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Cassandra S. Hedelius studied political science and mathematics at the University of Oklahoma and law at the University of Colorado. She is a bureaucrat by day, and by night a member of FairMormon, the Board of Editors at Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, and a blogger at Meridian Expand. She lives in Maryland with her husband and cats.
Click here to read her article at Meridian Expand – The Parable of Chesterton’s Fence
[Cross posted from Sic et Non.]
Not infrequently, I read comments from purportedly liberated ex-Mormons about the glories of churchless Sundays. Instead of attending mind-numbingly dull and repetitious meetings, they claim to spend most of their Sundays skiing, golfing, biking, reading classic books, listening to superb music, perfecting their highly toned bodies through exercise, enjoying the beach, and sipping fine imported wines.
And perhaps they do.
Would I gain by skipping out on Sunday meetings and spending the day as if God didn’t exist? Yes. In some ways, quite undeniably so. I’m not a big fan of meetings myself. I love forests and oceans. And quietly reading.
But I think that my life would also be seriously impoverished.
Bracketing the truth-claims of my faith, I simply want to jot down, in no particular order, some of the things that I would be missing if I were to drop out of participation in my ward on Sundays. [Read more…] about Some Benefits of Attending Sunday Meetings
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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith
by Michael R. Ash
In 3 Nephi 4 we read that the Gadianton Robbers were defeated after attacking, raiding and murdering Nephites. Their leader, Zemnarihah, was finally captured and hanged for his crimes. Once he was dead, the tree upon which he was hanged was cut down –which was an interesting and unusual detail in the Book of Mormon.
We now know that such actions have an ancient Near Eastern precedence: “Israelite practice required that the tree upon which the culprit was hung be buried with the body. Hence the tree had to be chopped down. Since the rabbis understood that this burial should take place immediately, the Talmud recommends hanging the culprit on a pre-cut tree or post so that, in the words of Maimonides, ‘no felling is needed'”.
Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.
Julianne Dehlin Hatton is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.
Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.
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This is the third and final podcast in this series on physiological issues from a practical standpoint. We all have our own interpretations of how the world works and in this episode we evaluate how our personal understanding of life can become clouded by debilitating addictions and what we can do to about them.
Obsessives compulsive disorder is another difficulty that some of us may encounter within ourselves, friends and loved ones. The ability to stay focused is a valuable trait in many aspects of our lives but we can fall into the valley of despair if we become obsessed or out of balance in our perspectives. Our good brother Ned offers several observations in the first part of this podcast that can help someone who may be struggling with this issue to seek that proper balance in life and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the second section of this episode brother Scarisbrick interviews Mark from the LDS addiction recovery program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His personal testimony concerning the nature of addiction is a moving story about the Savior’s love for each one of us. You can view Marks video on the Church’s official web site here.
As always the views and opinions expressed in this podcast may not represent those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or that of FairMormon.
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Welcome to FairMormon’s Front Page News Review for the fourth week of January, 2015. Here we provide context and analysis of the past week’s media coverage of Mormons and the LDS church. Front Page News Review is hosted Nick Galieti and manager of the FairMormon Front Page news service, Cassandra Hedelius.
We hope this will be an edifying and entertaining experience. What we present is not to be understood as being the official position of FairMormon or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We speak for ourselves, and sometimes not even then.
This week’s top news stories:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/us/mormons-seek-golden-mean-between-gay-rights-and-religious-beliefs.html?_r=1
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/28/mormon-s-lgbtq-support-is-bigotry-in-disguise.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/01/28/how-much-will-the-mormon-churchs-endorsement-of-lgbt-protections-sway-mormon-lawmakers/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/01/28/mitt-romney-still-has-a-mormon-problem/
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Wain Myers is a native of Dayton, Ohio and a graduate of John H. Patterson High School where he was a state discus champion and musician. After graduation, Wain enlisted in the United States Army and served a tour of duty in Bad Kissingen, Germany. After his military career, Wain returned to the U.S. and began preaching at True Vine Missionary Baptist church. Where he preached for over five years and was then introduced to the LDS church by his now lovely wife Sebrina.
Wain developed a passion for finance after his military career and enrolled in the Alpha & Omega College Real Estate in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and became a loan originator in 2007. Investing into his insurance business, he and his family moved to Terre Haut, Indiana, in 2009. Wain became very active in the Terre Haute community.
Wain has also been an active member in The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints since 1995 and served on the Bloomington Indiana Stake High Council before moving to Salt Lake City, Utah, and being call as second counselor in the Genesis Group leadership.
Wain and Sebrina are the proud parents of seven amazing children; Le’Roy Jr., Isaiah; who is currently serving his mission in the Baton Rouge Louisiana mission, Bradford and his wife Paige, Quesley, Braxton, Spencer, and Ammon.
