It’s an intellectual banality to point out that how one thinks of the present structures how one thinks about the past. The cliché, however, is useful when thinking about Mormon history. (more…)
Since I was rather critical of an Ensign article on the Word of Wisdom earlier this year, I feel obligated to point out that this month’s article on the Word of Wisdom is a much better piece. (more…)
Any minute now, it will begin: first one car, then another, then another will drive into our cul-de-sac and park in front of the house across the street. As they do on every holiday, the Bishop’s children are coming home. (more…)
Our Chief Magistrate has proclaimed that today be a National Day of Thanksgiving, to acknowledge those blessings of liberty, family, and friendship we receive at the hands of the Almighty God. (more…)
BYU’s Religious Studies Center recently announced that it had begun publishing books in Spanish, Portuguese, and German, an encouraging development, given how little is being produced outside of English. In his blog post about the news, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel writes:
Today, it is estimated that there are nearly 7,000 spoken languages in the world, of which some 2,600 have a writing system.
He goes on to say:
Equally impressive is the effort to provide translations of the Book of Mormon to the world. Today, the complete Book of Mormon has been translated into seventy-nine languages, and selections are available in another twenty-three languages. This represents 99 percent of the languages spoken by Latter-day Saints. Efforts continue to translate this book into more languages to fulfill the Lord’s command.
What he doesn’t say is that, in terms of the work still to be done to fill the directive in D&C 90:11, that “Every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language.”
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Enjoy that Thanksgiving turkey . . . while you can. You may be a vegetarian during the millennium. (more…)
Litigation has forced eharmony.com, a matchmaking site founded by evangelical Christians, to offer a gay matchmaking service. See here and here. (more…)
What will it be like for a marriage to continue past death into the eternities? What does it mean to have a perfected body, or to love an eternal being? Stephenie Meyer has an answer. Breaking Dawn, the last novel in her Twilight series, presents a sustained and vividly imagined view of one of the core elements of Mormon personal salvation.
[This post is going to discuss all the details of Breaking Dawn, including how it ends, so please stop reading now if you don’t want to know.]
Rod Dreher, I think, has a it right. Conservatives ought to support same-sex marriage legislation. (more…)
US Government JPATS (Justice Prisoner and Alien Transporation System) plane, used for mass deportation. Image by Cubbie_n_Vegas via Flickr
A High Priest I know is in crisis. He is an immigrant who, like many other Church members, came to the US without a visa, according to what I understand of the situation. After arriving here he joined the Church, and eventually fell in love and married a U.S. Citizen, a wonderful, faithful Church member. This situation would normally put him on track for a green card and U.S. citizenship.
But this brother is facing deportation, and his ward and stake are praying for a miracle that will keep him here in the United States.
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We’ve just completed upgrading the software that runs Times and Seasons. The upgrade requires us to also update the files that control how the site looks. It may take a while for us to get Times and Seasons to the way we want it to look, so please be patient.
In the run up to and in the wake of Prop 8, Latter-day Saint proponents of the measure have often tried to parse their words carefully when discussing their support for it in order to avoid charges of bigotry and hate for opposing the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry. Echoing a refrain from the late Gordon B. Hinckley, Mormon Prop 8 supporters have often tried to explain that they are “not anti-gay, but pro-marriage.” This effort, however, has clearly failed to shield members from allegations of discrimination. (more…)
One of the subterranean threads running throughout the Book of Mormon is the mystery of whose bones are heaped upon the land northward. (more…)
The Associated Press reported yesterday that Mormon employees at the University of Phoenix benefited from discrimination based on religion, according to a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The University settled the suit, paying $1.9 million to 52 employees (an average of more than $36,000 each!) and agreeing to a “zero-tolerance” policy to religious discrimination, but did not admit wrongdoing.
What’s up with that?
