#byu idaho

[originaljediinjeans]

tf when the Come Follow Me podcast you listen to brings on a guest and it’s your former/current Religion professor:

[heathersdesk]

BYU is like if a beauty contest were combined with a church camp—except instead of running on coke, everyone is running on vending machine chocolate milk and mania from sleep deprivation. And school is happening in the background, but you can't hear it over the slow trickle of indoctrination into the nonsense opinions of the worst seminary teachers that CES could find, punctuated by prayers for the same 4 things over and over and over and over again. We Thank Thee for this Day, the Weather, the Spirit, Travel Safely—over shitty mics in the same accent by identical looking people until you either graduate, you drop out, or the sun explodes and finally takes you with it.

It's not a school. It's the Utah extension of Guantanamo Bay. Do not go there. Not for school. Not for work. Not to find a spouse. Not for any reason.

In the entire two and a half years I lived in Provo, the only place that felt real to me was the walkway going to the trash compactor at my cleaning job. Everything else was an overly-saturated Technicolor fever dream, divorced from space and time, that took me YEARS to recover from.

If one more narc thinly disguised as an educator or a mentor said "I know you all are sick of talking about dating and marriage, but" before launching into an identical speech to all the ones before it—asking me to submit to a binding and eternal covenant of marriage to any random 🦆 boy named Dallin I wouldn't trust to take my order at McDonald's, because it was the only truly important thing I would ever do in my life—I was going to lose my mind and give up on reality entirely. I was ready to climb inside the yellow wallpaper and never come out again, just to get some peace and quiet.

So let me be absolutely clear on one thing: if you went to ANY of the BYUs and were traumatized by it, IT'S NOT YOU. IT'S THEM! IT'S ABSOLUTELY 100% THEM AND NOT YOU.

It felt like torture because it was. It felt like being trapped inside of a reeducation camp because it was. It felt like every independent thought was slowly being stamped out of you because it was. It felt like you didn't belong there because you didn't. And if you survived it and came out of it as a better version of yourself, instead of the drone they tried to turn you into, you are one of the strongest and most resilient mother🦆ers walking around on planet Earth today.

You're a survivor. You stared into the great maw of Satan himself, into the face of every lie and all species of false doctrine and false prophets, the imaginary Christs conjured by those who would spit in his face if they actually saw him in the street, and were not deceived by them. You faced the test in Matthew 24:24 and you PASSED, boo boo. That's the only grade from that place with any value.

You are the elect of God and you should be proud of yourself. And since no one else is going to say that to you, I'M going to say it to you.

Being at church sometimes is a unique experience bc it feels so good and normal and comforting to be here. Like this is where I belong this is home. But there's also always an underlying anxiety. Even when people are sweet abt my being queer, and generally they've been VERY sweet with the exclusion of byui, I feel this insecurity like I have to prove to others that I belong here just as much as they do. And I've had to work so hard to be here, had to overcome relatively unique adversity, had to learn to overcome my trauma response from byui. It's hard to be Home and still feel like you stick out.

[pyxes]

when ever I drive by my old high school I think of this one Mormon girl who told me Rexburg ID was a prime college town (BYUI) because everyone’s lights were out by 9pm lol

[rmichaelwahlquist]

SING A NEW SONG (or 14!)

Tuesday, May 16th, 7:30, Snow Recital Hall at BYU-Idaho. Come join in singing some of my original new tunes using forgotten hymn texts from the original 1835 hymnal of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, compiled by Emma Smith in answer to the Lord's request of her in section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

If you know anyone that you think might be interested, please share this information!

We just held some rehearsals this weekend and I've got to say it was thrilling to hear these hymns brought to life by some very talented folks helping to introduce the melodies and accompany the singing.

It's is worth a watch even if you can't make it in person!

The event will be streaming live at this link: https://www.byui.edu/music/events/watch-live

This is the second event in the ongoing Michael Wahlquist Spring Semester Extravaganza(TM LOL), following the smash success of my prepared piano concert last month, available soon on YouTube.

The other two events coming up are:

June 6th: concert featuring my diverse and eclectic chamber and electronic music

July 10th: World Premier of my sacred oratorio Redeemed from the Fall, about the revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Adam and Eve after the Fall (with text from the scriptures).

[heathersdesk]

There's a video going around on Instagram of two white BYU-Idaho students filming themselves saying the N-word. It's part of a larger trend of increasing racial prejudice happening on the BYU-Idaho campus.

