Reflections from Haiti

Posted March 6, 2010 by Matthew Bolton
Categories: Haiti, Outreach International, Peace and Justice, disaster relief
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

As of the last week in January, I have been working as the Haiti Emergency Coordinator for Outreach International, a charity affiliated with the Community of Christ. Since the 1980s, Outreach International has supported a network of about 90 schools catering to 9,000 students in Haiti. About 30 of these schools were in the earthquake-affected area, most of which are damaged or destroyed, affecting over 1,200 children. The following are links to reflections on my first visit to Haiti in early February, as serialized in The Examiner (Independence, MO):

Read the rest of this post »

Comments: 2 Comments

Prophet, Seer, and Revelator

Posted March 3, 2010 by kevinwbryant
Categories: Uncategorized

The church website has recently put up a video interview of Steve Veazey conducted by Linda Booth.  The link to the video is on the bottom of the main page, www.CofChrist.org

Among other things, Steve discusses his experiences in bringing the Words of Counsel to the church.  He relates some of the revelatory process as he experienced it and personal insights into the decisions surrounding the document.

I was fortunate enough to be in the Independence area during the last weekend in January, two weeks after the document was presented to the church.  At a last minute decision, I went with my wife and brother-in-law to attend the January 31st Temple Event.  I had no clue what to expect as we went, but it was a very enjoyable and beneficial afternoon.  At the close of the event, the First Presidency held a short worship service to wrap the activities up and send us on our way.  My brother-in-law is quite a bit younger than both my wife and I and had never really been in the Temple before, though a life-long Independence resident.  As we sat in the closing worship service, he was very inquisitive about exactly what was going on and who different people were.  We tried to explain to him about the First Presidency and what they do, and who Steve Veazey was.  He really struggled with these concepts, but ultimately came away with a conclusion along the lines that Steve talks to God on behalf of the Church.  The question asked: “What is a prophet?” really got me thinking and scrambling to try and find a way to answer satisfactorily–but also quietly while the service continued.

Read the rest of this post »

Comments: 15 Comments

let us beat our swords into ploughshares

Posted February 19, 2010 by mormongandhi
Categories: LDS, Mormonism, Peace and Justice, Temples

This is a commentary to Isaiah 2 (2 Nephi 17) that I posted today on latter day satyagraha. I have been thinking about this for a long time: in what way do we as a latter day movement embody the hopes of Isaiah for the millennium? There is no doubt that the House of the LORD is central to this vision. In my search for a new community of Saints, I insist on expanding on our understanding of the place our mormon temples occupy in a latter day context, and a priori there are both similarities and differences in the approaches to temple building within our movement. I speak as a former LDS member, so I welcome comments that might help me understand the CofC approach:

Become a people of the Temple – those who see violence but proclaim peace, who feel conflict yet extend the hand of reconciliation, who encounter broken spirits and find pathways for healing. Fulfill the purposes of the Temple by making its ministries manifest in your hearts…. Let it stand as a towering symbol of a people who knew injustice and strife on the frontier and who now seek the peace of Jesus Christ throughout the world. —Doctrine and Covenants 161:2a-b (Community of Christ)

and it shall come to pass in the last days… Read the rest of this post »

Comments: 27 Comments

“Man Down!” – Teaching the Restored Gospel through peaceful analogies

Posted February 12, 2010 by mormongandhi
Categories: Peace and Justice

SaintsHerald is pleased to welcome mormongandhi as a new columnist. A former member of the LDS church from Oslo, Norway, he is an advocate for nonviolence in the Restoration movement. He is currently investigating the Community of Christ. — John Hamer

The art of rhetoric may be defined as changing other people’s minds (opinions, beliefs) without providing them with new information. One technique heavily used by rhetoric is analogies. Using analogies, one may draw the listener’s attention to similarities between cases and reorganize existing information with the use of an illustrative example. Read the rest of this post »

Comments: 12 Comments

Mormon Stories on RLDS History

Posted January 25, 2010 by John Hamer
Categories: Community of Christ
Tags: , , , , ,

The Mormon Stories podcast has long been one of the most popular features of the Mormon blog universe or “Bloggernacle.” John Dehlin is an impassioned interviewer, who has elicited a number of fascinating stories from a wide variety of Mormons. Some past highlights include a five-part interview with Richard Bushman, author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, and a two-part interview with Anne Wilde, a spokesperson for fundamentalist Mormonism.

After a long hiatus, Mormon Stories is back. John recently asked me to talk about the 1844 Succession Crisis and the history of the Community of Christ for an LDS audience. You can hear part 1 of the interview here.

