Archive for 2006

Years ago, I responded to one of those philanthropic commercials inviting viewers to request some “no obligation” information about their charitable organization. I requested it and soon received the photograph of a little girl in the Philippines, along with the invitation to sponsor her. How could I say no? There she... Read More »

From the day she learned it was part of her Relief Society calling, my mother lived in dread that she would need to prepare the body of a ward member for burial. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The Democratic electoral strategy for 2008 and Mitt Romney’s candidacy might just give Mormons more political influence than they will ever have again in a presidential election. The combination of the two will certainly give the McCain campaign a bad case of indigestion. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Damon Linker’s TNR article “The Big Test” came out last Friday. Despite the holiday, his argument about Mitt Romney’s all-but-certain presidential candidacy and the problems which at least some Mormon beliefs pose for people looking to decide who to vote for has already caught the eye of many, and will no doubt be talked... Read More »

I have a tendency to envision Christmas as a time of quiet joy, peaceful awe, hushed delight–the snow, the candlelight, the embers on the hearth, the distant stars, the bells and choirs reverberating into silence, the baby in the manger who “no crying makes.” Very New England, very northern European, very medieval, very traditional. ... Read More »

So asked my oldest daughter, Megan (now 10) yesterday morning, as Melissa and I were discussing our Christmas Eve plans. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Thanks to Mitt Romney’s candidacy, I suspect that the Mormons-as-bizarre-ridiculous-and-perhaps-dangerous theme will be increasingly with us in the months to come. There are two reasons for this: one parochial and one fundamental. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Cursing, it would seem, forms something of a theme in Mormon legal history. Not only was it a way of dealing with unsolved crimes, but it also seems to have been used as a way of controlling frivolous litigation. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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The westbound stagecoach upset near Gold, Colorado, in October 1866, tossing its passengers violently to the ground. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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I have posted before on the now largely forgotten Mormon tradition of cursing. As you would expect, I have found that Mormon cursing also has a legal angle. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Feminist Mormon Housewives is having another one of those unexpected conversations that seem to appear only on that blog. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Near the end of her life, Malinda Conder was described as “steadfast and happy in the faith.” That faith had been tried by one of the most horrendous events in late 19th century church history. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

You purists can scoff, but I think Christmas with the Cambridge Singers is a great Christmas album. “What sweeter music” never fails to bring me back to the first time I heard it: December, fifteen years ago, when I was broke and desperately unhappy 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Events affecting Mormon proselyting abroad can be traced directly to the 1879 State Department circular of William M. Evarts 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

One of Einstein’s great discovery was that time and space were intimately related concepts. It is an insight that one ought to keep in mind when thinking about Mormonism. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I was still single when I was sent to Central Africa as an international aid worker, to work as a teacher in a slum suburb of Kinshasa, capital of Congo. I got a room in a frail school building, part of a convent of Catholic nuns. The space had a bed, a table, a... Read More »

In 1847, the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley and set up a frankly theocratic government. The highest legal authority was the High Council, which had the right to promulgate laws, as well as to try and punish criminal offenses (usually with fines or public whippings). Just as one... Read More »

Secretary of State William M. Evarts informed American diplomatic officers overseas of the Hayes Administration’s policy to discourage Mormon emigration from Europe to the United States. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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“Revolutions” is probably not the right word: what I’m getting at is turning points, watershed events, or paradigm shifts. What got me thinking about this was the “Mormon Culture Tournament” over at By Common Consent. It’s basically just a fun exercise (go ahead: vote!) but there’s an interesting project lurking within it: the attempt... Read More »

The bulk of federal action against Mormon polygamy took place in Congress and in the courts where it was subject to public scrutiny, won public support, and permitted the Mormons an opportunity to defend their rights within the constitutional system. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Well, apparently the Teacher Improvement Coordinator and Teacher Improvement Meeting are no more. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The Church today jealously guards its tax exempt status, and I suspect that there is a group of lawyers whose sole job it is to sit around worrying about the ways in which the IRS might assess taxes against the Church. It turns out that the feds have tried to tax Church properties... Read More »

Are you bothered that Old Man Potter doesn’t get his just desserts in _It’s A Wonderful Life_? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I largely agree with Kaimi’s thoughts on how the Church is usually content to let teachings and statements of earlier authorities fade into obsolescence through silence, rather than through any kind of formal pronouncement. But I think that the opposite, that the silent treatment is intended as an informal repudiation, might not be true... Read More »

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The ninth amendment to the constitution is one of those wonderfully vague constitutional provisions that delights arm-chair theorists and annoys judges who might actually have to figure out what it means. It reads: The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. It... Read More »

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It was the first time in years a baby would be blessed in this tiny Belgian branch. The missionaries had explained how it worked and the handbook provided some scanty instructions. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 46: Daniel 2 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

As I end my two weeks of guest blogging, I would like to take a look back. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In my intro bio to T&S I said, “In truth a substantial part of my heart is in Relief Society—not for what it is now but for what I feel it can and must yet become.” 1 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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For previous installments, see here and here. Simon turned eight, Nathan turned five, and Truman turned two this year. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 45: Daniel 1, 3, and 6; Esther 3-5, 7-8 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Our family has two fun holiday traditions worth spreading. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I have lived long enough and had such a variety of experiences that I hardly think I can be called naïve on the subject of prayer. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

For half a millennium, ending with World War I, the Ottoman Empire dominated eastern Europe, Asia Minor, and the Middle East. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

About a year or so ago our stake made a move to improve fast offering receipts. The bishop supported this and urged everyone to donate to fast offerings and, in addition to the general admonition, he reinstituted Aaronic priesthood collection of fast offerings after church. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Family trees are familiar and similarly dissatisfying models in historical linguistics and in the history of religion. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

We could hardly we accused of being “Bah, humbug.” We have a holiday season filled with light, music, food, family, gifts and most important love. Also, as far as I can tell, we consistently pass the “grandkid test.” We are just not very traditional in our approach. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

So if a friend said to me, “What do you think about that Mormon prophet who got arrested for polygamy?” 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

For several years running I submitted some version of the following editorial to the Deseret News. Last year they finally published it. You may well guess it was controversial, as of course I knew it would be. I will have more to say on the subject of Santa, but first I... Read More »

