Month: March 2007

RSR and the William & Mary Book Store

Much to the consternation of my wife (who handles our money), I am a rather frequent visitor to William & Mary’s book store. It has been a while since I glanced through their religion section (of late I have been buying poetry or history), but the other day I did glance through the “Mormon” section to see what they have.

Cheney at BYU

BYU’s speaker policy: “No speaker will be invited to campus whose expression of personal or political values would demean the principles of BYU and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

AggreGatekeepers (Updated)

A quick question/poll, for our readers: Do you use aggregation to read blogs? If so, which aggregator(s) do you typically use? The major choices I’m aware of are Archipelago, LDSelect, and Google Reader; are there other popular options? Do you use any of these? All of them? Why (not)? And what feature(s) do you (not) use? I’m curious.

So how exactly does this work with polygamy?

Apparently more men are taking their wives last name on marriage (hat tip: Stephen Thurston). And hey, this sounds like a great idea. I’m just wondering how to make it work with polygamy. Pity the poor membership clerk who has to update the records of that new member, Brigham Work Angell Decker Beaman Huntington Partridge Snow Rollins Pierce …

A Ward Family

How comfortable would you be if someone important – your prospective father-in-law, or that trophy client you’ve been courting – showed up at your door and asked to go to church with you?

Fruits

The standard reply to every bad-bishop or awful-ward story is well known by now: “The church is perfect, but the members aren’t.” Your interaction with an awful leader or member or ward — hypocritical, sexist, gossipy, unrighteous dominion, Red Sox fan, or otherwise unpardonable — is due to the humanity involved. The church itself is just fine, and please bear in mind that hide-bound church individuals are hide-bound only in their individual capacity. Why, the scriptures even tell us that unrighteous dominion is sadly inevitable. How exactly do we reconcile that line of reasoning with Matthew 7?

Mormonism and War

Tomorrow will mark the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq. Several bloggers have acknowledged that anniversary this month by responding to a challenge: link to whatever you wrote about the war in March 2003, and explain what, if anything, you were wrong about. I have put up my own response here. But for Times and Seasons, I want to reprint something else I wrote, just under four years ago: a post inspired by President Gordon B. Hinckley’s April 2003 General Conference address, “War and Peace”.

Memorial Quiz

Kristine’s pop quiz prompts me to ask a similar quiz I’ve had on my mind. Think of this as Memorial Day come early. Feel free to cheat if you have to: Name your great grandparents. Name 5 of your great-great grandparents. Name 3 of your great-great-great grandparents.

Mormonism and the Memo to the Dean

Earlier this week I engaged in what I am told is an annual academic ritual, and wrote a memo to the Dean explaining what I have done this year in terms of teaching, scholarship, and service. Since I have been engaged in a number of projects related to Mormon studies, the question arises should I include these in the memo? Does Mormonism “count” academically speaking?

Humility in the academic job market (or, why you shouldn’t forget about BYU)

In a job interview, the rhetorical approach you are looking for is “I can solve all your problems for you”: increase enrollments, raise the department’s research profile, advise the student club, pull in outside funding, the whole enchilada. (Can you really do all this? Of course you can! You now have a Ph.D., right?) Now is not the time for false modesty. Humility, however, is an essential part of your job search.

Around the blogs: WHM at Feminist Mormon Housewives

Feminist Mormon Housewives has been in superlative form in celebrating Women’s History Month. WHM posts so far have included Ronan’s discussion about an Akkadian princess and poetess; Julie’s feminist Family Home Evening lesson; Kiskilili’s discussion of women’s status in Ancient Mesopotamia; Margaret Toscano’s personal essay about her history; Heather O.’s post on pregnant women soldiers in the Civil War; Julie’s Young Women’s version of the anointing at Bethany; and now a guest post from Todd Compton about the life and feminism of Emily Dow Partridge. It’s simple — if you’re not reading FMH this month, then you’re missing out on one of the best sets of posts the bloggernacle has seen in some time. Kudos to Lisa and her crew (do I detect traces of Janet’s handiwork?) for putting together this event, which should finally put to rest the tired old myth of FMH frivolity. For the entire WHM series, check the WHM category page at FMH — or just the main FMH page this month.