#How to discuss Mormon beliefs with Christians

[mindfulldsliving]

Responding to Robin Schumacher’s Critique: Joseph Smith’s First Vision and Apostolic Parallels

Robin Schumacher’s op-ed comparing Joseph Smith to the Apostle Paul raises a familiar yet thought-provoking question: can Joseph’s First Vision truly align with Paul’s divine encounter? For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this discussion touches on fundamental beliefs about prophecy, revelation, and the foundation of their faith. Critics often challenge the First…

[trberman]

Responding to Bradley Campbell of God Love's Mormon's: "4 Reasons the Great Apostasy is a False Doctrine of Mormonism"

Introduction Four months ago, God Loves Mormons posted a YouTube video with the title 4 Reasons the Great Apostasy is a False Doctrine of Mormonism, in which they explored critical perspectives on a fundamental belief held by the Latter-day Saint Faith. The video purports to delve into how the idea of a falling away (apostasy) of the primitive Christian faith is false biblically, historically,…

[midnight-in-eden]

I realized I never made a thorough post about my experience at the Unitarian Universalist church. I’ve attended several times now and I honestly don’t even know how to sum it up. Here’s an attempt:

At the UU church, all the leadership members introduce themselves with their pronouns. The reverend uses she/they and has a trans teenage son. Today their stole (the scarf-like thing clergy wear) had the trans pride flag emblazoned on it.

At the UU church, I wrote my pronouns (they/them) in large letters on the name tag I wear every week. No one has batted an eye. I am openly nonbinary. Everyone is unfazed.

At the UU church, there are queer people everywhere. I am no longer the only non-cishet person in the room. Far from it.

At the UU church, there is signage explicitly stating that it is a safe and accepting space for LGBTQ people.

At the UU church, so many people expressed worries this week for queer people, for immigrants, for other people impacted by the new administration. It was candidly discussed during our secular meditation group.

At the UU church, congregants are not united by shared religious beliefs, but by shared values, which include equality, inclusivity, valuing human life and the planet.

At the UU church, on my first day, I met Christians, Buddhists, pagans, atheists, and practitioners of various eclectic spiritualities. (Including many exmormons!) None of whom had any problem including each other in their community.

At the UU church, God is rarely mentioned and they don’t fixated on gaining salvation and exaltation; instead they talk a lot about how we treat people and how we can make the world better.

At the UU church, today the little story about animals having a soup party shared for the children was focused on inclusivity and included a they/them fox.

At the UU church, today the reverend asked us to imagine what kind of world we wanted to create together and handed around the microphone. People talked about a world where healthcare is a human right, where schoolchildren are safe, where borders are not more important than people and families. When I took the microphone and added, “Where politicians don’t get to declare that my identity doesn’t exist,” the entire congregation cheered and yelled YES and AMEN.

At the UU church, though she does not mention politicians by name or tell people how to vote, the reverend encourages people to be politically active. Not the way Mormonism does, by sending out a formal letter during big elections, but by reminding people to call their representatives, to vote in elections big and small, to show up to school board and city council meetings.

At the UU church, they coordinate with other churches to provide transportation, meals, showers, and overnight sleeping spaces to homeless people, with the UU church sanctuary taking its turn being used for that purpose once a week. (Try to picture Mormons doing that—allowing homeless people to sleep in their buildings.)

At the UU church, they’ve adopted a refugee family and an elementary school in a low income area and do fundraising and provide assistance for both.

At the UU church, there are so many groups and efforts focusing on different ways of making the world better that I have a hard time even knowing where to start.

At the UU church, instead of demanding people starve themselves to show their obedience and loyalty to God, first Sundays of the month include a lovely soup lunch fundraiser for the youth group. I love this monthly event, where I get to sit with different people and eat and talk. And if you don’t want to or can’t pay, there are always coffee, tea, and snacks provided free at every meeting.

At the UU church, they start and end with the lighting/extinguishing of a flame instead of a prayer.

At the UU church, the congregation is alive. People laugh, cheer, clap, do call-and-responses with the leaders. We are invited to stand or sit for songs as we wish. Every meeting involves some kind of opt-in ritual or extra fun thing; you can light a candle, add water to the water fountain, write a note in a book saying what you’re struggling with or what joys you’ve had lately—all those are every week—and then some of the once in a while things we’ve done include choosing a percussion instrument to accompany the day’s songs (I got to play hand drums today!), standing at a side table to wrap care packages for homeless folks while the reverend spoke, or coming up to the front to write a worry on dissolving paper and drop it into a bowl of water. It’s just so fucking fun. Nothing like the boring, enforced silence of the congregation in the Mormon church.