QUESTIONS ADDRESSED IN THE INTERVIEW:
The story of you coming to find the church has some interesting twists and turns and would be a great way to get to know you. Would you tell us the story of your military career leading up to first starting as a baptist preacher?
What were some of the impressions that you had about the Mormon Church prior to becoming a member?
At one point in your story you had some difficulties with what has come to be called the Priesthood ban where those of black African decent were not allowed to hold the priesthood. You ended up having to come to terms with that and have since of course remained an active member. How did you view that part of church history, and how have you overcome it?
You are now involved in the Genesis Group. What is the Genesis Group?
You have a book coming out in October 2015 I believe called, at for now, From Baptist Preacher to Mormon Teacher. The title might be a little obvious, but what will the book be about?
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Dr. Valerie Hudson joined the faculty of Texas A&M University at the Bush School in 2012 as the George Bush Chair. She is considered an expert on international security and foreign policy analysis, she received her PhD in political science at The Ohio State University.
In 2009, Foreign Policy named her one of the top 100 Most Influential Global Thinkers. Dr. Hudson developed a nation-by-nation database on women (http://womanstats.org) that triggered both academic and policy interest including use by both the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and various agencies of the United Nations.
Valerie is one of the founders of the online Journal called Square Two found at Squaretwo.org and is on Articles of Faith to talk about her article at Square Two – Rectifying the Names: Reflections on “Womanhood and Language.”
Questions addressed in this podcast: (We apologize for the audio quality of the phone call.)
By way of introduction of our topic, I want to share a quote you gave from Confucius in your article:
“If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.”
With that being said, and in order to talk about your article we need to introduce, briefly, the article from Ralph Hancock entitled Eternal Womanhood and the Limits of Public Recognition as posted on Patheos. What is that article and how did it fertilize the article you wrote for Square Two?
What are some examples of these terms that come loaded with some baggage that doesn’t seem to do justice to LDS theology?
You state in the article that you wanted to create a wiki-dictionary of new terms- created by women—about experiences that are exclusive to feminine experiences. Why is that NOT happening?
Theme: Our people need to know that God wants them to be free—and what this means. Our people need to know that God is fair—and what this means. Our people need to know that even in the context of sexual difference, men and women stand as equals before God—and what this means.
In Argumentato Pietatis – You suggest using language to reclaim language. What is In Argumentato Pietatis, and how does this approach form your argument?
[This post originally appeared at Virtuous Society and is reposted here with the author’s permission.]
Written by Tom Stringham
Do young Latter-day Saints, and especially gay youth, commit suicide at a higher rate than other youth in the US? The short answer: with the data we have, we don’t know. So what do we know for sure? The Mormon teen suicide problem Some readers may have read a recent interview in the Huffington Post with Wendy Williams Montgomery, a Californian mom and LGBT advocate. In the interview, Montgomery refers to a widely recognized problem within Mormon culture: the high rate of suicides among gay youth. “Mormons,” Montgomery asserts, “have the highest rate of gay teen suicides in the country.”
Over the last few years, the idea that Mormons have a problem with teen suicide, especially among gay youth, has become common wisdom. In 2012, a Reuters article highlighted the issue of gay teen suicide in Utah. The Huffington Post has featured the issue multiple times, as in a 2012 post. High-profile Mormon critic John Dehlin frequently discusses gay teen suicide among Mormons, and recently referred to the phenomenon as epidemic. His characterization seems to fit the general impression: Mormons have a special problem with suicide among gay teens.
Missing data
There is no question that gay teen suicide is a reality among Mormon youth. In many cases, we have heard their stories, either through media or personal experience. Fortunately, we are more aware of this reality than we were in the past. Unfortunately, however, these stories seem to be accompanied, more and more frequently, by statistical claims that are not supported by data. Ms. Montgomery’s assertion that Mormons have the highest gay teen suicide rate in the country is unsourced in the original interview, and other blogs and outlets making similar claims are also missing sources. I surveyed all the government and health data I could find on youth suicide in the United States, and was unable to find any agency that collects public data by religion or sexual orientation (data so specific would be very difficult to collect). In fact, the American Association of Suicidology’s LGBT Resource Sheet notes, “to date, there is no empirical data regarding the number of completed suicides within the LGBT community.” The claim appears to be fabricated.
Other claims to the effect that Mormons, or Utahns, have a unique or unusually acute problem with gay teen suicide, or even teen suicide, cannot be supported by any data I can find.
The data we do have
Much of the interest in Mormons and teen suicide seems to originate from a 2006 article in the Deseret News, a newspaper owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The article pointed out a few statistics about suicide that would have been surprising to most readers at the time. First, that Utah had the highest rate of suicide among males age 15-24. Second, that Utah had the 11th highest overall suicide rate in the United States. And third, that the youth suicide rate in Utah had tripled over the preceding half-century (in fact, this is true across the United States). The newspaper didn’t cite its sources, but all of the categories of statistics they refer to are available through the CDC and other federal sources and appear to be genuine.
