This article is pretty much what I’ve come to expect from the mainstream media these days. Nicholas Kristof travels to Brazil to report on the problems with the Catholic church there. He points out that conservative evangelical churches are growing and converting Catholics to their ranks. His solution? The Catholic church needs to become more liberal. At the risk of breaking my rule against sarcasm, I quote my daughter: “yeah, that’ll work.”
Monthly Archives: May 2005
But isn’t Polygamy . . . wrong?
I’ve had a few thoughts, provoked by Geoff’s link to the obituary of a prominent Utah polygamist in a previous post. I’m guessing that my own take might spark its own discussion, so forgive me for putting up a separate post about it.
Anyway, the obituary of polygamist Owen Allred is not unique in that its writer expresses a growing tolerance for the polygamous lifestyle.
Polygamy makes The Atlantic
Mark Steyn has an interesting obituary here on the death of one of Utah’s biggest polygamists. I’m happy to note that he prominently and repeatedly points out that polygamists are not members of the Church (you’d be amazed how many “sophisticated” commenters don’t know that). This article is filled with fascinating tidbits.
Screwtape, The Devil, and the LDS Taxonomy of Beings
The Bible Dictionary declares: “Latter-day revelation confirms the biblical teaching that the devil is a reality and that he does strive to lead men and women from the work of God.“
In his preface to the 1961 edition of The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis wrote:
The commonest question is whether I “really believe in the Devil.”
Now, if by “the Devil” you mean a power opposite to God and, like God, self-existent from all eternity, the answer is certainly No. …God has no opposite. No being could attain a “perfect badness” opposite to the perfect goodness of God….
The proper question is whether I believe in devils. I do. That is to say, I believe in angels, and I believe that some of these, by the abuse of their free will, have become enemies to God and, as a corollary, to us. These we may call devils. They do not differ in nature from good angels, but their nature is depraved. Devil is the opposite of angel only as Bad Man is the opposite of Good Man. Satan, the leader or dictator of devils, is the opposite, not of God, but of Michael.
What is interesting here is that Lewis’s understanding of devils is so similar to LDS belief and at the same time so different.
Monday Morning Millennial Star Question #6: Indigent Hitchhikers
Are Mormons morally obligated to pick up stranded motorists and indigent hitchhikers, or may we justifiably “pass by on the other side,” like the priest and Levite did in the parable of the Good Samaritan? Are the priest and Levite excused if they neglected him that fell among thieves for fear of their own safety? For which neighbors must we “Go, and do thou likewise”?