At the UU church, people swear. People drink coffee or tea. People have whatever piercings they want and wear sleeveless shirts if they want, and “church clothes” can be anything you want. At the UU church, the idea of your religious leaders dictating all these things and even your underwear is completely baffling. It’s hard to see how such infantilizing nonsense ever made sense to me.

At the UU church, I am welcomed with genuine friendliness, but not pressured to formally become a member. No one is harassing me to commit to baptism or declaring that this is the only path to salvation/true happiness/whatever. I’ve met quite a few people who’ve been attending for years but are still not formal members, and everyone is fine with that.

At the UU church, people are encouraged to donate (to pay the reverend who is a professional instead of a voluntold rando doing unpaid labor, to pay for the building, etc) but tithing isn’t a thing. No “Give 10% of your income or you’re stealing from God!!!”

At the UU church, I don’t think I’ve heard the word “repentance” once. It’s just not part of the worldview. Neither is “sin.” Or “redemption.”

At the UU church, rather than being taught humans are inherently sinful and in need of saving and unable to rely on our own strength or anyone’s strength but God’s, I am taught that humans are inherently good and valuable and powerful in our ability to make a difference together.

In short: Unitarian Universalism is an entirely different world than Mormonism. If you haven’t had the chance to attend a UU church I’d recommend trying it at least once. It has soothed my religious trauma in some ways, and I am starting to love the community there. I don’t know if I will ever become a formal member of any religion again (probably not), but I like this a lot.

[mormonbooks]

The Bishop's Wife Review

4/5 Stars!

This book was nothing like how I expected it to be and everything I needed and wanted it to be. I expected the kind of novel you could recommend to your mom for a bit of light reading on a Sunday afternoon. The Bishop's Wife. She's a mormon woman who is doing her best to take care of her ward.

I was pleasantly surprised at the moderately progressive tone the book took within the first few chapters (asking questions about the sexism in the church, the fear of judgement 'imperfect' families face, etc) but I soon realized that it there was much more. This novel is a deep commentary on Mormonism, digging into the deep and unpleasant parts, and asking difficult questions that most members like to avoid. It does it all through the eyes of a faithful middle-aged woman, who knows what she believes and uses her faith to bring justice to her community, even when she has to struggle against the church institution and her own husband to do it.

In my opinion, it's a great work of mormon feminism, that allows our culture to shine through in all it's glory and with all it's flaws. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, genuinely. The mystery is engaging, the community is loveable, the plot twists are gut wrenching. Truly a work of art. I'm excited to read more of Harrison's work

Breakdown under the cut

1. Well written - 5 Stars

Yes. The prose is beautiful. The plot is engaging. The mystery is complex and the new information always threw me. It was gut wrenching at times. It was comforting at others.

2. Fun level - 5 stars

It's a slow-paced story, with many moments that skip weeks or months where not much happens. But I enjoy stories like that. It gave breaks between the page-turning mystery solving moments.

3. Complex faith - 5 Stars

This is probably my favorite part of this book. The villains and the heroes are all mormons, and they all approach their faith and their religion in different ways. Linda obviously has more progressive views, and is enraged by the misogyny of many of the men in this story. Those men are not shown to be anamolys per se but they're also not shown to be the norm. Many women in the story have opportunities to voice their questions and doubts but it never makes them any less mormon. People exist all over the scale of mormonism and it feels like the most honest portrayal of our culture that I've read so far.

4. Homophobia scale - 3.5 Stars

It's not a major plot point, but it's mentioned that Linda's son Samuel joined the GSA at his school and she is proud of him for that. She also suspects that her other son might be gay, and worries about how that will affect his relationship with his father. I imagine this will be explored further in the series. It's refreshing that Linda is pro-LGBT but it also seems to treat the church's heteronormative stance quite naively and I'd love to see Harrison really dig into that topic in the future.

