The Gospel According to Jeffrey

In recent days, my beloved wife, Anna, has been conversing with a friend who has left The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I don’t think she’s actually had her baptism invalidated or anything, but the point is that she’s no longer attending Church and is identifying herself as an “ex-Mormon.” The saddest part is that when asked why she left the Church, this friend consistently cites a so-called “doctrine” that is actually diametrically opposed to what the Church teaches, but that she has somehow gotten into her head as the end-all and be-all of so-called “Mormonism.” I’ve actually interacted with plenty of self-described “exmos,” over the years, and as said interactions have forced me to study my own faith in greater depth, I have been somewhat bruised and battered along the way, but am ultimately much stronger for the experience. What has never ceased to amaze me, though, is how similar almost all of their stories are. Regardless of the specific issues they cite (which ...

A few days late, I realize, but I’ve just discovered that Liam Hoare (sorry I misspelled your name, by the way; I’ve fixed it in the original) has responded to my earlier post,  I Believe… . As my regular readers know, brevity is not my strong suit, but I will attempt to deal with his complaints succinctly. Liam’s response deals with the Church’s position on race—an issue which I asserted, and continue to assert—has been a non-issue from the start (see previous post). I will thus deal with his arguments in turn. 1. “Jeff makes the assertion in his reply that Joseph Smith was some kind of Lincoln before there was a Lincoln.” I actually didn’t say that, but it’s a good point. Joseph Smith, Jr., actually did run for President of the United States on an anti-slavery platform, in 1844. His position was that the United States government should outlaw any new slavery, then sell all federal lands and use the money to purchase the freedom of all existing slaves—which, by the way, wou...

Liam Hoare has a new post on Hackeryblog , wherein he asks several questions of Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, regarding his faith. Unfortunately, it’s obvious that Mr. Hoare knows little to nothing about the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ and, instead of taking five minutes to do some research, has decided to learn about it from the new  The Book of Mormon musical from the creators of South Park , presumably on the grounds that they portray everything else so accurately. ;-) Anyway, the point is that I’d like to take a few minutes to answer his questions. Hopefully Mitt won’t mind. :-) Hoare asks: Do you believe that the current President of the LDS Church Thomas S. Monson speaks directly to God? First of all, there’s no such thing as “the LDS Church.” Mitt Romney is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you’d like a shorter version of that name, “the Church of Jesus Christ” will do. If you’d like more information on this, please check ...