For some, it was a modern-day miracle. For others, it was one of the disasters foretold for the last days. And whatever one’s religious affiliation, it is almost certainly a sign of the Apocalypse. Read More

No one else has commented on the recent First Presidency statement on Same-Gender marriage, so I’ll venture something. Forgive me if this has been hashed out before — I haven’t read all of the gargantuan threads in the archives. Read More

This should be a blog administrator post, but I’m not blog administrator. Anyway, I tracked down the bug in the comment code. Please let me know if you have any unexpected problems posting now by replying to this comment. Of course, if you are having problems posting, you might not be able to reply, but I don’t think this was that kind of bug — comments were still getting through before the fix. Read More

A year ago I met a French philosopher, Michel Juffé, at a conference on Levinas and psychology at Seattle University. In August of this year, I took part in a conference on loss that he sponsored at Cerisy-la-Salle, in Normandy. Read More

Sartre once remarked that “hell is other people.� The remark, I think, is revealing. In a sense the brand of existentialism pushed by Sartre represents the apotheosis of individualism. In the end, he offers nothing beyond the authenticity of personal choice, which becomes the ultimate source of meaning and value. His view of hell suggest that within this vision of heroic intellectual and moral self-sufficiency lies a rather nasty strand of misanthropy and solipsism. Joseph Smith’s vision of hell, I think, is equally revealing. Read More

Seinfeld fans will remember this memorable speech by George Costanza, contemplating the impending meeting of his fiancee Susan and his friend Elaine: George: You have no idea of the magnitude of this thing. If she is allowed to infiltrate this world then George Costanza as you know him ceases to exist. You see, right now I have Relationship George. But there is also Independent George. That’s the George you know, the George you grew up with… Movie George, Coffee Shop George, Liar George, Bawdy George. Jerry: I love that George. George: Me too, and he’s dying. If Relationship George walks… Read More

Rusty at Nine Moons has recently offered a tri-partite model of nudity: P0rnography: nudity with the intent to arouse (Playb0y, p0rn sites, p0rn movies, etc.). Nudity: lack-of-clothing with the intent to display beauty, non-beauty, or nature (Manet, Rodin, fine art photography, etc.). Lack-of-clothing: no clothing with no intent except utilitarian purposes (breast feeding, showering, sex, etc.). Read More

Ok, so it doesn’t work as well as the Lennon/McCartney original. Still. Consider this a more or less open thread on the topic of serving “senior missions” (has the church settled on a specific nomenclature yet?). Some months ago, after listening to a talk at a stake conference, or perhaps a general conference address, it suddenly hit me: by the time I am retirement age (sometime in the 2030s), serving a mission with one’s spouse as a senior couple will be nearly as expected, and perhaps even nearly as common, as is it for young men to serve missions today.… Read More

I had occasion to reflect upon 3 Ne. 11 recently in preparation for a Gospel Doctrine lesson. As I tried to imagine what it would have been like to have lived through the calamities that were a part of the sign of Christ’s death in the Americas, I was struck again by the fact that the Nephites gathered at the temple spontaneously. Read More

In a prior thread, Aaron suggested that we make a blogger family tree and Bryce gave his own information. It’s a fun question — who knows who, and how, outside of the loose cluster of LDS blogs that we call the bloggernacle? Read More

(awkward pause) (waits expectantly) Read More

There seems to be a minor bug in one of the comment scripts, which is causing error messages when people enter comments. As usual, our crack team of elite experts (hah!) is investigating. In the meantime, as far as we can tell, all comments are going through just fine — it’s just giving an error message afterwards. So rest easy, your comment should be fine. And we’ll get this fixed, like all of the other little bugs that crop up around here from time to time. Read More

MBM: A New Convert BMS: Aaron Teaches King Lamoni’s Father Read More

Today brings to an end Jana’s stint as a guest blogger. Thank you, Jana, for sharing a slice of your very interesting life and for your thoughtful posts. We wish you well in your writing projects. Read More

Professor Decoo, a Belgian convert to the Church in 1964 (hah! I beat him by two years), is a professor of French in the French and Italian Department of BYU, where he has been since 1999. However, he continues also to work in Belgium, during Spring and Summer terms, at the University of Antwerp, where he is head of the Didascalia Research Center. Most of his academic work is in the area of applied linguistics, but he has also ventured out from there, and he persuaded a major Catholic publisher to publish a book on Mormonism in Dutch. Wilfried has… Read More

It’s amazing the amount of time and energy we put into commenting or posting on the blog, interacting with people who we’ve never seen. And isn’t this a little like faith? I’m not sure; sometimes I think it is. I’ve never met Jim Faulconer, but I have faith that someone called “Jim Faulconer” exists. Through my internet interaction with “Jim Faulconer,” I get to know his quirks and attributes and ideas. As I see a pattern of posts from “Jim Faulconer” that share the same tone and style, I begin to feel that I know this person, even though we’ve… Read More

I was discussing the Word of Wisdom with my wife Mardell, and she came up with a really good question. One of the things which surprises many members who look at all into church history is the discovery that the current Word of Wisdom was not strictly followed by early church leaders. Joseph Smith is documented (post-Word of Wisdom) to have drunk wine and beer with other church leaders and smoked pipes. He also drank coffee regularly (thus, the fight he had with Emma about his coffee). In the end, this turns out to be less shocking given the historical… Read More

That’s what this story says: Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will do Halloween things on Saturday, Arizona spokesman Don Evans said. “When a holiday such as this falls on Sunday, we automatically celebrate on the previous day,” he said. “One of the Ten Commandments is to keep the Sabbath holy.” Interesting. Is this official? I don’t remember doing this before, but maybe I’m just forgetful. (And I don’t recall hearing about that in church here — but perhaps it was mentioned when I was distracted chasing the kids.) Read More

Hi all, Sorry I’ve been quiet; we had a bit of a family medical emergency here that took up much of my energy. Sometime late last week, my five-year-old daughter injured her knee, and with each day that passed it seemed to worsen. By Tuesday her knee was a huge, red swollen mass with a puffed-up white area on top. (Hang in there with me, as there is an eventual point to all of this.) Read More

Our lesson in elders’ quorum last Sunday was on the importance of scripture study. I shared a story that I frequently share when called upon to say something about studying the scriptures. As I was retelling it this Sunday, however, I had an epiphany: I was being a Jim Faulconer poseur. Read More