistic in a way than some other parts of the show. And, poor Margene home alone with all those kids while Bill, Barb, and Nicki spend time at the compound. Roman, with his what looks to be a 14 year old bride at the compound is also pretty creepy.

The Mormon lingo is down pretty good though, as with the line, are you in young womens, bee hives, laurels? Talking about Relief Society, and the standard Mormon topics certainly brings the Church ever closer into focus on the show.

The short little discussion with Barb and I think it was Rhonda, the young looking (14 or so) bride of Roman "The Prophet" brought some reality into focus. I don't follow the FLDS Church or their beliefs; but, from what I have read, this portrayal seems very realistic.

"They're not us, and we're not them." Bill's rationalization about their differences, referring to his polygamous practice and that of Roman back at the compound. I wonder if he's trying to convince himself, or what.

There's man's law, and there's God's law." Nice extortion line by Roman. I'm certain there will be some good future interaction there between the "prophet" and Bill in upcoming shows

"It's not because you asked---it's because I wanted to." Barb still defiant to the end in maintaining her independence both from Bill and the other two wives, does sign over her pay check. You go girl!

The Mormon Church officially banned polygamy in 1890. Well, at least that's what HBO says. What say you?

Hey . . .overall it was entertaining. I don't know if it has the same appeal as say Six Feet Under. But, there's enough I'll probably watch a few more shows to see where they take Big Love.

President Hinckley Rededicates Santiago Temple

2006-03-12T21:34:00.000-08:00

The Washington Post has reported on President Hinckley's re-dedication of the Santiago Chile Temple:

The Mormon church rededicated its temple in Chile's capital on Sunday, an event that drew the church's 95-year-old president, who had surgery less than two months ago.
Many of those present were "moved to tears" by the presence of Gordon B. Hinckley, said a church spokesman, Elder Sepulveda. Sepulveda asked to be identified by his church title and declined to provide his first name.

Hinckley traveled with his doctor, his sons and L. Tom Perry, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' principal decision-making body, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Hinckley also attended a cultural gathering of some 50,000 Mormons at a soccer stadium Saturday and acknowledged, "this will probably be the last time I'll be in Chile," Sepulveda said.

The rededicated temple, which had been closed for renovations, will reopen for religious services on Wednesday. It is on a site formerly occupied by a private school in the upper-class Providencia neighborhood.

I had no idea the church had 535,000 member is Chile. That is quite an impressive number. I'm certain the Chilean Saints are pleased to have their Temple back in operation.

Romney Campaign Gear

2006-03-12T20:25:00.000-08:00

I don't know . . .just a wild guess . . . but I'm wondering whether the Romney Campaign is actually behind this website promoting his campaign. Interesting selection of gear though! Gives a whole new meaning to "Big Love" eh?

Mitt Romney BIG Love and More

2006-03-10T07:43:00.000-08:00

I've posted on the new Mitt Romney connection and BIG Love, as well as a slew of new reviews over at Bloggernacle Times. Go check it out!

Times and Seasons Joins The Archipelago And More

2006-03-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

Check out the new links over at T & S. They are now Archipelago, LDSelect, LDS Blogs and Planet LDS Friendly. So, will they move up a box? Welcome Times and Seasons!

Cross Posted Over at Bloggernacle Times.

Dapper Draper Dashes DI's Downtown Destination

2006-03-09T05:49:00.000-08:00

Yep . . .they did it. Draper, that new enclave of Utah's economic elite has decided they will keep the Church's Temple, but reject the poor among them--at least on the prestigious east side. There are several stories.

The Deseret News:

Draper says no to a downtown DI.

After a heated debate Tuesday night, the Draper City Council approved an ordinance prohibiting secondhand stores in the heart of its retail district.
The ordinance hits a particularly sensitive chord with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which had hoped to build a Deseret Industries store on 12300 South and 300 East.
"This body is trying to limit one specific entity from locating in this community," said Councilman Paul Edwards, one of two council members who voted against the ordinance.
"It's unfortunate that this body and this community has been painted with a raw brush that we're snobs. . . . And to propose an ordinance that's specific to one entity in a rapid, rash fashion is absolutely wrong."
The church-owned thrift store reportedly has been looking at a 5-acre spot east of I-15 as a possible site for a 38,000-square-foot store. But the ordinance passed Tuesday restricts secondhand stores larger than 5,000 square feet to a commercial zone west of the freeway.
"Unfortunately, I think this whole issue has been made into an emotional issue, dividing the city into east and west, versus haves and have-nots, and I think it's unfortunate," said Councilman Bill Colbert, who heavily pushed the ordinance with Councilwoman Stephanie Davis on Tuesday.
Colbert said he'd like to see a Deseret Industries in Draper, just not downtown.
"In looking at other communities, you don't see secondhand thrift stores being put in downtown redevelopment projects," he said. "You don't see The Gateway; you don't see those uses."
The ordinance was first proposed at the Jan. 3 council meeting, then sent to the Draper Planning Commission. The commission gave its endorsement later that month.

