One of the more interesting points of contention about the history of the First Vision is how much Joseph Smith’s family knew about the First Vision. During his lifetime, only 4 accounts of the First Vision were published in English…
The Church’s New Statement on Abortion
As mentioned previously, I’m very pro-life. As far as we could tell, we were the only “Latter-day Saints” for life sign at this year’s March for Life, and living in the DC area I’ve had the opportunity to do pro-bono…
The First AI Church Art Show
I have grade school offspring that can draw better than me, and because of the accident of God ordained gifts (or lack thereof), I’ve been a little envious of those who are in a position to create meaningful, powerful art. …
Ghostwriter to the Prophet
I suspect that if we really knew and experienced the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for ourselves, we might be surprised by who were the most influential members in shaping the developing Church. In…
Faith Demoting Rumors and Mormon Sexual Urban Legends
This last semester I taught a class on sexuality and statistics (the Chair’s idea, not mine, but it turned out) at Catholic University of America, which is the closest thing to a Catholic BYU since it is directly owned and…
Juneteenth and Utah Territory
Tomorrow is Sunday, June 19, which is celebrated as Juneteenth National Independence Day in memory of the day that the Emancipation Proclamation began to be enforced in Galveston, Texas by the Union Army (19 June 1865). In Utah, this also doubles…
[Spiritual Languages] The End of the Beginning
I apologize for the long gap between my last post and this one. My husband is one of those *religious scholars*, and he supervises an archaeological dig in Galilee and just had to go back after two years’ Covid hiatus.…
Fetishizing Doubt
While some in the Church fear or are anxious around religious doubt, I feel that in some circles the pendulum has swung too far the other way, so I thought I’d directly address what I personally consider to be some…
Of Flags and Symbols of the Church
The state of Utah is looking into creating a new flag. I was interested, so looked into best practices for flag making (vexillology) and found a handy guide from the North American Vexillological Association that suggested five basic principles of…
Are Latter-day Saints Disproportionately Gay?
Anecdotally, it has seemed to me for a while that Latter-day Saint families in particular tend to have a lot of gay family members. I don’t know of any hard data that has done any kind of comparison-of-means by religion…
What Are The Odds of Being A Church Leader?
An issue that came up in my last post on church leadership as a marker of righteousness is that people are occasionally told that they are going to be the future bishops and stake presidents of the Church. There are…
Susa Young Gates
When I was a child, I heard of Susan B. Anthony, Susa Young Gates, and John Sousa, but had trouble separating them out in my mind because of similarities in name. The result was that I thought Brigham Young had…
Church Leadership Callings as a Marker of Your Standing Before God
In one of my recent posts I talked about the connection between wealth and Church leadership; one of the issues that naturally rose to the surface in the comments was the connection between Church leadership and one’s standing before…
Jesus in Recent Latter-day Saint Art
At the Mormon History Association conference this weekend, Anthony Sweat shared a funny story during his presentation on “A White Jesus and a Global Church.” Apparently there were some individuals who were visiting BYU from Saudi Arabia to observe teaching…
Religious Studies and the Church, Part III: Graduate Training as a Ponzi Scheme
The subject of education that does not pay financially is a sensitive one for me. Thankfully, my graduate training equipped me with enough marketable skills that I’m fine, but I’m close enough to people in other fields (sometimes adjacent to…
Considering Emma Hale Smith
Emma Smith isn’t just an elect lady, she’s a complicated one too. Jenny Reeder, author of First: The Life and Faith of Emma Hale Smith, recently discussed reasons for why that is the case in an interview with From the Desk. …
Collected Thoughts on the Doctrine and Covenants
I spent most of 2021 writing a series of posts to follow along with the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum for the Doctrine and Covenants. I had a few reasons for doing this. First and foremost, I wanted to challenge myself…
The King Follett Discourse
The irony of the King Follett Discourse is that it is the most famous discourse given by the Prophet Joseph Smith, but still rarely quoted in general conference or other official publications of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day…
Why Do Church Leaders Tend to Be Wealthy?
An uncomfortable apparent pattern in the US church is that Church leaders tend to be wealthier than average. I say apparent, since I don’t have any numbers, but this pattern is stark and widespread enough anecdotally that I’m going to…
What is the Church?
I recently finished a review of the April 2022 general conference, and one of the talks that stood out to me most was Reyna Aburto’s talk, “We Are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. I love the vision…
Women of the Hebrew Bible
In a culture that is often male-centric, it can sometimes be easy to overlook women in the scriptures. While very few are mentioned by name in the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants, the Bible has many women…
Religious Studies and the Church, Part II: Rabbis in the Marketplace, Celebrity-Scholars, and Firesides
In the Latter-day Saint community the renowned gospel scholar has traditionally enjoyed a lot of social esteem. Much of what I’d say here I’ve already said previously, but to summarize: our attention is being fractured into a million pieces, making…
[Spiritual Languages] Thoughts From a Liberal, Feminist, Intellectual ProgMo. But Only If You Say So.
We are introduced to the concept of “chosen people” almost as soon as the bible opens. Though the earth is covered with the children of God there is one line (Isaac and Jacob’s) of one family (Sarah and Abraham’s) that…
George D. Watt’s Journey
I’ve heard it said before that Leroy Anderson was America’s best-known forgotten composer. It could likewise be said that George D. Watt is Mormonism’s best-known forgotten reporter. In a recent interview at From the Desk, Kurt Manwaring discussed why Watt…
Religious Studies and the Church, Part I: Intellectual Authority as a Shortcut to Ecclesiastical Authority
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is somewhat unique in that we don’t have a paid or professionally trained clergy. Nonetheless, there are Latter-day Saints who still pursue high education degrees in fields normally pursued by clergy trainees…
The Future and the Church, Part VI: The Future of Religion Worldwide
“The Future of Religion” is one of those big picture questions that has been addressed by a wide variety of intellectuals such as Freud, Rorty, and basically every European intellectual in the 19th century. (The fact that the end of…
Mormon Doctrine, McConkie, and Modern Mormonism
Bruce R. McConkie stands in an interesting place in the history of the Church. For some, he holds a place in the upper echelons of a pantheon of Latter-day Saint thinkers and writers who have shaped, advocated, and defended the…
[Spiritual Languages] Sad? Angry? Frustrated? Confused? Good.
The Gospel of Mark really focuses, more than any other gospel, on the human experience of Jesus. The reader sees him experience a whole gamut of emotions, particularly negative emotions, like sorrow, anger, frustration, and fear. I am deeply moved…
Of ProgMos and Pornography, and Latter-day Saints on Only Fans
In progressive discourse, the person (generally either gay or female) who challenges conservative religious sexual strictures is seen as a courageous trailblazer. However, as liberal Mormonism generally tracks the norms and values of progressivism generally, it too inherits the ambivalence…
The Future and the Church, Part V: When Will There Be More African Wards than North American Wards?
I took the recent congregation numbers by continent reported by the Church and extrapolated the growth by continent to look at the likely composition of the Church in the future. Now, this is not a sophisticated projection (to put it…