Category: Life in the Church

  • My Only Real Regret

    Nate Oman

    I really only have one real complaint about the Church, and it has to do, of course, with women’s fashion.

  • “Preach My Gospel”– The New Missionary Guide

    Frank McIntyre

    The new missionary manual is out and available for browsing.

  • Sinning Alone

    Gordon Smith

    At a recent conference, I was klatsching with law professors, mostly from my school, when a young law professor in the group related how she was being pursued by another conference attendee. “I always attract married men,” she lamented. “Of course, they all say that they have a bad marriage, but this one is Mormon!”

  • On Spiritual Education

    Kristine Haglund

    About 10 minutes after my first positive pregnancy test, I was at the bookstore, perusing the shelves of parenting titles, a pastime I’ve continued with some regularity for nearly a decade now. One of my favorite of these books is called 10 Principles of Spiritual Parenting.

  • Bowdlerizing the Book of Mormon

    Rosalynde Welch

    This afternoon at lunch, my angelic three-year-old daughter said causally to her quesadilla, “I’m going to kill you by plunging my spoon into your heart.”

  • Can a Good Mormon be a Meritocrat?

    Greg Call

    I’m not a big fan of much of David Brooks’s writings, as he is often too Manichean to be useful (here’s a good parody). But in the opening pages of Bobos in Paradise, Brooks does a nice job of describing the shift in American culture from a class structure based on lineage or money to…

  • The Question You Should Never Ask

    Bryce Inouye

    “Are you pregnant?” In the past two weeks, for some reason I have had four people ask me this question and variations on it: “Are you and Kristen expecting another?” “Are you going to have another baby?” “When is the next baby coming?”

  • Book of Mormon Family Home Evening Lesson Eighteen

    Julie M. Smith

    BMS: The People of Ammon MBM: Anti-Nephi-Lehies

  • Primitive Church

    Wilfried Decoo

    The missionaries found me when I was 17. That was back in 1964 in Antwerp, Belgium. I read Joseph Smith’s history and Moroni’s promise. I knew it was true. Immediately, fully. The Gospel unfolded like the rising sun.

  • Teen Apathy

    Gordon Smith

    Now that I no longer teach Seminary, one of my biggest challenges is getting my daughter to Seminary on time. She has a driver’s license and would be happy to go on her own, but we can’t spare the car. So I am up at 5:30 (or so) every morning, just like last year. This…

  • From Mormon to LDS in international perspective

    Wilfried Decoo

    I first had the title “We love the Mormonettes!”, but that would have covered only a tiny piece of my long text. But if you want to get to the Mormonettes, read on! Are you Mormon or LDS? In Utah, but also elsewhere in the U.S., the shift towards the use of LDS is inescapable.…

  • Galen, Holmes & Hot Drinks

    Nate Oman

    One of the odder bits of Mormon interpretation is the strange life of “hot drinks.â€? These are the actual beverages forbidden by the Word of Wisdom. As we all know they have come to mean coffee and tea with hot chocolate and Diet Coke forming border cases for some, and no one really objecting to…

  • International Church issues

    Wilfried Decoo

    Thank you, I feel honored to be a guest here! As a “foreigner”, I have been asked to add a Mormon international perspective. That means… non-American. Strange already that in our World Church the perspective continues to be U.S.-centered, with the rest of the world sensed as a large peripheral circle, referred to as the…

  • Relics

    Nate Oman

    One of my more prized possessions is a small chunk of limestone. It is about 8 inches long, roughly the size of two fists. Its value lies in the fact that is is a piece of one of the shattered sunstones of the original Nauvoo temple.

  • Prayer Rolls

    Gordon Smith

    Did you know that you can add a name to the Salt Lake Temple prayer roll by calling an 800 number? Our priesthood instructor mentioned this today, and it started me thinking again about the nature of prayer. And I admit, I am stumped by the prayer roll.

  • Bloggernacle Notes, October 8, 2004

    Kaimi Wenger

    A few goings-on in the bloggernacle of late: I just found two new Mormon blogs (via Grasshopper, the creator of the bloggernacle). One is Outer Boroughs, written by a bishop in Brooklyn. (Side note: There are sure a lot of New York bloggernackers. There’s me (Bronx), Logan (Bronx), Nine Moons (Brooklyn), BCC (mostly Manhattan), Celibate…

  • (When) are bloggers permitted to criticize church leaders?

