When Mitt Romney ran against Ed Kennedy for United States Senator in 1994, the adventure ended in double-heartache. Not only did Romney loose but within a week of his defeat, his religious leaders chose to censor him publicly. Instead of being celebrated the champion of his people for taking on…
intriguing story on conservative persecution complexes
A friend of mine (who works at Yale) sent me this story about a Yale student who staged several incidents to make it seem as though he was being persecuted for his conservative views. While I am always amazed at the lengths people will go to in order to make…
Motes and Beams
I am fascinated by the reaction to Lawrence O’Donnell’s criticism of Mormon orthodoxy. I understand why many Mormons would feel hurt by O’Donnell’s criticism. Personally, I don’t have a problem with O’Donnell’s criticism, in part, because I find it difficult to disagree with him and, in part, I have embraced…
Steve Benson lays into Romney
Here is a not widely circulated interview with Steve Benson talking about Romney’s conflict of interest. Intriguing read.
on the verge of becoming a denomination
I originally wrote this essay with the idea of submitting it to Sunstone. Thanks to an email exchange with some of the people at Sunstone I’ve come to realize that I don’t belong there… nor does any of my writing (they have quietly become very pro-Mormon over the last few…
So what is LDS doctrine anyway?
Kristine wrote here about when a policy is not a policy. She was talking about sterilization. I didn’t realize this was a policy either until at least five years after leaving the LDS faith myself. So why have a handbook for bishops that is not available for each member to…
finally, someone tells it like it is with Romney
There’s a good NYTimes article up today talking about Lawrence O’Donnell’s comments on Romney’s religion. O’Donnell finally came out and said what those of us in Outer Blogness have been thinking all along, “Why hasn’t anyone mentioned that Romney’s religion was officially racist until 1978 (and is still unofficially racist…
So is Warren Jeffs still the (FLDS) prophet or what?
To help answer this question, a Deseret Morning News article asks (my brother) John Hamer for his analysis. John is a historian specializing in the various scisms within the restoration movement and is the co-editor of Scattering of the Saints: Schism within Mormonism. In addition to clarifying this issue, John…
Escaping…
There was a very interesting exit story posted to Outer Blogness recently on the blog Escaping the Brainwashing of Zion: Part 1 * Part 2 * Part 3 * Part 4 * Part 5 * Part 6 The focus isn’t on concluding the church isn’t true so much as it…
Saturday’s Warrior wrap-up
I couldn’t be more thrilled with the response I’ve gotten to the novella I posted about Saturday’s Warrior (part III of my novel Exmormon). According to my stats, hundreds of people read along in real time as I serialized it. And from the comments, I can see that number included…