Author: Stephen C
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If I Didn’t Believe, Part I: The Joseph Smith Trilemma, the Book of Mormon Translation, and the Witnesses
Like a lot of people who have gone through faith crises, I’ve spent some time thinking through the alternative to belief in the Church’s truth claims. If we assume that the Church isn’t what it says it is, what is the best explanation for the Church and its related claims that make sense of the…
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Latter-day Saint Book Report on “Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult.”
One of the accusations you occasionally get from the far corners of the internet is that the early Church was a “sex cult” because of Nauvoo-era polygamy. That accusation, of course, begs the question of what a sex cult is. While I categorically don’t like to use the word “cult,” (for, among other reasons, implying…
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Nepotism in High Church Offices
Nepotism is the most natural of vices and needs to constantly be proactively guarded against, or else it will almost certainly creep into any large institution. In the early Church there just weren’t a lot of options to choose from because it was so small, but as the Church becomes larger and more diverse it…
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General Conference as a “Peaceable Thing of the Kingdom”
The Listener, by James Christensen I’ve been as guilty as anyone of, subconsciously and in the back of my mind, looking forward to General Conference more for the big announcements or controversy than the spiritual nourishment. Reading about the controversy and ensuing outrage (and counter-outrage) in particular are kind of an emotional crack cocaine for…
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General Conference and Our Shrinking Attention Spans
As the father of a lot of small, messy children, I easily listen to two hours of podcasts a day while cleaning (how my parents’ generation cleaned before podcasts I have no idea). The other day a movie producer on a podcast made a comment about how, in the days before streaming, television producers would…
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BYU Professors Calling the Brethren Autocratic Fascists is Not Going to Help Anybody
At a recent post over at BCC, a tenured BYU-X professor communicates some anxiety about CES’ new direction, which is certainly their right, but in doing so the author calls the people who made this decision (i.e. the brethren, if that wasn’t clear from Elder Holland’s talk) autocrats, and prominently displays the fasces at the…
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Rest in Peace Rodney Stark
I was recently informed that Rodney Stark passed away. For the uninitiated, Rodney Stark was a force of nature in the sociology of religion. His interests ranged from early Christianity to UFO movements, and agree with him or not, he was a giant in every field he engaged. His theories helped shape the strategies of…
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Latter-day Saint Book Report on “The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara”
In 1857 officials raided a home in the Jewish ghetto in Bologna, Italy and forcefully removed a 6-year old child based on the testimony of a servant that he had been baptized as an infant and was, therefore, Christian. At the time Bologna was under the direct rule of the Pope (back in the day…
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Book Report-Veritas: A Harvard Professor, A Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife
This is a well-written journalistic account of a scandal that happened in the biblical studies community in 2012 when a purportedly ancient parchment surfaced that contained the words “Jesus said to them ‘my wife.’” Despite some red flags such as bad Coptic grammar, Professor Karen King, one of the preeminent scholars in the field, became…
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Update on Bisbee Case
Since I last posted on this, 1) Mormonr published the testimonies of the two bishops involved in the Bisbee case, and 2) the Church came out with their follow-up statement. For point # 1, contrary to the testimony of the law enforcement agent, both bishops indicate that they only knew about a one-off case of…
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The Ubiquity of Temple Worship Among God’s Children
I was privileged to attend the recent dedication of the Washington, DC temple, during which I got thinking about the common themes in temple worship across time and cultures. I’ve always been vaguely aware of these similarities, but I went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole and spent so much time down there that I thought…
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The Bisbee Case: Where Was the Failure Point?
Like a lot of you, I felt nauseated after reading the AP article that recently dropped, and have been following the story since. There’s always a temptation when something like this happens to give an off-the-cuff hot take, but it was clear that there was a lot to this story to unpack and I didn’t have…
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Three More Points About That Picture
After the initial splash of the purported Joseph Smith photo being revealed there have been various strands of takes, two of which I thought worth briefly addressing. Also, there’s one more point I haven’t seen anybody address but thought I should raise. He’s too old! I’m surprised at how many people, some of them rather…
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A Few Questions About That Picture
I’ve now read the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal article that detailed the evidence for the authenticity of the purported Joseph Smith photo, and I am more than 50% convinced that it is authentic. The provenance of the locket combined with the facial match is interesting, but a few points. Even as a statistician I’m…
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Family Size is The First Thing Reported about Mission Presidents–and That’s Good
I noticed the other day when looking up a recently called mission president that the mission president bios follow a pretty standard format: name, age, number of children, past church callings, and background. Now, this is one of those things that was probably decided by a mid-level official in the COB, so I don’t want…
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Worlds Without Number
The James Webb telescope just dropped its first “deep field” image. This is as far back as we have ever been able to see, and soon we will be able to peer back to some of the first creations that formed after the Big Bang. A time to come in the which nothing shall be withheld…if there…
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I am not a natural “Mormon”
A common narrative one hears is something along the lines of the following: “I love the Church, it has so much potential, it could go a long way even if it dropped, changed, or soft-pedaled [insert major, foundational truth claim].” And honestly, to me many of the people…
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Experiences of Latter-day Saint “Virtuous Pedophiles”
A version of this was first published in the online journal SquareTwo in 2016. At the time I was more cautious than I am now, so I published it anonymously, but with permission I am republishing it here. This is a side-project from a paper I published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of…
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Anti-“Utah Mormon” Bigotry
A few scattered thoughts on both anti-“Utah Mormon” and anti-Latter-day Saint bias in general. (Sorry to mix the two but they are often synonymous and I don’t want to write two posts.) I still remember the first time I met a socially awkward non-Utahn, and my surprise at my surprise. I realized that I…
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The Church’s New Statement on Abortion
As mentioned previously, I’m very pro-life. As far as we could tell, we were the only “Latter-day Saints” for life sign at this year’s March for Life, and living in the DC area I’ve had the opportunity to do pro-bono work for pro-life organizations. However, I also have no desire to consume the remainder of…
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The First AI Church Art Show
I have grade school offspring that can draw better than me, and because of the accident of God ordained gifts (or lack thereof), I’ve been a little envious of those who are in a position to create meaningful, powerful art. Several posts ago I discussed how art creation is on the precipice of being radically…