Category: Latter-day Saint Thought
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Secrets from the Research Library
My Utah history columns for the Salt Lake Tribune have a limit of 650 words; the Relief Society articles need to fit a single page. The brevity of these accounts may mask the complexity of the work behind them, so put on your deerstalker caps and I’ll recreate the process, using Frances Swan Clark as…
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Frances Swan Clark: A Kindness Remembered
Many of Utah’s early pioneers did not remain long in the Valley. In defiance of counsel, some rushed to the California gold fields. A few went to California as missionaries, and the two apostles who founded a ranching colony in San Bernardino found no shortage of volunteers to accompany them there.
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Catherine Garber Laine: The Role of Her Lifetime
This story and the other women’s stories to follow were written for my ward’s Relief Society newsletter, as a formal calling for which I was set apart. The assignment was to write about a faith-promoting incident involving a woman; I added the detail “… whom no one has ever heard about.”
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On the Road to Mountain Meadows
Two years ago I wrote an article entitled “‘Pursue, Retake & Punish’: The 1857 Santa Clara Ambush.� You can read it here if this essay triggers your interest; the short version is this:
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Joseph and Moses
Most are acquainted with the passage in D&C 130 where God gives a fascinating response to Joseph’s query about the Second Coming:
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Mormon Feminists: A Divided Allegiance?
I originally began this post as a primer on feminism–a post on feminist ideological inconsistences and boundaries, and what the term “feminism” means–but the discussion following my previous T&S post on feminism and the comments on this post on FMH have got me thinking about the issue of allegiances and how that seems to be…
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Healing the Breach between Feminists and Non-Feminists
One of the hardest things for me to deal with when it comes to feminism and the church is not directly related to any of the hot button feminist issues (i.e. not having the Priesthood, worrying about polygamy, etc). Instead, I have a tendency to get upset about the tension-filled relationship between feminists and non-feminists*…
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We Did It
We’ve finally read the entire Book of Mormon as a family, all of us (those that can read, anyway) taking turns verse by verse. It only took us four and a half years, and we’re ready to do it again.
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Natural Succession or the Prophetic Death Card?
Does God control who is Church President by ending life (using the “death card”)? Or does he control who is President by controlling the order in which Apostles are called? Of course, both can be true (or neither depending on your theological persuasion), but let’s examine these questions systematically.
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Could the Restoration have Happened Elsewhere and Elsewhen?
The common answer heard today in the Church is no. A variety of reasons are usually given:
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Scriptures as Seer Stones
To me, the most interesting thing about the seer stone that Joseph used when translating the BoM is not that he used it but that it is really just a rock. From what I understand, if you or I were to pick it up, we couldn’t tell it apart from any other smooth rock of…
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Who took the LD out of LDS?
-or- What ever happened to the good ol’ last days? -or- Where have all the millennialists gone?
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Authority Roulette
I’ve talked about authority a few different times, but I thought I should try writing something up as a post. So here’s a version comparing it to roulette:
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O Jerusalem, Jerusalem
My wife and I were in Jerusalem for a week in March. Below are some thoughts on the city, its religious heritage, and the current conflict.
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Joseph Smith chopped down the Sacred Grove
Twelve years ago my family piled in a rented RV and drove cross-country to attend a wedding reception for my older brother and his wife in Minnesota. On the way we stopped at the church history sites in Missouri, including Independence, Liberty Jail, and Far West.
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Structural apostasy
Off the top of my head, I think that in the Church we generally mean one of three things when we use the word “apostasy”:
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Testifying of historicity
As I was re-reading conference, I came across this closing statement by President Hinckley:
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Motherhood and Priesthood–Take 57!
I think that motherhood and priesthood are parallel; I know that many of you don’t. And one argument against my position that I see frequently is that you need the cooperation of the opposite sex (not to mention the blessing of fertility) to be a mother but not to be a priesthood holder. I’ve never…
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True Neighbors
Suppose that you splurged for the $6 version of the Church’s scriptures on CDROM. It has various ancient language toys that I am in no position to evaluate but am happy to play with. It also has a fun little tool such that when you do a search, you can click on a tab “Sort…
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The KJV: A Sealed Book?
I’ve been teaching the second half of the Old Testament in Institute this semester. The KJV is a terrible obstacle to understanding the scriptures.
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The Uses of Adversity
The late Carlfred Broderick was a professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at USC as well as a Stake President. He may have been one of the most profound–not to mention funny–LDS thinkers of his generation.
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Prophecy vs. History
Not too long ago, I stumbled across the PBS presentation of Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel (2d ed. 1999). It reminded me of dealing with the book at college and enjoying the ideas presented and the sweeping take of world history that it offered. But while watching the presentation and contemplating the message…
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And Justice for All
I apologize in advance for writing about a topic that is at least closely related to, if not the same as Nate’s. But it is his fault. He made me start thinking about the question of freedom and its relation to justice.
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How to Teach a Scripture Passage
Here’s a systematic approach to preparing a lesson on a passage of scripture.