Bob Caswell opened up the R-rated movies can of worms over at By Common Consent with his post The Passion Recut: Mormon Friendly? This is one of those topics guaranteed to generate a ton of comments. And it did, 190 to be exact. As usual the conversation was difficult and contentious in places, but it’s worth reading (or at least the latter third of it is).

I don’t know if he was inspired by the BCC thread or not, but Rusty brought up a similar issue in his Kulturblog post Is It Possible To Contribute To Culture Without Partaking Of It?. This is one of those problems that seems somewhat unique to Mormon culture. On the one hand, even the most liberal active LDS feels the need to be somewhat careful in what he/she watches, reads, or listens to. On the other hand, we also feel it’s appropriate (and perhaps even required) that we share our talents with others — even those not of our faith. Steve Young played on Sunday. Rusty watches Sex and the City (and learns an interesting narrative technique).

Luckily, I’m here to call both liberal and conservative Mormons (however you want to define them) to repentence over at A Motley Vision with my post/sermon/polemic Mormons and media consumption. Mark Hansen then picked up on my comments over at Mo Boy Blog, inviting Mormons to step up to the buffet.

Other highlights of the week:

1. Justin pays tribute to Hugh Nibley at Mormon Wasp by posting a poem Nibley wrote for his grandmother (when he was only 16-years-old).

2. Pat’s wortschatz series continues at Elders Journal with the phrase to sing redeeming love.

3. Jeff discusses cartoons and gender roles at Mormanity.

4. Jonathan Max Wilson uses the film National Treasure as a launching point for a post on symbolism.

5. Kaimi mixes Christo and Orson F. Whitney at Times & Seasons.

6. Kim posts another poem at Our Thoughts.

7. I experience minor discomfort over the way the marketing people for the “The Work and the Glory Film” piggyback on Joseph Smith’s 200th birthday.

Back in the day
In my early days of involvement in the Bloggernacle (waaaay back in February 2004) I browsed the archives of The Metaphysical Elders, the first LDS-oriented group blog. I enjoyed many of the posts, but there was one in particular that grabbed me (enough that I e-mailed a copy of it to myself). That post is this week’s back in the day feature — cosmic cultural criticism by the Literary Critic, posted Nov. 13, 2003. For more on The Metaphysical Elders, see Nate “The Lawyer” Oman’s recent Times & Seasons post.