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Realistically Curtailing Abortion

Posted by Mormon Heretic on October 7, 2012 in Christian, General Conference, Health Care, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Politics, Women

“Many laws permit or even promote abortion, but to us this is a great evil,” Elder Oaks said in Saturday afternoon’s session of General Conference.  Oaks is just one of many religious leaders that call abortion evil, but are there more effective ways to curb abortions than to simply stand on a soapbox?  A recent study in St. Louis has shown a program that cuts the teen birth rate by 72%, and cuts the abortion rate by 68%.  How does it do this?  By providing free contraception.

“As a society, we want to reduce unintended pregnancies and abortion rates. This study has demonstrated that having access to no-cost contraception helps us get to that goal,” said Alina Salganicoff, director of women’s health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Continue Reading »

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Jesus had a wife?

Posted by Mormon Heretic on September 30, 2012 in Apocryphal Stories, Canon, Catholic, Christian, Early Christian History, Gnosticism, History, Marriage, Mormon, Multi-Faith, Science, Women

Karen L. King / Harvard

I’ve enjoyed reading about a recently discovered document scholars have dubbed “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.”  It’s just a scrap of papyrus that dates to around 150-200 AD, but it is causing a bit of a stir.  Dr. Karen King of Harvard University has recently translated the document and it contains the line, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…’”, but we have absolutely no context about what he was saying because it is just a scrap.  The papyrus is written in Coptic, the same language that the Gospel of Judas was written in.

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The Sacred/Secret Temple

Posted by Mormon Heretic on September 23, 2012 in Early Mormon History, History, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Temple, Theology

The Brigham City Temple

I had the pleasure of attending the closed-circuit dedication of the Brigham City Temple this afternoon.  My family was able to walk through the temple a few weeks ago.  While the architecture seems somewhat reminiscent of the Salt Lake Temple, it is one of the newer, much smaller temples that the church now builds.  Boyd K. Packer, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles presided over the dedicatory service.

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Acceptable Use of Cult/Not Christian

Posted by Mormon Heretic on September 19, 2012 in Christian, Mormon, Theology

Well, I thought my Carthage post was long dormant, but it has received a burst of activity lately.  One commenter has decided that it is acceptable to refer to Mormonism as a cult.  I find this HIGHLY objectionable, but he continues to derail the discussion over there.  So, I am going to create a new conversation about cult (and add whether it is acceptable to call Mormons “not Christian”), and move the irrelevant comments there to here.  I’d also like to have a conversation about whether the term cult is used as an emotional word, rather than a descriptive one.  I would also like to issue a poll, and find out whether readers of my blog find the word cult as objectionable when referring to Mormonism.  I’d like to keep the Carthage post on topic, and I will remove the comments there and paste them here.  I’ll post a summary of the most important comments relating to cult here, and we can discuss whether the word “cult” is a useful term in a religious discussion. Continue Reading »

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Questions for Mormons

Posted by Mormon Heretic on September 19, 2012 in Book of Mormon, Canon, Early Christian History, Early Mormon History, Mormon, Multi-Faith, Old Testament, Subjective, Theology

Most of the people who come to my blog are Mormons, but there are some that aren’t.  I have been surprised that my 3-year old post on the Trial of Joseph’s Assassins has suddenly developed a spirited discussion.  I want to keep that post on topic, so I have decided to move some of the off-topic questions to a new post where anyone (especially non-Mormons, but Mormons) are welcome to ask questions as well.  There are no topics off limits here, but I will not tolerate insults and bad behavior.  Now, here is the relevant information you should know.

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The Purpose of Fasting

Posted by Mormon Heretic on September 15, 2012 in Early Mormon History, History, Mormon, Scripture

Our ward doesn’t start until 11.  In our family, we’ve encouraged our children to fast once they are baptized.  My oldest son is ten, and my daughter is eight.  One morning, after the deacons came to our house to collect fast offerings, I caught my son crouching in the kitchen trying to hide a yogurt that he wanted to eat.  I decided that it might be a good time to talk about the purpose of fasting. Continue Reading »

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Abraham: Breaking the Cycle of Child Abuse

Posted by Mormon Heretic on September 6, 2012 in Judaism, Mormon, Movie/Book Reviews, Old Testament, Scripture, Theology

The Biblical story of Abraham is an interesting story for me on several levels.  In the past, I’ve talked about different academic perspectives of him, my personal discomfort with how he mistreated his wife Hagar, and I have also compared the Book of Abraham to Islamic texts.  Tresa Edmunds has her own blog, and is a survivor of child abuse.  She spoke with Dan Wotherspoon at Mormon Matters, along with The Mormon Therapist, Natasha Parker.  They discussed how traditional stories of forgiveness may not apply to victims of abuse.  The podcast was interesting in its own right, but I wanted to share Tresa’s discussion of Abraham as both abuser and abused.  I thought it was a unique take on a story nearly all of us are familiar with.

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Apostle: Special Witness of Christ

Posted by Mormon Heretic on August 29, 2012 in Early Mormon History, History, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Movie/Book Reviews, Priesthood, Theology

I have just finished The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power by Michael Quinn.  Many of us know that a Mormon Apostle is a special witness of Christ.  Does that involve a personal vision or visitation of Christ? In the earliest days of the church, it did.  Quinn says on page 1, Continue Reading »

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6 Reasons Why Mormons Are Beating Evangelicals in Church Growth

Posted by Mormon Heretic on August 26, 2012 in Christian, Culture, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Theology

If you’ve been on the bloggernacle for long, you’ve probably seen some posts that note that growth in the LDS Church is flattening out, and these posts usually make the implication that this is simply an LDS phenomenon.  However David French (a Presbyterian evangelical) recently pointed out that in America nearly all Christian religions are experiencing declining growth, and he thinks that evangelicals could learn a thing or two from the Mormons.  French gave reasons why evangelicals are suffering problems: Continue Reading »

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BYU Education Week Recap 2012

Posted by Mormon Heretic on August 23, 2012 in Book of Mormon, Christian, Early Christian History, Early Mormon History, History, Mormon, Mormon Culture, Movie/Book Reviews

Well, I’m conferenced out now.  I attended BYU Education Week for the first time (though my wife has been going for years), and wanted to give a few impressions following my Sunstone and FAIR Conference posts.  I was frankly astonished at how enormous BYU Education Week is.  It dwarfs these other two conferences in size.  In fact, that led to my first frustration: parking.  I tried to park at the Marriott Center.  There were empty parking spots, but guards preventing people to part there without a special permit of some kind.  Other parking lots prohibited parking for Education Week attendees.  I almost went home, but did finally find parking at Cougar Stadium.  (And school is supposed to be out???) Parking is terrible at most colleges, and I can only imagine how frustrated students must feel about parking during the school year.  It was pretty ridiculous.  I arrived 20 minutes early, and ended up about 20 minutes late for my first session because parking was such a nightmare.  It was interesting to listen to wildly different historical presentations. Continue Reading »

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