- Janice Auger Rasmussen on Hymns Officially Rejected: “I have written three hymns—words and music—they have all been performed as choir numbers or solos. I didn’t submit any because I doubted that I achieved the level expected, but each one shares my testimony and each one brings tears to my eyes. Good enough. Your submissions are very good. Thanks for sharing.” May 22, 21:32
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “I just finished reading the book. It says a fuller description of the methodology for his survey is on his website; but, if it is, I can’t find it (even after giving up an email address to get a password). Based on the brief methodology appendix included, there are some obvious concerns: (1) the sample is nonprobability and self-selected, so it may capture people unusually motivated to discuss LDS disaffiliation rather than the broader LDS population; (2) because there is no known sampling frame or denominator, the study cannot credibly estimate how many people are leaving or the prevalence of particular reasons for leaving; (3) the excerpt gives insufficient detail about recruitment channels, response rates, duplicate prevention, and eligibility verification; (4) selection bias likely affects the findings, since quiet leavers, disengaged members, highly orthodox members, international members (i.e., MOST members), and people outside the recruitment networks may be underrepresented; (5) the study relies heavily on retrospective self-report, which is vulnerable to memory distortion, identity reconstruction, social desirability, and post hoc explanations; (6) the validity and reliability of the survey instrument are unclear, including question wording, scale construction, typology validation, and whether measures were pretested or benchmarked; (7) inferential statistics and subgroup comparisons are methodologically limited because nonrepresentative samples make population-level confidence intervals, significance tests, and generalizations potentially misleading; (8) the “AI-assisted qualitative coding process” relied on is underdescribed; (9) expert advisory review (if we accept that the unnamed advisors are experts) improves seriousness but is not equivalent to independent peer review, replication, or public scrutiny of data and methods; and (10) the findings are geographically and demographically limited, especially because international responses were excluded and the sample reportedly overrepresents women and more devout or satisfied participants, which may skew conclusions about LDS disaffiliation overall.” May 22, 19:01
- on Hymns Officially Rejected: “Eric Chaffey hang in there, brother! God loves you and you are in GREAT company with not getting our hymns accepted. May unseen angels continue to watch over and comfort you!” May 22, 15:06
- on Hymns Officially Rejected: “Rich Winsor, I think you are right. 50 new hymns from members + existing favorites from other existing sources = many great hymns that are new to the LDS hymnal, which is fantastic.” May 22, 15:05
- on Hymns Officially Rejected: “anoneon feel free to share it with them, and let me know if any of them want to put music to any of them! [email protected]” May 22, 15:03
- on Hymns Officially Rejected: “Got mine too. I didn’t feel particularly encouraged by it. Came at a bad time, and was a reminder of a number of other rejections from the Church. The Priesthood department a few years ago invited lgbtq people to share their story, I wrote several epistles and never heard back anything. Aged out of auditioning for the Tabernacle Choir, and being the emotional one when hymns get truncated or skipped entirely. An ignored verse (verse 4) of How Firm a Foundation saved my life one night 34 years ago. Unseen angels pulled me away from a cyclone fence separating me from a five story construction crater. They had a brutal and cruel way of dealing with lgbtq issues that did nothing to help me feel loved. This latest rejection of my hymn is just one more rejection. I’m struggling in my testimony right now and the rejection email didn’t help that. I knew it was a foregone conclusion that it would end up on the cutting room floor but just right now when my whole life is blowing apart, I needed something hopeful.” May 22, 13:37
- on Hymns Officially Rejected: “Thank you for the article. I submitted quite a few hymns, and I have yet to receive my rejection letter, so I’m enjoying what those who have received their letters have to say. Hopefully mine will come soon. It’s getting to be a harder wait than waiting for a mission call letter. :-)” May 22, 10:49
- on Hymns Officially Rejected: “Mike, thanks for sharing these insights and lyrics. Daniel Carter and I wrote “Long Ago, Within a Garden” in 1999. We published it and thought we could not submit it, but someone submitted it for us. Maybe our hymn would be one of the 50 new submissions.” May 22, 09:53
- on Hymns Officially Rejected: “Many of the new hymns released in the electronic batches are hymns that go back generations inside and outside the Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter-day Saints. For example, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” was in the 1948 hymn book. “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling” has been sung by the Tabernacle Choir for years. “Gethsemane” has been sung in primary for many years. In addition, “Amazing Grace”, “This Little Light of Mine”, and “Go Tell it on the Mountain” have traditions in Protestant churches or are African American spirituals. So many of these “new” hymns are not newly composed by members. I think of the approx. 17,000 submissions, the 50 or so that were selected are brand new submissions that have not been found in any other setting with many others favorite spiritual songs from other traditions or sung elsewhere in our faiths (e.g., primary songs, past hymn books, the Tabernacle choir,, etc.). Thus, resulting in much more than 50 new hymns. I have attended the BYU organ workshop in the last couple of years and the brethren among those responsible for overseeing this efforts said that a number of hymns in the 1985 hymn book that just are not sung will likely be removed with the final product being about 375 hymns in the new printed book. Bottomline–with the 50 new hymns from member submissions and hymns and songs sung for years from other settings and faiths will result in a hymn book with many selections that we currently do not have in the “green” book which will be much more than 50 new hymns.” May 22, 09:32
- on History from the Middle: The Enchanted World of the Man Who Baptized Wilford Woodruff: “Gonna buy it.” May 22, 09:16
