To say that I wasn’t into blogging in 2011 would be something of an understatement. Last year, I published 18 new posts here at ClobberBlog and 2 new posts at Προστάτις—an average of 1.7 posts per month. I didn’t do any blogging at any other blogs: LDS & Evangelical Conversations, Burning at the Stake, or The CBE Scroll. I don’t know how often I commented on the blog posts of others, but I’m sure that number was small, too.

I have been active at one Mormon-themed message board largely populated by critics of the LDS church, and created a thread there in May that turned into an exhausting, sixty-three page affair. I somehow managed to get banned from another Mormon-themed message board largely populated by apologists for the LDS church in spite of the fact that I hadn’t posted there in months at the time of my banning. But most of my blog readers are participants at neither forum.

Throughout the year, I’ve gotten comments and e-mails and pokes on Facebook from friends and readers asking how I am or wondering where I’ve gone. It’s been a long time, but I probably owe you some kind of an explanation. Here goes.

Continue reading ClobberBlog: Where I’ve been, Where I’m going

Harley at the 2010 DeerGrove Christmas Eve service

When I was growing up, my parents were into the whole “faking Santa” thing, and they were really, really into it. We were constantly reminded that we needed to be good if we wanted Santa to bring us presents. We were fed all of the songs and television specials about Rudolph and Santa and the north pole and the magical helper elves. We were dutiful in leaving an offering for Santa on Christmas Eve in the form of milk and cookies. On one occasion, a few days before Christmas, my father went to the window and exclaimed that he had just seen a sleigh land and slide down the street from our cul de sac. He ventured out into the snowy Anchorage night while my mother frantically told us to stay the away from the windows; I was too naive and trusting to regard this injunction as suspicious. A few minutes later, my father returned with Santa himself. Santa had a big bag of presents and wanted to give each of us an early Christmas gift. It wasn’t until years later that I would realize that “Santa” had been our neighbor two houses over, dressed up in a Santa suit, and that my mother had been insistent on keeping us away from the windows so that we would not see “Santa” exiting his real home.

Continue reading Faking Santa

A while ago, an LDS friend of mine asked me a very good question: how do evangelicals determine spiritual truth? With apologies to my friend for neglecting his question for so long, I thought I would take the opportunity to answer here.

The Mormon Way

For the purposes of contrast, I thought I would begin by touching briefly on how Mormons determine spiritual truth. The most common method preached in Latter-day Saint circles might be best summarized as, “confirmation by the Spirit through personal revelation.” [1] Moroni 10:3-5 states:

Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

And by what method is “the Holy Ghost” expected to reveal the truth? What does a confirmation from the Holy Ghost look like? Continue reading How do evangelicals know the truth?

My daughter Harley is five years old now. She’s in kindergarten and she’s in her first year of Daisy Girl Scouts, and she loves it.

There is a special award that Daisy Girl Scouts can work on, the “My Promise, My Faith” pin. They can do this once a year in both kindergarten and first grade. These are the requirements for the award as outlined on page 20 of the Girl Scout Daisy Handbook:

My Promise, My Faith

Girl Scouting and your faith have a lot in common! You can earn
this pin once a year. Here’s how:

1. Choose one line from the Girl Scout Law. Find a story, song, or poem from your faith with the same ideas. Talk with your family or friends about what the Law and the story, song, or poem have in common.
2. Find a woman in your own or another faith community. Ask her how she tries to use that line of the Law in her life.
3. Gather three inspirational quotes by women that fit with that line of the Girl Scout Law. Put them where you can see them every day!
4. Make something to remind you of what you’ve learned. It might be a drawing, painting, or poster. You could also make up a story or a skit.
5. Keep the connection strong. Talk with your friends, family, or a group in your faith community about what you’ve learned about your faith and Girl Scouting. Ask them to help you live the Law and your faith. Maybe you can show them what you just made or perform your skit!

Harley’s troop is working on its Daisy Petals badges this year, teaching the Daisies the Girl Scout Law by awarding them a colored petal for every line of the law that they learn. My thoughts were that I would have her work on this year’s “My Promise, My Faith” pin immediately after she earns the petal that corresponds to the line of the law that we choose.

Continue reading Girl Scouts: “My Promise, My Faith”

(with guest graphs by Ziff of Zelophehad’s Daughters)

Introduction

The status of women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a subject that has often weighed heavily on my heart. My feelings on the matter have been laid out in many other places so that it would be redundant to repeat them at length here. [1] In short, I am dismayed by the limitations that the LDS church places on the callings women can hold, their participation in ritual, and the ways in which they can express their spiritual gifts. I am concerned about the messages such restrictions send to my young daughter, who is a member of record with the church and attends at least twice a month with her father. I am also troubled by official teachings subordinating wives to husbands within the family unit as studies have shown that patriarchal marriages enjoy much lower success and satisfaction rates and much higher incidences of spousal abuse than egalitarian marriages. [2]

Continue reading Review: Daughters in My Kingdom, Part 1

An eye-catching headline was brought to my attention recently:

Openly Gay Mormon Appointed to LDS Church Leadership Position

Wow, I thought, Now that is something. I clicked on the link expecting to read about an openly gay bishop, or an openly gay member of one of the quorums of the Seventy.

