So Prop 8 has been upheld by the California Supreme Court, but it is largely Pyrrhic victory for Prop 8. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
LDS Newsroom
- Family and Church Leaders Eulogize Frances J. Monson as One Who “Deeply Loved” May 23, 2013
- Church Responds to Boy Scouts Policy Vote May 23, 2013
- Bible Brought to Life on Ancient Jerusalem Set May 22, 2013
- Church Working With Oklahoma Officials to Provide Support in Wake of Tornadoes May 21, 2013
- Funeral Services for Frances J. Monson Announced May 20, 2013
- Frances J. Monson, Wife of President Thomas S. Monson, Passes Away May 17, 2013
- Elder Dallin H. Oaks Honored for Championing Religious Freedom May 16, 2013
- Mormonism in the News: Getting It Right| 15 May 2013 May 15, 2013
- Rendering of Meridian Idaho Mormon Temple Now Public May 15, 2013
- Mormons Around the World: Country Newsroom Websites |14 May 2013 May 14, 2013
Blog Archives
Sacred Space at BYU
Here is an updated schedule for BYU’s upcoming conference on Sacred Space on June 3rd. This looks a really great line up if you are in Provo. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
“Jerusalem”
One of my favorite hymns is not in the hymn book. No, it’s not “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” although that is one of my favorites as well. Rather, I am talking about the hymn “Jerusalem,” one of the great anthems of the Church of England when it gets low-churchy enough to sing hymns rather than letting the chior do all the work. The words are taken from a poem by William Blake: 2 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »
Sacred Space at BYU
A conference announcement that makes me wish I were closer to Utah: Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Mormons as Minorities
Today I gave a presentation to the William & Mary chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Society on “Mormons as Minorities” in which I discuss some of my research on Mormon legal and political history (and other stuff). If you are interested, you can listen to the presentation here. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
What I Learned about Mormon Courts (and the Writing of Mormon History)
For those who are interested in Mormon legal history, my article “Preaching to the Court House and Judging in the Temple” was just published in the most recent issue of the BYU Law Review. (You can download a copy of the article here.) This article provides my own take on the rise and fall of civil cases in church courts in the nineteenth-century. Of course the story of how nineteenth-century Mormons took lawsuits over broken contracts, wandering cows, disputed property lines, and the like to their local bishops has been told before, most elaborately in Ed Firmage and Collin... Read more »
The Double-Minded Essence of Mormonism
A while ago I was reading some sermons from the 1880s in the Journal of Discourses. The 1880s, of course, is the decade when the anti-polygamy crusades were at their most intense. Thousands of Mormons were incarcerated, the Brethren were in hiding from the law much of the time, and every time you turned around there was a new law confiscating Mormon property or disenfranchising Mormon voters. Hence, I was surprised to come across a sermon in which George Q. Cannon spoke unironically of his admiration for George Edmunds. Edmunds was a Republican Senator from Vermont, and the chief... Read more »
An Image from General Conference
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Reading Nephi Reading Isaiah at BYU
This looks like the sort of conference that makes me sad at times that I don’t live in Utah: Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
What My Father Did
A few weeks ago my father retired after spending three decades working for the Church Historical Department. I’m no doubt guilty of an excess of filial piety, but I think that the Church and Kingdom are better for the work that he did. 2 people like this post. Like Unlike Read more »
A New Book for the Mormon Canon
There are a number of Mormon pamphlets and books that have achieved a kind of semi-canonical status within Mormon studies. Everyone agrees, for example, that Parley P. Pratt’s Key to the Science of Theology or John Taylor’s Mediation and Atonement are key texts for understanding nineteenth Mormon thought. If any evidence is needed, both texts, I believe, are still in print. At the very least both have produced modern reprints. I have a proposed addition to the canon, George Q. Cannon’s A Review of the Decision of the Supreme Court in the Case of Geo. Reynolds v. the United... Read more »
A Mormon History Bleg
Do you know of any good source dealing with Mormon attitudes toward and/or involvement in the Spanish-American War? Please give me your ideas in the comments. Thanks! Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Getting over Nibley
Of late I have been thinking of late about how to read Mormon scriptures. In particular, I have been working on some passages in the Book of Mormon on legal interpretation and thinking about how best to approach these sections. By and large, it seems to me that there have been three basic models of how to read LDS scriptures. First, there has been what I think of as an external, sectarian reading. This consists essentially of proof texting in debates and discussions with Protestant outsiders. There is a sense in which this is the oldest kind of LDS hermeneutic. The... Read more »
Michael Scott and C.S. Lewis
While I don’t really have a television, there are a couple of shows that I regularlly watch through Netflix or hulu.com. Among them is The Office. I actually think that some of C.S. Lewis’s thoughts on the nature of love help to make sense of Michael Scott. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Commentary on 1 Ne. 17, concluded
Continuing part 1 , part 2, and part 3. Nephi’s response to his brothers directly attacks their understanding of Moses’s significance. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
The Political Uses of Debt and Mormon History
