Family Scriptures
April 17, 2018For a book of remembrance we have written among us, according to the pattern given by the finger of God; and it is given in our own language (Moses 6:46). Sometimes in my journey through MIA I…
DiaBLOGue
Religion and Suicide: A Records-Linkage Study
April 17, 2018Since the early studies of the French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, suicide has interested sociologists. But suicide, by its very nature, has resisted study, and the problem of studying it has not eased over the years.…
Four Characteristics of the Mormon Family: Contemporary Research on Chastity, Conjugality, Children, and Chauvinism
April 17, 2018From its inception, Mormonism has been characterized by a blend of traditional American culture mixed with unique, sometimes even radical, elements. The nineteenth-century Mormon family combined aspects of Puritan family morality with a unique theology…
The Binding of Isaac: A View of Jewish Exegesis
April 17, 2018For Jews, the Bible is an animate being. Understanding it means understanding everything we have experienced. The sum of meaning in the Bible is the sum of life’s meaning. Judaism is over 2,000 years of…
Recollections from an Ex
April 17, 2018mused in several voices
to the tune of tinkling cymbals
It wasn’t like she didn’t blend right in.
In fact, based on the type of clothes she wore,
People always figured she was from Salt Lake.
Her skirts were long enough, that’s for sure.
Friendship and Intimacy
April 17, 2018In some ways, our culture doesn’t teach us very much about intimacy. It teaches us about sex as if it were intimacy. Similarly, it doesn’t teach us very much about friendship. It teaches us about…
Spiritual Searching: The Church on Its International Mission
April 17, 2018Early in the 1950s, President David O. McKay took forthright steps to move the largely domestic church into the international world. Within months after assuming his presidency, he embarked on a series of world tours, much as Pope John Paul of today’s Catholic Church has done, visiting places and lands where the Church remained strong…
Notes on Apostolic Succession
April 17, 2018The recognition of Brigham Young as leader of the Church in August 1844 and the reorganization of the First Presidency under his direction in December 1847 have provided the basic pattern and precedent for apostolic…
For Brother de Mik
April 17, 2018Cupped in your papery palm the rose
was like a wound, flowering.
Your wife nodded when we brought it.
Yes, Papa, yes is pretty. Then
she put it in a bowl to float
and wilt on water.
Sin and Sexuality: Psychobiology and the Development of Homosexuality
April 17, 2018Dialogue 20.2 (Summer 1987): 31–43
Stout’s article is a reminder just how important psychology and psychologists were for mediating these early debates. It really was groundbreaking in LDS print media. He talks about how he believed and presented publicly theories on the cause and cure of homoseuxaity, following Freudian psychology in 1970. “16 years later, “he states, “I can state that what I presented was wrong and simplistic. The evolving change in my views came by examining new research, gaining more clinical experience, and looking for alternative explanations to clarify some of the mystery surrounding the development of human sexuality and specifically homosexuality.” Stout’s overview provides a guide to the updated psychological research from the 1970s and 80s that overturned earlier consensus on the pathologization of homosexuality and on whether it can be cured. He tackles the ethical and moral issues with forced celibacy, but leaves the question as a mystery of paradox of how to proceed on the topic, warning against “extremes” on all sides.