High thoughts, high culture, and high ecclesiastical officials?

The 11 August 2019 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show is now available for listening at your convenience, at no charge, and shorn of commercial and other interruptions.  Participants in the conversation were Terry Hutchinson, John Gee, and Kevin Christensen, and they covered the recently-concluded 2019 FairMormon Conference and then, in the second hour of the broadcast program, focused on the upcoming Come, Follow Me lesson #34 devoted to 1 Corinthians 8-13:

Interpreter Radio Show — August 11, 2019

However, just in case you’re interested only in hearing the discussion of the approaching Gospel Doctrine lesson, the Interpreter Radio (audio) Roundtable for Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 34, “Ye Are the Body of Christ,” covering 1 Corinthians 8-13, has been extracted for your convenience from the 11 August 2019 broadcast. The discussants for this roundtable were, of course, Terry Hutchinson, John Gee, and Kevin Christensen, and all commercial and other breaks have been excised:

Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 34 “Ye Are the Body of Christ”

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Seeing the new Lion King movie last night reminded me of one of my many notable contributions to world civilization.  It’s entitled “Hakunu Murtaddan,” and it’s sung to the tune of The Lion King’s “Hakuna Matata.”

In Arabic, hakunu murtaddan means “I’ll be an apostate.”  And yes, I know:  Purists will object that the phrase, which I invented, is a rather odd mishmash of Egyptian colloquial Arabic with (among other things) a hyper-classical indefinite accusative nominal ending.  But one does what one must do in the noble quest to create great art.

Other than that change, though, the lyrics of the original “Hakuna Matata” required no alteration whatever.  That’s the remarkable thing, of course, about many great works of genius such as this.  Once they’ve been achieved, they seem obvious.  But only in retrospect.

The background to my creation is that I commonly see statements from ex-Mormons in which they celebrate their newfound freedom, the bliss that they’ve attained now that they’re no longer encumbered by the teachings, standards, and ideals of the Church.

Anyway, though, here are the lyrics for “Hakunu Murtaddan”:

Hakunu murtaddan!  What a wonderful phrase!
Hakunu murtaddan!  Ain’t no passing craze.
It means no worries for the rest of your days.
It’s our problem-free philosophy.  Hakunu murtaddan!

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It’s a sad story, no doubt, but it’s not quite the earth-shattering ecclesiastical scandal that some news outlets seemed to suggest:

“Concerning that ‘prominent’ ‘Mormon’ ‘bishop’ peeping around at a ladies dressing room”

I’m reminded of a news account that I saw as a kid on one of the local Los Angeles television stations.  It was a profile, for some reason or another, of a grizzled old desert rat — at least, he seemed old to very young me; he was maybe in his early fifties — who, the reporter told us at one point, was devoutly religious.  “A priest in the Mormon Church,” no less.  Indeed!  The man was practically a Mormon cardinal if not altogether the Mormon pope.