Author: Walter van Beek

A modern Kapsiki groom, leading his bride (first one behind him) with her friends to the dancing ground No discussion in present Mormondom tops the issue of same-sex marriage. In the debates the notion of ‘traditional marriage’ is used, especially by people who want to limit marriage to a monogamous heterosexual union. Julie Smith, in her excellent guest blog, has shown that the gender division of providing and nurturing that is usually thought to be an integral part of so-called ‘traditional marriage’, does really not hold, but the notion as such is highly problematic. First, what is marriage? Like no other academic discipline cultural anthropology has a wide and varied experience with forms marriage throughout the world, and it has developed its understanding of marriage with the findings coming in from different cultures. Just after WW II, at the heyday of a basic field research, the famous field manual ‘Notes and Queries’ could still define marriage as: ‘A union between a man and a woman such that the children born of the woman are recognized as legitimate offspring of both partners’ . This is in fact the old Roman definition, marriage as legitimation of children. The problems with this definition soon became apparent. With polygyny (one husband, more wives – see Mormonism…) this could be still apply, if each of the wives in a separate marriage. Among the Kapsiki in Cameroon, where I did my first anthropological fieldwork, this was…

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A Dutch Mormon non-same-sex marriage: a proud father with his daughter The involvement of the LDS church in the issue of same sex marriage in the United States runs very deep and is highly emotional. The battle for proposition 8 was intense, highly visible and centrally directed and seemed at the time to result in a repeal of the liberty for same sex partners to formally and legally marry in California. At the time it drew a lot of attention in Europe as well, reflected in major articles in journals, newspapers and magazines. One of these was Time Magazine, the European version, reporting on the massive investment the Church did in California to further the cause of proposition 8. Also church members in the Netherlands became aware of it, and some joined in. Ironically, quite a few of them thought that the Church had ordained that prop 8 should be defeated, so prayers were sent to heaven to block that evil proposition 8. It seems the Lord listened to them in the end … During the prop 8 debates, apostle Ballard addressed a meeting of European church leaders. He asked whether representatives of the Dutch stakes were present. Two were there; one of them, hardened in Church administrative debates, immediately ducked away behind a large neighbor, but the other one happily raised his arm: ‘Present!’ He then was severely rebuked by elder Ballard, because the Netherlands were the first to…

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The weather comes and goes, the climate stays. At least, that is what we were taught in our youth, but nowadays the stability of climate is in heavy weather, for the climate is changing. In windy and rainy Holland the weather is an obvious conversation starter; a Nepalese anthropologist who did his fieldwork in the Netherlands in the ‘80s was struck by our constant speaking about the obvious, the weather; he thought the reason was that everything else in this country was under control, man-made or well-regulated, so the weather was about the only variable item we could mention This discourse, by now, is supplemented by one on climate change, as today any mention of the weather is almost routinely accompanied by a referral to the threat-from-outside, the warming of the earth, the rise of the sea level, the more erratic weather. Not only Holland is threatened by rising water, also the most beautiful city in the world is, Venice The Netherlands have incorporated the notion of climate change lock, stock and barrel, as have most European countries, also those much higher above sea level, such as Norway. Climate change has grown into a political as well as popular discourse in a decade, very rapidly. In the US things are different, and also in Deseret climate change never became popular. Why the difference? Why is climate change so ‘alien’ in Deseret, and comes it so ‘natural’ in most of Europe?…

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About a year ago I took the liberty of asking the Brethren what their opinion was on climate change. My reason was that we as Dutch have a temple below sea level, probably the only one in the world. How did the Brethren envisage the future of the Dutch temple, considering sea level rise due to perceived and expected climate change? As LDS temples are destined for eternity, what are the long-term perspectives of this particular House of the Lord? Is it going to be flooded when the waters rise, inundated when the ‘inconvenient truth’ hits Holland? We as Dutch Saints are concerned about “our” temple, as in the long run the slow sinking of the Netherlands and the rising sea levels due to climate change might well form a threat for us, and thus for our temple. The Dutch and Belgians are quite climate conscious, and follow with great interest the global debates about climate change. Last week the new IPCC report on climate change came out and again we learned that climate change is real and that Homo sapiens is for a major part responsible for it. For those in the scientific community this is not very surprising, but the level of certainty has increased since the last report and the long term trends seem to be incontrovertible, despite short term seeming reversals. But especially the crucial role of human interference is spelled out clearer than before, though…

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Many Mormons in Utah are aware of the fact that a converted Mormon is running for president in Mali. Indeed, Yeah Samake, an important social entrepreneur in Mali, joined the Church in 2000 while studying at the BYU, and indeed he has registered as a candidate for the upcoming presidential elections in 28 July 2013. He is the mayor of Ouélessébougou, a community consisting of a small town and a group of villages in South Mali. Based on his success as mayor, he is running for president, already in 2012, but again in the present elections. Election campaigns cost money – no people know that better that Americans – and Samake has been able to generate quite some funds. During the last months he has run an effective campaign, basing himself on a successful NGO, Mali Rising Foundation, on a platform of decentralization, anti-corruption and ending aid dependency. As LDS we do not have a whole lot of presidential candidates; the most recent one was Mitt Romney, who – as some of my readers might possibly remember – has lost the race. Having an American candidate was great, and was ‘The Mormon Moment’ in the USA, and also our day in the sun of publicity in Europe. Contrary to Mormon USA the European members never really believed in a victory for Romney, and anyway preferred Obama as a president. So in the end the USA elections ran conform the wishes…

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As Mormons we follow the prophet, we proclaim, lifting our right hand at many Church occasions, for ‘he shall not lead us astray’. Quite a few General Conference talks urge us to heed the words of the Lord’s anointed, to follow his counsel as the true Iron Rod for our ecclesiastical lives. ‘When the prophet speaks, the debate is over’ First Counselor N. Eldon Tanner wrote in the Church’s Ensign magazine August 1975, echoing an Improvement Era’s message of June 1945, and this message comes to us over and over again.

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