Category: Latter-day Saint Thought
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The Restored Gospel, the Great Apostasy, and the Didache
About a year ago I read and wrote a post on 1st Clement, arguably the earliest Christian document outside of the New Testament. I finally got around to reading the Didache, a Christian treatise that is also in the running for oldest authentic Christian document after the apostles (the confidence intervals for the documents coming…
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Beyond the King James Version: The Church’s New Handbook Policy on Bible Translations
Earlier this week, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints updated its General Handbook, most notably in the section regarding Bible translations. For those of us following the conversation at From the Desk—including the interview and copost with Joshua Sears last week—the timing feels serendipitous. For the better part of a century, the cultural…
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Sociology of Religion Terms and the Restored Gospel
Sacred Canopy Coined by sociologist of religion Peter Berger, a Sacred Canopy is a religiously-driven common worldview in a community. Where the very literal protective interdiction of St. Christopher on your daily drive, the daily calls to prayer, or a testimony of the Book of Mormon, are all part of a taken-for-granted worldview that seems…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 12/14
How did you react to Church yesterday? What did you notice? Did you end up thinking differently? [In case you missed this last week, I was ill and didn’t post.] Do you think your reactions were what they should be? Were they ethical? This is the latest invitation for reactions to local meetings, continuing the…
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CFM 12/22-12/28: Poetry for “The Matchless Gift of God’s Divine Son”
One advantage to providing the poetry for these lessons early is that it allows teachers and others a little time to adjust the timing of lessons. For example, this coming week’s lesson in Sunday School should be on the Family (see last week’s post), but given that the coming lesson is on the Sunday before…
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Catholic Integralism and the Constitution
So lately I’ve been noticing some rhetoric on the right that seems at odds with what had been more standard claims to a great devotion to the constitution. I’m probably not as linked into these networks as many others, so I’m curious what additional information T&S readers may know.
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Delighting in bloodshed
The first time I showed clips from Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will while teaching about Nazi Germany, I was not expecting to be overwhelmed by grief and anger and revulsion.
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The Evolution of a Ban: Paul Reeve on Brigham Young and the Curse of Cain
Most Latter-day Saints know that for over a century, the Church restricted men of black African descent from holding the priesthood and black members from temple ordinances, but the specific origins of this ban—and specifically how Brigham Young’s teachings on the “curse of Cain” hardened into policy—remain a source of confusion and pain for many.…
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When We Are Proselytized by Others
About a year ago my oldest sons were invited by some of their classmates to play volleyball at one of the local Korean Christian churches. We got there…and there was no volleyball, just an eager-looking freshman sitting in front with a Bible. Of course, coming from a proselytizing faith ourselves, we knew exactly what was…
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CFM 12/15-12/21(The Family): Poetry for “The Family Is Central to the Creator’s Plan”
The LDS focus on the family is one of our best-known doctrines—an idea largely based on our belief that we are children of heavenly parents. As a result of these beliefs, we consistently worry about how well we are doing as parents, and about the strength of our family relationships. I often wonder if we…
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Devotion in the Postinformation Age
There was a time, not all that long ago, when the Internet was going to solve everything. The truth was out there, freely accessible, and could no longer be hidden. All you had to do was look, and if you remained ignorant, it was both an intellectual and a moral failure.
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/30
How did you react to Church yesterday? What did you notice? Did you end up thinking differently? Do you think your reactions were what they should be? Were they ethical? This is the latest invitation for reactions to local meetings, continuing the spirit of my post on September 25th about how we can take what…
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CFM 12/8-12/14 (OD 1 &2, Articles of Faith): Poetry for “We Believe”
When I think about the phrase “We Believe”, I lean to thinking that the more important word is “We” instead of the traditional focus on “Believe”. And I think the history of the early Church in the 1830s supports this focus. Many members of the Church were decidedly anti-creedal; i.e., they were against having a…
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Black Hole Cosmology and the Book of Abraham
[Note: I know that in my last post I noted that, pursuant to Elder Gong’s counsel on this, I wouldn’t be posting any more AI depictions of deity, but this post was in the queue before I was aware of the Gong talk, so this will be my last AI depiction of deity.] One of…
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Giving Thanks Beforehand
In the United States, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, ending a period when many people complain about Christmas coming earlier and earlier. If it isn’t the advertisements, it’s the music that somehow reaches our hearing earlier than expected. While I know many people love Christmas music and don’t mind hearing it almost all year, others are bothered…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/23
How did you react to Church yesterday? What did you notice? Did you end up thinking differently? Do you think your reactions were what they should be? Were they ethical? This is the latest invitation for reactions to local meetings, continuing the spirit of my post on September 25th about how we can take what…
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CFM 12/1-12/7 (D&C 137-138): Poetry for “The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead”
A less-discussed principle of the gospel is the idea that it is universal—i.e, that the gospel and its blessings are available to all of God’s children, including those who are dead. The application of this belief leads to performing ordinances for the dead, a practice that is unique, as far as I know, among Christian…
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How Do YOU Think Eternal Marriage/Family Should Work in the Next Life?
