In traditional Christianity, there are significant figures known as the Early Church Fathers who are noted as influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity as we know it today. While the Church of…
Category: Latter-day Saint Publications
First Vision Special Edition
Before I move on from discussing the First Vision, I wanted to share something that I find exciting. Once in a while in Mormon studies journals, special volumes focus on the First Vision—such as the Spring 1969 issue of BYU Studies and a 1980…
Where are the women artists in the Come, Follow Me manual?
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…
Saints, Volume 1: A Review
About a week ago, the first volume of the new official history of the Church was published. I finished reading through it this weekend, and I have to say that it is fantastic. The style of prose reads like a…
Changing of the Guard at Dialogue
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought gets a new editor every five or six years, and that time is now upon us. As a subscriber and supporter, I wanted to get a sense of where the incoming editor, Boyd Jay…
The Approaching Zion Project: How Firm a Foundation! What Makes It So
Interestingly enough, this chapter seems to be less focused on Zion and more focused on the Church more broadly. Still, Zion sneaks in, even discussing the Church. As always, a couple things I found interesting:
Mauss on Dialogue
I am almost done with the recently published memoir by Armand Mauss, Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport: Intellectual Journeys of a Mormon Academic (U of U Press, 2012; publisher’s page). Like Leonard Arrington’s earlier memoir, Adventures of a Church…
Book of Mormon Comics
I love stories. A narrative strikes me as the most fundamental way of ideas with other people. And by ideas, I mean not only the bare events of the narrative, but also abstract concepts, morals, and emotional truths. It makes…
Consumerism vs. Stewardship
The following is a modified excerpt from my presentation at Sunstone this summer. We live, not only in a capitalist, but a consumerist, society. Our society is all about spending, acquiring, cluttering, and replacing, not about maintaining, restoring, renewing, and…
Books of Interest to the LDS Nerd
A few of these are forthcoming, a few have appeared recently. I am compelled to read them all, as soon as I can get to them. Now Available Charles Harrel,“This Is My Doctrine”: The Development of Mormon Theology (Kofford Books)…
Confessions of a Shopping Mall Santa
Christmas Season, 1989. I was a freshman at the University of Utah, my first year away from home. As a poor student I was looking for extra holiday cash, and the Help Wanted ad for a shopping mall Santa seemed…
The Nasty Side of Christian Ethics
The language of turning the other cheek and Christian ethics in general can really get quite nasty.
Liveblogging Symposium – Stay-at-home Moms: On the Record
EDIT: Emily Jensen has a great article on this at Mormon Times, and offers a much better (and more readable) synopsis. See it at http://bit.ly/GOEdq Approximately 30 people in attendance, an engaging and personable panel: Moderator/ CAMILLE AAGARD, former account…
Tired-blogging from Sunstone, Day 3
It’s early, and I’m still recovering from karaoke, but I’m at the Sonia Johnson panel. I’m sad to miss Kristine singing this morning, but this panel has a distinct advantage — I can sit with a laptop and write my…
Live(ish)-blogging Sunstone, Day 2
I missed out on the morning, because I had to finish grading papers. I’m now at D’Arcy’s session on virginity. I’m not true live-blogging it, I’ll post some summary notes as we go along.
Liveblogging Sunstone, Day 1
I’m going to be live(ish) blogging Sunstone, at least some. The level of effectiveness will depend on a lot of factors, including access to wireless (which seems to be a little spotty). If you’re here (or just here in spirit),…
Your favorite online resources (or, crowdsourcing my Sunstone talk)
Apparently, I’m speaking on a Sunstone panel about online resources for LDS teaching. (I’m not quite sure how this happened, but it’s probably Kristine’s fault.) The panel is populated with familiar faces from the blogs, and the abstract is this:
Rainy Day Panels # 12 & 35
Oh, they’ll stone you when you speak about the blogs They’ll stone you over feminists and God They’ll stone you when you say “September Seven” Or if you talk about Mother in Heaven But, I would not feel so all…
Misguided faith?
There was a lot that I liked about this month’s Ensign; but one of the short articles bothered me. It was the tithing article where the writer, a single mother of six, compared utility and mortgage bills to tithing, and…