By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

New Scientist magazine earlier this month ran a special report called: “Unscientific America: A dangerous retreat from reason.” (If you are unfamiliar with the highly respected New Scientist it is a newsweekly for and by scientists, much like The Economist that examines stories, trends and analyses in science. It is published in Great Britain.) It opens, “As campaigning for the 2012 presidential election gets into full swing. US politics, especially on the right, appears to have entered a parallel universe where ignorance, denial and unreason trump facts, evidence and rationality.” It points out that while America was founded on enlightenment values it as fallen off the wagon (And while the dizzy argue about whether the founding fathers were Christian, there is no doubt that they were profoundly educated and versed in the best science, philosophy and theory available at the time). One doesn’t have to listen very far into the current political debates to see that America is in deep doo doo as its commitment to science slips further and further into an allegiance of the unenlightened and the uninformed.
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Visiting Teaching was something I found especially charming as a new convert. It was novel and sweet- having two women, friendly and attentive- drop by my house each month to share something thoughtful was a soothing balm. As a new mother, relocated a thousand miles from my old friends and support system, I really loved the kindness those women showed. In retrospect, I think they were even sincere. Mostly.

But then the shine wore off. The sisters I thought were genuinely interested, thought genuinely cared, were assigned to someone else. The visits stopped. It was the tiniest bit shocking to realize I had been an assignment. The warmth I felt at the charm of Visiting Teaching dulled just a bit. It was a surprise when I realized what life-long Mormons understand- Visiting Teachers change, and no matter how we spin it, it is, in fact, a duty. Is that bad? Perhaps not. Read the rest of this entry »

Last time, I briefly introduced you to Georg Cantor (1845-1918), a Russian-born Jewish Christian who became a well-known and in some quarters infamous, mathematician. Cantor systematized much of what perviously was just mystical respect for the infinite.
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I’ve been in well over 20 wards in my relatively short lifetime. Some I remember fondly, others…….not so fondly. The last two wards in which my family and I have resided have been eye-opening experiences for my wife. She’s had strongly (though not exclusively) negative experiences with ward members. I’m sure most of you are familiar with these in some way or another; they are unfortunately not exceptional: purposive exclusion, gossip, derisive comments, biting criticism, cold indifference, etc. We’ve experienced the same to varying degrees in other wards, but in these two cases she has had the opportunity for the first time to become a member of communities of women outside of the Church. What she found, for her, was astonishing; these women were welcoming of her in ways that so many women in our wards had not been. When they discovered she was a Mormon (a point she did not readily volunteer at first, fearing a backlash), there was mostly just curiosity, though occasionally peppered with fascinating conversations with the Christian women in these groups about shared and cherished values and beliefs. Read the rest of this entry »

My son, there is a great and marvelous work in store for you. You will be an instrument in my hands in making unto me a great people. They will be my people, and I will be their God, and you will work a work to bring this to pass. You will lead them to their salvation, to the land of the New Zion.

But first you must retrieve the record. Read the rest of this entry »

During a recent priesthood lesson, the teacher asked this question:

What do you think is the greatest threat to your family?

I think he misread the question, or misinterpreted the question: I think he meant to say, what is the biggest threat to the family, as in the institution, and then we could all produce our various social bogeymen and parade them around. But by posing the question the way he did, my answer was so quick in my mind and so strong that it felt like some sort of inspiration.

The biggest threat to my family is me. Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of the seminary 100^th anniversary commemoration going on right now (find a recording here) we at BCC started reminiscing about how seminary/institute influenced and inspired us or, sometimes, frustrated and flummoxed us. Here are some of our anonymous musings:

“I learned that my seminary teacher was a rightwing dweeb that was completely unprepared for any political pushback in class.”

“I was excommunicated from 9th grade seminary for teaching evolution (and being a smug little jerk, but hey, I’m telling the story) and from 10th grade seminary for never attending (I figured it was a free period for me to hang out with friends or go hiking or play pinochle). I loved Institute, however”.

