Naturally, the buzz this past week was about the big news that a BYU basketball player had sex with his girlfriend — if you can believe it! This led to lots of very amusing discussion about control and the BYU honor code, musings on parenting, and the obvious observation that this shouldn’t be more important than serious news like the Middle East. So true! So here‘s a post about the Middle East, plus some other not-so-escapist items like the economy, the environment, and don’t forget death, not to mention Fox News using footage of some entirely different demonstration because the real scene in Wisconsin wasn’t violent enough for the story Fox had decided to write on it…
On second though, let’s go back to entertainment. As you probably know, God’s favorite musical has opened, and some among us have been lucky enough to see it! (Yet, is the musical parody as funny as the original or this other silly song?) In books, Galendara has read two novels that shed some interesting light on gender, and Diane Tingen has actually read that book “Woman” that we discussed last week and posted some excerpts (sounds like judging by its cover was warranted in this case). I’ll be adding Stephen Carter’s What of the Night? to my reading list (I’m currently enjoying some books by Johnny Townsend that I’ll be writing about soon!).
Then there were several other interesting discussions floating around blogspace. First, the connection between belief and evidence, and what to do about it. And how much conspicuous consumption qualifies as obscene? There was more follow-up on Rob Bell (the Christian who doesn’t believe in hell). Then, the Republicans have decided to follow the anti-bullying trend except they’d like an exemption when the bullying is religiously-motivated (cause it turns out that the bullying is all the gays’ fault anyway, dontchaknow). Then, in an irony overload, Orson Scott Card himself has written about extending love to “uncool” kids, and — to make it more fun — bbell has decided to play Taboo by inviting people to discuss it without mentioning homosexuality!
Outside the headlines and spotlights, the lives of partially-Mormon families have their own quiet dramas. Carson and Amy are psyching themselves up to come out to their families as unbelievers. lifelongguy is a little leery of a message his daughter brought home from primary. The Bible Belt is giving iBear his dose of culture shock, and the Narrator has found that the counsel against interracial marriage in the Aaronic priesthood manual is still there in the latest edition (in case you needed more reasons not to be Mormon).
And let’s wrap up with awards. The 2010 Niblets are finally underway, and we’ve heard from the 2010 X-Mormon of the year — though she’s a little busy with the new baby, she’s still stirring up controversy! Have a great week!!
The Orson Scott Card article was a real piece of work. I, too, used to wonder why so many teachers taught things that weren’t true according to my own readings of the prophets’ teachings (it was much later before I realized that many of the church lessons included what I thought was just stuff the teacher made up). Unlike Card, I rarely corrected the teacher in my youth.
I, too, felt ostracized from other people in church (not just kids, but the adults who should’ve known better, and tried to “bear one another’s burdens). But I kept going.
I was told, at college, that I should try just letting other people “be right” even when they preached things against the gospel, and I tried very hard (and rather successfully) to do that. But people still preached false doctrine, and testified of things that were wrong.
Unlike Card, my testimony of “the church organization itself” faltered when I read Boyd K. Packer talk about people who wanted to judge the church’s teachings by their own “academic training. He said, “In my mind it ought to be the other way around. A member of the Church ought always to judge the professions of men against the revealed word of the Lord.”
That was before I’d heard the “some things that are true are not very useful.”
I had already learned much about what was true from a LOT of scientific reading. I’d heard SS, seminary, and other teachers contradict things that I knew was true. If I protested, the answer would be something along the line of “Who will you believe? A man who speaks for God, or some guy who learned a lot of stuff?”
I could go on, but I think all of you have heard these kinds of stories. When the search for real, honest truth is shut down, castigated, and ridiculed by THE PEOPLE AT THE TOP OF THE CHURCH HIERARCHY, what can you do but leave? Do you have any other option if you love truth?
Goldarn — Very true! Yet, he has a point that it was unwise of the CoJCoL-dS to dump the creative activities; it further narrows the pool of people who can fit themselves into LDS culture.
Chanson Your comment reminded me of Packer’s “The Arts and the Spirit of the Lord” speech. I think a lot of that speech may be worse than his True-vs-Useful talk. He basically tells those people who are talented in the arts to create art and music primarily for the church’s use rather than profane worldly art. I remember the first time I read it. He admits, more than once, that he is not an artist, but his “credentials, if [he] have any (some of them should be obvious), relate to spiritual things.” Artists are to use their talents for the work of the church, he says.
What struck me is that I’ve never heard a talk about other talents. Where is the GA who says, “do you have a talent for making money? Then come work for the church’s real estate arm. Or, pay 25% tithing so the extra money can be used for the Building Up of The Kingdom of God on The Earth.” No, businessmen aren’t under any special command to use their talents for the Church.
I’m a computer programmer. If I don’t use my free time to (for example) write a better genealogy application, I’m not wasting my life and talents. But, if I’m an musical composer and I’m not writing new hymns, I’m wasting my talents. If I’m a writer, I should write mormon fiction. If I’m a painter, I should paint church images, and so forth.
You know, now that I think of it, most of the talks that have really rubbed me the wrong way have been by Boyd K. Packer. No wonder he’s the favorite GA of so many jerks.
Thanks for the quotes from the “Woman” book. Amazing. But at least it’s obvious to me where I got all those crazy lessons on yw growing up, to have kids as soon as possible, to look for someone to be mormon first (and a good match second, maybe). Not sure how some single women were able to stay mormon.
It’s simply another world on the internet, full of non doctrinal, we don’t teach that.
And before anyone breaks out the public school curriculum from 1979, why not admit you were mistaken and repudiate that this is no longer doctrine.
And thanks for the round up, as always.
missing the blogness from this week, or perhaps you were waiting for pi day chanson? 😉
Here’s the scoop — I was planning on doing a round-up on Wednesday (the 16th) for this week and part of next. The thing is that I was really busy this past weekend, and didn’t get it done on time. Then, it hit me that next weekend I was planning to be out-of-town on Sunday. So I figured I’d combine those two missing editions into one middle one. Sorry for any inconvenience! 😀