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And speaking of ongoing questions about doctrines of the Latter-day Saints and their impact on Utah life, check this out. Let me assure you that I have read my share of materials on the Mormon decision to open the priesthood to African-Americans. But this Reuters story by Adam Tanner is evidence of how long it takes for perceptions and realities to change.
Stephen A., I think you’re missing a critical distinction. The Mormons are not Trinitarian, to put it mildly; their 19th century Scientology-like theology is in contradiction to every other Christian group, and certainly to doctrinally focused traditions such as fundamentalism. The fundamentalists think that the Catholics are wrong, to be sure, but the scope of error is entirely different. Listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” sometime and notice how they’ve changed the words. Indeed, that is part of the discomfort about the Mormons. Externally, they are relentlessly normal; their theological innards are, well, weird. . . .
I’ve sensed anger from some who are upset over the negative tone the mass media have taken toward the federal government in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. Some are asking why we couldn’t all come together the way we did after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Why has this become a left/right political issue that is dividing the country?
Let me offer a follow-up remark or two about the Newsweek “Pray For Us” cover story on Hurricane Katrina. I’ll put this in a separate post, so that readers don’t confuse my take on this with Doug’s piece. It’s not that I disagree with Doug. But something nagged me as I read the lead article through twice.
Maybe it’s because I’ve written more for magazines than for newspapers since the late 1980s, but I often find newsweeklies more helpful than other media for making sense of broad-sweep stories, such as Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans.
While the 2008 Presidential elections seem a long way off — and we are still appropriately focused on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — I found a bit of presidential politics surprisingly refreshing. Here is an article in this month’s Washington Monthly on “Mitt Romney’s Evangelical Problem.”
If you are interested in news and commentary about the theological issues linked to Katrina, the Anglican Web Elves up north — wise guys in multiple meanings of that phrase — have started a blog that includes all kinds of useful links. This is the CaNN site, which stands either for Classical Anglican Net News or Clergy Against Nabobs of Negativism. I can never remember which is right. Wait, that last one would be Clergy Against Nattering Nabobs of Negativism, which would be CaNNN.
Alan Cooperman’s article in Sunday’s Washington Post on the how some see God at work in the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina disappoints. In taking on such a heady issue, Cooperman fails to go outside the usual sources and seems to trip up over the fact that the typical heavyweights in Christian circles failed to issue harsh condemnations from heaven on the sinners of New Orleans.
Different people spew their breakfast drinks for different reasons. What gets to me, as a former headline writer, are those page-toppers that seem to say something so obvious that you want to pound your head on your bagel or anything else on the table at the moment.
