On the occasion of Ronan’s remembrance of the Coventry bombing, I am exploring theodicy with Jon and Right Trousers. I would agree with Right Trousers that the choices of the survivors can give meaning to the suffering of the victims. At least, we are taking responsibility for our actions. But…
Category: Culture
Remembering a Convert
As a child, I admired Brother B. He was a member of our ward. Back then Brother B. must have been in his fifties. He was naturally self-confident and projected authority in an understated sort of way. Late in life, Brother B. had switched careers to become a natural healer….
Family Values German Style
For myheadhurts and Everyone Else Who Is Looking for Meaning Beyond the Confines of Fundamentalism Celebrating the resilience of children despite parental pathologies, Wir Sind Helden has recorded another song that asserts humanity while facing life’s nastiness. Kaputt‘s credo is reminiscent of a John Irving novel. Although parents are dented,…
Charitable Giving
One of the things I find I disagree with some active LDS about is the extent of formal LDS charitable giving and service related activities. One of the arguments that I’ve read in various places on the internets is that the Utah LDS church DOES have a strong record of…
Salt Lake City Is Not Mecca.
Maybe I should have said Salt Lake City is not like Mecca. For those who are unfamiliar with Islam’s holy city, one of the ways Islam is able to keep it holy is by only allowing Muslims inside the city. At an ex-Mormon gathering I attended recently I heard more…
Motherhood in FLDS Culture
Carolyn Jessop puts the protest of FLDS mothers into perspective: I had eight children in 15 years, but I did not know what a miracle it is to be a mother. I had no way of knowing the deep gladness mothering gives. I didn’t know because in the FLDS, great…
the average Peter Priesthood
I caught this op-ed in a local paper from a Mormon claiming to set the record straight on Mormonism. It’s a beauty because it illustrates how and what the average Mormon believes. Errors or ommissions include: no discussion of the limited geography model; assumes a hemispheric model of the BofM…
Sustaining
In Profxm’s recent post about inactivity rates among single women of the LDS church, some comments referred to the experience of being a single Mormon woman and why it is painful. I too was a longtime single Mormon woman and found it intensely painful, far too often. When I would…
Mormon culture, boundaries and family
Three posts have gotten me thinking about a couple of themes that come up all the time round the DAMU, and perhaps somewhat less regularly around the bloggernacle. This post at FMH is about orthopraxis and the time-honoured discussion of whether there can be such a thing as a cultural…
Utah Mormons are culturally ignorant?
Another interesting snippet from the book I recently read on Mormon’s political views: “Political cultural biases in the church can also produce friction between’ church members from different countries. Lamond Tullis (1980, 67) reported that as he had a discussion with a stake president in Mexico City about Arnold…