The discussion at Rebecca’s post on Bullying over at FMH reminded of my darkest days… Middle School. (more…)

Over at BCC Kris posted on the subject of women healing. She focused on the ritual of healing through the laying on of hands in the post. She writes:

Most members would agree that women are not precluded from receiving or seeking any of the spiritual gifts outlined in Doctrine & Covenants Section 46, “And again, to some it is given to have faith to be healed, and to others it is given to heal.” This is not a gendered statement. Yet while it seems that Mormon women are not officially forbidden to heal, they are prohibited from engaging in the rituals of healing. The current Handbook states that, “only brethren who hold the necessary priesthood and are worthy may perform an ordinance or blessing or stand in the circle.” In this system, women become “hidden healers”; often the gift of healing that literally lies at their fingertips is unused, accidentally discovered and sometimes serves as the source of confusion or guilt.

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The comments in a recent post at BCC reminded me of all of the unsubstantiated beliefs that float around this church regarding the afterlife. In the following series of posts I will talk about some of them.

In this first post I want to discuss the following assumption that many Mormons make: The Kingdoms of Glory described in section 76 are separate physical places. (more…)

So Clark and I were discussing superheroes and Mormonism briefly the other day. He already put up a post on it (but in true super villain form failed to mention me – he shall hereafter be known as Dr. FailsToGiveProps). Anyway, I always thought the Mormon super power (if we had one) would be closest to the powers of an obscure former X-Man named Longshot.

Longshot was actually neither a human nor a mutant, but somehow he made it into the X-Men for a while. His super powers included things that have nothing to do with Mormonism like agility, knife throwing accuracy, etc. But his best super power was this: Good Luck. (more…)

So I was listening to the song Monkey Man by The Specials this afternoon and it dawned on me that I haven’t written a single post on Mormons and evolution here at the Thang. That changes today. (I’m always thinking of how to tie posts in with radio.blog anyway…) (more…)

We often read Nephi’s injunction to “feast on the words of Christ” as instructions to dig into the scriptures. I heartily endorse digging into the scriptures, but as I read that portion of Nephi’s sermon, I don’t think that is what Nephi meant. Nephi is telling us exactly what we are supposed to do after we “enter in by the way” – and I think that is to enter into a revelatory dialogue with God. (more…)

Kristen’s excellent post yesterday on teaching children compassion reminded me of a subject I have been thinking about lately. I saw the greatest ad on BYU TV recently. Some nerdy kid in a high school hallway scene had his books and papers spilled all over the floor by a passing bully. A big strapping athlete kid was nearby hanging with his jock and cheerleader friends and noticed it. He paused for a minute then went over to help the nerdy kid pick up his books. For some reason I found it touching (clich�s and all). There is something very powerful and moving about seeing the strong help the weak simply out of compassion. (more…)

In my last post, the second in this series on our nearly exclusive focus on helping everyone become “active” members of the Church, I explained why I think that simply meeting the basic requirements to be considered an active member and staying that way until death is not sufficient for exaltation. (It was a pretty good post, actually. If it weren’t so long maybe more people would have read it.) The idea was that over reliance on Grace is dangerous because it can lead those with the proverbial “five talents” to become satisfied with their five talents and not double them. Expanding on that analogy, let’s say that becoming an active member of the church and staying that way is the equivalent of two talents. For those born into this world with one talent, turning that into two talents would indeed warrant those desired words from God “well done thou good and faithful servant”. But what of those that arrive here with 2-5 talents? What must they do to receive that commendation from the Lord? If just meeting the minimum requirements to be called an active Mormon is not enough, what then? Is the church providing the needed assistance to these folks to double their talents in this life? (more…)

When Nephi was explaining what the Rod of Iron represented to his brothers he said:

And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction.

Since member retention has been a hot topic in the Bloggernacle over the last few weeks I thought this might be useful to bring up. Nephi explains that the sure way to remain active in the gospel (and thus presumably in the church as well) is to hold fast to the iron rod. We often assume this applies to the scriptures only; but the scriptures are in fact the indirect Word of God to us. How do we even know if the scriptures like the Book of Mormon are true? – Only through the direct Word of God to our minds. In other words, we can only know through personal revelation. Therefore I submit that personal revelation is at least as important as the scriptures when it comes to the iron rod in our own lives. (more…)

When it comes to describing the process by which prophets receive visions and experience encounters with Celestial visitors, Paul said it best:

“whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth”.

As the second installment of this series on properly judging revelation I will make the boldest assertion of this series: I believe that the vast majority of revelations we read about in scripture were not physical in an earthly sense. While I am certain that they were very real and concrete in one sense, I strongly suspect that if we had video recordings of these visitations and visions all we would see is a prophet alone. (more…)

7 There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes;
8 We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.
(D&C 131:7-8)

In Mormonism we believe all will be resurrected in to physical bodies. Such resurrected beings have to live somewhere in the physical Universe. Where do you suppose that will be? (more…)