Author: Rosalynde Welch

I grew up in Southern California, the daughter of Russ and Christie Frandsen and eldest of their eleven children (including Gabrielle, Naomi, Brigham, Rachel, Jacob, Benjamin, Abraham, Christian, Eva, and Isaac, in case you're wondering if I'm related to that Frandsen you used to know). In 1992 I graduated from La Canada High School and started at BYU, where it didn't take me long to switch from a pre-med to an English major. In 1993 and again in 1994, I spent several months in England studying literature and theater with, among other able teachers, Eugene England. I developed interests in Renaissance English literature, contemporary critical theory, and creative writing, and wrote my Honors thesis on composition pedagogy. I served in the Porto, Portugal Mission from 1996-1997. I graduated from BYU in 1998 with a degree in English, and married John Welch later that week. John and I attended graduate school at the University of California at San Diego, and I was awarded a PhD in Early Modern Literature from that institution in 2004. I studied under Louis Montrose and dissertated under the title "Placing Private Conscience in Early Modern England," combining my interests in Renaissance literature, religion, and poststructuralist theory. During our years in San Diego, our daughter Elena Rachel was born in 2001, and our son John Levin Frandsen in 2003. We moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 2004, where John is an oncology fellow and I stay at home with our children, including since 2006 our daughter Mara Gwen. I currently serve as Relief Society instructor and choir pianist in our ward. I also maintain eclectic interests in backpacking, piano, food writing, travel and jogging.

In Memoriam, In Mourning: Kate Holbrook (1972-2022)

by Rosalynde Welch • August 24, 2022 • 5 Comments

Times & Seasons friend and guest blogger Sam Brown has shared with us the obituary of his wife, eminent Latter-day Saint historian Kate Holbrook. We are honored to remember Kate’s contributions to LDS women’s history as co-editor of, among other volumes, At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-Day Saint Women, The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-Day Saint Women’s History, and Every Needful Thing: Essays on the Life of the Mind and the Heart. Kate is remembered also for bridge-building between academic and civic communities, and for fostering rich social connections in the field of Mormon history. Finally, she is remembered as a gentle genius in the kitchen, a soul with a rare gift for friendship, and a radiant wife to Sam and mother to her three daughters. Here is Kate’s description of the heaven-on-earth she spent her life building: There is a pasture I love which I visit every summer. Horses and cows graze there. The sky, mountains, meadow, trees, and streams are beautiful. The air is clear. The animals have all that they need and they are safe there. To have all of us in a safe and beautiful place where we are known, seen, and cared for—I want to be in that place and I want to help others to find it. We weep and rejoice that she has found safe pasture. Kate Holbrook (born January 13, 1972) died August 20, 2022,…

“Let God Prevail”

by Rosalynde Welch • January 22, 2021 • 8 Comments

I share here a sacrament meeting talk I delivered recently in my St Louis congregation. I suspect there have been many other such sermons on the same topic delivered in wards around the globe over the past three months. President Nelson’s October address seems to have made a powerful impression on our people in this time of spiritual hunger. I endorse President Nelson’s message and am grateful to have reflected on it at length here. In one of the most enigmatic scenes in the Old Testament, a man stands alone on the bank of the Jordan river at midnight. The man is Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, a hard-driving trader in a hurry from the moment he was born grasping his twin brother’s heel as if to drag him back into the womb. Jacob has been on the move for many years, first leaving home to escape the wrath of his twin Esau, from whom, after the failed heel-grab, he eventually did manage to take the coveted birthright blessing. Now Jacob has fled from his father-in-law Laban, from whom he has won two daughters and much property. The Lord is calling him back to Canaan, the land of his father, and Jacob is on his way home. At the threshold of return, the Jordan river, Jacob finds himself at an impasse. His family has crossed, but Jacob himself stays behind. At his back is Laban, before him is Esau; in…

Let Your Light So Shine

by Rosalynde Welch • December 2, 2020 • 11 Comments

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16, New American Standard Bible) Take care not to practice your righteousness in the sight of people, to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, so that they will be praised by people. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your charitable giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:1-4, NASB) What are we to make of these two seemingly irreconcilable directives from the Sermon on the Mount? The first directs the Christian to shine his light “before people in such a way that they may see your good works”; the second directs him to “take care not…

