A Poesy on the Borders of Poetry for a Year on the Verge of Spring: Spring has started to crack through here in Indiana. The sun’s come through the clouds, the snow melts, and we can see patches of green grass that have survived the winter. In honor of spring, I give you a poem I wrote a few years back, inspired by a spiritual moment I had while hacking and cursing the dandelions. As you will see, hack is the mot juste. 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
St. Blog’s 2d Parish
Here’s some of the Catholicity I enjoyed this week: Michael Novak lays out the moral case for capitalism. (Link via Christus Victor, which has a retort.) He tries to root enterprise and ownership in each person’s status as an “Imago Dei, an image of God, born to be creative and inventive.” Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
The Unspoken Parts of the Bible
I just read an interesting exchange in the letters column of the March 2004 Atlantic Monthly, between several pro-gay Christians and Philip Jenkins. Jenkins had earlier wrote that western Christians accepting homo-sexuality not only hurt conversion in the Global South but also betrayed the doctrines of the faith. So the letters came in pointing out that the New Testament only condemns homosexual acts twice, neither time by Christ, and that Christ taught a message of tolerance and acceptance. Jenkins responded that Christ taught a message of tolerance, acceptance, and repentance from sin. Then it gets interesting. Be the first... Read more »
Around St. Blog’s Parish
I’ve been browsing around around among our cofreres. Here’s a gay Catholic’s reflection on Christian love and homosexual attraction, via Eve Tushnet, who herself has emerged from a background of bisexual experience. Christ said that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and simply to recognize God’s law, even if I fail completely to obey it, divides the deadly sins against themselves within my heart. Because as soon as I admit that chastity is good, every sexual sin strikes a blow at my pride, my delusion of my own righteousness. Even if I make no progress in chastity, the... Read more »
Emma Caroline, Recently Come
Sara and I are pleased to announce the birth of a daughter. We have named her Emma Caroline. She weighs 9 pounds, 10 ounces, and is 22 and 1/4 inches long. She’s red and wrinkly. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Resenting our Baptism of your Dead
Claudia Bushman brought up the touchy subject of our baptisms for other people’s dead. Most don’t understand that we don’t view the baptism as efficacious until the deceased person assents to it, but most would object anyway. This age doesn’t welcome us making bold to act like we have truth and authority. Apparently, we’re not the only unwelcome ones. Here’s a link responding to an atheist who resents the Catholic doctrine that baptism leaves an indelible mark on the baptized. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Exonerating Artless Mormons
Charles Murray has a new book, Human Accomplishment. You can find reviews in the New Criterion, in the New York Times, by the National Review’s John Derbyshire, on the Volokh Conspiracy, and by a thoughtful Australian. If Murray’s arguments hold up, he has exonerated all us Mormons from the charges of failing to produce enough great Art. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
In Praise of Sunday
Testimony meeting was this Sunday. In the right ward, like this one, the best meeting we have to offer. One graduate student talked a little about the recent futility he had felt as he endured through his studies–to what purpose all this effort? Who benefits, who cares? He had genuinely struggled and, he said, through the help of the atonement had overcome. I sat up. Futility, I often feel, is the last struggle a Saint faces in doing any good thing, after all the other victories are won. Stay the course, fight the good fight, endure to the end,... Read more »
Excommunicating Pro-Choice Catholics
Kaimi has asked whether a faithful Mormon can be politically and publicly pro-choice while remaining true to his conviction that abortion is an offense against God and life. The debate continues (tentative answer emerging from the debate–No, well, Maybe, well, No, but you don’t have to be an enthusiast). Catholics ask the same question. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Peekaboo Jesus
We had Family Home Evening tonight. We sang our ‘Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam,’ prayed, and got to the lesson. We were going to talk briefly on ‘likening the scriptures to us,’ but we decided to do it instead of talking about it. Betsey’s two and one of her favorite games is a sort of hide-and-go-seek peekaboo. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Mormons for Dean
In honor of the Iowa Caucus I did an internet search for Mormons supporting candidates. Here’s what I found: Mormons for Dean, and Mormons for Dean, and yet more Mormons for Dean Mormons for Dean are a pretty visible set of links over on the Dean blog. I didn’t expect a Mormons for Bush, and I didn’t find one. But there were no Mormons for Clark, Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, Gephardt, Sharpton, Mosely-Braun, or Kucinich. Will we never learn our lesson about monolithic politics. Go and be diverse! No, seriously, what gives? Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
“Subject to Kings,” and Myths of Legitimacy
I just finished watching Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V, and was again awed by the speeches, especially the Crispin’s Day speech. Who isn’t? I also noticed the aweful brutality that Shakespeare accepts as a matter of course. Henry, to take one instance, threatens beseiged Harfleur with rape, rapine, and infanticide unless they open their gates. Of course, the medieval Law of War allowed such things for beseiged sites that held out past a certain time with no prospect of a relieving force, but it grates the modern conscience. I also noticed how seriously the play took the idea of hereditary... Read more »
Multi-moral America
