Category: Religion
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Charles Blows–So Says James Taranto, Sort of
By Gregory Taggart, February 24, 2012 4:37 pm
If you’ve never read James Taranto’s “Best of the Web” column in OpinionJournal.com, you should. Here’s his most recent effort. I particularly like his take on New York Times columnist Charles Blow. Enjoy.
Who’s Out of Touch?
By Gregory Taggart, February 23, 2012 11:47 pm
I planned on writing about Romney’s tenure as bishop and stake president. I may still do so. But for now, this will do.
A few years back, a hive of hornets decided to make its nest on top of a second-story swamp cooler outside my cousin’s Boston-area home. My cousin made an ill-fated attempt to remove the hornets, which resulted in a two-story fall and a broken arm.
“This looks like a job for your home teacher,” said my cousin’s home teacher.
The home teacher brought over his own ladder and clothed himself in homemade beekeeping gear. He then made his way to the hornet’s nest and gathered the whole thing up in a garbage bag, avoiding any stings or the more severe injuries that had beset my cousin. He did this with no public fanfare, no accolades, and no thought of collecting payment for his efforts.
And who was this noble home teacher? A man by the name of Mitt Romney.
And Romney’s out of touch? Don’t think so.
Well, You Win Some and then You Sometimes Lose Them
By Gregory Taggart, February 23, 2012 9:58 am
For Those Looking for Some Good Sabbath Reading
By Gregory Taggart, February 19, 2012 3:01 pm
Patheos is one of my favorite Sunday stops on the Web. There you’ll find well-written, reasoned, and balanced articles and blog posts on many, if not most, of the world’s religions. I’ve read widely on Catholicism and Mormonism on the site and learned a lot. Try it. You’ll like it.
“Going Home,” er, “Homeward Bound”
By Gregory Taggart, February 18, 2012 1:36 pm
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”:
So Sally Denton’s Arguments Are Specious? Who Knew?
By Gregory Taggart, February 16, 2012 7:04 pm
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.
The Mormon Practice of Baptism of the Dead
By Gregory Taggart, February 15, 2012 10:21 am
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:
1. Nobody, not even the dead, is forced to join the Mormon Church. Yes, we perform proxy baptisms in our temples on behalf of those who died without baptism, but it is part and parcel of our belief that those on the other side retain their free will and can accept or reject the baptism.
2. In response to complaints from the Jewish community, the Church had long ago stopped baptizing Holocaust victims, except in rare instances. In fact, “the policy of the Church is that members can request these baptisms only for their own ancestors.”
3. Mr. Weisel was never baptized.
4. Bottom line, the doctrine of proxy baptism is a doctrine of love and certainly not one of force. Moreover, the Church has bent over backwards in its efforts to explain the doctrine to concerned individuals and to accommodate those concerns without repudiating a core doctrine of the Church.
I hope this helps.
Robert Wright Sees the Light–and is Very Gracious About It
By Gregory Taggart, February 2, 2012 8:00 pm
In an short piece in The Atlantic titles The Virtue of the Mormon Afterlife, he writes
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 . . .
Go to the link to hear that news.
Trapped by the Non Mormon
By Gregory Taggart, February 2, 2012 4:49 pm
This
Caused me to think of this
Mitt, Trapped by the Donald?
Themocracy