4 things to remember about the church before you judge
Church

4 things to remember about the church before you judge

This guest post is written by Kate Harveston, a writer and political activist from Pennsylvania. She blogs about culture and politics, and the various ways that those elements act upon each other. For more of her work, you can follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her blog, Only Slightly Biased.

Christians in today’s society have been given a bad name, often because the loudest, most judgmental ones are the people who capture the headlines and make others think that all people who subscribe to the faith are against entire demographic groups, such as the LGBT community, Muslims, or even women.

However, Christianity is a more diverse religion than you may realize, and it’s important not to become overly closed-minded and make assumptions by getting too focused on the downsides when examining the faith.

There are numerous admirable things associated with Christians, some of which are outlined below. Continue reading “4 things to remember about the church before you judge”

“But it’s not natural . . .”
LGBTQ, Marriage

“But it’s not natural . . .”

If your Facebook News Feed was anything like mine during the second week of July, you probably saw a lot of posts about Teen Vogue’s article on anal sex. Most of it probably in opposition to the article. There were even progressive voices criticizing it.

But this post isn’t about anal sex. Well, not really.

Last week, I was discussing the article after a Facebook friend posted a popular video of a woman criticizing the article. In this discussion, someone labelled anal sex as unnatural, using phrases like “against how the body is constructed” and “the anal (sic) is not made for that purpose”.

And it’s that idea of nature that I want to discuss. Continue reading ““But it’s not natural . . .””

Will a man rob God?
Tithing

Will a man rob God?

If you’re Mormon, you’ve probably seen this scripture before:

“Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” (Mal. 3:8–10)

It’s a scripture mastery. It’s in the Preach My Gospel manual that full-time missionaries use. It’s in the Gospel Principles manual. It’s the the Gospel Doctrine manual. It’s been used by many leaders in General Conference talks. It’s one of the most popular scriptures used in Sacrament Meeting talks on the topic of tithing.

Despite it’s ubiquity, I wonder if perhaps we’ve been getting it wrong all this time. Continue reading “Will a man rob God?”

The LDS church is wrong about same-sex marriage. Again.
Gay, LGBTQ, Marriage

The LDS church is wrong about same-sex marriage. Again.

Elder Larry R. Lawrence of the Seventy wrote an article titled “The War Goes On”. It appears in the April 2017 issue of The Ensign, an official publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Here is a quote from that article:

“Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, but same-sex marriage is only a counterfeit. It brings neither posterity nor exaltation. Although [Satan’s] imitations deceive many people, they are not the real thing. They cannot bring lasting happiness.”

See? This is just more proof that even in 2017, the LDS church just doesn’t get it. They can think they’re all clever and progressive by dropping the S from mormonsandgays.com, but stuff like this just reiterates how out of touch leaders are on the topic of its LGBTQ members. They literally don’t get it.

There are a few problems with this statement: Continue reading “The LDS church is wrong about same-sex marriage. Again.”

6 poems about faith crisis
Faith crisis series

6 poems about faith crisis

I just found out yesterday that this month is #OctPoWriMo (October Poetry Writing Month), a play on #NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which occurs every November.

Coincidentally, I’ve written 6 new poems over the last few weeks. I had planned to write only one poem, but it started to go in a different direction. I knew that I had to write another. Then another. And another.

Then Gina Colvin interviewed Lindsay Hansen Park on A Thoughtful Faith in an episode called “Critiquing Progressive Mormonism”, and all of a sudden, I had loads of ideas for future poems.

What started out as a single poem about my recent faith crisis has morphed into a series. So far, I have just 6, but I plan to write a few more exploring various aspects of faith crisis, especially in a Mormon context.

Anyhow, I wanted to share what I’ve written so far, so here they are (with a brief summary of each). Keep in mind that I typically like to use a lot of symbolism, some of it subtle and some of it obvious. See if you can find all the symbols I’ve used. Continue reading “6 poems about faith crisis”

The prohibition on praying to Heavenly Mother doesn’t make sense
Heavenly Mother

The prohibition on praying to Heavenly Mother doesn’t make sense

I’ve been thinking about the female divine recently, although I can’t remember what prompted these thoughts.

In Mormonism, we often refer to the female divine as “Mother in Heaven” or “Heavenly Mother”. We know little about her, but we know that she is apparently equal to God. Well, except in one important way:

We don’t pray to Heavenly Mother. Continue reading “The prohibition on praying to Heavenly Mother doesn’t make sense”