I just read a review of Lord Patrick Devlin’s best-selling mega-thriller (I jest) The Enforcement of Morals. I’ve added it to my reading list. Here’s a money quote: “if men and women try to create a society in which there is no fundamental agreement about good and evil they will fail; if having based it upon a common set of core values, they surrender those values, it will disintegrate. For society is not something that can be kept together physically; it is held by the invisible but fragile bonds of common beliefs and values. … A common morality is... Read more »
A Little Foam on the Sea of Life
We just returned from Christmas vacation, which we spent with our families in New Mexico and Utah. Nothing of any consequence happened–we played board games, split wood, and spent a lot of time in the little world of the automobile. Nonetheless, spending Christmas time with family is for me a taste of the Elysian Fields, a sort of hashhashin dream or Pilgrim’s Progress vision of the City from which one awakens to find oneself distant yet, and on an uncertain road. Stale, flat, weary, and unprofitable are the uses of this world to me! Why must every meeting mean... Read more »
Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men
Our mission Christmases were mostly lonely times, but God gave us a gift on the second one. We had made little scrolls that we tied in red ribbon. On the scrolls we had printed a short message that said: “Silver and Gold have we none, but that which we have we give unto you. Two thousand years ago the Savior said, ‘Peace I leave with you, Peace I give unto you.’ We give you our love, and our wish that the Savior’s peace be with you.” We went caroling to the members and the neighbors and left them with... Read more »
It’s a Wonderful Life
We just watched It’s a Wonderful Life and I cried like the sentimental gawp I am. I forget how well done the movie is; I forget how painful the wonderful life is. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Every Artist and the Tree of Life
I just got the January Ensign. It contains a collection of artworks on Lehi’s vfision of the Tree of Life (wow, check out that tatting! and the Chinese scroll!). Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Orson Scott Card and the Wall Street Journal
Orson Scott Card has an article on the Wall Street Journal’s website today, explaining why most Democrats are un-American slime (I paraphrase). Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Mormon Shakespeare’s and Miltons
The mysterious Metaphysical Elders (not to be confused with these guys) also discuss the perennial favorite: why aren’t their more Mormon geniuses, if the gift of the Holy Ghost is really on us? See here, and here, and here. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Churches and the Erosive Intellect
First Things also has an entry on the declining fortunes of the American Rabbinate. (scroll down about 7/8ths or keep reading for the relevant excerpt). The entry has some relation, though imperfect, to our own Church and our own intellectual striving. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
The Military and Temptations to Sin
First Things reports that a Lieutenant Berry has just been vindicated in his attempts to avoid temptations to sin (scroll about 5/6ths down). It seems the good lieutenant–a missileer–wished to avoid being alone for 24-48 hour periods with a female officer in underground missile silos. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Re: Bushman v. Brodie
I was afraid that Greg’s challenge was getting lost in all the posting. Here it is again: “I want to know, what are the five essential texts in Mormon studies?” Commenters weighed in with numerous suggestions. Check them out and add your own. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Brother Maxwell and Professor Marsden
I’ve just read a remark of Brother Maxwell’s to a group of scholars. He urged them to have a passport to Athens, and use it frequently, while keeping their citizenship solidly in Jerusalem. I take him to mean that our real lives of family, Church, and nation, or of bills, hometeaching, and taxes, are the true centers of our souls. Only in these limited confines can we forge a boundless soul. Still, I also take it that scholarship is a useful vocation or avocation for those of us who are so called. Whether we are really discovering profound truths... Read more »
The Contradictory Commandments of Adam and Eve
In Institute we wondered why God would give contradictory commandments: Adam and Eve were told to multiply and replenish the earth, and they were told not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. These commandments, the scriptures plainly state, contradict each other. See 2 Nephi 2:22-23. 2 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »
Transgression, Strict Liability, and the Atonement
As a good Burkean, I see no irony in finding truths in the law, especially the common law, that illuminate the gospel. Gordon’s post below does just that. As James says, “every good gift . . . cometh down from the Father of lights.” I bring this up because my reading of Moroni 8 keeps reminding me of the tort law debate between strict liability and negligence. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Biblical Inerrancy
Gordon Smith writes, in comments to Nate’s post on the Historian’s letter: “While the Historian is right about the official Church position — that the Biblical text is not inerrant — you would never guess that this was the Church’s position if you were an anthropologist visiting wards and seminaries. In my experience, many members of the Church have embraced the erroneous views of so-called Christians on this matter.” Mormonism differs from fundamentalist Christianity by embracing error. It recognizes transmission error and biased editing in the Bible. It recognizes that the Book of Mormon contains errors (“the mistakes of... Read more »
Conferences and Events
- FAIR Konferenz
- BYU New Testament Conference
- I need help with MormonConferences.org
- FAIR Conference
- BYU Women's Conference
- Mormon History Association Conference
- Eugene England Memorial Lecture, Margaret Toscano: "The Paradoxes of Religious Peace and Conflict"
- Sperry Symposium
- BYU Easter Conference
- Mormon Scholars in the Humanities