Producing Ancient Scripture: Q&A with Editors Mark Ashurst-McGee and Mike MacKay

by Rosalynde Welch • August 24, 2020 • 10 Comments

Following on Chad’s recent discussions, I’m happy to share another offering in what has become a T&S mini–series on the recent volume Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity (Salt Lake City, UT: The University of Utah Press, 2020). Editors Mark Ashurst-McGee and Mike MacKay here respond to my questions on the genesis of the volume and its implications. The intriguing question of “what we talk about when we talk about Joseph Smith’s translation activities” has enjoyed extraordinary scholarly attention in 2020. Producing Ancient Scripture offers an embarrassment of riches, with twenty authors approaching the question from historical, textual, psychological, and theological perspectives. It is the most comprehensive volume on the topic to date, and the avenues it marks now define the groundwork of the field. This is a landmark book. It brings together 20 scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds for a deep dive into what it means when we talk about Joseph Smith’s work as a translator. How did the volume originate, and why is it a necessary contribution at this moment? Mike: In 2013, the translation of the Book of Mormon was a hotly debated topic at the Joseph Smith Papers Project and the Church’s new Gospel Topics essay on the subject was being discussed. I had worked on the topic for the Papers and was working on a book for Latter-day Saints about the translation and publication of the…

Empty Tomb, Empty Heart: An Easter Sermon

by Rosalynde Welch • April 15, 2020 • 6 Comments

Last Sunday, my extended family gathered by videoconference to share Easter communion. My sister Rachel Frandsen Jardine delivered this sermon from her home in Lima, Peru. It moved me as much as anything I’ve ever heard in a chapel. Thanks to Rachel for allowing me to share it here. At Easter, we try to grasp the heart of Christianity. This season, I have found myself reflecting on the idea of emptiness. Here’s Luke’s story of the Resurrection in which the emptiness of the tomb is very important. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words. When they came back from the tomb, they…

Review: Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye, “Crossings: A Bald Asian American Latter-day Saint Woman Scholar’s Ventures through Life, Death, Cancer & Motherhood (Not Necessarily in that Order)”

by Rosalynde Welch • December 13, 2019 • 4 Comments

A couple of years ago I spent an afternoon digging weeds from my lawn, sweating into a soupy heat with podcasts for company. The talk-worn topics of online Latter-day Saint discussion skated past–power and privilege, margin and center, faithfulness and critique, one familiar beat after another. In a moment, it dawned on me that this guest was speaking with a rare candor and originality. On issue after issue, she delivered incisive analysis together with warm, but never sentimental, description of the immersive quality of a Latter-day Saint ward. I had never heard my own soul-grounding experience of lived religion articulated with such light. I dropped my spade immediately and checked the show notes. It was Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye. I went inside and wrote her a fan letter. I never did finish the weeds. I recognized Melissa’s name when I saw it. I had read several blog posts under her byline, each tackling a problem in church life with compassion and expertise and a common-sense realism about the work of making community. Now, with her voice in my ears, I took the time to place her professionally and personally. Distinguished academic pedigree, historian of Chinese religion, university professor in New Zealand. Like me, Melissa combined PhD and childbearing; like me, she has four children. Unlike me, she has an acclaimed book in her field and a lauded teaching career. Her surname led me to suspect that our connections go further. I…

