At times we here at Millennial Star compose posts or publish guest posts that provoke firestorms of controversy.

The most exceptional post of this sort was published during the attempt by some to coerce the Church to ordain women. I think the title was “OW: Thanks for Nothing!” For myself, I was disappointed to learn that the author was using a pseudonym, unwilling to put their own name to the biting commentary they asked us to publish.

Others are willing to put their name to biting commentary. If you don’t know which posts might fit into that category, I’m not going to bother pointing them out. The commentary tends to devolve to “How could you be so wrong!?!” versus “I/He/She was obviously right!!!”

Social media and the internet provide us an unprecedented opportunity to advocate for our particular worldview. As we become enveloped in our micro-universe, we can lose track of the fact that reasonable people might disagree with us. As we drift further and further into our isolation from respectful dialogue, we begin to denigrate those who are so ignorant and hurtful as to not think like we do.

There is no ideology whose adherents are immune from falling into this sort of bubble universe.

It is easy for the conservative Christian to presume that all advocacy for LGBTQIA individuals is hateful and destructive.

Similarly, it is easy for the non-heteronormal aka non-cis-gender individual to presume that all conservative religionists are similarly hateful and destructive.

Whatever our point of reference, it can become tempting to do whatever it might take to strip individuals of their hateful and destructive behaviors or thoughts. And this is the point when we start “lovingly” doing hateful and destructive things to the persons we claim are so hateful and destructive.

This is emotional abuse. And it can be accomplished by all walks of people. Continue reading →

President Nelson thrilled many of us with the sweeping changes announced last April.

In that vein, President Nelson has announced that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will move away from the term “Mormon” and “LDS” to describe the Church and adherents of the Church. Apparently this shift was announced to leadership a few weeks ago, and the full import of the shift will be announced in months to come. I expect we will hear more in October conference.

It will be interesting to see where this goes in coming months. Given that people are lazy, I doubt that our new manner of referring to ourselves will be long. Perhaps it will be as simple as referring to ourselves as Christians. In which case, we would come to see ourselves as engaged in Christian ministry.

In the past the Church has attempted to move away from the moniker “Mormon.” There are a couple of factors that suggest this attempt may be more successful:

1. This is a change that is coming from the prophet directly, couched as revelation.
2. This change is occurring in the midst of other significant terminology changes.

An amusing fall-out, mentioned by someone tongue-in-cheek, is that this makes all former Mormons now “ex-Mormons.” The line that has previously excluded the disaffected has now been drawn around the entire population of those who ever considered themselves Mormon.

Shortly after I was born, a Canadian doctor accidentally burned the penis of an identical twin, setting in motion a series of events that has had tragic consequences for innumerable individuals.

As Nature Made Him is my book group’s selection for August, hence why I am telling you in 2018 about a book published in 2000. But the book is germane to events occurring now.

I strongly recommend this book, if you have not yet read it. The rest of the review contains spoilers. Continue reading →

It’s summer. I wander through life thinking thoughts and saying to myself, “That would make a great M* post!” And then someone in real life has an urgent need, and I put the thought on the back burner. So today, with all my IRL concerns sorted, I am going to that back burner and pulling off things that still feel fresh and relevant.

Questions

I enjoyed the 12 July interview the Mormon Channel (Amy) held with Steve Harper from the Church Historical department. There are no answers to specific questions (unless you still believe in Santa or didn’t know Mark Hofmann was a fraud and inept bomber). But Steve Harper talks about how he was taught to approach troublesome issues having to do with history. Specifically, he talks about how our expectations are the cause of our difficulties.

While Steve Harper didn’t say so, it’s a bit like expecting something so much that you are disappointed in the actual thing, even when the actual thing is amazing and wonderful.

Steve Harper makes the great point that questions are perfectly acceptable, even scriptural. I would quibble a bit, in that as a teacher at Church in the 1980s (give or take), there was a policy discouraging teachers from incorporating any extra-curricular material in lessons. So it isn’t just random cultural habits that have made people loath to look outside of official Church publications. However, the Church has migrated to a more open and transparent model, so we should remember that our culture is to go and do as directed, not bask in the comfortable ignorance of the past.

Truth

The gospel is true. When I say this, I mean that the gospel is aligned with God’s purposes. But so often people presume that “the gospel is true” means that every word and action of any individual associated with the Church must be entirely factual at all levels, else the Church/gospel is necessarily not true. Continue reading →

The Church is embarking on a global hymnal, in which all the songs will be published in each language. A similar effort will apparently take place for the Children’s songbook.

You can participate in the survey seeking information on what hymns should stay and which should gracefully exit, and which hymns not currently in the hymnal should be added.

And each individual can submit up to five new songs by July 1, 2019.

The effort to select the final collection and prepare the hymnal in dozens of languages will take years, so no one need mourn the imminent loss of our familiar green hymnal.

Now go to – make your voice heard!