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25 responses
I recently finished up Hans Kung’s Great Christian Thinkers, which reviews the work of seven theologians (Paul, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, and Barth). From an LDS perspective, the most interesting of the bunch is Friedrich Schleiermacher, who Kung terms “the paradigmatic theologian of modernity.” The question he presents to LDS readers is how our approach to religion and doctrine deals with modernity. Is our approach premodern, modern, or postmodern (which in theology generally means some version of neo-orthodoxy)? Read More
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42 responses
Some years ago I had the idea that Mormonism needs an “anti-defamation league”–a group that reviews news coverage and other public actions and publicly condemns those actions that clearly defame Mormons and Mormonism. But I’ve since decided that this is probably not a very workable idea. Read More
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34 responses
A few weeks ago my father retired after spending three decades working for the Church Historical Department. I’m no doubt guilty of an excess of filial piety, but I think that the Church and Kingdom are better for the work that he did. Read More
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32 responses
So, what is this scary Salamander Letter that the church is hiding from everybody? Read More
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135 responses
Hi. Read More
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4 responses
I ran across this Relief Society moment in the March 15, 1873 Woman’s Exponent. Maybe it will make you smile, too: Read More
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43 responses
Some years ago, I noticed a trend among female general auxiliary leaders. With few exceptions, they all lean (no pun intended) to the slimmer side of the LDS population at large (ahem). Much as missionaries have a particular grooming code, is there an unwritten appearance requirement for “upper-level” service? Read More
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16 responses
The church has a channel on YouTube called Mormon Messages. Yesterday they posted a new video titled, “Why Mormons Build Temples.” (Comments and ratings are not open on this video.) How do you think this will work as a response to the upcoming airing of recreated temple ceremonies (accurate or not)? Read More
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11 responses
From Ernest Renan, a French 19th-century philosopher: Forgetting, and I would say even historical error, is an essential element in the creation of a nation, and that is why the progress of historical studies is often a danger for the nation itself. Read More
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While uncounted thousands of visual artists have contributed their skills to building Zion, the Fairbanks dynasty holds a special place in the world of Mormon art history: John B. Fairbanks (1855-1940) was one of the art missionaries sent to Paris by the Church, who came home to paint murals for the temples. His sons J. Leo (1878-1946) and Avard T. (1898-1987) have a catalog that must amount to a hundred or more Mormon-themed works: Read More
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34 responses
In the spirit of President Hinckley’s six be’s, I’d like to submit some suggestions for visiting/home teaching etiquette. Here are my 12 be’s of assigned teaching. Please add your own! Read More
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9 responses
A couple of years ago, Noah Feldman published “Orthodox Paradox,” an essay in which he recounted some of the tensions of being an Orthodox Jew in the modern world (I ran across it reading The Best American Spiritual Writing 2008). Increasingly, being an orthodox anything in the modern world raises some of the same tensions. Read More
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12 responses
We are delighted to welcome Alison Moore Smith as a Times and Seasons guest blogger! Read More
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8 responses
Thursday night I heard a short piece on the radio that brought me close to tears. Part of NPR’s on-going series of personal essays called This I Believe, the segment illustrated for me the meaning of true forgiveness as perfectly as anything I’ve ever heard. The essay was delivered by two people, Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino. Ronald is a man who spent 10 1/2 years in prison for a crime he did not commit based primarily on testimony given by Jennifer, a woman who had mistakenly picked him out of a line-up as the man who had raped her. Read More
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125 responses
Do we have a right to wear garments? If we do, how far does that right go? What , kind of right is it? Is it a human right? Or a legal one that might disappear and reappear as we pass national boundaries? Read More
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Laura Liona Rees was born in Brigham City, Utah, in 1876, to LDS parents (her father had emigrated as a convert from England; her mother was born at Council Bluffs). With only an eighth grade, district school education, she studied for and passed the test to be licensed as a grade school teacher. Then she became one of the first women to attend Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) at Logan. Read More
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If you’re going to be disappointed by a J. Golden talk that doesn’t fit the swearing-elder stereotype, stop reading now. This isn’t that kind of J. Golden story. It is a talk the future Seventy gave to a small South Carolina branch in 1891 during a period when local members – including a woman – had been whipped and shot at, their homes ransacked, and the missionaries ordered out of the county at gunpoint. Read More
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Richard Turley, Will Bagley, and Forrest Cuch will present a panel discussion this coming Thursday (March 5) at Utah Valley University. These panelists have very, very different perspectives on the events at Mountain Meadows, so bringing them together should make for an exciting conversation. Read More
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15 responses
Since more people are budget-minded these days, I thought I’d begin an occasional series of frugal ideas. Read More
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11 responses
It’s hard for Mormons to find an accessible doorway into theology. David F. Ford’s short book Theology: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 1999) is the first I’ve found to really give me some traction with this elusive subject. Read More
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The original Keepapitchinin printed this “editorial” in 1870: Confidential. We have received the following letter: ”Dear Sir: – a confidential friend having notified us that you can be relied on we send you the enclosed circular.” Read More
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7 responses
There are a number of Mormon pamphlets and books that have achieved a kind of semi-canonical status within Mormon studies. Everyone agrees, for example, that Parley P. Pratt’s Key to the Science of Theology or John Taylor’s Mediation and Atonement are key texts for understanding nineteenth Mormon thought. If any evidence is needed, both texts, I believe, are still in print. At the very least both have produced modern reprints. I have a proposed addition to the canon, George Q. Cannon’s A Review of the Decision of the Supreme Court in the Case of Geo. Reynolds v. the United States. Read More
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30 responses
“And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed. He who hath faith to see shall see. He who hath faith to hear shall hear. The lame who hath faith to leap shall leap.” (D&C 42:48-51) Read More
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10 responses
Do you know of any good source dealing with Mormon attitudes toward and/or involvement in the Spanish-American War? Please give me your ideas in the comments. Thanks! Read More
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11 responses
From nearly the moment Thomas L. Kane walked into Mormon history in 1846, Latter-day Saint leaders promised that his name would long be honored by the Saints. In part, they wanted to bolster Kane’s determination to take the deeply controversial stance of defending the Mormons. When his father John, a powerful federal judge, learned of Kane’s decision to befriend the Mormons by traveling to their refugee camps in Iowa in 1846, he saw only potential ruin in associating with such a disreputable cause. “The case has no bright side,” he lamented, as Tom “is about to deal a blow to… Read More
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3 responses
Richard E. Turley will be speaking at the Wesley Theological Seminary this coming Sunday. Last year I posted a couple of notices about a great series of events that Greg Prince, co-author of David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, hosts every few months at his house in Potomac, Maryland. Read More
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Genesis and Geology Read More
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3 responses
Church Historian Marlin K. Jensen and Asst. Church Historian Richard E. Turley Jr. will be among the many speakers at this year’s BYU Church History Symposium. The event is free, open to the public, and requires no registration. More information can be found at the symposium web page. Full announcement below. Read More
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17 responses
I was intrigued by Adam’s link: “Legitimacy is the most precious resource of the state and should not be frittered away like this.” Read More
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9 responses
Scholars of Mormonism (like scholars of most topics) need to find ways to connect their subject to larger scholarly debates and frameworks. Mormon academics have used frameworks from American religious history to western history to the history of family and gender to legal studies. Another possibility is communal studies. Read More