As I mentioned in a previous post, my brother Jeff died on February 6, 2012. He was predeceased by his father, grandparents, various uncles and aunts, cousin-uncles and cousin-aunts (a Taggart family genealogical category that should be standard issue), and friends. All of which makes the opening choir number at his funeral even more moving.
The Cody Combined Ward Choir sang “Going Home” to open the funeral. Then I spoke. My first words were, “I’m going to pay the choir the highest compliment that can be paid a choir: I thought I was at a funeral in Cowley.” Those from or with roots in Cowley will understand. For those who don’t have those ties, here’s another comparison: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Orchestra at Temple Square, and choir member Alex Boye performing Dvorak’s “Going Home.” Yes, the Cody Choir was that good:
UPDATE: This is a bit embarrassing. I was so caught up in the music “Going Home” that I misremembered. In fact, the Cody Choir sang “Homeward Bound,” an equally beautiful piece. If there’s a redeeming feature in my mistake, it’s that Jeff would have been the first to correct me–humorously, of course. Instead, it was my cousin Dana. Here’s “Homeward Bound”:
To me–a Mormon–Protocol of the Elders by Yair Rosenberg is a welcome relief from the myriad uninformed, and sometimes deluded, stories by those who dare tell of–yea, expose–the mysterious world of Mormonism. Sally Denton is one of the latter and one who Rosenberg quotes a few times before he writes of her “specious argument.”
Tellingly, the sort of specious argument that Salon’s Denton makes about the perils of Mormon theocracy is exactly the sort of conspiracy theory that the same publication rightly denounces when it comes from Robert Spencer about Muslims and the threat of creeping Sharia. The latter narrative is clearly seen as false, but the equally problematic nature of the anti-Mormon argument is obscured by partisan blinders.
Sadly, Sally has been spreading her spurious conspiracy claptrap for some time now. I first heard of her when American Heritage magazine gave her the last few pages of one issue to peddle her poorly researched and very biased account of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. She now has a book out about how the Right plotted against FDR–and apparently loves to draw parallels between that day and this (she was on NPR peddling her book the other day–NPR! What were they thinking?). I guess America loves a secret exposed–so to speak. Just look at Sally’s bio at American Heritage:
Sally Denton is an investigative reporter and author who writes about America’s hidden history. She has written six books, including her most recent, Pink Lady: The Many Lives of Helen Gahagan Douglas, released in 2009. She was honored with the Woodrow Wilson Public Scholar Fellowship in 2010, and entered the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame in 2008. (emphasis mine)
Sorry, but you’re going to have to find links to Sally’s sad oeuvre by yourself. I’ve already given her more publicity than she deserves–and nobody reads my blog. I will, however, give you a link to a review of her very bad book on Mountain Meadows.
I get the initial concern, even the outrage, over the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’s (the Mormons) practice of posthumous baptism of the dead. What I don’t get is the outrage after the practice has been explained, time and time again. But with hope in my heart, I’ll give it another shot:
Mormonism just rose in my estimation. I was talking to Joanna Brooks–a Mormon who writes the Ask Mormon Girl advice column and is the author of The Book of Mormon Girl– when conversation turned to the afterlife. The news she brought was good even for us non-Mormons . . .
Today on The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru writes about the move by Republicans in the House and Senate to restore religious liberties abrogated recently by the Obama Administration, which
has decided to require religious institutions that offer insurance to cover contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients, whether or not they object to covering them. Churches would be exempt but not, for example, Catholic universities or hospitals.
My Twitter feed has been alive with conversation about what the Administration has done, but I’ve paid scant attention. I’ll be more attentive from now on because this disturbs me. At one time, I was anti-abortion but pro-choice. No longer. Over the years, I’ve changed my views to anti-abortion, give-the-child-up-for-adoption-if-necessary. To me, if there is any doubt about whether that life begins at conception, then the doubt should favor the possibility of life. Moreover, if Jefferson’s wall separating church and state means anything, it means something here in the domain of all things sacred to religious folk and institutions.
So, on the day of the Florida Primary, the New York Times decided to scare the bejiggers out of the voters with a piece titled, What is it About Mormons?, which followed close on the heels of yesterday’s Washington Post op-ed piece, A Mormon church in need of reform. Can the nation’s other great papers be far behind?
The first question that comes to the mind of this Mormon is whether the rest of the reporting in these two papers is so ill-informed and/or bitter as these pieces are. And then other questions: Why today? Is it a coincidence that the Times piece came out today, the day of the Florida Primary? Why Sally Denton? Yes, she wrote a very bad book about a very bad event–a tragedy–in Mormon history, but it was a very bad, even a lousy, book, so why her? (By the way, if you’re interested in knowing how bad her book is go here and follow the links to the reviews by people who actually do know something about the Mountain Meadows Massacre.) And the really big question, why not have a Times reporter write the story? I’m assuming that the paper of record holds its actual reporters to a higher standard than it does the hacks it let write this piece (Maffly-Kip and Reiss excepted). Or put another way, do these women appreciate playing the role of the puppets in this show?
I’m not going to try and respond to either piece here. I will, however, refer the reader to sites that give a more accurate picture of Mormonism, starting with the Church’s two official sites, then the leading scholarly site and the most prominent apologetics site. All of them give a clearer picture of Mormonism than do either of these two pieces–again the Reiss and Maffly offerings excepted. Finally, here is my own guide to anti-Mormon writing, a response to Martha Nibley Beck’s horrible little tome of a few years ago, a response that deals with many of the same defects you’ll find in the Times and Post pieces.
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