September 19 is Talk like a Pirate Day. But every day is Talk like a Pirate Day for me. Arrrr! Read More

For some of us, lapsed subscriptions are a way of life. The parade of reminder cards, the inevitable gaps in coverage — they are as familiar as morning and evening. On rare occasions, this trait leads to vistas the zealously up-to-date subscriber will never see. Read More

Common knowledge holds that Eliza’s poetic lines in O My Father are the only spot that the Heavenly Mother doctrine broke through into mainstream Mormon discourse; that the radical doctrine, taught by Joseph Smith, was preserved only through the valiant efforts of the poetess; that no one else really thought it necessary to celebrate the concept. Common knowledge is wrong. Read More

With all the recent attention to Mitt Romney’s polygamous ancestors, I’m surprised no one has yet commented on the really colorful and interesting ancestor, a decorated Prussian soldier who emigrated to the U.S., marched with the Utah Expedition against the Mormons in 1857, then deserted the army and sought asylum in Salt Lake City, eloping with his Iron Cross. Read More

The ones that you love — well, you love them. And the ones that you hate? They exist to make you stronger. They may be a test. Or, you may be there to help others. Therefore, all callings are good. Read More

Again this summer, Richard Bushman and Terryl Givens will be leading a summer seminar for graduate students on early Mormon thought. The application deadline has been extended to March 2nd, so there is still time to apply (just!). Read More

To read the previous sections of this essay, go here (Part I), here (Part II), and here (Part III). Read More

To read the first section of this essay, go here (Part I) and here (Part II). Read More

To read the first section of this essay, go here. Read More

The following is an essay that I wrote several years ago and never published. I have divided the essay into four posts that will run over the next couple of days. Academics regularlly present unpublished papers at workshops where they get feedback and criticism. I want to experiment with a blog-based version of the same thing in which folks offer thoughts and criticism of the essay as they read it. Enjoy! Read More

I thought this was interesting. Read More

A post for Ash Wednesday, and Lent, and the promise of spring. Read More

We’ve been happy to have P. Anderson, a.k.a. Starfoxy, as a guest blogger. As expected, her posts were always interesting. You can find a list of her guest posts (at many bloggernacle sites) on her blog, here. And I expect we’ll see her around the nacle, with her usual thoughtful comments. Thanks for being our guest, Starfoxy! Read More

After we got the DVD player, the videos slowly fell out of circulation. They had no special features, no subtitles — and they required rewinding! Some were a bit worn, too — particularly the kids videos. So we were all too happy to make the switch, becoming a DVD household. Natural pack-rat tendencies meant that the videos didn’t get truly tossed — they just got put into a box. Meanwhile, new movie purchases for the past several years — Cars and Monsters Inc. and Batman Begins and whatnot — have been on DVD. Read More

After transcribing Julie’s papers, which surprisingly took only a few weeks since they were so interesting that I became fanatical about transcribing during the day and polishing a translation at night, I gave a presentation to the Archives staff about their newest collection. Read More

Church Doctrine is a ubiquitous idea among Mormons, but in some ways it is quite mysterious. Read More

In the Age of Too Much Information, we may forget the unrelenting forces of fire, vermin, carelessness, ignorance, vandalism, damp, and neglect that have destroyed so much of the written evidence of history. Read More

T&S reader and political junkie Marc Bohn is often the first to notice any new Romney material. There were a slew of articles this weekend that discussed Romney and Mormonism, covering all sorts of interesting ground, and Marc has put together this synopsis, with links, of several of the most interesting: Read More

The southern German and Austrian greeting Grüß Gott! ‘may God greet [you]’ is perceived by many local members and American missionaries as a too-frequent or otherwise inappropriate use of a divine title. Read More

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On February 24, 1856, Brigham Young delivered a blistering attack on lawyers and law courts. Read More

I’m a sentimental guy, but really. I received the following email today from the BYU alumni association: Read More

Over the past couple of weeks, four things I’ve recently read have continued to stick in my mind: Nate’s post on the power (or lack thereof) of prayer, Kaimi’s post–and the ensuing long thread–on his daughter’s desire to wear a cross, an extremely thoughtful FARMS review of an apparently equally thoughtful book about Mormonism by an Anglican priest…and finally, Matthew 5. Taken together, they make me wonder why we Mormons think about Christ’s atonement the way that we do. Read More

A couple of weeks ago we had stake conference, and among other things the visiting authority talked about “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” Among many good and true things, he said that we ought to treat the Proclamation as scripture and that the only reason it was not added to the Doctrine & Covenants is because President Hinckley didn’t want us to all have to go out and buy new scriptures. I don’t want to read too much into what was clearly an off the cuff remark, but this struck me as a rather facile attempt to explain… Read More

The buzz pervades the chapel. The whispers assemble to an insistent setting escorting the speaker’s voice over the sound system. The multiple murmurs from all corners of the audience spawn a hum that any outsider would consider disturbing. But we are used to it – our own relentless liturgical sound. Read More

We’ve all heard something like this before: “I can’t really claim credit for what I’m about to read, because it came to me as inspiration. God is the author.” The follow up is usually a poem which compares faith (or some other virtue) to a gate/ not a fate/ Spirits’ bait/ please don’t wait—or something Edgar A. Guest might have composed. You do not say anything. You do not voice the words in your head (“God must’ve been having a really bad day”) because you respect the sincerity of the writer—and maybe you recognize your own arrogance. (Surely the Spirit… Read More

In the Pentateuch, we find two ways of doing wrong. There is the more familiar sequence where a person sins by violating divine law and must atone for the guilt, but also the sequence where a person becomes unclean through contact with a tabooed person or object and must be ritually cleansed. Read More

From March 2004 to February 2007 is approximately 10,000 blogyears. Read More

Thousands of French Protestants fled to Switzerland during the religious wars of the 16th century. One such family settled in the village of Saules, in Neuchatel. Read More