It seems to me that almost every argument I have seen involving Mormonism (where one of the participants is Mormon and the other is not), either online or in the real world, and including arguments I have been party to on both sides of the issue, has essentially boiled down to the non-Mormon party making assertions about Mormonism, and the Mormon denying them, claiming that Mormonism is being misrepresented, misunderstood, maligned, overgeneralized, or distorted.

I wonder why? Are criticisms of Mormonism really so unfounded? Are they really so groundless? While many of them certainly are groundless or deceptive, I do think there are a lot of earnest and legitimate criticisms out there, but I rarely hear a Mormon, when confronted with one of those criticisms, accept it. While I don’t necessarily expect to see Mormons granting the truth of negative assessments of their religion (although it would be incredibly refreshing), that’s not the only option. The Mormon in the fight could always go the “it’s a feature, not a bug” route, and claim that the criticisms about the Church are true, but they are ultimately not negative. I guess, to be fair, I have seen people argue like this, too, and it gets on my nerves as well. So maybe it really isn’t a preferable option.

Assuming that some criticisms of Mormonism are legitimate and grounded in fact and/or actual experience, why then do defenders of the faith not own up to them? Why do they habitually deny or claim that they are being misrepresented? Is it simply the case that so many lies and misrepresentations are in fact made about the church that defenders are just in the habit of playing the “nuh-uh” card, so they do it as a reflex? Or is there something unique about Mormonism that makes it so that its members will go to great lengths to avoid conceding that it has any bad points?

I guess it’s fair to ask if this is really “unique” or not, and how much it exists when talking about other faiths, but in my experience, most Christian denominations that aren’t NRMs are pretty open to internal dissent and criticism from within.

Over to the right (or maube to the left, depending on if I ever change the format again) where my links are, there’s a section called “Churches.”  I believe it is a complete list of the churches I’ve visited since I started questioning Mormonism.

Everyone’s writing about the big issues in the communion: homosexuality, schism, Lambeth, GAFCON, the global South, post-colonialism, the covenant, etc

These are a big deal, sure, but in the meantime, nobody is really writing about, well, Jesus.  Or anything else.  It’s not that I expect people to pretend that the big happenings aren’t happening, but as I’m more and more certain that Anglicanism is the direction for me, I’m eager to engage in conversations about theology, about spirituality, about God, about prayer, about Church history, about the Bible, about liturgy, about Christian life, about the environment, about poverty, about war, about government.  About poetry, art, mythology, history, music, anything.  There’s so much that is informed by faith that is worth talking about.

Instead, it’s all Church politics, all the time.  It’s disappointing.  Maybe Anglicans, especially in countries like mine where church membership is low and dropping, need to hear this: nobody’s going to want to join a church when the only issue is internecine politics.  Even those who do, like me, are finding it difficult to stay enthusiastic.

Not sure what to say today.  Bonus points to anyone who knows where the title of this post comes from.

I’ve decided that C. S. Lewis is probably my favorite author, and I’ve been devouring everything by him that I can get my hands on.  I’ve read Mere Christianity a couple of times, bits of the Screwtape Letters, and most of the Chronicles of Narnia.  I think that’s where most people stop with Lewis, and I think that’s sad, because it offers an extremely misleading picture of the man, his ideas, his theology, his philosophy, and how it all fits together.  I think that a great many fans of Lewis would be shocked and surprised by much of what Lewis seems ot have really thought, if they read anything beyond the standard cliched offerings, and I certainly think that Evangelicals and Mormons would be a lot more hesitant to posthumously enlist Lewis as a defender of their faith.  Lewis is anything but an orthodox Evangelical Protestant, and very little of what he says is compatible with Mormonism.

Surprised By Joy and Till We have Faces are two of his more compelling, multilayered, and spiritually textured books, and I cannot overemphasize the massive impact they have had on my personal spiritual development.  But the deeper ideas contained in them are revolutionary and in many ways extremely heterodox.

