St. Blog’s Parish, the all and sundry Catholosphere, and assorted RC hangers-on have missed the happy visitors from the Bloggernacle bus (7-day tour to Nauvoo, the Sacred Grove, and Nate Oman’s study! Bonus trip to the Holy Land!). So here goes (be sure to return to the bus in 3 hours, or you’ll be left behind. Take a travel buddy): Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
LDS Newsroom
- Frances B. Monson, Wife of President Thomas S. Monson, Passes Away May 17, 2013
- Elder Dallin H. Oaks Honored for Championing Religious Freedom May 16, 2013
- Rendering of Meridian Idaho Mormon Temple Now Public May 15, 2013
- Mormonism in the News: Getting It Right| 15 May 2013 May 15, 2013
- Mormons Around the World: Country Newsroom Websites |14 May 2013 May 14, 2013
- Mormon Delegation Encourages Religious Dialogue at International Conference May 14, 2013
- Church Donates More Than 1 Million Pounds of Food to Top Hunger-Relief Organization May 9, 2013
- Mormons Around the World: Country Newsroom Websites | May 9 May 9, 2013
- Mormonism in the News: Getting It Right | 8 May 2013 May 8, 2013
- Angel Moroni Statue Placed on Ogden Temple May 7, 2013
Blog Archives
SSM Update
Kay Hymowitz at the Manhattan Journal weighs in on SSM. She agrees with many of us that the key issue is whether or not marriage has any connection to procreation/childrearing. She concedes that recent trends have tended to separate them but sees this as a decline to be deplored and reversed rather than furthered. She reflects extensively on the meaning of republican marriage, as understood by the Founders. This is the most interesting part. Were I, alas, a member of the vanished leisure classes I would certainly parse some time away from the poetry and polo-playing to learn from... Read more »
Are Mormon Apologists Vituperative Enough?
We have a confessed apologist around: Ben Spackman . While we’re in a confessional mood I’ll admit to being uncomfortable with a lot of apologetics. Like most Mormons, in person I am conflict-averse. Why, just last Sunday when the entire Elders Quorum agreed that following traditions without knowing the reasons for them was foolish, my inner Burke started to boil but I sat on my hands. That’s how conflict averse I am. So when I read FARMS or FAIR or other apologists I sometimes get uncomfortable with the tone, even if they are responding to, really, intolerable filth. They... Read more »
Robert Frost, The Silken Tent
Robert Frost has a poem that should speak to us, with how marriage-minded and homeward looking we are. Know it by it’s first line, “She is as in a field a silken tent.” The woman he describes is a woman who has filled her duties and obligations with love enough that they scarcely seem duties anymore. A tent is kept up, not tied down, by its various cords, and so she. She is “loosely bound By countless silken ties of love and thought . . . And only by one’s going slightly taut In the capriciousness of summer air... Read more »
We were boys at Smith and Young together
We wish Rod Smith and Southern Virginia the best of luck in finding their niche. He will say more about it but Southern Virginia’s original niche just didn’t work out. They wanted to be the elite LDS little liberal arts college. They failed. The reasons for the failure are numerous. A few of them are that BYU itself is moving into the elite niche, at least as far as the LDS market is concerned, especially with its Honors Program. That program may well become the sort of elite school within a school that has developed at a few other... Read more »
Jack Mormon
We need a generic name for Latter-day Saints. Americans have Joe Citizen, Joe Sixpack, and John Q. Public. The law has given us John Doe and Richard Roe. We’ve already got Peter Priesthood and Molly Mormon, but those are derogatory. Jack Mormon is perfect but taken. The best I could come up with is Moroni Christofferson and DeAnn Daynes, but surely someone can top that. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Fiat Lux
I rode the train into Portland that went slowly down into a tunnel. The builders had lightened the gloom enough that one could pick out the carvings in the red stone walls. Here was cut an evolutionary timeline, here a mammoth, and here a Neanderthal skull. Here also a Lamanite creation myth, not without poetry (“the earth was once as one person, big in the womb”). We then picked up speed again. The bright and dazzling light at the tunnel mouth grew in size rapidly. I saw the walls blank now, where different builders would have carved LET THERE... Read more »
Jingoists for John Kerry
I had an oddly cheering experience today. I was driving along behind a pickup truck proudly flying two American flags (amen, brother) and got close enough to read the bumper stickers. They read, “Real Men Love Jesus,” “Half the Patients Die in an Abortion Clinic,” and “John Kerry, 2004.” Good for you, sir, I thought. I’m a Bush man myself. I prefer his policies, respond to his character, and in any case don’t have reasons enough to cease being loyal (a quality sadly absent in liberal democracies). Still, I think all us politically-minded types could take a lesson from... Read more »
Outing Mikulski and Struggle over FMA
Hard core gay activists or homosexualists or gay fundamentalists or what you will have threateded to out opponents of SSM. They’ve accused a couple of staffers of keeping their homosexuality in the closet and now they’ve accused Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), who has only tepidly supported SSM. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Marriage and Abrahamic Tests
Times and Seasons has seen quite a bit of discussion lately on obedience, tests of faith, and Abrahamic trials. See here, and here, and everywhere. If I may summarize, we are disagreeing about whether commandments are given to us to obey or only because God knows the path of return better than we. I realized something about my marriage that seems to me to shed some light. A couple of days ago with hair-raising delight I realized that marriage means I don’t have to worry anymore about who’s the best girl for me. I don’t need the best girl.... Read more »
The Glorious Fourth of July!
