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6 responses
As we were growing our family, each parity level fundamentally represented something different to the world about who you were. It went something like this, but experiences may vary: 0 kids) Very atypical for married Latter-day Saint, the operating assumption if you’re old enough is that you have fertility problems. For gentiles there’s the possibility that you’re just a power couple or really into traveling and have decided to not have kids. (I’ve never understood people who choose this demographic; if you’re going to live the free-living, unattached life, then why be married in the first place? But I digress).… Read More
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3 responses
While we claim that Church is worship, I think Church members often talk about Church like it is entertainment. I hear things like “I got bored”, “I didn’t like that talk,” “What they said was wrong,” etc. If you are worshiping God at Church, why do these questions matter? Is the presentation, good or bad, why you came to Church? If you are worshiping, why would you allow the inabilities of speakers or teachers keep you from that? Read More
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The story of Noah and the flood has often led to difficulties, especially between those who take the story literally and those who see it more metaphorically. For those who are trying to decide between a literal interpretation and a metaphorical interpretation (as if this were a binary question that has to be decided one way or another), my introduction of poetry here then doesn’t make the question any clearer, since poetry tends to make even the most concrete ideas into metaphor. I think both interpretations are ok — especially since many metaphors have more impact when we treat them… Read More
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11 responses
Mystery seeking is an essential part of Mormonism’s founding narratives. Part 2 of a three-part series beginning with What Can We Learn from Visions of Glory? Speculating about the afterlife is integral to who we are as Latter-day Saints. The Church’s proselytizing program puts questions about “our Heavenly Father’s plan” in the center of its curriculum. In part 1 of this short series, I introduced Visions of Glory—a book whose protagonist, “Spencer”, depicts elaborate visions about the spirit world and the end-of-times, and is suspected to have inspired recent Mormon ne’er-do-wells. The head-scratcher is that Spencer appears to have been… Read More
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10 responses
Hale, Adrian. “Muskets” and Mormons: the violent metaphor which “backfired.” Theology & Sexuality (2025): 1-18. This paper uses Speech Act Theory (SAT) to analyze a senior Mormon [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is more commonly known by the names: Mormons, the LDS, the Latter-day Saints, or Mormon Church. For brevity, this paper will alternate between these more familiar names.] leader’s sermon in which the metaphor of “muskets” appeared prominently. The metaphor targeted the Church’s LGBTQ+ community, triggering a “firestorm” of responses [Faith Matters, “Elusive Unity at BYU”.]. While Mormons are typically regarded as religious conservatives, negative responses… Read More
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One response
To most Latter-day Saints, J. Golden Kimball is a folklore figure—the “swearing apostle” (who was actually a Seventy) whose colorful language and irreverent pulpit humor provide comic relief in a culture that often takes itself very seriously. But who was the man behind the myths? In a revealing new interview over at the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, biographer Andrew Kimball peels back the caricature to reveal a man of profound contradictions: a leader who battled severe depression (“the depths of hell”), financial ruin at the hands of a fellow General Authority, and a stalling career in the… Read More
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9 responses
As Latter-day Saints we often refer to “disciple-scholars,” or people who embody the idea that the glory of God is intelligence, and for whom their scholarship is a form of discipleship. While there are a handful of Latter-day Saint cases people invoke (most classically Hugh Nibley, Richard Bushman, or Henry Eyring), I thought I’d step outside the Latter-day Saint tradition to brainstorm a broader list. I suspect the golden era of disciple-scholarship was the 17th and 18th century, when nearly every revolutionary scientist was deeply motivated by the idea that they were exploring the handiwork of God (Newton, Leibniz, Pascal).… Read More
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4 responses
Latter-day Saint history has no shortage of narratives concerning the Willie and Martin handcart companies. For many, the 1856 emigration is the ultimate “morality play” of the Restoration—a story of faith under fire and the high cost of the gathering. Yet, while the spiritual lessons of the trek have been well-plowed, the gritty logistical mechanics of why the tragedy occurred have often been obscured by hagiography or simplified blame. In Bring Them to Zion: The 1856 Handcart Emigration Organization, Leadership, and Issues (Greg Kofford Books, 2025), Don H. Smith, with the assistance of Mark C. Austin, provides a meticulously researched… Read More
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2 responses
Recently I explored the writings of a Mormon literary thinker little-known among Church members today, Wayne Booth. In The Company We Keep, Booth proposes that human beings not only learn by induction and deduction, but by what he calls “coduction” — the discovery of knowledge in conversation with others. This is a cornerstone of how we are supposed to learn at Church, in our Sunday School, Priesthood and Relief Society classes. It is also a key element to how we are supposed to learn in counsels. It requires that each person in a class, or in a counsels, both listen… Read More
