Dave Banack | November 18, 2009
[See Part 1: Founding and Part 2: Flourishing] Any history of Nauvoo needs to give an account of the secret practice of polygamy between 1841 and 1846. In Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise, Glen Leonard does this in about twenty pages as part of Chapter 13, “Foes Within: The Church of [...]
Dave Banack | November 13, 2009
Faith and charity get plenty of attention, but hope not so much. Pessimism, it seems, has become one of the guiding principles of modernity, reflected in the media, popular culture, and even academia. So I was surprised to find a philospher making the suggestion that children anchor our hope for progress and our conviction that [...]
Dave Banack | November 4, 2009
[See Part 1: Founding] This second installment discussing Glen Leonard’s Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise looks at the middle years in Nauvoo through about 1842, covered in the second section of the book (pages 123 to 269).
Patricia Karamesines | November 3, 2009
For the next several weeks, I attended church when I could. Participation often included lowering my eyes when the bishop or his first counselor walked by and gave me stern “We’re watching you” stares. In some ways the whole business interested me so I wasn’t suffering as much as some might suppose. [...]
Adam Greenwood | October 19, 2009
The gospels are full of paradoxes, mostly intentional. Is John 9 intentional?
Kaimi Wenger | October 14, 2009
When people talk about Prop 8 or gay-Mormon relations generally, a common theme is that a smaller, less powerful group is the victim of an unfair attack from a larger and more powerful aggressor. This theme is used repeatedly on both sides of the debate. It was a central theme in Elder Oaks’ [...]
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 [...]
Dave Banack and Marc Bohn | October 4, 2009
President Monson conducted the Sunday morning session, featuring talks by President Eyring, Elder Perry, Elder Burton, Sister Dibb, Elder Nelson, and President Monson. Direct quotations (based on our notes) are given in quotes; phrases without quotes are our summary of the remarks given.
Marc Bohn | October 4, 2009
President Uchtdorf conducted the Priesthood session, featuring talks by Elder Ballard, Elder Gonzalez, Elder Choi, Elder Uchtdorf, Elder Eyring and President Monson. Direct quotations (based on my notes) are given in quotes; phrases without quotes are my summary of the remarks given.
Frank McIntyre | October 3, 2009
Last month we posted Royal Skousen’s discussion of his work on recovering the earliest version of the Book of Mormon, along with some updates. Unfortunately, that post garnered some annoying formatting problems — mostly due to the new format T&S adopted this year. We’re happy to now present to you mark III of Royal Skousen’s [...]
Kent Larsen | October 2, 2009
After a bit of work and discussion, a small group I’m working with has issued a call for papers for what may be the first academic conference on Mormonism not held principally in English. The conference will be held in São Paulo, Brazil this coming January.
Dave Banack | September 29, 2009
A lot happened in Nauvoo that doesn’t get covered in Sunday School or the one-volume treatments of LDS history. But Glen Leonard’s Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise tells the story in detail from start to finish.
Ben Huff | September 24, 2009
The Bible, as we have received it, sets out the drama of salvation with its wrenching fall and crucifixion, but joyous resurrection and exaltation. Though its compilation is in many ways ad hoc, there is a satisfyingly comedic structure to the whole. As Terryl Givens puts it in his The Book of Mormon: A Very [...]
Rory Swensen | September 22, 2009
This new volume is the second overall in the Joseph Smith Papers, but is the first of the Revelations and Translation series which will provide transcripts of many of the earliest manuscripts of Joseph Smith’s written revelations and translations…
Kent Larsen | September 18, 2009
My copy of the new LDS edition of the Bible in Spanish arrived yesterday, one of the 750,000 copies printed recently (according to a contact I have in the Church department that prints these materials). So I thought I would pass on my impressions.
Frank McIntyre | September 6, 2009
5 years ago we published one of my favorite “12 Questions” posts, in which Royal Skousen discussed in some depth what he has learned from his extensive work on the earliest editions of the Book of Mormon. His book, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, is being published in September by Yale University Press [...]
Alison Moore Smith | September 5, 2009
A wonderful woman who served as my Education Counselor a number of years ago served a mission for the church around the time she was 19. She fell in the fabulous loophole. Her father was a mission president, so she was allowed to serve while he served, even though she was “underage.”
But George Durrant was [...]
Dave Banack | September 3, 2009
I finally got my hands on a copy of The Democratization of American Christianity, Nathan O. Hatch’s look at how the egalitarian democratic spirit that pervaded post-Revolutionary America influenced five early American religious movements: the Christians (such as the Disciples of Christ), the Methodists, the Baptists, black churches, and Mormonism.
Kaimi Wenger | September 1, 2009
The marble skin of Joseph’s perfectly-muscled chest sparkled like diamonds in the Palmyra sun. Emma stared, captivated by the velvet tones of his voice, the intoxicating scent of his tousled bronze hair. “You should stay away from me,” he had warned her moodily. “I’m too dangerous.”
But he couldn’t seem to [...]
Adam Greenwood | August 31, 2009
As we all know, what this verse from Proverbs really means is that we teach our children the scriptures. Rod = Iron Rod = Word of God = Scriptures. Spare the scriptures, spoil the child.
Kaimi Wenger | August 25, 2009
From his book review of Elizabeth Edwards’ new memoir, in this month’s Atlantic:
Dave Banack | August 24, 2009
I recently read Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, Terry Eagleton’s critique of the contributions to that debate by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens (who he conflates via the memorable moniker “Ditchkins”). It’s less than I’d hoped for, but Chapter Three, “Faith and Reason,” raises issues and questions about that most basic [...]
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…”
Kent Larsen | August 17, 2009
Last week I was in Cedar City for my annual visit to the Utah Shakespearean Festival, which has brought a lot of pleasure to my family for the past 24 years, thanks to the nearly 50-year-old impossible dream of a returned missionary, Fred Adams. His success is, today, an interesting counterpoint to other impossible dreams. [...]
Ardis E. Parshall | August 11, 2009
A 1904 magazine advertisement for Van Camp’s Pork and Beans features a photograph of the Stonewall Andrew Jackson equestrian statue in New Orleans. Two cartoon children dressed in Dutch costume gaze at the monument, above this verse:
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.
Kaimi Wenger | July 29, 2009
I was kind of excited when I got my Kindle a few weeks ago. I liked the idea of having lots of books in one place, not having to haul the usual load around. I liked the idea of searching a book easily, of highlighting text and copying it out. Other features, like [...]
Bridget Jack Meyers | July 27, 2009
“She won’t join the church because we won’t let her practice polyandry.”
That’s what my husband told the Stake President at his last interview.
Jayme Blakesley | July 23, 2009
I reside in Alexandria, Virginia, about 10 miles south of Washington, DC.
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.
Times and Seasons is a place to gather and discuss ideas of interest to faithful Latter-day Saints.
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