All details, links, and information to identify and report the students are included on my post. Please signal boost to anyone who might be able to provide support to victims or make a positive ID of the male students involved.

[spokanefavs]

Today we have an essay on the Student Conference on Religion in the Public Sphere, by UI student Maggie Hunter

BYU

Wheatley Institute

#student#religion#Idaho

[the-based-brit]

Hello 👋

My name is Carlos "r4cs0" Albuquerque

I live in Idaho, but I am a bisexual/demisexual transgender aromantic identifying as a brony-furry winged raptor. My pronouns are Latinx / Lopex. As a member of both the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, a Mexican immigrant and a refugee fleeing from my Catholic family members who hated me for dating a bisexual woman, Iowa has been a very difficult state for me to live in.

As I'm sure you know, the right-wing bigots who control this state have implemented a lot of legislation recently which is intended to kill off people like us. They banned all transgender surgeries, outlawed all abortion and have been arresting people who try to leave the state to seek these services. But the worst part is that Mormon fundamentalists control virtually the entire southern half of the state. I attempted to move further north to get away from them, but some of them were so obsessed with me that they have followed me and continue to come after me!

One of them even found out about my blog here on Tumblr and followed me here! She is a former neighbor from before I moved and she was well known in the neighborhood as the quintessential Mormon girlboss "let me speak to your manager" Karen of the area. She constantly brags about how she graduated top of her class at BYU and that she is the best alto in her stake choir. She now has multiple sock puppet accounts here on Tumblr where she sends her Mormon followers to harass me, including "lemuel-apologist" and "werehamburglar" among many others.

Please consider donating a few dollars to my cause! It would really help and I'm hoping that one day I can save up enough money to leave Idaho and move to the abandoned Burger King in York, Nebraska.

Gofund (dot) me (slash) getoutofidahor4cs0

Thank you! 😁🐺

[intothestacks]

Abigayl Martin, a BYU-Idaho alumna and writer who has been following the bill’s history the past few years, explained how last year a version of the law passed the House and the Senate but was vetoed by Governor Brad Little due to dangerously vague language and enforcement concerns.

For example, containing sexual conduct is one of the grounds for requiring a book to be relocated; however, in House Bill 710, part of the definition of sexual conduct includes anything “homosexual.”

“Say there was a book with a gay main character or trans main character or something like that,” Martin said. “That could very likely be, even if there was nothing else, you know, no sex, no anything else, no language, just that the main character, you know, was gay or trans. And then that will be reason enough to ban a book, which is kind of terrifying, if you asked me.“

[nolanhattrick]

if you want to go more into the utah thing, pls do

okay, so i feel the need to preface all of this with

tij iginla deserved to be drafted high in the first round. i'm glad he went high in the first round. he worked hard to earn the place he was drafted. that being said, i do not think his technical ability is the only reason utah drafted him.

let's take a look at utah's owners.

the smiths are mormon, and follow most standard hypocritical mormon doctrine. they have five children and live in provo. can't find much on ashley but ryan went to business school at BYU provo because his dad worked there before he got cancer and also that's what good little mormon boys are expected to do after they go on their colonizer missions to brown countries.

link to the archived deseret interview, written by the mormon church

he often speaks to church officials about money and tech, since he owns multiple businesses in the tech space and owns four sports franchises. the above link is an interview he did with a mormon elder about allocation of church funds. from the horse's mouth, they admit to hoarding billions of dollars and wanting to convert essentially the entire african continent to mormonism for clout.

now. this is where we get into tij's selection.

if you aren't as autistic about mormon history as i am, tl;dr up until about like pshhh iirc it was like 10 or 15 years ago it was literally like not possible for black mormons to hold positions of power in the church. mormon children were taught that dark skin was a sign of being "cut off from god" (lamanites) and depending on where you lived, that if you weren't white, you wouldn't be able to reach the highest level of heaven (in mormonism there are different tiers of the afterlife - three levels of heaven [celestial, terrestrial, and telestial] and then "outer darkness" which is basically just hell. you can only reach the celestial kingdom if you're the perfect mormon and pretty much anyone goes to the telestial kingdom, even like. rapists and murderers. you go to outer darkness if you defy god to his face basically. mormons are wild. yes i am judging you) which is like beaten into you from birth to be the worst fucking thing in the world because if you don't reach the highest level of glory you're separated from your family in the afterlife, and that would suck! that's what you spent your entire life trying to do! so by default getting denied that simply because you produce more melanin is. rancid!

