Behold, I say unto you that all old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing; and this is a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning. (D&C 22:1)

As America continues to navigate the intended and unintended consequences of pluralism, interfaith marriage has become a significant arena of interest. This week, Stanley Fish highlighted Naomi Schaefer Riley’s new and provocative ‘Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage is Transforming America. In the last decade, nearly half of all American marriages involved individuals of different faiths. On the one hand, such a statistic both reaffirms and perpetuates the nation’s increasingly pluralist tradition: besides demonstrating the extent to which individuals have become tolerant of other faiths, interfaith marriages also ensure that the succeeding generation(s) will come to accept religious diversity as commonplace. Richard Putnam and David Campbell’s American Grace persuasively argued that America’s, well, grace is found in the nation’s increasing exposure to and acceptance of religious pluralism, largely through building a network of kinship and friendship with those outside one’s own faith. [Read more...]

Perhaps because it always falls several weeks after elections, Thanksgiving is never very politicized. (Perhaps the ritual of gorging oneself on turkey and stuffing is too sacred to be profaned.) While we certainly have enough political debates throughout the calendar year, and we are now gearing up for the nauseating annual “War on Christmas,” Thanksgiving is often seen as a benign and happy holiday in which all people, regardless of political or religious beliefs, are thankful for the blessings in their lives—not to mention food on their plates and football on their televisions. Indeed, perhaps the most pressing debate that comes up is, “why do the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys always get the nationally broadcasted games?” [Read more...]

[Yesterday, I had the privilege of virtually attending the blogging event held in honor of the Joseph Smith Papers most recent contribution: Histories, Volume 2.]

On the day the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in 1830, Joseph Smith claimed a revelation that “there shall be a record kept among you.” The Joseph Smith Papers Project, which has been going strong for over a decade and has now published its sixth of a projected twenty to twenty-five volumes, is perhaps the most ambitious and significant result of that charge. Endorsed by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the project has taken Mormon documentary editing standards to a new level and established a pattern nearly impossible to duplicate. The most recent volume, the second in the “Histories” series, reproduces early attempts to narrate the Church’s history prior to (and immediately after) Joseph Smith’s death. Unlike the first volume in the series, though, these texts were not directly overseen, dictated, or even supervised by Smith himself; rather, they were commissioned by him and composed by others who claimed their own first-hand experience. [Read more...]