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45 responses
Over at my other blog, a reader posted the following question: On a related LDS family matter, many of us have been confronted by Mormon missionaries with a message, or even a free DVD, of “Families are Forever.” A sincere, respectful question: isn’t this motto a solution in search of a problem? That is, what Christian believes there is separation or division among the blessed in heaven? Of course, Jesus himself teaches in extremely plain and simple terms, and Christian history has always held, that there is no marriage in heaven as we know marriage. But, shared Christian belief realizes… Read More
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2 responses
Thanks to reader Clair for pointing this out in comments: The first issue of the Times and Seasons was published at Nauvoo. — 170 years ago today [err, yesterday] – Nov 15, 1839 . Happy birthday to us! Read More
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7 responses
Faith and charity get plenty of attention, but hope not so much. Pessimism, it seems, has become one of the guiding principles of modernity, reflected in the media, popular culture, and even academia. So I was surprised to find a philospher making the suggestion that children anchor our hope for progress and our conviction that life will be better for the next generation. Read More
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12 responses
In February, 2008, noted religious author Karen Armstrong was awarded the TED Prize, and her wish for the world was to gather a council of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and other spiritual leaders to draw up a “Charter for Compassion.” Read More
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7 responses
from Bill of Wasilla, who writes: Dad is the man who lies in this flag-draped coffin. I will not say too much about him for now, except that he was a good father and that, thanks to him, and many more like him, most of them gone now, the evil dream of a man named Hitler died in flames and blood. We buried Dad on June 2, 2007. He died on Memorial Day. Read More
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60 responses
Utah is not part of the Midwest. Idaho is also out. That is all. Read More
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9 responses
A new issue of The Mormon Review is available, with Russell Arben Fox’s review of Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford. The article is available at: Russell Arben Fox, “Getting Your Hands Dirty: Notes on How Mormons (and Everyone) Should Work,” The Mormon Review, vol.1 no. 8 [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… Read More
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20 responses
Each anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is a bit embarrassing for me. Read More
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76 responses
The persistence of love between a father and a son. Our most cherished relationships, our strongest commitments, laid bare in a book and a movie. Read More
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60 responses
Kaimi put up a sidebar link to a NYT piece on parenting. It had an interesting quote: “Fathers tend to do things differently, Dr. Kyle Pruett said, but not in ways that are worse for the children. Fathers do not mother, they father.” Read More
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31 responses
Let me begin by saying that I not only believe in the historicity of The Book of Mormon, I feel a deep and passionate commitment to our narrative. But this is a point on which I think Mormon historicitists, believers in a divine or human fiction, or any other type of good Mormon ought to be able to agree: The Book of Mormon is rich far beyond our nascent attempts to uncover. Read More
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20 responses
For over a year I’ve wanted to write a substantive post about the contradiction between two of the best-known biblical injunctions, “let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth” and “let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works.” Read More
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5 responses
The trial court in Reynolds v. United States gave the following jury charge, which the Supreme Court later found was proper and not inflammatory. I think it not improper, in the discharge of your duties in this case, that you should consider what are to be the consequences to the innocent victims of this delusion. Read More
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This is a statue of an angel in the cemetery where my first baby is burried. I like that she’s smiling. Death is heartbreaking but it’s not only sad. I am also filled with hope when I think about my son. He is alive and happy and we can be an eternal family. It has always been such a comfort to know that. Kirsten Obert Springville, UT Read More
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3 responses
[See Part 1: Founding] This second installment discussing Glen Leonard’s Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise looks at the middle years in Nauvoo through about 1842, covered in the second section of the book (pages 123 to 269). Read More
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82 responses
For the next several weeks, I attended church when I could. Participation often included lowering my eyes when the bishop or his first counselor walked by and gave me stern “We’re watching you” stares. In some ways the whole business interested me so I wasn’t suffering as much as some might suppose. But given the treatment of these two ward leaders, I did feel somewhat cordoned off. Perhaps that’s why when a prettily decorated invitation to a special R.S. council arrived in my mailbox, in a fit of high irritation, I nearly tossed it. Read More
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Preface. At the risk of running afoul of Nate’s post on turning the other cheek—that is, of appearing obnoxiously immodest and of proving myself once again impossibly dense—I’m telling a story about how I received one of the best lessons I’m still learning. It’s a long story and hopelessly self-referential. Over the last two decades, I’ve slowly awakened to my unfortunate condition: I don’t have access to the details of anybody else’s mistakes or near-mistakes as fully as I do to my own, so those stories where I made matters worse (or nearly did) and those which, surprisingly, erupted into… Read More
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6 responses
My sister studies outside the John Taylor building on the campus of Brigham Young University- Idaho. “..seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” D&C 88:118 by Blake Read More
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6 responses
Leftover Halloween candy languishes in its plastic pumpkin on top of the refrigerator; for the moment, the kids are satiated and I’m being good. All the sugar brings to mind a favorite hymn, “Jesus, the very thought of thee,” a few stanzas of which are here: Jesus, the very thought of Thee With sweetness fills the breast; But sweeter far Thy face to see, And in Thy presence rest. Read More
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6 responses
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cross posted at Civil Religion “Death be not proud,” taunted John Donne. “One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, / And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.” Death interrupts our view of eternity, a fearsome jalousie obscuring a future we must approach. Like Donne, we console and distract ourselves by turns with bravado, with pleasure, with laughter and—finally, always—with God. Read More
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Trivia fact for the day: the Mormon church operated a newspaper, the St. Louis Luminary, from November 1854 to December 1855. The periodical served the large community of transient Latter-day Saints, many of whom stopped in St Louis to replenish their strength (and funds) after the first leg of their journey to the Salt Lake Valley. In 1855, the paper commented, “There is probably no city in the world where Latter-day Saints are more respected, and where they may sooner obtain an outfit for Utah. … The hand of the Lord is in these things.” If you’re intrigued, and you… Read More
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22 responses
There’s an interesting new study from Pew about converts. Read More
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97 responses
Will same-sex marriage change the institution of marriage? Melissa Harris-Lacewell writes in The Nation that maybe, hopefully, it will. Read More
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20 responses
So the upcoming RS/MP lesson got me thinking: What exactly does the phrase “the dispensation of the fulness of times” actually mean? Read More
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31 responses
The language of turning the other cheek and Christian ethics in general can really get quite nasty. Read More
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45 responses
Halloween scares me. Of course, I’m scared of lots of things—poverty, cancer, rape, gang violence, Satan, etc. I thought I should admit that up front. Make of it what you will. Read More
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21 responses
So Slate keeps track of who it considers the most powerful octogenarians and President Monson tops the list. If ever there was a list where Mormons could shine that did not have to do with singing and dancing I guess it makes sense that it would be “powerful old men”. To loosely paraphrase President Hinckley, isn’t it wonderful to have somebody in there with decades of experience who is not moved about by every wind of doctrine? Read More
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38 responses
Cross-posted at Civil Religion. Last week the New York Times published a two–part series on artificial reproductive technologies. The series makes a riveting read, as writer Stephanie Saul narrates the joys and terrors of premature birth, high order multiples, NICU stays, and—finally, sometimes—the precious goal, a baby at home with a family. Read More
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24 responses
Photo by L-s Sus, who writes: The picture is of my wife and son and was taken at my sister’s wedding. It captures many themes that resonate with my concept of Mormon identity: Family, Motherhood, Nurturing, and Beauty. It also reminds me that we have benevolent heavenly parents who reach down and give assistance, and that we are just children in the grand scheme of things. Read More
