Today is Whitsunday on the Christian liturgical calendar, a holiday in honor of the Day of Pentecost. Not quite four years ago, in June of 2005, I wrote something about the gifts demonstrated on that day, and about those–decidedly less spetacular–gifts which I believe I have. I’m somewhat proud of it; I think it is one of the more honest things I’ve ever written about myself. The text is below; you might want to check out the comments on the original post as well. Read More

And for thousands of Latter-day Saints who will be delivering a Mother’s Day talk tomorrow, it is looming large. Expectations are high and scriptural sources are limited. Read More

There’s a reasonable chance that all efforts to situate the Book of Mormon over the last 180 years, geographically, culturally, and chronologically, are based on the Nephite version of the Donation of Constantine. But first, let’s talk about Odin. Read More

If one more Mormon tells me to see Expelled, I am going to scream. Read More

Read and discuss. Read More

Gertrud Specht had been a searcher her whole life before she found what she was looking for Read More

Chapters 9 and 10 of Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again deal with purported photographs of Joseph Smith, including the Scannel daguerreotype. Read More

According to various news outlets the Catholic Church has ordered its dioceses to not allow Mormons access to parish registers any more. For decades, our Church has copied and preserved millions of pages of parish registers around the world, as part of the injunction to seek out ancestors and perform ordinances in their behalf. There are probably still millions of pages out there, uncopied. Read More

Jared T. at Juvenile Instructor is posting a formal, detailed, academic review of S. Michael Tracy, Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again: The Joseph Smith Photograph (Salt Lake City: Eborn Pub., 2008), Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Read More

An old friend of mine (a former bishop, for whatever that’s worth) whom I keep in touch with by e-mail has spent much of the past decade working for the U.S. government in different capacities in Russia and Ukraine. In response to some recent news items regarding limits on visas to the former Soviet Union, I asked him to comment on how the church and the missionary program is fairing there. This is what he has to say. For security reasons, he asked that I post it without his name attached. Read More

1848 was a year of turmoil in Europe, with revolutions in France and Italy and Sicily and Germany and Poland and Romania and Moldavia and … and … and … the list seems nearly endless. Read More

Some bloggernacle women were troubled by the order of the solemn assembly: First, the Priesthood voted (all the way down to the 12-year-olds); they were followed by the women’s organizations. In a comment at FMH, Exponent blog’s Maria notes, “By having women vote after the Aaronic priesthood, it seemed as if the implication was made that those 12 year old boys either preside over or are more important than the women of the RS, including the General RS presidency. Either way, the message is harmful. I worry about the way this could make women and young women in the church… Read More

Well, probably not. But it’s certainly the biggest web I’ve ever seen, and it happens to be in my front yard so I’m especially…interested.  Read More

Like many people dependent upon care from others, M can be a tyrant. For instance, sensing my anxiousness during her feedings, when it’s crucial to get enough into her to sustain her plus stimulate her slow growth curve, she’s begun extorting favors. Sometimes she’ll demand to watch her favorite video over and over or else she won’t eat. She wrings the last drop of pleasure out of these viewings then collapses back into boredom. Then she grows irritable and stops eating again. Do something to entertain me, she pouts, or I’ll starve myself. Read More

2 August 1888: Elder Alma P. Richards, ten months into his missionary service and working without a companion, stopped at a hotel in Meridian, Mississippi and made arrangements with a porter to keep some books and clothing until the elder’s return, expected to be a few days later. Richards, on foot, left Meridian to visit friends just over the state line in Jasper County, Alabama. He was never heard from again. Read More

The Book of Mormon poses a thorny problem for assumptions about the history of scriptural texts, especially if it isn’t true Read More

Noah Millman concedes that the science of evolution is not incompatible with the truth of Christianity. But, he argues, the myth of evolution is incompatible with the myth of Christianity. I think science does have implications for the persuasiveness of specific religious doctrines, simply as a psychological matter. And I think evolution through natural selection is extremely uncongenial to the central Christian story about the nature of sin and evil in the world. Why? Because the Christian story has the entry of strife into the world come about as the result of human sin, whereas the core idea behind evolution… Read More

So there I was, staring the lavishness of my ignorance. I saw the presence it had in the world, how it could impoverish and destroy as efficiently as the most inspired scientific breakthrough could improve somebody’s standard of living. Before M was diagnosed, I saw my ignorance in a slanted light as I came to realize she wasn’t showing herself to me in a way I could understand. The light came up a little more when the nature and degree of her trouble dawned and our family found itself standing at a door we didn’t know for sure would open.… Read More

I didn’t blog about it at the time, although I thought about it. But now it’s up on You Tube, so here goes. Read More

Many parents with severely disabled children live life underground. Apart from society’s burbling mainstreams, they labor beneath the weight of exigent circumstances, dealing with mortal crises day by day. They monitor their child’s breathing, their sleeping, their every bodily function, often for years, developing a sense for delicate balances in their particular domestic environments. Grief has become part of these parents’ body chemistries. Read More

I have been listening to the papers that were presented at the recent conference of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology. At the conference there was a presentation on that perennial favorite, finisitist Mormon theodicies, in this case a nicely nuanced comparison of Mormon thinking with the process theology of David Griffin. I was disappointed, however, that the authors didn’t more squarely face the two strongest objections to Mormon finitist theodicies. Indeed, I have yet to see what I think of as adequate responses to either of these issues. Read More

The Third Commandment tells us not to take the Lord’s name in vain. And for some reason, this practice has become strongly ingrained in Mormon social norms — I can easily name a dozen Mormons who cuss like sailors and drop “F-bombs” regularly, but who would never dream of injecting a “God” or “Lord” into the sentence. But are we really getting it right? Is “God” really the Lord’s name, or is it just a title? And what exactly does the third commandment proscribe? Read More

Within the next few hours, T&S’s spam filter is going to announce that it has spared us from 100,000 offers of recreational pharmaceuticals, links to images of anatomically correct models in morally incorrect situations, promises of guaranteed wealth, solemn pleas from 12,394 persons of good moral character who need your help kindly Christian sir to transfer funds out of war-torn countries for to do the good Lord’s most benificent charitableness, and warnings that we will surely be cast down to the uttermost depths of hell unless we renounce our false Jesus and transfer allegiance to the god of the loving… Read More

Thanks to Raymond Takashi Swenson for his slate of intriguing and challenging posts over the past couple of weeks. Read More

If you’re not a subscriber to BYU Studies (why not?), make haste to the bookstore and pick up a copy of the latest edition. It’s a nearly 200-page chronology of Joseph Smith’s life (transcribing the chronology available online at josephsmith.byu.edu ). In the print version, events are color-coded by category as well as being listed by date. To call this compilation “extremely useful” would be a vast understatement. Simply put, this is a tool that every member should have access to. The information has been available for some time online (in a relatively little known spot), but putting in in… Read More