It's been a little while since I've been to downtown Draper; but I don't recall any real similarities between downtown Draper and downtown Salt Lake City. Are they really serious about these comparisons?

Editorial--Don't Turn Back on DI

The News ran this strong editorial in response. Of course both the Deseret News and DI are owned by the same entity, which the editorial acknowledges:

There is a Deseret Industries store on Main Street in Logan and another on Main Street in Brigham City. There is one on a main drag of St. George and just off the main drag in Centerville. Dozens of other Utah communities have D.I.s in the heart of town.

But now that Draper has declared Deseret Industries — a company run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, owners of this newspaper — unfit to live among the more gentrified set, what does that say about Utah's other communities?
We know exactly what it says.

It says most Utahns are not ready to adopt the caste system of India and label one segment of the population "untouchable."
It says that charity, good will and inclusiveness are still values in most Utah towns and neighborhoods, that most places in Utah still feel it's better to lend an open hand than to offer the back of one.

It says not everybody in Utah thinks people who shop at D.I. have cooties.
It also says most Utah towns understand that thrift stores have a wide clientele, including many customers who could afford to shop elsewhere.

Still, we suspect that communities that refuse to allow Deseret Industries to set up shop in their retail cores are not really thinking so much about social norms and America's shadowy "class culture." They are really thinking about themselves and their pocketbooks. The real fear, we suspect, is that the presence of a Deseret Industries would somehow affect the value of property in the area or make it harder to attract upscale businesses. Struggles of this nature aren't about "traffic" or "storage" or "unwanted elements." They are about greed.
We have a suggestion for folks who feel like that.

Grow up.
Then go back to your English lit textbook and read the poem "Richard Cory" by the American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson. There, a moneyed soul seems to have everything a person could ever want — prestige, property, power. But the guy goes home one night and puts a bullet through his head.
Why?

Because he was hollow. He'd mortgaged his soul. He'd forgotten what mattered most.
Some believe one day the perfect city will indeed be ushered in. It will be a thing of grace and beauty. But one thing that city will undoubtedly have is respect for all people, along with a way to aid those in need.

Wow . . . is the city council feeling the heat yet? But, The News was not alone in this story. The Salt Lake Tribune, no historical ally of the Church, ran a few stories.

Salt Lake Tribune:

Draper bans DI at choice retail site.

In initial public hearings, a City Council member said Draper residents don't need a DI. Another argued that the store - with donors dropping goods off and the church trucking much of it away for humanitarian work around the globe - wasn't just another retailer.
Councilman Bill Colbert, who voted for the ordinance, said he was frustrated because the dispute seemed to divide Draper into "haves and have-nots."
Colbert argues that the ordinance still allows DI officials to request a zone change near the commercial corridor. All Colbert wants, he said, is for the store to move "one block off" 12300 South.
"You don't see [DIs] at The Gateway," Colbert said. "You don't see it in downtown revitalization in Provo."
For his part, Draper Mayor Darrell Smith - who doesn't vote on the City Council and cannot veto the ordinance - said the prospect of zoning DI out of the commercial heart was a bad idea.
"This is a decision that is not for the good of the whole community," Smith said.
But the most outspoken opponent of the ordinance was Councilman Pete Larkin.
"You want to push them to the outskirts," he said. "It's a lousy ordinance that we'll have to redo."

Interesting the Mayor has no real voice in this issue. Still, if you want to drop him an email, and let him know what you think about the city council's doings you can reach him here: darrell.smith@draper.ut.us. Just remember, the Mayor, did oppose the ordinance. He just doesn't get a vote.

An intresting related story in the Tribune details how the DI store in Murray, Utah (just a stone's throw north of Draper) is remodeling its store and putting up a new state of the art DI, which presumably would be the same type Draper would have seen:

One of the most popular Deseret Industries stores in operation will be reduced to rubble this summer. Not to worry, the next generation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints-owned secondhand store will rise from that rubble just over a year later.
This spring, workers will begin transporting used clothing, furniture, books and more from the 4500 South and Main Street store to a temporary location in anticipation of the 14-month project.
Construction on a new, state-of-the-art DI at the same site will begin this fall, with a completion date slated for fall 2007, said Curtis Ravsten, director of Deseret Industries.
"It won't be bigger, but it will be better," Ravsten said. "It will be more efficient, clean and modern."
The updated version of Deseret Industries' flagship store will be shaved down from two floors to one and include much more parking.
That's good news to Liberty Pelton, a Sandy resident who passes two other DIs to frequent Murray's mainstay.
"This is the best one around," Pelton said. "When I come here, I have a hard time finding a parking space."
That's the case most days, customer Ken Meadows said recently as he waited for the doors to open with a parking lot full of customers waiting patiently in their cars. Meadows stops by Murray's location three times a week on his way to and from the doctor.

The final design will be nearly identical to new Deseret Industries stores in West Jordan and American Fork. The new building also will house LDS Family Services, a Humanitarian Center and an employment-resource center.

