Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Mormonism: A Religion of the Head or of the Heart?

That question is not as straightforward as you might think. Garry Wills' Head and Heart: American Christianities (Penguin Press, 2007) reviews these two different approaches and uses them to structure his history of Christianity in America. It is an effective format that helps the reader follow developments, in contrast to most histories of religion in America which are often overloaded with doctrinal and denominational details that have little interest for most contemporary readers.

The Bott Affair: Winners and Losers

It has been only one week since the initial Washington Post article quoting BYU Professor Randy Bott's controversial statements was published. [See Kent's very helpful ongoing chronology of events and published stories.] But a week is a lifetime online. While official and unofficial reactions will continue to play out over coming weeks and months, we can already see who the winners and losers are among the main players. Briefly, the winners are the LDS Church, LDS Public Affairs, LDS bloggers and columnists, the mainstream media, and the rank and file members of the Church. The losers are BYU and the BYU College of Religious Education. Professor Bott gets a category of his own.

Religious Anti-Intellectualism

A few weeks ago two Evangelical scholars authored "The Evangelical Rejection of Reason," an op-ed at the New York Times lamenting the fact that the Republican primary race "has become a showcase of evangelical anti-intellectualism." While the Mormons in the race, Romney and Huntsman, were described as "the two candidates who espouse the greatest support for science," the discussion still invites the LDS reader to reflect a bit on whether there is a similar strain of LDS anti-intellectualism evident in LDS culture if not in LDS presidential candidates.

LDS Men Aren't Incredible

Wheat & Tares ran a fun post earlier this week titled LDS Men Are Incredible ... although the URL string shows that the original draft title of the post was "Why Men Suck." That kind of marks off the two ends of the spectrum, doesn't it? That's a nice lead-in for the question: What remarks are going to be directed at LDS men in next week's General Conference?

A Woman's Religion?

That's the title of Chapter 7 in Christianity: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2004) by Linda Woodhead, in which the author tackles the general problem of the gender gap (women are disproportionately represented in the pool of church-goers across all Christian denominations, including the LDS Church). Why so many women and why not more men in most congregations?

Making Mormons in the 21st Century

Jan Shipps always has something interesting to say about Mormonism. An essay you might not have run across is "Making Saints: In the Early Days and the Latter Days," in Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives (Univ. of Illinois Press, 1994). It turns out that becoming a Latter-day Saint (or acquiring the characteristics of Mormon ethnicity) involves more than just conversion or joining the Church.

More on the Mormon Gender Gap

Once upon a time, I wrote a post titled "The Puzzling Mormon Gender Gap." It is still puzzling, primarily because it seems so inconsistent with the popular picture of the Church as a patriarchal institution run by old white males. When the topic came up recently in a ZD thread, the ZD discussants (generally a fairly rational bunch) simply denied the data. Well, I think the question is too important and too interesting to dismiss simply because LDS feminists (and I use that as a descriptive term, not a dismissive one) don't want to talk about it.

Debating Mormonism

A few weeks ago I judged several rounds of a debating tournament held at the local high school. Teams from all over the state participated. Imagine walking by a high school cafeteria and seeing a couple of hundred students dressed in suits and skirts, chattering like all kids do but also pouring over notes and outlines for the upcoming matches. It was an impressive sight.

Correlation is Killing Sunday School

Once upon a time, there was Sunday School, an independent auxiliary whose officers were appointed by senior LDS leaders and whose primary task was to develop a Sunday School curriculum, and commission and supervise the writing of lesson manuals. They did a nice job. Then came Correlation.

Perceptions of Mormonism

The Deseret News posted an article ("Mormons need to work to increase favor") summarizing remarks by Gary Lawrence at the recent FAIR Conference held last week in Sandy. He addressed perceptions of Mormonism, based on data gathered by his polling firm. We've got some problems, it seems.

Sleep, Success, and Seminary

Sleep: it's more important than you think, especially for teenagers. Here's from George Will's latest column, "How to ruin a child":

Only 5 percent of high school seniors get eight hours of sleep a night. Children get an hour less than they did 30 years ago, which subtracts IQ points and adds body weight.

Good Thoughts on Teaching Sunday School

My second-favorite group blog recently posted a series on what's wrong with Sunday School, showing once again that we bloggers are, if nothing else, talented complainers. So let's talk teaching and collect a few simple suggestions for improvement.

Calling All Introverts

There's hope! At least that's the message of a couple of posts I read through lately (here and here) presenting an interview with Adam McHugh, the author of Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture. By "Church" he means Evangelicals, not the LDS Church, but the discussion is still relevant to us.