I spent all of September and a good part of October finishing an essay on community for a journal on the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and it nearly killed me. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Last Saturday, I had lunch with my oldest daughter and her best friend, Adrea, who happens to be my best friend’s oldest daughter. My friend, Buffy, and I went through our first pregnancies laughing at ourselves and at each other, but also struggling in our new marriages. 0 people like this... Read More »

What are the most quoted scriptures in the Church? Check at the end of this post to see if you agree. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Ned also records the risks faced by children in that time and place: “Edwin King smallest boy accidentally fell in my well yesterday, & had a narrow escape at drowning. Bro. Hammond fished him out.” 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

My brothers, dad and I got together to watch the BYU-Utah game yesterday. With only three seconds left, down by four and needing a touchdown, BYU called a timeout to plan their final play. Not since 2003 had a college football team won on the last play of regulation. ... Read More »

We had a large garden before we had lawn when we bought our home in the early 1960s. During my “domestic phase” years I felt obligated to preserve—can, freeze, pickle, dry, etc. as much as possible. (We even have a root cellar on our suburban lot.) 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

According to a study done by two sociology profs at the University of Virginia, the following are most closely correlated with happiness of wives: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I find light in all its iterations compelling. I often sit crossed legged in front of our bedroom fireplace with a fire and/or just a candle on the hearth. Sometimes I listen to music or beat a drum as I watch the flames. Sometimes I just sit. 0 people like this... Read More »

On a day when TV news programs carry images of 170 million Americans storming shopping malls in a frenzy of consumerism, here’s an account of a different kind of economic system 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

For forty years, Bill Shrives was a train signal supervisor for Southern Pacific Railroad. Every day, the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people depended on his doing his job conscientiously and correctly. As with nearly everyone who plays an important part in keeping the economy humming, it is safe to say that nearly... Read More »

…name them one by one. This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for some great posts from days past here at Times and Seasons. Let me count them. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

We have always been clear that that our married children have two sides to their new families and we have also made it clear that while we may invite them to everything we also don’t want to hog their time or force them into difficult choices. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I once spent an uncomfortable few hours wedged in economy class on a flight from Boston to Salt Lake City. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Since we are entering the holiday season I am thinking about building some of my posts around the holidaies and maybe some of my evolving ideas of a personal liturgical calendar. I seem to have needed this calendar all of my life and over the last ten years or so I have been... Read More »

This last week has again brought into sharp focus one of my more important discoveries of the past decade. It is “The Muddle” and I am surprised and appalled that I was so old before I figured it out. On the off chance some of you have not yet figured it out,... Read More »

We are very pleased to have Marj Conder guest blogging for us for the next few weeks. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

One night last March, I went to bed feeling fine but woke up four hours later with abdominal pain that wouldn’t go away. I finished the ensuing day in the hospital recovering from an appendectomy, for which I am very grateful. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Nauvoo, June 12, 1842 Dear father and mother, I am at a loss what I can say to you. I feel so thankful for what the Lord has done for me and my family, for truly all things have worked together for our good. … 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Today is the first time I’ve seen advertising directed at Mormons that didn’t scream ‘priestcraft.’ 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Some fellow who has clearly never talked to a Mormon gives a nice (mis)summation of LDS beliefs in a local paper. (Hat tip: Voldemort). Like many such, he has things to say about Kolob — a lot more, really, than I’ve ever heard at church. Is Kolob even really part... Read More »

Here’s a short quiz, for fun: For each of the following, name the modern-day green-book hymn whose tune was originally associated with these lyrics. 1. To Anacreon in Heav’n, where he sat in full glee, a few Sons of Harmony sent a petition, 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Oddly enough, I have never really struggled with belief in God. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The government of Slovakia granted the Church official recognition on October 18. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

As soon as my friend said I was a Mormon, the two ladies wanted to know more. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 43: Ezekiel 18, 34, and 37 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 42: Jeremiah 16, 23, 29, 31 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

LDS missionaries working on the Isle of Wight, off the coast of England, found the Tippett family in 1859. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Or, Notes from a modern theocracy Continuing the periodic series on Holiday Envy, November 11 is St. Martin’s Day. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In case it may have escaped your notice, Ardis Parshall has been posting and commenting a great deal lately. Actually, she’s so quickly made herself at home here at Times and Seasons, with her superb series of historical posts, as well as her reflections on everything from running a business to doing archival research,... Read More »

It appears that the reported demise of the Millennial Star blog may have been premature. The blog appears to be alive once more. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In the abstract, there are three possibilities: she was guilty, she was innocent, or she was raped. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

How about lyrics which folks (especially children) often mis-hear? My mother was terribly ashamed of her parents when she saw that cherries were included for Sunday lunch, since they had just sung, “Cherries hurt you, cherries hurt you…” (Cherish virtue…) 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

It seems pretty clear that we are heading for a hike in the minimum wage. For the many of us who care about poverty reduction, which would be basically all of us, this could be a big deal. The problems with the minimum wage are that it: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I was well into my twenties before I finally deciphered one particular line from I Need Thee Every Hour. It was a line that I had certainly sung a hundred times or more: “No tender voice like thine can peace afford.” 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

It looks as though the nation may be starting to look more like Russell, frightening as that is for some of us. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

You’ve heard it here first: it may take a day or two, but Jon Tester is going to come out the winner of the senate race in Montana; and it may take a few weeks, but Jim Webb is going to be confirmed the winner of the senate seat from Virginia. And that will... Read More »

Could there be a Mormon political party? Should there be? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I teach all of the youth in my ward. I suspect this is because nobody else will do it. Also, most of the youth (whether or not I’ve given birth to them) pretty much live at my house. So I am very able to tell them to behave and get a... Read More »

I was 15 when the American POWs came home from Vietnam. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Annie Griffith was born on August 27, 1837, in Georgetown, Essex Co., Massachusetts, on the Merrimack River near the New Hampshire state line. She lived in that county all her life. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

How big of a deal is technology theologically speaking? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

If we’ve learned one thing in the past week, it is this: Mice are not good Mormons. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

For many years, northern Bavaria had a duplicate Church geography, with a stake for American servicemen sharing the boundaries of a German district. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

My sister-in-law, Lynda, is dying of cancer. It was in remission for eight years, but has now returned and is in her bones. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Mormons make an appearance at the important SBL conference. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In 1870, the Utah Territorial Legislature passed an act giving women the right to vote, making Utah the second jurisdiction in the United States to given women the vote. (Wyoming was the first in 1869.) In 1887, Congress revoked the territorial law in the Edmunds-Tucker Act, and women were denied the vote... Read More »

