“Leadership roulette” (or “bishop roulette”) is a common term thrown around when there is some good or bad outcome that depends on the contingencies of who happens to be your local leader. This particular complaint is often aimed at some perceived…
Studying the Words of The Relief Society Presidency
If the 5-year cycle for Relief Society General Presidencies that has been followed for 20 years holds true, the current Relief Society Presidency is likely to be released at this upcoming general conference. With that in mind, I recently decided…
Options for BYU faculty
Over at BCC, John S. has a post that is, overall, not very helpful.
Why I am Not An Intellectual
The American philosopher Richard Rorty recollected that when he was a teenager he dreamed of being able to read all the great works in his local library and arrive at some grand synthesis of truth from all the wisdom contained…
Big Science Questions and the Gospel, Part V: Population Genetics
Population genetics is an exciting, cutting edge area of research. In the past we had a fairly simplistic picture of our deep history, with humans migrating out of Africa and then sequentially expanding from continent to continent. However, occasional findings…
Important Documents from Latter-day Saint History
I’ve always had the idea running in the back of my mind to compile a list of the most important documents across the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that are not in the scriptures nor…
The Church’s Position on Sexuality
I’ve noticed a not-insignificant number of members, both orthodox and heterodox, assume that the Church’s position on human sexuality is a “just because the prophet said so” issue, and aren’t aware of any well thought out defenses of the Church’s…
Big Science Questions and the Gospel, Part IV: Quantum Mechanics
Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense. Basically, small particles act differently depending on whether they are being watched, either by a conscious human being or a detector machine (even if the detector is turned on after it has acted). I’m…
Let’s Talk about the Book of Abraham–a Review
Kerry Muhlstein’s Let’s Talk about the Book of Abraham Is the latest entry in a series that Deseret Book has been publishing to address controversial or touchy topics in the Church. Based on my experience with Brittany Chapman Nash’s Let’s…
Latter-day Saints for Life
My family and I recently participated in the March for Life, the big annual pro-life march in DC, so I’ve been thinking about a variety of things related to that (in no particular order). To what extent should you use…
My Top Religious Themed Movies, Ranked
A well done religious-themed movie can be a powerful spiritual experience. Unfortunately, the movie industry generally either shies away from religious themes (unless to deride them), or they fit in the Christian cinema niche that produces simple starches for the…
Sextuple Endowment Rooms: What Does it Mean?
“In the end, the character of a civilization is encased in its structures,” stated Frank Gehry—an important contemporary architect. One of the more interesting episodes in the treatment of historic Utah structures has been the decision to tear both the…
Big Science Questions and the Gospel, Part III: The Creation of Life
Like most Latter-day Saints, my testimony of the Church is based more on the numinous than the intellectual. However, I still remember the moment when, ruminating on my AP biology class while taking a break during my summer lifeguarding job,…
Does This Design Offend You?
It has been our privilege, as guided by the whisperings of thy Spirit, to build unto thee this temple, which we now present unto thee as another of thy holy houses. … We humbly pray that thou wilt accept this…
Why Latter-day Saints (Or Anyone Else) Should Not Feel Bad about Having Kids on Government Assistance
When I was in graduate school with a young family my wife and I went on government assistance. We didn’t have a car so I had to fill our stroller up with groceries every third day. Of course, one particularly…
Translating the Kinderhook Plates
The Kinderhook plates provide an interesting incident in Church History that provide an interesting test case for how Joseph Smith approached translation. What are these plates? What can we learn about Joseph Smith from the incident? Well, Mark Ashurst-McGee and…
The Contradictory Commands, Part 3: A Tale of Two Records
In part 1 of this series discussing the contradictory commands given to Adam and Eve to not partake of the forbidden fruit but to also have children, I discussed the possibility that they would have been resolved in time, but…
What Happens If All the Apostles Pass Away?
Many countries have continuity of government plans for what to do if the leadership suddenly dies in some sort of a catastrophe. The United States famously has a “designated survivor” that is in a secure location during the State of…
Big Science Questions and the Gospel, Part II: Consciousness and the Soul
Any reasonably intelligent person can understand the principles involved in the search for extraterrestrial life issue that I addressed in my last science post. However, the issue of consciousness is fundamentally mind-wracking and forces us to question some of our…
The Contradictory Commands, Part 2: The Higher Law
Part 1 of this series discussed the contradictory commands given to Adam and Eve to not partake of the forbidden fruit but to also have children, I discussed the possibility that they would have been resolved in time, but they…
Reproductive Trends in the Church and General Authority Family Size
Years ago I had fantasies of writing a book on the history of Latter-day Saint fertility. That dream has been put on hold, probably until after my kids are out of the house (and there’s more data), but before I…
The Contradictory Commands, Part 1: Isn’t It About … Time?
One Sunday while I was on my mission, I was asked to teach the Gospel Principles class. The class was very small (just the missionaries and one part member family we’d been teaching), and the subject was the Fall of…
The Gospel and Cutting Edge Science, Part I: The Other Children of God
“John saw curious looking beasts in heaven, he saw every creature that was in heaven, all the beasts, fowls, & fish in heaven, actually there, giving glory to God. I suppose John saw beings there, that had been saved from…
“As we commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ”
Of all the Christmas carols in the English hymnbook, the one with the longest association with the Church’s hymnals is “Joy to the World.”[1] It’s probably fitting, then, that the “Come, Follow Me” materials for this week reference it. The…
Polygamy and “Extra Women”
The idea that polygamy helped provide spouses for a surplus of women who had joined the Church is an old one, as is its purported refutation. However, the refutations I read were based on Census data and didn’t seem super…
Peace and Zion
For me, one of the most beautiful concepts in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the idea of Zion. Yet, to achieve that ideal, we are going to have to think and act radically differently than we…
“The long-promised day has come”
Official Declaration 1 has some supplementary materials included in the Doctrine and Covenants in the form of three excerpts from different addresses where he explained the reasoning for the change. I’ve often mused on the idea of what would an…
Vaccine Hesitancy (or the Lack Thereof) among Members
One of the stereotypes conservative US members have to deal with is the idea that they click their heels and salute every time the Church makes a political statement, when anybody who’s had deep political discussions with them understands that…
“All that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal, and … that he will yet reveal”
A few years ago, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf shared the following thoughts in general priesthood session: Sometimes we think of the Restoration of the gospel as something that is complete, already behind us—Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, he…
Making Sense of Prophecies (6): Concluding Thoughts
The question “Did Samuel Lutz really write this” is ultimately not as useful as the question of how the prophecy of “Lutius Gratiano” came about, and what function it served for those who kept it in circulation.