Category: Latter-day Saint Thought
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Call for Papers: SMPT at Claremont, 2009
The Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology’s 2009 conference will be held at Claremont Graduate University, May 21-23, in cooperation with the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies and the Claremont Mormon Studies Student Association.
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The TRUTH about the Book of Mormon pronouncing guide EXPOSED
The Mormon Church does not want even its own members to know how to pronounce Shimnilom
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The Slaughter of the Innocents
After the wise men came, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
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Hugs and Kisses
It’s holiday season, which means more friends and family and greetings, in person or otherwise, than usual. Add to that a few weddings receptions and you can get downright sore from all the hugging and hand-wrenching. Not to mention confused by the vast array of possibilities for saying hello or goodbye or Merry Christmas or…
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Of Courses
I recieved one of those continuing education catalogs in the mail today (from Lehman College, not BYU), and glancing through it, I began to wonder why the courses are all very basic. The courses are all introductory, and seem to be for those looking to start a career in relatively low-skill professions. I suppose there…
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Relics
The Book of Mormon is a reliquary in prose. In some extensive sections and at some critical moments, what drives the narrative is the question: how did a set of golden plates, a steel sword, a ball of curious workmanship, a breastplate, and two translucent stones end up inside a stone box buried in a…
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Dancing the Doctrines: Theology in Motion
A call for papers, panels, movement sessions and choreography Sponsored by the Department of Dance with support from the BYU Museum of Art July 17 and 18, 2009 at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art and in the BYU Richards Building dance studios.
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Past and Present
It’s an intellectual banality to point out that how one thinks of the present structures how one thinks about the past. The cliché, however, is useful when thinking about Mormon history.
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Millennial Vegetarianism
Enjoy that Thanksgiving turkey . . . while you can. You may be a vegetarian during the millennium.
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The Gospel and Immigration
A High Priest I know is in crisis. He is an immigrant who, like many other Church members, came to the US without a visa, according to what I understand of the situation. After arriving here he joined the Church, and eventually fell in love and married a U.S. Citizen, a wonderful, faithful Church member.…
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Bones
One of the subterranean threads running throughout the Book of Mormon is the mystery of whose bones are heaped upon the land northward.
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The Canonization of the Book of Mormon?
Penguin Books has just published a “Penguin Classics” edition of the Book of Mormon edited by Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp. Penguin Classics, of course, are the paperback editions of literary staples like Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. They are printed and marketed largely as texts for college classes. The assumption is that a text included in…
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2009 LDS Law Students Conference at Harvard Law School
The J. Reuben Clark Society’s annual student conference will be held this year at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Registration is now open, and I urge LDS students, lawyers, and interested laypersons to attend. FYI.
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President Hinckley and J. Edgar Hoover
The FBI released its files on Gordon B. Hinckley last week in response to a FOIA request from the Salt Lake Tribune. Apparently the FBI conducted a background check on President Hinckley in 1951 in order to ensure he wasn’t a communist and clear him for a potential position with Voice of America. The results……
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Confirm or Deny?
The following is making the email rounds with lightning speed. It claims to be talk given recently by President Packer. Can anyone confirm or deny?
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Teaching the Reformation
Just as I went to publish this post, I saw Ben’s post about the conference on Mormons and Evangelicals. It’s a nice coincidence. As are the recent posts by Kent and Marc on labeling and categorizing. I was already scheduled to attend another conference this week, an annual conference for historians of the Reformation (surely…
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National Student Dialogue Conference II
Standing Together and the Religious Studies Program at Utah Valley University are hosting a conference of Latter-day Saint and evangelical Christian students and scholars this coming Friday and Saturday, October 24-5, 2008, on topics including, “Was a Restoration Necessary?,” “Authority and Scripture,” and “The Nature of God: Finite or Infinite?” Directly addressing some of the…
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The Difficulty of Theological Interpretations of Mormon History
Providing a theological interpretation of Mormon history is tricky. I’ve argued elsewhere that one of the reasons that Mormons care so much about history is that in some sense they regard it has having a normative force. Part of how we understand God’s will is by offering an interpretation of our past that sees in…
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“Nobody Knows” Screening
Heads up for those in the D.C. area. Earlier this Spring I posted a notice about a great series of events that Greg Prince, co-author of David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, hosted at his house in Potomac, Maryland. After a brief summer interlude, Brother Prince is back at it. The speaker…
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Key to the Culture of Mormons
Last Saturday I gave a walking tour of Mormon history sites in lower Manhattan, one of the services our stake history committee offers regularly. One stop on the tour is the location where an early LDS newspaper, The Mormon, was published by John Taylor. That newspaper featured an interesting statement in its masthead–what it called…
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Compassion and Creativity
Most everyone I’ve talked to loved President Uchtdorf’s talk at the General Relief Society Broadcast. But I have a question (and yes, men, this is for you, too—since I assume that as a son of God, you also get joy in following the Father’s example of creation and compassion):
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M Gets a Joke
A while back our household sat down to watch an episode of Monk. We like Monk because not only is it funny, it’s also sad and tender and offers good – sometimes very good – cultural satire. As I fed M she kept turning her head to look at the TV, watching whatever it is…
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My inner historian smiles
The little historian in me cheers for small things, such as correct phrasing. At the General Relief Society Broadcast on Saturday, September 27, Sister Barbara Thompson
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Questions about Personal Responsibility and the Economic Bailout
How should we think about personal responsibility in light of the financial bailout currently being debated in Washington, D.C.?
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Visions and Enivison
I am sorry I have not been posting more regularly. Hurricane Ike slowed me down a bit. However, everything is starting to get back to normal. So…. Here we go. If the nineteenth century Mormon experiment in planning claimed anything, it claimed to be founded on revelation.