Below are posts associated with the “Jana Riess” tag.
putting family ahead of church
Earlier this month, I was ordained an elder in Community of Christ, an event I anticipated in an earlier post. A couple of weeks later, I carried out some of my first duties as a member of the denomination’s priesthood by performing the confirmation for a friend of mine who was joining Community of Christ, also from a Latter-day Saint background.
There’s a lot that I could write about these two events (my ordination and her confirmation), but there’s one thing that I want to share in particular: I was almost late to the confirmation service.
🔗 linkblog: The best way to honor Melissa Inouye’s memory is to be a kind and persistent badass'
Jana Riess is one of my favorite Mormons, and Melissa was another. This is a great combination of the two.
🔗 linkblog: LDS leaders announce new Mormon temple for Cincinnati'
I’m no longer a practicing Latter-day Saint, but having grown up near Cincinnati, this is still something I’ll be paying attention to! Jana’s take is (unsurprisingly) a thoughtful and good one.
🔗 linkblog: The 'Mormon Moment' 10 years later: Why Joanna Brooks and Mitch Mayne left the public eye'
A great column from Jana. It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years—or that I’ve changed so much in my own Mormonism over that time.
🔗 linkblog: Bing has a testimony of the Book of Mormon! And other adventures with AI chatbots.'
This is one of the most amazing things I’ve read on generative AI.
🔗 linkblog: Talking about the church president over the pulpit | LDS Data Analysis'
Some neat data analysis here—both in terms of methods and in findings. Hat tip to Jana Riess for bringing my attention to this in today’s column.
🔗 linkblog: How Mormons are addressing sex abuse: Too little, too late'
Appreciate Jana’s perspective on this horrible story.
thoughts on an in-press article—and on names and legitimacy in Mormonism
One of the highlights of the summer has been getting an article accepted in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. This article takes as a starting point Cragun and Nielsen’s argument (also published in Dialogue) that:
what is really at play in the debate over the use of “Mormon” is legitimacy.
Cragun and Nielsen are writing in 2009, at a time when Big Love is on the air and the April 2008 FLDS Temple raid is (or was recently) on the news.
🔗 linkblog: 'Under the Banner of Heaven' raises the question: Are Mormons dangerous?'
I suspect that there is nothing as damning in Mormon history as Mormons’ failure to own up to that history, and Jana’s writing here captures that nicely.