Instead, I found myself reading an article about an openly gay man who has been called to serve as his ward’s executive secretary.

So, being completely honest here, my reaction was, Is that it?

Continue reading Underwhelmed. Am I not getting it?

In my former post, I discussed the fact that there have been over a hundred organizational groups to derive their faith from the teachings of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon since 1830, with maybe a few dozen of these groups still in existence today. I posed the question of whether or not these groups ought to be classified as “Mormon” or can claim the right to self-identify as “Mormon.”

My own answer to the question is simple: the nickname “Mormon” was originally applied to people who followed Joseph Smith and accepted the Book of Mormon as scripture. Any religious body that claims Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon as part of its heritage may lay claim to the term “Mormon.” As an outsider who does not accept Joseph Smith as a prophet nor the Book of Mormon as scripture, I have little interest in polemical succession claims and no opinion on which group represents the “true” followers of Joseph Smith. In my view, the Centennial Park group and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are every bit as “Mormon” as the church that my husband belongs to.

The only exception I could foresee to this definition would be when a group claims Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon in its teachings, but radically redefines or departs from how most Mormons have understood his teachings, or does not accord him a central place in its dissemination of doctrine. To give one example, some Bahá’í believe in the Book of Mormon and accept Joseph Smith as a prophet, but I wouldn’t call them “Mormon” because his teachings are not a central part of their beliefs.

Continue reading Are Mormons Christian Mormon? — Part II

Introduction

Any fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 knows that if you ever want to generate a discussion that carries on for pages and pages, just head into an MST3K forum of some kind and start a thread on why Mike was better than Joel or Joel was better than Mike, then sit back, relax, and enjoy the nerdrage. [1] Likewise, if you should find yourself wanting to set off the horror aficionados, just find a group of people discussing John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing and say, “So, at the end of the film, who here knew that Childs was a Thing?” The thread you create will have a better shelf life than that Skittle in your couch cushions.

The field of Mormon interfaith dialogue and debate has its own never-ending question: “Are Mormons Christians?” Regardless of how you answer it, your reply is bound to be the source of much anger, indignation, and the religious friendship equivalent of “Dear John” letters from those who dislike your take on it. It’s been asked in a variety of forms and answered by many people in many different ways. Some of those answers are thoughtful and compelling while others dismissively attack the matter with all the finesse of a snarling raccoon in your backyard trash can. Thanks to the emotionally charged nature of this question, even obvious, bungling Internet trolls have been known to generate message board threads lasting 27+ pages (and counting).

Alas, as much as I could use the cheap traffic, “Are Mormons Christians?” [AMC] is not the main subject of this blog post. Today, I want to look at a related, less prominent question, the Andrew Wilson to AMC’s Owen: AMM. Are Mormons Mormon?

Continue reading Are Mormons Christian Mormon? — Part I

Almost two months ago now (yes, I have had very little time for blogging these days), I wrote “The Rainbow Connection” with a promise to post further thoughts in response to some of the comments I received. So, let’s have those further thoughts.

One of the most common things people commented on was whether or not the young woman in the story was me. Some sounded unsure and some seemed to think it was obvious. So I’ll end the mystery by saying, yes, it was me. It happened at Sumner Presbyterian Church in Sumner, Washington sometime between 1999 and 2000. St. Andrew Catholic Church was the church across the street. I was 17-18 years old.

Continue reading The Rainbow Connection II

My husband and I moved recently (again), only this time, our move put us just barely into the boundaries of a new ward. Today was our first visit to said ward. Below are the highlights of our visit:

The Building

As we approached our destination and the building came into sight, I kind of double-checked the directions to make sure we were in the right place. Why? Because the building is . . . kind of nice. I’m no architect, but it looked like a more expensive building than most of the LDS chapels I’ve seen—on both the inside and the out. The exterior was made of some kind of white stone with a serviceable spire, and the pews in the chapel had Deseret beehives and other artwork carved into the sides. It had a different layout and seemed more spacious, and it had something I’d never seen in an LDS chapel before: a “Reverence Training Room” attached to the chapel. It’s a soundproof room with a window into the chapel where parents can take their noisy children and still hear and view the meeting. I thought this was awesome! The Presbyterian church I attended in high school had a room like this called the “Rock-a-Bye Room.” I wish every church had them. So we did our usual routine, making our daughter sit in the chapel for the Sacrament, then retreated to the “Reverence Training Room.”

Continue reading The New Ward