Category: Cornucopia
-
Great Mormon Business Ideas, #1
So…stay-at-home moms. Utah’s got lots of them. And I bet you’re a market demographic excitedly waiting to hear what I (an admittedly non-stay-at-home dad) am about to propose to bring joy, peace, time, and every other wonderful thing to your day. Well, wait no more, the first of the Great Mormon Business Ideas is here…
-
Resigning
I started this semester as a seminary teacher. Two months in, I realized that it wasn’t going to work. I was tired and miserable, useless to my family, and unproductive at work. So, for the first time in my life, I asked to be released from a calling. No, that’s not quite accurate. I didn’t…
-
Sunday School Lesson 44: Ezekiel 43-44, 47
Ezekiel’s book goes back and forth between telling of the literal return from Babylon to Jerusalem in ways that we can also read to refer to the last days to speaking directly of the last days. (But when he thinks of the last days, is he thinking of the same event or events that we…
-
Performance and Worship
I once almost joined the ward choir. What’s surprising about this is that I don’t actually sing.
-
Standing Firmly on Dubious Truths
I recently watched The Crucible, a movie about the Salem witch trials. The core issue of the story is, how do you track down the criminal in an untraceable crime? The people of Salem believed that witchcraft could be performed by anyone, anywhere, with no outwardly visible evidence. Convinced of the reality of witchcraft, and…
-
Mormon Identity: Men and Women in the Church
Go here and either listen to or read (I love transcripts! Thank you!) this episode and then return and report.
-
It’s That Time Again
The time when it feels like I spend most of Gospel Doctrine translating the scriptures into modern English instead of actually teaching them.
-
MR: “Pan’s Labyrinth and the Sanctity of Disobedience”
A new issue of The Mormon Review is available, with Davey Morrison Dillard’s review of Pan’s Labyrinth, directed by Guillermo del Toro. The article is available at: Davey Morrison Dillard, “Pan’s Labyrinth and the Sanctity of Disobedience,” The Mormon Review, vol.2 no. 4 [HTML] [PDF] For more information about MR, please take a look at…
-
Once upon a time on earth: the Church in a changing world
In debates over controversial religious issues, one often encounters a certain kind of argument from history, a sort of “once upon a time” argument. Once upon a time, it’s argued, the Church considered a given practice or belief, from witchcraft to usury to the heliocentric cosmos, to be immoral, unbiblical or otherwise forbidden. The particular…
-
Created Truth vs. Discovered Truth
Can truth be created? In the church, we tend to privilege truth that is discovered, and we dismiss creative doctrine-making attempts as the “philosophies of men”. Our common discourse places the identification of truth as solely within the purview of God’s authority, to be dispensed only through His designated prophet. In this paradigm, discovered truth…
-
Goodbye Satan, Hello World
I don’t have any statistics for you, just a hunch that we now usually say “the world” where twenty or more years ago we would have said “Satan” or “the devil.”
-
I thought he asked a really good question, actually.
Most of the commentary that I have read on Elder Packer’s talk (and I have not read widely) treats the decamped rhetorical question as an emotional and political flashpoint. But I think it’s more productively understood as a confounding question of theology, even theodicy. The removal of those nine words from the published version does…
-
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…
-
A Call For Papers: “Mormonism in Cultural Context”
The friends and former students of Professor Richard Lyman Bushman invite submissions for a conference, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, to be held June 18, 2011, at the Springville Art Museum in Springville, Utah. The summer seminars led by Professor Bushman beginning in 1997 pursued the theme of “Joseph Smith and His Times.”…
-
Halloween plays a trick on Sabbath observance
In October a young kid’s fancy swiftly turns to thoughts of treats. With four young kids in our home, you can guess what’s on our minds lately. At our house we celebrate a thoroughly domesticated Halloween, with no concerns about satanism or sugar, just plenty of candy corn and friendly ghosts and homely, homemade costumes.…
-
Kids, Conference
I used to worry that my kids weren’t listening to a word of General Conference. Now I worry that my kids are listening to every single word of General Conference.
-
Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise
I got that familiar little thrill we all feel when one of our favorite hymns is sung in General Conference, as our first session this morning opened with “Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise.” (I was especially happy to have caught it since we experienced significant technical difficulties getting the conference to stream, causing us…
-
MR: “Recovering truth: A review of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method”
A new issue of The Mormon Review is available, with James E. Faulconer’s review of Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer. The article is available at: James E. Faulconer, “Recovering truth: A review of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method,” The Mormon Review, vol.2 no. 3. [HTML] [PDF] For more information about MR, please take a…
-
Thoughts on the Deseret News, Immigration, and a Mormon Voice
Consider this editorial in the Deseret News. (I mean it. Follow the link, read the article, and come back.) Intellectually there is quite a bit going on in these paragraphs. First, it is addressing the immigration debate arguing in effect that the rule of law is undermined by both widespread flouting of the laws and…
-
A Loving critique of Elder Oaks
Elder Dallin H. Oaks spoke recently at Utah’s Constitution Day celebration. His talk, titled “Fundamentals of Our Constitutions,” discussed the role of the constitution, as well as a variety of other topics relating to law, religion, and the public sphere. The talk is well-articulated, as Elder Oaks’ talks tend to be, and sets out some…
-
How Much Does a Mormon Wedding Cost?
For a decade we lived in Boca Raton, Florida — a city with a synagogue on every corner where you were much more likely to be invited to a bris or bar/bat mitzvah than any other religious ceremony. Boca had a single ward that varied between fairly thriving (when IBM had a campus there) to…
-
The First Freak-Out Question
My five-year-old daughter Alanna started kindergarten a few weeks ago. She’s loving it, and I love getting to talk with her about her day when I get home from work. She shares experiences, sings songs that she learned, shows me her artwork, and tells me about her friends. And she’s started asking questions. That’s great…
-
Measuring Testimony
Perhaps you’re familiar with the Wong-Baker pain chart, used by nurses for assessing pain. It looks like this:
-
Feminism and Religion
– – – I saw this photo on Reuters. What struck me most was the head scarf she is wearing. Here is a woman who, by joining the fight against the Taliban, is not rejecting her heritage. She is actively pursuing a new world, but not at the expense of her faith. The war in…
-
MR: “Meanings of Mormon Devotion: Robert Orsi and the Possibilities of Studying Mormon Lived Religion”
A new issue of The Mormon Review is available, with Christopher C. Jones’s review of The Madonna of 115th Street by Robert Orsi. The article is available at: Christopher C. Jones, “Meanings of Mormon Devotion: Robert Orsi and the Possibilities of Studying Mormon Lived Religion ,” The Mormon Review, vol.2 no. 2 [HTML] [PDF] For…
-
The Angel and the Internet
A few years ago, the confluence of the Mitt Romney campaign and Proposition 8 (and to some extent Harry Reid) focused sustained national attention on the church and its members. The church’s profile has only continued to grow since then, raising a variety of questions about assimilation, retrenchment, and the future of the flock. Mormonism…