In some ways new discoveries about our modern scriptures have become much rarer of late. There was a burst of information and discoveries when I was young but that has definitely tapered off the past decade or so. Recent work…
There are some pretty major aspects of our Latter-day Saint faith–and of Christianity in general–that I don’t really understand. Specifically: the necessity and efficacy of the Atonement. Repentance and forgiveness make sense to me. The Atonement is a mystery, and…
I remember seeing a survey several years ago that claimed that the two most popular hymns among Latter-day Saints were “I Stand All Amazed” and “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”. I have not been able to find that survey…
A couple of weeks ago, we reached the end of 3 Nephi 26 in our family scripture reading. It’s the culmination of Jesus Christ’s ministry to the New World and the founding of Zion. I’ve always been fascinated by Zion,…
I know that I am a better Mormon on account of Muslim friends and hope that they will be able to say the same of me.
These are interesting times for linguists. Church leaders and administrators are working to change names in order to emphasize the correct name of the Church of Jesus Christ, as asked by the First Presidency. A main question is semantic: to…
Innumerable blog posts and not a few books have been written in the last few years about faith crises and doubt as the Church and our Secular Age collide. The Church understands that facts on the ground are changing and…
As I started preparing family lessons using the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’s new Come, Follow Me manual, I was struck by the quantity of art. In addition to photos and screenshots from Church-produced videos, the manual includes…
The Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology will hold a conference at the University of Utah, March 14-16, on the theme, “More Nations Than One: Theology, Culture, and Pluralism.” The Book of Mormon presents a highly inclusive vision of God’s…
The chart above estimates the per-capita GDP of the entire world over the last 2,000 years. There are all kinds of problems with estimating GDP over such a long time-horizon, but the only thing that matters for the purposes of…
As some of you may have seen, the Church recently released two new doctrinal and historical essays. One is on Masonry and the other on Book of Mormon Geography.[1] Both have a prominent “beta” in the upper left so they…
Latter-day Saints don’t watch R-rated movies. This is one of those specific, concrete directions that has an amazingly long half-life. It’s such an embedded aspect of LDS culture that I have no memory of being told it for the first…
An other of our co-posts with Kurt Manwaring is here. This is 10 Questions with Susan Easton Black. Black has written some great books over the years and contributed a lot to apologetics as well. I’ve given friends many copies…
Earthly Parents is the pen name of the author of And It Was Very Good: A Latter-day Saint’s Guide to Lovemaking. He agreed to share some of the book’s background here. * * * On the top of my parent’s…
We sometimes speak of the idea of a holy envy—meaning something that we admire in another a religion. For years, while remaining active in my ward, I spent a considerable amount of time at a Presbyterian Church ringing English handbells.…
If you want to reach an audience of church members on a sensitive topic, watch and learn from Earthly Parents.
Brant Gardner has kindly agreed to offer some comments on the recent Church essay on Book of Mormon geography. He’s a research assistant with Book of Mormon Central and arguably one of the top experts in the question of Book…
I’m pleased today to share a guest post from friend of the blog, Samuel Morris Brown. A related symposium on “Faith in a Secular Age” will be held March 1 & 2 at Brigham Young University. Sam Brown, myself, and T&S…
If Satan hired a Russian troll farm, what would the Mormon corner of the Internet be like?
We’re happy to share an other in our series of interviews by Kurt Manwaring. This week’s is his interview with Grant Hardy. He’s the author of the recently released The Book of Mormon: Maxwell Institute Study Edition. Kevin Barney recently…
Back when I first was invited to join T&S I started doing a series on Hell in the Book of Mormon. This is a long delayed follow up. Previously I’d discussed the three broad categories of how hell has been…
Avoiding controversy would make our lives easier, but it would not be good for the church.
One of the interesting questions about the plan of salvation is why we need to think we’re going to die. Clearly death has an important role in our development, but why? I came upon a great interview with Todd May,…
For family scripture study in the mornings we’ve started just following the Primary manual rather than merely reading the scriptures. This has lead to much, much more fruitful scripture study I think. If you’ve not done this yourself, consider trying…
It appears to be the season of conference submission notifications! The Third Annual Meeting of The Book of Mormon Studies Association October 11-12, 2019 Utah State University The Book of Mormon Studies Association (BoMSA) is pleased to announce its third…
Welcome to the ninth chapter of the never quite weekly reading club for Adam Miller’s Future Mormon. For general links related to the book along with links for all the chapter discussions please go to our overview page. Please don’t hesitate to…
There’s still time to submit a proposal for the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology’s 2019 meeting, March 14-16 at the University of Utah. Submissions may take the form of a full paper, or an abstract of 400-600 words. Submissions…
In a recent research paper, economist Lee Crawfurd seeks to answer this question by comparing missionaries who served in a predominantly high-income region – Europe – with those who served in low- and middle-income areas – Africa, Asia, or Latin…
