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Recent Posts
- Psaltery & Lyre’s New Site
- 123 Psaltery & Lyre: “Agricola Dreams of Flying” by J. Rose Lara
- 122 Psaltery & Lyre: “Communion: a love poem (a villanelle)” by Rachel Bollinger
- Book Review: Philip Metres’s Sand Opera
- 121 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Horsehead Nebula”
- Book Review: Monica Ong’s Silent Anatomies
- 120 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Return, pt. III” and “Gaia”
- Book Review: Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
- Book Review: Matthea Harvey, If the Tabloids Are True What Are You?
- Book Review: LoterÃa Cards and Fortune Poems: A Book of Lives
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MCS Archive
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50: A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: What’s Real, Deconstructing John Dehlin, and My Thoughts on Religion, Part III
Posted on March 29, 2013 | 9 CommentsHow we answer that question will largely determine how much control over our beliefs and behaviors we're be willing to surrender to a religious institution, and that, in turn, will largely determine the degree to which we'll be able to find fellowship and communion within it. -
49: A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: What’s Real, Deconstructing John Dehlin, and My Thoughts on Religion, Part II
Posted on March 29, 2013 | 12 CommentsThe first challenge is an exercise in epistemology; The second is an exercise in phenomenology. The first asks what is "true," while the second focuses on what is "real." -
48: A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: What’s Real, Deconstructing John Dehlin, and My Thoughts on Religion, Part I
Posted on March 26, 2013 | 26 CommentsI sometimes wonder, if given the opportunity, whether my 40-year-old self could talk any sense into my 19-year-old self. I don't know the answer to that. -
47 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: A Faith like Mine
Posted on December 18, 2012 | 7 CommentsI now admit, somewhat sheepishly, that one of the reasons I voted for Obama is because of his religious beliefs. -
46 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Girls Can Change the World
Posted on December 14, 2012 | 7 CommentsWe're not just losing the voice of someone who would say the same things as everybody else in the conversation. -
45 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Pants-Wearing Women Running Wild
Posted on December 12, 2012 | 21 CommentsThat, my friends, is how you maintain a cultural norm, and in that context, press releases telling women they can decide for themselves what to wear are meaningless. -
44 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Mormonism, Utah and Equal Opportunity
Posted on November 5, 2012 | 19 CommentsUtah is a state where, if you're poor, your neighbors will bake you cookies, and then cheerfully go the ballot box and vote to take away any hope of your children having the same opportunities as their children. -
43 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Why the Church Changed the Missionary Age
Posted on October 16, 2012 | 32 CommentsIt would be nice, of course, if the church would provide a measure of organizational size that more accurately reflected real growth (e.g. the number of full tithe payers or the number of temple recommend holders, for example), but it doesn't. -
42 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: The Only Thing I Know
Posted on October 15, 2012 | 15 CommentsThe faith that had once seemed so unshakable in my youth had dissipated. Instead of warmth and hope, I felt hollow. -
41 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Progress?
Posted on October 10, 2012 | 34 CommentsRecently, men have served at 19, women at 21. No one claimed there was anything magical about these numbers. No eternal principle was at stake. It was just policy. -
40 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: “A Public Meeting, or Feast”
Posted on September 18, 2012 | 17 CommentsBrigham Young later removed this passage. A combined wedding and sealing, apparently, had certain operational advantages when it came to keeping early polygamous marriages a secret. -
39 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Please Don’t Tell Me I Don’t Understand the Gospel
Posted on August 28, 2012 | 11 CommentsHad I simply refused to see it? Turned a blind eye out of conformity? Why, after decades in the church, did these things suddenly bother me? -
38 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: The Real Threat to Religious Liberty
Posted on August 1, 2012 | 9 CommentsThe problem with McBride's "Threats to Chick-fil-A are a Threat to Religious Liberty" article in Meridian Magazine is that she doesn't seem to understand what religious liberty is or why it's important. -
37 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: The 1800s Called
Posted on July 25, 2012 | 6 Comments. . . they want their magazine back. -
36 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Truth or The Onion?