Lately I’ve heard a number of comments in church of ward members noting people of other faiths liking the idea of eternal marriage as a something of a validation of our beliefs. The recent movie release Eternity seems to play around with this idea of a woman getting to the afterlife and trying to figure…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/16
How did you react to Church yesterday? What did you notice? Did you end up thinking differently? Do you think your reactions were what they should be? Were they ethical? This is the latest invitation for reactions to local meetings, continuing the spirit of my post on September 25th about how we can take what…
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CFM 11/24-11/30 (D&C 135-136): Poetry for “ He “Has Sealed His Mission and His Works with His Own Blood”
Our feelings about Joseph Smith can often be conflicted. On one hand we revere him as the prophet of the restoration, who has “has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived.” But need to the use of the phrase “save Jesus only”…
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How Do We Teach/Talk about Polygamy?
So I found Brittany Romanello’s presentation to Dialogue on their series on DC 132 (15:30) interesting in the context of lots of internet talk about polygamy in anticipation for a discussion of DC 132 coming up tomorrow. Romanello talked about getting lessons on polygamy and said that in wards she’s been in as a teenager,…
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How and Why: Matthew Godfrey Explains the 2025 Scripture Updates
The recent 2025 updates to Latter-day Saint scriptures have raised important questions for many members. While we know the changes are minor (applying primarily to the study helps rather than the scriptures themselves) and stem from the monumental Joseph Smith Papers Project, official announcements often lack the full context for how and why these adjustments…
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Redeeming the Dead: More Than Just “Doing Names”
While many Latter-day Saints are familiar with the mechanics of redeeming the dead through family history and temple work, the theology behind it—whether it’s just a “fix” or something more fundamental to God’s plan—is a deeper question. As we study the scriptural foundations for this work in the Doctrine and Covenants (especially D&C 124, 127,…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/9
What did you notice in Church yesterday? How did you react? Did you end up thinking differently? This is the latest invitation for reactions to local meetings, continuing the spirit of my post on September 25th about how we can take what happens in Church meetings—sermons, lessons and anything else—and enter a conversation with them,…
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CFM 11/17-11/23 (D&C 133-134): Poetry for “Prepare Ye for the Coming of the Bridegroom”
It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of the second coming in the restoration. Early members of the Church thought it would come quickly, in just a few years. And they wrote and taught about that expectation. While it seems like the focus on the second coming has diminished over time, we still regularly preach and…
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Steadying the Ark
Okay, now I’m thinking of a few posts related to the topic of “faithfully disagreeing” in the church, or those who’ve disagreed with certain policies (the race ban being a salient example) but who saw themselves as wanting to be faithful to and to remain in the church. Such a tendency has been given different…
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Church Civil Wars, Liberalization, and Africa
I’ve already addressed at length, both here and elsewhere, the idea held in some “direction of history” circles that the Church will inevitably wholly embrace the gender and sexuality positions on the left, with all the up- and down-stream implications of that (in some versions, after so- and so- passes away, after Uchtdorf becomes President,…
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What Conditions Might Generate a Social Preference for Polygamy?
Guest post by Paul Burnham What Conditions Might Generate a Social Preference for Polygyny? Introduction During the occasional discussions of polygyny in Church literature and on the Bloggernacle, I see two competing narratives—a religious narrative and a romantic narrative. In the religious narrative, God’s will must always prevail and on occasion His will has…
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Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/2
What did you notice in Church yesterday? How did you react? Think differently? This is the latest invitation for reactions to local meetings, continuing the spirit of my post on September 25th about how we can take what happens in Church meetings—sermons, lessons and anything else—and enter a conversation with them, magnifying what was said…
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CFM 11/10-11/16(D&C 129-132): Poetry for “I Have Seen Your Sacrifices in Obedience”
This lesson can be both difficult and exulting. Our LDS understanding of the next life both inspires because of the idea that our relations have an eternal permanence, and troubles many of us because of what we don’t understand about polygamy and the details of how the multiple relationships we begin on earth translate into…