About
15A note to our readers
Thank you for visiting the blog version of The Mormon Worker. The Mormon Worker is an independent newspaper devoted to Mormonism and radical politics, and is printed quarterly. To view articles online or subscribe to the print edition, please visit www.themormonworker.org. The paper is modeled after the legendary Catholic Worker which has been in publication for over seventy years.
The primary objective of The Mormon Worker is to meaningfully connect core ideas of Mormon theology with a host of political, economic, ecological, philosophical, and social topics.
Although most contributors of The Mormon Worker are members of the LDS church, some are not, and we accept submissions from people of varying secular and religious backgrounds. The opinions expressed in The Mormon Worker are not the official views of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In solidarity,
The Mormon Worker staff
The Mormon Worker 
Great blog! I just stumbled across you on LDS BLOGS. My husband and I just built a website (MormonsMadeSimple.com) which uses simple, explanatory videos to explain the Mormon faith. Feel free to embed one of our videos in your blog, if you think it would be a good missionary tool.
Thanks!
Laurel & Doug
Hi Laurel!
Just checked out your website…very professional. I’ve been a member all my life and appreciate the simplicity of your videos. Keep up the good work!
Thank you!
Danielle 🙂
Wow,
What an interesting find! I found you when I was looking for an image of Eugene Debs for a post on my blog. I hope its alright if I took it. I am not sure what the ethics of taking images from other peoples blogs and posting them on mine.
Anyway, for obvious reasons your blog is somewhat of an oddity, but that is alright. Anybody working for a more just world is a friend of mine.
I have of course heard of the Catholic Worker, I do know that a religious left exists, I just never thought I would come across the Mormon Worker. I am going to have a look-see and will bookmark you.
Regards,
Sheldon
Hi, I’m looking for a full copy of that talk from Dec. 3, 1977 that Spencer W. Kimball gave in San Antonio TX…any idea where I can get it? I’ve combed the Internet. Thanks!
i was fascinated to learn that there are many leftist mormons out there! I was born and raised in the church and after leaving i wonder how other active members deal with the church’s past and present policies on race, homosexuality, feminism, the historiocity/authenticity of church texts, authority and so on.
There aren’t many of us, Bryce. Just a few per ward. I deal with inconsistencies by concentrating on the four basic works and questioning, without confrontation, anything that is inconsistent. In the big picture, there isn’t a lot. The Church is administered by human with human frailties. No human error diminishes the importance of the message and the path it provides me to make myself a better person and, hopefully to salvation.
What ever happened to our friend Grégoire?
He kept things lively for awhile. I miss his contributions.
I don t think they are leftisi or rightist Mormons but to me who lived and struggled in Utah from 1964 to 1970 publishing the utah free press and going to first ave ward with bishop Manwaring it was for a while the most difficult moments of my life. today I am nearly 66 and look back toward the Utah life then apart from a very few people it was a very unreal scene you could not find any books on the radical ideas apart from the student peace union and a SDS chapter nothing would give another sound to mormon hears but the official voice of church news. came the utah free press thenthe pillar of salt then KSXX with such a good answering by telephone time. we had broken the wall yet at that time the blacks were still cursed by the church and who opposed some of the saying of prophets were hunted and deported like I was. Many of us mormon radicals were given a good time heard by huac in washington and told (gently!!) to go I remember my leaving the State with Bruce Phillips a Utah cityzen better known around the world than joseph smith and others….Utah has given to the world many good men U Utah Phillips Wayne Dallas Holley Big Bill Haywood neal cassady and many othersthe treasures of Utah are its wonderful nature and what Joseph Smith had in mind came some others who did like Staline to Lenine s work did not understand and etablished a dictat of ideas dividing people and creating a new roman vatican like opression for the faithfull. It will take a long time to create a Mormon theology and it will leave many people behind to submit new ideas to make the book of mormon up to date and available to most people to read and to give its message. JCC
Wanted to inform you that the “Latter-day Satyagraha” (http://mormongandhi.com) website has been reorganized to make its content more accessible to new readers.
I see that we have a lot of overlaps in our thinking. Although I base my writing mainly on Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, I enjoy also reading your posts here at mormonworker. I find a lot of inspiration in the work that you do, including from the profiled activism of the site – which goes far beyond what I potentially ever could dream of doing or accomplishing with mine. Nonetheless, I wanted to connect in some way to your site and hopefully contribute in my own small way from Norway, on the far outskirts of Mormondom, and add my voice to your progressive mormon thinking.