so. career mormons, as i call them - or mormons that come from long lineages of pre-established mormons, especially utah or texas or idaho mormons (like ryan's family, and i'm going to assume ashley's family) - they very very very often have deep racism beat into them practically since birth. they might not think so, but it's there, and it comes out at the wildest times in the wildest ways. like, i grew up in an area with a LARGE mormon minority. a group of mormons tried to lynch one of my friends as a "joke". they literally tried to fucking lynch him. one of the only black kids in the area. because they thought it was funny, and couldn't conceptualize why that was wrong or why that action - committed by that specific religion, too - carried immense weight.

moving onto the hockey part of the ask.

i stared at coyotes stats for way too long last night.

tij iginla is a left shot forward.

we all know arizona was uhh. not the greatest when they made their exit from the league. tij put up some gorgeous numbers when he finished out this year in the w, and if he does well at development camp i think he does have a very good chance at being a name on the roster. i do.

i don't think he was the smartest choice for them technically, though.

like, come the fuck on.

and like i get that they're. they still have all summer. it's whatever. but out of their thirteen forwards, nine are left shots. they are not hurting for him!!

and like. okay. you could argue like. of those, bh and bo38 are rfa at the end of this season, mc53 and ak15 and mm63 and jm22 are ufa next season, they're practically bled dry for RWs.

and they have signed defensemen since day one of the draft. unsure how td33 is going to do with his injury over the summer, but if he comes back they'll be at the numbers they need.

i still don't think he was the pick utah needed technically. i don't think he was the perfect fit. i think the owners decided for the franchise and were able to justify it well enough with his numbers to themselves and everyone else to make it work, but i really truly deep down think that part of it was "look at us we are a brand new team. we are two perfect people that wear cool youth pastor clothes to fancy pants events. we're so hip and chill, we're going to make this black kid's dreams come true by drafting him higher than his dad. we're going to make him the face of the Utah Hockey Club" and then IMMEDIATELY put him in a fucking jersey that says property of. like that is deranged.

i know from an outsider's perspective this all can seem very reach-y but when you have lived with these people and been inside their minds and been raised inside the culture it is all very very thought out. it's deliberate. everything these people do is intentional. so i really honestly can't see these people doing this for any other reason than to make themselves look good. yes, i think tij is a very talented hockey player that deserved to be drafted high in the first round. but i think he belongs somewhere else, somewhere that will treat him well and somewhere he will be safe. because i guarantee you, he is not safe on that team. not when ryan and ashley smith own it.

[anew-jackson]

Hello 👋

My name is Carlos "r4cs0" Albuquerque

I live in Idaho, but I am a bisexual/demisexual transgender aromantic identifying as a brony-furry winged raptor. My pronouns are Latinx / Lopex. As a member of both the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, a Mexican immigrant and a refugee fleeing from my Catholic family members who hated me for dating a bisexual woman, Iowa has been a very difficult state for me to live in.

As I'm sure you know, the right-wing bigots who control this state have implemented a lot of legislation recently which is intended to kill off people like us. They banned all transgender surgeries, outlawed all abortion and have been arresting people who try to leave the state to seek these services. But the worst part is that Mormon fundamentalists control virtually the entire southern half of the state. I attempted to move further north to get away from them, but some of them were so obsessed with me that they have followed me and continue to come after me!

One of them even found out about my blog here on Tumblr and followed me here! She is a former neighbor from before I moved and she was well known in the neighborhood as the quintessential Mormon girlboss "let me speak to your manager" Karen of the area. She constantly brags about how she graduated top of her class at BYU and that she is the best alto in her stake choir. She now has multiple sock puppet accounts here on Tumblr where she sends her Mormon followers to harass me, including "lemuel-apologist" and "werehamburglar" among many others.

Please consider donating a few dollars to my cause! It would really help and I'm hoping that one day I can save up enough money to leave Idaho and move to the abandoned Burger King in York, Nebraska.

Gofund (dot) me (slash) getoutofidahor4cs0

Thank you! 😁🐺

😭 is this a copypasta or did you legit write this

[kaionyx]

I go to BYU-Idaho which is a Mormon school. I have a separate Book of Moron for my Latter-day Saint history course and sometimes I’ll write your username over Gods bc it makes me warm and giggly. ✝️

God y’all are really making my worship kink worse by the day. Getting excited over something so simple like writing my name over your god, craving that rush from knowing that it’s so sinful to even fathom worshipping someone like me over them? Such a depraved little slut you are sweetheart.

