Year: 2007

Mormon Studies Moves Up a Notch

Today’s LA Times has a longish article on the recent official announcement of Richard Bushman as the Howard W. Hunter Visiting Professor in Mormon Studies, in the School of Religion at the Claremont Graduate University in Southern California. [There is also a story at the Salt Lake Tribune.] The appointment as a visiting professor is an interim post until the endowed chair is fully funded. The article makes some interesting comments.

Mormon Courts at the American Society for Legal History

I have been doing research lately on the resolution of civil disputs in Mormon courts in the nineteenth century. Last week, I presented some of my research at the American Society for Legal History conference at ASU. I recorded my presentation and made it into an episode for the Law Talk podcast that I do through the Concurring Opinions law blog. Here is a link to my talk, which is about 25 minutes long. Enjoy!

Mutual Questions

Before there were Young Men and Young Women, there were the Young Men’s and Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Associations. Before there were correlated lesson manuals and basketball and scouting and Young Womanhood awards and dancing-a-Book-of-Mormon’s-width-apart there were homemade programs.

Red

And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. Joel 2:30-31 (Photo: San Diego Fire Moon, originally uploaded by Tamara Hart, link via Exponent II)

Mothers Who Know: Homemaking

Note: this post begins a series of posts on President Beck’s recent conference talk. If you feel the need to vent your dislike of the talk, I imagine that you might possibly be able to find a thread somewhere in the Bloggernacle where you can do just that. But you can’t do it here.

A Walk into the Moon

I hope some of you grabbed your moon glasses and stepped outside to have a look at how that full moon lights up the world. Thirty thousand miles closer than usual and thirty percent brighter, tonight this lesser light has a chance to really shine.

If I’m Not Alexander, I Must Be Diogenes

The textbook I used when I taught freshman comp at BYU contains an essay by Gilbert Highet titled “Diogenes and Alexander.” This well embellished tale recounts the legendary maybe-it-happened, maybe-it-didn’t visit that Alexander the Great paid to the notorious Cynic philosopher at Corinth.

The Morning Star

We don’t often refer to Christ as the morning star, although there’s good scriptural precedent for the metaphor, and several 16/17th century Lutheran hymns (my particular target of religious envy) make use of it.

The multitudinous family of Smith

Josiah Quincy famously wrote that, “Of the multitudinous family of Smith, from Adam down (Adam of the “Wealth of Nations,” I mean), none had so won human hearts and shaped human lives as this Joseph. His influence, whether for good or for evil, is potent today, and the end is not yet.” Was he right? And does this still hold true today? Where does Joseph rank, within the multitudinous family of Smith, in present-day influence?

Teaching the Net Generation

It’s easy to forget how much time LDS teenagers spend in LDS classrooms, roughly seven hours per week. Are they learning anything? That’s a fair question, as the “classroom model” that governs teaching hasn’t changed much over the years, but students have.

In case you’re here for that other Times and Seasons . . .

We get a fair number of visitors from the search string, “Times and Seasons.” I’m sure a portion of these are actually looking for the blog; and others may be after discussion of the general concept (which isn’t solely a Mormon idea). But I’m sure some of them are actually looking for an online version of the old Mormon periodical. Where do you go if you want to read the original Times and Seasons? Here (scanned-in pages; scroll down); here (description and search link); here (transcriptions). (All links via the amazing Ardis Parshall.) Any other questions?

Lorenzo’s exhortation

“A new century dawns upon the world today. The hundred years just completed were the most momentous in the history of man upon this planet. It would be impossible in a hundred days to make even a brief summary of the notable events, the marvelous developments, the grand achievements, and the beneficial inventions and discoveries, which mark the progress of the ten decades now left behind in the ceaseless march of humanity. The very mention of the nineteenth century suggests advancement, improvement, liberty, and light. Happy are we to have lived amidst its wonders and shared in the riches of its treasures of intelligence! The lessons of the past century should have prepared us for the duties and glories of the opening era. It ought to be the age of peace, of greater progress of the universal adoption of the golden rule.

Winter Food

The icy breath of winter descends. Yesterday reached a low of 59; the forecast for the next few days drops to a bone-chilling 55. (Don’t hate me because I live in paradise.) The seasons cause changes. Starting about now, I won’t be able to swim at the beach without a wetsuit. We’re packing away shorts — one or two pairs, maybe — and breaking out the sweater. Also, it’s time to look to winter foods and recipes once again.

Help out Harry Reid

When Harry Reid spoke at BYU last week, he brought up a topic he was uniquely suited to address. To paraphrase, how can you be a Mormon and a Democrat? Reid’s response was, well, deeply predictable in the outset but wildly unpredictable after that.

On the Road for On the Road

I recently brought to a successful conclusion a one-month, eight-hundred-mile odyssey that had a simple and straightforward object: to purchase a copy of Richard L. Bushman’s On the Road with Joseph Smith: An Author’s Diary at Deseret Book. I didn’t think it would be such a challenge.

Dealing with the Religious

Are you an agnostic divorced man whose Evangelical daughter (two weekends a month) is worried that you’ll go to hell? You’re in luck, because in the past week, two different columnists have offered you their advice.