It has been a big week for shameless astro-turfing, as the new infomercial on Mormons hit the theaters! Members were encouraged to go see it or at least buy tickets — tithing deductible!! Despite the star power of the Mormon elite and the church’s famed information control, they haven’t convinced…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Countdown to Conference Commentary Edition!
Today my RSS reader was full of open threads and live-blogging of General Conference! While some commentary and especially laughs are already rolling in, experience tells me that if anything interesting at all gets said at conference, the awesome/exciting conference commentary will be next week‘s SiOB. (The most exciting things…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Ninja polygamist modesty edition!
This week’s Mormon news-of-the-weird was the ninja polygamist sister wives. (Actual satire can’t compare.) Then there was the assault of the out-of-control dress codes in Utah high schools and LDS universities. Pat Bagley nailed it. The modesty obsession highlights an unhelpful focus on appearances and does psychological harm to victims…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Short and fun edition!
It was a bit of a light news week in Mormon-land — no crazy scandals to get everyone riled up. Perhaps the worst of it was the super-wealthy Marriotts’ tacit admission that they underpay their cleaning staff. So lots of people blogged about random life stuff like a gay dad…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: A little bit of equality edition!
This week’s news in Mormon land was this odd talk by Ballard: Here is a very good illustrated version of it. In essence, it’s important to have women’s input in council meetings — but not too much! Which naturally leads to the question how much is too much? And why…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Judgment edition!
This weeks topic was judging. For stuff like the pictures you post to Facebook and surfing the web while watching your kids at the park. And taking it to the next level: shunning. (And someone finally asked the question about BYU that I’ve always wondered about!) Who’s not pat of…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Stay or go edition!!
This week’s reading included this charming analogy: So imagine that you get to know one of your co-workers and eventually find out that she was raised LDS, but left the church because she moved to a new ward with an epically terrible organist, which resulted in a major faith crisis…
Deciphering Ballard
M. Russell Ballard begins a talk (given at BYU August 20, 2013) reprinted in the September 2014 Ensign and titled ‘Men and Women in Priesthood Power” with this In what I say, please keep in mind and think straight about the basic doctrines of Christ…. Let me suggest five key…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Modest proposals edition!
This has been an interesting week! The leaders of the CoJCoL-dS have launched a new campaign to encourage members to share their faith on social media. Then they helped out by providing some viral-worthy stories such as using the BYU commencement to speak against gay marriage and removing same-sex-marriage greeting…
What part of Mormonism is in you?: Johnny Townsend’s “A Day at the Temple”
Mormonism is a complicated thing. Whether you’re in it or whether you’ve extracted yourself from it, there are bits of Mormon belief and culture that you can’t stand, and other bits that you can’t shake. Sometimes it’s the same bits. And its always a little different from one person to…