Book review of Converting the Saints, A Study of Religious Rivalry in America, by Charles Randall Paul

Back in 1980, I was standing at the railroad station in the southern Bolivia town of Yacuiba, waiting for my new missionary companion to arrive. Having only been a member for a few years, I had never come across missionaries from a Protestant church before. On that night, however, I came across about a dozen Baptist missionaries traveling to their next assignment, among indigenous cannibals. All were very friendly and happy to see a fellow American, except for one. He had been a Baptist missionary in Brigham City, Utah a few years earlier. Instantly, he wanted to debate what he believed was Mormon doctrine, throwing out one controversial teaching after another. Fortunately, he came upon a teaching that I was able to show in the Bible. When he protested it as a bad translation (I was using the KJV), I asked him if he believed scripture was God breathed. When he answered affirmatively, I then said he would have to consider the LDS teaching on the issue as a possibility. He quickly ended our conversation and left.

Upon seeing the title, Converting the Saints, I initially thought it would be filled with anecdotes of preaching to the Mormons in Utah. Happily, I found the book to be this and so much more. Continue reading →

By: the Pseudonymous George Rasmussen

A Houston businessman named Sam Young is currently staging a hunger strike on the sidewalks of Salt Lake City. Young describes himself as an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but I will leave it to you, gentle reader, to determine for yourself what the evidence shows.

Young is hoping to exert sufficient pressure on the Church to force the adoption of his demands. Please note that the Church put out a statement on Sunday that says Church leaders have met with Sam and that the Church will not be caving.

What are his demands? It is difficult to be sure because they have changed so much over the years, but we have some indication from a petition from October 2017:

“We call on the LDS Church to immediately cease the practice of subjecting children to questions about masturbation, orgasm, ejaculation, sexual positions or anything else of a sexual nature. This applies to all children up to and including age 17. There should be no one-on-one interviews with children. A parent or other trusted adult of the child’s choosing is to be present. We call on the LDS Church to publicly disavow this practice. We call on the LDS Church to ensure that all congregational leaders, as well the general membership, are informed that this practice is prohibited.”

(Readers, please note that Church policy clearly states that bishopric members may ask about chastity during temple recommend interviews. Children from the ages of 12 to 17 are asked if they follow the law of chastity, just as adults are asked. Claims that bishoprics are asking detailed sexual questions of members are wildly exaggerated, but all bishoprics have been informed of this issue. Bishopric members always have another adult nearby when doing temple recommends. It is clear that Sam Young has grabbed on to a cause that will bring him attention, but as this post will show, we have reason to doubt his sincerity on this and other issues because of his constant complaints about many Church practices.)

This petition is the first exposure most people had to Sam Young, but it wasn’t the start of his activism against LDS doctrines, teachings and practices. Young describes on his website how he lost his testimony in 2014. “Over the past couple of years, unexpected philosophical developments have shaken my life. They have been quite disconcerting.” He tells a tail of being set adrift and of being lonely and scared. He recollects that his family and friends couldn’t understand what he was going through.
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 →