I served my mission in the Midwestern United States, and we had a decent amount of contact with groups, such as the Pentecostals, who were enthusiastic about charismatic gifts of the Spirit. I remember on one occasion, that a missionary…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 46-48 — Welcome, Spiritual Gifts, History and Sharing
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C sections 46-48, addressing being welcoming, spiritual gifts, keeping a history and sharing the lands we own.
Translating the faith healer
Was I comfortable with the topic? the prospective client on the other end of the video call wanted to know.
Daniel Becerra on 3rd and 4th Nephi
Within the Book of Mormon, 3rd and 4th Nephi are arguably some of the most important portions of the book, with their focus on the in-person ministry of Jesus Christ among the children of Lehi and what followed because of…
Ruf aus der Wüste 4.12-13: Hyde on the Sabbath
Article 13 On prayer and on the manner of worship. Prayer is one of the primary obligations of the Christian, and he is reliant on it for any consideration that might stir his ambition or instill it in him, for…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 45 — Standards and Zion
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C section 45, addressing the raising of gospel standards and establishing Zion.
“Provide for him food & raiment”
As a missionary, I occasionally found myself in the uncomfortable experience of listening to my companions talking about how proud they were to be part of a Church where every calling is performed on a voluntary basis, with no compensation—from…
Hear the words of the Church’s first lady — a review of Jennifer Reeder’s *First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith*
“I have many more things I could like to write but have not time.” Thus wrote Emma Smith in a letter to her husband, Joseph Smith. I wish she did have the time! Jennifer Reeder’s biography of Emma Smith —…
Ruf aus der Wüste 4.11: Baptism for the dead
Orson Hyde blazes the trail for every Temple and Family History consultant ever since.
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 41-44 — Law, Consecration and Revelation
Poetry for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson, D&C sections 41-44, addressing the law, consecration for supporting the poor, and the role of revelation.
Know Brother Joseph
What did Joseph Smith think? What was he like as a person? Questions like these are interesting to think about and are important considerations when you’re a part of a religion that draws so heavily on one person’s writings and…
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.10: Orson Hyde on lay clergy
If I were writing about the benefits of lay clergy in a missionary tract, I would probably spend less time on dusting one’s feet.
“Endowed with power from on high”
The revelations we are studying this week continue with themes found in revelations from throughout 1830, such as an imminent Second Coming and the gathering, but also set up an expectation for an endowment of power that would be an…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 37-40 — Gathering, Fears and Cares
Poems about the Gathering, preparation in order to ally our fears, and the cares of the world, to accompany the Come Follow Me lesson for April 12 to 18.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.10: Orson Hyde on continuing revelation
The teachings are familiar, but the images are surprising.
“The time of my coming”
For several days odd signs had been showing—the sky was yellow and the sun was red. Suddenly, the sky darkened further. Animals ran for cover. When seen, the moon was red and soot was seen to be floating in the…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 30-36 — Missions and Family Relationships
The seven sections of the Doctrine and Covenants covered by this week’s Come Follow Me lesson discuss, in general, missionary work and the subsequent benefits of membership in the Kingdom. The first five of these sections include missionary calls to…
Lit Come Follow Me: Easter
While no Come Follow Me lesson will be taught at church this coming Sunday, there is a lesson in the manual, meant for home study. So, I’m providing some poems to go with that lesson, which focuses on three aspects…
Richard Turley on Dallin H. Oaks
Recently, President Dallin H. Oaks’s biographer, Richard E. Turley, Jr. sat down with Kurt Manwaring to discuss the recently-published book In the Hands of the Lord: The Life of Dallin H. Oaks. What follows here is a co-post to the…
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.9: Orson Hyde on blessing and baptizing children
This short sections feels quite familiar.
Counterpoint: A Feeling of Loss–On Murals and Temples
I lived a significant portion of my life in Logan, Utah and frequently attended the temple during the time that I lived there. I had a lot of beautiful and sacred experiences while doing so, but I also rarely attended…
Point: It’s just art
Hezekiah didn’t consult with artists or historians before destroying the bronze snake Moses had made. He didn’t even try to preserve it somewhere else for its cultural value.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.8: Orson Hyde on confession and disfellowship
On the confession of sin and the treatment of members acting contrary to law
“The gathering of mine Elect”
Change and continuity create an interesting tension in the Church. I explored this in a previous post as the tension of believing in an everlasting, unchanging gospel that we have had restored to us and the belief in ongoing revelation…
Art and Latter-day Saint History with Anthony Sweat
Some years ago, an institute teacher in a Church history class I attended said with some levity that: “I bear my testimony that Church media is not true.” He said this hyperbolic statement in the context of a class where…
Lit Come Follow Me: D&C 29 — Gathering and the Plan of Salvation
Two poems to enhance study of the Come Follow Me lesson for D&C 29, which covers both the Gathering and the Plan of Salvation. The poems are Eugene A. Rooch’s Come, Gather to Zion and Joseph L. Townsend’s Among the Ancient Indian Mounds
The first rule about disagreements in church is no one talks about disagreements in church. But we should.
There are certain things that you grow up with that you don’t realize are weird until you start really noticing the world around you and see that other families don’t do those things your family does. Take one of my…
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.7: Orson Hyde on the sacrament
For Hyde, the sacrament seems to be not quite as strictly symbolical as it is for us, and more directly tied to guilt and confession. Also, will Sunday always be the Sabbath?
Redux: Responding to bigoted but famous texts—by Seuss and Doyle
The recent controversy over the decision of the literary estate of Theodore Seuss Geisel to stop selling six of his Dr. Seuss books because of their bigoted depictions of minorities reminded me of a somewhat similar situation. Nearly 10 years ago,…
“For he Receiveth them even as Moses”
Several years ago, I had a conversation with co-worker from outside of Utah about various Mormon churches that existed in Utah. He had been doing some research and we were discussing fundamentalist Latter-day Saint groups (ones like the FLDS or…