We're All Middle-Way Mormons

At the picturesque blog Third-Wave Mormon is a post titled "Is the Middle Way Actually Possible in Mormonism?" Of course it is. We're all in it.

What Kind of Mormon Are You?

The most frequently encountered terms used in internal discourse to categorize Mormons are "active" and "less active" (the updated form of "inactive"). However, these terms aren't generally recognized or understood by non-LDS and so aren't very useful for journalists. So what terms do journalists use to convey to readers the level of participation of a Mormon subject? And are there other or better terms we might use inside the Church?

Young Mormon Scholars, Bloggers, and Readers

On Saturday night I attended a Miller-Eccles presentation by Kristine Haglund, the managing editor at Dialogue. In the first half of her presentation, she talked about the present state of Mormon Studies and what younger Mormon scholars are doing. Kristine herself may have been the youngest in attendance, a hopeful sign for Dialogue, which needs to find a way to turn potential younger readers into paying subscribers. She apparently became interested in Mormon Studies through blogging and was an early T&S permablogger.

Life on the Fringe

I've seen several links but no discussion of the Slate piece on the hypothetical future role of Mormons, "The Catholic Church helped preserve Roman civilization. Can Mormonism do the same for America?" It's part of an eight-part series on the theme How is America going to end? by a Slate senior editor.

New Primary Lesson Needed

Suggested lesson topic: What to do when you are seven years old and do not want to go to church. Yes, I finally watched the video of the seven-year-old kid who drove away in the family car to avoid going to church (see posts at Get Religion or the SL Trib for details and the video). The story coyly refrains from noting which church the kid was fleeing, but the video comes courtesy of the Weber County Sheriff's Office, so I'm just guessing ...

The Meanings of Zion

This is the third post on Richard L. Bushman's Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2008). [See Part 1 and Part 2.] In Chapter Three, Bushman reviews the several meanings of the term "Zion" in LDS doctrine and thinking.

A Statistical Portrait of Mormons

The Pew Forum recently issued a detailed summary of survey information about Mormons gathered as part of a much larger survey of religious life in the United States. It is a very readable summary, noting that Mormons comprise 1.7% of adults in the US; 35% of Mormon adults live in Utah and 13% live in California; Mormons are more likely to be married and more likely to be a college graduate than a member of the general population; and so forth.

God and Robots

They're coming. Even if you don't own a robot vacuum cleaner or lawnmower, you've been dealing with robots for many years now without realizing it: ATMs, kiosks that vend DVDs, the scan-it-yourself devices at the grocery store that greet you with a friendly "Welcome, valued customer!" and conclude with a brisk "Your receipt is printing. Don't forget to pick up your change!" How long before the Church starts using robots for some functions? Please, no snarky comments. This is a serious topic.

Is Mormonism a World Religion?

That question has been getting more consideration recently, with the general consensus being, "No, at least not yet." By Common Consent is posting an academic piece by scholar Walter E. A. van Beek that helps understand the question. He uses the examples of Islam and Roman Catholicism to highlight diversity within the religion as a key indicator of world status.

The diversity mentioned in Islam and Catholicism allows for identification processes of the individual with that religion, that vary widely. People may define themselves as Catholic or Muslim on widely diverging grounds, ranging from full and total commitment (the literal meaning of "Islam") to identification of a very low intensity.

Upbeat Reflections on BYU

I recently spent a day on the BYU campus as part of an informal reunion with several old dorm-floor roommates and family members. It was a nice visit, and made me recognize something that often gets forgotten in online discussions about BYU: It is a great place for LDS kids to go to college.

Mormonism as a Symbol Whose Meaning Is Changing

At Get Religion, "The Mormons are coming!", taking issue with aspects of a Washington Post article of the same name. I would summarize the general problem in simpler terms: some journalists in the mainstream press believe their own propaganda, which they use to frame most stories and to select friendly facts. Let's look at an example from the Get Religion post, then hit the larger issue of what the post reveals about the evolving use of Mormonism as a symbol.

The Puzzling Mormon Gender Gap

From a Washington Times article "Marriage as a Mormon value"

According to [the] Pew [Forum], Mormons have one of the most lopsided gender ratios of any religion: 44 percent men and 56 percent women.

You can't argue with the gender gap -- that's what the data is. The question is why such a disproportional gender gap emerges in the LDS Church. [And let's just take it for granted it's not because the researchers just forgot to factor in all those absent 19-to-21-year-old men off serving missions.]