Category: Cornucopia

Three of the best books that I have ever read on Mormonism are not about Mormonism at all:

This week’s New Yorker features an interesting article by Peter Boyer on the crisis facing the Episcopalian Church in the United States after a New Hampshire diocese elected the openly-gay Gene Robinson as bishop. (This post, by the way, is not principally about gay issues.)

It was a historic day for our tiny Flemish branch when we replaced the old harmonium with a new electric organ. Nothing could better symbolize our progress, lift the morale of our handful of members, and prepare the way to convert the whole city.

I blog most on Tuesdays.

I have often heard or read conversations that go something like this:

A while back I stumbled upon this website that allows you to map the prevalence of a given surname, by state, in the United States for the years 1850, 1890, 1920, and 1990.

Mother in Heaven recently made a cameo appearance in correlated materials.

And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!

This Easter, I have a story to tell, a story about the Atonement. (more . . . )

Robert Aumann, a winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Economics, once published a paper in The Annals of Statistics titled “Agreeing to Disagree.” The basic idea of the paper is that two rational people should, by sharing their beliefs with each other, come to a common understanding about what is likely to be true.

The LDS Council for Mormon Studies, which has been involved with the creation of a chair in Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University, has issued the following press release:

The night before he was killed, Jesus ate the passover with his disciples.

With all the talk about missionaries around here lately, I have again pondered on something that concerned me both while a missionary and afterwards, teaching in the MTC and more generally as a non-full-time-missionary member of the Church. It is about the sheer inadequacy of our missionaries.

Over on Conglomerate, Elizabeth Brown links to an article about the “Scum of the Earth Church” as an example of niche marketing.

We’ve all heard the stories about intrepid missionaries who faced rejection door after door only to be let in at the final house that they contacted.

“If you don’t pay your tithing and serve in the Church, you give up your right to bitch,”

I like referring to non-Mormons as “Gentiles.”

My song is love unknown, My Saviour’s love to me, Love to the loveless shown, That they might lovely be. O who am I, That for my sake, My Lord should take Frail flesh and die.

While reading Wilford Woodruff’s diaries recently, I discovered that I have been living in a cursed part of the country. What am I to make of this, and the more general phenomena of Mormon cursing?

I’ve heard lots of people discuss how their missions caused a spiritual crisis for them. So did mine.