Ironically, the main problem with Mormon intellectual discussions is that all too frequently we have no intellectual agenda. Or at least so it seems to me. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Venus Rossiter, serving in Tahiti with her husband, Mission President Ernest C. Rossiter, wrote to the Relief Society General Board early in 1919 with her report for 1918. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Once when I was a missionary district leader, one call to my zone leader went particularly badly. I was trying to get permission for my district to take a hike in the woods, essentially. (The difference between a hike in the woods, and essentially a hike in the woods, was the sticking point 0... Read More »

There are lots of legal stories in the Book of Mormon, but there is not much in the way of legal reasoning. One of the few exceptions is found in Alma 30, which tells the story of Korihor the Anti-Christ. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Dear LDS Bloggers: Many you are aware of the conference for LDS Religious Studies and Divinity School students to be held at Yale University on February 16-17. The aim of the conference is to address issues that create problems for LDS students in religion and to ask what can a Mormon contribute to the debates... Read More »

Hooper Young was arrested in Connecticut three days after the discovery of Mrs. Pulitzer’s body. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The problems of following the prophet is a perennial favorite source of Mormon intellectual angst. What if the prophet is wrong? After all, prophets are human and are prone to mistakes? Indeed they are. Which brings me to the topic of Levi Savage. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

A favorite topic of speculation (and angst) among many Mormons and Mormon-watchers is whether or not women will get the priesthood. It is an interesting topic, but I think that most of the discussions of it are pretty uninteresting. The reason for this, I think, is that they are in the thrall of a... Read More »

Hooper never told the full story of his association with Mrs. Pulitzer; such accounts as he did give were conflicting and incomplete. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

How do you transplant an American institution to Europe and make it work? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

William Hooper Young, known as Hooper, was born in 1871 in Philadelphia, where his mother, Libbie Canfield, was visiting, while his father, John W. Young, was in Utah. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

As the ebbing tide of September 18, 1902, lowered the level of the barge canals near Jersey City, New Jersey, a passing trolley engineer spotted the nude and mutilated body of a woman lying in the mud. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In this excellent post, Rosalynde talks about the gender differences in subject material among Deseret Book writers. This renews the discussion brought up by Taryn Nelson-Seawright on the same difference existing in other Mormon outlets. Explanations abound for this phenomena, ranging from differing preferences to piggy discrimination, but most of them are... Read More »

The hidden meaning of the Deseret Book Christmas Catalog. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lottie Owens was born in 1877 in Willard, Box Elder County, Utah. Her mother’s family were early Church members in Nauvoo; her father had emigrated to Utah as a convert from Wales. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Start with a three-by-three grid. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Lesson 41: Jeremiah 1-2, 15, 20, 26, 36-38 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

We are a storytelling people. Our Sunday lessons are as often built around a scriptural episode as around an abstract principle. Our General Conference talks and magazine articles are brightened by stories. Our family reunions are celebrations of family stories. We want stories from our returning missionaries, not exhortations on repentance and... Read More »

Why are babies busting all over? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

One way to think about religious difference is with isoglosses. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

American Southerners have been joining the Church since the 1830s. The Southern States Mission became the most successful mission field in the Church in the last generation of the 1800s. During those years when southern LDS meeting halls were burned and elders and even members were murdered, many thousands of Southerners responded... Read More »

This article was interesting. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The Brazilian musical Orfeu Negro, a capoeira-filled retelling of the Orpheus story, contains a beautiful and haunting stanza penned by Antonio Carlos Jobim and sung to a heartbreaking tune: Tristeza não tem fim, felicidade sim. Happiness ends, but sadness lasts forever. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In the fall of 1983, Dialogue published Davis Bitton’s personal memoir of Leonard Arrington’s tenure as Church Historian, “Ten Years in Camelot.â€? That essay conveyed the excitement of discovering, writing, and publishing Mormon history on a scale never before known. The essay also records disappointment with changes then underway, betraying the uncertainty, even fearfulness,... Read More »

From time to time I’ve heard it delicately suggested that the Teachings of the Presidents of the Church curriculum is, not to put too fine a point on it, bland pablum, and stale, to boot. These pundits have not read last week’s lesson. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Mormons often make fun of traditional Christians for their struggling efforts to make sense of the Biblical teaching that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one God. Yet Mormons are committed to the unity of God at least as much as traditional Christians are, by our scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon. 0... Read More »

This afternoon, we had a family from our ward over for dinner. The missionaries were here, too. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Much of the attention of the Relief Society Conference of October, 1945, was devoted to efforts to assist surviving members of the Church in the former war zones of Europe. Contact had been reestablished with some of the European branches, and reports of their experiences and especially of their needs were read to... Read More »

Christina Olsen was a Norwegian convert to the Church who emigrated to Zion before the arrival of the railroad. She was in her early 30s when she married the legendary Orrin Porter Rockwell, a man more than 20 years older than she was. Christina began her short married life by dividing her... Read More »

I’m pretty sure I discovered it at Big Lots yesterday: Tweeterz, which consist (according to the packaging) of candy-coated triangular shaped bits of Twizzlers. Any contenders for the title? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Most German classes taught by most German professors have little to do with the professor’s academic specialty and a lot to do with teaching college students to speak and write better German. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

When two very similar stories–very similiar, that is, except that one is about a man and another is about a woman–are found in a Gospel, they are called a gender pair. While gender pairs occur in all the gospels, they are particularly prominent in Luke: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

My Utah history columns for the Salt Lake Tribune have a limit of 650 words; the Relief Society articles need to fit a single page. The brevity of these accounts may mask the complexity of the work behind them, so put on your deerstalker caps and I’ll recreate the process, using Frances Swan Clark... Read More »

About two weeks ago I went to the University of Richmond to do some research on Mormon history. Thanks to Terryl Givens, Richmond has acquired a set of the Selected Collections DVDs that were released a while ago by the Church Archives. Hence, I found myself in a library carrel in Virginia... Read More »

Kaimi wanted the rest of the story. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

It looks like a coffee table book but it reads like top-notch scholarship. . . . 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Many of Utah’s early pioneers did not remain long in the Valley. In defiance of counsel, some rushed to the California gold fields. A few went to California as missionaries, and the two apostles who founded a ranching colony in San Bernardino found no shortage of volunteers to accompany them there.... Read More »