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Today is a good day to celebrate the soldiers I have known and 9 years of marriage. (more…)
Is anyone else just the teeniest bit bothered that the government wants to lend two trillion of our dollars but will not tell us to whom they are lending it or what kind of collateral they have? (more…)
The Joseph Smith manual had one of my favorite quotes in it this week:
“I say to all those who are disposed to set up stakes [limits] for the Almighty, You will come short of the glory of God. To become a joint heir of the heirship of the Son, one must put away all his false traditions.â€
Penguin Books has just published a “Penguin Classics” edition of the Book of Mormon edited by Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp. Penguin Classics, of course, are the paperback editions of literary staples like Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. They are printed and marketed largely as texts for college classes. The assumption is that a text included in the Penguin series has become a stable part of the high-brow diet of books, or at least ought to be. It is worth reflecting a little bit about what this edition of the Book of Mormon might or might not mean.
The Penguin book itself is based on the 1840 edition of the text rather than our current edition of the scriptures. The text was chosen because this was the last version that Joseph Smith was personally involved in editing. Also strictly speaking there is no standard 1830 version of the text for the simple reason that Grandin edited the book as he was printing it, with the result that different copies of the 1830 edition contain different versions of the text. Our current edition, in contrast, contains an elaborate set of interpretive aids that were added long after Joseph was murdered. Hence, the Penguin edition is printed without versification or the current chapter breaks, both of which were added in Utah by Orson Pratt. Rather, it is printed as regular prose – much like a novel – with the original chapter breaks, which were much longer than our current chapters. The Penguin edition retains the colophons that were in the 1840 edition of the text, but does not contain any of the chapter headings that are part of current LDS editions. I actually think that reading the text in its original format is a useful way of escaping the framing that the textual apparatus of current church editions imposes, as well as providing a better guide to the underlying structure of the narratives, as broken up by the original chapters. Previously the only way of doing this was by either getting a facsimile copy of the 1830 edition or else by using Grant Hardy’s expensive reader’s edition. The Penguin Classics version will provide a convenient and low price way of reading the Book of Mormon in its original textual format. (more…)
A pool in our area had a free admission day this summer and I’m nothing if not cheap so there we were. Imagine the delighted looks on my kids’ faces when they saw not only a FREE pool, but FREE inflatable bouncers, FREE snowcones, FREE hot dogs, FREE chips, and FREE games with prizes. (more…)
A few months ago, a sister in our ward asked my daughter to babysit. On a Monday evening. That’s right. Monday Evening. We try to be diligent with family home evening on Monday night, so the answer needed to be “no,†but I was a bit confused about how to convey that message. (more…)
While the candidates have been talking the talk about cooperation and unity, a few humble LDS editors have been walking the walk.
The results are in, and the Mormon officials in congress is facing some changes as a result. From what I can tell, the new congress will include either 5 or 6 Mormons in the Senate and 9 in the House of Representatives. [FWIW, outside of the U.S., I only know of 1 LDS Church member currently serving in a national legislature, down from 4 eight years ago.]
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I haven’t found a news organization that’s called Prop 8 yet, and CNN’s exit polling showed it failing 48%-52%, but my county-by-county analysis shows that it will likely pass. With 93.6% of precincts reporting state wide, Prop 8 is leading by 406,519 votes (4.1%), and almost all of the precincts yet to be tallied are in counties that have favored Prop 8 by good margins. (more…)
A horrible, no-good, very bad blog can still run a great series on missionary work. Read it, take it to heart, recommend it to others.
***
Bumped.
In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
Let’s remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.
Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.
As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.
And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.
On the issues I care about (and therefore not including the topic addressed from various perspectives so eloquently by my esteemed colleagues), I prefer the positions of the Democratic Party platform and candidate. I directly benefited from Barack Obama’s work as a state senator while I lived in Illinois, he seems to know what he’s talking about on important issues, and it looks like he ran a pretty competent campaign. For my taste, McCain and Palin didn’t offer much more than the politics of fear and resentment, and they seemed more likely to stay trapped in the conflicts of the twentieth century than their opponents. I know it’s fashionable to affect hand-wringing uncertainty about choosing between two candidates, but I cast my vote for Obama with unmitigated enthusiasm.
Who did you vote for?
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