Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Mirrors of Mormon-Issues
I've made two mirrors of the Mormon-Issues email list that are more publicly accessible. One is in blog format and the other is on google-groups. Google-groups is a descendant of the old news groups from the 80s and early 90s. News groups later became Deja-News, which later became google groups..
You can access either here:
The blog doesn't update as quickly as the group. I hope to work this kink out soon. The google group updates almost immediately from the email group. Currently, no comments from the email-group go out to the group or blog. So you don't have to worry that any comments you make on the email-list will become public.
Both of these have nice search engines to make it easy to find old posts. The blog goes back to 2004, but the dates are incorrect on some of the posts. The group goes back through 2005 with correct dates.
Mountain Meadows Movie
"Jon Voight, Dean Cain and Terence Stamp are set to upset Mormons across
America by revisiting the religion's darkest day in a controversial new
film.
September Dawn recalls the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857, when a
group of Mormons, disguised as Paiute Indians, slaughtered all but 17
small children on a wagon train on its way to California.
One man, the adopted son of Mormon leader Brigham Young, was eventually
executed for the crime - 20 years later.
The film, which will hit cinemas in May (07), is deemed controversial
because it presents a point of view held strongly by hundreds of direct
descendants of the massacre: that the iconic Brigham Young had
complicity in the massacre, a view denied by the Mormon Church, even today.
Voight will play a Mormon leader and Stamp will portray Brigham Young in
the movie, which also features Lolita Davidovich and Jon Gries, who
revived his career by starring in Mormon writer/director Jared Hess'
breakthrough comedy Napoleon Dynamite."
Marcus Borg in Salt Lake
 | MARCUS BORG IN SALT LAKE CITY CHRIST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH 2375 East 3300 South Salt Lake City, UT 84109 FEBRUARY 2-4, 2007 | |
CHRISTIANITY FOR THE HEART. Friday, Feb 2, 7:30-9:00 PM
FRIDAY NIGHT LECTURE (Feb. 2)
Brief Description: Christians and the church in North America today are deeply |
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| SATURDAY ALL DAY LECTURES (Feb. 3) 1. Morning 9:00 - 10:00 AM Brief Break 10:15 - 10:30 AM 2. Morning 10:30 - 11:45 AM Lunch Break 12:00 NOON - 1:15 PM 3. Afternoon 1:15 - 2:30 PM Q and A Until 3:00 PM. |
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| SUNDAY MORNING SERMON ( Feb. 4) Open Hearts and Thin Places. Two metaphors that express much of |
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Marcus J. Borg (Ph.D., Oxford University) is Hundere Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University. Known as one of the leading historical Jesus scholars of this generation, he is the author of ten books, two of which have become best-sellers, Jesus: A New Vision and
Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. His most recent publication is The Heart of Christianity: How We Can Be Passionate Believers Today (2003). He has lectured widely in this country (including at the Smithsonian and Chautauqua Institutions) and overseas ( England, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Israel, and South Africa). His books have been translated into German, Dutch, Korean, and French.
An outstanding teacher, Borg has received all of Oregon State University's major awards for teaching, including one from the legislature. He is the first person in the College of Liberal Arts to be designated "Distinguished Professor" by the university. He has twice been President of the CLA Faculty Council.
Borg teaches both lower and upper division courses. His courses include Great Ideas, World-Views and Values in the Bible, Philosophy and Religion, World-Views and Environmental Values,
Great Figures: The Historical Jesus, and a variety of special topics courses.
Borg sees philosophy as primarily concerned with the role of ideas in our lives. "Ideas matter," Borg says, "much more than we commonly think they do - especially our world-views and values, namely our ideas about what is real and how we are to live. We receive such ideas from our culture as we grow up, and unless we examine them, we will not be free persons, but will to a large extent live out the agenda of our socialization."
New Mormon film
http://www.ldsfilm.com/index.shtml
Money or Mission: A new movie from John Lyde is based on an article from the Ensign Magazine with the same name. As Patrick Gill prepares to serve a mission, he is offered his dream job--a manager at the local skateboarding shop. Now Patrick is faced with the hard decision of taking the job or serving a mission. Written and Directed by John Lyde
The modern child seems to be doing well
Some have worried that modern children who are surrounded by a myriad of electronic devices to keep them entertained would gradually degrade into something less wholesome and balanced than those children of earlier generations who had no such distractions.
