- Kent Larsen on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, August 2026: “I should point out that relying solely on Google Scholar is probably not a great practice — For example BYU’s Literature and Belief journal usually has an LDS-related article in it, but it is NOT indexed anywhere (for reasons that are beyond my understanding). I also wonder about journals like “Latter-day Saint Historical Studies” — I don’t know what’s in it (everything recent is behind a paywall) or even if there is a recent issue. My point is that we have some holes that need to be filled.” Sep 3, 10:28
- on Seeing Responsibility in our Meetings (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 8/30: “RLD, that’s wonderful. FWIW, my wife also taught a bootcamp for incoming grad students (medical sciences) recently. In her case it was 8 hours a day for 5 days. In contrast, in my grad program in English there was no bootcamp whatsoever. I could have used one. As for “who is responsible for us having a good experience at church”, I hope I didn’t give the wrong impression — I’m trying to say that everyone involved has responsibility. I want local leaders to “sweat bullets” over who is giving a talk or treaching a lesson. But I also want those in the audience to be responsible and find ways of making our meetings useful, instead of blaming everything on the speakers and the leaders.” Sep 3, 10:23
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, August 2026: “Stephen, I’d love to see you review / get your take on that second book.” Sep 3, 10:08
- on The Kids are All Right: Church Activity, the Youth, and the Best and the Brightest: “A Southern department where 1/4 are LDS? Very different from my experience! But that’s really cool.” Sep 3, 07:53
- on The Kids are All Right: Church Activity, the Youth, and the Best and the Brightest: “In my *extremely* anecdotal experience, the number one indicator of staying from the kids I knew in high school is attending university. I can’t think of anyone who didn’t attend university who is still active, and those who did are still going strong. I’m in my first year of a PhD program in a large, public school in the South, and our (huge) ward is primarily composed of PhD students and professors (of the research active faculty in my department, almost 1/4 are active LDS). So I would wholeheartedly agree.” Sep 3, 06:19
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, August 2026: “Thanks Chad! Google Scholar is good about articles, but it’s really hit-and-miss when it comes to books.” Sep 2, 18:16
- on Everything wrong with the new hymn book (1799 edition, colorized): “sute, Thank you! In my ward’s sacrament meeting last Sunday, all the hymns were four-digit. And we probably haven’t had more that three or four of the 30-50 favorite hymns in this year.” Sep 2, 14:13
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, August 2026: “Books from August: * Educating for Eternity: The History of Latter-day Saint Primary and Secondary Schools, by E. Vance Randall, Scott C. Esplin, Casey Paul Griffiths (RSC, BYU; Deseret Book) * Nourishing the Roots: Seeking the Foundations of Latter-day Testimony, by Walker Wright (FAIR) Pretty small crop this month overall, though.” Sep 2, 10:07
- on Seeing Responsibility in our Meetings (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 8/30: “Last week I taught my annual bootcamp for grad students starting to do research. While I love teaching, the sheer length of the bootcamp takes a lot of out of me. A big part of it is that I’m a classic introvert who gets drained by interacting with people, but I’m also very hard of hearing and my brain has to do a lot of extra work to try to figure out what people are saying. Going into the weekend, I confess I was feeling a bit resentful about having a ward social, a visit from the missionaries, and a family gathering on my calendar when all I wanted to do was crawl in a hole and play video games. Shouldn’t introverts get a pass on all this socialization? The talks in sacrament meeting were on the character of Christ, and both speakers focused on Elder Bednar’s observation that Christ turned outward in situations where others would turn inward. Once again I recognized the Lord’s message for me immediately. It’s not that I shouldn’t build in recovery time for myself–even Christ needed be alone sometimes (which is classic introvert behavior, and so much for my theory that there should be lower standards for introverts). But interactions with others are what’s important in life. (And I probably could stand to spend less time playing video games.) On who is responsible for us having a good experience at church, I think the fact that the Spirit can inspire us with the messages we need to hear regardless of the quality of the speakers means it is ultimately our responsibility. Often, the people who most need the experience of pondering a gospel principle and becoming an advocate for that principle are the weak members who are not accomplished speakers. Church is not all about us and our experience.” Sep 2, 00:12
- on Everything wrong with the new hymn book (1799 edition, colorized): “To clarify, when I said I see a decline in participation in music in the Church, I meant primarily fewer people singing in choir, to the point that many wards struggle to keep a choir going at all, and fewer musical numbers. I’m quite sure that’s not because choirs are singing too many unfamiliar hymns–choir members expect and want to learn new music. I’m not seeing a decline in congregational singing. People not singing confidently while they’re learning a new hymn is expected and temporary. But there’s certainly a variety of experiences out there.” Sep 1, 23:34
