As we pick up with the difficult racial quotes this week, I want to start again with the disclaimer that neither I nor anyone else at FAIR agrees with or condones the words and attitudes on display in these comments. I am not defending their use. I am just putting some history and context back into them, so that we can all approach them with a little more knowledge than we may have previously held. That doesn’t make them easier to digest. Some of them are pretty awful, and it’s incredibly difficult for me to understand how someone can hold those views about other children of God.
Faith Crisis
Asking Big Questions: How Can I Find and Evaluate Sources of Truth?
By Craig Lindquist
The “Asking Big Questions” series is made in cooperation with the Wilford Woodruff Papers Project.
We live in a day of confusion, even chaos. The world over, people are searching for truth on a host of subjects—but how can anyone know? It is not an easy search. Who do we trust? Where do we look? How do we know if something is in fact true? If the subject we seek to verify is purely secular, such as historical or even mathematical information, the search for the truth can be fairly easy given today’s technology.
But what do we do when our search for truth goes beyond what can be googled or found in a science book? Where can we look, and who can we trust when we want to know of eternal truths?
Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 20: The Early Church – Blacks and the Church [A]
We’re now moving into one of the most controversial topics in our church’s history, the Priesthood restriction for black members of African descent. Like plural marriage, this is a topic that comes with a lot of emotion behind it. People have very strong feelings about this part of our history, and for good reason. I’m no exception to that. I’ll be discussing quotes, attitudes, and beliefs that I personally find appalling.
But like I always say, history is messy. Expecting it to be easy is naïve.
There are two things that are absolutely imperative to understand when we’re talking about these things.
Asking Big Questions: How Can I Find Answers to Gospel Questions on the Internet?
By Maddie Christensen
The “Asking Big Questions” series is made in cooperation with the Wilford Woodruff Papers Project.
In today’s digital age, the Internet has become an indispensable tool for accessing information on any topic imaginable. With just a few keystrokes and a click of a button, one can easily find answers to any question that comes to mind. Googling questions has become a ubiquitous activity that many of us engage in on a daily basis. [Read more…] about Asking Big Questions: How Can I Find Answers to Gospel Questions on the Internet?
Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 19: The Early Church – Polygamy [D]
One of the Church history topics I find the most fascinating is that of the Nauvoo Expositor and the lead-up to and aftermath of the martyrdom.
My first real exposure to the story of the Expositor was as a sophomore in high school in Utah. An anti-LDS substitute math teacher decided to take it upon himself to lecture us on the evil censorship of the church many of us in the class belonged to. Looking back now, I can see how wildly inappropriate it was for a substitute teacher to bring this up in order to harass and criticize the religious beliefs of a bunch of teenagers who were just trying to learn pre-calculus. But unfortunately, at the time it wasn’t that unusual for us to have teachers who didn’t like the church. It didn’t occur to us that these teachers were crossing way over the line by actually vocalizing that dislike in class.
[Read more…] about Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 19: The Early Church – Polygamy [D]
Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 18: The Early Church – Polygamy [C]
Sorry for taking so long to get this posted! I’ve been putting in more than 60 hours a week at work lately, and I just didn’t have time to properly research this post until now.
This week, the topic under discussion is Joseph’s wives and the way that he personally practiced plural marriage. It’s true that some of the circumstances a little unusual compared to how later members practiced it, and it’s also true that sealing practices in general were unusual compared to how we practice them today. The world was also very different in the 1840s than it is today in the 2020s.
All of that means that it can be very difficult for us to understand what was going on and why. I’m going to do my best to break this all down so that it makes sense, but just remember, it’s okay if it makes you uncomfortable. It’s okay if you don’t like the idea of plural marriage. It’s okay if you don’t ever want to practice it. I don’t, either.
[Read more…] about Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 18: The Early Church – Polygamy [C]
Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 17: The Early Church – Polygamy [B]
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we’re frequently taught to value honesty. Primary children sing “I Believe in Being Honest.” Our 13th Article of Faith declares openly that we believe in being honest. It’s actively encouraged by our Apostles. Our temple recommend question was recently updated from, “Are you honest in your dealings with your fellow man?” to the even wider-reaching, “Do you strive to be honest in all that you do?” Our scriptures teach us to deal with men honestly and to be open and honest in our conversation and renounce the hidden things of dishonesty, because those with honest hearts are accepted by the Lord, while liars will be thrust down to Hell.
[Read more…] about Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 17: The Early Church – Polygamy [B]
Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 16: The Early Church – Polygamy [A]
Plural marriage is one of the top two or three most controversial things about our church’s history. It’s something that most people have strong feelings about. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground, and it’s been a divisive doctrine right from the very beginning.
It’s probably what we’re most known for, and is definitely what we’re most mocked over. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been watching a show or movie, only to have a random “joke” tossed out about “the Mormons” and polygamy.
[Read more…] about Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 16: The Early Church – Polygamy [A]
Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 15: The Early Church – The Endowment [B]
In full disclosure, I’ve been concerned about this post this week. There are some things coming up today that I am not very comfortable discussing in a public setting. It involves questions I feel are important to address, but I do take temple covenants very seriously and I don’t know that this is the best place to address them. There will be things from the Letter For My Wife that I can’t copy and paste directly, and things I’ll have to skim over and paraphrase. It’s going to be a difficult needle to thread, and I can’t guarantee I’ll do it well. I’m trying to follow the counsel we’ve received in recent years to be more open about what happens inside the temple, while still not crossing the lines we’ve covenanted to keep sacred.
We’ll start off with a little bit more temple history, and from there, Faulk will move into the difficult portion. He picks up with more discussion of Freemasonry: [Read more…] about Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 15: The Early Church – The Endowment [B]
Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 14: The Early Church – The Endowment [A]
While the Endowment is a subject that I find comforting and fascinating to study, I will admit upfront that I’ve been feeling some trepidation regarding this section. In his Letter, Faulk actually describes and shows images of many of the temple signs, symbols, and tokens, and those are not things I’m comfortable discussing in a public setting. I take our temple covenants very seriously, and I don’t want to put myself or FAIR or any of the readers here in the position of potentially breaking those covenants. Because of that, there will be a large section of this topic that will just be skimmed over without the usual level of detail and documentation I try to provide.
And frankly, I’m actually appalled that Faulk would post that information for everyone to read and look at. I don’t believe in mocking someone else’s sincerely held religious beliefs, even when I find those beliefs strange or off-putting. Unfortunately, that’s what Faulk’s Letter leads to deeper in this section. While I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that wasn’t his intent, he does air these things publicly where they can and will be mocked by those who belittle them.
This week, however, we’ll be focusing most of our attention on the idea that the Endowment was copied from Freemasonry. There is some truth and a lot of untruth behind that charge. [Read more…] about Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 14: The Early Church – The Endowment [A]