Author: Sharon Lindbloom
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Bruce McConkie vs. Brigham Young
I was reading an article in the Deseret News on Saturday that discusses the history of “The Seven Deadly Sins.” At the end of the article the journalist mentions a fireside talk the late LDS Apostle Bruce R, McConkie gave back in 1980 titled “The Seven Deadly Heresies” I’m sure I’ve read that talk before,…
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The Official Mormon View on Evolution
Deseret News recently carried an article titled “No definitive LDS stance on evolution, study finds” The article describes the findings of two Mormon scientists who have recently published a book titled Mormonism and Evolution: the Authoritative LDS Statements. The Deseret News report was centered on a lecture that was given the day after the Utah…
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Did Mormon Leaders Concoct The Da Vinci Code?
Random House, publisher of The Da Vinci Code is being sued in Great Britain for a type of copyright infringement. According to the New York Times: “Speaking before a packed courtroom in London’s High Court, Jonathan Rayner James, the lawyer for the aggrieved authors, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, said that Mr. [Dan] Brown had…
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Mormon Politics and Big Love
I have been naive. I thought the disdain of the LDS Church toward the HBO series Big Love was due to concern for the image of the Church (see last Friday’s blog, Fundamentalist Mormons and Big Love). But The Guardian Unlimited, published in the UK, has a different perspective. According to an article published today,…
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Fundamentalist Mormons and Big Love
The LDS Church is upset over the new HBO series, Big Love. The TV show, which premiers March 12th, is about a polygamous family living in suburban Salt Lake City. Bill Paxton plays Bill Hendrickson, the husband of three wives; the family is depicted as members of an LDS offshoot group. The Mormon Church has…
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St. George Temple Scare
Today’s online Deseret News reports the discovery last week of a “suspicious package” left on the steps of the St. George Temple. The small white box included a message on the outside that said, “Happy Birthday to Jesus, from the Bailey’s.” Deseret News reports that a bomb squad was called in, along with police, firefighters,…
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Operation [Obscuring] Understanding
News-Record.com from Greensboro, North Carolina yesterday reported on the 11th annual youth Interfaith tour, Operation Understanding. Sponsored by The National Conference for Community and Justice of the Piedmont Triad, Sunday’s tour took 400 middle and high school students along with adult volunteers to a Quaker meeting, a Jewish synagogue, and a Mormon church. At each…
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Mormon Teachings a Curiosity
Today’s online Washington Times includes an article titled, Teachings guide us to healing. The article is comprised of excerpts from a sermon delivered Sunday by Bishop Alvin B. Jackson, Jr. at the Kensington Ward of the LDS Church. This article is found in the newspaper’s Culture section, but it is unclear to me why it…
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DNA and Mormonism
Check out this article that appeared today on the LA Times web site: Bedrock of a Faith Is Jolted DNA tests contradict Mormon scripture. The church says the studies are being twisted to attack its beliefs. By William Lobdell, Times Staff Writer From the time he was a child in Peru, the Mormon Church instilled…
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Marketing Utah
Utah is looking for a new slogan, one officials hope will bring money-spending tourists flocking to the state (see “Looking for a pretty, great tag line”). “It should describe Utah’s ’emotional core.’ It will emote ‘Utah.’ It should summarize, symbolize and synergize the entire state, highlighting Utah’s attributes to outsiders far and wide. “Oh, and…
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Polygamy and Birth Defects
Saturday’s edition (11 February 2006) of the Casper Wyoming StarTribune.net carried an interesting Associated Press article about Fumarase Deficiency, a rare birth defect. At least it’s rare around the world, with only 50 cases documented world-wide. Unfortunately, Fumarase Deficiency is becoming common among members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints…
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Insurmountable Debt
I was reading Matthew 18, the parable of the unforgiving servant. I was really struck by this: “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he…
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Why Am I Here?
Why does the LDS Church send missionaries across the globe? According to the official LDS web site, “Currently, some 56,000 Latter-day Saints are participating in proselytizing missions around the world. Approximately 75 percent of the Church’s proselytizing missionaries are young men between the ages of 19 and 26. They are referred to as “Elder” because…
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Latter-day Black Pioneers
On 4 February 2006 the Reno Gazette-Journal carried an article about a black couple in the Mormon Church, Moons become pioneers of local Mormon church, by Geralda Miller. The story is about Bill and Jane Moon, African Americans who moved to Reno in 1969 only to find a community filled with racial prejudice. They spent…
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A Small Stream of Truth
Philip Barlow, in Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion cites late LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie on the alleged corruptions that today plague the Bible: “[Our present Bible] contains a bucket, a small pail, a few draughts, no more than a small stream at most, out of the great…
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FLDS Temple
Tuesday’s Deseret Morning News reported on the new Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ temple currently under construction: “FLDS temple appears complete, Polygamous sect remains silent about its edifice in Texas.” “On a dirt road just a few miles outside of the tiny town of Eldorado, the temple stands out amid the surrounding…
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Mormon Prayer
A news story today from BerkshireEagle.com (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) is headlined “Mormons direct prayers to Christ.” The purpose of the story is to “clarify” a story that ran on Sunday which mistakenly indicated Mormons pray to Joseph Smith. I’m glad to see the error corrected. It would be nice to be able to erase all the…
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Music of the Faiths
Today’s Journal and Courier from Lafayette, Indiana reports on that city’s Music of the Faiths hymn sing which took place Sunday afternoon. “The [participating] churches ran the gamut of Christian traditions,” the article states, “including some Catholic, Protestant and Mormon groups.” Maybe I’m being too picky here, but this statement bothers me. If there’s one…
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Fourteen Things Joseph Smith Brought Out of the Sacred Grove
Andrew Skinner, dean of BYU Religious Education, spoke at the 34th annual Sydney B. Sperry Symposium at Brigham Young University in October. As reported in Church News (17 December 2005, page 10), Dr. Skinner indicated that, “When Joseph Smith walked out of the Sacred Grove, at least 14 things were clarified or reestablished that had…
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The Nature of the Godhead
The LDS Church has begun a new series of articles in the Ensign which are for the purpose of “explaining the basic beliefs of the restored gospel, doctrines unique to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” The first article in the series, The Nature of the Godhead appears in the January 2006 issue…