Category: Cornucopia

In my previous post, I discussed how important it is for us to overcome fear and act if we are to progress, and how God’s plan has made it so that our mistakes, by themselves, will not prevent us from progressing or returning to God. A very practical questions arises as we try to do…

There’s a folk doctrine I’ve heard expressed by members of the church, and it goes something like this: “As long as you are obedient to your priesthood leaders, any sins you commit are on their heads.” The idea is that if your priesthood leaders counsel you poorly and you obey that counsel, you aren’t morally…

I have to admit that I am not usually thrilled by the images in the Ensign.

Gospel Doctrine on Sunday featured the parable of the ten virgins, accompanied by this picture: Apparently it’s a well-known picture, but I’d never seen it before. The instructor read the picture’s accompanying interpretation. It’s too long for me to share in its fullness (which can be found here), but here are some of the bits…

This past Sunday found many of us discussing the parable of the talents. This parable is especially powerful to me because of what it teaches about God’s plan for us. God’s plan—at this stage—is not about a particular set of outcomes being credited to us. Instead, God wants us to join with Him in sculpting…

Once a year I attend a professional conference on juvenile law and practice. The keynote speaker at this year’s conference is Bruce D. Perry, a scholar and psychologist who studies the effect of trauma on brain development and who runs a clinical practice treating children and juveniles who are forced to deal with those difficult…

I decided a couple weeks ago that I’m going to start attending the worship services of the various churches in my area, partially for self-education and partially for fun. Motivated by the vision of being inspired by new and unfamiliar practices, I hopped on Google and searched for “roseville churches”, then clicked on the map…

The emphasis here is on for the YM, not to be modest. In fact, most of you would consider me to be ultra-conservative in the modesty department:

As a missionary, I took pride in my familiarity with the scriptures. No matter the question, I could usually present an investigator with a scripturally backed answer. Being somewhat slow on the uptake, it probably took me a year or more to become conscious of the fact that most investigators didn’t ascribe the same level…

Some (Wednesday morning) articles of faith: 1. The gospel is terrifyingly simple: Give up!

Kent’s post on community responsibility brings to mind the question of whether and how a community can repent. Do the first principles and ordinance of the gospel apply to the church as a whole? The church exemplifies faith through its teachings, and I can see the entire church organization as reflective of the ordinances of…

Consider this:

Is church Correlation the new United Order? I remember a conference talk from years ago (by Pres. Packer, if I recall correctly, though I haven’t been able to find the actual talk to confirm it.) The speaker talked about how his local church unit had a wonderful and unique youth program — something about performance…

So apparently some people think the world is ending tomorrow, based on an analysis of some numbers used in the Bible.

This Saturday, the world is going to end. At least, a few folks seem to think so. Why? The idea comes from a dizzying combination of numerology (looking for special hidden numbers which God has placed as clues) and eschatology (discussion of the end of the world). In recent years, these kinds of claims have…

Orson Scott Card is a longtime expert in making the fantastical seem almost real. He’s done it over the course of his decades-long literary career, bringing to life child generals at war with alien insects; magic-wielding prophets in the American West; spooky child ghosts living in video games; planet-ruling musician kings; Mormon colonies scrabbling for…

What exactly is the Proclamation, or, to use its full title, The Family: A Proclamation to the World? It is not scripture. It is not a revelation. It is not even a Conference talk. What is it? What status does the Proclamation have at present in the LDS Church?

When I arrived in Japan as a missionary, my trainer was Elder Wynder. The most important thing he taught me was the “Three C’s”. Maybe the rest of you learned these as kids (it seems like the kind of thing you’d hear in Primary), but I’d never heard them before.

There are persons and there are principles. The gospel is about the former rather than the latter. Granted, there are gospel principles – but the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.

Women, celebrate. You no longer have to wear pantyhose in order to maintain an appropriate standard of modesty. And, yes, you did until this week. Discuss.

Ironically, the trouble with biblical literalism is that it doesn’t take the word “literal” literally.