Mormon Coffee

The LDS General Conference in October 1900 focused a lot on the law of tithing. The repetition on that topic was due to the feeling among Church leadership that the second coming of Christ was near and the Saints needed to be prepared. “We should see to it that nothing is left undone by us, no commandment unfulfilled, no counsel or instruction disregarded” taught President George Q. Cannon. He said,

“Many who are now within the sound of my voice have been promised that they shall live, if they have faith, to behold the second coming of the Lord. The Lord has also promised that certain events shall take place while men that are standing in the generation in which these promises were made will Yet [sic] be alive.” (Conference Report, 64)

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The audio podcast is finally back up and running (RSS and iTunes), and we are slowly releasing a few MP3s. Here we introduce the ministry.

Direct link to MP3

An interesting conversation is going on at the Mormon blog By Common Consent. On Monday poster John C. asked readers to cast their votes in a poll asking, “What is more powerful? Eternal Law [or] God?” As I write this, with 282 votes logged, 60% of the respondents believe Eternal Law is more powerful than God.

I suppose all of terms used in this poll really need to be unpacked in order to understand what Mormons mean when they say Eternal Law is more powerful than God. Does “God” mean Heavenly Father? Jesus Christ? The Holy Spirit? What, exactly, is “Eternal Law”? And what is meant by the word “powerful”?

While I admit that I don’t really know the specifics of what the poll is asking, I still see this as another area in which the Mormon faith differs widely from the Christian faith.

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Another study has surfaced singing the praises of coffee. Not Mormon Coffee, of course (though surely happy results of such a study will come to light sometime in the future), but scientists have found there is a definite health benefit available to those who drink caffeine-laden coffee in moderation. An article in the Deseret News says,

“Nutrition scientists aren’t ready to recommend coffee as a dietary supplement, but they say something in it is definitely beneficial to controlling the course and perhaps the onset of type 2 diabetes — a mostly diet-based, self-induced metabolism disorder linked to dozens of serious illnesses…

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LDS author Alonzo L. Gaskill authored the 2008 book, Odds Are, You’re Going to be Exalted. On page 4 of that book Dr. Gaskill explains,

“…it is a fallacy to say that Jesus saves us, but then our works exalt us—an idea I have heard expressed not a few times by members of the Church. That too implies a self-sufficiency that is, at best, damning!”

I have also heard this idea expressed “not a few times” by Latter-day Saints. It is easy to see why some Mormons have understood this to be Church doctrine. Keeping in mind that in LDS thought there is a distinction between general salvation (resurrection or immortality) and individual salvation (eternal life or exaltation), consider how the LDS Church has presented these doctrines.

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Eight years ago, 61 percent of California voters passed Proposition 22, the “California Defense of Marriage Act.” The proposition read very simply: “Only marriage between a man and woman is valid or recognized in California.” No doubt many Californians thought that because the people had spoken, the issue was over. But this was not to be the case. On May 15, 2008 four members (George, Werdegar, Moreno, and Kennard) of the seven-member California Supreme Court voted to overturn Proposition 22, thus reversing an earlier decision in 2004 that put a stop to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s defiant order to issue marriage certificates to nearly 4,000 same-sex couples.

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