It seems that todays child is doing better than the those who were kids 25 years ago. Here is one paragraph of the article below showing some improvements in today's kids:
The teen pregnancy rate in 2000, the most recent year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has figures, was the lowest since 1976. (And that's not simply because of condoms: the overall incidence of sexual intercourse among adolescents declined significantly from 1995 to 2002, according to the CDC.) Teen drug use has dropped steadily over the past decade. There's less school violence and juvenile crime. And the death rate for suicide among 15-to-19-year-olds was lower in 2003 (when 7 kids in 100,000 killed themselves) than in 1980 (when 9 in 100,000 did so). SAT scores have risen during the same period.
Good news.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580388,00.html
Time, Friday, Jan. 19, 2007
The Overscheduled Child Myth
By John Cloud
One of the neuroses that afflicts a youth-obsessed society is the fear that childhood isn't what it used to be. Every few years a new book or magazine article warns that kids are being rushed through childhood with barely a second to skin a knee. This month brings three new offerings in the lost-childhood genre: a report in the journal Pediatrics on the loss of free playtime and two books from David Elkind, a psychologist whose The Hurried Child--first published in 1981 and now available in a 25th-anniversary edition--has made him the dean of too-fast-too-soon studies.
The idea that kids should slow down and trade electronic pleasures for pastoral ones is a fine example of transference. (Aren't you really the one who wants to lose the BlackBerry and go fishing?) But there's not much evidence that the ways childhood has changed in the past 25 years--less unstructured play, more gadgets, rough college admissions--are actually hurting kids. Just the opposite.
The Hurried Child has sold some 500,000 copies, and at 75, Elkind still enjoys an active speaking schedule. The book hypothesized that nearly every social ill affecting kids--drug use, suicide, early sex, bad grades--was rooted in society's relentless message that the young should act older. But kids' lives have become even more rushed, scheduled and digitized than Elkind could have imagined in 1981, yet many psychosocial metrics of childhood have improved. The teen pregnancy rate in 2000, the most recent year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has figures, was the lowest since 1976. (And that's not simply because of condoms: the overall incidence of sexual intercourse among adolescents declined significantly from 1995 to 2002, according to the CDC.) Teen drug use has dropped steadily over the past decade. There's less school violence and juvenile crime. And the death rate for suicide among 15-to-19-year-olds was lower in 2003 (when 7 kids in 100,000 killed themselves) than in 1980 (when 9 in 100,000 did so). SAT scores have risen during the same period.
Elkind further indulges his atavism in his new book, The Power of Play, a lamentation on the gradual replacement of toy trucks and dollhouses with "robo pets and battery-operated cars," which "don't leave much to the imagination." (But didn't the toy truck seem outrageously modern to a Victorian who grew up playing with wood blocks and marbles?) Similarly, in its journal this month, the American Academy of Pediatrics protests the ebb of recess, arguing that "undirected play allows children to learn how to work in groups, to share, to negotiate, to resolve conflicts ..." But most schools--at least 70%--haven't cut recess. And according to the University of Maryland's Sandra Hofferth, who has studied children's time use, while noncomputer playtime has shrunk, kids now spend more hours studying, reading and participating in youth groups, art and other hobbies. Kids also take more time to shop and groom but not to watch TV: Hofferth and her colleagues have found that 9-to-12-year-olds were watching less than 15 hours a week in 2002--down from 20 hours in 1981.
Not all the news is good. Young people have much higher rates of sexually transmitted disease than adults. And kids spend less time outdoors these days (only 25 minutes a week for the average 6-to-12-year-old) and more time with Wiis and iPods. Kids' lives are also indisputably more scheduled now, partly because the baby boomlet has made élite college admissions tougher. But last year a team led by Joseph Mahoney of the Yale psychology department wrote a paper for the journal Social Policy Report showing that most of the scheduling is beneficial: kids' well-being tends to improve when they participate in extracurriculars. The paper notes that only 6% of adolescents spend more than 20 hours a week in organized activities. And there's no consistent evidence that even these enthusiasts are worse off. Instead they report better well-being and less drug use. They even eat meals with their parents more often than those who don't participate at all.
Childhood is an invention of modernity; for most of history, kids lived and worked alongside adults. That's not to say we shouldn't value a period of carefree shelter for our young. But the next time you're hauling the kid from basketball to SAT prep to violin, ask yourself whether it is she who really wants a break--or you.
Mormon-owned firm acquiring four stations
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070119/BIZ01/701190343/1076/BIZ
Bonneville International, a media company owned by the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, will acquire four
Cincinnati radio stations. It's part of a swap that includes radio
properties in Seattle and San Francisco. Bonneville, which operates 31
stations now, will trade its three San Francisco FM stations to
Entercom Communications in exchange for three stations in Seattle and
WKRQ-FM ( 101.9), WSWD-FM (94.9), WUBE-FM (105.1) and WYGY-FM (97.3) in
Cincinnati.
Bonneville hopes to start operating the stations this spring.
2nd Issue of Element: The Journal of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology
Element, the journal of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and
Theology, provides a forum for philosophical and theological
reflection related to the beliefs and practices of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. In keeping with the purpose of the
Society, the journal takes seriously both the commitments of faith and
the standards of scholarship, encouraging academically productive
dialogue between various theoretical perspectives both within and
beyond the Latter-day Saint community.
Element 1:2 Contents:
"Fragments for a Process Theology of Mormonism"
James McLachlan
"The Gospel as an Earthen Vessel"
Adam S. Miller
"The Silence that is not Silence"
Blake T. Ostler
"Restored Epistemology: A Communicative Pluralist Answer to
Religious Diversity"
Dennis Potter
Scientists Trying to "Cure" Homosexual Sheep
http://www.shortnews.com/shownews.cfm?id=59306&CFID=23811056&CFTOKEN=32316161
A row has broken out over attempts by researchers at Oregon State
University and Science University in Portland to turn a homosexual
sheep into a heterosexual sheep. 1 in 10 rams prefer other rams. This
research is aimed to improve farm productivity.
The researchers located the part of the brain influencing the
sexuality of gay rams and then monitored the area using electrodes
while they tried different hormonal treatments. They report having
"considerable success".
The research has outraged both animal and gay rights groups with the
former complaining of cruelty and the latter claiming the knowledge
could be used to "cure" or prevent homosexuality in humans.
Understanding Mormon Polygamy
Mormon Stories has an interview with Anne Wilde (an advocate of Mormon
Fundamentalism and polygamy, and one of the wives of the late Ogden
Kraut, publisher at Pioneer Press). Anne is trying to raise
awareness that not all Mormon polygamists are involved in welfare
fraud and sexual exploitation, but fine, upstanding citizens.
Check out the video interview, Understanding Mormon Polygamy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggq632Z6E24
Monday, January 22, 2007
2nd Issue of Element: The Journal of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology
Element, the journal of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and
Theology, provides a forum for philosophical and theological
reflection related to the beliefs and practices of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. In keeping with the purpose of the
Society, the journal takes seriously both the commitments of faith and
the standards of scholarship, encouraging academically productive
dialogue between various theoretical perspectives both within and
beyond the Latter-day Saint community.
Theology, provides a forum for philosophical and theological
reflection related to the beliefs and practices of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. In keeping with the purpose of the
Society, the journal takes seriously both the commitments of faith and
the standards of scholarship, encouraging academically productive
dialogue between various theoretical perspectives both within and
beyond the Latter-day Saint community.
Element 1:2 Contents:
"Fragments for a Process Theology of Mormonism"
James McLachlan
"The Gospel as an Earthen Vessel"
Adam S. Miller
"The Silence that is not Silence"
Blake T. Ostler
"Restored Epistemology: A Communicative Pluralist Answer to
Religious Diversity"
Dennis Potter
Mormon-owned firm acquiring four stations
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070119/BIZ01/70...
Bonneville International, a media company owned by the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, will acquire four
Cincinnati radio stations. It's part of a swap that includes radio
properties in Seattle and San Francisco. Bonneville, which operates 31
stations now, will trade its three San Francisco FM stations to
Entercom Communications in exchange for three stations in Seattle and
WKRQ-FM (101.9), WSWD-FM (94.9), WUBE-FM (105.1) and WYGY-FM (97.3) in
Cincinnati.
Bonneville hopes to start operating the stations this spring.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Understanding Mormon Polygamy
Mormon Stories has an interview with Anne Wilde (an advocate of Mormon
Fundamentalism and polygamy, and one of the wives of the late Ogden
Kraut, publisher at Pioneer Press with whom she co-authored many
books. She is currently raising awareness that not all Mormon
polygamists are involved in welfare fraud and sexual exploitation, but
fine, upstanding citizens. ).
In a series of video interviews, she gives a very good overview of polygamy
and it's history from Joseph Smith through the modern fundamentalist movement.
Check out the video interview, Understanding Mormon Polygamy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggq632Z6E24
Fundamentalism and polygamy, and one of the wives of the late Ogden
Kraut, publisher at Pioneer Press with whom she co-authored many
books. She is currently raising awareness that not all Mormon
polygamists are involved in welfare fraud and sexual exploitation, but
fine, upstanding citizens. ).
In a series of video interviews, she gives a very good overview of polygamy
and it's history from Joseph Smith through the modern fundamentalist movement.
Check out the video interview, Understanding Mormon Polygamy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggq632Z6E24
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Dialogues with Myself
The full text of Eugene England's Dialogues with Myself is now online:
http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/dialogues/foreword.htm
An intellectual who has not abandoned faith though he wrestles with
doubt, England ponders the paradox of personal responsibility in a
church which requires obedience to authority. He questions whether
Mormons can develop a literary genre that can withstand critical
review while affirming faith. Can one ever satisfy the demand for
simple, self-validating stories of success and remain honest?
Mormon Neoorthodoxy, A Crisis Theology
This excellent book describing the continuing evolution of the church
over the past 1/2 century is now entirely online.
http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/theology/preface.htm
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In this exciting book, O. Kendall White, Jr., contrasts Mormon
neo-orthodoxy, an emerging theological movement within the Mormon
church today, with traditional Mormonism and examines the cultural
context out of which Mormon neo-orthodoxy developed. While White
argues that traditional Mormonism is characterized by doctrines of a
finite God, the fundamental goodness of human nature, and exaltation
by merit, he finds that Mormon neo-orthodoxy boldly proclaims the
sovereignty of God, the depravity of humanity, ans salvation by grace.
Retraction on NPS/Grand Canyon report
In this week's eSkeptic, we present a correction to the Grand Canyon Story, Creationism in Our National Parks, that we ran in last week's eSkeptic.
Fact Checking 101
How Skeptic magazine was Duped
by an Environmental Activist Group
by Michael Shermer
In last week's eSkeptic , we published highlights from a press release issued by PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), a Washington D.C.-based environmental watchdog group. That press release, dated December 28, 2006, was headlined:
HOW OLD IS THE GRAND CANYON? PARK SERVICE WON'T SAY
Orders to Cater to Creationists Makes National Park Agnostic on Geology
The first sentence of the release reads:
Washington, DC — Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees.
Unfortunately, in our eagerness to find additional examples of the inappropriate intrusion of religion in American public life (as if we actually needed more), we accepted this claim by PEER without calling the National Park Service (NPS) or the Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) to check it. As a testimony to the quality of our readers, however, dozens immediately phoned both NPS and GCNP, only to discover that the claim is absolutely false. Callers were told that the Grand Canyon is millions of years old, that no one is being pressured from Bush administration appointees — or by anyone else — to withhold scientific information, and all were referred to a statement by David Barna, Chief of Public Affairs, National Park Service as to the park's official position. "Therefore, our interpretive talks, way-side exhibits, visitor center films, etc. use the following explanation for the age of the geologic features at Grand Canyon," the document explains.
If asked the age of the Grand Canyon, our rangers use the following answer: 'The principal consensus among geologists is that the Colorado River basin has developed in the past 40 million years and that the Grand Canyon itself is probably less than five to six million years old. The result of all this erosion is one of the most complete geologic columns on the planet.'
Understandably, many of our readers were outraged by both the duplicity of the claim and our failure to fact check it. One park ranger wrote us:
You're a day late and a dollar short on this one. As a national park ranger, I found most of PEER's findings to be bogus. So have others: http://parkrangerx.blogspot.com
A Grand Canyon park interpreter wrote:
This is incorrect. I have NEVER been told to present non-science based programs. In fact, I received "talking points" demanding that Grand Canyon employees present programs BASED ON SCIENCE and that we must use the scientific version supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences. As an interpreter I have shared the "creation" story of the Hopi people and the Paiute people because it is culturally relative. I used these stories as a tool to introduce the scientific story. Be confident there are good people running government, too.
One of our readers directly challenged Jeff Ruch, the Executive Director of PEER:
When I challenged that PEER guy to show me some evidence and provided him evidence to the contrary, he didn't have much. I would say PEER did more than jump the gun. I'd say they are spreading misinformation.
Another Grand Canyon park interpreter offered this explanation:
Ruch's attempts to insinuate a conspiratorial link between the NPS and organized religion are misguided and founded in fervent anti-Christian opposition, not reason or the law. Ruch's anti-Judeo-Christian bias is evidence by his lack of opposition to GCA's selling of Native American creation myths. His misinformation campaign aims to tarnish the reputation of the NPS to leverage his position that creationism books should not be sold in the GCA bookstore. I've emailed a few of my contacts at GRCA, and so far, all deny any conspiracy and all freely give the canyon's age in education programs (as does all official GRCA print material). I'll post updates as information becomes available. Until then, don't believe everything you read.
The reference to the creationism book being sold in the Grand Canyon bookstore — Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail — is true. It is sold in the "inspiration" section of the bookstore, alongside other books of myth and spirituality. In any case, the story is an old one now, and completely irrelevant to the claim that NPS employees are withholding information about the age of the canyon, and/or are being pressured to do so by Bush administration appointees.
Embarrassed and angered by all of this, I promptly phoned Jeff Ruch myself and inquired what evidence he has to support this claim. He initially pointed to the creationism book and the fact that the NPS has failed to address numerous challenges to the sale of same in their bookstore. When I pointed out that this is irrelevant to the claim in the press release, he then reminded me of the biblical passages that have been posted at places along the rim of the canyon. Again, I admonished, this is not evidence for his central claim. We went round and round on the phone until I finally gave up and hung up, convinced that he simply made up the claim out of whole cloth.
Not wishing to simply call Ruch a liar, and allowing myself to calm down a bit, I emailed him and asked:
Can you tell us who in the Bush administration put pressure on park service employees? Can you name one person in the GCNP staff who says that they are not permitted to give the official estimate of the age of the canyon?
He responded:
- I do not know — it is at the Director's level or above. We have been trying to find out for three years.
- Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times.
I contacted Julie Cart at the Los Angeles Times, who was out of town on assignment, and got her editor, Frank Clifford, on the phone. Clifford knew all about the creationism book and the biblical passages on the rim of the canyon, but said that he had heard nothing about this new claim of Bush administration appointees silencing park service staff, and that if Julie knew of such a thing the Times would be most interested in following up with the story. I then reached Julie by email, who said that she too knew of no such silence on the part of park staffers regarding the age of the canyon.
Once again outraged and enraged , I emailed Ruch to ask him why he referenced Cart, who denied his central claim. He responded:
I referred you to Julie because of the response she got from the superintendent's office when she covered the issue earlier — not for any new claim.
Thanks a lot. I wasted several hours tracking down that false lead. Now at my wit's end with this guy, I point blank asked him if he made it all up. He responded:
The interpretive staff at GCNP we are working with do not want to be identified and have gone into deep underground as the atmosphere at the park is now somewhat volatile.
Well, it would have been nice (not to mention ethical) if he would have said so in the first place. (I have now wasted about 10 hours of research time on this instead of other projects.) The referencing of sources who wish to remain anonymous is quite common in journalism and, in fact, there are laws protecting whistleblowers . The fact that no such reference was made until I pointedly accused Ruch of flatout lying makes me, well, skeptical of this explanation. His final statement to me doesn't make me any less skeptical:
We are issuing an amended release today that
- deletes reference to what interpretive staff can and cannot say and
- features the NPS official statement that they provide geological information to the public.
Then why did PEER issue that statement in the first place? In my opinion, this is why:
PEER is an anti-Bush, anti-religion liberal activist watchdog group in search of demons to exorcise and dragons to slay. On one level, that's how the system works in a free society, and there are plenty of pro-Bush, pro-religion conservative activist watchdog groups who do the same thing on the other side. Maybe in a Hegelian process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis we find truth that way; at least at the level of talk radio. But journalistic standards and scholarly ethics still hold sway at all levels of discourse that matter, and to that end I believe we were duped by an activist group who at the very least exaggerated a claim and published it in order to gain notoriety for itself, or worse, simply made it up.
To that end I apologize to all of our readers for not fact checking this story before publishing it on eSkeptic and www.skeptic.com. Shame on us. But shame on you too, Mr. Ruch, and shame on PEER, for this egregious display of poor judgment and unethical behavior.
Michael ShermerPublisher, Skeptic magazine
Executive Director, the Skeptics Society
mshermer@skeptic.com
Mormon literature swims through many waters
Here is a nice article about the journal Irreantum, formerly edited by Laraine Wilkins, who some of us had the pleasure of associating with.
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Mormon literature swims through many waters
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Mormon literature swims through many waters
So the English title is Many Waters, followed by the subtitle A Review of Mormon Literature and Film. It is a delightfully appropriate name, given that the publication accepts unsolicited submissions of any and all kinds, words come true to creative and critical thinkers who like to see their name in print, and possess the skills necessary to adequately convey their ideas. ("Irreantum" seeks "the highest quality of writing"). Additionally, while of course Mormons believe that we descended from Mother Eve and Father Adam, to artistic types there is much pleasure in the idea of humanity collectively emerging from a common primordial sea — the whole "mare/madre" connection.
The issue discussed here is Volume 8, Number 1 — the first of 2006. Its theme is poetry. The first poem is an in memoriam for, as far as I can gather, a former editor of Irreantum whose life was cut short by an auto accident. Lance Larsen's "And a Garden Drifts Past My Window" credits Wilkins with assisting those who knew her to take flight ("She opened her purse and handed each of us a bird" — an organic currency whose worth is evident after ink and paper meet).
Though Larsen writes "Let grief hover close," the poem's only transparent line, he concludes on a note of high optimism: "And sky says, Come join me, the morning is young." There is all the time in the world for creation, for songs, for poems, for words. Time for you and time for me. A poem by Wilkins about reclaiming one's soul also appears, full of lively imagery and ending on a thoughtful question.
Michael R. Collings prefaces a series of attempts at "epic" Mormon poetry with a brief, but remarkable essay on the form. Collings sees Mormonsim as "an epic fable, a struggle played out by heroes and gods on a vast, cosmic scale," referencing Homer, Milton and T.S. Eliot as archetypes and anti-archetypes.
The ensuing epics deal with God, Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon and everyday chores. It makes sense to write about religion using an epical model for the same reasons Collings points out — no figure is larger than God, few American figures as interesting or radical as Smith. Alan Rex Mitchell's "The Road to Carthage" is an exciting fictionalization of the prophet, portraying him as burdened and well-acquainted with grief. He is yearning, as Christ on his cross, for God to come out of his hiding place.
What I have discussed here is not even half of the issue. There are more poems, short stories, essays, opinion and a movie review of "States of Grace" that is written as I wish all movie commentary could be: not one sentence of opinion followed by several paragraphs of summation, but an intensely personal dissection that talks about the film's influence beyond just a bunch of flickering images synched to sound.
In many respects, Mormonism is the ideal religion to have its own literature. It's relatively small and new, and it adds radical new hallways to Christianity's mansion. Catholicism is too deep, ancient and varied to allow for a communal perspective, and other religions too pharisaical about the sanctity of scripture to allow thoughtful, personal and creative interpretations. Mormonism, with its specific myths and closely guarded lineage, provides a strong basis for its adherents to, in the words of James Joyce, forge within the smithy of their souls the uncreated conscious of their race.
Irreantum is a refreshing alternative to the vulgar pop offerings of "The Singles Ward" and Mormon fiction of that ilk. It is an honest navigation of Mormon theology that doesn't pander to a mass audience or do Mormonism a disservice by implicating that its most interesting tenets revolve around auxiliary organizations and Jell-o. It is a voice in Mormonism that I have not heard and I am pleased to hear it now.
51% of Women now living without Spouse
51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse
By SAM ROBERTS
For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women
are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York
Times analysis of census results.
In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse,
up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.
Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority
of all American households for the first time, the trend could
ultimately shape social and workplace policies, including the ways
government and employers distribute benefits.
Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the
age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried
partners more often and for longer periods. At the other end, women
are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than
men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound
freedom.
In addition, marriage rates among black women remain low. Only about
30 percent of black women are living with a spouse, according to the
Census Bureau, compared with about 49 percent of Hispanic women, 55
percent of non-Hispanic white women and more than 60 percent of Asian
women.
In a relatively small number of cases, the living arrangement is
temporary, because the husbands are working out of town, are in the
military or are institutionalized. But while most women eventually
marry, the larger trend is unmistakable.
"This is yet another of the inexorable signs that there is no going
back to a world where we can assume that marriage is the main
institution that organizes people's lives," said Prof. Stephanie
Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary
Families, a nonprofit research group. "Most of these women will marry,
or have married. But on average, Americans now spend half their adult
lives outside marriage."
Professor Coontz said this was probably unprecedented with the
possible exception of major wartime mobilizations and when black
couples were separated during slavery.
William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, a
research group in Washington, described the shift as "a clear tipping
point, reflecting the culmination of post-1960 trends associated with
greater independence and more flexible lifestyles for women."
"For better or worse, women are less dependent on men or the
institution of marriage," Dr. Frey said. "Younger women understand
this better, and are preparing to live longer parts of their lives
alone or with nonmarried partners. For many older boomer and senior
women, the institution of marriage did not hold the promise they might
have hoped for, growing up in an 'Ozzie and Harriet' era."
Emily Zuzik, a 32-year-old musician and model who lives in the East
Village of Manhattan, said she was not surprised by the trend.
"A lot of my friends are divorced or single or living alone," Ms.
Zuzik said. "I know a lot of people in their 30s who have roommates."
Ms. Zuzik has lived with a boyfriend twice, once in California where
the couple registered as domestic partners to qualify for his health
insurance plan. "I don't plan to live with anyone else again until I
am married," she said, "and I may opt to keep a place of my own even
then."
Linda Barth, a 56-year-old magazine editor in Houston who has never
married, said, "I used to divide my women friends into single friends
and married friends. Now that doesn't seem to be an issue."
Sheila Jamison, who also lives in the East Village and works for a
media company, is 45 and single. She says her family believes she
would have had a better chance of finding a husband had she attended a
historically black college instead of Duke.
"Considering all the weddings I attended in the '80s that have ended
so very, very badly, I consider myself straight up lucky," Ms. Jamison
said. "I have not sworn off marriage, but if I do wed, it will be to
have a companion with whom I can travel and play parlor games in my
old age."
Carol Crenshaw, 57, of Roswell, Ga., was divorced in 2005 after 33
years and says she is in no hurry to marry again.
"I'm in a place in my life where I'm comfortable," said Ms. Crenshaw,
who has two grown sons. "I can do what I want, when I want, with whom
I want. I was a wife and a mother. I don't feel like I need to do that
again."
Similarly, Shelley Fidler, 59, a public policy adviser at a law firm,
has sworn off marriage. She moved from rural Virginia to the vibrant
Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., when her 30-year
marriage ended.
"The benefits were completely unforeseen for me," Ms. Fidler said,
"the free time, the amount of time I get to spend with friends, the
time I have alone, which I value tremendously, the flexibility in
terms of work, travel and cultural events."
Among the more than 117 million women over the age of 15, according to
the marital status category in the Census Bureau's latest American
Community Survey, 63 million are married. Of those, 3.1 million are
legally separated and 2.4 million said their husbands were not living
at home for one reason or another.
That brings the number of American women actually living with a spouse
to 57.5 million, compared with the 59.9 million who are single or
whose husbands were not living at home when the survey was taken in
2005.
Some of those situations, which the census identifies as "spouse
absent" and "other," are temporary, and, of course, even some people
who describe themselves as separated eventually reunite with their
spouses.
Over all, a larger share of men are married and living with their
spouse — about 53 percent compared with 49 percent among women.
"Since women continue to outlive men, they have reached the nonmarital
tipping point — more nonmarried than married," Dr. Frey said. "This
suggests that most girls growing up today can look forward to spending
more of their lives outside of a traditional marriage."
Pamela J. Smock, a researcher at the University of Michigan Population
Studies Center, agreed, saying that "changing patterns of courtship,
marriage, and that we are living longer lives all play a role."
"Men also remarry more quickly than women after a divorce," Ms. Smock
added, "and both are increasingly likely to cohabit rather than
remarry after a divorce."
The proportion of married people, especially among younger age groups,
has been declining for decades. Between 1950 and 2000, the share of
women 15-to-24 who were married plummeted to 16 percent, from 42
percent. Among 25-to-34-year-olds, the proportion dropped to 58
percent, from 82 percent.
"Although we can help people 'do' marriage better, it is simply
delusional to construct social policy or make personal life decisions
on the basis that you can count on people spending most of their adult
lives in marriage," said Professor Coontz, the author of "Marriage, a
History: How Love Conquered Marriage."
Besse Gardner, 24, said she and her boyfriend met as college freshmen
and started living together last April "for all the wrong reasons" —
they found a great apartment on the beach in Los Angeles.
"We do not see living together as an end or even for the rest of our
lives — it's just fun right now," Ms. Gardner said. "My roommate is
someone I'd be thrilled to marry one day, but it just doesn't make
sense right now."
Ms. Crenshaw said that some of the women in her support group for
divorced women were miserable, but that she was surprised how happy
she was to be single again.
"That's not how I grew up," she said. "That's not how society thinks.
It's a marriage culture."
Elissa B. Terris, 59, of Marietta, Ga., divorced in 2005 after being
married for 34 years and raising a daughter, who is now an adult.
"A gentleman asked me to marry him and I said no," she recalled. "I
told him, 'I'm just beginning to fly again, I'm just beginning to be
me. Don't take that away.' "
"Marriage kind of aged me because there weren't options," Ms. Terris
said. "There was only one way to go. Now I have choices. One night I
slept on the other side of the bed, and I thought, I like this side."
She said she was returning to college to get a master's degree (her
former husband "didn't want me to do that because I was more educated
than he was"), had taken photography classes and was auditioning for a
play.
"Once you go through something you think will kill you and it
doesn't," she said, "every day is like a present."
Ariel Sabar, Brenda Goodman and Maureen Balleza contributed reporting.
New Harper Collins Study Bible
I see that Harper Collins has released an updated version of their
study bible. I've used the old Harper Collins Study bible for over 10
years and have been extremely happy with it. I spent quite a bit of
time searching for the best bible I could find. Harper Collins won
out - even over the Oxford Annotated Study bible, which I tried out
for a while. The best feature, in my opinion, is the notes. They
are packed with an amazing amount of information - that it makes the
text come alive - and provides amazing in-sites to the text, language
and times.
It appears that the new version is just as good as the old, if not
better. I highly recommend the Harper Collins Study Bible. Here are
some reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/community-content-search/results/ref=cm_srch_q_ref_rtr/104-1713026-1009509?index=community-reviews&pageSize=10&excrepts=true&excreptsSize=512&idx.asin=006078685X&query=bible&x=0&y=0&idx.all=0
and here is a description from the publisher
---
The HarperCollins Study Bible has become the standard general
reference for understanding the full meaning of this sacred book. This
classic study Bible has now been completely revised and updated under
the aegis of the Society of Biblical Literature—the preeminent
academic association of the world's best biblical scholars.
Key features of this in-depth reference Bible include:
* The New Revised Standard Version, the most accurate English
Bible translation
* Newly commissioned introductory essays on the archaeology and
religion of ancient Israel and the New Testament world, the social and
historical context of the biblical books, and biblical interpretation
* Essays by leading experts in the field on how the Bible was
formed, based on the latest scholarship
* Completely new introductions and notes for select biblical
books, plus a full revision and updating of all others—over 25 percent
new or revised material
* Twice as many notes as the leading study Bible
* Extensive maps, tables, and charts
Mormon Thoroughfare: A History of the Church in Illinois, 1830 - 1839
http://www.byubookstore.com/ePOS/form=item.html&item=0-8425-2652-8&store=439
Mormon Thoroughfare: A History of the Church in Illinois, 1830 - 1839
Item #0-8425-2652-8
Latter-day Saints may think Church history in Illinois began in 1839
with establishment of the city of Nauvoo. However, important events
took place much earlier in the decade. For example, the missionaries
to the Lamanites unexpectedly had to cross the state on their trip
from Ohio to Missouri. This happened in 1830, ten years before more
prominent events took place in the history of the Church in Illinois.
This occurrence made Illinois one of only four states to receive
missionaries in the year 1830.
The Church grew rapidly there, and by 1835 it was likely the fourth
largest religious body in the state. This account fills in the
ten-year gap of Church history in Illinois using both LDS and non-LDS
sources. The book tells the story of the conversion of future Apostle
Charles C. Rich. It also talks about the Saints' involvement in the
so-called Mormon War. Other chapters discuss the events of Zion's
Camp, Kirtland Camp, and the Saints' exodus from Missouri to Quincy,
Illinois.
Mormon Thoroughfare: A History of the Church in Illinois, 1830 - 1839
Item #0-8425-2652-8
Latter-day Saints may think Church history in Illinois began in 1839
with establishment of the city of Nauvoo. However, important events
took place much earlier in the decade. For example, the missionaries
to the Lamanites unexpectedly had to cross the state on their trip
from Ohio to Missouri. This happened in 1830, ten years before more
prominent events took place in the history of the Church in Illinois.
This occurrence made Illinois one of only four states to receive
missionaries in the year 1830.
The Church grew rapidly there, and by 1835 it was likely the fourth
largest religious body in the state. This account fills in the
ten-year gap of Church history in Illinois using both LDS and non-LDS
sources. The book tells the story of the conversion of future Apostle
Charles C. Rich. It also talks about the Saints' involvement in the
so-called Mormon War. Other chapters discuss the events of Zion's
Camp, Kirtland Camp, and the Saints' exodus from Missouri to Quincy,
Illinois.
Ohio and Upper Canada LDS History
http://www.byubookstore.com/ePOS/form=item.html&item=0-8425-2653-6&store=439
Book: Regional Studies in Latter-day Saint Church History, Volume 6:
Ohio and Upper Canada (Soft Cover Book)
Ohio became the first gathering place for the Saints in this
dispensation when the Lord declared, "A commandment I give unto the
church, that it is expedient in me that they should assemble together
at the Ohio" (D&C 37:3). Members of the Church in New York responded
to this command by gathering in and around Kirtland, Ohio, where the
Lord promised that He would give them His law and endow them with
power. Revelation was abundant and sometimes accompanied by the Lord's
presence. Almost half the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants
were received in Ohio.
Soon, stretching northward into Canada, the message of the restored
gospel reached the homes of John Taylor, Mary Fielding, and other
early converts. This book also tells the story of journalist and
political activist William Lyon Mackenzie and his interest in the
Saints.
Contributors are Richard E. Bennett, David F. Boone, Richard O. Cowan,
H. Dean Garrett, William Goddard, Steven C. Harper, Daniel H. Olsen,
Craig James Ostler, Kip Sperry, Dennis A. Wright, and Helen K. Warner
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