Blog Archives

Last week I published something in a prominent series at a first-rate university press. It is, I think, the most rigorous, speculative, and systematic attempt at a professional take on Mormon philosophy, ever. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »

On his deathbed, Queequeg asks the ship’s carpenter to fashion him a burial canoe. So fashioned, Queequeg demands to lay himself the length of it, testing its virtue. Then, having abruptly remembered something he’d forgotten to do, he decides not to die after all and rises from the grave. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »

In 2009 I helped found Salt Press. This past week I helped close its doors. 2 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »

Ladies and gentlemen, the new Maxwell Institute Blog is now live.  Check out the announcement about the newly reconstituted Mormon Studies Review. 1 person likes this post. Like Unlike Read more »

“Beyond the Mormon Moment: Directions for Mormon Studies in the New Century” A Conference in Honor of the Career of Armand Mauss March 15-16, 2013 1 person likes this post. Like Unlike Read more »

I want to understand one thing especially. All my work bends to it. I want to understand the contraction of religious belief as a positive religious phenomenon. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »

In “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” Charles Peirce argues that belief just is whatever it does. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »

Would you like to learn more about how to not just brownout when you kneel down in prayer? It’s a good New Year’s resolution: learning how to be still and listen for God. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »

I’m no longer of the opinion that religion matters because it makes life meaningful. Religion, it seems to me, makes meaning rather the way breathing makes CO2: as leavings, as tailings. That’s fine. Meaning may follow, but it’s meant to be exhaled. If you hold your breath, you’ll suffocate. 2 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »

You thought you were going to get it right. Right. Instead, you’re morphing into that crazy guy who sits on the front row in Sunday School with two hands up and three incompatible opinions. Given your extremity, making you crazy may well be God’s worst best way of saving you. Plan A is out the window. Now, the only way to get there from here is through that. 1 person likes this post. Like Unlike Read more »

I agree with The God Who Weeps that agency is pivotal, but I disagree about what agency is. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »

I’m glad to see that The God Who Weeps makes some room for Darwin, but I wish it had made more. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »

I agree with The God Who Weeps that our doctrine of pre-existence is crucial, but I disagree about why. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »

I agree with The God Who Weeps that God redeems our hungers and desires, but I disagree about how God does this. 1 person likes this post. Like Unlike Read more »

Defamed and exiled, Silas Marner loses his native faith. Now he’s got nothing to prop up his soul. 2 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »

In linguistics, a word that is only attested once in a text is called a hapax legomenon. In older texts (like Hebrew and Mayan texts), these hapaxes can be especially hard to decipher because that single attestation may be the word’s only occurrence anywhere. Lacking context, it’s hard to tell what a hapax means. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »

AAR Pacific Northwest Region AAR/SBL/ASOR Regional Meeting Seattle University Seattle, Washington May 3-5, 2013 SPECIAL TOPICS: MORMON STUDIES Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »

Blake Ostler does a lot of admirable critical work in Of God and Gods (Kofford, 2008), but the book’s main constructive contribution grows out of his decision to make our heady claims about the superlative attributes of God throb with a Hebrew heart. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »

Godfrey is trying to repent but no one will cooperate. 4 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »

George Eliot sends Silas Marner packing. Early in the novel, Silas is framed for a theft he didn’t commit (probably by his best friend who also has designs on pinching Silas’ fiancé). Silas appeals to God in his defense, but when the church elders cast lots to divine the truth, the lots say he’s guilty. Betrayed by God and men, Silas is left broken-hearted and faithless. 1 person likes this post. Like Unlike Read more »

Life has intervened and time is short. 2 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »

Julie Smith opens her excellent T&S review of Turner’s Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (which I’ve not yet read) with clear reservations about recommending this book to the “average” church member. 1 person likes this post. Like Unlike Read more »

Is the existence of God, for you, an obvious and uncontroversial feature of any common sense way of seeing the world? Has it always been so profoundly and straightforwardly given that you could not deny it? If so, then in what sense would we be right to say that such a belief is either praiseworthy or blameworthy? 2 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »

Chapter 4 of Exploring Mormon Thought (Vol. 2) surveys and critiques traditional approaches to the doctrine of original sin. Chapter 5 will give us Ostler’s own approach to the problem. I haven’t read chapter 5 yet (Joe will address this chapter soon), but chapter 4 has got me thinking about original sin. 2 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »

I want to recommend Sara Maitland’s A Book of Silence. I don’t know what God wants with you. But, with time, I feel more confident about what he wants from me. For a long time, I thought his silence was a rebuff. Now, I’m more convinced it’s an invitation to do likewise. The silence seems like something he wants to share. 1 person likes this post. Like Unlike Read more »

In his deservedly famous essay “Self Reliance,” Emerson suggests that just as our “creeds are a disease of the intellect” so our “prayers are a disease of the will.” 2 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »

Let’s say you’re attending a hypothetical graduate program in Mormon Studies at a hypothetical Mormon U. What kind of classes do you want to take? History? Theology? Literature? Sociology? Etc? 3 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »

Steven Peck, in his moving and mischievous little poem “My Turn on Earth,” more than idly suggests that Creationism is Satanic. Only evolution, in all its messy contingency, is compatible with the gospel and the truth of agency. I laughed out loud and clapped my hands when I read it. 6 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »

From 12:30-2:30pm on Saturday, June 9, Joseph Spencer and I will be signing copies of our books An Other Testament, Reading Nephi Reading Isaiah, An Experiment on the Word, and Rube Goldberg Machines:Essays in Mormon Theology at Pioneer Book in Orem, Utah. 1 person likes this post. Like Unlike Read more »