Yesterday’s discussion got me thinking about debt, in particular the political uses of debt. Here, I think that the experience of the American Revolution and the failure of the Confederacy may have something to tell us about Mormon history. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Commentary on 1 Nephi 17, pt. 3
Continuing part 1 and part 2. Laman and Lemuel offer up their gloss on the story of Moses in verse 22 and in so doing model a particular type of scriptural and legal interpretation. They say: And we know that the people who were in the land of Jerusalem were a righteous people; for they kept the statutes and judgments of the Lord, and all his commandments, according to the law of Moses; wherefore, we know that they are a righteous people; and our father hath judged them, and hath led us away because we would hearken unto his... Read more »
Commentary on 1 Nephi 17, pt. 2
Laman and Lemuel make their appearance in chapter 17 in verse 17, where they say: Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Regarding Carol Lynn Pearson
Over the holidays I discovered the poetry of Carol Lynn Pearson, which I have been enjoying. At times she spills over into the trite or saccharine, but on the whole I like it. There is nothing agonistic about it, which is the reason that Terryl Givens doesn’t much care for it. I think that he’s right, however, that by taking Emily Dickinson (another poetess I’ve recently started reading) as her model, the conciseness of her style frequently rescues her from smugness. At its best, there is an engaging naivete in her verse, a kind of simple purity that skates... Read more »
Commentary on 1 Nephi 17, pt. 1
This is the first of a series of posts in which I will be offering some commentary on 1 Nephi 17. Why that particular chapter you ask? The answer is that I believe that chapter 17 is setting forth a method of scriptural interpretation that proved to be very important both for the Book of Mormon and for Mormonism generally. Furthermore, what I find fascinating about the story is that ultimately it is about the legal interpretation of scripture. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Nature and Cities
I often find walking in nature a spiritual experience, for want of a better term. Growing up, I think that I found my testimony in part by tramping through the Wasatch Mountains and watching thunder storms roll across the Great Salt Lake. Today, I am likely to have real moments of reverence and gratitude to the divine while watching mist play across the still waters of the James River in the early morning or enjoying the power of a big Atlantic storm slamming into my bit of the world. I realize that there are some real dangers with identifying... Read more »
Past and Present
It’s an intellectual banality to point out that how one thinks of the present structures how one thinks about the past. The cliché, however, is useful when thinking about Mormon history. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Why Conservatives Should Support Same-Sex Marriage Legislation
Rod Dreher, I think, has a it right. Conservatives ought to support same-sex marriage legislation. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
The Canonization of the Book of Mormon?
Penguin Books has just published a “Penguin Classics” edition of the Book of Mormon edited by Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp. Penguin Classics, of course, are the paperback editions of literary staples like Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. They are printed and marketed largely as texts for college classes. The assumption is that a text included in the Penguin series has become a stable part of the high-brow diet of books, or at least ought to be. It is worth reflecting a little bit about what this edition of the Book of Mormon might or might not mean. The Penguin book... Read more »
2009 LDS Law Students Conference at Harvard Law School
The J. Reuben Clark Society’s annual student conference will be held this year at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Registration is now open, and I urge LDS students, lawyers, and interested laypersons to attend. FYI. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
An Open Letter to Michelle Obama
Dear Michelle, First, let me say how much I’ve enjoyed getting to know you over the last couple of months. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
A New Summer Seminar on Mormonism with Terryl Givens and Matt Grow
From Givens: Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
The Difficulty of Theological Interpretations of Mormon History
Providing a theological interpretation of Mormon history is tricky. I’ve argued elsewhere that one of the reasons that Mormons care so much about history is that in some sense they regard it has having a normative force. Part of how we understand God’s will is by offering an interpretation of our past that sees in it the working out of God’s purposes. On this view, God is involved in the story of the Restoration and a careful parsing of that story will reveal something about God. This, of course, is the sort of thing that sets the teeth of... Read more »
BYU in the Memory of the AAUP
Among the other academic spam that I get are regular emails from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which is always eager to remind me of their fights for academic freedom, higher salaries for professors, and various trendy and hip progressive causes. Today, the AAUP sent out an email commemorating the ten year anniversary of its censure of BYU. I thought that readers might enjoy a trip down memory lane to the bad-old-days of Mormon intellectual life in the 1990s and a view of events through outside eyes: Be the first to like. Like Unlike Read more »
Evil Speaking
In the Old Testament God likens his relationship to the House of Israel as that of a bridegroom to his wife. In the New Testament, the Church is described as the bride of Christ. The choice of the image of marriage, it seems to me, is hardly accidental. It provides, I think, the background for the commandments against speaking evil of the Lord’s anointed and by extension — I believe — the Lord’s Church. Belief and membership — the two ideas that we use most commonly when thinking about our relationship to the Church — are, it strikes me,... 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