The Glorious Fourth of July! Some of you started last night with fireworks. We celebrated last night with the traditional torrential rain and tornado warning. God’s fireworks if you will. Today the sun shone on our remembrances. We decked our wagon in bunting and flags and put the girls on it in white sailor dresses with blue collars and red ribbons. Then we joined the parade around the University Village. The village children waved flags from their trikes and bikes. Things got a little out-of-Sabbath after that so we came back inside to read a talk from Brother Oaks... Read more »
Sunday Heroes
Seems we get to mention Ken Strother in the same breath as Eli Herring, Faustino Lopez, and Aleisha Cramer. In the playing fields of Heaven the home team scores again. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Do we matter at all? Are we stones that leave no ripples?
We love God because he’s just. We look at children in bad homes and console ourselves with knowing that their day will come. Every blessing God has offered us he’ll offer them and through grace he’ll clear them of whatever would impede their choice. We see the cemeteries full of people the gospel never reached and we’re pleased to think of baptisms for the dead. When we ourselves have sinned in our parenting or our friendship or our calling and it seems very much like we’ve made it harder for our children or our husband or our friend to... Read more »
The Lost Generation of Aborted Americans
OpinionJournal concludes that abortion took 12 million potential voters out of the citizenry for the 2000 elections, 18 million potential voters in this election, and 25 million voters out of the citizenry for 2008. I suppose one could run similar calculations for everything. How many bloggers were aborted? How many converts has the gospel missed out on? Quite a few. True, it’s not as simple as just totalling up the abortions, since some would use contraception otherwise, but still quite a few. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Gay Marriage Links
Joshua Livestro on Dutch Marriage: He reports that only a small fraction of gay couples have actually married and that heterosexual marriage rates have sunk while illegitimacy rates have risen. Susan Shell on the Liberal Case Against Gay Marriage: a society without the means of formally acknowledging, through marriage, the fact of generation, like one without the means of formally acknowledging, through funeral rites, the fact of death, seems impoverished in the most basic of human terms. Maggie Gallagher on Mitt Romney and Massachussetts: In birth... Read more »
Edward Hunter: An Almost Profitable Servant
C.S. Lewis says that we most give way to temper when some enjoyment that we planned on or time we expected to have to ourselves is invaded by a needy friend or an importunate child. We fail to realize, he says, that all our time and property is really God’s to dispose of. We should be pathetically grateful if God spares us an hour now and again to amuse ourselves. The Ensign came today with an article on Edward Hunter, a wealthy Quaker who joined the Church and became the Presiding Bishop. The article relates that in Nauvoo “He... Read more »
Music in Nursery
Music has charms to soothe the savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak –Congreve We have a very orderly nursery in our ward, as a rule. It even perpetuates itself. A new child comes in, sees everyone else following the rules and the routine, cries for a bit and then settles in. But in the last couple of weeks we lost some regulars and had a big influx of new children. The barbarians are overwhelming our social institutions! We’ve tried playing some background music to calm the kids down during playtime, puzzle time, lesson time, and... Read more »
BYU’s Araujo at the NBA draft
Rafael Araujo, BYU’s center, went a surprisingly high #8 in the draft. Good for him. He also got BYU some surprisingly good publicity. That has not always been the case. Araujo is a bit of a bruiser, which is why we fans love him but also why a few unfortunate photos of him decking opponents have popped up in newspapers around the Mountain West. Even worse, he has tattoos. But yesterday he had his name called #8, by the Toronto Raptors, and he went on the ESPN cameras grinning. They asked him about going from showing up in the... Read more »
Go Ye Up to Mons Olympus and Prepare a Sacrifice There
Yesterday I rhapsodized about SpaceShipOne and the Ansari X Space prize. In it I alluded to the unique LDS reasons for fascination with exploring space. Today I would like to expand on those reasons and on the unique opportunities that space expansion can present to the Kingdom. I writing this in earnest, but feel free to impute to me whatever degree of ironic distance permits you to tolerate what I have to say. It’s a little raw. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
One Small Step
Yesterday Michael Melvill flew SpaceShipOne 60 miles up into space. This is the first private venture into space. If Melvill, designer Bert Rutan, and the rest of their team can do just two such flights with slightly more cargo weight in a two-week span they stand to win the the Ansari X Space prize. This flight and the prize promise to inaugurate a new era in man’s move into space. Sure, billionaire-backer Paul Allen is talking suborbital tourism but even Melvill looked pained at the press conference when Allen brought it up. That’s finances and dilettantry, necessary but sordid... Read more »
Banal Blessings
You’ll never win at conversation until, like me, you master the art of making each of your topics a Rorschach-blot in which your fancy can find the next topic and smoothly transition to it before your opponent can even decide which of the thriteen absurd things you’ve said is in the most plain error. It is in precisely that manner that my previous post on understanding blessings led to this post on banal blessings as day leads to night. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
