Dear President, Dear Bishop It has come to my attention that there are some members in your Stake who have been openly expressing their concerns, their doubts, and their critiques of the church. One of them even has a blog and has shared their posts with other members in their ward. I understand you have received a number of complaints from concerned members who are worried about the effect these so-called discontents are having on the testimony of faithful... Read more
On the 2nd February Kirk van Allen wrote a critique of Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. In his analysis he concluded that as far as he could see polygamy was morally wrong. For this assertion he recently reported that he has been asked by his church leaders to revise the blog removing all suggestion that he does not personally agree with the official position that polygamy was inspired. In other words it appears that this monogamous Mormon man is... Read more
I’ve spent the last couple of days percolating the latest excommunication drama, waiting for the heavy weight of it on my heart to lighten somewhat. It hasn’t. It was sadly inevitable that John was excommunicated. Not because John did anything different to what he usually does – tell all, scrap it out to the last, and do it with characteristic noise. My heart is heavy because there are no winners in religious warfare. Between the triumphant and the embittered there is... Read more
30 Minutes ago the Mormon Newsroom concluded a rare press conference. Let me be clear, for senior leaders in the church to front up to the media outside of General Conference wherein they make an announcement to an international audience is a pretty big deal. So even though it occurred as the sun was just coming up in Aotearoa/New Zealand, I tuned in. The subject was religious freedom, and in a nutshell the purpose was to reaffirm the church’s right to oppose... Read more
On the 10th of January 2014 a group of commissioners from the Hamilton District Council released their report after hearing an application from the LDS church to demolish buildings on the recently closed Church College of New Zealand. It had been a heart breaking affair particularly for the Temple View Heritage Society who opposed the church’s application to destroy what was for them a much loved site and community centre ‘built for eternity’ by parents and grandparents (including my own). Over the... Read more
While Mormons are asked to, required to, strong-armed into ‘sustaining’, not questioning, obeying etc. every male above their own station (including it would seem the invisible worker bees in Church Administration), in the Vatican Pope Francis recently delivered a stinging rebuke to those who govern, administer and manage the Catholic Church. And everyone but the Roman Curia is doing a slow clap. Pope Francis publicly catalogued 15 ailments of the Catholic church administration and the high level officials who... Read more
This guest post is by New Zealander Mike Cammock who is originally from Christchurch. Mike has served a mission in Taiwan, and currently resides in Windsor, Vermont. He and his wife Chris are the parents of two children. My name is Mike Cammock. I am a Kiwi. I am also Mormon. I grew up on the South Island of New Zealand in Christchurch. I’ve served a mission, I married in the temple, I have two faithful parents and like them I... Read more
What is the Atonement? I asked my elder foster brother Jeff. I was 16. During the preceding six years I had been on an enforced hiatus from church activity. I had been trapped, the child and stepchild of a failing mixed faith marriage where my step-father was on a crusade to rid the world of Mormons. Now I was back with the Mormons he despised so much, choosing to live away from my mother, my half-siblings, him and his scorn.... Read more
This is my response to the Plural Marriage in Kirkland and Nauvoo essay posted last week to LDS.org. A couple of years ago I was talking to my 16-17 year old Sunday School class about polygamy. They raised it – not me. Our conversation was about the early practice of Mormon polygamy and how it came about. The girls in the class turned up their noses and looked aghast while one boy responded to Joseph Smith’s revelation on polygamy with a snort, and... Read more
Temple View is a small Mormon village on the outskirts of Hamilton New Zealand and lies at the foot of the temple. The village grew up around both the temple and Church College of New Zealand, a school that was built by labour missionaries in the 1950’s. After 60 years of service the school closed its doors in 2009 leaving questions over the fate of the land. In this podcast I discuss the arguments of The Temple View Heritage Society... Read more
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