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4 responses
Times and Seasons hopes you will join us in welcoming our latest guest blogger, Levi Jones. Levi is an attorney with the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he handles general litigation matters. Prior to joining Commerce, Levi worked for several years as a corporate lawyer for a D.C. area firm. Levi earned his law degree from George Washington University Law School in 2009, where he was a production editor on the school’s Law Review. Before this, Levi earned Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and International Studies from the University of Utah. Levi lives in Manassas, Virginia, with his wife and two… Read More
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10 responses
About a week ago, the first volume of the new official history of the Church was published. I finished reading through it this weekend, and I have to say that it is fantastic. The style of prose reads like a novel (many creative authors were employed as the writers or consultants for the book), but it is very much rooted in some of our best understandings of the events and people who lived in the early period of the Church. The combination of the two results in a very readable, but accurate history. The time frame that this volume covers… Read More
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6 responses
Welcome to the eighth chapter of the not quite weekly reading club for Adam Miller’s Future Mormon. For general links related to the book along with links for all the chapter discussions please go to our overview page. Please don’t hesitate to give your thoughts on the chapter. We’re hoping for a good thoroughgoing critical engagement with the text. Such criticisms aren’t treating the text as bad or flawed so much as trying to engage with the ideas Adam brings up. Hopefully people will push back on such criticism if they disagree or even just see flaws in the logic. That’s when… Read More
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32 responses
This statement is not nonsensical or trite. It is the essence of our belief in six words. It is, in its own way, even lyrical. One occasionally hears objections to the effect that statements can be true, or friends can be true, but how can an organization be true? I started writing this post some time ago, before Michael Austin’s recent post and not in response to it, but his post can serve as a thoughtful and well-written example of the genre. Michael writes: I simply can’t comprehend what it might mean for a group of 15 million people or… Read More
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12 responses
A couple of years ago I started a group project called the General Conference Odyssey. Along with some friends, I’m reading every General Conference that’s easily accessible on LDS.org (that means we’re starting with October 1971) and writing up my thoughts. At a rate of one session per week, it will take us about 14-15 years to get through the entire inventory. You can read more about the project, and find a mostly-complete index of every blog post to date, here. After posting my entries at Difficult Run for the first couple of years, I moved over to Meridian a… Read More
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18 responses
We’re happy to present Kurt Manwaring’s interview with Matt Grow, the editor of the Church’s new Saints volume. There’s a ton of positive response to this new official history of the Church. It appears to have hit the sweet spot of accuracy yet readability for typical members. I’m pretty impressed with it, although I’ve not yet had time to read much. I can’t wait to see the next few volumes. Read More
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20 responses
A common belief, especially by critics, is that Mormon retention has fallen primarily due to the rise of the internet. The argument goes that with the internet becoming ubiquitous that people encounter troubling historical facts. Those facts then undermine their testimony causing them to leave the Church. While I’m sure this has happened to many people, I’m very skeptical it’s the real issue people leave the Church in general. Read More
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33 responses
The last 4,000 years of religious history, up to and resulting in us, can be described as a series of questions and answers, with each new question arising out of the previous answer over generations or centuries as the full implications of each answer become understood. Read More
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41 responses
Last week, the Church released an official statement from President Nelson regarding the Church’s name and an accompanying update to the style guide. The Bloggernacle was unimpressed.[ref]I’m going to use “Bloggernacle” to refer to the overall Mormon social media community until somebody shows me a better name.[/ref] This isn’t really a surprise, of course. Looking cool and looking impressed are usually mutually exclusive, and since social media’s primary function is personal brand management, looking impressed is decidedly rare. Still, it got me thinking. If prophets are imperfect, why should we follow them? Before I get to that–and it’s a question… Read More
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17 responses
