Beliefnet Link

I just added Beliefnet's Mormon page to my Media links section. It features a variety of articles pulled from various newspapers and journals, such as Mormon Feminists? by Peggy Fletcher Stack of the SL Trib, wondering where all the LDS feminists have gone. It also posts regular original content columns by three LDS writers: Orson Scott Card (who seems to be everywhere these days), Linda Hoffman Kimball, and Jan Shipps (honorary Mormon). The columns look like a nice resource for blog discussions. Here are some examples:

Orson Scott Card's What Will the Church Do After Scouting?, including a short comment on OSC's experience teaching 9-year-old boys in the Primary (they loved him). In the article, he argues that Scouting is the only program aimed at Mormon boys that actually works well.

Jan Shipps' Confronting the Mormon Question, discussing how she helped her own denomnation, the Methodists, figure out what to do with Mormons who want to convert. Briefly, they decided to give them the Methodist Christian equivalent of the LDS missionary discussions. The essay notes the interesting statistic that about one-third of SLC Protestant and Catholic congregations are former Mormons.

Linda Hoffman Kimball's Mormon Kosher takes a detailed but common-sense look at the Word of Wisdom, past and present. Only in Mormonism is iced tea considered a "hot drink," but not hot chocolate. Mormons just use words differently from everyone else. Eating meat "sparingly," for example, now extends to eating like a carnivore.

Comments

[Joel]

I've always wondered, ever since I actually READ the WW, why Mormons were so down on alcohol, coffee and such, but didn't worry about meat. The other prohibitions everybody knows about, but I had no idea meat was even an issue until then.

I suspect it's probably because it's easier to abstain completely frpom something than to moderate it, and easier still to define abstinence than moderation. (And I'd rather give up beer than meat, any day,as I suspect would most folks.) Still, I think it's curious that it's not mentioned more than it is.

[Dave]

Nice observation, Joel. It's obvious to outsiders who are familiar with the present LDS "Word of Wisdom" list of food taboos that it bears little relation to the text of D&C 89, but given the historical link between the two Mormons will uniformly state that the present "Word of Wisdom" comes right out of D&C 89.