OK — it was a few weeks ago now — but I think the most interesting recent bit of Mormon news was the hoax apology from the CoJCoL-dS (apologizing for the CoJCoL-dS’s history of racism), actually written by Jonathan Streeter.
The go-to analysis of it is by Zandra Vranes of Sistas in Zion — her reaction is powerful and moving. I won’t try to analyze it myself (since others have analyzed it well), but I’ll say I think it was a huge mistake when Streeter decided to trick people into thinking the apology was real. As the Infants pointed out, it’s very good as satire — but now it would be insensitive to discuss its merits as satire after all the damage that was done. At least Streeter offered a real apology.
There have been some really amazing transition stories recently, such as Tanner’s exit story, and Leah Elliott’s piece “In the Language of My Former People”, which I really liked — I related with it so well that I’m thinking of writing my own commentary on it.
Bishop Bill’s experience had a cool twist:
Do you remember the very first item about the church that you had to “put on the shelf”? The first thing you learned that didn’t have a good answer, and caused you some cognitive dissonance, so you just put it away to think about another day?
I remember mine, because it was already literally on a shelf
Alex had a pleasant discussion with his believing sister:
She didn’t understand how, when the armies of Coriantumr and Shiz were destroying each other, nobody on either side loved their families enough to flee from the violence. She introduced the absurdity of Ether into the conversation, not me. It was a fruitful debate and I think I did a decent job of demonstrating that my disgust for church doctrines is an entirely separate issue to how I feel about the average Mormon, so she was curious rather than offended.
Then there’s this inspiring tale from Lynette:
Over the years, I’d developed strong defenses to cope with things like polygamy and general sexism and and anti-gay sentiments and dubious historical claims and so on and so forth. But I didn’t have any kind of defense against the experience of finding happiness somewhere else.
Other Zelophehads Daughters posted some fascinating statistics on LDS birth rates and on who likes the 15 leaders of the CoJCoL-dS (on Facebook).
In other discussion topics, Andrew Hackman answered the question: “Why do you not address liberal belief? Why do you only go after ‘the easy targets'”? — and he recounted some experiences with Evangelical services. No Man Knows My Herstory podcast discussed LGBTQ Mormons in history. BCC wrote some criticisms of using religion to justify separating children from their parents. Zelph on the Shelf covered Joseph Smith’s ability to translate ancient records such as the Kinderhook Plates and the Book of Abraham. Steve Wells explained the Masterpiece Cakeshop and Leviticus 20:13, and Knotty discussed the cake case as well.
Also, there are some interesting new books coming out: A Peculiar Transition: 6 Steps to Turn Mormon Faith Crisis into Spiritual Healing and Growth, by Wendi Jade Jensen, and Johnny Townsend’s new book The Moat Around Zion!!
Happy reading!