Now that Mormon presidential aspirations are a distant memory, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has rediscovered the fun of anti-gay-marriage political activism — this time in one of their old haunts: Hawaii! (see this timeline.) In other unsurprising news, criticism of their lame arguments is persecution —…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Judging each other edition!!
This week hosted two big kerfluffles! First there was Joni Hilton’s piece in Meridian Magazine on “Liberal Mormons”! It was so offensive that Meridian Magazine actually took it down, but John Dehlin came to the rescue and posed a cached version so that you, too, can personally experience the outrage,…
The Watermelon Analogy
My father knew how to choose a good watermelon. First of all, he would put his thumbnail into the skin. If it went in easily it was ripe. Another test was to heft it. A heavy melon is usually a ripe melon. Then he would look at the light-colored patch…
Dragons of the Book of Mormon by Johnny Townsend
In his new collection of short stories, Dragons of the Book of Mormon, Johnny Townsend introduces compelling, sympathetic, and at times, hilarious characters struggling to live simultaneously within the rigid structure of Mormonism, the real world, and, in some cases, the magical world inspired by Mormon doctrine. In “Going Home, 
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Scary stuff coming up edition!
With Halloween coming up this week, please enjoy the firs batch of tales of this holiday’s history including its tragic devolution into “Trunk-or-Treat”. Also, the missionary costume pictures have already started appearing — and I hope there’ll be plenty more of them between now and next week! (If anyone’s up…
Those Mysterious Murdering Mormons! Donna Banta’s “False Prophet”
What’s more valuable than life itself? Eternal life? Perhaps. What would drive a person to kill says a lot about what that person values. Following the trail of a murderer, Donna Banta takes you on a wild and scenic tour of the peculiar culture and values of Mormonism in her…
Domain name warning
Some of you may have noticed that this blog’s old domain name “latterdaymainstreet.com” isn’t working. I changed the primary domain name for this blog to “mainstreetplaza.com” last year and configured the “latterdaymainstreet.com” domain name to redirect to “mainstreetplaza.com”. Now it appears that the ownership of “latterdaymainstreet.com” lapsed and some unknown…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Journeys Edition!
If you follow this series, you probably know that I usually put the personal stories near the end, but to keep from getting into a rut — and because the personal stories were more interesting than the news this week — let’s start with tales from our lives! Ren’s life…
The Final post from my notes: Spaulding Rigdon Timeline and details
6 years in the making, and crosslinking to almost every other timeline I’ve made, this post comprises everything I have found that ties together Smith, Rigdon and Spaulding. It includes quotes by Oliver Cowdery’s partner claiming he confessed to the Spaulding-Rigdon theory, as well as preachers saying that they saw…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Doubt your doubts edition!
Now it’s time for my favorite part of General Conference — the commentary that appears after people have found and analyzed all the interesting parts (if any)!! It looks like Outer Blogness’s favorite quote was “Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.” There are some problems with this advice,…