5. Mormon weird - 4 stars

Realistic Fiction, but definitely uniquely mormon. The characters in this book could not be swapped out with "generic christians." some of the problematic and dangerous beliefs are uniquely mormon, but so are the beautiful and comforting ones. There is a lot of discussion of the plan of salvation, that I appreciated. I also liked Linda's realistic approach to faith, and her honest moments of doubting, or referring to things as "legends" and "myths." Things don't have to be doctrine to be important in our culture

6. Diversity of characters - 2 stars

I don't think race is ever touched on in the novel, and they all live in Utah and have typical european-american names, so it's easy to assume they are all white. And despite being essentially a work of mormon feminism, a very small percentage of the speaking cast are women.

7. Other problematic stuff - 4.5 stars

I deeply enjoyed the novel as a snapshot of a mormon town, however that does mean that, despite her progressiveness, Linda has a realistic understanding of gender, as a middle-aged mormon woman. She has some beliefs and attitudes toward men that I found frustrating, although understandable.

Conclusion:

I gave this book 5 stars on goodreads but that was before I did my breakdown. I wish it had been more diverse, but I think Harrison explores race in the church in future novels. We'll see.

I LOVE Linda Wallheim. I LOVE the way Harrison talks about Mormon communities and Mormon faith and Mormon culture. I love how much this book made me feel. This is decidedly GOOD mormon rep, with all the determined faith mixed with struggles against flawed systems and truly terrible people. like. I cannot express how much I hate the villains in this book.

I can't wait to see Linda's next adventure.

[isaacsapphire]

The true believer in the leopards eating people’s faces party

There are locally powerful belief systems, which I will refer to as hegemons in this discussion. In a Red state, the hegemonic belief system might be Republican Evangelical Christianity. In a Blue state, the hegemon is probably Democrat liberal atheism/agnosticism. Within those states, there will be local and subcultural pockets of different hegemons: the liberal college town in a Red State, the small town rifle range in a Blue State, etc. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” kicks in too, as inevitably some hegemons have captured employers.

For the people embedded within a community with an overarching hegemon that extends through their education, work, and social life, their local hegemon sets the boundaries of thought, the terms and bounds of discussions, provides the shibboleths and catch phrases, as well as relationship norms and life-stage behaviors and rituals.

On one level, this phenomenon of apparent local agreement is driven purely by most people going along to get along, “when in Rome” self-interested behavior that doesn’t have any real meaning except that people are social animals and follow their crowd, parroting their leaders’ calls whether they be, “Jesus Saves!” or “I’m with her.”

But, there is some real ideological meat under the sports team social behavior; different political parties and ideologies/religions really do want to do different things, to change the world into different shapes. And those shapes will, at best, make some types of people’s lives more difficult. At worst, we’re talking genocide and death camps.

As to how “real” anyone’s personal beliefs are; if conversion at the point of a sword or as an alternative to swiftly becoming a refuge was being foisted on some portion of a society, or if their country becomes communist, how many of them will just be all “friendship with Odin ended, Jesus is my homie now” or whatever? The answer isn’t entirely consistent, but it’s a pretty high percentage. And the percentage of people who will find themselves converting to Mormonism if they’re a family that moves to Salt Lake City for work reasons, or became an SJW if their social circle becomes SJW or whatever transplantation happens to them is pretty high too.

Nuroatypicals are likely to end up as True Believers in a local primary or secondary hegemon for multiple reasons. One is that they literally can’t lie to save their lives so their subconscious drives them into method acting, another reason is that they’re too socially awkward to realize that nobody else is taking the party line at face value. The attraction of a set of clear rules and black and white thinking is another factor.

This is an attempt to describe reality, but I need to be honest that it owes a lot to marxist theory. I don’t particularly like Marxist economics, but I believe that any ideology that gets substantial uptake closely matches the reality observed by some people and hence is worth considering.

[spurgie-cousin]

Holy cow, the mainstream Mormon church is just as wild as the polygamist sects when you dive deep enough. NewNameNoah on YouTube has hidden camera videos of EVERY ritual (there’s also a transcription floating around somewhere to help you understand when it gets fuzzy). Jordan and McKay (ex-Mormon couple) have reaction videos where they watch the temple videos and provide additional commentary.

There are very active debates about where the events of the BoM took place, because supposedly ancient Israelites sailed to America and became the Native Americans after many generations. Some “scholars” believe the Mayan pyramids are proof the BoM is true because they’re “clearly” Nephite temples. The three pyramids is Teotihuacan supposedly represent the three kingdoms of heaven. There are a disturbing number of tour companies in Mexico that cater to Mormons, providing guided tours of “The Holy Lands” (Chichen Itza and Tulum in Mexico, Lake Atitlan in Guatemala).