Summer Seminar in Theology 2020: Call for Applications

by Rosalynde Welch • November 18, 2019 • Comments Off

The 7th Annual Summer Seminar on Latter-day Saint Theology “A Wrestle Before God: Reading Enos 1” Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Bordeaux, France June 22–July 4, 2020 Sponsored by the Latter-day Saint Theology Seminar in partnership with The Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies, The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, and the Wheatley Institution In the summer of 2020, the Latter-day Saint Theology Seminar, in partnership with the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University, and the Wheatley Institution at Brigham Young University, will sponsor a summer seminar for graduate students and faculty devoted to reading Enos 1. The seminar will be hosted by Pr. Bernadette Rigal-Cellard at the Université Bordeaux Montaigne in Bordeaux, France, from June 22 through July 4, 2020. Travel arrangements, housing, and a $1250 stipend will be provided for admitted participants. The seminar will be led by Adam Miller and Joseph Spencer, directors of the Latter-day Saint Theology Seminar. This seventh annual summer seminar will again adopt the Latter-day Saint Theology Seminar’s practice of facilitating intense, exploratory, interdisciplinary, and collaborative readings of Mormon scripture for a live two-week format. During the first week, the seminar will meet daily to work word by word through the text of Enos 1:1-18 from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (philosophical, historical, literary, anthropological, rhetorical, political, archeological, sociological, etc.) in order to promote theologically rich readings…

When God Changes Address

by Rosalynde Welch • April 11, 2019 • 10 Comments

One of the many striking episodes in the life of the prophet Elijah is his nearly-missed encounter with God atop Mt Sinai. Discouraged by the failure of his prophetic zeal to reform the Israelites, Elijah is instructed by the word of the Lord to go forth and stand on the mountaintop. It is not lost on Elijah that Sinai is the sacred site of the Lord’s appearance to Moses, and Elijah no doubt expects to encounter the Lord in the same way Moses did, in thunder, lightning, smoke and sound. A great tumult descends upon the mountaintop, but in it Elijah fails to find God. Instead, the prophet’s theophany unfolds unexpectedly. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19:11-12) The Lord is in the still small voice. God, inexplicably and without precedent, has vacated the elements and processes of the natural world. Underscoring the point, the text devotes more words to naming where God is not than where God is: God is not in the wind, not in the earthquake, and not in the fire. He…

Faith in a Secular Age

by Rosalynde Welch • February 19, 2019 • 10 Comments

I’m pleased today to share a guest post from friend of the blog, Samuel Morris Brown. A related symposium on “Faith in a Secular Age” will be held March 1 & 2 at Brigham Young University. Sam Brown, myself, and T&S emeriti Nate Oman and Jim Faulconer, together with other fine scholars, will speak. The symposium is free and open to the public. We live in an odd time. Most of us feel that something big is happening, something that matters. What we identify as the oddity may be as variable as our interpretations of a Rorschach inkblot. Culturally we think something that started a half-century again has sped up in the last quarter century. After the Great Recession and the fitful return to social prominence of certain nativist strands—coupled with increasing radicalization on the Left—many of us sense that we are in a desperate muddle politically as well. More to the point, many of us find that the language we might use to describe both the situation and possible paths out of current logjams seems to have shifted out from under us as well. There appears now to be mist where once there was solid ground. For religious people—those who bear the weight of an adjective whose meaning is also in the midst of great change—these times may seem especially rough. Assumptions of many generations in the US about the nature of religion and religious community seem to be…

Book of Mormon Studies Association Call for Papers

by Rosalynde Welch • January 15, 2019 • Comments Off

It appears to be the season of conference submission notifications! The Third Annual Meeting of The Book of Mormon Studies Association October 11-12, 2019 Utah State University The Book of Mormon Studies Association (BoMSA) is pleased to announce its third annual meeting, to be held October 11–12, 2019, at Utah State University. The event is sponsored by USU’s Department of Religious Studies and with thanks to both Philip Barlow and Patrick Mason, successive occupiers of the Leonard J. Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture. This annual event gathers a variety of scholars invested in serious academic study of the Book of Mormon. It has no particular theme but instead invites papers on any subject related to the Book of Mormon from any viable academic angle. This year’s two keynote speakers will be Paul Gutjahr (Indiana University) and Amy Easton-Flake (Brigham Young University). We will also hold a special book interview session with Community of Christ scholar Dale E. Luffman. We therefore invite the submission of papers and proposals for inclusion in the 2019 conference program. Note that newcomers to the organization are required to submit a full paper for consideration, while those who have presented at either of the previous two conferences are free to submit a proposal or a paper. Papers submitted should be no longer than 4000 words, while proposals should be between 500 and 750 words. The submission deadline is June 1, 2019. All submissions should…

