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Humanist, there are 3 internet sites I can suggest to help you keep up on Mormon current events & culture. 1) MormonHaven.com is a collection of news articles selected from the internet updated almost every day. It generally is positive, but doesn’t avoid negative stories. 2) MormonTimes.com is a Deseret News production that predictably minimizes negative stories but does a professional job of reporting LDS stories, most of which are original with them. 3) As a columnist in MormonTimes, Michael Ash addresses some contemporary issues facing the Church that you or your family might find helpful. His series “Challenging issues and keeping the faith” may be of particular interest. Find his articles at http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/michael_r_ash/?showAll=1 Some books by non-Mmormons on spiritual issues include “Chop Wood Carry Water, A guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everyday Life”, by Rick Fields and others. “Faith of a Heretic, What can I believe? How should I live? What do I hope?” by Walter Kaufmann. The Philosophy of Martin Buber, by Hilary Evans Bender.
I also recommend one book by a Mormon is “Believing Christ, Parable of the Bicycle and other Good News” by Stephen E. Robinson. IMO, he gives the most understandable explanation of how we might relate to Christ and the Atonement. He is professor of Ancient Religion at BYU & has also taught at Duke Univ, Lycoming College & Hampden-Sydney College. He talks in language doubters and skeptics can understand.
I hope this helps.
In my ward, my wife attends what she calls “old fart’s relief society” which primarily are the over 40 crowd, and their husbands as desired who spend much of their time functioning as a book club. They review books about reasonably balanced between “faith promoting” and otherwise interesting. Separately, we attend an “empty nester’s FHE.” It meets monthly to discuss some topic of interest. It’s members all take the Church seriously, but we aren’t necessarily orthodox. Last month’s class was on oriental meditation techniques.
Daisy, Herzlich willkommen! (A hearty welcome) Thank you so much for sharing your feelings with such honesty and clarity. You don’t have to feel verklempt here, for most of us on this forum have either similar experiences or we know others who do. Some of us, me included, have worked through the crap and come out the other end the better person for it, and even can start to function within the Church with some sense of peace and equanimity. But I can’t pretend to tell you if or how that might work for you. One thing is obvious is your love for the Savior. I am in awe that you feel so strongly about your relationship with Him and other people. “If you have done it to the least of these, thy brethren, you have done it unto me.” I must push myself to get outside my little ego.
The one thing I would suggest that might help, is to find what it is within Mormondom that does feel right and good. Make it your own, and the other stuff, recognize that you just can’t accept it is from God, for example, leader worship and Utah arrogance. If you don’t understand something and can’t resolve it, it may be helpful if you can put it on the shelf until such time in the future you can revisit it. Then it may be possible for you to start dealing with Mormondom on your terms, not theirs. Who knows, you may be able to show some of those know-it-all’s what it means to love the Savior. If you could do that, how would that feel?
Heber, Let me try again with a more direct response to your question of whether the Church is being more open and forth coming. I understand the concern many have because the Church has alternatively encouraged and then discouraged investigation into it’s history. I have followed the Joseph Smith’s Papers Project closely, and it is showing very encouraging signs. Under President Hinkley, the Church opened up it’s archives to the researchers reportedly with instructions to let the chips fall where they may. President Monson has done nothing I believe to change anything. And volume II has come out just recently.
To further certify that the project had the highest degree of scholarly integrity it got the certification of the National Archives. Further more, they are not interpreting their finding. The approach the National Archives certified the on is to simply reproduce ALL documents without interpretation. They can and do provide background and context to understand what the documents are, but the interpretation and analysis of them is left to others. It is simply outside the scope of their work.
Bushman’s book “Rough Stone Rolling” came out of some of the earliest research, and is an example of interpretive history. Bushman also contributed to that research, and I believe that his book is a reasonable attempt to report some of those findings while also being honest with reporting his bias as an active Mormon. Other authors, Mormon or not, will be free to interpret the raw information presented in the Joseph Smith Papers.
“Massacre at Mountain Meadows” by Walker, Turley and Leonard similarly plows new ground, presenting new info even if not flattering and attempting to give an even-handed approach to interpreting the history.
I have also read, though I don’t have the original documentation, that President Monson has said he believes after the Joseph Smith Project is completed, the research effort should continue until all subsequent Church history is likewise documented. Sounds encouraging to me.
