Here is my personal legal analysis of the “Marriage Protection Amendment” that is pending before the U.S. Senate. Read More

In the sacrament we experience, as the hymn would have it, “communion sweet.” Why does that communion require bread and water, or analogs to them? Read More

I am not longer an attorney. Read More

The nacle has been around for some time now, and a culture of inside jokes and insider language has sprung up with terms like monkeys, peaches, fondue, chupacabras (chupacabrim?), and Bannergate. Nacle newcomers may find the local patois a bit off-putting. This post, intended as a basic field guide, may serve as a starting point for newbies. Read More

There have been some very strong posts of late in the bloggernacle. Two of particular note: -Guest-Eve at FMH* has a very thought-provoking post on Forgiving the Church. She begins, “the Church has brought me both the most profound and beautiful and some of the most heart-wrenching experiences of my life” — and it gets better from there. Don’t miss it! -Deborah at X2** writes “Making Sense of Sunday,” a post about love and loyalty and judgment and compassion (and as a bonus, it discusses SSM too!). Yet another don’t-miss. (Other strong recent offerings come from Serenity at LDSLF about… Read More

We have tentatively turned on comments for the past month’s posts, and those posts only. We hope that this will limit the spam and keep the database running. We’re keeping a close eye on the server. If it gets unstable, though, we will close comments again. (So if you’re posting a 32-paragraph novel in comments, make sure to save it as a Word doc first.) We’re looking into other possible technical solutions, and welcome feedback and suggestions. Read More

Eons ago in blog time, I did a post called “An Open Letter to the Dialogue Editorial Board.” Read More

A week ago, I spoke in church on the subject of charity. My talk focused on some questions from 1 Cor. 13 and Moroni 7. Read More

Maria, a seventy-five-year-old widow, member of our tiny Mormon branch, had asked me to meet her at a Notary’s office. She wanted me to be the executor of her will. I reluctantly agreed, remembering the council of a friend to avoid that kind of responsibility. But since I was the branch president… Read More

A few posts that I’ve noticed of late: -Bob Caswell at BnL asks how we tell the difference between doctrine and history. E.g., why is the Word of Wisdom doctrine while polygamy is merely history — and how are these decisions made? -Kathleen at some-other-blog writes on free agency and choices: How does our situation influence our choices and our agency, and how does that combination influence the consequences of our choices? –Lynette at ZD asks what it means to translate Christ’s life into our own actions. “I don’t think the question, ‘what would Jesus do?’ is always all that… Read More

Letter from First Presidency of the Church to Church Leaders in the United States We are informed that the United States Senate will on June 6, 2006, vote on an amendment to the Federal constitution designed to protect the traditional institution of marriage. Read More

The feel and smell of kangaroo fur is a central part of my understanding of Mormonism. Read More

Weimar Germany was a tremendously sophisticated and creative place. Read More

It happened last night, around midnight, on a near-empty gym floor, after I took a break from grading exams to go work out for a while. I’ve found that I can’t control these things, really — I just take them where they fall, and sometimes, wonderfully, they fall on me. Read More

I don’t really believe in coincidences since my last visit to Palmyra, New York, where I learned of the deep relationship between jello and Mormonism Read More

This morning the five-year-old was first, in the kitchen just before nine. Read More

“Utah has the nation’s highest rate of depression among thirty-seven-year old ambidextrous Battlestar Galactica fans named Zeb.” (That’s based on rock-solid statistical statistickizing.) However, “Utah [also] has the lowest rate of Tuesday afternoon divorce of any mountainous state located west of the Mississippi.” Read More

My wife and I read The Da Vinci Code two years ago. Describing the book on T&S, I used "clumsy," "tedious," and "implausible" in one sentence. When I saw that the film was getting panned by the critics, I was not very excited about seeing it, but Friday is "date day" for my wife and me, and we decided to judge for ourselves. I thought the movie was better than the book. Much better. Read More

There are a few passages of scripture that, it seems to me, get surprisingly little play in Mormon discourse, despite the fact that they speak clearly and forcefully about issues of interest. Read More

Earlier this week the Utah Supreme Court issued its opinion in State v. Holm. If you are interested in Mormonism, law, history, or (best of all!) Mormon legal history, you ought to read it. Read More

Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson once famously remarked, “We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.” Does this adage apply to the church as well? Read More

Yesterday saw an interesting thread at BCC on the question of what sorts of procedures could we imagine for creating better feedback from members to leaders within the Church. Read More