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For me, this lesson (to be taught February 8th — I work 2 weeks ahead) might be one of the most important lessons of the whole Come Follow Me cycle. The example of Enoch and the idea of Zion, our utopian ideal, lead to important questions about what we do today and how we organize our society. Yes, it is not possible to actually achieve a utopia — but I think we talk about utopias because they lead us to think about what we are trying to reach, and how to get there. So, especially today, shouldn’t we ask in… Read More
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8 responses
The Salt Lake Temple is the supreme architectural icon of the Restoration, a stone fortress that took 40 years to complete. We know the dates (1853–1893) and the legends (buried foundations, granite hauled by oxen), but we rarely ask the human questions: Who actually cut the stone? How did they interpret Brigham Young’s visionary but vague instructions? And is it true that the temple was almost built out of mud? In a fascinating new interview over at the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, historian Scott D. Marianno peels back the layers of mythology to reveal the sweaty, logistical,… Read More
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11 responses
As of about a month or so ago, GPT 5.2 Pro is starting to autonomously solve previously unsolved mathematical “Erdos” problems (a famous set of unsolved problems proposed by arguably-smartest-man-of-all-time Paul Erdos). We’re officially at the point where it can solve math problems we haven’t been able to. However, my understanding is that these are low-hanging fruit problems, but the crowning jewel of mathematical AI is if it can solve the Millennium Problems (prize money of 1 million dollars per problem). Analogously, we’re kind of starting to get there with writing. In a previous post I did some exploratory AI… Read More
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13 responses
Morgan, thanks for your guest post. Several people have asked: Why do we do this, if I’m not going to change your mind and you’re not going to change my mind? But I think arguing with people online actually can accomplish some useful things. For one, it demonstrates that faithful church members can’t be simply classified as Republicans vs. Democrats. More importantly, arguing lets us figure out precisely where we agree or disagree and, ideally, distill the point of disagreement down to its essence. Read More
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22 responses
Guest post by Morgan Deane. I read Jonathan Green’s post and because the underlying flaws have been repeated at least three times over the past year, I thought it was worth a substantive response, and it was too long for comments. There’s a lot of heat, hyperbole, and moral posturing in his post, but very little that holds up under scrutiny. I take strong exception to his exaggerations, false equivalence, and the assumption that his political lens should dictate the Church’s actions. Read More
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7 responses
So a while back I tossed out the idea of faithful LDS who pushed back on some church policies and proposed the label of “ark steadiers.” I thought about these issues while reading and reflecting on Matthew Harris’s Second Class Saints. The big issue for me was that some members did push back on the ban and got declarations, sometimes from the First Presidency, of doctrines that the church leaders now reject. Read More
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4 responses
Sometimes people don’t quite understand how strong and pointed the relationship between religion and health is, so I ran some numbers using both the PRLS and CES using percent of people who self-identify as having good health. Read More
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Signature Books has found a successful niche with its series of brief biographies, providing concise yet substantive introductions to key figures in Latter-day Saint history. The latest entry, Tracy Y. Cannon: Tabernacle Organist and Pioneering Musician, 1879–1961, by Shelby Fisher, is another fantastic addition. Clocking in at approximately 100 pages, it is a fast and accessible read that nevertheless manages to pack a significant punch in the information it delivers. Read More
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7 responses
Recently I explored the writings of a Mormon literary thinker little-known among Church members today, Wayne Booth. In The Company We Keep, Booth proposes that human beings not only learn by induction and deduction, but by what he calls “coduction” — the discovery of knowledge in conversation with others. This is a cornerstone of how we are supposed to learn at Church, in our Sunday School, Priesthood and Relief Society classes. It is also a key element to how we are supposed to learn in counsels. It requires that each person in a class, or in a counsels, both listen… Read More
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One response
I’m old enough that when thinking about teaching children my mind quickly goes to the wonderful and insightful Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song, “Teach Your Children Well”. Most of all, the song points out an often overlooked element of teaching, that we really don’t know and can’t completely understand what our children have gone through, just as they can’t really understand us completely. So the song urges us to teach well in spite of this, feeding children on our dreams.[1] We focus on teaching children because it is so vital to their growth and because it is so important… Read More
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13 responses
Kendall Buchanan is a Provo business owner with a wife and six kids, and a passion for religious scholarship, especially Mormonism. Visions of Glory is a side-effect of our spiritually vibrant Mormon culture. Part 1 of a three-part series discussing the book and its significance. Ever since Visions of Glory was spotted in a photo with Lori Daybell lounging by a pool, the book has taken on a villainous reputation for inspiring a string of visionary Mormon criminals residing in Utah. The 1980s gave us Mark Hoffman and the Lafferty brothers. The 2020s will be remembered for Hildebrant-Franke, the Daybells,… Read More
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30 responses