If only I could be there to drag you to the alter and make them hear you call out for me themselves, that would be fun don’t you think?

[fanfic-corner]

Lesser Known Destiel Fics pt 2

Hi everyone! Here's the second part of Destiel fics which have fewer than 5,000 hits. I hope you enjoy them!

Once a Day by followthattardis (2.4k)

Castiel has just enough control left over his body and mind that he steps into the Ma’lak Box on his own.

L’Oréal Féria 1-Step Lightening System for Men by gayliens (2.5k)

His hair had been the same since he was eleven, a tight almost-buzz on the sides, a little longer on the top. Brown, unassuming, military-issue. Never long enough to fall in his eyes, not like whatever Sam had going on on that head of his. His face had been changed by thirty-something years of slicing and dicing, aging out of those delicate features. If he dropped dead now on the bathroom floor, the coroner wouldn’t call him pretty. But his hair stayed Ken-Doll-identical all the way through.

or: dean fucks up dying his hair. cas helps

Rinse, Repeat by Ias (3.3k)

He's killed Dean hundreds of times. What's one more?

Extra Sauce by anomalation (3.4k)

Cas confides in a poor unfortunate McDonald's cashier, who is a little shit and makes Dean jealous to prove a point. Nothing but fluff and gritty fast food realism.

Mary Winchester, Lesbian at Large by alectolee (4.2k)

Mary Winchester is a lesbian. She has no idea how to tell her children.

The Passion of the Christ (and his angelic ex-boyfriend) by Bzzee (4.9k)

Dean and Cas are happy in heaven until Cas's ex-boyfriend saunters in. Dean discovers you can be jealous in heaven and that, apparently, Jesus fucks.

New All Over Again by Castielslostwings (5.7k)

Dean and Cas as childhood sweethearts separated as teenagers who have been searching for each other for years without success. Against all odds, they reunite in the middle of Times Square at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

preaching to the choir by piesexuality (7.9k)

“So, tell us—are you a religious man?”

Steve grimaces. "It's, um. Complicated. Very complicated."

or, There's no way Castiel lived that close to BYU-Idaho without running into some Mormon missionaries.

Speak Silence No More by rea_of_sunshine (8k)

When Dean imagined this moment, it went like this:

Dean bursts into the Empty—guns blazing, chin high, righteous anger coursing through him. No matter what form his plans and fantasies and whiskey-drunk-whispered-promises took, he is always, always successful. When he imagined it, he was finally the hero Cas deserved.

The reality of the moment is this:

It’s fucking cold.

Veil by evol_love (8.1k)

Not that Ed keeps tabs on anyone from his past life as a paranormal investigator, but he’s about 99% sure he heard through the grapevine that Dean Winchester fucking died, so getting a text from him on a random Thursday inviting him to his wedding is in the top ten weirdest moments of his life. And that’s really saying something. Ed’s had weirder weird moments than most.

His first instinct is No, absolutely fucking not, why on earth did you even invite me we’re not friends and we haven’t spoken in six years, but. But.

Maybe he misses the weird a little.

the pie isn't a metaphor (it's just pie) by noviembre (9.3k)

“I watched the Garden of Eden grow out of the desert,” Cas informs him. “And I’ve read everything Stacy has written on Bumbling Bee Gardener dot net. But please, Dean, share your wisdom about apple horticulture.”

Every Road Leads To You by songbvrd (9.9k)

When Cas gets poisoned by a djinn and is unable to be woken, Dean gets sent into his head to wake him up.

While Dean is expecting something that's hard to pull Cas from, he never expected to find Cas married with kids and a dog.

Dean has to confront what all this means to him and Cas has to decide whether to stay or go.

Won't You Stay? by allmystars (18k)

A week before Christmas, a weekend with his brother, and a hike into the mountains shouldn’t change a single thing about Dean Winchester’s life. It’s just a trip, just to distract Sam from everything he’s lost.

But, when a blizzard blows in, stranding the Winchesters, Sam finds a crack in the rock-face, and everything changes.

A pit, and pain, and every broken thing inside Dean, discovered by angels.

Well, one angel. One powerless, exiled angel.

