Latter-day Commentary

Tim Malone has been blogging for over five years. He has published hundreds of essays on controversial LDS topics. Tim tries to take the difficult subjects LDS readers will encounter on the Internet and make them simple to understand.

Besides the thousands of comments on his blog, Tim responds to every reader who emails with private questions. Tim shares his writings as a common member of the church because he finds it motivational to help him study.

A life-long Southern Californian (born in Covina) and active member of the LDS Church, Tim has been happily married to Carol for over 30 years. We have one adult son who lives near his parents here in beautiful Camarillo, the home of a former state mental hospital, now the newest state university.

Family

Although my parents are both deceased, I will be forever grateful for the influence they wielded in my life. My mother was an educator, with a love of reading, learning, writing and teaching that she passed on to me. My father was a humble, quiet man, a peacemaker who took seriously his duty to provide security and stability for his family. I have five living brothers and sisters (one brother died as an infant) and love each of them. My oldest sister works for an apostle.

Missionary

I served a mission to Central America (Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama and Honduras) from 1976 to 1978 under Joseph C. Muren, later a General Authority. I thoroughly enjoyed my mission experience and am grateful for the solid foundation it has provided for my life. I greatly treasure my mission memories and had some great companions, two of whom have since served as mission presidents.

Church Service

I have enjoyed my service in the church, most of it in typical priesthood administrative positions (bishopric, high council, high priest group leader), but my all-time favorite calling was teaching the 11-year olds in Primary. I love teaching and sharing the gospel and miss that. I was recently released (Feb 2012) as the ward clerk for the young single adult ward in my stake where I served for over five years. I am now the stake financial clerk.

Outlook of faith

I am conservative by nature but love exploring new ideas. I have never doubted my testimony of the gospel or of the unique role of the LDS church in these last days. I love the Book of Mormon and hold Joseph Smith in high esteem as a powerful prophet of God. I am convinced that I have been given the gift of believing and have always appreciated that.

Love of the Savior

It’s easy to say that one loves the Savior but hard to prove that except by kind words and thoughtful deeds. I seek to provide both. I hope the words I share here will be ample evidence that I know who it is that redeems me from death and hell in spite of myself. I also know that it is only because of the atonement of the Savior that I can answer yes to that last question in the temple recommend interview.

Love of learning

I love learning and reading other viewpoints on the significance of events in the world around us as we draw closer to the time of the return of the Savior to the world. A large portion of this blog is dedicated to the study of the signs of the times as they unfold. I am grateful to live in this day and age when I can witness the fulfillment of prophecy.

Wannabe Author

I love books and I love writing. I grew up without a television so I developed a love of reading in my youth. I read voraciously, but not much fiction. So I’ll never understand why I promised a fellow blogger that I would write a work of fiction based on his works. I have been taking writing classes and participating in writer’s seminars over the past few years in preparation for fulfilling my promise.

Computer Dude

A long time ago I applied for and landed a job where the official job title was computer dude. I have always liked that because it aptly describes what I do for a living. I am an IT generalist, with the current title of IT Manager for a private jet management company. I readily acknowledge that my current employment was obtained as an answer to much fasting and prayer and am very grateful.

Philosophical Views

My philosophy of life is centered on the idea of divine revelation as a source of knowledge. Yet I am a rationalist in that I embrace reasoning as an important part of deciding truth. But I am also an empiricist because I believe the same steps I take to obtain knowledge can be followed by others and should produce the same or similar results. I am not a skeptic. I am convinced that true knowledge is not only possible but is our divine right. I am not an existentialist. I do not believe that truth is subjective. I am a pragmatist. I look for truth in shared human experience.

Political Views

Lifelong Republican, but only because that is where my conservative views find some common ground. I am not a right-winger in the sense that I do not espouse radical views, but enjoy reading and listening to those with whom I share common conservative views. Lately, I find that I have become more of a libertarian but feel more comfortable defining it as being a constitutionalist.

News Junkie

I spend way too much time on the Drudge Report, Yahoo News and FOX news. My purpose is simply to be informed about current events. I also frequent sites like spaceweather.com to key an eye on the sun and the planets because events that will be happening there are part of the signs of the last days. I also spend a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter each day, keeping up with family and friends.

First Amendment

I appreciate the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of the Press and peaceable assembly. I exercise the first three every day in this blog and the fourth every Sunday. I hope we never take these freedoms for granted. In spite of the political and economic upheaval of the times in which we live, I am extremely grateful to live in the United States of America where I can enjoy these freedoms.

Second Amendment

Although I do not own any firearms today, I see having a weapon as a deterrent. I am convinced that the day will come when a man will need to protect his home and family because of the degradation of society. I am not a member of the NRA but I can appreciate what the group is trying to do.

Political issues

I am opposed to gay mariage. I supported Proposition 8 in the Nov 2008 election. I believe it is a moral issue and not a civil right. I voted for McCain in the 2008 election, but would have preferred to vote for Romney. I am pro-life, and believe abortion is close to murder. I voted for Romney in the 2012 election.

Other issues

While I do believe we are in for some cataclysmic changes in the earth, I do not believe that mankind has caused global warming. When scientists first postulated that aerosols caused the hole in the ozone layer I felt it was BS. I think that Al Gore is an opportunist playing up natural events for political and financial gain.

I also think that there are many theories in the scientific world, especially in astronomy and cosmology, that are taken as fact. I espouse alternative viewpoints of Immanuel Velikovsky, Dave Talbot, Wal Thornhill, Anthony Perrat and Anthony Larson known collectively as the Electric Universe.

Same-sex attraction

Just like I was born with an unwanted physical weakness of asthma in my body, I believe that people can be born with same-sex attraction. What they do with it is one of their major tests in life. We are all subject to God’s command to control our sexual urges.

You can read more about my stand on various political / social / moral issues here.

Contact me:

You can reach me at tmalonemcse at gmail.com