This story and the other women’s stories to follow were written for my ward’s Relief Society newsletter, as a formal calling for which I was set apart. The assignment was to write about a faith-promoting incident involving a woman; I added the detail “… whom no one has ever heard about.” 0 people... Read More »

Two years ago I wrote an article entitled “‘Pursue, Retake & Punish’: The 1857 Santa Clara Ambush.â€? You can read it here if this essay triggers your interest; the short version is this: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Actually, goodbye first. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In a discussion at the ExII blog on the Church’s recent decision renovate downtown Salt Lake, a commenter named Dave justified his support of the Church’s position this way: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

October. Growing up the month meant, above all, sand and water. The leaves turned; we packed the station wagon with coolers and towels and kites and puzzles; we drove out of the city, past Mt. Rainier, through woods, and toward the coast. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Yesterday was the first day of Sukkot, the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles, or Festival of Booths; the holiday continues for seven days, during which observant Jews will build and take some of their meals in, perhaps even sleep in, a sukkah, a small home within (or outside) their home. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Upon seeing this title, my husband asked, “Was that the ancient Hebrew equivalent of Better Homes and Gardens?” 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The premise for the new Day in the Life series at Feminist Mormon Housewives is simple: Selected contributors (guests and regulars) write about their daily routines. The beauty comes from seeing how a series of diverse and differently situated women negotiate the often mundane challenges of life and of lived Mormonism. ... Read More »

At first blush, the Joseph Smith Translation for Mark 14:8 doesn’t appear to do anything: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

A question that keeps coming back to me: does God write? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

This post is not two months early. It’s two weeks late. Around here, Christmas cookies and candy and multiple varieties of Stollen have been available in grocery stores since the last week of September, and the local hypermarket has a whole aisle devoted to Christmas decorations. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Julio stood behind the blue door, waiting. Blanca stood there too. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Do you ever have one of those odd moments when you are seeing something unfamiliar and suddenly it becomes extremely familiar? Or perhaps you see something very familiar but it suddenly reminds you of something equally familiar but totally different? I had one of those experiences today. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I’ve been thinking about President Packer’s Sunday talk–mostly centered on the idea that we have nothing to apologize for in LDS history and should proudly defend our heroic, pioneering past. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Contact between religions is a lot like contact between languages. One way for two language communities to interact is through invasion. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Some of our readers may have felt like this cartoon when Dave Landrith’s last blog met a(n un?)timely demise. Fortunately for those readers, Dave has now made like this cartoon — the resemblance is uncanny, really — and started a new party blog. Fellow inmates travelers include a random John, John... Read More »

Lesson 40: Isaiah 54-56, 63-65 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

My daughter loves to play on the hardwood floor next to the stone hearth behind the wooden rocking chair. She is one. I keep on thinking this is an accident waiting to happen and tend to move the chair, spread the toys away from the hearth, and sit down beside her just in case.... Read More »

It’s been great to have Seraphine as a guest blogger these past few weeks. Her posts have covered a variety of topics and have never been uninteresting; I suspect that her posts on feminism will continue to draw readers and commenters for some time to come. (All of Seraphine’s T&S posts are... Read More »

Lesson 39: Isaiah 50-53 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

An amazing documentary premiered on byu.tv today between sessions of conference. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I have been thinking all weekend about Russell’s post attacking the Mormon legislators who voted in favor of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The post was a rant. Russell is disgusted and outraged, but there was more to the post than that. Russell didn’t simply think that the Mormon legislators... Read More »

“iterature does its best to maintain that its concern is with the mind; that the body is a sheet of plain glass through which the soul looks straight and clear, and, save for one or two passions such as desire and greed, is null, and negligible and non-existent. On the contrary, the very... Read More »

My childhood was split between northern Virginia, outside of DC, and the international community in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I went to high school at The Cate School near Santa Barbara, CA. I met Kristine during a year at MIT, took a great class on scripture study from Jim at BYU, and just missed Melissa... Read More »

Continue discussions from yesterday, or start new ones. Share with us what you’ve gotten out of conference, or what you hope to get. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Thoughts? Opinions? Impressions? Insights? Share them here, from either the morning or the afternoon sessions. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

A seminary teacher once told me: Before conference, write down a question you need answered. Think carefully, ponder and pray about what the question should be. When you have your question, write it down on paper. Pray that an answer will be given in conference. Then, as you listen to... Read More »

I have been thinking about Marilynne Robinson lately … 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I can’t believe you people. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

There are two very similar stories of miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes in Mark’s Gospel. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

During my senior year of college, my life fell apart. Depression had entered my life months before, and I had been trying to ignore its growing bleakness, hoping that it would go away if I pretended it wasn’t there. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Here’s the lead from an article in today’s New York Times: “IN the 1830’s, when men’s pants were first tailored with buttons visible down the front of the fly, the Mormon leader Brigham Young discouraged the population from wearing them, calling them ‘fornication pants.’” 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Most are acquainted with the passage in D&C 130 where God gives a fascinating response to Joseph’s query about the Second Coming: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Opening Exercises: my girls stretched on hard chairs, schooled hands still seeking their phones; leaders whispered, heads together, in the back; we settled into our common rhythms—every week the same. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

-Feminist Mormon Housewives runs not-one, but-two recent posts on how to answer questions and return to the church from inactivity. (Because feminists really want to undermine the church and all that.) -You already knew that Family History Centers were good for filling in dates on charts. (As in, “what’s the birth date... Read More »

For those engaged in the perennially fun pastime of Mitt Romney watching, one of the more interesting places to go is the Evangelicals for Mitt blog. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

When I was in college, I dabbled a bit with genealogy. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I’ve enrolled my two oldest children in a German elementary school. They have until Christmas to learn German and catch up to the rest of their first- or third-grade classes before the risk of flunking out gets to be too high. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I am eating an egg and thinking about all those women. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

We’re pleased to have Jenny Webb blogging with us during the next two weeks. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

“Reverent” and “quiet” are not synonyms. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I originally began this post as a primer on feminism–a post on feminist ideological inconsistences and boundaries, and what the term “feminism” means–but the discussion following my previous T&S post on feminism and the comments on this post on FMH have got me thinking about the issue of allegiances and how that seems to... Read More »

A couple of interesting blurbs appear in the “Study and Faith” newletter accompanying the most recent issue of BYU Studies. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

