Green Oasis

This video of Todd Whitaker standing up and speaking his mind in sacrament meeting about the involvement of the LDS church in the fight against marriage rights has been making the rounds. The bishop eventually has enough and cuts off the mic. Here’s what you can’t hear:

…I Leave you today in hopes that maybe just one of you will take to heart and question the wrong doing and the rights that have been robbed from millions of Californians. I would never vote to take away your right to marry so why did you take away mine? Tolerance is not the same as love. Mormons confuse the two quite often. I know that God loves me unconditionally. He will be the final Judge in the end, so any church court, judge or jury cannot condemn me nor will I succumb to such evil ungodly treatment from this church. You have done enough damage to many lives and ruined many family’s because of your strict rules concerning gays. I am done being a hypocrite and will ask that you remove my name from all church records, as I am divorcing my membership here today in this church. I will not allow you to revoke me. Amen.

A longer video is also available if you want more context, though I wish I knew what happened immediately after he walked out.

Some may say that it is disrespectful to stand up in someone’s church meeting and criticize them. I can agree with that. I wonder if this kind of outspokenness would be necessary if the LDS church encouraged open discussion instead of the carefully correlated message that has been the standard fare since 1972. In any case, you can’t make omeletes without breaking some eggs, as we say. I think breaking down decorum is justified when fighting to have your civil rights recognized by an unwilling majority.

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. — Sir Richard Francis Burton

The Cosmic Calendar resumes, but not here. I’ve moved it over to Sense of Wonder. The latest outpost on the calendar is the explosion of our Mother Star.

[Sometimes I fantasize about what I would say if I were asked to speak at an LDS meeting. Is that weird? This comment that I made at a friend's blog may be the seed of one possible such talk. I am responding to the question "What truths can you think of that have been twisted by Satan to distract us?"]

I realize the fact that you may be skeptical of what I’m about to say because of who I am. I only ask that you listen to what I say.

Dreaming about heavenly mansions above can distract from doing important things today. The eloquent and compassionate hymn Have I Done Any Good teaches us this.

Dreaming about a heavenly reward and worrying about whether we’ll be worthy of it diverts our energy from the tasks at hand. Pure religion and undefiled (James 1:27) requires that we exercise compassion through our actions now, in the present.

The principle of stewardship that you mention says that we are the caretakers of our earthly home. We are told that we will be held accountable for the condition that the earth is in when our stewardship is over.

Sometimes, I hear people with the mindset that what we do here and now ultimately doesn’t matter because Jesus will come again and rescue us from the chaos that precedes his coming. This may make sense to some kinds of Christians, but this runs contrary to the ideal of the faithful steward taught by the Bible and the other LDS scriptures.

The notion that we are not doing irreparable damage to our home despite numerous evidences only serves to dull the senses and allow us to continue to live the easy life, the life that we’re familiar with. The life of a disciple of Christ should call a person to wake up to the harm they do and live a higher life.

It seems to me that faithful followers of Christ should be striving to return their stewardship to the hands of the Lord of the Vineyard in good condition.

I focus on the good that I can do today while the sun shines, and have faith that if I succeed in exercising compassion and fulfilling my stewardship—and if I meet God after my life is over—that I will be welcomed home into his mansions. Focusing on the possibility of those mansions now is only a distraction from the good that can be accomplished today.

Dinosaur Comics manages in six panels to expose the stupidity of all calendar-based predictions of the end of the world and other important events. This includes pretty much everything John Pratt has ever submitted to the credulous editors of Meridian Magazine. When 2000 came and went with no Apocalypse-themed mayhem, I started to get the impression that humanity had been stood up and it was time to pay the waiter and go home.