What does that final design look like? It probably looks like this photo below of the new DI store located in American Fork, UT. Not a bad design actually. At first glance it could be a Costco, or other large retailer.

Finally, from the Tribune there's this gem from columnist Holly Mullen:

Rumor has it the horsey set that populates this southeast Salt Lake County burg is pushing for a name change. The gentry was polled and it has spoken. Were it up to them, Draper would forever be known as "Ville d' Elite."

The folks on Draper's east side have asked me to explain this. You simply cannot count on the unwashed masses squatting on the west side of Interstate 15 in those ramshackle tract homes to pick up on the fine points of a romance language. You know - those places like West Jordan and Riverton. Herriman, even. Besides, last they heard on the tony side of Draper, those people west of the freeway don't even wear shoes. What could they possibly know about town and country living and leisurely rides along the bridle path?

I was out in the Ville on Wednesday. They let me through the checkpoint, even though I drive a '99 Honda Accord pockmarked with door dings. It was the day after the Draper City Council voted 3-2 to prohibit secondhand stores larger than 5,000 square feet from its prime retail district, which begins on the east frontage road at I-15 and 12300 South and winds to about 500 East.
Thrift stores, future check cashing joints and the like would be sited west of the freeway - far west of such stunning commercial gems as tire outlets, the Golden Arches and let's see, about 14 of those quickie "fresh Mex" restaurants where one overstuffed burrito tastes about like the other one across the street.

It's a good column, read the whole thing. I'm wondering if the good folks on Draper's council may have bitten off just a bit more than they can chew. Umm . . .enjoy swallowing!

From Cedar to New York

2006-03-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

Steven D. Bennion, President of Southern Utah University for the past nine years is leaving academia for the mission field. He and his wife will serve, apparently as mission leaders, (I believe this means Mission President and wife) in the New York City South Mission. Today's Spectrum in St. George noted:

Since Bennion's appointment as president on July 1, 1997, SUU has enjoyed one of the most prosperous times in its 108-year history.
The university has received national recognition from Consumers Digest and the Princeton Review, added four master's degree programs and several baccalaureate programs, formed two additional colleges and earned eight major accreditations.
In addition, Bennion gained approval and funding for a new Teacher Education building, which he believes will help the university continue its tradition of grooming the educators of tomorrow, and oversaw the construction of a state-of-the-art physical education building.
A groundbreaking ceremony for the TE building is scheduled for May 5.
"He's been the orchestra leader," said Georgia Beth Thompson, the university's vice president for student services. "He hasn't done all the work, but he's pulled it all together."
Bennion will be remembered as much for his warm, caring nature as his accomplishments as president.

President Bennion spent almost four decades in the halls of academia:

Bennion has worked 39 years in higher education, the past 24 as a president. He served as president at Snow College in Ephraim and Ricks College, now BYU-Idaho, before coming to SUU.
In New York, Bennion and his wife will lead missionaries in Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Bermuda. The fact that he'll be working with many college-aged people will help ease his transition, Bennion said.

I'm struck by how the most successful of people by the world's standards, such as the Bennions, and others will in a heartbeat give up the prestige and glory of their professional positions to accept a life of service that comes with a higher calling.

Nominating DKL As Next Guest Poster At fMh

2006-03-05T18:29:00.000-08:00

DKL of LDSelect.org fame has an extraordinary post up over at New Cool Thang. You really should go take a look at it, and take it in. My suggestion is that the "gals" over at fMh take note, and give him the next guest post over there. OUTSTANDING post DKL . . .just OUTSTANDING!

Of The Idols We Worship . . .

2006-03-04T19:48:00.000-08:00

Lust is likely the most pernicious. It is listed among the Seven Deadly Sins. A story in today’s Deseret News describes it the “sexiest” of the Seven Deadly Sins:

Lust is the sexiest of the Seven Deadly Sins. Lust dances the tango and looks good in tight clothes. It flames. It feels good. And lust has ensnared presidents and paupers alike. Still, in modern America, where sex sells everything from toothpaste to jeans, many people find the idea of "lust is a sin" to be hilariously old-fashioned.

What exactly is Lust? The story provides a good definition as well:

David Pascoe, vice president of the Salt Lake Theological Seminary, says we tend to think the Seven Deadly Sins are quaint and musty. But they aren't. Pascoe likes this definition of lust: "Lust is the self-destructive drive for pleasure out of proportion to its worth." He emphasizes the words "self-destructive." And "out of proportion.” Sexual pleasure is a gift from God, Pascoe notes. But sexual pleasure is often made into a false idol. Worship of this idol is woven deeply into our modern-day culture, Pascoe says . . . The Roman philosopher Seneca said if you conquer the desire for sexual pleasure, you can conquer anything.

But, really . . .what does a little lust hurt?

Pascoe reminds us that lust hurts the person you are cheating on — and yes, Martin Luther beat Jimmy Carter by many centuries in saying that cheating in your heart is also a form of cheating. However, even if you are single, lust is not a victimless emotion.

