by Sarah Allen
This post will be the last in the section about race and the Priesthood restriction. I apologize for not getting this up sooner. My offline life has been a little crazy this summer, and I just didn’t have the time to do this post justice until today. It’s an important topic, and I wanted to make sure I was able to treat it with the respect it deserves.
The bulk of the conversation this week is about the idea that the prophets can never lead the Church astray:
by Sarah Allen
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.
by Sarah Allen
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.
Podcast: Download (37.2MB)
Subscribe: RSS
by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC
Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about baptism for the dead. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand. [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20–21
by Sarah Allen
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]
by Sarah Allen
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]
by Sarah Allen
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]
by Sarah Allen
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]
by Sarah Allen
This week, we’re continuing with the Word of Wisdom discussion. There were some important concepts introduced in last week’s post: the need for ongoing revelation, the Word of Wisdom as a mark to set us apart from the rest of the world, that there are differences between the revelation found in D&C 89 and the version we follow today, and that it was not meant just for physical health, but also for spiritual health. These are things to keep in mind this week, too.
The LFMW picks up:
Additionally, the Lord’s Law of Health seems to lack real health considerations.
This is a bit of an odd statement to me. The Word of Wisdom was not meant to be an all-encompassing list of everything that was healthy or unhealthy. It doesn’t cover every single individual circumstance. It makes very few definitive health statements, and mostly just says whether things are good or not good according to the Lord’s definition. [Read more…] about Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 13: The Early Church – The Word of Wisdom [B]
by Sarah Allen
One of the things about the online Latter-day Saint community that has always surprised me is just how often people try to argue the Word of Wisdom. As someone who was born in the covenant and raised mostly in Utah with a lot of friends who shared my beliefs, I’ve never felt the desire to drink alcohol, coffee, or tea, or to do drugs. I have my fair share of other temptations, but breaking the Word of Wisdom has never been one of them. Because of that, it’s hard for me to understand the very large focus on this topic that so many people have.
We don’t abstain from coffee, tea, or alcohol because those things are inherently sinful on their own. The Savior drank wine, after all. In fact, He was even accused of being a “winebibber,” or a drunkard. Obviously, this was an exaggerated accusation by people looking for ways to discredit His teachings, but He did still occasionally partake of wine. [Read more…] about Letter For My Wife Rebuttal, Part 12: The Early Church – The Word of Wisdom [A]
FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
We are a volunteer organization. We invite you to give back.
Donate Now