A recent post over at FMH set off a firestorm (over 170 comments and still going) with the news that the writer’s husband had “recently attended a church meeting where the leaders discussed, among other things, the new statistic out from church-headquarters that estimates 70% of those raised in the church will go inactive/leave... Read More »

My husband is writing a book. Of course, this is nothing new. He is a professor. He is supposed to write books. Actually, he is required to write books if he wants a promotion. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I know I said I was going to make a follow-up post on the term “feminismâ€? and why it might be useful, but I thought I’d make another post or two in the meantime on different subjects so people don’t get too burned out on the subject of feminism. This post is on... Read More »

In linguistics, hypercorrection is the kind of mistake you make when you’re trying too hard to speak correctly. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

UVSC and Utah State have growing Religious Studies programs. The Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology will hold its fourth annual meeting at BYU in March 2007 (they are still accepting paper submissions). The broad title of BYU’s new Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship could be construed to include theology in its... Read More »

I found this post today on a Craigslist San Francisco real estate forum: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 38: Isaiah 40-49 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Golden Ages tend to be rather parochial. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

One of the hardest things for me to deal with when it comes to feminism and the church is not directly related to any of the hot button feminist issues (i.e. not having the Priesthood, worrying about polygamy, etc). Instead, I have a tendency to get upset about the tension-filled relationship between feminists... Read More »

This past Friday, my wife and I (and many other folks) had the privilege of hearing Jill Mulvay Derr speak to the Miller-Eccles study group about Eliza R. Snow Smith. The presentation was great. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 37: Isaiah 22, 23, 24-26, 27, 28-30 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I’m happy to announce our latest guest blogger, a bloggernacle regular who currently posts mostly under the pseudonym Seraphine. And just who is Seraphine? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Here’s Matthew 12:46-50: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

If you want to write the great Mormon novel, or the great Mormon dissertation, don’t play video games. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Here’s one way of thinking about the Gospel of Matthew. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I am not a particularly spiritual person, but I am quite religious. I like to think that I am a Pharisee in the good sense of the word. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

It turns out that law-and-economics is not only the dominant theory of private law, but it also helps you think about the idea of Zion. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

It is a well established fact that Europeans perform vastly less formal market work than Americans. A less known fact is that this is a recent development— in the late 50s, Europeans worked about 10% more hours, but this has been in steady decline for 40 years, until now they work about 30%... Read More »

I had a beautiful experience last week. I went through the temple with one of my Sunday School students/neighbors, a young man headed to the MTC on Wednesday Sept. 13. Last week, another of my SS students/neighbors left for his mission. There is one other member of the neighborhood of age... Read More »

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A friend of mine is a dedicated genealogist. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In 1950s America, Rose Marie Reid was a household name. She was born one hundred years ago today. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I registered my two oldest children for school on Friday. The principal needed to know which church they belonged to so that he could assign them to the proper religion class. For a first and third grader attending public school in Bavaria, there is a class for Catholics, a class for Lutherans, or a... Read More »

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) has been described as “Napster for nerds,” and it has some things to say about Mormonism. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Five years after September 11, 2001; five links in memory: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I was asked to prepare and give a talk on my Grandmother Jolley’s life story at her recent funeral. In going back through her history, one thing struck me more than anything else: that the Salt Lake City she grew up in was crowded with people whose names, today, sound like a hit parade... Read More »

We want to give our hearty thanks to Tyler Johnson, who took a break from his wonderful blog Mormon Hippocrates to grace Times and Seasons with a brilliant series of posts on achievement, spirituality, survival, and God’s grace. Thanks in particular, Tyler, for sharing your father’s story (though really it was a much larger... Read More »

Linguistics, the study of language’s inner workings, is a source for concepts and technical vocabulary that are also useful for thinking about religion, because language and religion are both, among other things, mental constructs for making sense of the world around us. Each provides categories with which to organize the way we think about... Read More »

Alive with new spiritual splendor, Teresa immersed herself in the Gospel. Active in her Denver ward, she found special joy serving in the House of Lord during the Denver Temple dedication—she attended every dedicatory session, savoring the succor she found. One morning, as a session ended, she called my Father in tears... Read More »

My cousin, Lieutenant Colonel Robert J. Church, is a JAG officer in the Utah National Guard, assigned to the 1st Corps Artillery, currently serving in Afghanistan in support of Task Force Phoenix. Translation: he’s a citizen-soldier, normally a city prosecutor in Orem, UT, now sent to Afghanistan for a year to help train and... Read More »

This time Nathalie wears a miniskirt. On Sunday, in Church. In spite of last week’s interview. In spite of the one the month before. And other months. For quite some time the matter had been about her bare midriff. Now the miniskirt. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In an attempt to establish a new life, Teresa enrolled in a self-realization program. There, her new spiritual advisor directed her to “face her childhood values” by attending, just once, an LDS sacrament meeting. And so, for the first time in many, many years, Teresa showed up at a ward in Denver,... Read More »

Taryn Nelson-Seawright has originated a lively thread on BCC presenting some new data on the gender disparity in Mormon Studies and inviting ideas on the reasons and remedies for that disparity. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Since getting married eleven years ago, my wife and I have moved eight times. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The next few days pulsed with surreal happenings. My Father, barely off the airplane, attended his mother’s funeral the Friday after returning home and watched from the stand as the throng filled the chapel, then the gym, and then spilt into classrooms and hallways. My Mother, then just a friend, showed up... Read More »

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Lesson 36: Isaiah 1-6 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Generally speaking, we tend to think that the institutional structure of the church is either administrative or pastoral. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

This weekend marked the tenth anniversary of my youngest brother’s birth and death. In his honor, I’m posting my mother’s narrative of his brief life in ours. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Moroni 8:14 never used to sit well with me: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

When my Father finally arrived in Denver, Teresa was not at the terminal to greet him. Confused, my Father claimed his luggage and waited a few minutes before he was paged. When he found her, Teresa was in hysterics; she grabbed him and, looking at him through streaming tears said, pleadingly, as... Read More »

On Kaimi’s Ensign thread, a conversation about the kinds and quantities of power exercised by the sexes has been simmering. Julie suggested that we open another thread for that discussion, and I’ve obliged. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Alas, my other lives (teacher, wife, mother, producer and writer) are calling me, so I will contribute less frequently to T&S and other blogs–though this has been really fun. I promised to publish a post about writing the trilogy with Darius. I’ve written elsewhere about some of that experience–the... Read More »