Pascoe reminds us that no matter who else it hurts, the sin always hurts the sinner, personally. Dante knew this to be true as well. Even though he pitied them, Dante said lusters would spend eternity being smothered in fire and brimstone. Dante believed lust was a sin strong enough to suffocate the soul.

The cheating aspect is all the more interesting in light of Elisabeth's post over at BCC here. Even if the wife knows about it and approves, how does that vitiate the idol of Lust? It seems, to the contrary only to feed, strengthen and nourish it.

Here's a pretty interesting little quiz to see just how high you rate on the lustful thermometer. Don't worry its an anonymous quiz, and relatively harmless. It might be an eye opener about how influenced we are by our moden culture.

So, how do we avoid Lust? There are some excellent reminders for us in the scriptures, starting in Galatians 5:16-26:

16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

24 And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.

Another guide, as Jeff Lindsay posted on not so long ago here, is to always remember Christ, to consciously remember Him, so that we will have His Spirit to be with us. Another is to pray always, as counseled in 2 Nephi 32. I'm struck by how the emphasis is that we must constantly make an affirmative effort to keep Christ as the Center of our lives, or we will allow lust and its accompanying works of the flesh to suffocate our souls.

Cannibal Crickets?

2006-02-27T21:28:00.000-08:00

Where the heck are those darn seagulls when you need them?

Not Your Father's Gospel Doctrine Manual

2006-02-26T07:02:00.000-08:00

The Charleston Post and Courier is carrying a story about one of those "complete idiot" guide books, only this one is about the Church. It is supposedly written by an LDS member; however, the review itself was written by a Protestant pastor (and for the most part is a reasonable review). A blurb:

The book is packed with information, and not all of it suffers from the highly biased opinion of the author. The strongest section is the historical summary of the life of Joseph Smith and the early days of the Mormon church. There is also a lot of interesting information on modern Mormon life. The most difficult section is the first section on theology in which the author goes out of his way to explain why Mormon beliefs are really not that different from the beliefs of other Christians. The reader can decide that question for herself, but as a Protestant pastor, I noticed some significant difference between Mormon and Protestant understandings of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, government of the church and which Scriptures are authoritative. The author also downplays the exclusion of women within the leadership of the Mormon church.

I didn't even know this book existed; but, it sounds interesting. I don't suppose it's about to replace Preach My Gospel; however, you can pick one up at Deseret Book.

Give Us Your Temple . . . But Keep Your Thrift Store

2006-02-24T05:40:00.000-08:00

It appears the city council in Draper, UT a south Salt Lake surburb, supports, without reservation, the Church building a Temple to the Most High God in their community; but, they are less than supportive of that same Church building a second hand thrift store: Deseret Industries. According to today's Salt Lake Tribune:

When the LDS Church unveiled plans for a hillside temple, Draper welcomed the idea with eagerness and enthusiasm.

Same can't be said for church-owned Deseret Industries. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has visions of building one of its thrift stores east of Interstate 15 near Draper's main drag.

Trouble is, the City Council is considering an ordinance that would restrict large secondhand-stores (more than 5,000 square feet) to a commercial business park zone west of I-15, away from Draper's retail heart.

"I'm not sure [shopping at the DI] is a service a lot of our residents are looking for, given our demographics," Councilman Jeff Stenquist said.

Earlier this year, the council ordered city staffers to look at creating a zone to regulate secondhand-stores. The result: a proposed ordinance that would prohibit large outlets from all but the business park zone. And thrift stores - with outdoor storage and nighttime drop-off - would be barred from Draper altogether.

The city's Planning Commission endorsed the plan in January.

So, the city council in February 2005 unanimously changed a zoning ordinance to pave the way for the Temple; but, the same council now proposes an ordinance completely banning a thrift store, the only purpose of which is to help those less fortunate in society.

Deseret Industries was founded in August 1938 after the First Presidency issued a letter calling for:

"[C]ontributions of clothing, papers, magazines, articles of furniture, electrical fixtures, metal and glassware" from each household. The letter explained that the project would be known as Deseret Industries, and that the organization would make "periodic collections of these materials from homes…and employ men and women to sort, process, and repair the articles collected for sale and distribution among those who desire to obtain usable articles…at a minimum cost."

Through out the years, D.I. has served a dual purpose: It employs those who are unemployed or otherwise unemployable, and serves as an intregal part of the LDS welfare program helping those who are less fortunate than some of those more economically advantaged residents of say Draper, UT:

The Deseret Industries program was implemented specifically for the benefit of members who could not obtain employment elsewhere, and its initial work force consisted primarily of the unemployed and elderly. It was operated under the umbrella of the Church Security Plan—now Church Welfare services—and continues as an integral part of the Church Welfare system. Church leaders use Deseret Industries not only for employment training but as a resource for clothing and household items for needy members.

