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 ...

So in case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past week or two, the Rapture is upon us . According to radio broadcaster  Harold Camping , tomorrow, 21 May 2011, will begin the “End Times” as millions of Christians are taken up into Heaven and everybody else—presumably including those of us who do not revere Mr. Camping as God’s duly authorized mouthpiece—will be left behind (perhaps with Kirk Cameron ) for Earth’s last five months of existence before the end. (And you thought that the end wouldn’t come until 21 December 2012. Of course, dear reader, you are wrong.) Of course, the biggest tragedy of all this is that after fourteen months of waiting, our ward’s  new meetinghouse  isn’t scheduled to be dedicated until Sunday evening, 22 May 2011. This wouldn’t be so bad, except I would think that Elder Lansing—the seventy who is scheduled to dedicate it—will presumably be twinkled into his resurrected state tomorrow, and I guess he probably won’t come back until after...