The false rhetoric of cursing

I just came across a claim that "Just like the church believed and taught that a colored individual was cursed to hell years ago. " This is demonsttably false. The Church teaches that the door to salvation is baptism, thus no one who is baptized can be cursed to hell. So, the fact that the Church has always been willing to baptize individuals of African descent shows this misrepresents what the Church taught.

Beyond this, most of the rhetoric about the LDS Church and race is put forth too much in a vacuum. I have known people of African descent who argued vehemently that the way the Church approached the policy avoided the creation of a seperate black LDS Church. Considering what happened with the 3rd convention in Mexico, where the white Americans were not an ever present force, there may be validity to this argument. 

On the other hand, I feel that some people in the Church do not try enough to reach across racial boundaries. In Southfield Ward they seem to do such reach across fairly well, but sometimes I wonder if the people who insist on living in Berkley because it has "better schools", do not at times alienate those members of the ward who hesitate to send their children to school in a place where they feel such children would stick out like a sore thumb.

This reminds me of the stupidest reasoning for not living in a predominantly non-white area I ever heard. From a guy who would complain about what he felt was racist policies he encountered on his mission to slow down the baptism of black people no less. I on the other hand am more divided about quick baptism policies. You have to have a ward ready and willing to provide retention work. I see this in Southfield, with cases of working on Family History with recent converts. 

However when you view a requirement of 2 times attending Church before baptism as racist maybe you are missing the point. True, we do not want to follow the Jews and create requirements meant to stop conversion. However The current policy at least in the Detroit Mission of coming to Church 3 times, not even required to be on consecutive Sundays, seems a mostly reasonable policy, as long as not taken too extreme either way. What I mean by that is I would not think we would have a minimum number of minutes at Church required, and although the person having gone to all three meetings all three times would be ideal, I would think consideration of circumstances would be good. On the other hand, people should not be pressured into baptism who have not come to fully embrace the gospel, but of course they do not need an absolute understanding. I think here in Michigan we have generally found a happy medium. 

Retention rates are not as high as I wish, but I am not convinced the number of people who are remain active would increase with more stringent baptism requirements. 

Anyway, the person I was mentioning basically said he didn't want his daughter having black and hispanic youths going after her when she was in high school because she was the only white girl around. This fear of being different keeps our school system and our residential areas far too segregated.

The accusation of slumming

I hate to admit it but I never could get myself to fully like President Nugent's predecessor as branch president in Belle Isle Branch. That is because the first time I came to the meetinghouse with my girlfriend Arkasha, the branch president said something about how I was there slumming. I don't think he meant it, but it still seemed an odd statement. Especially since most active members of the branch live in Grosse Pointe, a far more upscale area than south-east Sterling Heights.

BYU and Black History Month

The BYU Museum of Art has just started a display on African-American art.  It is also having several celebrations of black history month. The Church History Museum is celebrating the life of Elizabeth Jane Manning James during black history month. A willingness to speak of and acknowledge African-American history at a higher level is being shown in the Church. I hope we can implement it as much as possible.

Media credulity

The media is far too credulous in dealing with "Mormon leaks". The most recent  hype about "secret baptisms" is by far the worst. To begin with, the authenticity of the claims are hard to verify. Next, the article lacks any attempt to discuss the matter of the doctrine involved. Lastly, it ignores the issue that some or many of these people may be direct ancestors of current members of the Church who may have been the ones to submit the names for work.

Next, the headline of "secretly" baptized is just plain false. The Church does not try to make baptism in the temple more of less secret, and to use that word needlessly invokes an air of cover up that was not intended.

In defense of why husband and wife should not both give talks on the same Sunday

I have decided to take my position that husband and wife should not both give talks on the same Sunday and express it more verbally. I guess in theory at times this might be OK. However as it is done is some wards, it just becomes a way to avoid doing more work and sticks people in a rut. It also makes it harder to fit single people into the speaking schedule.

In theory if one rare occasions a husband and wife are both asked to speak on the same Sunday it is not too bad. Unfortunately too often when this is done it is done by default all the time. In the case of families with little children this is actually probably counter productive. Even in other families, the best talks are built with advice from your spouse. I guess I can see cooperative building, but I think too often what happens is one person is wanted to talk, and the other is just tagged on because that is what is felt like.

It also creates a near universal pattern of 1 male and 1 female speaker. Some subjects will call for 2 male or 2 female. Sometimes only the husband or wife needs to learn the subject. And sometimes you might want the wife to go last, but the husband might take offence to that.

I have seen wards do both ways, and have to say I just like the way of unrelated people speaking a lot better.

Don't get me started on inapropriate missionary farwell Sundays.

History of the LDS Church in 3 sentences

The 1000th stake was organized in Nauvoo, Illinois by Ezra Taft Benson. The 2000th stake was organized in Mexico City by Howard W. Hunter. The 3000th stake was organized in Freetown, Sierra Leone by Jeffrey R. Holland.

Why I am not a successful blogger

I was just reading an except from an article about Mommy bloggers. The article mentioned that a disproportionate number are Mormons, and that this is in part linked to the Church encouraging the keeping of journals.

At one time I was a daily journal keeper, especially when I was 16 or so.

Of late I barely can keep an even semi-regular journal.

It is not just that I am not sure the following would interest people:

I got up late. I was late to the meeting at the Northwest Activities Center at Curtis and Myers in Detroit. It didn't help I had to turn around and go home to take my medicine because I forgot when I first got up.

In the morning meeting I learned that I could make $0.20 more an hour if I filed my transcripts with the district. I had Little Ceasars for lunch. In the afternoon I had to leave early, and just barely made it to my job at Kroger at time.

I tried to fill the lunch meet wall, but the process was disheartening. Kroger's philosophy is have very little back stock, while Meijer believed in lots of back stock. The problem is that at my store not enough of the workers use the telzon, and so our back stock just builds up. On the other hand I threw out about 10 items that had a sell by date of January 25th. That was pretty bad.

My schedule for the week of Valentine's Day is messed up.

I called Kay (my girlfriend) right when I got off. She didn't answer then but did respond to my text about my paycheck.

After I got home I scounged up some peach yogurt for dinner. I saw David and Fara Jensen at Kroger as I was leaving. I see Church members I have known a lot longer at Kroger than I saw at Meijer.