Whether this openness is limited to history, I do not know. In the recent past, I have not read anything that the Church has done to quieten members who actively support “gay rights” and opposed them with California’s Proposition 8 last election. The only thing I recall is a recent speech Dalin Oaks gave at BYU Idaho challenging the the very aggressive response it got from the gay community over Prop 8, but he did not challenge the right of members to support gay marriage.
While the Church seldom responds to critics, but many sites on the internet do address them. For example jefflindsay.com fairlds.org mi.byu.edu answeringthecritics.blogspot.com. There are many others I can add to to the list, but my computer suffered a hard crash recently so I will need some time to resurrect them. In the mean time, here’s a copy of an article on MormonTimes.com dated Thursday, Oct. 08, 2009 which discusses the Church’s intentions about the internet
LDS Church using the Internet to its advantageBy Aaron Shill
Mormon Times
PROVO, Utah — Official LDS Church content on the Web now branches beyond lds.org.
And more is coming.
Read more stories from the 2009 BYU Campus Education Week
There are “Mormon Messages” on YouTube, the Mormon Channel streaming online and several sites designed specifically for search engine optimization. Future offerings may include personalized online general conference journals, upgraded ward directories and content for mobile phones.
“We all believe and know that the Lord has given us (technology) for a purpose,” said Ron Schwendiman, manager of curriculum processes for the LDS Church.
Schwendiman recently gave a Campus Education Week audience a look at what is and “what might be” for the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints online, offering examples of how the church is both broadening its reach and enhancing online resources for members.
One effective project involved a venture into unlikely territory. Schwendiman pointed to the church’s success on YouTube — which can be a “scary place.”
“There’s a lot of bad stuff on YouTube,” he said.
The LDS Church, however, now has an official channel on the site where it broadcasts
Mormon Messages– general conference vignettes set to music and video. They’re easy to produce, Schwendiman said, and the church posts one or two per week.About 549,000 people watched an Easter message given by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, making it the No. 1 video on YouTube for several days afterward.Many of the viewers and those making comments were not church members, Schwendiman said. “It is amazing how many views we get,” he said. “That is the kind of direction we’re now headed as we’re trying to proclaim more of the messages of the Restoration.”
The church has also developed about 20 different Web sitesspecifically for search engine optimization. One example is lds.org/jesuschrist. It differs from jesuschrist.lds.org, a site launched last year, in that it is built specifically for Google searches. Such sites are designed for general audiences and serve as a gateway to content on the church’s primary Web site. There are sites dedicated to family, prayer and church leaders such as Presidents Thomas S. Monson and Gordon B. Hinckley.
Schwendiman emphasized the importance of making edifying and compelling content easier to find.
“We’re trying to improve that,” he said, adding that a team of 20 people is focused solely on making the search experience better.
One area of focus is language transition. Different language options for content do exist on lds.org but haven’t been promoted because they’re difficult to navigate.
Schwendiman said the goal is to have 10 languages available in a consistent format with navigable screens within the next year.
Those who are interested in learning about projects under development have a few options. LDSTech is an open, public site that provides “a glimpse into” the technical work being done by the church.
Labs.lds.org is where church members can experience ideas under development and offer feedback, though some are just “rough concepts.” The site is a “closed environment,” Schewendiman said, and requires a user name and password.
Church members can create a login for labs.lds.org at the new LDS Account site, which will eventually create a “single sign-on experience” for all the church’s Web sites, Schwendiman said.
One of the projects currently on the labs site is a general conference experience. The site features a search tool for finding talks by session, speaker, topic or keyword, while a “personalized study” tool allows users to tag, highlight and add notes to the text of talks and save them in a personal journal.
Other projects include a revamped ward directory site, a youth experience site, and general conference and ward directory options for mobile browsers.
Worldwide there are more cell phone users than Internet users, Schwendiman said, and developers are “trying to figure out ways we can move to the phone.”
With Mormon Radio now online, an online TV station is also a future possibility, Schwendiman said.
He acknowledged that Latter-day Saints are hungry for more features, but providing what members need and want is not an easy process, Schwendiman said. It requires people, time and, in the case of lds.org, an investment in new technology.
“The church has over 60 million page views a month and over 100,000 pages of content on lds.org,” Schwendiman added later. “It all takes work.” Lds.org has exceeded its foundational technology, making it difficult to implement new features that members need and want.
“They’re on the plan, but it isn’t as easy as it sounds,” he said. “We’re in a transition.”
