Sunday in Outer Blogness: Who’s in Charge? Edition!
Let’s see what’s up in the world of former-Mormons-and-friends this week! Two people have moved on from discussing Mormonism, one has posted an exit story, others are working through their Mormon issues, dreaming of Mormons, contemplating other people’s choices — or interpreting miracles! Jonathan Blake asks whether we should express gratitude to an uncaring universe. LittleMissAttitude is knee-deep in NaNoWriMo, Dad’s primal scream visited the Joseph Smith sphynx, and Smorg has further fun adventures with the Mishies!
The folks who are still in the church discuss why it’s not OK to make suggestions to the church authorities (then they go ahead and make some suggestions). I say the best part of Mormonism is this sort of activity — so much better than awful object lessons. (Different strokes for different folks, though, I guess — some even like worthiness interviews!)
As usual, the point of greatest obsession is what the women and girls are wearing! It gets to the point where simply wearing pants is hugely empowering. And the Mormon women are getting a little tired of the “Hey, it’s not me, it’s God“ excuse that they get from them men shutting women out of positions of respect and authority. (Not to mention the separate and unequal training, starting from the cradle.) But kudos to the publishers of “Monsters and Mormons” for finally using sister-missionaries as a symbol of Mormonism!
Another big question this week was about the Book of Mormon: Does it matter whether or not it’s true? Chino says even orthodox Mormons no longer behave as if they actually believed the Book of Mormon. Yet some people still interested in examining the physical evidence (and studying the Joseph Smith story as well).
So, how and where is the 99% movement going? Some wonder how a movement can have no clear leaders, and think the protest ought to have clear demands that can fit in a sound byte. Meanwhile US leaders are voting on very important issues (and de-toothing the laws they are voting on. (Are you guys bored of Mitt and the Christian/Republican circus yet?)
The no cross-dressing costumes produced a handful of aftershocks, but mostly Halloween and la Dia De Los Muertos are over. I guess it’s time for the War on Christmas season! Have a great week!
Moving from Mormonism and burying oneself in NaNoWriMo is my world exactly. Although for me, it’s turning out more of a NaWoHaOnANo (National Work Harder on a Novel) than actually completely one.
As to the “disagreeing with leadership” postswe had a bishop once who backed up an idea that the ward council didn’t support with “The stake president requested it.” Finally, one of the women asked the SP why he wanted to do it. It turned out he hadn’t. She brought that up at the next ward council meeting. You can imagine the result.
The same bishop once gave me a calling, and I said that I’d pray about it. He pulled the “it’s revelation from God!” card on meand it *literally* (not figuratively, literally) felt like he’d just played a trump card.
BTW, if you’re going to include links to a site which is in a non-English language, perhaps you could call it out with “link (spanish)” or something like that.
Not all of us went to South America on our missions. 🙂
Alan — Sounds cool! How far along are you on it?
Goldarn — That’s the annoying thing about hierarchies with this sort of trump-card power. Ideally, the ward council can provide valuable ideas and feedback, but in less-than-ideal circumstances, I imagine the bishop can essentially ignore anything he doesn’t want to hear.
The link is actually in Portuguese. I can’t read it either, but it looked kind of interesting, like people were interpreting various structures as baptismal fonts. The other link about the physical evidence was interesting, too, because (like Chino) I was thinking that the members had essentially given up on trying to find physical evidence for the Book of Mormon — but maybe not!
Oh man, I’m glad I waited before remarking on Goldarn’s comment. I was gonna give him a hard time for not clicking on Dia de los Muertos (which links to English content) but instead it turns out I’m the lazy one who hadn’t noticed the Brazilian blog post about baptismal fonts. Anyway, at least I can still give la gringa a hard time: it’s el dia, hermana.
P.S. Bonus for Portuguese speakers, here’s another link from that excellent blog: Xenofobia mrmon
Man, how embarrassing! And in this day and age, there’s no excuse — since it would have taken me about one second to Google it…
Correcting chanson has rendered me totally impressed with myself, so here’s another quibble just for fun: my comment about how even orthodox members are menu mormons when it comes to the BOM wasn’t about their giving up on physical evidence but rather their burgeoning disinterest in that bunch of folks they used to call Lamanites.
Ah, I’d just assumed you were talking about the fact that even those who insist the BoM is historical generally seem more anxiously engaged in explaining why it’s not important that there’s no evidence for the BoM, rather than continuing to look for it. But perhaps you were talking about the sidebar story: Nov. 5, 2011 LDS Church News article describes the Book of Mormon’s intended audience without once mentioning the Lamanites.
The two points go hand-in-hand, though, don’t they? If they call anyone a “Lamanite” today, then they’re saying something about where the BoM took place, and opening themselves up to questions about which culture(s) it’s a history of. It’s so much simpler to play the “I don’t remember we ever called anybody ‘Lamanites'” game…
Yeah, I was thinking of that excellent sidebar link when I typed my previous comment.
And to your point, that’s interesting, too, and obviously what’s happening on an institutional level. But thinking about that recent M* BOM post, something else I took away is that Bruce is right about one thing: the so-called liberal ‘naclers have also devised their own wink-and-nod game in which it’s OK to talk about BOM historicity skeptically as long as it’s bracketed or otherwise couched in language that renders any expressions of doubt utterly inscrutable to a drive-by general audience.
Speaking of Lamanites, back in the day a friend of mine had served a mission to Alaska, so I asked him “Are Eskimos Lamanites?” He said, “I don’t know, because my first mission president said they are, but my second mission president said they aren’t.”
I wonder what those two mission presidents would’ve thought about the Indian Placement Program? Besides the obvious reason that I was commenting while totally shitfaced, I like to think that I got banned from this BCC thread for other, more high-falutin’ reasons:
Where have all the Lamanites gone?
Namely, that the IPP offends liberal Mormon sensibilities in a way that puts them on the defensive both politically and religiously. I mean, on a political level, they’re pleased as punch that the LDS have given up outreach to Native Americans. That satisfies their anti-colonial political instincts… but it makes a hash of their religion. And on that religious level, as far as I’m concerned, it makes a hash of their moral responsibility as Mormons to live the Restored Gospel. I mean, if Mormons don’t have a special calling to the Lamanites, what are they doing here? Why does any of it even matter if such an important mission can be so easily put out of mind simply because of decades of ostensible failure (as determined by COB bean-counters)?
If Mormonism made sense, liberal Mormons would be leading the agitation for a real IPP. But it doesn’t. And they won’t.
With decades of apologetics and “scholarship” having confined the Book of Mormon to a small corner of the the Americas (never mind what Joseph Smith and dozens of other prophets and apostles thought — they were wrong), the church is probably just as confused now about who is or isn’t a Lamanite as those mission presidents were.
But isn’t it strange that you never see a post over in the Mormon blogosphere clamoring for a renewed commitment to fulfilling the BOM promise to the Lamanite people? I’m trying to wrap my head around this scenario that involves receiving a personal testimony via the Moroni 10:4-5 method and subsequently *not* being concerned that the BOM mission statement has effectively been set aside by the current leadership.
Well, that seems to be the way outmoded doctrines usually get replaced in the church — they’re just dropped down the memory hole and everyone stops talking about them. What I wonder is to what extent is it consciously planned (“OK, no more talk about Lamanites) and to what extent it’s an unconscious process (did everyone just get bored of the Lamanites?).