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38 responses
This discursive approach to church leadership certainly had its problems (most dramatically in the story being re-told by Daymon and Brad at BCC). It is more chaotic, less predictable, more likely to offend long-time members when long-held doctrines change. However, it is, perhaps, more responsive to the changing needs of church membership. Read More
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4 responses
This is a group of mostly single Latter-day Saints from D.C. and elsewhere who are on their way to volunteer in a remote Guatemalan village in the Polochic Valley– one of the poorest in the world. Many of the villagers from this area are themselves Latter-day Saints. The volunteer work done be this group consisted of a variety of humanitarian building projects, educational workshops and medical service. This photograph shows just one of several cattle trucks that transported the group to the village. This volunteer trip was recently featured in Meridian Magazine. by Juanita Verma ___ This picture is part… Read More
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125 responses
There is a long-standing tradition in the church to use honorific titles identifying priesthood positions for men at just about every level beginning when they become missionaries. Elder, Bishop, President. Women — even those who hold similarly named positions — are generally referred to as simply “sister.” In my 45 years in the church, I can recall less than a handful of times when a woman was referred to by title. When I was 19 we moved to England while my dad took a sabbatical from BYU. My mom soon made a dear friend in the mission president’s wife. We… Read More
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5 responses
Almost two months to the day that we invited him to guest, Dane Laverty has continued to blog with us at a prodigious pace. We are now happy to report that he is a guest no longer, but will be joining T&S as a full-time blogger. Dane is a resident of Salem, Oregon and Sacramento, California. He graduated from BYU in contemporary dance, supports his family as a computer programmer, and is attending Willamette University as a business student. He is also a prolific reader and — as we have seen — blogger. We certainly look forward to more of… Read More
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14 responses
A loyal reader requested that I blog about His Eminence Francis Cardinal George’s speech at Brigham Young University last month, available to download here. Ever the faithful servant of my reading public, all three of you, I respond with alacrity! BYU often invites prominent figures to address the university community on topics of mutual interest, and Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago and President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, graciously contributed to the long-running series with his February 23 remarks entitled “Catholics and Latter-day Saints: Partners in the defense of religious freedom.” Cardinal George framed his remarks within the cooperative efforts undertaken… Read More
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29 responses
A fascinating New York Times article and follow up blog post discuss negative reactions to a build-on-common-ground Christian missionary initiative among Muslims. The blog post details: An outreach technique that some Baptist missionaries use with Muslims. It involves stressing commonalities between the Koran and the Bible and affirming that the Allah of the Koran and the God of the Bible are one and the same. . . . The “overture” — the missionary’s initial bonding with Muslims via discussion of the Koran — is precision-engineered to undermine their allegiance to Islam. This approach is quite similar to what I learned… Read More
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16 responses
The other night as we were getting ready for bed, my wife said, “You know Dane, I really miss laughing. I don’t mean like little *he he he* laughs, I mean deep, cleansing laughter.” And she’s right. Between children, school, and the pressures of responsible adult life, laughter kind of got lost somewhere. I don’t really have any special insights on this one, but I’d love to hear the collective wisdom of the moms and dads out there: where do you and your spouse find carefree fun in your family? Read More
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Genesis 40 Verse 1: How long do you think “after these things” might represent, a long time or a short time? Why do you think we hear nothing further about Potiphar’s wife and what became of her? Verse 2: Note that “butler” is probably better translated “cup bearer,” and “baker” is probably better translated “royal scribe.” These are important palace officials. Does that suggest anything about the prison director’s thoughts about Joseph? Why doesn’t the writer tell us anything about how they have made the Pharaoh angry? Are we supposed to see a parallel between the servants of Pharaoh who… Read More
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13 responses
Norbert at BCC recently shared this reminiscence about his wilder days at BYU. What struck me most was the conversation in the comments between Norbert and his friends and acquaintances from those days. I caught glimpses of magical people from a mystical (or mythical?) time. Read More
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15 responses
Havelock Ellis said, “It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.” I think the word “obscene” here denotes not mere prurience or crudeness, but more generally the will to defy social expectations. It is in this sense that the title character in Cool Hand Luke is obscene, with his Nietzschean will to power. Read More
