Author: Rory Swensen
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Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone?
It’s a vexing question, asked frequently and nearly always plaintively. President Boyd K. Packer asked it rhetorically this week, supporting and strongly affirming the church’s stance on sexuality and marriage. He stated: We teach the standard of moral conduct that will protect us from Satan’s many substitutes and counterfeits for marriage. We must understand that…
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Credible Criticism
This weekend the interweb exploded with a post at Mormon Matters entitled Elder Marlin Jensen Apologizes for Proposition 8. In the ensuing discussion there, and in numerous discussions on Facebook, a debate erupted over whether the headline and the conclusions were warranted, or whether it was being spun into something that could be used by…
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Confessions of a Shopping Mall Santa
Christmas Season, 1989. I was a freshman at the University of Utah, my first year away from home. As a poor student I was looking for extra holiday cash, and the Help Wanted ad for a shopping mall Santa seemed like just the thing. Despite my 18-year-oldness, the manager was desperate to fill the big…
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First Presidency Christmas Devotional Ticket Giveaway
In the spirit of the season, Times and Seasons is giving away three sets of tickets to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. The event is on Sunday, December 6th, at the Conference Center, and will feature the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square. These tickets are in high demand and only offered…
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Writings in the Stone
Some years ago I sat in a Gospel Doctrine class taught by a physician. I mention his profession because I think it matters, as he took the opportunity to deviate from the lesson and condemn in the strongest terms the theory of evolution. He labeled it a satanic concept, one that we must avoid, one…
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Our New Look
So, Times and Seasons is sporting a new look. But rest assured, while the packaging has changed we are not tinkering with the secret formula that creates the sweet, slightly acidic, but oh-so-refreshing content inside. This new design is – a bit lighter – a bit wider – aimed at featuring more – and more…
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Charter for Compassion
In February, 2008, noted religious author Karen Armstrong was awarded the TED Prize, and her wish for the world was to gather a council of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and other spiritual leaders to draw up a “Charter for Compassion.”
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The Road
The persistence of love between a father and a son. Our most cherished relationships, our strongest commitments, laid bare in a book and a movie.
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My Teen Swears in the Name of Art
They immersed themselves in the characters and, by so doing, opened the door to deeply significant conversations between the cast, their parents, and the community. Artistic explorations have the power to touch us deeply, in ways that detached discussion about concepts cannot.
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Joseph Smith Papers Book Signing – October 1
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…
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Corianton – An Unholy Review
Short review of Corianton: By today’s standards, it wasn’t a very good movie. But by 1931 standards? Well, it wasn’t a very good movie.
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Spiritual Pickpockets
Does God want you to be rich? Certainly! If you believe Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, preaching their form of Prosperity Theology. They are the focus of an August 15 article at the New York Times. (H/T BCC)
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Liveblogging Symposium – Stay-at-home Moms: On the Record
EDIT: Emily Jensen has a great article on this at Mormon Times, and offers a much better (and more readable) synopsis. See it at http://bit.ly/GOEdq Approximately 30 people in attendance, an engaging and personable panel: Moderator/ CAMILLE AAGARD, former account executive at a public relations agency; cleaned out her desk two days before giving birth…
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8 Seconds
I entered a rodeo once (and if you know me, you know how absurd that is). I rode a bull in the very arena that we watched the bull riders this weekend. It was my only rodeo, and I dominated that bull for the full 8 seconds.
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Brotherhood. Friendship.
Key to this is our ability to strip ourselves of pretense; to lay bare our faults, our doubts, and our struggles. It is a refreshing – and frightening – experience to be completely candid, to trust the others within the group to listen and respect our experiences, even as they candidly respond and criticize. It…
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Musings on Drifting Faith
The question becomes not if our policies and teachings will adapt, but rather how. And further, what statements are we making today – strident and bombastic – for which we will be judged tomorrow? Statements and positions that our future generations will be pressed to reconcile, to explain, or to disavow?
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Speaking of Faith
Religion can be divisive. We read of historical confrontations and we witness the divisiveness in the world around us – between major world religions and among the sectarian branches they foster. But while religion and faith claims can be divisive, it needn’t be this way. There are ways to approach faith and differences of faith…
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The Ninety-Nine and the One
It isn’t easy to be inconvenienced, especially when we are asked to tolerate the views or the actions of the other, and love them too! It would be easier to ignore them, cast them out, keep things easy and pure. But that isn’t the plan.