The Deseret Industries program still focuses on those with disabilities and those who have other social, employment, and economic challenges and obstacles to overcome. An estimated 60-70 percent of the people in the program are somewhat limited physically, mentally, emotionally, or socially. In 1980, Deseret Industries placed about 240 people into jobs with private companies. In 1989, it placed more than 700.
People needing training are usually referred to Deseret Industries by a Church leader. A program for each person is written with the individual's supervisors and rehabilitation workers. It incorporates personal and work-related goals and is closely monitored. Local Church members sometimes receive callings to help with training and rehabilitation.

Most Deseret Industries programs are more closely related to work adjustment than to skills training. Trainees get the experience of entering the workplace every day, being on time, learning to get along with coworkers, and taking directions from supervisors. Deseret Industries is not set up to train people to be journeymen plumbers or electricians, for example, though people may get experience doing these types of things.

The Draper City website touts the city as:

Draper City is now one of the most desirable areas to live in the state of Utah. New businesses are coming to town. Beautiful homes are being built. Community centers and churches are being added into the mix. And the historic charm remains.

Well, I can certainly see how the city council would not want to tarnish "one of the most desireable areas" in all of Utah with a retail outlet that assists the poor, the unemployed, the disadvantaged, and on top of it all doesn't generate one dime in sales tax to the city coffers. Of course, the Temple doesn't generate much sales tax either--but I suspect it fits into the city fathers' planning ideals more appropriately than does a second hand thrift store. If you have an opinion, and want to share it with the mayor, his email address is darrell.smith@draper.ut.us

I can't help but think of Christ's point in Matthew 25:35-40. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Big Love Redux--Or, When Will This Polygamy Thing End?

2006-02-23T20:28:00.000-08:00

As an update to my previous post on HBO's Big Love, there's still another review out. I've blogged about it over at Bloggernacle Times here. Please stop by and get the latest!

Ye Must Pray Always

2006-02-22T05:21:00.000-08:00

Throughout my life, I've not been the most consistent saint when it comes praying always. I do believe one of the most powerful sermons in scripture on prayer is 2 Nephi 32, from whence the title of this post comes. It contains some very plain and clear instructions--yet those words, while plain and clear are also very deep and profound--at least to me.

I find if I am losing my spiritual bearings it is almost invariably linked to a lack of serious and consistent prayer. Nephi marveled and mourned because of unbelief, and the wickedness, and the ignorance, and the stiffneckedness of men; for they will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be.

I find myself in this category all too often. Yet, as Nephi points out, the answer is very, very simple if we but search for it. The answer is prayer. And while in one sense the answer is very simple, at the same time it is also very difficult to put into practice. Why? Because the very forces of evil (which I believe are very real) teach us that we should not pray. And, if we do not pray, we will not be in tune with the Spirit, which is the Spirit that can and will show unto us all things what we should do.

So, as I go about my every day real world life; as I become careful and troubled about the many things in my life, I need to remember to pray always, feast on the words of Christ, and search knowledge. If I do these plain and simple tasks, the promises are indeed great: I will know all things that I should do.

A Garden Eastward in Eden

2006-02-20T19:28:00.000-08:00

Ok, . . . not exactly that Garden, and geographically it's more toward California's Central Coast; but, it is nevertheless our vegetable garden--at least tomato for this year. Since our weather is still somewhat cool for planting outdoors, we've come up with the idea to plant one plant each in a 20 or 30 gallon garbage tin with potting soil. At nights--still cool here hovering in the mid 30's--we just wheel them in the garage, and in the morning back out again into that warm California sunshine. With a little luck we'll have tomatoes by the time summer actually rolls around. There's nothing better than a toasted tomato sandwich with real home grown tomatoes. Now, if I could only figure out how to grow Utah corn here on the Central Coast . . .ummm.

The Book of Mormon and DNA

2006-02-17T19:33:00.000-08:00

(Updated) A "recent" article in the Los Angeles Times has returned the issue of The Book of Mormon and DNA to the news media. My purpose in this post is simply to catalogue to the extent possible, in one location as much of the DNA and Book of Mormon discussion that has occurred in the Bloggernacle. If anyone knows of posts, threads or discussions I have missed, please let me know so that I may include them here. I will disclose up front that I believe the Book of Mormon to be what it claims to be, i.e., a Second Witness for Jesus Christ. Therefore, I will retain editorial control over the links I post.

My purpose is to provide links that will impart information for faithful Latter-day Saints to become informed on these issues, and to allow them to study it out in their own minds. Many of the Blog links below are generally faithful discussions of this issue; however, some of the comments are at times critical of the Church's position.

The Los Angeles Times article or here.