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20 responses
When asked why life is hard, the Sunday school teachers of my youth replied, “Life is a test. It’s supposed to be hard.” The scriptures support the life-as-test perspective — a “probationary state” where we “prove” ourselves. Of course, if life is a test, then that means it’s designed to prepare us for what comes next. We test medical students on anatomy (as opposed to, say, Russian grammar) because knowing anatomy will help them after they’ve graduated. So if I can be justified in taking the life-as-test perspective seriously, perhaps I can draw some inferences about the next life by… Read More
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84 responses
I’m sitting in my organizational management class right now. That (combined with having just finally finished Lengthen Your Stride, which opened my eyes to the challenge of managing a global organization) has got me thinking about why the church is structured the way it is. Many attributes of the church that we like to complain about here in the bloggernacle serve very useful purposes in maintaining cohesion across dozens of nations and millions of people. Here are some ponderings, none of which are grounded in anything other than my teacher’s lecturing and my own mental meanderings, so take them for… Read More
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161 responses
Well known LDS political pundit Glenn Beck recently told his radio listeners that they should leave churches with the words “social justice” or “economic justice” on their websites: I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!” This overheated rhetoric has already drawn fire from Catholics and Protestants. But it’s not just Protestants and Catholics who are in trouble. In fact, if Glenn… Read More
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15 responses
I love General Conference. And not just because I get to have Couch Church. I love everything about it. We generally spend a couple of weeks in our family revving up for the semi-annual event. We’ve found lots of ways to make General Conference memorable. I love holidays. Every single one. Even Labor Day. I love the traditions and food and fun and family and music and memories. And Easter is a holiday that is filled with good things. One of my favorites was dreamed up by my mom when I was in late elementary school. She “decorated” our house… Read More
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Genesis 34 What was the sin of Dinah’s brothers? Was it that they took vengeance? Reread the Abrahamic covenant to see what it promises, and think about that covenant as it relates to this event. Did they violate that covenant? How does this chapter portray Jacob? Beyond the rape, what does Shechem do, through his father, that is an affront to Jacob and his sons? For an excellent discussion of this chapter, read Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative 445-475. Chapters 37-47 It is obvious that, like we who try to study and teach the large amounts of material… Read More
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9 responses
Chapter Five: The Creation Read More
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I will concentrate my questions on Genesis 25:19-34 and 27:1-45, and I will add Genesis 33:1-20 to the reading because I think it rounds out the story of Genesis 27. Chapter 25 Verse 19: We expect a genealogy to follow when we are told, “these are the generations of so-and-so,” but here none follows. What meaning does the word “generations” have in this verse? Does that tell us anything about the usual meaning of genealogy? Does it add any depth to our understanding of genealogy? The form of this genealogy is unusual in that it first mentions Isaac and then… Read More
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86 responses
Sleep: it’s more important than you think, especially for teenagers. Here’s from George Will’s latest column, “How to ruin a child“: Only 5 percent of high school seniors get eight hours of sleep a night. Children get an hour less than they did 30 years ago, which subtracts IQ points and adds body weight. Read More
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33 responses
I fell in love almost simultaneously, as a junior in high school, with historical linguistics and Hugh Nibley. Read More
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18 responses
I have been researching Reynolds v. United States (1879), the Supreme Court’s first polygamy case, on and off for several years. For those who are interested, my paper on the topic is now available for download at SSRN. Reynolds is an important case in American constitutional history, because was the first time the U.S. Supreme Court ever passed on the meaning of the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of religion. Historians have generally situated the case within the context of the post-Civil War politics of Reconstruction. The anti-polygamy crusade kicked off by Reynolds is seen as an extension of Reconstruction… Read More
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14 responses
“Once upon a time, numberless spirits inhabited the vast chaos of space and unorganized matter. They exercised their minuscule powers to organize little creations, but these quickly vanished in the swirling chaos, like sand castles against the tide. Having spent an eternity without achieving any lasting accomplishments, these spirits mostly just despaired and drifted. One of these spirits, however, discovered the skill (perhaps through ingenuity, or perhaps just through persistence and luck) to build works that could endure the chaos. So, with much effort and with limited power, he began to build a habitation from the unorganized matter around him.… Read More
