By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

I confess I once read Cleon Skousen’s “Thousand Years” books–don’t hold it against me. Specifically, I remember reading his The Fourth Thousand Years and his take on Jonah, where he told the story about a sailor who fell overboard and was swallowed by a whale, but survived, somehow, in its belly, to be released by his fellow whalers after they landed the beast.[1] This episode was then offered up as anecdotal assurance of the historicity of the Jonah story. It was kind of like Thor Heyerdahl meets The Accidental Tourist, a reluctant demonstration of possibility. My favorite part of the story was when the sailor’s skin was bleached from soaking in buckets of whale vomit and he lost huge fistfuls of hair, yet, other than that, he was pretty much good-to-go afterwards. Okay, I thought, so maybe this was something I could believe in with a straight face afterall. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I took a 20 question quiz on belief.net called the Belief-O-Matic. After taking the quiz, it spits out a list (with percentages) of religions that are well-matched for you and the beliefs you proclaimed in the quiz.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) was 4th on my list at 75%. That surprised me. Read the rest of this entry »

I was very interested in the news reports that the two released Fox journalists, Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint during their captivity. Read the rest of this entry »

The hallway that leads to the women’s change room in the Salt Lake Temple is lined with photographs of women who have served in general Relief Society presidencies. The last photo on the right hand side is a portrait of Zina D.H. Young. When I was there last, I spent a long time gazing into her dark eyes, trying to imagine what she experienced. Today is the 105^th anniversary her death. Read the rest of this entry »

I am pleased to announce that Footnotes to the New Testament for Latter-day Saints, which I wrote together with John Jenkins and John Tvedtnes, is now publicly available here. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of weeks after I was born, the Ensign’s First Presidency message was entitled The False Gods We Worship. President Kimball takes a topic that he treated similarly in The Miracle of Forgiveness, seven years earlier, into new and progressive areas. As I was preparing for my talk tomorrow on Joshua’s final stand before Israel, my mind turned to Kimball’s treatment. Read the rest of this entry »

Several times in the Bloggernacle I have made reference to a Sunstone column, which I thought was entitled “The Polygamy Game.” I have searched numerous times in vain for it, and have never been able to find it. So I finally decided to actually look through my print collection, and I just now put my fingers on it. I couldn’t find it with a search because (1) I had misremembered the title of the column and (2) that particular issue (No. 102, 19/2 [June 1996]) is not yet available at the Sunstone website [and a friend has borrowed my New Mormon Studies cd-rom and not yet returned it]. The column I have wanted to share with you all, but until now have been unable to, was written by Robert Kirby, and is entitled “Okay–Polygamy’s Passe.” It appears on p. 59. As a public service, I will type it in below for your enjoyment. Read the rest of this entry »

The third week lesson for the Relief Society in January, 1914 included a twenty minute discussion on home gardening. After an overview of some plants and soils that included the use of some Utah State Extension supplied instructional materials, the lesson outlined a brief sermon on the spiritual ramifications of gardening: Read the rest of this entry »

Someone once asked this thought provoking question: “What is the meaning of the Bible?” Other authors have attempted to answer this question as it is asked by people in general, but this is the first guide designed to respond to this person’s question specifically.[1] Read the rest of this entry »

My dad, may he rest in peace, was not a very good man. He was depressed, balding, severely bipolar, a very poor provider, diabetic, full of self-loathing, lazy, he liked puns, and he didn’t live long enough for me to understand what it even is that makes a person good.

My parents divorced when I was nine, because of his mishandling of his bipolar disorder, his unwillingness to take medication (he felt he needed to use his agency to overcome it), and his inability to help our family survive financially. That, mixed with his Type I diabetes, took him out of the game when he was 45 and I was 13.

I did not like him when he died. Read the rest of this entry »

Discussions regarding wealth, ostentation, philanthropy and Mormonism abound in the Bloggernacle. We’re relatively wealthy people here in our slice of cyberspace, and we don’t mind moralizing about our wealth, either. From a layperson’s point of view, I think I perceive two camps regarding wealth-distribution among Mormons: the amateurs, who talk about wealth according to their relative fields of expertise (be it economics, law, or what have you) and the professionals, who are actually wealthy and engaged in the process of wealth redistribution and philanthropy. I’d submit that the Bloggernacle is almost exclusively composed of the amateurs, myself included, which is unfortunate, because I believe we could learn a great deal about the nature of wealth and faith by involving some of the professionals in our discussions. Jon Huntsman? Dave Neeleman? Consider this your invitation to permablog at BCC.

In that vein, I’ve watched and re-watched a recent episode of Charlie Rose that I think is very germane: Rose’s interview of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. Read the rest of this entry »

If the writings of Hugh Nibley, Leonard Arrington and Lowell Bennion are the “classic rock” of Mormon studies, and if Hugh Nibley is the Led Zeppelin of classic Mormon studies, then Nibley’s The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment (MJSP), recently released in a new 2nd edition, is Nibley’s digitally remastered “Stairway to Heaven.” [1] Read the rest of this entry »

Heather MacDonald, a well-known writer at the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, penned a recent article for the American Conservative that has prompted considerable discussion in the Blogosphere, particularly at NRO’s the Corner. MacDonald’s point, in a nutshell, is to express frustration on behalf of conservative atheists and agnostics towards the overtly theological rhetoric that so often characterizes American conservative arguments. Her thesis: “The conservative movement is crippling itself by leaning too heavily on religion to the exclusion of these temperamentally compatible allies [i.e., conservative atheists and agnostics].” Read the rest of this entry »

Sunstone is well underway here at the Sheraton in SLC. I’m here with my son (a couple of years ago I brought my daughter). In fact, I’m skipping a session so that I can write this. Read the rest of this entry »

Surprisingly, it’s a grey day here in the normally sun-drenched Pacific Northwest. Someone said to me that they were “glad to have the moisture,” and that sent me into a ruminative tailspin, for “moisture” is one of those prayer terms that just makes me giggle. Read the rest of this entry »

My wife and I started watching DVDs of “24” last fall. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s crack cocaine in handy disk format. In fact I’m right now in withdrawal waiting for the last season to get released at Blockbuster. Couldn’t watch it on TV with commercials and all that “waiting a week between episodes” crap–messes up my fix.

Halfway through Season Three I realized something. My wife thinks I’m her Chloe. Read the rest of this entry »

By Common Consent is pleased to release the second of a two-part round table on Correlation. Vol. 1, is available here, and adds a significant depth to this conversation. The participants in this round include: Read the rest of this entry »

What are we supposed to learn from our mortal experience of time? Read the rest of this entry »

I ride the No. 33 bus to work; it’s environmentally friendly, relatively painless and — best of all — it’s free, thanks to my employer. Those familiar with public transportation usually have a story or two to share about the weirdos on the bus or in the subway, or at least they can recall the sounds (and smells) that come from cramming a cross-section of society together in a metal box for half an hour.

This bus story begins with a Book of Mormon. Read the rest of this entry »

So my wife Sandy, who is very outdoorsy and independent, just returned from a five-day trip camping, biking and kayaking by herself in Wisconsin. One day she was riding her bike down a trail, and there was a large number of unusually clothed riders also on the trail. The men wore homemade clothing with wide-brimmed hats, and the women wore long dresses and bonnets. Read the rest of this entry »