1—To get this out of the way: There was no good answer to the question of how the Church should have responded to Nazism. There was no safe middle ground between complicit engagement, impotent resistance, and needless death. If letting missionaries train the German basketball team had a .01% chance of making war less likely, then it was worth trying. The truth of the Church’s response to Nazism is not a handful of missionaries playing basketball, but 100,000 LDS soldiers fighting in the war against the Axis powers, with 5,000 dying during the war. The lesson for today is: Don’t… Read More
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3 responses
Guest post by David Metcalfe I recently saw a post on social media of two missionaries in Africa playing soccer with some local teenagers, and under the video were some normal comments like “that’s so cool!”, but then some inevitable, bizarre diatribes about how evil the church is. If you use social media, you’ve definitely seen this concept before. A normal, nice, uplifting video about the church doing a charity project or a quote about being kind to others, and somehow, there are always a few comments from someone who feels the need to write an argumentative attack against… Read More
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3 responses
If I felt the spirit telling me that there was a Loch Ness Monster, I probably still wouldn’t believe, simply because I’d a priori expect some hard evidence to have shown up by now if a plesiosaur was surviving in the Scottish Highlands. Reason and science provide epistemological boundary markers for religious claims, and I’m skeptical of any religious premise that expects us to throw out all reason, or treats belief in the face of reason as a virtue. (Real reason, not the “Reason!” that is used as a conversation stopper by militant atheist types). Of course, I can hear… Read More
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4 responses
When we think of the 19th-century gathering to Zion, our minds usually go straight to handcarts and covered wagons struggling across the plains. Yet, for the tens of thousands of European converts who heeded the call to gather, the “trail” was only the final leg of a much longer, more complex journey by rail and sail. In a fascinating new interview over at the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, historian Fred E. Woods (author of Ports to Posts: Latter-day Saint Gathering in the Nineteenth Century) dives into the massive logistical machine that moved a people across oceans and… Read More
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8 responses
![Dieter F. Uchtdorf, [Probable Future] President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints](https://timesandseasons.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/unnamed-1.jpg)
I wanted to wait an appropriate span after the death of President Holland to start speculating about the downstream implications of his passing for the future leadership of the Church, so here it is. Obviously the image is AI generated and I don’t claim any special insight into who would constitute the First Presidency in the event of an Uchtdorf Presidency, but if I had to parlay a guess a Christofferson/Bednar would make the most sense logically for continuity (Christofferson) and training for the presidency (Bednar), but who knows who he’d be inspired to call. While they have the worst… Read More
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3 responses
Recently I explored the writings of a Mormon literary thinker little-known among Church members today, Wayne Booth. In The Company We Keep, Booth proposes that human beings not only learn by induction and deduction, but by what he calls “coduction” — the discovery of knowledge in conversation with others. This is a cornerstone of how we are supposed to learn at Church, in our Sunday School, Priesthood and Relief Society classes. It is also a key element to how we are supposed to learn in counsels. It requires that each person in a class, or in a counsels, both listen… Read More
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Few stories in human history have the impact of the story of the fall of Adam and Eve. In the traditions of most of the world, the story suggests answers to issues like the existence of evil, the role of men and women, the purpose of life and the nature of God. Of course, the answers are interpreted in many different ways in different traditions. The LDS tradition departs from the traditions of mainstream Christianity, of course, and those differences, based at least in part on the additional scripture we use beyond what other have, give us significantly different interpretations,… Read More
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6 responses
For many Latter-day Saints, the opening chapters of Genesis, with their creation accounts, are a battleground. We try to map the “days” of creation onto geological eras, reconcile a localized flood with global stratigraphy, or fit evolution into the rib of Adam. But what if we are asking the text to do something it was never designed to do? In a refreshing and technically grounded new interview over at the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, BYU ancient scripture professor Avram R. Shannon suggests that the key to understanding Genesis isn’t to force it into harmony with 21st-century science,… Read More
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28 responses
I am typically hesitant to speak critically of my experiences within the Church. To me, it is patently obvious that the Church is a force for good; in almost all cases, I have felt the Spirit working through its leadership and organizational structures. Furthermore, there is a certain Internet cottage industry that traffics exclusively in negative experiences, and in my observations that path rarely leads one toward more of the shiny fruit. And yet, less savory things do happen. While these instances are often blown out of proportion by critics, pretending they don’t exist creates its own set of problems.… Read More
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7 responses
Building on the collection of links about Latter-day Saint books for last year (Mormon Studies Books in 2025), here is the collection of books I’ve been able to find out about for 2026. I will continue to update this page throughout the year, as reviews, interviews, and podcasts become available for the books and other books come to my attention. Read More