Ernesto has hit the East Coast and is currently plowing its way through the Southern Chesapeake. As it happens I live in the Southern Chesapeake. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

My Father has never been one to speak much of himself; he is almost painfully shy about being honored, even in private. Not surprisingly, then, I have only ever heard snippets of his life story. Still, I have become acutely interested of late in better understanding my heritage generally and my Father’s... Read More »

MySpace recently overtook Yahoo as the most-visited website in the US. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Kiskilili poses the following very interesting question: Often appearing to be caught between pronounced sacramentalist tendencies (ordinances effect real change that goes beyond their symbolic import) and an underdeveloped theology regarding the significance of our so-called “non-essentialâ€? ordinances (no transubstantiation for us!), we seem at a loss to explain clearly the difference between a non-priesthood... Read More »

The September Ensign rocks. No two ways about it. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I spent most of grade school attending the remedial classes for the learning disabled because I was, well, learning disabled. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Barbara Kirkham Jolley, my mother’s mother, died on Monday. She was 86 years old. Grandma Jolley’s husband, Joseph Arben Jolley, died eight months ago, and by all reports, she had put little effort and had even less interest in living ever since. Just days ago, she fell and broke her hip; when she heard... Read More »

Our theology–or, more accurately, our perception of it–helps to determine our response to mental illness. Consequently, we must ensure our unexamined religious assumptions do not rob us of compassion or persuade us to premature and unwarranted judgment. Let me give some examples. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

What follows is a summary of some of my research notes. I have been reading Puritan legal history of late, looking for ideas and ways of thinking about Mormon legal history. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Up until about a year ago, if you had asked me why I had studied German, I would have said that I started in the ninth grade and just didn’t know when to stop. At BYU, my major in mechanical engineering lasted about 20 minutes into the first orientation meeting, and I didn’t really... Read More »

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In her thoughtful and enlightening book Leaving Eden, Amber Esplin tells the story of a young girl named Judith. Near the end of the novel, Judith’s brother dies and she confronts the chasm that opens in his absence. Though Judith must at first face the bitter sadness that inevitably accompanies death, she... Read More »

I have been teaching English at BYU for over twenty years, focusing on creative writing for more than half of that time. As I contemplate fall semester in my new identity as a BLOGGER, I have been thinking about the conversations we teachers have with our students. Some might label the conversations... Read More »

Hi, my name is Tyler and I’m addicted to achievement. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Here’s a fun party question: Who are your favorite commenters? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Over at some-other-blog, Margaret Young writes in a comment: “Card-carrying Mormons do often believe that Blacks were fence sitters in the pre-existence and that polygamy is essential to eternal progression. Neither position has been formally repudiated by the powers that be. We have merely distanced ourselves from them.” This comment, I think,... Read More »

Driving to work today, I had an odd epiphany. It occurred to me that there is an odd symmetry between the danger that “liberal” and “conservative” Mormons see in story telling. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In October 2000, Elder Oaks spoke to the Church about the difference between doing and becoming. He said many Church members treat progress in the Church as a spiritual checklist with the goal being to mark off each spiritual task in succession. His address was, for me, anyway, enlightening—it changed the way... Read More »

As we become more like God — all progressing towards the same end point — will we lose our uniqueness as individuals? How can we maintain individuality as we become just like God? As with many questions, this one can be answered by recourse to the classic computer game Nethack. 0 people... Read More »

The fine thread which Margaret Young’s post kicked off yesterday reminded me of some equally fine ones from the past. I’ve posted on the topic before a couple of times as well, and so–given that there was a lot to say–I was having a hard time keeping my comment to managable size. So I... Read More »

Lesson 35: Amos 3, 7-9; Joel 2-3 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

My daughter said recently that she had been raised to view extremely wealthy people as wicked. I was appalled, since I am one of the primary people who raised her. What messages had I communicated which elicited those words? I admit that my father, on first view of a cousin’s enormous... Read More »

Margaret will be with us for the next couple of weeks, and with perhaps the exception of Rosalynde, we are all a bit nervous about her guest-blogging. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I gave a talk yesterday; the text is pasted herein. It’s long, but easy reading, I promise. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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The rumors are true: Jonathan Green has agreed to come on board Times and Seasons as our newest permablogger. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

David King Landrith is much-abused on LDS blogs, including this one. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Do church members have a duty to present the church in a favorable light at all times? (more . . .) 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Condorcet was a French social theorist in the opening decades of the 19th century and is credited with first discovering a paradox of majority voting that bears his name. Here is the paradox: Imagine that you have a group of three people (A,B, and C) who are voting on three different alternatives (X, Y,... Read More »

OK, let’s ask a relatively simple question: Why do non-Mormon accounts of Mormon theology so often seem grotesque? To avoid derailing the discussion immediately, let me concede that there are non-Mormon folks who “get” Mormon theology, etc. etc. etc. On the other hand, if you are a Mormon and have not... Read More »

David King Landrith is much-abused on LDS blogs, including this one. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I decided that this is too important for a mere sidebar link. (I hope that it is an indication of things to come on other prominent topics.) I don’t want to take away from the discussion already under way at M*, so please head there to discuss. (Rosalynde and J. Stapley’s... Read More »

Quite a few of them do, as highlighted in BYU News recently. I am not very impressed with the BYU News article, but the number is still good news to me. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Recent comment discussions at the Exponent II and Feminist Mormon Housewives blogs have examined the propriety (or impropriety) of using terms like “slut” and “whore.” A few male commenters used those terms in comments; in response, female commenters, making an argument I tend to agree with, have asserted that there is no place... Read More »

Motley Vision has been playing host to an interesting discussion on Mormon aesthetics. The question du jour from the Sunstone Symposium seems to be whether or not one can be a Great Artist (or any kind of Artist) and still be a member of the Church. Two out of three panelists were... Read More »

Lesson 34: Hosea 1-3; 11; 13-14 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

We’ve finally read the entire Book of Mormon as a family, all of us (those that can read, anyway) taking turns verse by verse. It only took us four and a half years, and we’re ready to do it again. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Wilford Woodruff’s journal entry for Tuesday, December 5, 1865, is short: “I spent the day packing away Apples.” (The entry for the 6th is equally short: “I undertook to make some Cider to day. It was to Cold to get the Juece out of the Apples.”) 0 people like... Read More »