What else do we know? The data in that report is now nine years old, so it’s worth taking stock of the current reality. I’ve collected a set of more recent figures below, from public data and representative surveys:
A collection of more recent statistics is below:
To the best of my knowledge, these statistics are the closest we can come to answering the statistical questions surrounding gay teen suicide among Mormons, or within Utah. Specifically targeted data on completed or attempted suicide among gay Mormon teens simply isn’t available. The data speak well enough for themselves, but it’s worth pointing out that none of the relevant data points appear to justify an unusual suspicion about Utah (or, by extension, Mormons). This is especially true since the surprisingly strong link between high altitude and suicide rates has become well established. Among high-altitude states in the Rocky Mountain West, Utah appears to have overall rates within the average range, and youth rates slightly lower than the average. We have no empirical data specific to Utah for gay and lesbian youth, but we can assume that like other states, the rate of attempted suicide, and presumably completed suicide, is considerably higher than for straight youth.
It’s also worth noting that Utah’s overall suicide rate has increased relative to other states since 2006, while its youth suicide rate has fallen in comparison to other states. Furthermore, the Add- Health dataset mentioned above suggests that Mormon gay youth are relatively less at risk for suicide than nonreligious gay youth.
Conclusions
While only systematic recordkeeping and representative surveys can answer the questions we’re most interested in, we shouldn’t ignore anecdotal evidence about suicide. The sense among many concerned observers in Utah and elsewhere that the situation is bad and getting worse probably reflects an important reality. Youth suicide in the US has quickly gotten worse over the decades, and a disproportionate number of these suicides across the US, including within Utah, are among gay youth. Combined, these two trends might be giving an alarming impression to those concerned about the well-being of gay teens; an impression made locally that could be transformed into misplaced claims, such as Ms. Montgomery’s. So her hypothesis–that Mormons in particular have an unusually severe problem with gay teen suicide—could possibly be an observer’s local interpretation of nationwide trends, but it cannot be supported or rejected by the data itself, as far as I can tell.
The hypothesis cannot be confirmed or rejected by theory, either. Many advocates who highlight the issue of suicide among Mormons do so within the framework of a particular narrative, at the center of which is the idea that Latter-day Saint sexual values are harmful. Since there is no data to support the assertion of abnormal suicide rates, the theory seems to be doing all the work. But there are other theories that could be put forth—Latter-day Saints could just as well hypothesize that robust Mormon families and supportive faith communities lead to lower rates of suicide among gay youth. But this would also be unjustified; it would be best for everyone to refrain from attempting to explain phenomena for which there isn’t evidence in the first place.
Those who believe in Latter-day Saint sexual values and those who do not should be able to agree: one youth suicide is too many, including among gay youth. Even if the Mormon problem is not unique, it is still a problem. We don’t need statistics, and certainly not unsourced statistics, to tell us this.
[For further reading on this topic, please visit this link.]
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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith
by Michael R. Ash
In the book of Ether, the Lord instructed the brother of Jared to build eight barges so the Jaredites could travel to the Americas. These barges, patterned after Noah’s ark, were “tight like unto a dish,” peaked at both ends, and had holes which could be “unstop[ped]” in which to allow ventilation (see Ether 2:17, 20). When we examine non-Biblical writings that give greater detail about Noah’s ark than what we find in the Bible, we discover some interesting similarities to the oddities mentioned in the account of the Jaredite barges.
These ancient documents tell us that Noah’s boat had a portal that could be shut during the storm flood. The word ‘ark’ originally meant a box –such as a chest or coffin –that was covered with a lid. And just as the barges had ventilation holes, the ark had not only a door that could be shut, but at least one nappashu –this word is translated as “airhole” or “window” but means “breather” or “ventilator” and was not an ordinary window.
Few things have elicited more laughs from the critics than the use of “shining stones” in the Jaredite barges. According to the ancient Palestine Talmud, however, the Ark was illuminated with a miraculous light-giving stone. This precious stone, the ancient documents tell us, glowed for twelve months inside the ark and would dim during the day. As Dr. Hugh Nibley explains, of the four copies of the Palestine Talmud that mention the ark’s shining stones, two appeared thirty years after Joseph had already translated the Book of Mormon. In 1830, when the Book of Mormon was published, there was not a single translation of the Palestine Talmud available in any modern language.
Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.
Julianne Dehlin Hatton is a broadcast journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. She has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, Radio and Television Host, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.
Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.
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In what might be an unlikely option for people that are experiencing questions about their faith, on this episode, Nick Galieti sits down with Craig L. Foster of the Church’s Family History Library to talk about how doing Family History work can help people who are experiencing trials of faith, wanting to overcome addictions, or even dealing with depression.
