Steven Smith (who has occasionally favored us with comments here at T&S) is not the first to describe our current cultural moment as a new conflict between pagans and Christians. As Smith describes at length in Pagans and Christians in…
I don’t know if a complete break with Scouting was necessary. I would have been content if the church had only eliminated Cub Scouts and the Eagle Scout rank.
General Conference begins in two days. I’m looking forward to it, but not as much to the online responses.
Voir dire, from Norman French, is pronounced “jury selection” by normal people, but I had always stayed one step ahead of the law and never seen it first hand.
This hit my inbox this afternoon: In case you hadn’t heard, Clark Goble just passed away from a stroke.
Over at the Interpreter, Nate Oman asks an important question. How will the church explain its relevance to a new generation that is less interested in the narratives that have served the church well in the past? Or as he…
During this particularly awful political moment, I allow myself a sigh of relief when I read news articles about Evangelical leaders and institutions embracing the current president.
Adiaphora is a term that has played an important role in Lutheran history but not much in our own, although perhaps it should.
Hymns are useful evidence of religious practice. Hymns are a basic element of personal devotion, but at the same time the compilation of the hymnbook is carefully monitored by church leaders and the performance of hymns is modeled during the…
If we wanted to hazard a guess at what the upcoming years and decades hold in store for the church in the United States, the decisive factors will likely be to what extent the country as a whole becomes more…
The most paranoid fantasies your persecution complex can dream up will probably come true eventually, although not where you live, but somewhere else in the world. It’s an unavoidable risk of establishing local branches of the church in places that…
The current round of dissatisfaction with the BYU honor code will hopefully result in some tinkering around the edges and perhaps a few personnel changes, and then quickly be forgotten before it has a chance to undermine the university’s educational…
For some time, I’ve been writing obituaries for a secular educational institution (which, for the sake of the failing hearts of its remaining alumni, will remain anonymous).
I don’t think the language usage patterns of the Book of Mormon require the participation of anyone besides Joseph Smith.
Earthly Parents is the pen name of the author of And It Was Very Good: A Latter-day Saint’s Guide to Lovemaking. He agreed to share some of the book’s background here. * * * On the top of my parent’s…
If you want to reach an audience of church members on a sensitive topic, watch and learn from Earthly Parents.
If Satan hired a Russian troll farm, what would the Mormon corner of the Internet be like?
Avoiding controversy would make our lives easier, but it would not be good for the church.
Brian Stubbs’s argument for extensive ancient contact between Semitic and Proto-Uto-Aztecan has received some attention recently in Mormon apologetics, but I don’t think Stubbs’s proposal is going to pan out. First, though, a few important messages.