Posted on July 14, 2012 | 6 CommentsBecause Salt Lake City is the capital of Utah, it's important that it is 'dressed appropriately.' -
35 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: A Visit to the Grandin Printing Shop on E. Main
Posted on June 29, 2012 | 10 CommentsI'm in the Grandin Printing Shop on E. Main in Palmyra. An affable guide is doing his best to impose some structure on our visit, but I'm not cooperating. -
34 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Charity by Force?
Posted on June 24, 2012 | 9 CommentsAll those in favor of building a new sports stadium, please bring $100 cash and come down this Saturday and Sunday to help pour concrete. . . -
33 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Loving Those Who Choose the Other Road
Posted on May 31, 2012 | 15 CommentsThe real test of love is not if we can love and appreciate people who agree with us. . .but if we can honor and respect people who don't. -
32 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Wheel of Fortune & Evergreen International, Inc.
Posted on May 28, 2012 | 8 CommentsGroups like Evergreen International only practice science when it's convenient. Like my grandma, when presented with contradictory evidence, they simply turn off the TV, insisting that their answer is better. -
31 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Straining at Gnats
Posted on May 24, 2012 | 17 CommentsAah, yes, the "don't sweat the small stuff" argument. It's as familiar as Wonder bread in a sacrament tray. -
30 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Higher Education?
Posted on May 18, 2012 | 5 CommentsHarvard Business School has its issues, as does any organization. But I believe that its values of openness, tentativeness, intellectual honesty, democratic knowledge, and informed dissent are indeed worthy of praise and emulation. -
29 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: David Foster Wallace, Cement Mixers, and Mormonism
Posted on May 5, 2012 | 5 CommentsWe get to grapple with our own spiritual ineptness, sling it over our shoulders, cart it home, and store it under our beds. -
28 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Cognitive Dissonance 101
Posted on April 30, 2012 | 19 CommentsI have remarked more than once that Mormons are often able to juggle contradictory ideas without, apparently, even being aware of the internal tensions. . . . -
27 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: The CleanFlix Documentary
Posted on April 18, 2012 | 7 CommentsCLEANFLIX raises provocative questions about censorship and consumer rights as well as Mormon approaches to art and sex. . . . -
26 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Joanna, Mr. Hancock, and Mormonism Lite
Posted on April 6, 2012 | 49 CommentsAs parents, what do we value more from our four-year-olds? A paint-by-the-numbers portrait identical to what's on the box, or a free-spirited "look, Mom, this is you and Dad in a rocket ship with a cow" masterpiece? -
25 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Conference Weekend and Rolexes
Posted on April 5, 2012 | 14 CommentsI'll walk around for a while, mesmerized by scale and luster of it, and then I'll remember that the development-everything, including the fountains, the retractable roof, and $20k Rolexes-are a physical manifestation of my religion. . . . -
24 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: “We know that. . .”
Posted on March 22, 2012 | 51 CommentsI pick it up, open it, and read this sentence on page 3: "We know that gender was set in the premortal world." -
23 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: A Few Questions?
Posted on March 20, 2012 | 55 Comments1) Why is it so hard, when it comes to women, for Mormons to understand that being valuable is not the same as being equal?, 2) If King Benjamin were put in charge of church finances. . . -
22 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Look Mom, No Hands!
Posted on March 2, 2012 | 18 CommentsIt's a "Look Ma, No Hands!" approach to issue management. We want to say, "look, we aren't racists, and we have no idea why that racist policy was enforced for 130 years." -
21 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Half a Foot (or Church)
Posted on February 26, 2012 | 14 CommentsThe "nicer" men are about the patriarchal structure of the church, the more likely it is to be perpetuated. The best way for men to promote change in this context may be to act like authoritarian jerks. -
20 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Half a Church
Posted on February 19, 2012 | 60 CommentsI have brought my daughter, dressed up and nervous with anticipation, gift in hand, to a birthday party where the boys will decide what games to play and what the rules will be. . . -
19 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Organizational Physics
Posted on January 30, 2012 | 6 CommentsSo here it is. The one inmutable law of organizations. As long as #4 is greater than #2, the organization will grow (and continue to amass resources). -
18 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: The Polygamy Problem
Posted on November 19, 2011 | 36 CommentsPolygamy is a system in which MEN "progress" and "expand their stewardship" by increasing their patriarchal reach. They do it by collecting women like Jay Leno collects classic cars. -
17 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: True or False?
