Times and Seasons has historically hosted an open thread for comments on each session of conference as that session was being broadcast. We’re trying something new this year. I’m posting this as a bit of notice to our readers, and in an unofficial attempt to explain.
Year: 2009
FHE–Easter
I’m taking a break from the Gospel Fundamentals FHEs to do an Easter FHE next week and I’m posting this early because it requires a little prep work.
Congratulations
I’ll be attending a wedding later today. The couple will be married in the church, and a new baby will be joining them somewhat sooner than later. For a faithful LDS family, this is difficult.
Information for the Next Six Months
The first weekend of April is a time when we look for information, for an understanding of the changes that have happened in the last six months and how that will help us prepare for the next six months. This is because the first weekend of April begins the baseball season.
En Route to the Field: Missionaries Aboard the S.S. Vestris, 1928
David Henry Huish, born in the Mormon colony of Morelos, Sonora, Mexico in 1906, and Keith Wynder Burt, born in the Mormon colony of Cardston, Alberta, Canada in 1908, met in the Mission Home in Salt Lake City late in 1928, after both young men had been called to serve missions in South America. After finishing their few days’ training in Salt Lake – which did not include language training – the two young men traveled together by train, via Denver, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., to New York City. They spent two and a half days exploring New York, then boarded the S.S. Vestris, a ship of the Lamport & Holt Line (British registry), which specialized in service to South American ports.
When is Sin Tax a Sin?
The new tobacco tax in the United States took effect yesterday, which tripled the amount of tax collected on each pack of cigarrettes, and probably raising the cost of a pack to as much as $9. The tax is the single largest increase in tobacco taxes in history. For an LDS audience, this probably seems all fine and good. You aren’t likely to complain about a sin tax if you aren’t committing that sin. And, to be honest, its hard to imagine a sin tax that LDS Church members would be particularly vulnerable to (perhaps ice cream?) But even if we aren’t vulnerable, isn’t there a limit to sin taxes?
The Mormon Sort
After seeing a reference or two, I noticed a copy of The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart at the library and gave it a quick read. The thesis is simple: increased income and mobility over the last five decades has enabled Americans to self-sort geographically into communities surrounded by people they are most comfortable with, namely people like themselves.
April Fool’s at the Newsroom
So the LDS Newsroom‘s April Fool’s day joke about President Eyring’s singlehanded dismantling of CES is a little weird…
Santa Biblia
A few years ago, as I was waiting for a temple session to begin, I began flipping the pages of the Spanish language Bible in front of me.
Dow 6,000
One of the things people find odd about Mormons is our claim to be led by a prophet.
FHE Lesson #2
Lesson #2: Our Life in Heaven
England Lecture: “The Prehistory of the Soul”
Terryl L. Givens, James A. Bostwick Professor of English at the University of Richmond will give the Eighth Annual Eugene England Lecture at 7pm next Thursday, April 2nd in the Lakeview Room of the UVU Library
Mormonism in the Public Mind at UVU
Richard and Claudia Bushman, Jana Riess, Terryl Givens, and Michael Paulson are among the speakers at Utah Valley University’s conference next Thursday and Friday (April 2-3) on “Mormonism in the Public Mind,” addressing public perceptions of Mormonism and LDS efforts to shape those public perceptions.
The Problem with the Unwritten Order of Things
Can women offer the opening prayer in sacrament meeting?
Reading Nephi Reading Isaiah at BYU
This looks like the sort of conference that makes me sad at times that I don’t live in Utah:
A Tender Mercy
My 13-year-old daughter came down with Bell’s Palsy last weekend. I was reeling a bit from the diagnosis
Mormons Take over the World!
Or, at least, most of Amazon’s best seller list.
One Last Book Before I Go
So your mission call finally arrived (see here, here, or here) and you suddenly realize that it starts in 44 days but you don’t know that much about Mormonism or what it is you are supposed to teach for two long years. You are suddenly serious about “missionary prep.” What book should you read?
FHE Lesson #1
I’ve decided to start a new series of FHE lessons based on the Gospel Fundamentals book.
Time to Reconsolidate?
I was only a teenager when the new-fangled consolidated schedule hit the church fashion scene.
(Beehive) Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – 1916
In 1916, the Beehive Girls were Latter-day Saint young women ages 14 and 15 (the 12- and 13-year-olds were still in Primary). Older teens, and even the mothers of Beehive Girls, could learn the same skills and earn the same badges of honor, if they chose to. Beehive Girls from Thatcher, Arizona
Jensine Hostmark Grundvig: Zionward
Jensine was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1837, her parents’ youngest child. Her father died when she was 4, her mother when she was 12; she probably spent her youth in the household of one of her much older brothers. In1857 Jensine was married to Frants Christian Grundvig, a young joiner who had come to Copenhagen a few years earlier to learn his trade.
When Woman Means Man
When I was growing up, “woman” meant “woman” and “man” meant “human.” Or “man.” Depending on the context.
I challenge you . . . I promise you
I challenge you — all of you, collectively — to match up your bracket against mine. (And, well, everyone else who is also matching up their bracket against mine.)
Confronting Modernity
I recently finished up Hans Kung’s Great Christian Thinkers, which reviews the work of seven theologians (Paul, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, and Barth). From an LDS perspective, the most interesting of the bunch is Friedrich Schleiermacher, who Kung terms “the paradigmatic theologian of modernity.” The question he presents to LDS readers is how our approach to religion and doctrine deals with modernity. Is our approach premodern, modern, or postmodern (which in theology generally means some version of neo-orthodoxy)?
The “anti-Mormon” label
Some years ago I had the idea that Mormonism needs an “anti-defamation league”–a group that reviews news coverage and other public actions and publicly condemns those actions that clearly defame Mormons and Mormonism. But I’ve since decided that this is probably not a very workable idea.
What My Father Did
A few weeks ago my father retired after spending three decades working for the Church Historical Department. I’m no doubt guilty of an excess of filial piety, but I think that the Church and Kingdom are better for the work that he did.
The Salamander Letter in a nutshell
So, what is this scary Salamander Letter that the church is hiding from everybody?
So you saw Big Love, then Googled to find out more about this Mormon temple weirdness, and ended up here.
Hi.
Relief Society Moment
I ran across this Relief Society moment in the March 15, 1873 Woman’s Exponent. Maybe it will make you smile, too: