A faithful perspective on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other stuff. Bah.
I have occasionally paraphrased a quote that I have attributed (possibly erroneously) to LDS Apostle B. H. Roberts. It goes something like this:
God has give us two accounts of the creation of the earth. One is written on the pages of the Bible and the other is recorded in the layers of crust of the earth. It is only due to our misunderstanding of each that they disagree.
No, I do not mean Jobs as in Steve Jobs. I’m talking about J-oh-bah, or Jobe, as in book of Job. It is my new favorite book. Why? Because Job thinks like me and probably like you (since you are reading The Grumpy Mormon). Continue reading “Job, My Hero”
A close friend, Paul, and I have known each other since grade school. Even though we lived in separate communities, we managed to spend much of our summers together Continue reading “The Fish and the Forester”
To me home teaching has always been a classic example of tension between the ideal and practical. Continue reading “Hi-ho, Home Teaching is Dead”
A week ago our family watched a movie called “The Letters.” It is a fascinating story of the work and life of Mother Teresa. It describes the challenges she faced in her desire to serve the poorest of the poor while simultaneously struggling with a personal spiritual insensitivity. Continue reading “Humanitarian Missions”
In 1985, Krister Stendahl (1921-2008), a Swedish theologian and New Testament scholar, proposed what has become know as Stendahl’s three rules of religious understanding. These are:
Yes, I finished another book, Joseph Smith’s First Vision – A Guide to the Historical Accounts By Steven C. Harper.
It is a rather short book that I read in preparation for a Doctrine and Donuts discussion on first vision accounts.
Falling Upward by Richard Rohr is a great complement to Kathy Escobar’s Faith Shift.
Rohr’s book is a meandering description of one’s (potential) journey of faith and is rich with hidden gems. Continue reading “Stages of Faith – Part Three – Falling Upward”
I finished reading Faith Shift by Kathy Escobar and have been struggling about how to present the book and the material.
Kathy Escobar was a dedicated Evangelical Christian that had a desire to serve in a greater capacity than her church allowed for women. She eventually received a counseling degree and involved herself in a large, nondenominational church. She soon realized that what was going on behind the scenes was nothing like the façade presented to the congregation; it was all for show.
Wow, in looking over my last posts, it looks like I am jumping ship on Mormonism and joining the Catholic church. That is not the case, but why spoil a good pattern.
The Mormon church is very efficient. Most new congregational buildings are uniform and optimized. Leadership practices are codified in handbooks. And, worship services are plain and simple. Continue reading “A St. John’s Christmas”
