Gay Marriage and Polygamy, The Angel and The Beehive

Two major court rulings have shaken shibboleths of Utah society and in the process revealed some major aspects of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it acts in the world.  

Reaction and Prophets in Mormonism: An Anthropological Meditation

Why has the LDS Church hewed such a socially conservative line in the half century or so  of my life and what does it meant? These questions have been bothering me for a long time and here I want to explore them.  

The questions are difficult because they seem to pose a theological question and because they raise an issue that, though evident in my experience, will be denied by others as soon as the going gets rough. Leaders of the Church, and other Latter-day Saints, in my experience, often change the ground of argument when it suits them.

Culture and Theology: The LDS Statement on "Race and the Priesthood"

In trying to clarify the LDS Church’s position on Blacks and the Priesthood, and acknowledge its problematic past exclusion of Blacks from the LDS priesthood, the church throws itself into a swamp of messy and troublesome words. 

It makes you wish for a conceptual rail to lead you through the fog. But there is none, although the statement does attempt to distinguish one. The solid, the constant, the firm path seems what the document calls “theology” and pairs with “practice”.  

In the statement, “theology”, seems a summary of what Latter-day Saints think is key to their Church, divine guidance and revelation.