Church's Official Response

Bloggernacle Times
5/26/05 Science and The Book of Mormon
2/16/06 DNA

By Common Consent
7/27/04 Another Round, DNA, Zelph and The Book of Mormon

Cordiero's Musings
2/17/06 Book of Mormon DNA and Agenda Driven Science

Dave's Mormon Inquiry
6/3/04 A Man Named Zelph
7/27/04 Losing a Lost Tribe
11/6/05 1491
2/18/06 L.A. Times Story
8/10/06 Nephite DNA

FARMS
Book of Mormon and DNA
DNA

FAIR
DNA and the Book of Mormon

Hedgehog Blog
2/17/06 Mormons Newsmedia and DNA

Iron Rod
8/5/05 Does DNA Prove Asian Origins

Jeff Lindsay.com
1/15/05 Does DNA Refute The Book of Mormon

LDS Science Review
7/11/05 Tvedtness on DNA and Book of Mormon
7/19/05 Southerton and Murphy Could It Have Been Different
2/16/06 Elder Oaks DNA and The Book of Mormon

Milennial Star
5/27/05 Mediterraneans in New World
2/12/06 Hidden Wisdom of the Gospel
2/17/06 DNA Issue Rediscovered in L.A. Times

Mormanity
5/30/04 DNA and The Book of Mormon
8/8/04 Further Thoughts on DNA Issue
9/11/04 Extinct Indian Tribes . . . Origins of Ancient Americans
10/3/04 DNA Update
1/15/05 When DNA Evidence Is Ignored
2/10/05 The Logic of DNA Attacks on Book of Mormon
2/26/05 Ancient Americans Still a Mystery
3/10/05 Semitic Peoples in Ancient Mesoamerica
5/25/05 New Paper on DNA Book of Mormon Issue
6/15/05 Tunnel Vision--Critics on DNA Challenge to Book of Mormon
9/15/05 Sherem The Foreigner
10/1/05 Church Affirms Divinity of Book of Mormon
10/26/05 Jewish DNA
11/12/05 Another Scientist Takes On Southerton
2/18/06 L.A. Times Discovers Another Old Story
3/12/06 Can Iceland Chill Out The DNA Issue

Mormon Metaphysics
12/21/05 Sunstone and Potter's Hermeneutics

Our Thoughts
7/30/04 DNA Lamanites and Book of Mormon
7/21/05 Southerton Promoting Book Again
2/18/06 Traditional Doctrine

PonderIt
2/16/06 Mormons and DNA

Radio Blogger
2/16/06 Does the Book of Mormon have a DNA problem

Right Side Redux
2/17/06 Old News New Attacks

Straight and Narrow Blog
2/18/06 Lamanite Redux

Sunstone Magazine
December 2004 Logical Structure DNA Arguments by Blake Ostler
May 2005 DNA Strands In The Book of Mormon by Blake Ostler

Times and Seasons
11/25/03 The Curse
11/26/03 Nephites, Lamanites, and Native Americans
11/30/03 Nephites and Lamanites Redux

Whole Note
2/16/06 DNA and The Book of Mormon

Woody's Woundup
2/16/06 DNA and The Book of Mormon

Putting The “Glamy” Into Polygamy

2006-02-15T20:46:00.000-08:00

Yep. I'm sure you've all heard that HBO is planning a “Big Love” celebration in a few short weeks. Big Love is HBO’s newest series, and it’s about polygamy; however, it’s a view of polygamy through a rather distorted Hollywood lens.

I’m no historian, and have no great insights into the early LDS practice of polygamy, other than what I have learned over the years; but, really, three gold rings, one for each wife? Can you imagine the Prophet Joseph, or Brother Brigham sporting a gold ring, for each wife? They’d never be able to even raise their hands!

HBO’s Big Love Gang of 4 (one husband–three wives) are all drop dead gorgeous. Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloë Sevigny, Ginnifer Goodwin are the Hollywood epitome of the modern day polygamous family, all beautiful, all young, all ready, for the all perfect 24/7 polygamous lifestyle. How accurate is this depiction of polygamous life in the 1800's, or even today in the fringe religious groups which continue the practice?

These are HBO's polygamous wives.

Below's a partial sampling of Brother Brigham's actual wives:

How will HBO treat the LDS connection? According to the Deseret News:

Shot mostly in California, some filming was done in Utah, and a lot of local sites — including the Salt Lake LDS Temple — are clearly visible.

Although the fictional family has familial ties to a polygamist clan and its evil leader, they've left that behind and are sort of independent polygamists.

The producers made a point of separating Mormons from those polygamists.
"People do have this misconception. There is a blurring of Mormons and polygamy in the same breath," said executive producer Mark V. Olsen. "I want (viewers) to get it. That is important to us."

LDS Church officials are aware of the HBO project and somewhat concerned.

"We know a little bit about it," said church spokesman Dale Bills, who declined further comment beyond an official statement about "Big Love" in the newsroom/comments section of the lds.org Web site: "Polygamy was officially discontinued in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1890. Any church member adopting the practice today is excommunicated. Those groups which continue the practice in Utah and elsewhere have no association whatever with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and most of their practitioners have never been among our members.

"The church has long been concerned about the continued illegal practice of polygamy, and in particular about reports of child and wife abuse emanating from polygamous communities today. It will be regrettable if this program, by making polygamy the subject of entertainment, minimizes the seriousness of that problem.

"Through its Los Angeles public affairs office, church representatives have asked the producers at HBO to consider a disclaimer at the beginning of the program, dissociating the practice of polygamy today from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The producers have said they are willing to consider that request."

