Several years ago, a conference was organized by Richard Bushman, Terryl Givens, and several LDS graduate students. Concerned by perceptions of a general abandoning of faith among LDS grad students in religion-related fields, the conference’s focus was encapsulated in its title, Faith and Knowledge. (more…) Read more
General Conference has come and gone, and the holidays are fast approaching, reminding me of family traditions. Our traditions are pretty low key. We go to church together. The night before General Conference, the boys sleep in a tent in our living room, making sure that the door of the tent is facing the nearest temple. We have Family Home Evening on Mondays. We eat blue pancakes for breakfast on BYU’s opening game day for football. We read Luke 2... Read more
I gave birth to a beautiful 7 lb girl two weeks ago. I wanted a natural delivery, and my midwife suggested the “hypnobirthing” method of dealing with pain. The method is all about breathing. One is supposed to be able to put oneself into a state of deep relaxation though breathing exercises. My hypnobirthing book said that, with practice, many hypnobirthing mothers can put themselves quickly into such a state of relaxation that contractions feel like nothing more than “tightening”... Read more
Over at FaithPromotingRumor, TT analyzes a collection of statements from various manuals about using “outside” materials in preparing lessons. That’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, because I’ve suspected that Church materials are not entirely consistent with their directives about this. At one extreme is the unsigned Church News article (the authority of which can be debated), which more or less states that you can’t even use uncorrelated materials to prepare a lesson and that “Everything you need... Read more
Title: Early Mormon Missionary Activities in Japan, 1901-1924 Author: Reid L. Neilson Publisher: University of Utah Press Genre: Mormon Studies Year: 2010 Pages: 214 ISBN13: 9780874809893 Binding: Paperback Heber J. Grant, Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had disappointing news to share at the Church’s October 1903 General Conference. “I know that the Latter-day Saints have been greatly interested in the mission I was called to preside over, and I regret I am not able to... Read more
There was a recent bout of stomach flu at my house. In a period of 4 hours, my three children vomited 11 times. I was grateful to be living in a house with a washer and dryer, since we moved fairly recently out of an apartment with only public, coin-operated laundry facilities. I considered what it might have been like living in an earlier time and trying to cope with such an illness: chopping wood to make a fire to... Read more
Title: Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate Author: Terry Eagleton Publisher: Yale University Press Genre: Religion Year: 2009 Pages: 185 ISBN13: 9780300164534 Binding: Soft cover (2010) Price: 16.00 “Religion has wrought untold misery in human affairs. For the most part, it has been a squalid tale of bigotry, superstition, wishful thinking, and oppressive ideology. I therefore have a good deal of sympathy with its rationalist and humanist critics” (xi). So Terry Eagleton begins his critique of the... Read more
Patheos will liveblog Priesthood Session on Saturday night. (Coverage of the apparently mandatory pre-session ice-cream/testosterone gathering will not be provided.) As for previous conferences, short bios and near-instant identification of quoted scriptures will be embedded into the liveblogging. Check it out here. http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/LDS-General-Conference-Cover-It-Live.html Read more
This podcast is long delayed and the first podcast on Isaiah has been written already. Various things have prevented me from posting it so far. General Conference this weekend gives me a chance to catch up, so I’ll try to post several podcasts in the next 7 days. [audio:http://media.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/Media/MormonPodcastLesson35.mp3] Right-click here to save mp3 Transcript Notes to follow later. Look for a (u) in the title (for “updated”.) Read more
The New York Times ran an article last Sunday titled “Mormon-Owned Paper Stands With Immigrants.” It described how the Deseret News’ often sympathetic writing about illegal immigrants has incurred the wrath of it’s “conservative, mostly Mormon, readers.” The article claims that any editorial the paper runs carries the Church’s unofficial seal of approval and hence has the power to shape opinions in the largely Mormon Utah legislature, which could be particularly important right now since the legislature is considering a... Read more
One Eternal Round
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