Yesterday I was listening to some historian’s presentation on YouTube. He claims the BoM was set in the Midwest, and some of his “proof” (because clearly genetics and the archaeological record ain’t backing him up) is that the names in the BoM end in “-ah” like a lot of Native American words. One of those words he cited? Scotia. Like…my dude. Do you really think Nova Scotia is what the Mi’kmaq called their land? And not Latin for “New Scotland”? Because a cursory google search will corroborate…it’s the latter.

Also, check out Murder Among the Mormons on Netflix if you haven’t already. It’s a wild ride—enjoy!

Murder Among the Mormons is a wild ride lol highly recommend four anyone that likes religious true crime docs.

It is so fascinating to me how mormonism has created such a solid foundation of belief in its relatively short lifetime. it's not the only religion that makes wild claims about its history obviously but I always felt like the major world religions got a lot of their legitimacy just from being so old ya know...... hearing a story from 5k years ago about Jesus doing something magical is like, sounds fake but who knows what was going on back then, the continents were closer the oceans were colder, maybe magic was a thing. But all of Mormonism lore is less than 200 yrs old, maybe 7 or 8 generations ago....... it's like why did God wait so long to reveal all this information lol and why do basically everyone else's stories not line up with yours at all??

But like you mentioned, it's got its claws so deep in the believers they have deep theological discussions about where biblical things happened in North America, something that seems so ridiculously easy to disprove bc we have soooooo much evidence to the contrary (including the actual Christian Bible). It feels like the early isolation of mormons in Utah just really sped up a lot of things that took other religions hundreds of years to achieve, idk it's so interesting.

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Something that I think complicates discussions of religion in politics is that America is full of people who are totally irreligious and also believe in demons. I couldn’t find an exact definition of “religiously unaffiliated” in the PRRI survey but I’m curious how they’d measure, for example, people who hold beliefs rooted in evangelical Christianity but who never pray or go to church

im not seeing any entries about demons/angels in particular but nearly half of nones surveyed were absolutely/fairly certain in the existence of god, 37% in heaven, and 27% in hell. so yea there might be smth to that, tho this is also a reason to interpret the rise of "nones" more cautiously overall. there are a lot more ways to be a none than there are ways to be a mormon or catholic

[magnetothemagnificent]

Hey, I read this zine called A Lesser Key To The Appropriation of Jewish Magic & Mysticism by ezra rose. It discussed how The Keys of Solomon had appropriated Jewish elements - broken/vaguely Hebrew words, mentions of Metatron, etc.) and was essentially written by medieval(?) Christian occultists. Would there be a way in removing the appropriated elements to make a newer, non-antisemetic practice? If you're not familiar with occult related texts or if the idea is offensive then I sincerely apologize.

No. It's in my opinion that there's no way of saving what I call "Christian occultism." Its foundation is in antisemitism and its modern iterations are founded in the appropriation of closed and persecuted practices like Jewish, Native American, and Rrom belief-sets. If a modern occultist wants to not have these issues, they should reject those ideas entirely. You can't remove the practice from the issues. If you removed all of that- you would be left with nothing. You need to start from the ground up, free from any influence of past texts and figures like the Keys of Solomon, Aleister Crowley, and Gerald Gardner. It's like if you asked if it would be possible to make a new Mormonism without any of the racist and antisemitic influences- if you removed those, you wouldn't have Mormonism. You would have to call it something else entirely.

[a-typical]

Apparently, there is a pervasive police gullibility problem on this matter. Here are some excerpts from FBI expert Lanning's analysis of 'Satanic, Occult and Ritualistic Crime,' based on bitter experience, and published in the October 1989 issue of the professional journal, The Police Chief:

"Almost any discussion of satanism and witchcraft is interpreted in the light of the religious beliefs of those in the audience. Faith, not logic and reason, governs the religious beliefs of most people. As a result, some normally sceptical law enforcement officers accept the information disseminated at these conferences without critically evaluating it or questioning the sources... For some people, satanism is any religious belief system other than their own."