Here are some comments from my readers as to the recent reorganization of the site:
“The new organization works very well. The new format makes it easier to access these teachings, and you do a good job of framing them in a uniquely Mormon context”.
“Since long I’ve been thinking of how we could write some sort of “Peace Devotional around the Temple” to be contemplated upon while strolling the magnificent temple grounds for those who wish to go to the temple but may not enter it! I’ve always thought that most temples are so much more beautiful on the outside than from the inside! In connection with the various roooms – or aspects of peace – I probably could enjoy meditation outside the temple more than within the temple! I’m going to try it out! I’ll find six beautiful spots around the temple and will there read and contemplate the temple as a house of learning, faith, order, prayer, fasting, and glory. All I have to do is download the pages from your site to read them in the temple gardens and I will be bound for peace and glory! A great way to integrate a progressive spirituality of peace with traditional mormon core values of the temple!”
In reading The Mormon Worker I’ve come to believe that the great majority of the writing here will continue to be timely and vital for a long time to come. To help insure long term access to the archive and to help widen its connection to the world I’ve formatted the back issues as PDF ebooks and posted them on the web:
http://www.scribd.com/my_document_collections/3070970
Just like with the printed edition of TMW consider downloading these and sharing them with folks in your life. Where appropriate, consider posting them on your own websites and blogs along with a link back to TMW. Once you sign up for the free membership on Scribd you can download these ebooks or any of the tens of thousands of other documents from around the world that have been posted. Unlike the printed edition of TMW or the PDF of the printed edition, the articles in the ebook version are laid out serially like those on the web, allowing you to read them start to finish without having to jump around the document. Also like documents on the web, the ebooks have been designed with interactive links to provide the reader with a simple but effective navigation experience.
At some point I can also imagine combining the ebooks into one large document and indexing them, allowing the reader to do instant searches on any word or phrase in the material. Another possibility: ebooks of TMW formatted for mobile devices like the iPad, Nook and Kindle. Any thoughts on that idea? Are TMW readers mobile device users?
Here’s to positive pondering, reading and action!
i meant, i’m a 99%Mormon are you?
I’m a very left leaning Marx loving freethinking Atheist raised Mormon and consider myself Mormon, with pioneer blood, roadshow youth, and quirky doctrine obsessed, however rejecting the supernatural claims and all that nonsense, but would like to comment here. Am I welcome?
Absolutely. welcome. Comment away.
I just stumbled across this website and I must say that it makes me sad. So many people who profess to believe in the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints yet understand so little about those doctrines. I am absolutely blown away by how much pro-socialism is on a website claiming in any way to be representative of the LDS church or LDS doctrine. Socialism preaches that the government should provide every need to every person and that it should ensure the equality of every person, making sure nobody has too much or too little, but that everyone has everything they need as determined by the caretaking government. There was someone else once upon a time who proposed a plan whereby he would make sure that everyone prospered and everbody had everything they needed; nobody would be left behind. If you draw breath today you rejected that plan. It is sad therefore that now you would embrace such a plan. Socialism is not consecration, only a twisted counterfeit of it that will only lead to the enslavement of all those under its yoke. Anarchism as well (also promoted heavily on this website as I’ve read in many of the articles you post here) is only a counterfeit of liberty and only leads to chaos and from there to totalitarianism and further enslavement. The French Revolution is a prime example of anarchism in action and from that movement came one of the most bloodthirsty psychotic totalitarian rulers in history: Napoleon. Again, it makes me sad that so many have been deceived and understand basic doctrine so poorly. I’m not for Republicans or Democrats but for the cause of Liberty which has no party. A cause that does not guarantee you anything except that you will be able to choose for yourself but that you will have to take responsibility for your choices and the consequences that come from them. A cause that was well understood by the Founding Fathers who managed a successful revolution that led to the establishment of the only truly free country in history. A cause for which you and I fought together once upon a time. Over time, our government has become corrupted but the Constitution (as originally written) and the principles it was founded upon remain strong. You can twist pieces of doctrine however you wish to fit your own viewpoints and political goals but your twisting of selective points of doctrine does not make your political views correct or good. Like I said, you make me sad.
Hi all, nice blog! It’s not much of a post, but mentioned you over at left-leaning Catholic blog Subversive Thomism today: http://subversivethomism.com/?p=602. Keep up the great work.