The requirement to use the official name of the Church is meeting with much willingness to comply. One of the challenges is the length of the words, in particular for online references. If that is the case in English, it is all the more so in many non-English languages. What about the translation of latter-day? I recognize that this topic has certainly been discussed at length in the Translation Department and I assume the option taken has been to leave well-established translations, even if inaccurate, unchanged. However, as names of websites and twitter accounts and the like are now being… Read More
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12 responses
Like many others I found it hard to avoid the humor in the Church’s statement downplaying the use of LDS and Mormon. This isn’t the first time the Church has tried to get people to stop using such terms. Pres. Hinckley back in 1995 changed the logo design of the Church’s name to emphasize Jesus Christ. He also in 2001 in a letter sent to all wards asked members to refer to ourselves as Latter-day Saints and to use the full name of the Church. Read More
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9 responses
We all know that revelation frequently requires study. Many of the key doctrines of the restoration came from revelations given to Joseph as he was going through and modifying the Bible by way of command. Some of these were treated as modifications of the Biblical texts (such as in our Book of Moses) while others were treated as independent visions or revelations (such as D&C 76). The key part though was studying. (See D&C 9:7-8) We even know that during the work on the New Testament that Joseph began consulting a copy of Clarke’s Bible Commentary and using some of… Read More
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16 responses
Is the world a generally wonderful place that is constantly improving and generally better today than it ever has been? Or, to restate the obvious, do we live at peril every hour in a world we must avoid becoming part of, and is this alienation from the world a fundamental part of the message of Jesus? As is usually the case with such things, the answer to both questions is: yes. And this is perhaps nowhere more clear than in Yellowstone National Park. Read More
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4 responses
Welcome to the oft delayed seventh chapter of the increasingly not weekly reading club for Adam Miller’s Future Mormon. For general links related to the book along with links for all the chapter discussions please go to our overview page. Please don’t hesitate to give your thoughts on the chapter. We’re hoping for a good thoroughgoing critical engagement with the text. Such criticisms aren’t treating the text as bad or flawed so much as trying to engage with the ideas Adam brings up. Hopefully people will push back on such criticism if they disagree or even just see flaws in the logic.… Read More
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36 responses
Jana Riess did an oft shared post this week on “cafeteria spirituality.” This in turn generated a lot of discussion. I just wanted to make a few comments. First I think we should distinguish between what some have called cafeteria Mormonism from cafeteria spirituality. I don’t think they’re really the same although Jana conflates them somewhat. Cafeteria Mormonism usually means simply picking and choosing what teachings one accepts. Cafeteria spirituality I think is largely about supplementing ones practices beyond Church, church activities, and suggested practices. They seem rather different. Read More
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4 responses
If you spend time browsing a medium-size collection of early modern pamphlets, you’re likely to come across printed reports of a prophet receiving visions, or preaching in one town or another. Read More
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2 responses
Early Israelite prophets are not averse to a little drama! Moreover, their choice of dramatic form is often quite effective and instructive. One of the more striking and poetic moments is when Ahijah prophesies that Jeroboam will become the king of Israel. Jeroboam has a new garment he is wearing that day—perhaps a cloak. Ahijah finds Jeroboam while he is out in a field, pulls the new cloak off of him, and tears it into twelve pieces! (1 Kings 11: 29-30). How must Jeroboam be feeling as Ahijah is doing this? It is quite striking that he is willing to… Read More
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13 responses
There’s no doubt that the three kingdoms in D&C 76 have terminology related to 1 Cor 15. However the tendency of Mormons to read 1 Cor 15 in terms of D&C 76 is unfortunate. While they’re related somewhat they’re ultimately addressing very different topics. 1 Cor 15:39-44 is about the nature of resurrected bodies. D&C 76 is about the kingdoms and who is in them. That’s somewhat tied to resurrection since one goes to a kingdom after the resurrection but we should keep the two somewhat separated. Read More
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56 responses
Over at Wheat and Tares there was an interesting post on neo-apologetics. I’ll admit that this is one of these terms, like neo-orthodoxy back in the 90’s, that just seems inherently problematic as used. Having been “accused” of being a neo-apologist before let me try and discuss what I think people mean and why it’s somewhat problematic.[1] Read More
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19 responses
The Court of Justice of the EU just ruled that Jehovah’s Witnesses must obtain consent from people before they take down their personal details during door-to-door preaching in order to comply with EU data privacy rules. See here the Reuters press note and here the more detailed European Court’s press release. It will obviously also apply to Mormon missionaries. The implementation as such seems simple: whenever missionaries make a promising contact, and want to record name, address and other data, they should ask permission. But how to record that permission since proof may be needed at a later date? On a written form with… Read More