    Kaimi Wenger

    This topic has come up in recent posts around the bloggernacle. For example, Rusty at Nine Moons discusses an instance where a bishop committed all of the men in the ward to “1) To never watch an R-rated movie ever again. Also, to never watch a PG-13 rated movie without his wife’s permission. 2) To…

  • What is With the Bloggernacle?

    Nate Oman

    I am not proud of this, but I have to confess that a very substantial part of my entire self-worth is tied up with how many comments my posts get on Times and Seasons. Unfortunately, I just don’t get it. By what criteria do the commenting bloggernaclites choose one post over another. A silly, throw-away…

  • Sister Manners

    Jim F.

    Someone needs to write an etiquette book for members of the Church. I’m not up to writing it, but I’m willing to make some of the first contributions.

  • What is the Religious Reason for Gender Differences in Orgasmic Tendency and Ability?

    Kaimi Wenger

    We believe that we were created by God, in His image (or the image of Heavenly Mother, for women). And we believe that our physical bodies are an important part of our eternal progress, a part that will be with us for eternity. As pointed out in an earlier thread, we have strong religious reasons…

  • Sweet Boldness

    Gordon Smith

    The first part of this post is taken from a comment that I posted just after Elder Maxwell’s death. The story that follows those thoughts is new. During my mission, while serving in the office, I found notes of a talk that Elder Maxwell had delivered to missionaries in Vienna about a decade before. The…

  • What is a KGB Sympathizer to Say?

    Nate Oman

    Several years ago I found myself at a restuarant in Berkeley, California with some of my elders. They were bright, friendly, and very kind to me. I enjoyed the evening, and I am glad that I was invited. During the course of the conversation one of the interlocutors, a disillusioned returned-missionary from someplace in the…

  • Mormon Images: Office Decor and the Place of Mormonism in American History

    Nate Oman

    A few weels ago I finished my stint at the public trough and left the service of the federal courts. I know work for the law firm of Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood in Washington, DC. The identity of the firm is significant only because this is the firm (and office) where Rex E. Lee…

  • Book of Mormon Family Home Evening Lesson Fourteen

    Julie M. Smith

    MBM: Alma BMS: Alma Teaches and Baptizes

  • Chastity and Terrorism

    Nate Oman

    What are the root causes of terrorism? Poverty (problem: most terrorists seem to come from middle class or upper middle class Middle Eastern families). U.S. hegemony (at least in part). Embarrassment and rage at the decline of Islamic civilization (almost certainly). Another recent candidate has emerged: Chastity.

  • Wheat for Man

    Kaimi Wenger

    Okay, we’ve previously touched on a number of Word of Wisdom topics: medicinal marijuana, chicken marsala, meat eating. And we all know about the tobacco and alcohol part. But what on earth are we to think of the strange grains list? In case you had forgotten it, D & C 89:16-17 reads:

  • Book of Mormon Family Home Evening Lesson Thirteen

    Julie M. Smith

    (Completely unreleted to everything but I just had to mention: my three-year-old noticed that the skin on the bottom of my foot is peeling and asked, “Mommy, are you molting?”) BMS: Abinadi and King Noah MBM: Abinadi Theme: We should be witnesses of Jesus Christ. Scripture: Mosiah 16:8-9 Resources: (1) Can’t take credit for this…

  • Book of Mormon Family Home Evening Lesson Twelve

    Julie M. Smith

    (This is last week’s; I’ll have today’s later today. Sorry to get behind; I was out of town.) BMS: King Benjamin MBM: King Benjamin Scripture: Mosiah 5:7 Theme: We can follow Jesus Christ. Resources: 1. The June 1992 Friend has a flannel board for King Benjamin. 2. GAPK #307 3. Children’s Songbook #276 “Do As…

  • Racist by Association

    Gordon Smith

    More than once in my career, I have been told by colleagues that they had me wrong. They had assumed, because of my religion, that I had unkind feelings toward racial minorities. After observing me in various settings, however, they had concluded that their initial assumption was unfair. These moments are always bittersweet. On the…

  • Praxy and Doxy

    Kaimi Wenger

    John Hatch continues his coup over at the liberalmediablog, with an interesting post on whether the church values orthodoxy (right belief) over orthopraxy (right action). John notes: If I don’t show up to help someone in Elder’s Quorum move, no one says a word. If I miss my home teaching, no one calls to chastise…