A good Mormon mystery Novels — particularly good ones — convey a sense of place. This is absolutely true of mystery novels, from Kwei Quartey’s police detective in Ghana to Alexander McCall Smith’s private detective in Botswana. But how much…
Month: August 2017
The Hermeneutic of Revelation: There is Always More – Reading Nephi – 14:18-30
The end of the narrative of Nephi’s grand vision is to point beyond the vision and beyond Nephi.
Primary Sharing Time Lesson: All Are Alike unto God
This month’s Primary Sharing Time outline provides two weeks to cover the topic of the Sabbath. Because our presidency covered the topic well last week, I’ve created an alternate Sharing Time lesson plan. Given recent events in the US, I…
Future Mormon: Chapter 4
Welcome to the fourth week of the reading club for Adam Miller’s Future Mormon. For general links related to the book along with links for all the chapter discussions please go to our overview page. We’ll be trying to discuss a chapter…
The Cult of Happiness
I attended a local Tedx evening earlier this week. One talk critiqued the “cult of happiness” that is fostered by social media posts. Everyone posts the great or good things about their life, complete with carefully cropped photos (the trip…
Binaries of the Lamb and the Devil – Reading Nephi – 14:8-17 part II
I feel somewhat affronted by the angel’s adamant declaration and insistence on the binary nature of humanity.
The Evidential Problem of Evil
The problem of evil is a long standing issue in philosophy and theology. More or less it’s the recognition that there is something wrong if God is all loving and all powerful yet we experience all the evils of mortality.…
Thoughts on Vulnerability (in the wake of Charlottesville)
I once had a client who was a white supremacist.* The thing about being a therapist is, you quickly learn that everyone’s got a story. In this case, there was a history of domestic abuse, a parent with extreme racist…
Practical Apologetics: What’s Wrong With You?
How do you talk to an Ex-Mormon? Or a less-active Mormon who you bump into at church or a ward activity or the grocery store? Here are some examples of what *not* to say: What’s wrong with you? Why don’t…
Guest Post: Justifying Visions
Practical Apologetics: The Doubting Elder
Time for another installment in this occasional series. As reported in the Deseret News, Elder Christofferson delivered a presentation to new mission presidents at the Provo MTC in June. He first discussed the use of the Book of Mormon as…