Call For Applications: 2019 Mormon Theology Seminar

by Rosalynde Welch • October 17, 2018 • Comments Off

I am delighted to share the Call for Applications announcement for next year’s Mormon Theology Seminar. I will be co-directing the seminar at New York’s Union Theological Seminary with Joseph Spencer on the text of D&C 25. We believe the seminar text, process, and leadership have the potential to produce important work on gender and scripture. We hope to spread the word to draw from a diverse pool of applicants. Please share this announcement. The Sixth Annual Summer Seminar on Mormon Theology “Given Thee by My Spirit: Reading D&C 25” Union Theological Seminary, New York City June 16–June 29, 2019 Sponsored by the Mormon Theology Seminar in partnership with The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship In the summer of 2019, the Mormon Theology Seminar, in partnership with the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University will sponsor a summer seminar for graduate students and faculty devoted to reading Doctrine and Covenants 25. The seminar will be hosted at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, from June 16 through June 29, 2019. Travel arrangements, housing, and a $1000 stipend will be provided for admitted participants. The seminar will be led by Joseph M. Spencer and Rosalynde Welch. This sixth annual summer seminar will again adapt the Mormon Theology Seminar’s practice of facilitating intense, exploratory, interdisciplinary, and collaborative readings of Mormon scripture for a live two-week format. During the first week, the seminar will meet daily to work…

Suffer the Children

by Rosalynde Welch • July 10, 2018 • 6 Comments

It’s my pleasure to share here a guest post from my friend Samuel Morris Brown. By inclination, I’m something of a misanthrope. I’m not sure where I came by this trait. Maybe it’s good old-fashioned nature, some mixture of a thousand different genes that makes me by default uninterested in other human beings. Maybe I’ve got something wrong with my hippocampus or superior temporal sulcus, too many or too few synapses in my brain. As a pretentious teenager, I wondered whether I was a (non-violent, non-criminal) sociopath because I felt so little engaged in the world of people. That imaginary pathology was more impressive than thinking that I was shy, self-absorbed, and socially clumsy. If I’d been born in the 90s rather than the 70s, I would have placed myself on the autism spectrum instead. With time, I came to see this alienation as a badge of honor. I was authentically alone, like Albert Camus wandering the bars of Paris, and what the world did with my alienation was no concern of mine. Nurture has a claim here, too, I’m sure. I grew up in a smoldering train wreck of a childhood. I spent over a decade pleading for a father who was more than a donor of genes and fantasizing about some modicum of financial security. I was ashamed of our poverty and weakness; I knew that other families were better than ours. We didn’t belong. I don’t really…

Review Essay: “The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology”: Materiality and Performance

by Rosalynde Welch • May 8, 2018 • 9 Comments

Like a paring knife to a grapefruit, Jonathan Stapley’s new book on the history of Mormon cosmology is slim, sharp, and swift to carve through pith, serving up elegant wedges of history. The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology (Oxford, 2018) traces the evolution of ritual practice in Mormonism, including priesthood ordination, sealing rites, healing practices, baby blessings, and folk divination. The author’s reticence to extract neat diagrams from his findings is a virtue of the book, and any summary should be offered advisedly. Taken together, however, the chapters show a gradual migration from civic- to kinship- to church-centered forms of ritual soteriology, occurring alongside processes of codification and consolidation that, by the late 20th century, concentrate Mormon liturgical discourse and practice within the male ecclesiastical priesthood. I am no historian, and I leave it to the experts to adjudicate Stapley’s stimulating historical claims. Several points struck my picture of Mormon history–incomplete and idiosyncratic as it is–with particular explanatory power. As I understand them: Early notions of sealing and its connection to the doctrine of perseverance evolved rapidly. Initially, the Saints were “sealed up” in the soteriological sense that their salvation was permanently assured; it would “persevere” all future threats and sweep safely them to heaven. Later in the Kirtland and especially Nauvoo periods, the Saints were “sealed to” one another in a relational bond that was the vehicle of salvation, and the perseverance implied was that of the…