“I had one good seminary teacher and three fantastic ones. I loved seminary.”

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Stephen Webb (professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College — and someone who is clearly up on his Mormonism), in his thoughtful piece at First Things writes (ht: sidebar):
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I once made the silly mistake of suggesting that members of the Church might beneficially learn from non-LDS sources, or more specifically, that non-LDS sources might have messages for people in the world, messages from God that could only viably come through them and not from our own leadership. The sentiment itself might not sound so objectionable to most Mormons. My mistake was that I made this suggestion during a Sunday School lesson. And I compounded my error by later reading a quote from a non-manual source.

As former GOP presidential nominee candidate Rick Perry once said, “Oops.”  Read the rest of this entry »

Do you like BCC? Do you like the sidebar, the news we bring you, our book reviews and our discussion of what’s happening in Mormonism? The U.S. Senate, in dizzying heights of internet ignorance, is in the process of considering legislation that very well could shutter our sidebar and censor our speech, closing the Bloggernacle. The legislation is called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), and could have severe legal consequences for us if we linked to a site anywhere online that had any possible links to copyright infringement.

Suffice it to say, this would devastate much of the internet. PIPA’s stupid sister, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), is no better. It’s time for you to visit AmericanCensorship.org and contact your Senator, who very probably doesn’t even use email. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has more information on this as well.

You have already probably heard a lot about this issue from Google, Craigslist, Wikipedia and a host of other sites that have gone dark today. We’re keeping our content up out of dedication to you, our community, but this is really important. Please take a minute and speak up today.

Recently I have begun reading the Book of Mormon again using Grant Hardy’s Reader’s Edition.  The other night as I sat in my parent’s house to read, my step-father and I began discussing the problem of giving copies of the Book of Mormon to people.  For us there were a number of considerations: the cost of the copy, the size of the copy (physically), the size of copy (selections vs. entire text) and the readability (versification, footnotes, structure etc.).  The question I pose, therefore, is: which copy of the Book of Mormon would you give to a friend? Read the rest of this entry »

[See part 5 here.]

The Intrigues of the Infinite are coming to play. Whether you are confused by the infinite or have some logical grasp of it, I’m going to take you on a ride through a few of those intrigues of the past. Hold on to your logical pants.
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A few months ago, I was attending a university level criminal law class in a Muslim country that recognizes sharia law in the constitution.  The class was lively, the students were prepared, and it was incredibly enjoyable listening to these students chew through topics like the presumption of innocence and burden of proof.  At one point, during a discussion of the country’s penal code, a student raised his hand and asked why drinking alcohol was against the law in that country, when it was not criminalized in America.  “How can one act be a crime in one country, and not in another?”  The teacher, probably not willing to be waylaid by a philosophical discussion of “what is crime” punted the question and briefly talked about sharia before moving on.  I think it’s too bad that the teacher didn’t delve into the question of “what is crime” because approached from a comparative law standpoint, it is pretty fascinating. Read the rest of this entry »

Elizabeth Pinborough is a Latter-day Saint scholar and historian, with a special focus in religion and literature as well as women’s history. She is also editor of the forthcoming Habits of Being: Mormon Women’s Material Culture. Elizabeth currently blogs at Scholaristas. We’re excited that Elizabeth has agreed to contribute this review.

Title: Women of Faith in the Latter Days, Volume One, 1775–1820
Editors: Richard E. Turley Jr. and Brittany A. Chapman
Publisher: Deseret Book
Genre: History
Year: 2011
Pages: 501
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN13: 978-1-60641-033-2
Price: $34.99

The first volume in the Women of Faith series features biographical essays by a number of Mormon history professionals, including Jill Mulvay Derr, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and Mark L. Staker, in addition to fledgling historians, amateur historians, and other experienced authors. It treats a wonderful collection of early Latter-day Saint women born between 1775 and 1820, some well known and some less so. This is not a strictly academic book. Yes, it has footnotes, which are in some cases quite extensive. But this compilation of faith stories is necessarily something more. It serves as a devotional textbook the influence of which will reach beyond scholarly utility. Its stories of faith are not only an important piece of the Mormon historical record and a window into the historical construction of faith among Mormon women. These stories are also essential to the contemporary vitality of Mormons’ life of faith. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I come not to bury the Book of Mormon Musical creators Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez, but to announce that they have been named the 2011 Boggs-Doniphan Gentiles of the Year. To the extent that an award half-named for the man who tried to have us all killed, and half-named for a valued ally, can be considered an honor, I say to them: Congratulations!

