LDS missions map

The LDS Church has got you covered! Look how it's covering the whole earth with its missionaries. They're especially going to be all over you if you're poor and uneducated because gullibility - OOPS! I MEAN HUMILITY!

Russ Nelson criticized

Honestly Russell Nelson irks the shit out of me. I know that will come as no surprise, but let me just say (again) that I lost all faith in the man when he took the time to make a really shitty jab at the Big Bang in General Conference a couple of years ago.

The saddest part of watching Russell on that fateful day was hearing the thousands of people in the congregation snickering along with the joke. God save us!

Russ, get a fucking education.

Henry Eyring criticized

I like Henry. He seems like a pretty nice guy, and not because he's the most teary-eyed of the GAs. I only have one criticism specific to him - I wish he'd shut the hell up about his father the Mormon badass chemist.

Note to Henry B:

Henry, listen, you're dad was quite a guy, but here's your problem: you conflate your father's authority in science with his lack of authority with regards to spiritual realities. In other words, just because you're dad was a good scientist and a devout believer doesn't give his belief the same weight of his scientific research. No more of this "Hey, my dad was smart and still believed, so it must be true" bullshit. Listen, you've got a BS in physics and you're a fucking apostle of the big JC. Put it all together for us. Show us how it works in more than a mere 100 pages that essentially say "Embrace the mystery!"

Thank you.
Be well.
Abe

Russell's call to arms

Last month our dearly beloved apostle of the THE LORD JESUS CHRIST gave an impassioned commencement speech at Brigham Young University. It was pretty awesome and really hard to improve upon, but that doesn't mean there weren't complaints or that it wasn't improved upon.

Humble yourself before the Lord's anointed and learn at his feet, brothers and sisters.

Or the children's crusade

Mormon boys in their late teens are expected to dedicate two years of their lives to proselytizing for the LDS Church as missionaries. It's a right of passage. It's proof of conviction. It's a badge of honor. It's a sign of marriageability. It's a test of leadership capability. It's something most young men feel significant pressure to do and be successful at.

The Church has recently found a way to amp up the pressure one feels to serve a mission by lowering the age of service for men from 19 to 18. What this means in the context of the United States is that now, instead of discussing which universities you're applying to or where you've decided to go, high school seniors will be talking about whether or not they've put in their mission papers (the application to go on a mission) and where they've been assigned to serve the Church.

In other words, the decision to serve is now made at an even younger, more impressionable age more squarely within the dynamics of peer pressure instead of being made after about a year of higher education and significant social distancing from friends and family. It's stands to reason that the Church is probably trying to increase the percentage of young men serving missions (about 30% in the U.S.)

The demographic that typically goes undiscussed in church is the 70% of young men who aren't going and they young men who return early from their missions for one reason or another. On an anecdotal note, my close friends who did not serve missions have all explained the shame and ostracism they experienced as a result of staying home. Those who come home early share those same feelings.

Isn't their a more inspired way? Couldn't Jesus instruct the Church leadership in the creation of a more flexible and loving program that would allow everyone to participate without all the baggage of social pressure and shame? Is this really how God wants his work carried out? Is this really how we want to treat our children?