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30 responses
Over at Volokh, Maggie Gallagher makes the curious argument that society needs marriage because without marriage, people would be having children out of wedlock. Read More
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82 responses
In last General Conference, Elder Uchtdorf reiterated the 1999 counsel of the First Presidency, a counsel that has actually been given since the 1950s. Read More
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56 responses
Like Nixon, Times and Seasons maintains a detailed “enemies list.” Read More
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13 responses
It seems to have been a bicoastal weekend for real-world discussions of the bloggernacle. John Dehlin gave a great talk on blogs at the Seattle Sunstone Symposium (pod cast here), and I gave a brief presentation to Naomi Frandsen’s “Saturday Night Discussion Group” (a name that carries all sorts of unfortunate disco connotations for me.) Lacking the technical sophistication do a podcast, here is a shortened version of what I said: Read More
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16 responses
While I was running errands with my children one morning last week, I glanced up at the rearview mirror to see my four-year-old daughter’s finger probing her nostril. I reprimanded her, gently, and asked if she needed a tissue. “No thank you, Mom,” she answered cheerfully, “This kind comes out only by a fingernail, right?” Read More
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20 responses
In its latest issue, Time magazine “assembled some of the smartest people we know to identify the trends that are most likely to affect our future.” Read More
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62 responses
This season The University of Notre Dame has been airing a student recruiting advertisement called “Candle”. Read More
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12 responses
Last week Janice and I spent several days in Cornwall, Great Britain, with the BYU students doing London Study Abroad. Read More
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46 responses
Former T&S guestblogger, Naomi Frandsen has started a semi-formal discussion group for Capital-area Mormons. There first meeting will be this Saturday. Here is the announcement from Naomi: Read More
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14 responses
Ronan has a thoughtful post about his trip to Gettysburg and the meaning of war. For my part, I will always think of Gettysburg as the sacred soil on which I successfully wooed my wife. Read More
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37 responses
If you liked the recent President McKay biography, you are going to love the new biography of President Kimball. Read More
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110 responses
A long time ago, when I was a practicing lawyer, I concocted a scheme with another Mormon lawyer to raise an investment fund targeted at companies that cater to vices. Alcohol, tobacco, p0rn, etc. Read More
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57 responses
A not-so-hypothetical from a reader: Your daughter’s AP English class is using Tony Kushner’s Angels in America as a central part of a semester’s curriculum. You are friends with the teacher and would feel comfortable suggesting that she supplement the Angels module with another book or short story dealing with Mormonism from a different, hopefully “insider,” perspective. What work of Mormon literature would you suggest? Read More
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47 responses
One of the more prominent strands of modern political philosophy is what has been called “luck egalitarianism,” which of course raises basic questions for Mormon theology. Read More
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71 responses
Slate has an interesting photo-essay on the architecture of mega-churches. One of the featured buildings is the Conference Center in Salt Lake City (known among Church Historical Department employees as the “meganacle”). I was struck by the following bit of commentary from the essay: The approach of the architects, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca of Portland, Ore., shows the influence megachurches have had on mainstream religions. I’ve tried parsing this several ways, but it seems to me that the only way of reading it is as claiming that Mormons are a mainstream religion, as opposed to the evangelical megachurches. Read More
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127 responses
Last year, on November 2, I was still undecided about whether to cast a vote for George Bush. Read More
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74 responses
Last night Jon Heder, star of Napoleon Dynamite, hosted “Saturday Night Live.” I caught a few of the sketches he played in, and one thing was pretty clear: the kid’s no Philip Seymor Hoffman. He’s amiable and sweet-faced, to be sure, but there’s a muddiness to his voice he can’t seem to clear, and his mouth, for all its soft pliability, is suprisingly unagile with dialogue. I haven’t seen his latest effort, a supporting role in the romantic comedy Just Like Heaven, but in my judgment he doesn’t have either the chops or the charisma to make a career of… Read More
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“Intelligence” is one of those wonderfully ambiguous words in the scriptures. Read More
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160 responses
We’ve talked about homeschooling before, but once was Bryce’s baby and the other was a peripheral issue. Because people ask from time to time, I thought I’d set out my thoughts about homeschooling in a friendly Q-and-A format. Read More
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41 responses
This morning I attended the funeral of a young man, much too young to die. Read More
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40 responses
First it was Ginsburg. Read More
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46 responses
Over two years ago, I posted a series of posts on reasons to support the ACLU, and whether a Mormon could or should support the ACLU, on my personal blog. The discussion that ensued was one of the contributing factors to the formation of Times and Seasons. Given that the conversation around here turns to this topic from time to time, I thought it might be useful to move that set of posts over here. They are lightly edited for context and updating. (For the original posts, see here and here.) Read More
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64 responses
I’ve been concerned, lately, that blogging encourages a kind of discourse that we wouldn’t otherwise see in the Saints. I was wrong. Read More
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14 responses
Saturday afternoon on a rainy day in Antwerp. Read More
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As part of our occasional series of announcements on important Mormon Studies events, we’re happy to publicize an academic conference entitled “Joseph Smith and the Prophetic Tradition,” sponsored by the School of Religion of the Claremont Graduate University and to be held on its Southern California campus on October 20 and 21. Read More
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18 responses
Today is Rosh Hashanah, and everyone here at Times and Seasons wishes a happy new year to our Jewish friends. (Here are a few Jewish-themed posts from the past.) If there’s a synagogue here in Macomb, IL, I’m unaware of it, so there will be cultural dimension missing from our family celebrations tonight. Still, Melissa will make her chicken soup and challah bread, and we’ll share stories from the Old Testament with our children. I hope everyone reading this, both Jew and Gentile (and Mormon), does the same. Shana Tova, everyone! Read More
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42 responses
“Puzzling.” “Sordid.” “Audacious, provocative, and titillating.” Those descriptors might very well apply to this week’s box office sensation, but that’s not what this post is about. All of these terms (“Sordid” comes from the Institute Manual) were used to describe the tale told in Genesis 38. Read More
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97 responses
Keep up the good discussions, everyone. I, unfortunately, missed most of conference yesterday, so I very much appreciated the summaries of the afternoon and priesthood sessions. Read More
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197 responses
Thoughts? Questions? Inspirations? Opinions? Please share them here. Read More
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63 responses
In our recent tirades about the obvious evils of deer, it was noted , once again, that some scholars think that the horses mentioned in the Book of Mormon may not have been horses, but another hoofed animal. The common one that lives in the right place is similar to a deer. Unfortunately, such comments often are made in the context of how funny it is to think of riding deer into battle. Read More