In fact, a disclaimer will run at the end of each episode stating that the LDS Church does not condone polygamy.

The wrinkle in this production is the supposed "independent" polygamous status of this family. They aren't really affiliated with any one particular religious movement. Still, it will be interesting to see what doctrinal references there are about The Book of Mormon, or the Doctrine and Covenants, from whence the original LDS practice originated. Any mention of these volumes of scripture is going to perpetuate the myth that the Church is somehow still involved in the polygamy practice.

The real question is are you going to tune it a watch? I've thought about whether I will or not. I've liked most HBO series productions. Six Feet Under was one of my favorites. I suspect the suspense will compel me to watch and see how the story line goes. Perhaps I'll do some live blogging on the first show.

Bloggernacle Times

2006-02-14T06:29:00.000-08:00

A quick update note. In addition to blogging here at Messenger and Advocate, I will also be posting over at Bloggernacle Times. So, be sure to take a look the "Big Island" Box 2 over at the Archipelago. My first post is now up.

Torah Still A Bright Spot

2006-02-13T09:17:00.000-08:00

Torah Bright see here, the LDS Olympic hopeful kept her golden hopes alive as she advanced to the Turin Olympic final. She apparently had a "gloomy" start, but turned things around in her second qualifying run:

PHEW, that was close. Australia's spectacular snowboarder Torah Bright had to go into the second qualifying run to make the Turin Olympic final, but she did so in style. As the weather warmed up from minus seven to minus one degree, Bright too started to sizzle . . .

Bright, whose name means "Enlightened One", comes from a Mormon family and she is an anomaly in the snowboard world of radical cool. But Bright, whose sunny nature complements her photographic looks, fits right in: if only that some of the men are envious of her tricks and ability. She had skipped most of the world cup season to train for the Olympics and recover from an appendicitis operation, that she said took more out of her than expected. But at her first competition this season at the high profile X Games in Aspen she was second - to Clark.

I have absolutely no idea how they do that stuff . . .but it sure is fun to watch.

The Press and Prophets--A Long History In Utah

2006-02-12T05:26:00.000-08:00

The battle between the press an prophets is not at all limited to the European press and the prophet Mohamed. America’s own home grown prophets have been lampooned, as far back as the 1870's. Pat Bagley the editorial cartoonist with The Salt Lake Tribune asks:

What do you get when you mix a prophet, unflattering portrayals of said prophet and a furious debate regarding the responsible exercise of free speech? The birth of The Salt Lake Tribune.

Today’s Tribune is tame by even its own historical standards; however, there was a time when it cut its teeth on the Mormon Prophet Brigham Young. Shortly after colonizing the Salt Lake Valley, Brother Brigham taught the Saints to eschew Babylon, i.e., The United States of America. His focus was to become economically self sufficient, as well as politically self sufficient in order to build their Zion out west.

Others within the flock, felt differently, and wanted to open up economic intercourse with Babylon, creating a win/win situation. One of these pro-business leaders was William Godbe, a Mormon in good standing, until he ran afoul of Brigham Young’s counsel of self-sufficiency. In the late 1860's, just as the Saints were settling into the Salt Lake Valley, Godbe and his followers started up a rival newspaper to the Church’s Deseret News. It started as the Mormon Tribune, but soon became the Salt Lake Tribune, the forerunner of today’s Tribune.

The first editions of the Salt Lake Tribune, were not necessarily anti-Mormon as much as they were pro-business; however, that soon changed once a trio of Kansans ruffians took control of the Tribune in 1873:

Excommunicated in 1871, Godbe and like-minded confederates opened a rival newspaper to the LDS Church's Deseret News. It was called The Mormon Tribune, but was soon renamed The Salt Lake Tribune. Initially, The Tribune wasn't anti-Mormon. It trumpeted the virtues of capitalism and integration into the economic life of the nation. But things soon turned nasty. When three Kansans took control of the paper in 1873, the gloves came off. Delighting in poking the dominant culture with a sharp stick, The Tribune never met a polygamy story it didn't like. But its special venom was reserved for Brigham Young.

Hence began a life long rivalry between the official Church publication of the Deseret News, and the Salt Lake Tribune, which for many years was overtly anti-Mormon in its coverage; however, it did seem to harbor a particular hatred for the Prophet Brigham Young, whom it described as:

"He was illiterate, and he has made frequent boast that he never saw the inside of a schoolhouse. His habit of mind was singularly illogical, and his public addresses the greatest farrago of nonsense that ever was put in print. He prided himself on being a great financier, and yet all of his commercial speculations have been conspicuous failures. He was blarophant and pretended to be in daily intercourse with the Almighty, and yet he was groveling in his ideas and the system of religion he formulated was well nigh Satanic.”

These descriptions of Brigham Young, make the recent cartoon caricatures of Mohamed seem mild by comparison. The Mormon response, in comparison to the lunacy of some Islamic fundamentalists, was also rather mild:

This being America, The Tribune was free to print material insulting to a revered prophet (it was also apparently free to make up words like "blarophant"). The days when Mormons would spill type into the street for such an offense were apparently over.