Lanning then offers a long list of belief systems he has personally heard described as satanism at such conferences. It includes Roman Catholicism, the Orthodox Churches, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, rock and roll music, channelling, astrology, and New Age beliefs in general. Is there not a hint here about how witch hunts and pogroms get started? He continues:

"Within the personal religious belief system of a law enforcement officer, Christianity may be good and satanism evil. Under the Constitution, however, both are neutral. This is an important, but difficult, concept for many law enforcement officers to accept. They are paid to uphold the penal code, not the Ten Commandments... The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus, and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don't like that statement, but few can argue with it."

— The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan (1996)

[queerprayers]

Are head cannons about Jesus heresy because I have so many

Welcome, beloved. Go for it, I support you. I'll elaborate, though, as always:

Let's get one thing clear first: heresy is defined by people in power ("adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma") and obviously very much depends on what church dogma you're following. Many of my beliefs are heresy to Roman Catholic doctrine, but I don't much mind, because I'm not Catholic. Heresy as an accusation has also been used for centuries to silence minority voices and diversity of belief, so I don't use it all that much. Generally I feel like it's used to shut down conversations or insult someone.

On the other hand, it's sometimes nice to separate a difference of opinion vs. clear contrariness within a community, if that makes sense. Christians within the same denomination will disagree on lots of things, and it can be useful to identify what's a disagreement within the same belief system, as opposed to what's just a different belief system. The word "heresy" could be used to differentiate these situations. If someone shows up to my church with a different belief about the relation of the Genesis creation myth to the reality of evolution, that's a discussion we could have within the same belief system. On the other hand, if someone shows up at my church who believes the Book of Mormon is the word of God, while that's also a discussion we could have with respect, it's very clearly a completely different belief system. We might both be Christian, but that's heresy to me, meaning on a completely dogmatic page. When it's used not as an insult or for silencing, but for neutrally describing a belief that inherently goes against a certain system, I can appreciate its use.

I also really like the separation of things you're curious about and like to imagine, things you believe, and things you build your faith around. (I think I got this idea from Luther's beliefs on the Apocrypha.) I study and find meaning from Muslim and Jewish texts, but I don't inherently believe in them, and I definitely don't stake my faith on them. I believe many things about the afterlife, but I don't build my practice around them, because I know and understand so little, and don't have any dogma I connect with. While I won't claim to understand it or be able to prove it, and sometimes doubt it, I stake my faith on and build my practice around Jesus's identity as God. This is a really cool exercise to investigate your own thoughts/beliefs/practices. Obviously we can't separate everything into neat boxes, but it can be so useful to recognize what's most important to us.

The canonical gospels tell us what the writers believed was important about Jesus, what we should build our faith around. But we aren't told so much. We know barely anything about Jesus's childhood/young adult years, or about what he did in the fifty days between his resurrection and ascension. We don't know anything about his relationship with his father, or whether he experienced romantic attraction, or how he met many of his friends, or most of his siblings' names, or what jokes he told around the dinner table, or what he looked like, or what his laugh sounded like. I yearn for this knowledge, I imagine anyone who loves him yearns for this knowledge. I want to know God, and God was a human, and learning these things is how we know other humans. I love my friends by knowing their laugh and meeting their families and holding their hands. Why would I not want that, or at least want to know what it was like, with the most important human of all?

It's natural, when connecting with Jesus, to fill in the blanks. To tell our own stories. People have told stories about his childhood for centuries. The Cherry Tree Carol was a favorite of mine when I was a kid. "What was the God of the universe like as a child?" is an incredible question! Every movie/book chronicling Jesus's life includes the author's head-canons. Every painting of Jesus is an assumption/projection about his looks. Should we do away with religious art just because it always includes the creator's biases? (That's not necessarily a hypothetical question--some religions do put restrictions on this. Mainstream Christianity never has, though.) An important point is that telling stories doesn't mean you believe them. I engage with lots of things I don't necessarily believe. I think everyone should be able to and allowed to do that; it's good for us.