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I was maybe ten years old when I complained to my father about having to go to church. I didn’t like it; it was boring; why couldn’t I just stay home? His response susprised me: “If you don’t want to be there, then stay home. God doesn’t want your grudging... Read More »

The current issue of BYU Studies publishes for the first time a very interesting letter from one of the first Hawaiian converts, Jonathan (Ionatana) Napela, to the Prophet Brigham Young. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 33: Jonah 1-4; Micah 2, 4-7 This is another long set of study notes. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Mormon Stories is no longer “open, honest, respectful”; however, they are now “building bridges.” 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Let’s face it — we haven’t hit the mainstream until we’ve broken into horror movies. And the possibilities for Mormon horror are enormous. After a quick brainstorm with danithew (of Blog-Diss fame), I’m chuckling about some of the possibilities. In the best Julie-Smith tradition, let me present: 0 people like this... Read More »

This is not the kind of article you see every day. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 32: Job WARNING: This may set the record for the length of my scripture study posts. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Over at some-other-blog, Kristine asks the interesting question, “what is the purpose of time?” 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

A common narrative in the church relates to new converts who join the church despite intense pressure from their family or community. But does the calculus change any if a promise is involved? How and when should religious promises be broken? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Does it say anything about me that I have friends who couldn’t be friends with one another? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

My wife hates my hair. There’s no better way to put it. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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This is what you see as you drive on 300 West just past 300 North in Salt Lake City: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

What is “grace”, really? We know we are saved by grace (Ephesians 2:8; 2 Nephi 25:23). Of course, lots of people (including some Mormons) think Mormons don’t believe in salvation by grace. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Lesson 31: Proverbs and Ecclesiastes 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Does God control who is Church President by ending life (using the “death card”)? Or does he control who is President by controlling the order in which Apostles are called? Of course, both can be true (or neither depending on your theological persuasion), but let’s examine these questions systematically. 0 people like... Read More »

Most summers for the last twenty-two years, I’ve come to Italy for a week or more 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 30: 2 Chronicles 29-30; 32; 34 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Rich people who pay tithing are, by all accounts, still losers compared to the poor. Or, anyway, though their ten percent is a lot more money, it is money that had little effect on their life and so is not a very impressive sacrifice. Thus their salvation is put in jeapardy by... Read More »

“A faith that has never been doubted is not as valuable or authentic as a faith that has been doubted.” 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

A dear friend of mine recently wrote to me, confiding that she’s been coming to the slow and vertiginous realization that she’s never had a strong testimony of the gospel, despite a life of exemplary activity in and service to the Church. With her permission, I’ve shared my response to her letter below.... Read More »

Are the rules of Mormonism constitutive or regulative? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

There are two “religious” magazines that I like to read fairly regularly. Neither is Mormon. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

This is a post about Mormonism and Leo Strauss. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I can think of at least three different ways in which one can read the scriptures. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

What is the bloggernacle? Good question. People’s views are likely to differ, and the quest to define the nacle is bound to be an ongoing one. It’s a fun question, but for now I’m just going to point out a significant new post on the topic: DMI Dave has been... Read More »

A growing body of research (mine own included) in various social sciences finds that people report higher happiness levels when they do better than the people around them. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Simon, 5, loves this little boy. His family is a little bit too Conspicuous Consumption for me, but how can you deny a five-year-old his best friend? Which is why I’m spending an afternoon at his 500$ birthday party at the karate studio. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The common answer heard today in the Church is no. A variety of reasons are usually given: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

On the whole, I am in favor of the smell of tobacco in church, but it is a tricky question. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

A prior thread examined rationales for extending priesthood eligibility to women. This thread will examine the opposite question: If you believe that women should not receive priesthood eligibility, why not? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Some of our readers and participants have expressed a belief that eligibility for priesthood ought to be extended to women. I’m curious about the reasoning underlying different participants’ acceptance of this argument. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The Mormon Social Science Association, under the direction of editors John Hoffman, Cardell Jacobsen, and Tim Heaton of BYU’s Department of Sociology, is currently putting together a volume of essays that retrospectively assess O’Dea’s 1957 classic The Mormons. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 29: 2 Kings 2, 5-6 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Thomas F. O’Dea’s The Mormons (1957) is a classic text in Mormon studies. So much that the Mormon Social Science Association is currently putting together an edited volume 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Over at BCC Taryn has an interesting post on the Book of Mormon and socialism. Her basic claim is that the Book of Mormon endorses socialism. At one level, I think that she is absolutely correct, on another level I think that the claim is vacuous. 0 people like this... Read More »

“If you gave women the Priesthood and then took it away, would they be less happy than if they’d never gotten it to begin with?” 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I always find it interesting to hear what people think of as being central and peripheral to Mormon experience. Take sex for example. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In the comments to Julie’s dialogue with Randy B. on the meaning of “preside” in Mormon discourse, she issued (and re-issued!) a challenge to any interested reader: find a statement from a 20th-century Church leader showing that our concept of presiding has teeth. Never one to pass up a challenge—particularly one that... Read More »

When I was a senior in college, I worked at Seagull Book and Tape, an LDS book and trinket store across the street from the LA Temple. (The pay was lousy, but working with books was fun. So it turned out to be a decent job.) I was amazed by all... Read More »

I like Michael’s post about seer stones. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

If I am baptized on July 11, 2006, is that the effective date of my baptism, or is my baptism effective as of an earlier date? You may think the question is bizarre and the answer obvious, but stick with me. I think you’ll find there’s something to it. 0 people like... Read More »

Lesson 28: 1 Kings 17-19 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Two long-time members of Times and Seasons, Kristine Haglund Harris and Melissa Proctor, have decided that their season with this blog has come to an end, and that it’s time for them to move on. This is our farewell to them. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

. . . because this may be the longest post you’ll read this year. (I want a Niblet!!) Randy wanted me (and Nate) to explore the issue of presiding a little more on the temple thread, but some yahoo cut off comments, so Randy emailed me. 0 people like... Read More »

From its inception, Times and Seasons has been a forum for relatively diverse political, theological, and applied approaches to Mormonism. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

To me, the most interesting thing about the seer stone that Joseph used when translating the BoM is not that he used it but that it is really just a rock. From what I understand, if you or I were to pick it up, we couldn’t tell it apart from any other smooth... Read More »