Angel Recovery Project by keylimepie (20k)

An ordinary woman attempts a very extraordinary spell and brings back the wrong angel. But he's here and he needs help, from sandwiches to love advice, so what else is a girl to do?

5 Times a Member of Team Free Will Kills John Winchester and the 1 Time he is Kicked out of Heaven by bisexualsharks & Hazloveshisboo & jeremycarver (21k)

The 5 times different members of TFW (and a few others) got the chance to murder John Winchester, and the 1 time he was kicked out of Heaven because it was too late to kill him.

These are all separate one-shots that are not connected or set in the same timeline.

No need for dreaming by AsphodeleSauvage (24k)

Castiel loves his job as a wedding photographer. He loves nothing more than to capture the pure love in a couple's eyes as they say 'yes' - soulmates or not soulmates, he doesn't care. Yet, he can't help wondering about his own soulmate and about the mark on his chest that promises him a love story for the ages. There is also the fact that he keeps bumping into the charming Dean Winchester at every wedding he goes to...

A Hard-Won Peace by patheticfangirl (28k)

“Afterlife” no longer means forgetting what happened during life.

In Heaven, Dean is tormented by peace and freedom until he reunites with an also-struggling Castiel. Together, they work through issues they couldn’t leave behind, hoping to find something resembling happiness.

Diagonally Parked in a Parallel Universe by TheBlackLagoon (37k)

Cas Novak can’t see an escape from the life of hunting. Even with the frequent pleas from Jessica to leave it all behind, where in the world is he supposed to fit in? Dean Winchester can’t see a life beyond pencil-pushing for the Men of Letter’s Midwest branch. Even with the responsibility he holds to upkeep his family name, is it really what he’s meant to do? The two duos meet on what appears to be an easy salt and burn but which quickly spirals out of control.

Just for the Holidays by Fallen_Angel_Meg (41k)

After going through some tough times, Jess, Castiel's best friend, decides the best thing for him to do is to get away for Christmas. She secretly signs up their shared house on a home exchange website and it doesn't take long for them to get some interest. Castiel ends up trading houses with Sam Winchester, despite his hesitations to do so. So now Castiel has to spend his Christmas alone in Lawrence, Kansas. Which isn't so bad because Castiel is looking for some alone time right now, not wanting to get romantically involved with anyone. That is, until he meets Dean Winchester and things get complicated.

And that's it! If you have any other fics with under 5k hits that you love — whether they be your own or your friend's — please share them with me! Often these fics are swept under the rug when the authors put so much time and effort into them, so I hope you enjoy reading them :)

[greaserink]

I'm sorry if you may have already heard about this, but I thought it would be best to warn you about some "discourse" currently taking place among exmo blogs here on Tumblr.

There's this horrible bigot called r4cs0 who is naturally a cis straight white baby boomer male living in northern Idaho where he brags that his hobby is hunting endangered animals. And of course he loves Mormonism and says that it was completely okay for Joseph Smith to have multiple wives for "financial reasons." So recently he and a bunch of his Trump supporting followers went off on a big rant about how exmos are just cowards who gave up on their faith because "jump humping" in college turned them gay.

Unfortunately an exmo blogger I follow called lemuel-apologist took the bait. And I'm assuming (and really hoping) that she was just joking around to try to troll r4cs0… But she claims that r4cs0 is "right" because she allegedly did organize a "queer jump humping orgy" when she was at BYU in order to protest the "inherent ecclesiastical absolutism of colonized Mormon institutions!" I'll spare you the more gruesome details that she divulged, but I guess the "punchline" of this story was that in order to have multiple groups of people jump humping at once, they needed access to multiple beds. So they broke into a furniture store and held the orgy there, causing it to become a protest of both Mormonism and capitalism at the same time!

As you can imagine, r4cs0 and his hateful followers didn't think this was a gotcha at all and instead have been spreading this story around to whip up even more bigotry. They even said they plan to send it in to Libs of Tik Tok!!

Damn, son. Well if they come 'a knockin' my way about anything guess'll now know what the hell that's all about. Always damnn funny to me that Mormons to use the gay website tho

Thanks for the heads up,

[heathersdesk]

The Relationship between the LDS Church, Palestine, and Israel

I have a confession to make. As a younger person, I was obsessed with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland.

"You and every Millennial."

NO. You don't understand. This went beyond "Neat, his talk is up next. He always does a good job. Let me tune back in to this two hour long meeting." This was a parasocial, fandom level, ADHD-fueled special interest that amounted to a kind of hero worship I can't fully explain now, other than to say I outgrew it. I had every talk of his that he had ever given that was available online on my various devices I had in college and would listen to them regularly. I knew them so well I could quote them in entire sections. One of my roommates met him in Southern Utah and got one of my books signed for me, and I cried when she gave it to me. I met him once at a Mark Twain performance (one of his favorite authors and the subject of his study as a student) at Sundance and I wasn't normal about it at all.

Elder Holland had a fan with Swiftie-levels of intensity in 2009, and it was me. It's deeply embarrassing to admit this, but it's crucial to understanding why I know the things I'm about to tell you.

Before Elder Holland became an apostle, he was the president of Brigham Young University. During his tenure, he entered into negotiations with Israel to build the Jerusalem Center, the extension of BYU's campus in the Holy Land. He raised $100 million for its construction. This required buy-in not only from church leadership and donors in the US, but the cooperation of the Israeli government. This was how he ended up winning the Torch of Liberty award from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith. He was effective enough at building bridges between Latter-day Saints and Jews and the other communities in Jerusalem, he got people to open their checkbooks to pay for the facility that would be dedicated to building that interfaith understanding and cooperation into the future. Finished in 1989, it's one of the most important contributions to the Church in Elder Holland's legacy.

The Jerusalem Center exists because of Elder Holland. How well he handled its formation, in my opinion, is how he ended up becoming a Seventy, followed by the call to become an Apostle in 1994.

The Jerusalem Center was constructed on what used to be Palestinian land. The Church is aware of that fact and makes restitution for it in the form of student scholarships to Palestinian students. Sahar Qumsiyeh, a professor at BYU-Idaho, was formerly a Palestinian Christian. She was introduced to the Church and joined because she received one of these scholarships.

The Jerusalem Center became a real turning point in the Church's relationship with Israel and Palestine because they have strong, close partnerships with individuals and groups who identify with each group. They have sent humanitarian aid many times over years, and have committed to doing so now. I trusted that would be the case.

I do highly encourage you to read the links above, but the TL;DR version is that the Church got fully engaged in helping Palestinian refugees for the first time in 2006. I've given you multiple links for a reason, so you can see the way LDS attitudes to this conflict between Israel and Palestine have been evolving and changing over time. The rejections of Israeli violence and support for Palestine today are not new. They've been going on in the LDS Church for almost two decades now. The Church maintains the campus in Jerusalem specifically to expand our peoples' perspectives and understanding of that conflict, specifically so they won't unconditionally side with Israel and support everything they do. And that's not my interpretation. That's what one of the instructors who taught at the Jerusalem Center said of the program there.

While some Latter-day Saints have adopted unconditional support of Israel because of the influence of their allegiance with the Republican party, it's not a position that's endorsed by the Church. It's a position the Church has made deliberate efforts to undermine with the resources available to them on multiple fronts. In education through the Jerusalem Center, in humanitarian aid to Palestinians, in messaging from General Conference, and in their PR campaigns like "I Was a Stranger," church leadership (and, one could argue, God) has been trying to challenge Latter-day Saints to develop a more unconditional love that embraces the entire human family, not just those who are politically convenient to us in our current loyalties.

So when the Church made their statement regarding the outbreak of the Israel Hamas War, people criticized it for not saying enough. It didn't give the information that people wanted: what the Church's response was going to look like, how it would impact church members in the region, and what precautions the Church was going to take to protect them. Because the statement was given on October 12th, the answers to those questions weren't really known. But there was an additional question people wanted answered: Whose side is the Church on? They wanted the strongest possible condemnation, some in favor of Israel, and some in favor of Palestine, depending on what their political alignments were. And I will say those people missed the point. They didn't have the knowledge base of the Church's relationship to the Middle East to properly understand the statement.

The Church didn't "pick a side" in this conflict because of the longstanding relationships the institution has with both Israelis and Palestinians. No human life in that war is more or less valuable to them based on their ethnic background or national origin. To expect the Church to choose sides demonstrates a total lack of understanding of what the Church's goals are with their presence in the Middle East: getting people to recognize the value in interfaith relationships and developing love that rejects politically manufactured enmity.

If you're demanding the Church to pick sides in conflicts based on your political alignments, you're allowing the process of politically motivated dehumanization to cloud your judgement. You're asking them to choose an enemy, which couldn't be further from what the Church is supposed to do in this situation. The statement reflects a refusal to choose sides by condemning one thing, in the strongest language I've ever seen any modern church leader use: Violence.

All violence, no matter who enacts it or for what purpose, is "abhorrent" in the sight of God. That's what the statement said. Think about the implications of that statement. If a person is doing violence, they cannot please God. Those who please God cannot do violence.

Think about the longstanding relationships the Church has with civic leaders in Israel. Think about the fact that this statement was given on the 12th of October, before Israel's offensive even began. It would have been so easy for the Church to condemn terrorism in that moment instead of violence, but that's not what they did. They stated their commitment to care for Israelis and Palestinians in the coming conflict, drawing a line in the sand—prophetically, if I may add. I fully believe that the strength of the language of this statement anticipates how extreme the Israeli response has been, which the Church condemned before it began.

One of the unfortunate side effects of being terminally online and fluent only in American politics is that a statement like the one the Church gave reads to some as saying passively "all lives matter." That's not what was happening here. There was a reason I gasped when I read the statement and thought to myself "Woooow. They're big mad."

I studied Public Relations in college. Lying is the dumbest approach you can take as a PR strategy. It squanders good will, destroys your authority, and doesn't accomplish any organizational goals long term. A better strategy is to say exactly what you mean in the fewest words possible, and let people identify the implications for themselves. Only those who are truly invested in your message will understand everything you said without you having to say it.

The Church's statement was all but a slap in the face to the Israeli and US governments, telling them that God rejects them for bringing this violence into the world. They will not enjoy his protection while this violence continues. It also stands to reason that any other nation that assists Israel with their campaign of death and destruction will also stand condemned by God.

Church leadership, in partnership with PR, isn't going to say that part out loud. But they'll imply the hell out of it. Working in PR is operating on Jane Austen levels of subtext. I wish more people understood that so they could enjoy moments like this when the Church throws shade.

[nerdygaymormon]

John 13:26 - Jesus feeds Judas

26 Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.

Jesus identifies the person who betrayed Him by feeding him. 

Jesus didn’t cast out the betrayer. Jesus didn’t get upset and overturn the table. Jesus didn’t prevent Judas from carrying out the plan.

Jesus gave Judas bread after having dipped it in His own cup. Prior to this, Jesus had also washed his disciples��� feet, including Judas’. 

In other words, knowing what Judas was up to, Jesus cleans and feeds him, showing remarkable care towards Judas and treats him as a friend, showing love to the end. 

Jesus never excluded Judas, Judas was included until he excludes himself. This story shows us who Jesus is and who Judas was. 

It’s remarkable.

Jesus treated Judas so well that none of His disciples were able to detect that it was Judas who would betray Him. That’s loving your enemies.

Is this how we treat those we perceive as a threat or enemy?

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Elder Boyd K. Packer declared that the greatest threats to the LDS church are gays & lesbians, feminists, and scholars & intellectuals. I remember hearing this in 1993 as a first-year student at Ricks College, the church-owned school in Rexburg, Idaho (now known as BYU-Idaho). As a faithful, newly-returned missionary, I was shocked. I am gay, I was beginning my academic journey, and considered feminism to be important in lifting the status of women and in fulfilling the destiny laid out in the US Declaration of Independence and in Jesus’ teachings. Did this make me an enemy? 

Does the church exclude queer people and treat us as enemies? It certainly hasn’t treated us as friends and has done much to push us away.

In Elder Packer’s talk, he included excerpts from a letter by a gay member who shared some of his positive, loving & spirit-filled experiences at church and some bad experiences with Church members and leaders. Then he wrote:

"So in a spirit of friendship I offer that which I have to give -- the life experience of a gay Mormon. At your convenience I would be happy to meet with you to discuss the issues facing gay Latter-day Saints and the Church. The purpose for meeting is not to debate, or to presumptively call you to repentance, or to be called to repentance myself for being gay. The point is to meet together and share what we have for the good of The Kingdom and the furthering of the Will of the Lord on Earth."

Rather than accept this offer, Elder Packer held it up as the personification of a threat. The LDS Church took many steps against gay people, and in the process turned many of those perceived as a threat into actual enemies.  

What do the actions of the Church reveal about itself? What do the actions of queer people or feminists or academics who try to stay in church, despite everything, reveal about themselves? Which is more Christlike?