The Bread of Life, with Chocolate Chips

by Rosalynde Welch • April 30, 2018 • 10 Comments

Today I am pleased to present a guest post from a good friend of the blog, Samuel Morris Brown. I learned to cook when my wife was recovering from cancer surgery. There’s a hollowness, kindred to cancer, hungry to swallow you up when a beloved’s life is threatened. I still remember, with a soul-deep ache, that time when her body was a battleground for scalpeling surgeons and monstrously deformed cells. Those harrowing days are a distant memory now, but that fulminant awareness of her mortality still haunts me. I’ve seen a lot of death in my short life; nothing disoriented me like her cancer. The wild upheaval of unexpected illness unearthed more than a surgical specimen for the pathologist’s microscope. She and I discovered in the cancer’s aftermath my longstanding failure as a husband to be her full partner. This spousal dereliction had insinuated itself into the infrastructure of our marriage. I realized that my soul needed a surgery of its own. A spiritual death had wrapped its malignant fingers around my internal organs, a nefarious mimic of the tumor that had lifted the retina off the back of her eye. The simultaneous, stark revelation of her mortality and my personal failure left me wanting to sit alone in a room and cry my way through the smothering chaos rather than accept the painful transformation that beckoned. But there was no time to stare, heartbroken, at my pitiful soul, dithering…

Call for Papers: 2018 Book of Mormon Studies Conference

by Rosalynde Welch • March 1, 2018 • Comments Off

2018 UVU Mormon Studies Conference: Heaven & Earth, Feb 22-23, 2018

by Rosalynde Welch • January 22, 2018 • Comments Off

Heaven & Earth Mormonism and the Challenges of Science, Revelation and Faith February 22nd – 23rd, 2018 Classroom Building, Room 511 Utah Valley University Program PDF here; conference website here. The relationship between science and religion has been among the most fiercely debated issues since the Copernican revolution displaced traditional wisdom regarding the nature of the cosmos. Some have argued for a sharp division of labor while others have sought to harmonize spiritual and empirical truths. From its beginnings, Mormonism has wrestled with the implications of modern science and has produced a variety of theological responses. This conference will explore the landscape of Mormon thought as it relates to the relationships between science, theology, scriptural narratives, and LDS authoritative discourse. It will also examine abiding questions of faith, reason, and doubt and the reactions against the intellectualizing forces that bear on the truth claims of Mormonism. Keynote speaker Molly Worthen, Assistant Professor of History at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, author of Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism and contributing writer for the New York Times, will speak on “Faith Seeking Understanding: The Evangelical Experience, and Mormon Connections.” Friday, 2/23 at 10:00 AM. The Eugene England Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Steven L. Peck, Associate Professor of Biology, Brigham Young University and author of Science the Key to Theology and Evolving Faith: Wanderings of a Mormon Biologist. Lecture titled “Mormonism, Evolution, and Science: A Cosmos of Unfolding Beauty and Novelty.” Thursday, 2/22 at…

“This Way Up”: An Outline for LDS Primary Temple and Priesthood Preparation Meeting

by Rosalynde Welch • December 18, 2017 • 13 Comments

I’m excited about this new meeting. I’ve created a sample teaching outline for Primary presidencies below, so if that’s what you’re mainly here for, scroll down. For those who are interested, though, here’s how I’m thinking at this early stage about the deeper structure and future possibilities for this meeting. The pairing of priesthood power with temple proxy ordinances has intriguing theological implications. It effectively shifts the locus of priesthood in the children’s minds from the chapel (where the deacons pass the sacrament, the focus of the old Priesthood Preview) to the temple. I find this quite significant. It has the potential to recenter our discourse of priesthood away from the male-only administrative hierarchy evident in sacrament meeting and toward the more collaborative, expansive and inclusive vision of priesthood we glimpse in the temple. I’m thinking here of the interesting work done by scholars like J. Stapley, Sam Brown and Kathleen Flake on what they call the “cosmological priesthood”, a picture that is still coming into focus but seems to center on kinship structures (broadly conceived) that endow men and women with power and priestly authority. Granted, I won’t be doing a rigorous survey of cutting edge Mormon history with my 11 year olds! But this is the frame I’ll be working from as I try to devise an empowering, equitable, and age-appropriate experience for the children. (True, the temple baptistry is not a place where that female priestly power…

