- G of C on Historiography and Helen Mar Kimball: “John C. Be careful when judging what you have not experiencedand yherefor cannot fully understand. The same goes for the rest of us. 1840s Nauvoo is an alien world to us. 1870s Utah is an alien world to us. We glean what we can from historical records and our commenaliyies, but we can never fully understand these people or the context they existed it” May 24, 13:52
- on Historiography and Helen Mar Kimball: “Irony requires a signal to the reader. Where is it? And why does every interpretive option in this conversation require her distress to mean less than it says? This was a horrific practice. What happened to Helen Mar Kimball was indefensible. The historiography is interesting but it doesn’t change what it was.” May 24, 12:48
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “ji -Thanks for posting. I enjoyed the article.” May 24, 11:00
- on Historiography and Helen Mar Kimball: “I think we moderns sometimes don’t know what to make of irony. I’m not sure why that is–but a lot of meaning can be lost on us as we try to understand how a beam can fit in someone’s eye socket or how a camel could possibly fit through the eye of a needle. Surely the early saints were well aware of the sometimes rather brutal ironies of life–and my guess is that Helen captured the feelings of her youth (in writing) in order to juxtapose them with her views as a mature lady in the faith. That’s good irony.” May 24, 09:12
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “Today, the Deseret News published an interview with the book author Jeff Strong — it may provide helpful background… https://www.deseret.com/faith/2026/05/23/jeff-strong-latter-day-saint-faith-survey-research-religious-disaffiliation/” May 24, 07:43
- on Historiography and Helen Mar Kimball: “John, they are not a child’s own words. They were written 38 years later by a 52-year old woman who believed Joseph Smith was a true prophet and plural marriage was an essential gospel truth.” May 24, 07:41
- on Historiography and Helen Mar Kimball: “This is actually shocking to me. When a child’s own words about being ‘doom’d’ and ‘fetter’d’ require scholarly reframing as melodrama, the question being answered is no longer what happened — it’s how to read carefully enough to avoid saying what it was. A 37-year-old man in a position of absolute religious and social authority sealed himself to a 14-year-old. The closing concern of this piece is that troubling interpretations of that fact need to be put to rest.” May 24, 05:53
- on Hymns Officially Rejected: “Eric, I hope you have people in your life who support you and love you. FWIW, when things seem to bunch up on you, you can always blame randomness — the nature of statistics are that its likely things will sometimes happen all at once. It is NOT God ganging up on you!! [GRIN] As for the OP, while I don’t think the Church can realistically do anything about it, I wish these hymns were all available somehow. I have a lot of respect for the efforts that went into writing and composing them. AND, I don’t believe that we can really compare them. They are different, and there is no use comparing apples and oranges. [So, I think the choosing of hymns to include is basically impossible.] The world would be a better place if we learned how to honor and respect EVERYONE’s contributions, especially artistic ones. And while we’re at it, we should stop comparing, and assuming that the ones not selected were not good enough. Comparison is almost always bad.” May 23, 22:15
- on Historiography and Helen Mar Kimball: “Thanks for this review, Jonathan. It’s very helpful.” May 23, 09:13
- on Hymns Officially Rejected: “I have written three hymns—words and music—they have all been performed as choir numbers or solos. I didn’t submit any because I doubted that I achieved the level expected, but each one shares my testimony and each one brings tears to my eyes. Good enough. Your submissions are very good. Thanks for sharing.” May 22, 21:32