For years Mormon umbrage at a free-but-irresponsible press was limited to sermons urging members to subscribe to the Deseret News and not that scurrilous anti-Mormon rag. My grandmother remembered hearing such admonishments in her East Millcreek ward. She said it made sneaking a peek at the Trib just that much more of a guilty pleasure.

Even today, there is a distinct flavor and feeling amongst some within the shadows of the everlasting hills between the two Salt Lake daily newspapers. Still, how refreshing the Mormons of yesteryear or even today do not take to the streets burning beehives in effigy for perceived assaults by the press against revered religious figures. Certain folks in Islam should take note.

Update 7:15 a.m. A quick question for Pat. As I recall you prepared for your career by lampooning some pretty funny cartoons at the Daily Universe at The Lord's University, about the same time I attended. So, how on earth did you end up at such a heathen publication as the Salt Lake Tribune? Does your bishop and stake president know about this?

A Mormon Massachusetts?

2006-02-11T15:41:00.000-08:00

The Associated Press is running a story dated today claiming that the Church is making great strides in arguably the most politically liberal state in the country, Massachusetts. It is also a very strong Catholic stronghold. According to the AP, Church membership in Massachusetts between 1994 and 2004 climbed 56% from 14,840 to 23,161 members. Wards have also grown from 15 in 1980 to 39:

Progress can be slow for emissaries of a culturally conservative faith in a liberal, heavily Roman Catholic state. But persistence has had rewards. Statewide, church numbers show Mormons gaining a foothold that local church leaders believe will grow much bigger.

Between 1994 and 2004, Massachusetts membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints increased 56 percent, from 14,840 to 23,161. That's tiny, compared to the state's 3 million-member Catholic church. But it approaches the 33,400 state membership of the Unitarian Universalist Association, whose roots in Massachusetts go back to the 18th century.

Mormons now have 39 congregations, or "wards," in the state, compared with 15 in 1980. To the west of Boston, the only Mormon temple in New England has a granite grip on a hill in the suburb of Belmont, home to perhaps the church's most prominent member: Gov. Mitt Romney.

Shortly after the Church was organized, it had a 400 person congregation, that disbanded after the Prophet Joseph’s martyrdom. Church membership did not have any significant numbers until approximately the 1960's. Now, many of the LDS intellectual elite are supposedly migrating to the prestigious east coast universities in Boston:

In the mid-1800s, Boston was home to a 400-member Mormon congregation, at the time the largest in the eastern United States. But it disbanded shortly after the slaying of founder Joseph Smith in 1844, when Mormons fled widespread persecution with a mass migration to the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

It took more than a century for Mormons to return in notable numbers to Massachusetts in the 1960s. Ulrich said the church in recent decades has cultivated an "intellectual elite" at church-run Brigham Young University, which has been drawn to the Boston area's renowned universities.

"We're probably importing a lot of people," Ulrich said.

Of course Governor Mitt Romney’s connection to the Church is likely to have some impact on making the Church better known in the state. I’m not certain the Church is likely to sustain a 50% growth rate every decade; however, it does seem as though we are making great strides in the northeast, where the Church traditionally has not had a very strong showing.

LDS Snowboarder Bright Spot In Winter OIympics

2006-02-11T14:51:00.000-08:00

Torah Bright, an LDS Australian snowboarder is about to take the Olympic games by storm. Several media sources are carrying this article all over the world, including The Weekend Australian:

TORAH Bright has been taught by the Mormon scriptures to expect great things in her lifetime and she expects no less than to win Australia its first Olympic snowboard medal on Tuesday.

In a sport renowned for anti-social behaviour and grunge clothing, Bright is a breath of fresh mountain air. She is a beautiful, non-drinking, non-cursing 19-year-old who reads her spiritual literature every day.

One of five children brought up in a Mormon household in Cooma, at the foothills of the NSW Snowy Mountains, the Bright family is protective of its religious beliefs.

Torah already has a great outlook on life, that will take her a long way, not only in the Olympic games but throughout the eternities:

"I have always been taught to expect great things in my life. I go through life waiting for beautiful things to happen and it's a pretty exciting way to live," said Bright, who will get the chance to go for gold late tomorrow and early Tuesday (AEDT) in the qualifying round and final of the women's halfpipe.

"I have faith and I know I've been given a special talent. I've got a new routine and done the training, now we have to see what happens."

All of the Bright children were named specially at birth. Torah’s name, of course, comes from Hebrew, meaning teaching, instruction or law. By her example she will be a great teacher and instructor to millions of youth world wide:

Marion Bright revealed her children were all given special names at birth. "Torah is Hebrew from the Old Testament meaning bearer of great message," Marion said. Torah finds that funny, but her spiritual advisers find it significant.

They believe Torah's message to young people is that you can ride as cool as anyone through life but be a beautiful person at the same time.

It will be more interesting watching the snowboard competition knowing a little bit about one of the competitors.