Call for Applicants: The Fifth Annual Summer Seminar on Mormon Theology

by Rosalynde Welch • October 9, 2017 • Comments Off

“Are We Not All Beggars? Reading Mosiah 4” Cittadella Ospitalità, Assisi, Italy June 17–June 30, 2018 Sponsored by the Mormon Theology Seminar in partnership with The Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies, The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, and the Wheatley Institution In the summer of 2018, the Mormon Theology Seminar, in partnership with the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University, and the Wheatley Institution at Brigham Young University, will sponsor a summer seminar for graduate students and faculty devoted to reading Mosiah 4. The seminar will be hosted by the Cittadella Ospitalità in Assisi, Italy, from June 17 through June 30, 2018. Travel arrangements, housing, and a $1,000 stipend will be provided for admitted participants. The seminar will be led by Adam Miller and Joseph Spencer, directors of the Mormon Theology Seminar. ABOUT THE SEMINAR This fifth annual summer seminar will again adapt the Mormon Theology Seminar’s practice of facilitating intense, exploratory, interdisciplinary, and collaborative readings of Mormon scripture for a live two-week format. During the first week, the seminar will meet daily to work word-by-word through the text of Mosiah 4:4-25 from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (philosophical, historical, literary, anthropological, rhetorical, political, archeological, sociological, etc.) in order to promote theologically rich readings of the text. The second week will workshop conference papers and a joint-report based on the previous week’s collaboration…

Housework, resentment, and power, in a different light

by Rosalynde Welch • October 6, 2017 • 10 Comments

For a period of my marriage I harbored resentment toward my husband, unfailingly gentle and hard-working, over questions of housework. It was all utterly typical. I felt my work was unappreciated and invisible to him. I felt I was left with more than my share of the work generated by the kids and the household. I felt resentful that he resented me when I got grumpy. There was little outward conflict between us–chilly silence is more my speed–but I would allow aggrieved accusations to play on repeat in my head as I stomped through my chores. Observing recent conversations, I’ve realized that I don’t carry that kind of resentment anymore. The exhausting work of caring for small children has ended for me; no doubt that’s part of the change. But the mental load and time demands of a larger home and busier household remain on my plate. I think I’ve come to see myself, my work and my relationship differently over the past few years, and those changes have contributed to my present composure on these matters (though new challenges always arise in family life). For me, the most generative ideas have not been about gender roles and sexual politics, but about how I understand myself, my desire, my agency, and my husband’s agency. Caveat: my experience is far from universal. I’m lead parent of our four kids, while my husband is lead breadwinner. I work at home as an…

Follow the Prophet to Jesus: A Sharing Time or Family Home Evening Lesson Plan

by Rosalynde Welch • September 25, 2017 • 14 Comments

This summer, I spent memorable hours in conversation with friends about our discourse of prophets and prophecy in the Church. So many of us have witnessed disillusionment and anguish when friends lose trust in church leadership. Often, a covert message of prophetic infallibility has been conveyed in childhood church experiences, a belief that inevitably crumbles later and erodes faith with it. We asked ourselves, “How do we talk about prophets in a way that provides a sustainable basis for mature faith?” In discussion with friends, I decided that a minor adaptation of a familiar phrase–“Follow the Prophet” becomes “Follow the Prophet to Jesus”–implicitly conveys most of our intent. In particular, I wanted to emphasize the following points: 1) Prophets need not be infallible to point the way to Jesus; 2) In fact, prophets are better guides because they personally experience the processes of gaining faith, repenting of sins, etc; 3) The prophetic office–a narrowly defined priesthood role–exists in service to the larger prophetic mission of leading souls to Christ, which encompasses believers regardless of sex. General Conference season seems an apt moment to develop the lesson and send it into the wild. Please enjoy, use, freely adapt, and consider sharing if the ideas speak to you. I’m convinced that small, fully faithful tweaks in our discourse about prophets can make a big difference in the resilience of young souls’ attachment to the Church. Attention Activity: Younger Children: Sing the Primary song…

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