The Hermeneutics of Blessings
The words that my self-importance dictates I use have exceeded my actual vocabulary. I can only hope that the title of this post means what i think it means. What I have in mind is how we understand the message of a blessing. Are the actual spoken words God’s message or is it the spiritual impressions of the elder who was speaking on God’s behalf, not always perfectly expressed? Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
A Light gone out in the City on a Hill
Our nation pays its respects today to Ronald Reagan, President from 1980 to 1988. He was the first President I remembered. As far as I can tell he was also the first President our people embraced. I was five years old on the Mormon frontier in Arizona when Jim Brady took a bullet and President Reagan got shot. I remember the universal grief. I was with my mother on a church visit (visiting teaching I think) when we heard. We stopped in at a little ranch house. The radio was playing. The sister answered the door and she was... Read more »
Obedience, Sacrifice, Abraham
I noticed something commonplace in the talks this last conference. By commonplace I mean something that appears in the talks every conference. A few examples will suffice. Todd Christofferson of the Seventy talked about inward conversion. The first step, he said, is putting aside “the attitude that rejects the authority of God to rule in our lives.” We must acknowledge “God’s right to declare the truth and establish the law.” Brother Eyring spoke of the purpose of life. He found from the revelations that it was “to prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things... Read more »
Church-going as Wedding Feast
A brother at church said that we have a marriage model of church. Geography commits us to one particular group of people and we all give lay service within that group even as it changes. One doesn’t keep looking around for fulfillment, one does one’s duty here. He has a point, of course. For one the Bishop is very much the mother, presumed to be omnicompetent, always on duty, always available for sympathy and counseling, and always tolerated with a sort of amused forbearance. The father too. The brother then inverted the comparison. The Book of Mormon, he said,... Read more »
The Pleasures of Board and Bed, or Gluttony and Concupiscence
I found an article on aging in a waiting room magazine. Some scientists, it turns out, put mice and other creatures on tight rations, for ineffable scientific reasons, only to discover that the mice et al. lived longer and healthier. The side effects were small stature and, here the article sounded a grim note, diminished sex drive. No one knows how whether Man gets similar health benefits—studies are underway!—but a few souls have put themselves on the straitened dietary regimen in advance of the science. The writer talked to them about their efforts. They took him through their schedule.... Read more »
George Washington, Saint
Clayton Cramer weighs in to the perennial debate whether the Founders–in this case, George Washington–were really believers. He brings together some interesting Washington quotes. Some of them are fascinating glimpse into the personality of the man. From a general order against cardplaying–At this time of public distress, men may find enough to do in the service of their God, and their Country, without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality. From a general order passing on a Congressional proclamation of a day of fasting–The General commands all officers, and soldiers, to pay strict obedience to the Orders of the Continental... Read more »
Remembering what Grandpa Greenwood Remembered
On this Memorial Day weekend, the graves will be visited, and decorated with flowers and flags. Men whose step has slowed are thinking of boys they knew when they were boys together. -President Bush, dedicating the World War II Memorial My grandpa Greenwood doesn’t have a grave. Instead his ashes are scattered over the mountainsides near Nutrioso, Arizona, where he grew up. Most Mormons prefer burial to cremation, but most Mormons prefer to attend church and prefer not to smoke, cuss in Spanish, English, and Navajo, drink, and raise h*ll. My Grandpa ran away from his father, the overbearing... Read more »
Closing Riley Chapel
We’ve spent some time down in Indy this week. One of the hospitals there, Riley Hospital, is really something. The original hospital was built way back when. It’s grown and grown and grown since then, but they’ve never demolished the original. Instead, they’ve just built the new hospital around it, keeping the original in the center surrounded by courtyards, like the Kaaba or something. In the middle of the old hospital was a chapel. It was a little too Protestant, and vaguely Protestant at that, for my tastes. I’ admired the stained glass but I’ll admit that I never... Read more »
Grinning Skulls and Emergency Drills
Elder Oaks warns us to keep a weather eye peeled for the Second Coming, or at least for the signs that precede it. He cites an increase in storms and disasters as one such sign. (Incidentally, he thinks they’re on the rise: the list of major earthquakes in The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2004 shows twice as many earthquakes in the decades of the 1980s and 1990s as in the two preceding decades (pp. 189–90). It also shows further sharp increases in the first several years of this century. The list of notable floods and tidal waves... Read more »
Conferences and Events
- American Society of Church History Annual Meeting
- American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting
- Communal Studies Association Annual Meeting
- Society for the Scientific Study of Religion/Religious Research Association
- Western History Association Annual Conference
- Utah State Historical Society Annual Meeting
- Center for Studies on New Religions
- Mormon History Association
- European Mormon Studies Association Conference
- Sunstone Symposium