Posted on November 8, 2011 | 33 CommentsThe last time this was laid out for me in a sunday school lesson I decided to diagram how it actually works. I've tried to be as accurate as possible. -
16 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: On Owning It
Posted on October 30, 2011 | 11 CommentsIs intellectual honesty still a virtue--even when it's not convenient? -
15 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: The BEST Talks Ever
Posted on October 22, 2011 | 14 CommentsBased on an informal poll of cheap seaters, these are the 10 BEST talks ever. -
14 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Uchtdorf Steps In It
Posted on October 15, 2011 | 92 Comments"But PLEASE, for the love of God, don't tell us that God hasn't forgotten us. We're not that small. Or stupid." -
Favorites: Heroic Aspirations, Gay Marriage, and the Mormon Church
Posted on October 9, 2011 | 8 CommentsThis is a guest post I wrote nearly a year ago. . . DHO is still running around arguing that the proper practice of our religion requires us to work to prevent marginalized groups from exercising their basic civil rights. . . -
13 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: My Journey to the Cheap Seats (Guest)
Posted on October 1, 2011 | 12 CommentsI was struck by how much I needed to hear that there were other people in my section. I wasn't alone. -
12 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Moral Imagination (Guest)
Posted on September 24, 2011 | 8 Comments[Heidi, a fellow cheap-seater, still has the floor.] In an earlier Cheap Seats post, Brent asked “Why do we spend so much time telling each other what spiritual experiences mean?” I think it’s an important question and it’s one I keep coming back to. […] -
11 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Modesty? (Guest)
Posted on September 17, 2011 | 14 Comments[This week we pass the microphone to Heidi, a fellow cheap-seater. Heidi, it’s all yours. . .] Like many cheap-seaters and feminists, I’m not a fan of the modesty discourse at church. There have already been many great conversations about what’s wrong with four-year-olds […] -
10 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: The WORST Talks Ever
Posted on September 3, 2011 | 67 CommentsBased on an informal poll of cheap seaters, these are the worst conference talks, GA talks, and other official pronouncements in the last forty years. -
09 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Faith is the Miracle
Posted on August 28, 2011 | 5 CommentsFaith doesn't affect anything. It doesn't cause anything. Faith is a commitment to see the world in a particular way. It's about choosing to look through the kaleidoscope. -
08 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Painting by the Numbers
Posted on August 21, 2011 | 24 CommentsIt's about the process, not the outcome. Painting by the numbers, regardless of how carefully, isn't the same as painting our own picture-and learning to paint on our own, I suspect, will be what will matter the most in the end. -
07 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Spiritual Pinball
Posted on August 13, 2011 | 11 CommentsThese strategies are how we self-soothe, in a spiritual sense. They are the pinball bumpers of Mormonism-bumpers that will keep the ball in play for a lifetime, or as long as one keeps playing. -
06 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: The Real Story
Posted on August 6, 2011 | 54 CommentsWe learn the mental gymnastics of religious apologetics like Hispanics learn soccer. -
05 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: On Testimonies
Posted on July 30, 2011 | 19 CommentsI like fast and testimony meetings. I like them even though I sometimes feel like I've wandered into a UFO convention by mistake. -
04 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Build Out, Not Up
Posted on July 23, 2011 | 16 CommentsCan a religion be built on faith? Just plain faith? Faith that isn't looking for a promotion, or a pay raise, or that isn't on its way to becoming something else? -
03 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: From Kolob Wikileaks
Posted on July 16, 2011 | 10 Comments"The iron rod should only go halfway through the mist-just HALFWAY, not all the way. It's clear from the picture." -
02 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Our God is Too Small
Posted on July 9, 2011 | 14 CommentsThe problem is that our assumption of order and constancy doesn't match the diversity, incoherence, and contradictions of lived religion. -
01 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: On Being a Church Loser
Posted on July 2, 2011 | 33 CommentsIf my religion were a sports stadium, then I'm in the nosebleed section. I've got a big Diet Coke, a bucket of popcorn, and the field is the size of a postage stamp.