Category: Latter-day Saint Thought
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A widow’s mite of chastity
One of the things the Covid-19 pandemic took from me was the chance to see the concerts and performances that my daughters would have had at the end of their freshman and senior years. One of the things I was given in their place was a chance to argue with vaccine skeptics online.
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What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday, 5/3?
Over the past year I have read several parts of Rita Felski’s book, The Limits of Critique, a fascinating look at how the western world has constructed our form of critique. She argues, in part, that we assume that a critical distance is necessary from our subject, and that an adversarial and negative approach is…
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CFM 5/11-5/17: Thoughts and Poetry for “Beware Lest Thou Forget the Lord”
The idea of ‘forgetting’ covers a lot of territory. Forgetting our keys is one thing, forgetting to pick up your child is another, and forgetting that you even have a child is still another.The first happens to everyone, the last is almost inconceivable, outside of some kind of dementia. So what exactly do we mean…
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What Was Revealed to You In Church (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 4/26)?
In my post earlier today, with poetry for the Come Follow Me readings, I discussed the tension in our relationships between assenting and agreeing with others and differentiating from others (which sometimes appears as rebellion). This tension is a part of all of our lives—every relationship we have is about how much we agree with…
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CFM 5/4-5/10: Poetry for “Rebel Not Ye against the Lord, Neither Fear”
We are all rebels in some way or another, just like we are all sinners. Any sin is a kind of rebellion. As a result, we do things that are against the counsels of the Lord willingly and intentionally, often justifying it through the scriptures. And too often we dismiss statements like “Rebel Not Ye…
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The Book of Mormon’s Anti-colonialism
A frequently repeated Book of Mormon prophecy is often called the Native apocalypse, or the prophecy that “At that day when the Gentiles shall sin against my gospel, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, and shall be lifted up in the pride of their hearts above all nations, and above all the people…
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Rejecting the Restoration in 1654
In many respects, the Restored Gospel as it emerged after 1820 had been pre-rejected over 150 years previously in a series of debates that ran through the middle of Protestantism.
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What Was Revealed to You In Church (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 4/19)?
LDS beliefs are firmly based in the idea of continuing revelation — both revelation to the Church as a whole, and personal continuing revelation to each of us. But sometimes we limit this idea by our assumptions. I think many of us assume that personal revelation comes at home, in personal prayer and contemplation. I’m…
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CFM 4/27-5/3: Poetry for “Holiness to the Lord”
What is holiness anyway? When something is made holy, like a Temple, it is formally dedicated to the Lord, through a number of different means. The more I think about it, the more it seems like we who are attending the Temple and participating in things that are holy are participating in making them holy.…
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A Theology of Absence: Rosalynde Welch on the Poetry of the Old Testament
Many Latter-day Saints struggle to connect with the Old Testament, often missing its profound beauty because the standard King James Version strips away the formatting that reveals the text for what it truly is: a masterpiece of Hebrew poetry. How can we learn to read these ancient texts not just as distant history, but as…
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A Wilford Woodruff Papers Celebration Conference
The Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation recently announced that they are holding a conference this fall to celebrate the completion of the project: “The Wilford Woodruff Papers: A Rich & Holy Legacy,” on Friday, November 13, 2026, in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, Salt Lake City, Utah. New insights and inspiration from Wilford Woodruff’s life and…
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The Ordain Women Movement in Retrospect
“The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.”-Conquest’s Third Law A little over a decade ago Kate Kelly was excommunicated. A few thoughts in retrospect. If I had infiltrated the OW movement with the goal of undermining it in…
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What Was Revealed to You In Church (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 4/12)?
LDS beliefs are firmly based in the idea of continuing revelation — both revelation to the Church as a whole, and personal continuing revelation to each of us. But sometimes we limit this idea by our assumptions. I think many of us assume that personal revelation comes at home, in personal prayer and contemplation. I’m…
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CFM 4/20-4/26: Poetry for “All That the Lord Hath Spoken We Will Do”
The statement “all that the Lord has spoken we will do” seems kind of obvious in a sense. If God is saying to do it, how can we gainsay? But, of course, we don’t actually do that — we all fail to do the things we should do, the things that God has asked, and…
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The Book of Mormon Witnesses, The Miracle of the Sun, and Other Historically Plausible Miracles
Many stories of miracles are reasonably attributable to wishful thinking, bad record keeping, friend-of-a-friend rumors, or some kind of neurosis or hallucination. However, there are a number of historical episodes that meet the standard criterion for historical plausibility. Multiple witnesses, contemporaneous accounts, disinterested observers. Popular secular Substacker Astral Codex Ten referred to the Fatima Miracle…
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CFM 4/13-4/19: Poetry for “Stand Still, and See the Salvation of the Lord”
Our self-reliance sometimes gets in the way of relying on the Lord, and even inhibits us from trusting in Him—in having faith that He can provide for our salvation. The fleeing Israelites described in Exodus seem to be caught between the armies of Pharaoh and the waters, leaving them to despair. Their salvation didn’t depend…
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What Was Revealed to You In Church (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 3/29)?
