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52 responses
I am not sure how an open thread on Priesthood Session will work, but let’s give it a try. I hope someone will provide summaries of the talks to provide a basis for the conversation. Read More
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128 responses
Ready for Round Two? Here is the open thread for the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference. Read More
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9 responses
I just finished reading Mormon Lives: A Year in the Elkton Ward and–wow–what an amazing book. It reminds me of Saints Well Seasoned: Musings on How Food Nourishes Us–Body Heart, and Soul. Not only were both books quirky little takes on Mormonism, but neither seems to be very well known. What LDS titles do you think deserve more attention than they are getting? Read More
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107 responses
This is an open thread for discussions of the Saturday morning session of General Conference. Read More
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10 responses
Over the past few years, we have been watching General Conference at home. I know this is old hat in Utah and some other regions, but it’s a relatively recent innovation in the nether regions, enabled by the internet, satellite television, or certain cable providers. For families with children, General Conference in the home is a huge blessing, though sometimes I feel a bit of nostalgia for the old days. Read More
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39 responses
Q: So Dave, how did you come up with the idea for LDSelect? A: It’s a long story. The concept goes back to when I was dating Fawn Brodie, a few months after I got kicked out of Hogwarts . . . Read More
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8 responses
Should “providential history” be left to seers? Is it ever possible in a pluralistic world to persuasively ferret out meaning in the chaotic and seemingly arbitrary movement of history? Read More
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72 responses
Imagine an LDS woman, 18 years old, who has lived her entire life far from the centers of Mormonism. Next fall, she plans to attend BYU. What will she experience? Read More
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16 responses
I just checked, and my last post on T&S was in January. Although I have never experienced a period of prolonged inactivity in my Church life, this posting drought has caused me on more than one occasion to reflect on the state of mind of “believing inactives.” Read More
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25 responses
Easter celebrations and the lack thereof have been a hot topic recently; if you want to add something to your celebration of this season, I highly recommend this book. Read More
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58 responses
It happened not long ago. I started getting emails from something called the Cambridge Stake MSA. As is my habit with all mass mailings, I deleted the first few without reading them, but after a while I noticed them and realized that I didn’t know what MSA stood for. Turns out MSA is the “Middle Singles,” which is everyone 30-50 years old who isn’t married. In the eyes of the church, I am no longer a “Young Single Adult.” I’m just a “Single Adult.” I am now officially old. Read More
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13 responses
I can’t take credit for this idea–these are sometimes called Resurrection Eggs and they’ve been around for a few years. Read More
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21 responses
Elijah Abel is one of the more important figures in the history of Mormonism. Read More
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148 responses
In light of the recent publicity surrouding the Buckley Jeppson case, I thought that some readers might be interested in this post from a couple of years ago. It goes, I think, to the question of the significance of the Canadian-sanctioned marriage of Jeppson and his partner. I am not offering this post as a theological gotcha to homosexual-rights activists. I am well-aware of the pain and difficulty caused by the current stance of the Church toward homosexuality. I would like to see a better resolution than the one that we currently have. However, it seems to me that any… Read More
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32 responses
It happened in the mid-seventies, one summer afternoon, in the Swiss Temple at Zollikofen. Read More
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15 responses
The October 2004 New Era was a special issue dedicated to marriage and dating. As a member of a singles ward, I was encouraged to read the issue, so I did. Frankly, it was to me more a source of hilarity than inspiration– probably at least in part because I was almost twice the age of their target audience. One of my roommates and I amused ourselves for a couple of hours reading our favorite passages aloud and laughing our heads off. Read More
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29 responses
Last Friday and Saturday, I participated in a panel at the Miller-Eccles group, on the topic of Mormon blogging. Read More
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69 responses
So yesterday I was hanging out after church waiting for my Elder’s Quorum President to finish his business so my companion and I could home teach him. Read More
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23 responses
We are pleased to present to you John David Payne as a guest blogger. Read More
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15 responses
When we are not in our “Mormons are not weird”-PR mode, Read More
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21 responses
Do historians also need to be credible witnesses in the evidentiary sense? I think they do. Read More
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71 responses
Yes, really. Actual fun–even laughing. With feminists! Read More
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Book of Mormon, Church History, Cornucopia, General Doctrine, Latter-day Saint Thought, Law, Life in the Church
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32 responses
Not too long ago, I stumbled across the PBS presentation of Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel (2d ed. 1999). It reminded me of dealing with the book at college and enjoying the ideas presented and the sweeping take of world history that it offered. But while watching the presentation and contemplating the message of the book itself, I was reminded about how much Diamond’s whole analysis depends solely on inference from extremely scant historical evidence.[1] Read More
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29 responses
Thanks to The Atlantic, I’m in the middle of reading the book From the Hook of Holland to the Horn of Constantinople. When the author was in his late teens in the early 30s, he decided on a whim to walk across Europe and this is his memoir. Read More
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19 responses
Lesson 14: Exodus 15-20, 32-34 Read More
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47 responses
Mermaids illustrate the problems faced by non-Mormon readers of Mormon histories Read More
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44 responses
So maybe I missed something, but I’m pretty sure that one genre the Saints haven’t touched is black comedy. I’m not much of a narrative writer, though, so think of the following as sitting on little scraps of paper on a rickety table in my front yard with a hand-lettered cardboard sign next to them reading ‘Free to a Good Home.’ Read More
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46 responses
Why does Mick Jagger’s observation ever come as a surprise, to any of us? Read More