My stake president read the Church statement on political neutrality during High Council meeting today. He reports that the Church is re-emphasizing the importance of this issue as the presidential campaign gears up.
Monthly Archives: September 2007
GOP nomination process to last until the convention?
This article in the New Republic is the best analysis I’ve seen yet as to how the Republican nomination battle is likely to turn out. To sum up, it looks increasingly likely that Giuliani, Romney and Thompson will all have hundreds of delegates. If none of the candidates drops out, this means the Republican candidate will likely be chosen at the convention itself. This is, of course, how it was done in the old days, but recently candidates have nabbed the nomination before then. The GOP candidate may not be chosen until September 2008, leaving less than two months to campaign against Hillary. Ouch.
9/11 Widow builds new life in the Church
This is simply an awe-inspiring story. A woman loses her husband in the 9/11 attacks. She is devastated. She hires a nanny who is a Church member and meets other Church members, goes to Church and feels the Spirit and decides to get baptized. She meets her new husband on LDSSingles.com, and ends up moving to Georgia, where the story of her conversion — portrayed incredibly respectfully — appeared in a small daily newspaper.
JJohnsen was able to provide me with a permanent link to the story.
The story is worth reading just to see the respectful way that a small-town Georgia newspaper portrays the Church. Awesome stuff.
Liahona and Iron Rod
I’m occasionally asked if I consider myself a Liahona Mormon, or an Iron Rod Mormon.
I say “Liahona. Except that the Liahona keeps pointing straight at the Iron Rod.”
“Handling” Cultural Change
I’ll admit it, going on vacation put me seriously behind on my reading, especially of all the columnists out there (I will be very sorry when my NY Times archive/TimesSelect access goes away — it’s enough to make a girl enroll in grad school, just to retain the free access for a few more years.) Anyway, I’m a bit late in noticing the following quote:
Still, when the United States was seriously inconvenienced by our commitment to freedom of religion, we found means to handle Mormon polygamy.
That was William F. Buckley, Jr., in his August 25th column. His general point was that British society needs to find a way of responding to the increasingly vocal (and growing) immigrant Muslim population in the UK — that’s the only Mormon mention in the piece (the Queen gets far more attention.)
My take? Okay, yeah, figuring out how to cope with change is important for any society, and when lots of changes are happening, it’s obviously a more urgent matter. Duh.
But, umm, are we really that great of an example of how to deal with change? Excluding pre-1847 persecution for the moment: is disenfranchisement, wholesale asset seizure, and widespread imprisonment really the greatest model for adaptation to cultural challenge? Is the general historical lesson of pre-1890 Mormon polygamy really “phew, we got those Mormons to cooperate, eventually”? And, because maybe this isn’t an interesting enough question yet, how about “should Mormons look to the Utah Territory period as a positive example of how to treat newcomers in our own societies?” Or maybe we’re just on every commentator’s lips right now, even when they’re not thinking about hit-piece films or presidential candidates, and this was a really bad example to use?
Anyway, my little sister hates it when I try to start this kind of conversation with her, so: what do you all think?