Saying "Jesus is gay and had relationships with men" is literal heresy to lots of people. Jesus being celibate/not engaging in romance is very important to many belief systems, and he obviously didn't idolize/prioritize romance--romantic love isn't mentioned at all in the gospels. And of course this would be heresy to anyone who's homophobic. You could also bring up that Jesus was a faithful Jewish man, and regardless of his personal feelings, it might be important that he followed his cultural/religious sexual norms. Someone might really value friendship in the gospels, and to put romance where it doesn't explicitly exist might devalue that narrative to you. To me, the most important question would be: are you staking your faith on this? Building your practice around Jesus experiencing romance is heresy to my belief system, because it's not something we're given, and whether he did or didn't isn't foundational to any belief I value. But telling stories about it? Even thinking it might be true? Who am I to stop you? I love boykeats' poems about this very subject. (especially this one, and also this one)

Another thing to ask is whether the story contradicts canon. I can't not used fandom terminology here: is it canon-compliant? If I say Jesus didn't actually die when he was crucified, he was just in a coma/close to death, this is a perfectly realistic turn of events, but is inherently heresy and destroys the foundational Christian belief about death/resurrection. If I say Jesus had blonde hair, this is historically inaccurate and ridiculous, but it doesn't contradict the gospels technically. With context, it becomes racist, though, and is no longer just a story. But if I say Jesus told lots of jokes to his friends, this doesn't change anything foundational to Christianity, doesn't cause any harm, and is quite lovely to imagine.

All this to say: all of your beliefs are heresy to someone out there, maybe to me, probably to the pope. The stories you tell, the things you think about Jesus, your head-canons we might say, are going to contradict someone else's dogma, it's inevitable. That can't be a reason to not engage in belief, though. It's useful to investigate whether a belief is heresy or not, but don't be afraid of that. Don't conform for the sake of conforming.

I don't stake my belief/build my practice around Jesus using things that aren't canon to my belief system. That's a choice, one you don't have to make. But I do believe things that no canon can prove, and with curiosity and creativity I seek out other narratives to expand my thinking.

Rachel Held Evans described choosing to be Christian as the story she's willing to be wrong about. What are you willing to be wrong about? What kinds of stories do you tell and how do they connect you with God? What's foundational to your dogma, and what do you simply believe, and what do you imagine/learn about? Happy creating, beloved. Go forth and connect with Jesus your own way, which sounds like it includes imagination and humor. Be reflective, but also unapologetic. Respect the dogma of any denomination you may belong to, but use it as a starting point, a tradition, and a community-building tool, not a prison.

<3 Johanna

P.S. My favorite Jesus headcanon is that he was super physically affectionate. I don't know, I just really admire how close his friendships were and open he was about loving those around him, and the footwashing & anointing narratives connect to my own stories about him serving/protecting/loving through physical closeness. I'm really physically affectionate, and I like projecting, I guess. I'm not starting a church about it, but it's a story I hold close.

[evildilf2]

heyy dude what’s up you don’t have to post this but your discussion of this had me thinking.. as a gay and trans person who would consider myself very religious but in the Jewish way I think this sites obsession w Catholic imagery is really bizarre like I do understand finding things about it compelling or wanting to reclaim imagery but it’s soo weird to me the way nonreligious people choose to engage with it sometimes it’s corny like you said. it’s also so weird to me that catholicism specifically is what’s been chosen as The Aesthetic Religion bc the Catholic Church is soooo antisemitic (on top of many many many other obvious issues) like my family had to leave Europe bc of it. like the Catholic Church has a long bloody history of inciting violence against ppl like me and that Wouldn’t actually change if I was cishet which I think is an interesting distinction between myself and people who want to post gay Catholic imagery stuff. but it’s also like can’t rly complain I think it would be weirder to me if non-religious people engaged with non-christian religions in this way, it would be a really bizarre form of cultural appropriation. the state of being a religious transfag on tumblr in 2023. sorry for rant <3

No need to apologize, I think this is a very important thing to acknowledge! I think the reason why Catholicism is the “aesthetic religion” of choice is largely due to the fact that Christianity in general dominates American culture. So on one hand, I’d say you be hard pressed to find a gay person in the US who hasn’t been impacted by Christian homophobia. & because it’s not uncommon for people to channel their angst with oppression into fascination with or fetishism over a sensitive subject, it’s only natural that so many people would be drawn to do so for Christianity. That said, the aesthetics of many Protestant religions are far more modest than Catholicism, and many Protestant faiths are far less literal with their interpretations of the Bible/biblical rituals and all that. Aside from Catholicism the 2 other faiths I’ve seen be romanticized are fetishized is like… the whole Southern Baptist midwest gothic “Ethel cain core” type thing, and Mormonism, but the only people I’ve seen fetishize the latter are ex Mormons whereas the former seems to have more of a wider appeal.