We are happy to welcome Michael McBride as a guest-blogger. Mike studies happiness, religion, and the politics of development at UC-Irvine. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

whether or not there is love at home. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I need your help on when the Church thinks life begins. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

If you are an adult, inevitability comes in the form of death and taxes. If you are a child, it comes as the middle school research project. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” –G.K Chesterton 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

When I was young teenager I read a lot of military science fiction, including Jerry Pournelle’s popular There Will Be War anthologies. Good times, those. Saving up money from my (largely unprofitable) paper route, then the long, slow bike rides to the used book store. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Sacrament meeting in a small ward, in a large coastal city. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

It was a long, hot day filled with furniture assembly and nagging ideological frustrations. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Abraham Lincoln famously compared America to “apples of gold in pictures of silver.” 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

A Rascal By Nature, A Christian by Yearning: A Mormon Autobiography by Levi Peterson. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 27: 1 Kings 12-14; 2 Chronicles 17, 20 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

An Advocate for Women: The Public Life of Emmeline B. Wells by Carol Cornwall Madsen 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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Today I abandon my personal policy of only writing book reviews that are, on balance, positive. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Lesson 26: 1 Kings 3; 5-11 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Statistically speaking, males seem to be responsible for the great majority of human-made suffering. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Commenter Mark IV asks an interesting question: IF we determine that homosexuality is genetic, and IF we figure out how to manipulate the fetus in utero to “fixâ€? the homosexuality, would it be morally wrong to do so? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I’ve already told my story here. But that’s just what happened, and how it happened. Why it happened is a harder story to tell, especially since I don’t know (and may never know, because there may not be) an ending to it, at which point the answer will presumably be made clear. (Or not.)... Read More »

If any of you are familiar with the Morgan/Henefer/Coalville area of Utah and could recommend a place where two women, seven kids, and one husband along for the ride could meet up at a playground or similar, please email me. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

-or- What ever happened to the good ol’ last days? -or- Where have all the millennialists gone? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

We sojourned in the wilderness for seven years, spending years of famine and frustration in small apartments. Our children learned to play indoors; our driving skills deteriorated. Worst of all, we neglected our food storage. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

BYU took advantage of me at a time in my life when I would have done almost anything for 10$. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

How seriously ought we to take Satan? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I’m thinking of starting a series to document all the insights I get that, on reflection, I realize everyone else in the Bloggernacle already knew. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I posted previously on the women in Jesus’ genealogy but wanted to invite discussion on some other aspects of it. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

“We are commanded to reject the philosophies of men (sometimes expressed as the commandments of men) in favor of messages from messengers from God. I had always thought this just meant rejecting false philosophies. But now I wonder. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

A few weeks ago I visited a charming Amish and Mennonite “visitor’s center” in a nearby town. I noticed something I think Mormons can learn from. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In 1958 a political scientist published a book on the culture of Southern Italy that may have something to say about one of the potential pit falls of Mormonism. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

We held a small viewing in Eagar, Arizona, the morning before we buried Betsey in the cemetery there. We were a little irritated by two prints in the funeral home, one a painting of a grossly fat cowboy trying to hit a golfball off a cowpie, called ‘Chip Shot,’ and the other of... Read More »

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I’ve brought my children west from the alluvial soil of Missouri to the sandy chapparal of Southern California for a few weeks. The first-order pleasures of being home include conversation in our domestic dialect marked at every intersection by shared memory and emotional habit, and free babysitting. Among the second order pleasures, though,... Read More »

I have a friend who is thinking about joining the Church, but he does not have a testimony of the prophet. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

As readers of this blog may know, I have my problems with narrative. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

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When Pres. Bush was re-elected in 2004, he talked about having gained “political capital.â€? He chose to “spendâ€? it on Social Security reform, which didn’t work out so well for him. I want to offer a few thoughts about us gaining and using “spiritual capital.â€? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Here’s a quick thought exercise: 1. How many female Melchizedek Priesthood holders are currently in your ward? 2. How many Black Melchizedek Priesthood holders are currently in your ward? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Perhaps it is just me, but “scriptorian” seems to be an honorific that has fallen out of favor. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Our spam filter has been on drugs lately. Several legit comments got held up as spam for a few hours until the admins let them out. Apologies if this was you. Hopefully, the problem won’t last. If it does, we’ll look into our options on the technical side. 0 people... Read More »

By and large, I don’t think that we do a particularlly good job preparing members to go to the temple for the first time. As a result, I think that many members — especially converts without close family members who have been to the temple — get worried about what is going to... Read More »

I’ve talked about authority a few different times, but I thought I should try writing something up as a post. So here’s a version comparing it to roulette: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

A review in four parts: 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I can think of four different ways to change the structures we’ve been talking about. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

As a missionary, I was constantly admonished to ensure that our potential converts were spiritually, and not just socially converted. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The face I have in mind is not the face of the young man (from the Two Faces post), who was to be ordained a teacher today and was instead initially pronounced a deacon instead. ‘Teacher!’ someone whispered, his face remained calm (I peeked), and it all got fixed. 0 people... Read More »

I’ve been distributing weekly lesson supplements to our senior Primary teachers; I figured I might as well post them here. “Those might be of some use,” as my four-year-old would say. You can also use these ideas for FHE, Sharing Time, etc. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

LET us now praise our fathers that begat us. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I was going to title this “growing older,” but I decided to be honest. I’ll be fifty-nine this year and, though I’m not yet decrepit, by most people’s measures I’ll officially be old next year. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

So, we’re told that motherhood is given to women, as Priesthood to men. Two motherhood-priesthood thoughts occur to me: 1. True or false: “The rights of motherhood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principle of righteousness. ... Read More »

According to Mormon doctrine, children who die before the age of accountability are fast-tracked straight to the Celestial Kingdom. This idea creates all sorts of numbers problems. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

My wife and I were in Jerusalem for a week in March. Below are some thoughts on the city, its religious heritage, and the current conflict. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

When we think of temptations related to the Word of Wisdom, we usually think of, you know, being tempted to violate the WoW. But I can think of a few different WoW-related temptations. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Twelve years ago my family piled in a rented RV and drove cross-country to attend a wedding reception for my older brother and his wife in Minnesota. On the way we stopped at the church history sites in Missouri, including Independence, Liberty Jail, and Far West. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »