My oldest daughter Samantha just finished 8th grade and is preparing to enter high school in the fall. She is brilliant and gorgeous. She is also sharp tongued and salty. The boys she has been going to school with for years know this about her. They also know she is Mormon. For those reasons they learned early on not to mess with her. Those who have messed have had their heads handed to them enough times to teach the rest of the kids to watch their steps.

But these boys certainly don’t mind messing with the other (non-Mormon) girls. You wouldn’t believe the amount of sexual harassment that these 8th grade boys regularly foisted upon their female classmates. Sam reported that groping girls, rubbing crotches on girls (sometimes in basketball shorts and aroused), and all kinds of other sexual harassment were basically daily occurrences in her school. The most disturbing part about her tales has been how much the girls encouraged and enabled this behavior. While it was traditional for the girls to superficially complain among themselves about the boys sexually aggressive behavior it was clear that many of these girls loved the attention. In other words, there was very little “Don’t!” and “Stop!” and too much “don’t stop” from these girls. It baffled and dismayed Sam and we spent may hours analyzing and discussing the situation with her.
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D&C 89:12-13 reads:

Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly;And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.

Recently I heard that the comma after “used” is a later insertion done by James E. Talmage, so this verse should actually be:

Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly;And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.

Is there any truth to this? I could find very few references to such a change via the usual googling but all of them are pretty questionable in terms of veracity.

Interestingly, I’d say the norm is to practice the second reading, although the scriptures currently state the first.

There was a fascinating post over at BeliefNet this week on attitudes among Mormons about women receiving the priesthood. Here is the most interesting part, quoting studies found in the book American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us by authors Robert Putnam and David Campbell:

Yet the most remarkable finding is that within Mormonism itself, there is a significant split by gender on this question. The number that looks the most extraordinary to outsiders–that only 10% of Mormon women want the priesthood–seems pretty predictable to those inside the faith. But the finding that 48% of Mormon men say they favor female LDS clergy is truly startling.

The blog author, Grant Hardy, goes on to give a long list of possible explanations for these survey results. Most of them seem fairly plausible as contributing factors at least. All of them are pretty nice to Mormon men and women I thought.

The cynic in me thinks Hardy danced around one obvious explanation. That is that 48% of men wouldn’t mind letting the ladies do more of the heavy lifting regarding clergy duties in church. In contrast, 90% of the ladies like the fact that they can be completely guilt-free when it comes to those difficult and time-consuming clergy duties.

What do you think though? Certainly there is some combination of reasons why Mormon men are nearly five times more likely to favor women receiving the priesthood and serving in clergy duties than Mormon women are to favor such a thing. But what is your guess about the primary reason for these results? Something Hardy said? The more cynical reason I mentioned? Or something else entirely?

1. White shirts are cheaper than colored shirts, and thus more universally accessible

2. White shirts are easier to clean and maintain than colored shirts (just use bleach), so last longer and are therefore cheaper. They don’t fade. (They do become threadbare, but this is different)

3. White shirts go with any tie/suit/pants/shoes/belt.

4. A clean white shirt of any type (T-shirts in the Philippines) still can have a formal look to it in the right context.

5. Gandalf was more awesome when he wore white.

6. James Dean wore a white shirt.

7. Han Solo is more awesome than Luke Skywalker and he wore white shirts.

In all seriousness, if you are trying to be pseudo-rebellious by wearing a colored shirt to church, but are still wearing a tie, you are a schmuck. I’m not saying you can’t wear a colored shirt, as I don’t really care what color your shirt is, but if you think there is some sort of anti-establishment message there, you’ve got addled brains or are 12 (Is there a difference?) Did I really say “In all seriousness”?

That is all.

In hard numbers The Church is growing at a pretty healthy pace. But how is the growth rate relative to the population of the earth? Here are some back-of-the-envelope numbers:

Number of people on earth: Approximately 6 billion
Number of “active” Mormons: Roughly 6 million (I think there are about 14 million Mormons on record so I cut that a little more than half to make things clean here)
Active Mormons as a percentage of the population: 0.1% (Thus 99.9% of humans are not active Mormons)
Age of the church: 180 years

So at a growth pace of 0.1 % of the population per 180 years we should hit 100% in just under 180,000 years. (999×180).

Yes I know these are nonsense projections. But the fact that restoration has made such a tiny dent in the population of the earth is food for thought. It seems to me that for 99%+ of the population there is no significant religious difference between living now vs living in the “Great Apostasy”.

What say you?

I remembered to bring my temple clothes to work, but I forgot to bring dress clothes. I was planning to drive straight from work to the temple for youth temple night (because I work 20 minutes from home in the direction of the temple) and now I was in a pickle. I decided to simply change into my white clothes in the car and make the short walk from the parking lot to the temple in my white dockers, white belt, white shirt, and white tie. I made it to the lobby without incident. (more…)

Continuing my series of church history questions

Question #4- So I read somewhere that during the Korean War(1951), there was a shortage of Young Men to go on missions, so the seventies were asked to fill the gap, and married men were then called to serve full-time missions. How did that work out? For How long did this go on? How long were these missions? How does this correlate with around the same time the first missionary lessons/discussions were published for standard use throughout the church (1952)?

Continuing my series:

Question #3- How did we get to where The Aaronic Priesthood is the Young Men’s program of the church? When did 12 become the starting age for the priesthood? (For example, why not make it 11 since scouts starts at 11?) I see in the 1950’s the ages to be ordained teacher’s and priests moved from 15 and 17 to 14 and 16. Why the change?

So I’ve decided to continue a series of questions regarding church history that I can’t seem to get google to answer for me. I’ll be asking one a sunday until I get lazy and forget (maybe next Sunday.)

Question #2 is this- What did the church do for converts before Gospel Essentials class? I see in 1958 a “new program for convert integration was adopted” (per the church almanac), but have no idea what it was or how it fits in with our current convert integration efforts.

So I’ve decided to start a series of questions regarding church history that I can’t seem to get google to answer for me. I’ll be asking one a sunday until I get lazy and forget (maybe next Sunday.)

So Question #1- Per the 2010 Church Almanac, the church started home teaching in 1964, replacing ward teaching. What was the difference between home teaching and ward teaching. And since we (the church) always site the story of Joseph Smith’s home teacher being nervous, and Joseph coaching him, how does that all work out, since home teaching didn’t start until over 100 years later?

Bonus- When did visiting teaching start?

From the fake scripture file:

1 Among “active” Mormons there are three levels or degrees of Eagerness;
2 And in order to obtain the highest and most time consuming jobs in the church, an active Mormon must enter into this degree of activity [meaning fully “Eager” and not “Less Eager” or “InEager”];
3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it.
4 He may enter into the other less demanding callings, but that is the end of his institutional progress; he cannot have a promotion.

I feel a new cross-stitched wall hanging coming on…