So the question of the hour must be, is this year’s award a Boggs, or a Doniphan?
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[Cross-posted to In Medias Res]

This is a sermon which I gave in sacrament meeting on January 1, 2012. It was the day after our third daughter, Alison, was baptized, and my parents and parents-in-law were in attendance, which all made for a wonderful occasion. I don’t think I would have done anything different with this sermon it had been just another Sunday though. In any case, I think it turned out well, and enough people told me afterwards that they liked it that I decided to post it here. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »

In my last post I looked at the “War in Heaven” as depicted in a late-19th century work of Mormon fiction: Nephi Anderson’s Added Upon. I want to respond to one of the comments from that post, but rather than humbly making use of the comments section there I decided to go ahead and grandstand a bit because my response to the comment gets closer to the root of what I really intended by writing that post, and what I hoped to see in the comments.

KaralynZ: “My mom had a copy of this and I read it several times growing up. I consider it as much of a useful source of truthful theology as ‘Saturday’s Warrior’ is.”

This seems to imply that Anderson’s book is useless, trite, or vapid (ties to Saturday’s Warrior are seldom complementary). I don’t mind a snarky or funny reply here and there, and such a reply comes pretty easy for Added Upon. Like I mentioned, the dialogue can be wooden, it’s extremely didactic, the characters can often be seen as cardboard props rather than complex persons, and in some cases it perpetuates what we see today as harmful theological ideas (e.g., less-valiance in premortality stuff). Why dig it up, then? Why bother with it? “Truthful theology” is all I bother with, after all! Read the rest of this entry »

Another image of Mitt and Devotion…

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So what do BCC readers believe (check all that apply):
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BCC has been invited to participate in a conference call discussing the latest results from the Pew Forum study ‘Mormons in America‘.  I will be live blogging the conversation.  Thank you to the Pew Forum for allowing us to participate. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is written off advanced word and may be inaccurate. The full results will be published tomorrow and this post will be updated as more details are available.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is about to be published. Like previous years, the researchers have tried to untangle some of the complexities of the Mormon experience, and this year in particular the questions have a special importance. In this latest iteration of the survey, 1,019 Mormons were interviewed and some of this data captures interesting trends among the Latter-day Saints. As a caveat, part of the problem with this data, as always, is a lack of appropriate nuance in the questions.

According to the survey, less than half of Mormon respondents believe that abstaining from caffeine is necessary to continue to be a ‘good’ member of the Church. It is difficult to draw anything substantive about this particular question except that it is clearly trying to tap into something latent concerning the Word of Wisdom. If anything it seems surprisingly high, especially because it is not clearly proscribed by D&C 89.
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Looking for our discussion of the Pew Forum’s latest survey? It would seem that BCC has inadvertently broken the Temporal Prime Directive. Check back tomorrow morning and all shall be as it was. We apologize for the inconvenience.

If you saw this video, and only this, what would you say of the role of women in the Church?

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“When death becomes the center of our consciousness, then religion authentically begins. Of all religions that I know, the one that most vehemently and persuasively defies and denies the reality of death is the original Mormonism of the prophet, seer and revelator Joseph Smith.”
–Harold Bloom

“I will open your eyes in relation to your dead.”
–Joseph Smith, Jr.

In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death
Samuel Morris Brown
New York: Oxford University Press. 2010
Hardback, 408 Pages

Sam Brown’s long-anticipated book has been well worth the wait. Read the rest of this entry »