What you said about that specific oppression resonated with me; though I’m not Jewish myself, I recently learned that my mom & her side of the family are Jewish to some extent… but I was never made aware of this as a kid (despite that side of the family frequently discussing heritage), and I suspect this was due to how Catholic that side of the family is. It’s really fucked up, and I want to ask my grandma what she knows about that, but I’m hesitant to because I fear it would make her or other people in the family treat some family members differently. That dilemma itself definitely has made me uncomfortable with my family’s religious beliefs in a way that’s distinctly different from the discomfort with their homophobia I had prior, so I can only imagine it’s pretty upsetting to see that faith be romanticized when you’re directly and more severely impacted by centuries of Catholic antisemitism. I really appreciate you reaching out & sharing your perspective, apologies if I talked all over the place 👍

[mindfulldsliving]

Understanding the Cross in Latter-day Saint Teachings: Responding to Criticism with Clarity and Respect

The cross is one of the most recognizable symbols in Christianity, yet its role within Latter-day Saint theology often sparks curiosity and critique. Some question why members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don’t display the cross prominently, while others view it as neglecting an essential Christian symbol. However, understanding the cross in Latter-day Saint teachings sheds…

[auxfem]

ok heres the thing that's driving me a little insane: two of my siblings are firm believers of gender identity ideology and they are both in their mid to late twenties. as if that's not bad enough, my sister has recently said she's nonbinary. this was not a shock to hear because she has a couple things with the nonbinary flag on them that she hasn't bothered to hide; I figured it was only a matter of time before she said something about it. it really irks me though, as anyone on radblr can imagine. ive always been closer with this sister than our other sister, so for her to declare she's nonbinary, it feels like she's trying to erase the bond that we've had as sisters. especially considering how the two of us together contrast with the other women in our family. I'm a lesbian and she's bi; our other sister and our mom is straight, the two of us quit the religion we were raised in; our mom and our sister are still devoted members. it feels like I'm being shunted off into the side of the family that's not progressive. my mom and my oldest sister are the only ones in the family who are still part of the religion we were raised in (there's also my dad, but he is a PIECE OF WORK that I'm not getting into rn). us siblings who have left the church have had extensive discussions amongst ourselves about how fucked up the church is and how much we hate it and we complain quite a bit about our mother's involvement in it. we never really talk about how we feel about our other sister still being involved in it but we all know it's weird she's still part of it too. there's also the different dynamics in that she's our sister and our mother is, well, our mother. so we all know that they are willingly part of this organization that is regressive, and that's... honestly it's fine, our mother is and always will be how she is, and we know our sister has a good heart and tries to be a better kind of Christian. so for a while we had this dynamic of the women in my family: the two youngest daughters who realized for themselves that religion is not for them, in part because of who they can't help but be, and the mom and the oldest daughter who realized for themselves that they want to continue to be mormons, and we know this about each other, and we still love each other. it was equal, two and two. plus another two: my brothers. so if my sister is nonbinary, what does that make it?now the majority of the women are the unprogressive cultists, and on the non-women side, there's the progressives. oh whoops, there's also me, the ONE woman who isn't part of the misogynistic, homophobic, psychologically abusive religious cult. i also suspect that my "nonbinary" sister and older brother are suspicious that I hold "TERFy" beliefs, so can you see how it feels like I'm going to be shunted into the "not progressive/Bad Woman" section of the family? especially since my mom and oldest sister are just going along with how they've been raised and what they've known their whole lives, whereas I should know better because I got out, I see the other side, I know how awful it was is being oppressed as a woman and a lesbian. so then what will they think of me if I tell my sister what I really think of her being "nonbinary" if they believe in the TERF boogeyman?

[rainbeam]

hi are you comfy chatting about like? idk i like being mormon mostly i think it's cozy, but my experiences are drastically different than some of my friends and idk how much should i carry that with me vs doing my best to support folks

i'm queer, and love Jesus, the god of Brothers (gods should have domains, all of them do more or less explicitly, but christianity kinda eschews that because G-d is all powerful. but i feel like, Big G-d is contract based/constrained? and there's folks that can do it simpler because it's their domain.) It's easy to fit that into the mormon belief framework if that makes sense? i'm ngl i'm mostly not active rn and just living off the things that i've kept that have made me happy

Mormonism is very easy to fold other beliefs into it’s framework in my opinion

I’m not a traditional Mormon either, even without my queer identity. I’m pretty witchy, I do tarot as a form of prayer and if I’m in a place where I can light candles I do so but currently I live with people who are on oxygen and id rather not blow them up because I love them dearly. I’d love to have a little altar set up in a room where I could light incense.

