So it’s vouchers time in Utah. Here are what I see as the relevant issues, minus the apocalyptic rhetoric: Read More

A Evangelical classmate of mine discovered an easy tactic for bothering his Mormon classmates, that often required him only to occasionally omit the letter B or W from a sentence. In discussion about the church, he would conspicuously mention the name “Spencer Kimball,” or “Gordon Hinckley,” or “Ezra Benson.” This drove many of my Mormon classmates batty. It seemed to be a great moral wrong to refer to “Gordon Hinckley” without the intervening B. Read More

This weekend, Princeton will host an interdisciplinary conference to discuss the contested intersection between religion and American politics. Speakers include Richard Bushman, Richard Land, Kathleen Flake, Philip Barlow, Marci Hamilton, Alan Wolfe, Helen Whitney, Mark Silk, Noah Feldman, Sarah Barringer Gordon, Stephen Macedo, Thomas Griffith, Melissa Proctor, Robert George, Russell Arben Fox, Chris Karpowitz, David Campbell, John Green, and Francis Beckwith. Read More

I’m tired of waiting around for Mormonism to develop the rich extra-biblical tradition of our Christian friends. Let’s get the ball rolling! Read More

My God paints the skies for me. Read More

Don’t forget, this weekend is Sunstone East, organized by blogoddess Kristine Haglund. Read More

November is TV sweeps month, where networks and stations vie for audiences to set their advertising rates for the coming months. Read More

1. I don’t like Halloween. When we moved to Germany, I was looking forward to spending a couple years without interference from the least export-worthy American holiday celebration I can imagine. 2. Since I was last here, Halloween has been exported to Germany. Read More

A while back the chattering class got its knickers in a knot about demography. Read More

So, that costume you’re going to wear to your ward Halloween party tonight? The one you’ve been working on for weeks? The one that you’ve consulted your parents/spouse/children/roomates/bishop/stake high council about? The one that manages to be simultaneously perfectly orthodox as well as moderately heretical, perhaps even a little risque? The one you’re so proud of? Well, no offense, but maybe you should just chuck it and go as Bozo the Clown. Because you see, the World’s Most Perfect Mormon Halloween Costume has already been done–it was done, in fact, two years ago. And we’ve got the evidence, right here.… Read More

Which of the following statements would you agree with? 1. A school voucher system should be put into place, to more easily allow parents to remove their children from sometimes-deficient public schools and place them in more appropriate, parent-selected educational environments. Read More

Today’s LA Times has a longish article on the recent official announcement of Richard Bushman as the Howard W. Hunter Visiting Professor in Mormon Studies, in the School of Religion at the Claremont Graduate University in Southern California. [There is also a story at the Salt Lake Tribune.] The appointment as a visiting professor is an interim post until the endowed chair is fully funded. The article makes some interesting comments. Read More

Are all of us praying to Mother in Heaven, unawares? Read More

I have been doing research lately on the resolution of civil disputs in Mormon courts in the nineteenth century. Last week, I presented some of my research at the American Society for Legal History conference at ASU. I recorded my presentation and made it into an episode for the Law Talk podcast that I do through the Concurring Opinions law blog. Here is a link to my talk, which is about 25 minutes long. Enjoy! Read More

True or false: Mormons believe God is a married couple. (To receive credit, you must explain your answer. ) Read More

Before there were Young Men and Young Women, there were the Young Men’s and Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Associations. Before there were correlated lesson manuals and basketball and scouting and Young Womanhood awards and dancing-a-Book-of-Mormon’s-width-apart there were homemade programs. Read More

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is building a university from the ground up. It is to be much less conservative than other Saudi institutions, but is explicitly based in Muslim values. This opens some very exciting possibilities. Read More

And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. Joel 2:30-31 (Photo: San Diego Fire Moon, originally uploaded by Tamara Hart, link via Exponent II) Read More

Note: this post begins a series of posts on President Beck’s recent conference talk. If you feel the need to vent your dislike of the talk, I imagine that you might possibly be able to find a thread somewhere in the Bloggernacle where you can do just that. But you can’t do it here. Read More

We’re about ten miles from the danger zone, living in the shadow of the fire. Read More

The textbook I used when I taught freshman comp at BYU contains an essay by Gilbert Highet titled “Diogenes and Alexander.” This well embellished tale recounts the legendary maybe-it-happened, maybe-it-didn’t visit that Alexander the Great paid to the notorious Cynic philosopher at Corinth. Read More

We don’t often refer to Christ as the morning star, although there’s good scriptural precedent for the metaphor, and several 16/17th century Lutheran hymns (my particular target of religious envy) make use of it. Read More

Josiah Quincy famously wrote that, “Of the multitudinous family of Smith, from Adam down (Adam of the “Wealth of Nations,” I mean), none had so won human hearts and shaped human lives as this Joseph. His influence, whether for good or for evil, is potent today, and the end is not yet.” Was he right? And does this still hold true today? Where does Joseph rank, within the multitudinous family of Smith, in present-day influence? Read More

It’s easy to forget how much time LDS teenagers spend in LDS classrooms, roughly seven hours per week. Are they learning anything? That’s a fair question, as the “classroom model” that governs teaching hasn’t changed much over the years, but students have. Read More

Here are today’s Evans Bull-Bear Political Indicators. Read More

We get a fair number of visitors from the search string, “Times and Seasons.” I’m sure a portion of these are actually looking for the blog; and others may be after discussion of the general concept (which isn’t solely a Mormon idea). But I’m sure some of them are actually looking for an online version of the old Mormon periodical. Where do you go if you want to read the original Times and Seasons? Here (scanned-in pages; scroll down); here (description and search link); here (transcriptions). (All links via the amazing Ardis Parshall.) Any other questions? Read More

“A new century dawns upon the world today. The hundred years just completed were the most momentous in the history of man upon this planet. It would be impossible in a hundred days to make even a brief summary of the notable events, the marvelous developments, the grand achievements, and the beneficial inventions and discoveries, which mark the progress of the ten decades now left behind in the ceaseless march of humanity. The very mention of the nineteenth century suggests advancement, improvement, liberty, and light. Happy are we to have lived amidst its wonders and shared in the riches of… Read More

I haven’t been watching this issue very closely, but if I understand correctly, Read More