If you are interested in the details of the latest battle between various Mormon apostate groups and people, you may find this post worthwhile.

To sum up:  John Dehlin has a huge problem with some of the women who were supporters and/or employees at one time.  He is accused of underpaying his employees, taking a huge salary for himself and not being honest in his financial disclosures.  And apparently now Kate Kelly hates him.

Speaking of priestcraft, you can read more about it here.

[Yes, this is the 3rd review M* has done of this book. You should read the review anyway.]

When I was a kid, I read a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories that was mostly unabridged, and I have been hooked on Holmes ever since.  However, there was one small bit of abridgment that I overlooked at the time (looking back at the book – my mom still has it – there was a footnote mentioning this) where the “Mormon” parts of A Study in Scarlet were taken out, with the reasoning that those chapters didn’t deal with Holmes.

Fast forward a decade and a half (give or take a few years), and I’m on a mission for the LDS (Mormon) church.  When out looking for people to teach, suddenly everyone is asking us about The Avenging Angel and Danites, saying things like “you guys have one whacked out history, dudes!”  The one time I broke mission rules (I was a pretty strait-laced, rule keeping guy, which often caused massive amounts of conflicts with my companions, especially since the president would deliberately give me slacker, disobedient companions so I could “whip them into shape” – ugh, not fun; anyway back to the review . . .) was watching that movie, just so I could see what everyone was talking about. Continue reading →

A few months ago I posted about Riley, a relative I am seeking to protect.

Earlier this week Riley drove from the east coast to a western state without stopping. After at least one encounter with highway troopers, Riley eventually drove off the road into a highway median, then left their car and walked into the traffic lanes of the interstate. Riley was pulled from the road by a concerned passerby, to whom Riley’s friends and family owe a great debt of gratitude.

In two ER visits since then, Riley has been given a diagnosis of dementia, complete with pretty pictures of Riley’s brain showing evidence of the silent stroke that likely occurred in 2015. Apparently silent strokes occur 14 times more often than the strokes that manifest as physical weakness such as slurred speech. While there is no obvious outward manifestation of a silent stroke, a silent stroke can damage the portion of the brain related to impulse control, judgement, and mood regulation.

Dementia

As various health problems, such as silent stroke, are associated with aging, we see one reason some are nervous about the advanced age of most Church leaders, given that death by assassination and apostasy no longer keeps the average age of the leadership relatively low. [ref]Deaths (David W. Patten, Joseph Smith Jr., Parley P. Pratt) and apostasy (roughly half of the apostles and other senior leaders of the Church from 1837 to 1847) kept the average age of Church leaders relatively young in the first decades of Church history.[/ref]

Yet as I am observing in the case of Riley, it is possible for a person to continue to function with dignity when surrounded by loving friends and family. The Bible gives us the analogy, telling us of a time Noah was impaired. One group mocked him, inviting others to see the drunken nakedness of their leader. The other group covered his nakedness and allowed him to sleep off the inebriation in peace.

If the Church were led by a Q1 (as in the case of Riley with their own estate and person), I would agree there could be concern. But the Church is led by a Q15, making it unlikely that failure of any single individual could derail the Church.

Traitors

But it is not the ravages of old age on Church leaders that causes most to lose faith. It is a belief that Church leadership at some point became traitors to the cause of Christ. We see this with Snuffer and his followers. For many of those losing faith over “polygamy,” their concern is that Joseph allowed carnal desire to overcome his devotion to God’s path. Continue reading →

Dear Ivanka,

You seem like a very intelligent woman. You are a successful businesswoman, mother, and now policy wonk.

For those of us who voted #NeverHillary and #NeverTrump, but are willing to give your Father a fair shake as president, we ask for your assistance on an important issue.

Please take President Trump’s Twitter account away from him. You are his daughter. I’ve heard he listens to you and your husband.

Yes, we need a president who will drain the swamp. However, we do not need a president that will refill the swamp with his own swill. While some of his tweets are mildly entertaining, most are making the important office of POTUS look like the “Cash me outside” girl episode from Dr Phil.

I see your father do competent things, like reducing regulations and nominating conservative judges, and I applaud him for these things. But when he threatens Comey or tweets some of his other outrageous and off the wall things he does, I wonder what are we doing with this kind of guy in the White House? How can I sleep at night, knowing he has his finger on the pulse of the entire world. Will he tweet something about some world leader that leads to war?

So, Ivanka, please do us all a favor and take away your Dad’s Twitter account. Our country hired him to do a job. No one hired him to be a crazy, senile old man that writes insane things while sitting on the toilet at 5 in the morning.

Sincerely,

America