It seems pretty clear that we are heading for a hike in the minimum wage. For the many of us who care about poverty reduction, which would be basically all of us, this could be a big deal. The problems with the minimum wage are that it:
Grace shall be, as your day
I was well into my twenties before I finally deciphered one particular line from I Need Thee Every Hour. It was a line that I had certainly sung a hundred times or more: “No tender voice like thine can peace afford.”
As Goes Russell, So Goes…
It looks as though the nation may be starting to look more like Russell, frightening as that is for some of us.
Ladies and Gentlemen, a Mormon Has Taken (Ok, Ok, Will Take) the Building
You’ve heard it here first: it may take a day or two, but Jon Tester is going to come out the winner of the senate race in Montana; and it may take a few weeks, but Jim Webb is going to be confirmed the winner of the senate seat from Virginia. And that will mean…
Party Spirit
Could there be a Mormon political party? Should there be?
Making Isaiah (and the rest of them) FUN
I teach all of the youth in my ward. I suspect this is because nobody else will do it. Also, most of the youth (whether or not I’ve given birth to them) pretty much live at my house. So I am very able to tell them to behave and get a quick response.
Words for Life
I was 15 when the American POWs came home from Vietnam.
Primary Lesson 41 Supplement
Annie Griffith Burbank: Amongst the Gentiles
Annie Griffith was born on August 27, 1837, in Georgetown, Essex Co., Massachusetts, on the Merrimack River near the New Hampshire state line. She lived in that county all her life.
The Theology of the Horse
How big of a deal is technology theologically speaking?
Mice and men
If we’ve learned one thing in the past week, it is this: Mice are not good Mormons.
The Shape of Things to Come
For many years, northern Bavaria had a duplicate Church geography, with a stake for American servicemen sharing the boundaries of a German district.
Faith in the Shadow of Death
My sister-in-law, Lynda, is dying of cancer. It was in remission for eight years, but has now returned and is in her bones.
LDS Sessions at the Society for Biblical Literature
Mormons make an appearance at the important SBL conference.
Mormons, Gentiles, Suffrage, and the Courts
In 1870, the Utah Territorial Legislature passed an act giving women the right to vote, making Utah the second jurisdiction in the United States to given women the vote. (Wyoming was the first in 1869.) In 1887, Congress revoked the territorial law in the Edmunds-Tucker Act, and women were denied the vote until Utah was admitted as a state in 1896. Less well known is that there was an 1880 judicial attack on women’s suffrage in Utah.
Do Mormon Intellectuals Have Intellectual Agendas?
Ironically, the main problem with Mormon intellectual discussions is that all too frequently we have no intellectual agenda. Or at least so it seems to me.
Venus Robinson Rossiter: Learning to Serve
Venus Rossiter, serving in Tahiti with her husband, Mission President Ernest C. Rossiter, wrote to the Relief Society General Board early in 1919 with her report for 1918.
Relic area
Once when I was a missionary district leader, one call to my zone leader went particularly badly. I was trying to get permission for my district to take a hike in the woods, essentially. (The difference between a hike in the woods, and essentially a hike in the woods, was the sticking point
Nephite Legal Reasoning
There are lots of legal stories in the Book of Mormon, but there is not much in the way of legal reasoning. One of the few exceptions is found in Alma 30, which tells the story of Korihor the Anti-Christ.
Primary Lesson 40 Supplement
An Open Letter from Richard Bushman
Dear LDS Bloggers: Many you are aware of the conference for LDS Religious Studies and Divinity School students to be held at Yale University on February 16-17. The aim of the conference is to address issues that create problems for LDS students in religion and to ask what can a Mormon contribute to the debates that go on in these fields.
Murder in the Metropolis: Part the Fourth (Conclusion)
Hooper Young was arrested in Connecticut three days after the discovery of Mrs. Pulitzer’s body.
Levi Savage and Obedience to Church Authorities
The problems of following the prophet is a perennial favorite source of Mormon intellectual angst. What if the prophet is wrong? After all, prophets are human and are prone to mistakes? Indeed they are. Which brings me to the topic of Levi Savage.
From the Archives: Models of Women and the Priesthood
A favorite topic of speculation (and angst) among many Mormons and Mormon-watchers is whether or not women will get the priesthood. It is an interesting topic, but I think that most of the discussions of it are pretty uninteresting. The reason for this, I think, is that they are in the thrall of a single, rather simple model of what it means to “get� the priesthood.