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6 responses
It’s my pleasure to share here a guest post from my friend Samuel Morris Brown. By inclination, I’m something of a misanthrope. I’m not sure where I came by this trait. Maybe it’s good old-fashioned nature, some mixture of a thousand different genes that makes me by default uninterested in other human beings. Maybe I’ve got something wrong with my hippocampus or superior temporal sulcus, too many or too few synapses in my brain. As a pretentious teenager, I wondered whether I was a (non-violent, non-criminal) sociopath because I felt so little engaged in the world of people. That imaginary… Read More
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4 responses
The 20th Fair Mormon Conference will be August 1-3 at the Utah Valley Convention Center. If you’re not able to go they’ll provide streaming of the presentations. Read More
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13 responses
This past May, I went to see Jana Riess present her recent research on Mormon Millennials at the Miller Eccles Study Group here in Texas. One of the most interesting (and disturbing) bits of information was her finding regarding Mormons’ opinions about the priesthood/temple ban. As she summarizes online, The 2016 NMS asked whether respondents felt that the ban on members of African descent was “inspired of God and was God’s will for the Church until 1978.” Respondents were given a five-point scale of possible responses, with the upshot being that nearly two-thirds of self-identified Latter-day Saints say they either… Read More
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8 responses
As a first order approximation, we frequently describe a covenant as a two way promise often with consequences attached if one breaks ones promise. That almost sounds like a contract. So what exactly is the difference between a contract and covenant? Read More
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39 responses
Recently, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that they were going to prepare a new hymnbook and children’s songbook for use in the worldwide Church. Specifically, the goal is to create unity in hymn numbers and selections that reflect the needs of a global organization. This is the first time in over thirty years that the official hymnbook for the Church has changed, and it is a matter of no small excitement for Mormon musicians and general membership. The current hymnbook is wonderful, but change can always bring new opportunities and improvements. Part of the excitement is… Read More
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We are delighted to welcome guest blogger Chad Nielsen to Times and Seasons. Chad’s three great intellectual passions in life are science, history/religious studies, and music. He has pursued a career in biotechnology, but maintains an active interest in both of his other passions on the side. Chad is a four-time winning contestant in the Arrington Writing Award competition held at Utah State University for his essays on Mormon history and has presented at the Logan Institute of Religion scholar’s forum and the annual meeting of the Society of Mormon Philosophy and Theology. He is a faithful Latter-day Saint who… Read More
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7 responses
Some of the places I love the most in the Holy Land are the churches dedicated to women. My favorite is the Duc In Altum in Magdala on the shore of Galilee. It is a lovely Catholic chapel overlooking the Galilee and dedicated to the women of the New Testament. In one room is a particularly magnificent painting of the woman touching the hem of Jesus’s robe, and this may be my favorite place in all the Holy Land. I can’t think of a place more suited for pondering on what it means to be a daughter of God. I… Read More
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We’re happy to present Kurt Manwaring’s interview with Benjamin Park. He’s a professor of history at Sam Houston University and has been a visiting fellow at the Maxwell Institute. He just had published American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions. He’s been working on research on the political culture of Nauvoo in the 1840’s. You can read the full interview with Ben at 12 Questions. We’re including some relevant excerpts here that hopefully will engender some discussion. I’ll add some comments at the end. Read More
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16 responses
We’ve been in Jerusalem long enough to be able to spend time with pilgrims of varying denominations from all over the world. I personally love the concept of pilgrimage. I love being able to find the spiritual world within the material one, and I love how it brings people together through a special kind of worship; because while there are many beliefs and traditions that make the groups of people we’ve met fascinatingly different, there are important ways that we are similar. One of these is that we believe that somehow in coming here we will find something of Christ… Read More
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4 responses
Times and Seasons is excited to welcome our newest guest blogger, Mary E. Grey, who will be writing a series of posts from her current home in Jerusalem. Read More