Marc Bohn | October 12, 2009
A good friend, while studying constitutional law for the bar exam this summer, emailed me some thoughts he scribbled down when he should have been hacking away at a few more MBE questions on judicial review. Instead, however, he hammered out a constitutional analysis on the justiciability of prayers. You see, in case you weren’t [...]
Jonathan Green | October 1, 2009
If we accept, at least for the moment, that 1 Nephi has a textual history, that it drew on older sources or underwent expansion at various times, then we might wonder what could be considered the oldest layer of the text
Jonathan Green | September 3, 2009
If you’re interested in an oral-formulaic theory of Mormon prayer, or if you want to observe a formula in its natural habitat, a good place to start would be Sunday dinner
James Olsen | August 17, 2009
“I say unto you, be one; and if you are not one ye are not mine (D&C 38:27).” And then comes the uncomfortable experience of sitting in Sunday School (or in the midst of some other group of Mormons) with the persistent, anxious thought, “I really don’t fit in here…”
Nate Oman | July 30, 2009
I recently went through every version of the Church Handbook of Instructions, looking at what they have to say about the operation of church courts and how it has changed over time.
Kent Larsen | July 26, 2009
In 1844 Karl Marx said that “Religion is the opium of the people,” and seemed to suggest that its abolition would bring true happiness.
Kent Larsen | July 20, 2009
Happy Moonlanding Day!
When I was a youth, I read a science fiction book in which dates in the future were figured from the day that Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, apparently because the date had such significance in the history of man.
James Olsen | July 17, 2009
I’m not, by nature, a pacifist.
James Olsen | July 7, 2009
Are Mormons exclusivists or universalists?
Frank McIntyre | June 30, 2009
Bankruptcy rates vary alot across states. With a fairly simple statistical model, Lars Lefgren and I explain about 70% of these differences in a paper just published in the Journal of Law and Economics. For cross sectional work using survey data, where you are looking across states at a point in time, explaining 70% is [...]
Frank McIntyre | June 29, 2009
Suppose you take a “wisdom of the crowds” approach to morality (not that you should). Well then what could be more informative than a poll telling you what actions are morally wrong and what aren’t? Enter Gallup’s recent poll…
Tip: Adultery is still wrong. Polygamy also out.
Frank McIntyre | June 12, 2009
I just returned from a short presentation by Mike Ransom on the Utah commuter Frontrunner rail line. It is a lesson in how to not spend money.
Nate Oman | June 4, 2009
My own politics ocillate between liberalism (in the grand historical sense) and conservatism.
Kent Larsen | May 27, 2009
When my wife and I talked with our missionary son recently, he said he was glad to be in Carson City, Nevada, instead of Las Vegas. When I asked why, he said:
Gated Communities.
Dave Banack | May 22, 2009
It’s not easy being a theologian in the 21st century. One of the main reasons is that science provides credible, non-theistic explanations for many of those “where did we come from?” questions that religion once had all to itself. Evolution seems to pose a particular challenge. John Haught, a professor of theology at Georgetown, tries [...]
Kent Larsen | May 12, 2009
A friend of mine suggested a few months ago that ward Elder’s Quorums should stop helping members move. Why, he asks, should we be competing with businesses in our area?
Frank McIntyre | May 11, 2009
Suppose that we had a base 8 system instead of base 10, perhaps because, in this hypothetical world, we had 8 fingers rather than 10. Would we pay 1/8 our increase, or do you think it would still be one tenth?
Or, to reverse causality, what are the chances we have ten fingers so that [...]
Kaimi Wenger | April 25, 2009
A week ago, the New York Times joined the growing chorus of commenters calling for Judge Jay Bybee’s impeachment. Is impeachment really going to happen? And what should we think about the issue?
Nate Oman | April 16, 2009
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.
Rosalynde Welch | April 15, 2009
I linked yesterday on the sidebar to Stanley Fish’s latest editorial in the New York Times, which takes as its occasion the possibility that President Obama will revoke the “conscience clause” allowing health care providers the right to refuse to provide certain services. I thought I’d add a few thoughts here.*
Marc Bohn | April 14, 2009
The Obama administration announced yesterday that it is easing a handful of restrictions imposed by the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Among other things, Cuban-Americans will now be allowed to travel to Cuba as much as they like and will be free to send money and gifts to friends and relatives without securing travel or [...]
Nate Oman | April 13, 2009
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 [...]
Nate Oman | April 8, 2009
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 [...]
Kent Larsen | April 2, 2009
The new tobacco tax in the United States took effect yesterday, which tripled the amount of tax collected on each pack of cigarrettes, and probably raising the cost of a pack to as much as $9. The tax is the single largest increase in tobacco taxes in history.
For an LDS audience, this probably seems all [...]
Jonathan Green | March 30, 2009
One of the things people find odd about Mormons is our claim to be led by a prophet.
Dave Banack | March 18, 2009
I recently finished up Hans Kung’s Great Christian Thinkers, which reviews the work of seven theologians (Paul, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, and Barth). From an LDS perspective, the most interesting of the bunch is Friedrich Schleiermacher, who Kung terms “the paradigmatic theologian of modernity.” The question he presents to LDS readers is how our [...]
Adam Greenwood | March 10, 2009
I had a buddy in high school who was a fierce Navajo patriot. He bitterly resented what had become of his people. I needled him once on how much better off the Navajo were now with roads, and medicines, and aqueducts, and things. His voice got strangled and he could hardly say [...]
Kent Larsen | March 5, 2009
Do we have a right to wear garments? If we do, how far does that right go? What , kind of right is it? Is it a human right? Or a legal one that might disappear and reappear as we pass national boundaries?
Adam Greenwood | March 2, 2009
A study has looked at what percent of broadband users in an area also subscribe to a particular network of paid online pornography. Articles about the study have suggested that conservative religious types, especially Mormons, are more likely to use porn.
Dave Banack | February 24, 2009
It’s hard for Mormons to find an accessible doorway into theology. David F. Ford’s short book Theology: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 1999) is the first I’ve found to really give me some traction with this elusive subject.
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