In the second hour, John asked me about the transformation of the RLDS Church into Community of Christ. You can hear part 2 of the interview here.

Comments: 3 Comments

Veazey’s ‘Counsel to the Church’

Posted January 18, 2010 by Matthew Bolton
Categories: Community of Christ, scripture
Tags: , , , , , ,

Community of Christ President Steve Veazey presented his “Counsel to the Church” today in advance of the church’s World Conference in April. It deals with such hot topics as church membership, communion and human sexuality. Read the document here.

He also presented a “Letter of Counsel about the Presiding Quorums” regarding changes in the Council of Twelve.

Post your reactions in the comments below.

Comments: 66 Comments

Responding Responsibly to Disasters like the Haiti Earthquake

Posted January 14, 2010 by Matthew Bolton
Categories: Outreach International, Peace and Justice, disaster relief
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

In response to the terrible earthquake in Haiti, both Outreach International (click here for their appeal) and the church (click here for their appeal) are calling on church members to give generously to those in need.

In times like this there is often a rush of people wanting to jet to the disaster zone and volunteer, or collect clothing, medicines and food to send to the people suffering. This altruistic impulse is praiseworthy and displays the great generosity and charity human beings show in times of trouble. However, not every well-meaning response to a disaster is a good one. In this briefing paper I wrote in light of the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, I explain how, when responding to a humanitarian disaster, potential donors should keep in mind the following key principles to guide their gift:

Read the rest of this post »

Comments: 23 Comments

Devastation in Haiti! Please Help!

Posted January 14, 2010 by John Hamer
Categories: Outreach International
Tags:


Much of Port-au-Prince has been destroyed, including even the Presidential Palace (above) and the United Nations mission.

Outreach International has issued the following concerning the catastrophe in Haiti:

Thousands of people, possibly 100,000, have been killed by the earthquake that hit Haiti at 5pm Tuesday evening.

Outreach International has been working in Haiti since the 1980s and currently supports a network of 90 schools serving over 9,000 children. Some of these schools have been severely damaged or destroyed. Worse yet, schools were in session at the time of the quake. Students and faculty undoubtedly suffered serious injury or death.

Let’s work together to help Haitians in their time of tremendous suffering! Please do what you can to help! Donate HERE at the Outreach International website.

Outreach International helps people overcome the effects of poverty and develop the capacity to create a new future for themselves and their community. We do not believe in short-term fixes, but in long-term solutions. We call this Sustainable Good.

Comments: 2 Comments

Comparing the Missouri Mormon War with Contemporary Conflicts

Posted January 8, 2010 by Matthew Bolton
Categories: Mormonism, Peace and Justice, Social Science, church history
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

UPDATE 11 January 2010: Kenny and Jake Ballentine, two brothers who make films together, have just announced the upcoming release of a new movie ‘Trouble in Zion’, a documentary on the Missouri Mormon War. Several years ago, Kenny Ballentine read the essay attached to the below posting and talked with me about it while making the film. Click here to find out more about their movie.

The 1838 Missouri Mormon War (see LeSueur’s great book) resulted in at least 22 fatalities, millions of dollars worth of property destruction and the displacement of 15,000 people. Fought in a context of fierce rhetoric, sectarian and paramilitary violence, weak governmental authority and a privatization of military force, it actually bears significant resemblance to what some security scholars (e.g. my former PhD supervisor Mary Kaldor) have called the “New Wars.” These contemporary conflicts in places like the Former Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Columbia, Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan are characterized by the targeting of civilians; powerful non-state actors; prolonged, seemingly intractable, hostilities; connections to organized crime; and exclusivistic ethnic, religious and sectarian ideologies.

Read the rest of this post »

Comments: 6 Comments

Do you get it?

Posted January 4, 2010 by sethbryant
Categories: Christmasian Rock, Community of Christ, Peace and Justice, church history, religious identity

Awesome is the only word I can think of in describing a Christmas celebration I attended yesterday.  It was indeed a worship service (although some there might not have realized it) involving loud rock, long hair, and shooting jets of fire.  The enlightened readers will immediately perceive that I speak of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra or “TSO.”

In the midst of the lasers and fireballs and dueling electric violins, I was struck by a verse from Ecclesiastes.  While The Preacher might not have intended it to be used this way, it was nonetheless compelling:

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has already been,
in the ages before us.
Eccl. 1:9-11 (NRSV, emphasis mine)

While there is nothing new under the sun, many try to disguise the ways in which their creations are indebted to another. Read the rest of this post »

Comments: 3 Comments

« Older Entries