“Four Mormon missionaries are being held hostage in Nigeria’s southern oil region, an area plagued by recent unrest, a church spokesman said Tuesday.”

See the story here.

Is this exploitative? You bet. Moving? That too. (more…)

There is plenty of angst and foreboding in an interesting article on CNN today about population growth in the United States. The article contains this interesting statement: the 300 millionth American will be born at 7:46 a.m. ET Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau says. This is a strange statement. Is it a planned induction then?

The article blames shopping malls, personal cars, urban sprawl, desires for personal homes, fast-growing population and other modern malaises for a vaguely defined sense that we are heading into “unchartered territory” now that we have 300 million Americans. So, are there too few or too many of us? Some argue there are too few of us to maintain the system of entitlements that exist even in US society (and the problem is widely acknowleged in the social market democracies of Europe). Others seem to be arguing that there are too many of us and that we need to limit our numbers. The debate rages on, I suppose.

I personally think that the only “cause” of domestic abuse are the warped morals of those who engage in it. That said, what factors can encourage the abuser in his or her abuse?

A report by the Church of England suggests that, “misguided and distorted versions of Christian belief have contributed to domestic abuse in Britain.” Here are the sore points (as reported by The Times):

• A bride’s traditional marriage vow to “obey” her husband could be used to justify domestic violence as could referring to God as “He” and “Lord.”
• Bad theology, such as using the Virgin Mary “to reinforce norms of female passivity and obedience,” has been used to convince victims to forgive their abusers and not take action against them.
• The theology of self-denial and redemptive suffering in the Crucifixion of Jesus has “undermined people’s recognition of the evils being done to them and implanted masochistic attitudes of acceptance, or even celebration, of their afflictions.”
• Using religious texts such as “submit to your husband” to justify abuse.
• The Old Testament, where the attribution of violent actions and attitudes are attributed to God.

An average of two women a week are killed by their partner or former partners in England and Wales. The report does not say what percentage of abuse is encouraged (consciously or subconsciously) by Christian doctrine

Via RNB, a Chicago Tribune article entitled “Polygamy (Utah’s open little secret)” (the original article is here).  The article includes many interesting quotes from individuals involved with polygamy as present or former practitioners.  The article comes off as being mildly critical of the practice, but at the same time it tries to be fairly neutral as to the various polygamous sects it lists and discusses.  And it sounds surprisingly sympathetic to the polygamous wives interviewed and quoted.

It strikes me that reporters don’t really know how to frame or “spin” polygamy anymore.  Big Love seems to have muddled the previously accepted immorality of polygamy for journalists – if Hollywood can have fun with a topic, can it really be morally wrong?  But in a world where half of America considers comedy shows to be real news, I guess it’s not surprising that some journalists take their moral cues from Hollywood.  Call it the media’s open little secret.  I was also struck by the fact that female voices, both for and against polygamy, predominate in these increasingly frequent polygamy articles.

The SL Trib ran a short opinion piece on Dialogue (written by a former managing editor of the journal) entitled “Four decades of independent Mormon thought” (hat tip: Dialogue site).  The piece gives a short list of some of the more notable articles published in Dialogue over the years.  It also notes the interesting fact that Dallin H. Oaks, now in the LDS Quorum of the Twelve, was on the journal’s original board of editors, although I suspect that now, looking back, he might have mixed feelings about that particular episode.  Just a hunch.