Right now I’m reading the Space Trilogy, which is science fiction, but also overtly Christian–more so than Narnia because it is set in the real world with real Jesus (called Maleldil in the book’s “Old Solar” language) instead of in a magical world with a lion Jesus.  Many of Lewis’s more complex ideas about religion and theology from other works, especially Miracles, is parroted in dialogue and arguments between characters in the Space Trilogy.

I imagine a Mormon reader, especially one who is attached to the more ”space doctrine” aspects of the religion, would find much to like in the Space Trilogy, but ultimately I think the Mormon reader’s affection would be misplaced and based on a reading of the books that is superficial and divorced from the context of Lewis’s larger corpus.  The Space Trilogy certainly has interplanetary Christianity, and as such there are certain parallels to Mormon doctrines that are basically unavoidable, but in the final analysis I would assert that Lewis’s theology is ultimately incompatible on a very fundamental level with many of Mormonism’s core assumptions.

I’ve just started That Hideous Strength, the final (and longest) of the three, but so far the books are good, the ideas contained in them are compelling, and Perelandra contains what is possibty the most visceral fight scene I have ever read.

Make sure you check out Aquinas’s excellent post about C. S. Lewis on Summa Theologica.

I’m thinking about starting to blog regularly again.  One nice thing about blogging my spiritual journey was that in a way, the blog actually helped propel me forwards.  When I came to a new conclusion, or something stuck in my craw, the blog helped me reify the former and work through the latter (or in some cases, see that it couldn’t actually be worked through).  Since I’ve stopped blogging regularly, I’ve made some decisions and come to some new conclusions, but in some ways they haven’t made much of a difference because I haven’t done much about them.  Blogging would be a way for me to make my experiences real, and commit myself to my decisions by announcing them publicly, if that makes sense.

Also, having a blog is a way to, simply put, make sure things that interest me happen in the blogosphere.  Other people’s blogs are fine, but there’s a give and take, an ongoing conversation that is lost when I don’t blog myself.  The conversation suffers, I think.

On the other hand, I have some moderate concerns.  I’ve come a long way since I stopped blogging regularly, and I’m not sure if I would try to catch up, or just kind of pick up where I am now and fill in important details as I go.  I guess the latter is more realistic.

I also wonder if the public nature of the blog isn’t more than a little narcissistic.  Would my needs be better served by something like a diary or a journal?

…are being shot from my apartment complex.  It’s pretty loud.  I mean, my son hasn’t woke up yet, so it’s not that bad, but it’s like an intense, relentless, thunderstorm.  It is loud and forceful enough to set off car alarms.

I went running this evening, and between the time I left and the time I got back, police had blocked off every way into the property.  I didn’t have ID or keys or anything, so I had to fast-talk my way back in.

Today I decided to go running, which is not that unusual, especially since I seriously overate this morning (my beautiful and sexy wife makes a mean lemon merangue pie and it made a delicious breakfast… and lunch).  What is unusual is that I just didn’t get tired, and didn’t get winded.  So I kept going until I had run ten miles, and decided to stop.  Before today, my record was about seven and a quarter, and most days if I run at all I run two, maybe three miles.  By the time I was done today, my legs were cramping fiercely and I had a blister on the arch of my right foot, but other than that (and being bored and it getting late, dark,and cold), I could have kept going.  I simply never ran out of breath.  I was very pleased.

By the way, we’re having a baby in three days and we might have finally picked out a name tonight.

Taking a break from writing about God to point out that it’s nice and warm here in the DC area today–balmy 60’s.  I wish it would stay this way, but I rather think it will get cold again before it stays warm.  I’m also a little bit sad that I’m stuck inside working on a paper for school (on Mormonism and the Civil Rights movement) instead of being outside.  Oh well, hopefull it will still be nice tomorrow so I can go out and enjoy it.  I’ll try to make sure I at least go running later this afternoon.