It can be difficult to balance having differing beliefs than what is mainstream. But I’m sure you’ll find people with similar thoughts out there.

Being supportive doesn’t mean cutting yourself down to the quick and making yourself bleed just to be what other people want. Sure, there might just be some things you don’t discuss with certain friends, but that’s not something disingenuous.

So live your truth, no matter what form it takes :)

(Also I think giving God a domain is cool! If that’s who He is to you, and that’s the kind of aspect that speaks to you most loudly, I think that’s neat!)

[allisonreader]

I'm already onto the third book in the Ender's Game series; Xenocide, and I just need a short break.

It's a book that's made to make you think and gets into some deeper thoughts. Philosophy is heavy throughout these books, this one so far is among the strongest. Religious beliefs are strongly shown. As is fighting for the right of those who seem alien to us and don't think the same way that we do.

It's not something that I had been unaware of when I first read the books, but that was many years ago. When I knew and understood less than I do now. I have a different appreciation for it now than I did.

I can remember when I first read them, the criticism that was being discussed was Card's Catholicism being placed into the books, mainly about the fact that having children is good. That it shouldn't be governed over how many you should be allowed to have by governments. And that I just for the first book.

I do appreciate that he does mention and include all sorts of Christianity within the books, at least in passing. The other notable ones being at least mentioned that I have picked up on in these books so far, is Mormonism and Lutherans.

I don't know if I have anything more to say about this, or even if this has more of a purpose than to give me a bit of a break from the book and just semi work through some of what I'm thinking about, even if whatever point I'm trying to articulate isn't making itself clear. It's not clear to me. I'm not even sure what I'm trying to make a point of or articulate. Maybe that in and of itself is what I'm trying to figure out by writing this.

Anyways now I feel like I'm rambling on about nothing again. Which I feel like I'm good at doing. Talking about nothing. Wrapping my thoughts around going over the same point over and over again, without adding anything new to it.

(Okay I really need to stop now. Because this is starting to become like the journals I start but rarely finish. And yet, now that I am writing this, I do not want to stop. Though what I had started about has now run it's course. If I want to continue to ramble like this, I should probably finish this post and make a new one to ramble about nothing on. I am highly impressed if anyone actually continues to read through all my ramblings to this end point, and I am going to end it here.)

[sapropel]

I genuinely hate how sometimes people will try to invalidate Mormonism by saying "it's not even Christian" when 1) yes it literally is and 2) something being Christian doesnt make it better or even like, ok. Stop trying to pick and choose what flavors of Christianity are "Christian enough" to be Christian. Mormonism is culturally Christian. It believes Jesus is the messiah. It's a Christian denomination just like every other Christian denomination with different beliefs.

Further, framing it this way seems to imply that "regular old Christianity" isn't capable of wacky beliefs and incapable of fostering a cult environment which, again, is also untrue. Christianity is THE BIGGEST religion on the planet with more versions and syncretic elements than any one person could wrap their head around. It encompasses nearly the entire range of human experience, for better or for worse, so don't act like anything You personally don't think is Christian, isn't Christian.

If you're trying to help cult survivors you aren't going to do it by creating this false dichotomy as "Christian" or "un-Christian" Oh and btw you're also not helping people like me, who have experienced religious abuse, by saying my abusers' behavior was "un-Christian" or that they aren't "real Christians." Yes they are!!!! They're Christians who've done horrible, evil things!!! Their actions were done in the name Christianity!!! Mormons view themselves as Christians. Evil, awful, hypocritical Christians view themselves as Christians. Christians who hate gays and sex workers and Jews and POC are Christians!!! Stop divorcing yourself from ugly truths!!!

The discussion shouldn't be "was this a Christian thing to do? Are these people real Christians?" it should be "JESUS CHRIST how do we fix our society so that people are never in situations where a cult can exert total control over their lives since birth, how do we stop enabling destructive mind control environments, and, failing that, how do we remedy the aspects of cultural Christianity that give rise to these situations?"