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8 responses
A new issue of The Mormon Review is available, with David K. Jones’s review of You’ll Never Walk Alone by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. The article is available at: David K. Jones, “You’ll Never Walk Alone: The Mormon Church, Proposition 8, and British Soccer,” The Mormon Review, vol.2 no. 1 [HTML] [PDF] For more information about MR, please take a look at the prospectus by our editor-in-chief Richard Bushman (“Out of the Best Books: Introducing The Mormon Review,” The Mormon Review, vol.1 no.1 [HTML][PDF]). In addition to our website, you can have The Mormon Review delivered to your inbox.… Read More
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49 responses
When we read Genesis, what exactly are we reading? The distinctions and categories we modern readers bring to books and narratives (fiction or nonfiction; science or folk tale; history or literature; poetry or prose; author’s original text or quoted source) may not serve us well when we read the Old Testament, a collection of ancient literature. Its writers used different conventions. What were they? What exactly are we reading when we read Genesis? Read More
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I repeat the reminder: these are notes for study rather than notes for a lesson. Of course study notes can help one prepare a lesson, but my intention is less to help teachers prepare lessons (though I have no objection whatever to them finding my notes useful for that purpose, if they do) than it is not help class members prepare to participate in the lessons taught. Those who use these notes should feel free to add to them with their own comments and observations—and, of course, corrections. Because there is so much material to cover I’m going to abbreviate… Read More
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22 responses
I love my God. He loves me. Sometimes I suffer, and sometimes there is nothing He can do about it, and I love that. I love my God because He is limited, like me. He prepares my way to eternal joy, but He does not put me there. Why not? Is it because He chooses not to? How disgusting would that be? An almighty God who could obviate suffering by obviating the need for suffering, but who chooses not to? An almighty God who could save all His children, but allows some to burn in hell? What a horrible God… Read More
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25 responses
We human beings don’t handle technological progress very gracefully. Those of us who have spent years doing things “the hard way” can feel cheated when suddenly someone invents an easy way. Take, for example, the ballpoint pen. This little invention (and its immediate predecessors) essentially obsoleted centuries of tradition in penmanship, calligraphy, and pen care. And it’s not just pens. The same thing happened with the advent of painkillers. Or television. Or typewriters. This sort of change leads to all kinds of post hoc justifications for why the old way is better. We don’t like to feel like suckers. We… Read More
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50 responses
Many Mormons find that many Christian discussions are compatible with Mormon belief. We cheerfully borrow from C.S. Lewis, for instance, simply adding a Mormon gloss to Lewis’s statements; we happily listen to Switchfoot or Joy Williams. The idea of adding upon a Christian foundation has become popular in missionary discussion, as well. President Hinckley said, “To people everywhere we simply say, You bring with you all the good that you have and let us add to it.” This approach is a popular one, and is often viewed as a friendly gesture, a recognition that Christian belief is foundational in Mormonism.… Read More
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13 responses
The sweaters that these penguins are wearing are designed to save their lives after oil spills off of the Australian coast. They were knitted by Aussie Relief Society sisters. Who says that LDS service projects aren’t fun? (And as Nate asked last time: Who got to put them on the penguins?) (Picture courtesy of LDS Newroom; originally linked in this prior T&S post.) This picture is part of our ongoing series highlighting Mormon images. Comments to the post are welcome; all comments should be respectful. In addition we invite you to submit your own images to the Mormon Image series.… Read More
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72 responses
Here’s a quote from Lesson 7, “The Abrahamic Covenant,” that caught my attention in Sunday School: The great majority of those who become members of the Church are literal descendants of Abraham through Ephraim, son of Joseph. Those who are not literal descendants of Abraham and Israel must become such, and when they are baptized and confirmed they are grafted into the tree and are entitled to all the rights and privileges as heirs. Read More
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16 responses
An oft-quoted passage from our Bible Dictionary states that “only the home can compare with the temple in sacredness.” This statement has been concretely validated in the birth of our children. No experience I have ever had has compared in holiness with our experiences of welcoming our children into this world and into our home. For me, this picture captures a great deal of what my faith is. The baby, a few minutes old, is being weighed. In the mirror you see my wife (taking the picture), myself, our baby, and the midwife mediator who helped us bring our daughter… Read More