One of the speakers at Church yesterday suggested that if you find the talk boring, you can make up for it by studying the scriptures later. The speaker also suggested that one way to keep the talks from being boring is to find a way to put yourself into the stories told or ideas presented.…
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CFM 4/6-4/12: Poetry for “Remember This Day, in Which Ye Came Out from Egypt”
The story of the exodus of the Israelite from Egypt is often used as a metaphor for the downtrodden and despised. Our own tradition has frequently used the story for its similarities to the pioneer trek from Nauvoo to Utah, and, for different reasons, the story was an important element in the discourse of the…
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How Many Latter-day Saints Have Ever Had An Elective Abortion? How Did They Feel About It?
How many Latter-day Saints have ever had an abortion? The dataset I used last week about masturbation also had a question about abortion history, so we can do the same thing here. Once again, with our 322 Latter-day Saints it’s not super tight confidence intervals, but it’s not just ballparking it either. The question is:…
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A “Document of Faith, Not a Secular Report”: Nahum Sarna on the Book of Exodus
For Latter-day Saints embarking on a study of the Old Testament, the Book of Exodus is an undisputed cinematic highlight. It has burning bushes, ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, and the dramatic delivery of the Ten Commandments. But how did the ancient Israelites—and how do modern Jewish scholars—understand this foundational text? A…
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Accommodating People’s Wrong Religious Beliefs
For a couple years my kids attended an evangelical homeschool co-op. For those who are aware of the idiosyncratic dynamics of religious homeschool culture in the US, this is no small feat. Typically we Latter-day Saints were not invited to participate since they often involve signing some statement of faith that usually includes some trinitarian…
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What Was Revealed to You In Church (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 3/22)?
LDS beliefs are firmly based in the idea of continuing revelation — both revelation to the Church as a whole, and personal continuing revelation to each of us. But sometimes we limit this idea by our assumptions. I think many of us assume that personal revelation comes at home, in personal prayer and contemplation. I’m…
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CFM 3/30-4/5: Poetry for “He Will Swallow Up Death in Victory”
The centrality of the atonement in LDS doctrine and thought is beyond dispute. Even in the earliest LDS poetry, the atonement is frequently mentioned, and its role expounded. There is no shortage of material about Christ and his sacrifice. But that doesn’t mean that our understanding of the atonement is complete and consistent. It has…
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Probabilities and Biblical Studies
I’m no biblical studies expert, but I’d like to think I’m an informed amateur, and in my readings and podcasts I’ve run across a few reasoning habits and approaches from biblical studies folks that tweak me a bit in terms of the proper use of probabilities. Unknown unknowns, not rhetorically taking into account the probability…
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Did you bring an Umbrella? (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday, 3/15)?
I remember hearing a talk by Boyd K. Packer years ago, in which he spoke about what happens in meetings. As I remember it (I haven’t found the speech — perhaps someone know which one it is) he suggested that many speakers bring just a small thimble full of the spirit to their talks—they simply…
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CFM 3/23-3/29: Poetry for “I Have Remembered My Covenant”
Often the titles of lessons raise questions for me. If God ‘remembered’ His covenant, does that mean he forgot? Is forgetting an error? Or is it ok to forget sometimes, even if it is an agreement we made? What are we saying about the nature of God when we say that He ‘remembered His covenant?’…
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B. H. Roberts Beginner’s Guide Update
Last December, I announced that I had released a free digital book entitled A Beginner’s Guide to B. H. Roberts: Excerpts from the Writings of B. H. Roberts. Since then, I have had enough people reach out to ask me about getting a physical copy of the book that I have now overcome my personal…
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My Meeting with the Pope
I wondered whether I should write this post, but it seems weird to have something this big happen without mentioning it, so I might as well. I had a private audience with the pope for about a half hour to talk about my Traditional Latin Mass research that will be coming out with a book from…
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What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday, 3/8?
In these posts I am trying to suggest that each of us can have better experiences at Church if we take responsibility for our experiences. We can choose to find ways to learn and benefit from what happens regardless of whether it fits our perception of what is “good.” What we get out of any…
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CFM 3/16-3/22: Poetry for “God Meant It unto Good”
Given the famine described in the Bible, it is certainly fortunate that Joseph ended up in Egypt and in a position to help his family. His rise there to 2nd in the kingdom seems highly unlikely, something that might require the help of divinity to occur. And the explanation this lesson focuses on, “God meant…