Unitarians to discuss inner gifts of darkness
Mary Ocken will present “Sustaining the Gaze as Shadows Grow Long” at 10 a.m. Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango, 419 San Juan Drive.
Participants will explore the inner gifts of darkness, while they create hope and clarify their vision.
The fellowship will host “Christmas Eve Candlelight: Jubilate!” with the Rev. Katie Kandarian-Morris at 5 p.m. Wednesday. Child care will be provided.
For more information, visit www.durangouu.org.
Mormons say race remains taboo topic
SALT LAKE CITY – A year after Mormon leaders published a landmark essay about the church’s past ban on blacks in the priesthood, some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say race seems to remain a taboo topic.
Amid a nationwide uproar over race and police use of force, black members of the church say they want to talk about the issues with members of their faith, but it’s tough.
“We can’t talk at church about Michael Brown and other unarmed black men being shot by police,” said Kevin Mosley, a retired Pennsylvania state trooper and LDS convert, “because it’s so hard for members to talk about race at all.”
The Mormon church has its own fraught history with race. It barred men of African descent from its lay clergy until 1978.
Last December, leaders posted an online essay that offered the most comprehensive explanation of the issue yet and marked the first time that church leaders officially disavowed the ban.
The essay said that while black men were ordained into the church during its early days, Brigham Young enacted the ban in 1852 during an era of great racial divide that influenced early teachings of the church.
The article made clear that church leaders today condemn all racism and don’t believe old theories that people with black skin are inferior to others.
But the essay didn’t spark more discussion of race within the LDS Church, members told The Salt Lake Tribune this week.
Atheist group, church advertise on same billboard
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A digital billboard in northwest Arkansas is flashing alternating ads by a church and an atheist group.
The billboard along Interstate 49 in Springdale has been showing an ad sponsored by the group American Atheists. It shows a young girl writing Santa Claus that all she wants for the holidays is to miss church because she’s too old for fairy tales.
The ad is part of a campaign to promote the atheist group’s national convention, which will be held over the Easter weekend in Memphis, Tennessee.
The atheist ad inspired a response by Grace Church in Alma, Arkansas. Executive Pastor Devon Walker says the congregation raised about $900 to pay for its own message to appear about 16 seconds later on the same digital billboard for the two weeks before Christmas.
The church’s ad reads, “Questions, Doubts, Curiosity? All Welcome at Grace Church, Alma.”
Herald Staff & Associated Press
