From the international annals of overachieving singing and dancing Mormons The Mormon moment for the Eurovision Song Contest came in 1984
Year: 2008
Book Review: The Pictograph Murders, by P.G. Karamesines
Murder most foul, in the strange natural world of southern Utah.
Moral Hazard in the Scriptures
For those hoping to find more economics in their scripture study…
Introducing Innocents to the Fallen World
Scene One: In the car.
Element Call for Student Submissions (July 15 deadline)
Element: The Journal of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology is publishing a special issue dedicated to student articles.
Revelation 1:1-3
So much for one post per chapter.
Interpretations: MSH at SVU
This past Friday and Saturday I attended a very enjoyable conference at Southern Virginia University, co-sponsored by Mormon Scholars in the Humanities and the Mormon Scholars Foundation.
God Himself
Lucky me, I got to talk about Mosiah 15 in my Gospel Doctrine lesson today.
You Should Write More Letters
You never know what they’ll be worth someday: “Einstein Letter on God Sells for $404,000.”
Revelation 21:10-21
Before we begin, we need to begin at the beginning:
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.
Let’s Prognosticate
Gas prices. Food prices. Credit crisis. Recession. Iraq. Iran.
Food Storage Idea
There’s a really good conversation about food storage over at MMW and I want to throw one more idea out there, because it hadn’t occurred to me until recently that the best place to do my food storage buying was the most expensive grocery store in town.
Love Thy Neighbor … or Not
I don’t read to the end of many online essays anymore — either most writing is dull and pointless or I have developed blog-induced attention deficit disorder, you decide which. But I read “Love Thy Neighbor: The religion beat in an age of intolerance” at the Columbia Journalism Review start to finish (hat tip: Get Religion).
Apostasy and the Dark Ages
Do these concepts have anything to do with each other? Apparently some Mormons think they do, hence Davis Bitton’s corrective essay “How Dark Were the Dark Ages?” (conveniently reposted at Meridian Magazine).
From the Archives: My Gifts (Whitsunday Reflections)
Today is Whitsunday on the Christian liturgical calendar, a holiday in honor of the Day of Pentecost. Not quite four years ago, in June of 2005, I wrote something about the gifts demonstrated on that day, and about those–decidedly less spetacular–gifts which I believe I have. I’m somewhat proud of it; I think it is one of the more honest things I’ve ever written about myself. The text is below; you might want to check out the comments on the original post as well.
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.
Heimskringla and historicity
There’s a reasonable chance that all efforts to situate the Book of Mormon over the last 180 years, geographically, culturally, and chronologically, are based on the Nephite version of the Donation of Constantine. But first, let’s talk about Odin.
IDTM
If one more Mormon tells me to see Expelled, I am going to scream.
Shortage and storage
With the recent spike in food prices, a three year old post demands new life. Here it is: Clearly, were there to be a famine, a one year food supply in the basement would look really good. What may be slightly less obvious is that the presence of food storage, even if nobody ever uses any of it for an emergency, can stop a famine from ever actually happening.
Mormons and Reality Shows
Read and discuss.
Gertrud Specht
Gertrud Specht had been a searcher her whole life before she found what she was looking for
That Daguerreotype Again (2 of 2)
Chapters 9 and 10 of Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again deal with purported photographs of Joseph Smith, including the Scannel daguerreotype.
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.
That Daguerreotype Again (part 1 of 2)
Jared T. at Juvenile Instructor is posting a formal, detailed, academic review of S. Michael Tracy, Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again: The Joseph Smith Photograph (Salt Lake City: Eborn Pub., 2008), Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
Some Notes on Religious Freedom from the Former USSR
An old friend of mine (a former bishop, for whatever that’s worth) whom I keep in touch with by e-mail has spent much of the past decade working for the U.S. government in different capacities in Russia and Ukraine. In response to some recent news items regarding limits on visas to the former Soviet Union, I asked him to comment on how the church and the missionary program is fairing there. This is what he has to say. For security reasons, he asked that I post it without his name attached.
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”.
Janos Kalapsza “… went out to the Mormons”
1848 was a year of turmoil in Europe, with revolutions in France and Italy and Sicily and Germany and Poland and Romania and Moldavia and … and … and … the list seems nearly endless.
Ladies first?
Some bloggernacle women were troubled by the order of the solemn assembly: First, the Priesthood voted (all the way down to the 12-year-olds); they were followed by the women’s organizations. In a comment at FMH, Exponent blog’s Maria notes, “By having women vote after the Aaronic priesthood, it seemed as if the implication was made that those 12 year old boys either preside over or are more important than the women of the RS, including the General RS presidency. Either way, the message is harmful. I worry about the way this could make women and young women in the church feel.” Is it inherently harmful to have women follow men in sustaining the leader?
The Largest Spider Web in Utah
Well, probably not. But it’s certainly the biggest web I’ve ever seen, and it happens to be in my front yard so I’m especially…interested.