(I hope you haven’t discussed this before, at least not in this way.) At the height of national debate over the Equal Rights Amendment, Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained that all LDS women should look to Eve: “Eve, the mother of all living, is truly the perfect pattern for all her daughters. Oh that all women would follow the path laid down by the first woman of all women and do the things that she did that all might be saved!†I have done some preliminary research and realized members of the church interpret the Eve story diversely—
Tag: Latter-day Saint
Pioneers and Indians in Utah Valley
Just last week I heard a familiar comment at church: Brigham Young’s policy was to feed the Indians rather than fight them. The actual record of relations between Pioneers and Indians was a bit more complicated, especially in Utah Valley, the watery jewel of early Utah.
MMM for Youth?
I don’t want to debate the ins and outs of the tragedy at Mountain Meadows. It was horrific no matter how you cut it. My more immediate problem is personal
“Mothers Who Know” Still Spurring Debate
Georgia isn’t the only place with skirmishing this weekend: “LDS leader’s address still causing controversy,” a long article at the Deseret News, recounts the comments of five Sunstone panelists (and one unfortunate commenter) to LDS Relief Society President Julie B. Beck’s October 2007 Conference talk “Mothers Who Know.”
What is Our Marvelous Work Today?
The development of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has always been marvelous, but our sense of just what it is doing has changed quite dramatically from one decade to another. When Joseph Smith first went to (what in hindsight we call) the Sacred Grove,
Massacre is Just Around the Corner
The Deseret News just ran a lengthy article giving some details on the long-awaited but soon-to-be-released book Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by three LDS historians.
Call for Papers
Korihor and the United States Reports
Let’s read the Book of Mormon as a commentary on American constitutional law and vice versa. Alma 30:7-10 reads:
Searching for a Sense of Place in Viriginia (a bleg)
I am at a stage in life when I think a lot about place. After a decade or so of moving every 1 to 3 years, our family has arrived on the banks of the James and there is a very good chance that this is where my children will grow up. My interest in place is heightened of course that I live a mile from the site of Jamestown — first English settlement in America — and work in Williamsburg — colonial capital of Virginia and, as one acquaintance put it to me “Disney Land for history major.” We live in a part of the world that takes its sense of place very seriously. One of the ways that I have of thinking through and becoming acquainted with a place is by learning local history. I acquired the habit, I think, from my father who was forever telling me the stories — almost invariably Mormon — of this or that place in Salt Lake City or Utah: the place where the only tree in the valley grew when the settlers arrived, where the old walls of Salt Lake stood, which parks are built over the sites of old forts, where Brigham Young’s houses were, and so on. I think that one of the reasons why I always feel so at home in Salt Lake is the way in which my consciousness of the place extends in four dimensions. There…
The One True Church of God’s Love
In Fuchuu, Japan, I taught a young woman who had attended a Christian school and church for some years, but had become a bit turned off. She asked us why we were out trying to teach the gospel.
Making Peace with Missionary Work
Tweny years ago today, June 15, 1988, I entered the Missionary Training Center and began my 24 months as a missionary assigned to the Korea Seoul West Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’d like to take this moment to offer all my mission companions, every missionary I knew, both my mission presidents, all the people I ever taught, all the members I ever interacted with, the Korean people as a whole, and the church my deepest apologies, and ask for their forgiveness…because, as a missionary, I really sucked.
A Bastion of Mormonism
Being mildly depressed about blogging at the moment, I decided to go trolling for a “good news” story to post. Here it is, a story about SVU from the SL Trib: “A bastion of Mormonism in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.”
Faith and Fame
Faith and fame aren’t always an easy mix, but Mormons who hit the big time seem to be able to hold it together most of the time. At least that’s the thrust of “How Mormons Deal With Fame” at the LDS Newsroom, discussing, among other names we all recognize, the 17-year-old phenom David Archuleta.
Mother’s Day is Looming
And for thousands of Latter-day Saints who will be delivering a Mother’s Day talk tomorrow, it is looming large. Expectations are high and scriptural sources are limited.
Catholic parish registers belong to humanity
According to various news outlets the Catholic Church has ordered its dioceses to not allow Mormons access to parish registers any more. For decades, our Church has copied and preserved millions of pages of parish registers around the world, as part of the injunction to seek out ancestors and perform ordinances in their behalf. There are probably still millions of pages out there, uncopied.
Gospel culture and the others
How do ‘we’ as Mormons learn to view ‘others’? We can try to answer this question from the angle of various approaches to the concept of “gospel culture”.
The Dennis Wendt Jr. Post*: Undercover for the Lord
2 August 1888: Elder Alma P. Richards, ten months into his missionary service and working without a companion, stopped at a hotel in Meridian, Mississippi and made arrangements with a porter to keep some books and clothing until the elder’s return, expected to be a few days later. Richards, on foot, left Meridian to visit friends just over the state line in Jasper County, Alabama. He was never heard from again.
Pagan Christianity: A failure of nerve
A new book written by two Evangelical Christians supports many of the views of Latter-day Saints about the apostacy from First Century Christianity. Frank Viola and George Barna have collaborated on an updated and expanded version of one of Viola’s earlier books, and titled it Pagan Christianity.
Love and skepticism
When Christ was sending out his disciples to work as missionaries, he told them “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” (Matthew 10:16) Latter-day Saints need to be wiser when dealing with the wolves among us.
Noah’s flood in light of the Restored Gospel
There was an interesting post in September 2007 about a Dialogue article discussing the usual interpretation of the flood of Noah as being scientifically implausible. A couple of comments touched upon, but did not fully explicate, the way that the scriptures of the Restored Gospel and other insights from Joseph Smith can suggest a more scientifically feasible interpretation of Noah’s flood.