By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

Just recently I was asked to do a fifty minute presentation on LDS Women’s History at an upcoming Relief Society Enrichment Day. Read the rest of this entry »

165 years ago today, Joseph Smith addressed the band of Sisters who had organized a female society: Read the rest of this entry »

Romney’s Mormonism is an easy hook upon which to write a story. This is as true for the Times of London as it is for the New York Times. In Britain, the Guardian and the Times have recently written the Romney-Mormon story, for example. With this is mind, I solicit your advice, BCC readers. If you were to summarise Romney, Mormonism, and Romney’s Mormonism to the international media, what would you want them to understand before they spill their journalistic ink, both about the church and about Romney’s faith? Read the rest of this entry »

Quick, off the top of your head, name 7 General Relief Society Presidents.  Name 5 General Young Women’s Presidents.  Name 3 General Primary Presidents.

At a recent Singles’ activity, the late twenty somethings were organized into several, smaller groups and then assigned an animal. They were given these instructions: we will blindfold you, mix up all the groups, make you get on your hands and knees and then you must make the noise of your animal until you have united your entire animal group. The first animal to gather, wins.

My friend refused to play. This is what 5 year olds play, she said. Stop being immature, her friends said, and just play the game. Read the rest of this entry »

I realized the other day that I have not yet promoted in this venue an important book edited by Kate Holbrook, a rising Mormon scholar in religion and literature, and colleagues, Global Values 101, a collection of interviews drawn from a fascinating undergraduate course that introduced students to the thought and lives of leading thinkers and activists. I understand that the book has become something of an international sensation, with most recently a Korean university group attempting a similar kind of forum for scholarship, education, and activism based on the book. While I love the book in its own right, I am also proud of it as an expression of the kind of moral power that can be drawn from the Mormon tradition (as well as the many other traditions represented in the book).

NB: I am not an objective reviewer and am admittedly promoting a close friend’s book.

As the proud old-time LDSLF readers among our audience may be aware, about two years ago I began a project to create a modern-language adaptation, for study purposes, of the Book of Mormon. Modest individual that I am, I named it after myself. Read the rest of this entry »

Mention of the Spirit of Elijah in Latter-day Saint discourse is not uncommon. Interestingly, modern conceptions of this spirit are actually that, i.e., relatively modern. We typically associate the Spirit of Elijah with genealogical fervor and the passion that many people, Mormon and gentile alike, have for family history. This perspective seems to be the result of taking a concept that Joseph developed by translating/expanding scripture and then decades later reapplying the term to the original, unmodified text. Read the rest of this entry »

To get you in the mood to celebrate this weekend’s anniversary of the founding of the Relief Society ………. kitchen tips from the General Relief Society Presidents of the Church. Commemorate the great and courageous women that are part of our history by hosting an ice-cream social of your own, possibly with a brief reader’s theater.

As you know, I’m reading the latest Dialogue, and on the train this morning I get to R. John Williams, “Remembering Gene and His Generation,” which is a review of Robert A. Rees, Proving Contraries: A Collection of Writings in Honor of Eugene England (SLC: Signature, 2005). At pp. 186-87, Williams comments a bit on the Bloggernacle: Read the rest of this entry »

Anyone who claims any education must read Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh is an astonishing piece of literature, astonishing not only because it is modern and moral and profound, but astonishing because it is all these things and over three thousand years old. So, put down your Homer and your Shakespeare, put down even your Bible, and read Gilgamesh.

I have been reading Stephen Mitchell’s New English Version, and it is this book that has got me thinking about Mormon things. Read the rest of this entry »

A few years ago, Nate O. wrote a fun piece regarding the non-existence of mormon jurisprudence. The purpose of the post was to discuss various reasons for the absence of rabbinical-style exposition in the mormon faith, and to theorize as to whether mormonism will ever evolve to the point where we have a Maimondes of our own. The argument goes something like this: mormons love to read the scriptures, we love to obsess over correct conduct and we love our system of dispute resolution. So why don’t we have a host of authors and authorities writing detailed exegeses of mormon law?

Having obsessed over Nate’s post for over two and a half years, I have an idea: mormonism is a religion of civil law; or at least it will be, given the passage of time. Let’s explore the idea with the example of apostasy. Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday, March 15th, 7 p.m.

Kristine’s house (e-mail for directions)

John Dehlin is in town, and I’m cooking dinner (butternut squash and caramelized onion lasagna, and a dessert decadent enough to make you question your WofW compliance :) ).

Please come!

The latest Dialogue just hit my mailbox. I believe Kristine is going to offer some personal comments on the various essays once she gets her copy (since I’m in Chicago and she’s in Boston, it will probably take at least a couple of more days to arrive there). In the meantime, I wanted to provide for you the Table of Contents so that you could get a taste for what is in this issue. Subscription information is available here. In my view, everyone in the Bloggernacle should be a subscriber to Dialogue, and at least some in the Bloggernacle should be contributing (whether substantive studies, personal essays, fiction, poetry, reviews or art). Read the rest of this entry »

This afternoon I went to see 300. I liked it quite a bit. I liked Sin City, and this too is an adaptation of a Frank Miller graphic novel. Although the warrior cult stuff was over the top and cartoonish, it was visually interesting, and considering its proximate source it held pretty closely to the actual story of King Leonidas and his Spartan 300 at Thermopylae against the Persian hosts of King Xerxes, as recounted by Herodotus. The brutal martial training of the boys, the military effectiveness of the phalanx, the strength of Spartan women, etc., all were touched on in this sumptuous tale. And I understand that gay men are flocking to it, too, and well they should–there are abs everywhere! Read the rest of this entry »

In 1935, fresh off his own mission, the 25 year old Gordon B. Hinckley accepted an assignment to manage the newly created Radio, Publicity, and Mission Literature Committee of the Church. By 1937 this new department had released the first edition of The Missionary’s Hand Book. This book drew on several publications in circulation at the time and was published with the copyright of Heber J. Grant. Nine years later, the second edition was released, retaining the Grant copyright. In this post, the second of a series (see here for part 1), I offer several excerpts from the third and fourth chapters of the 1946 edition. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most frustrating, perplexing, bewildering, thought-provoking, and finally powerful books on Mormon theology that I have ever read is Strangers in Paradox: Explorations in Mormon Theology by Margaret Merrill Toscano and her husband, Paul Toscano. In celebration of Margaret Toscano’s recent guest post at Feminist Mormon Housewives, and also as an opportunity to express the exhilarations and frustrations that are my subjective response to her work, I would like to offer a brief appreciation of her contributions to Mormon theology. In my view, Toscano is one of the most important Mormon theological writers of our generation. She, more than perhaps anyone else currently writing, asks the right questions and offers fascinating, challenging, and sometimes flabbergasting responses. I am hard-pressed to think of any other recent writer who has done more creative work with the theological symbols of Mormonism. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok folks, this is it. Place your bets and vote. My money’s on the man with the trumpet, but either has a good shot, I think.

The winner will be declared on Saturday. Good night and Good luck.

[UPDATED] And the winner is: Missions! Huzzah!

I recently recovered some mysterious writings of ancient date, which I would like to share with you. I present them to you in as direct a translation as possible from the original, but for want of space I share only a few leaves from the text. Archaic spellings and grammar are preserved to convey a sense of the original author’s intent. Read the rest of this entry »

I really enjoy reading biblcal texts in their original languages. I find this to be tremendously enlightening and just plain fun. Sometimes I worry that people will think I value a knowledge of Hebrew and Greek only because I happen to possess such a knowledge. But of course, I didn’t come out of the womb knowing Hebrew and Greek; rather, I came to the conclusion that knowing the languages was important, and I made the effort to learn them. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, the winners from the last round are the only contestants for this round, so let’s see who they are (although, for once, this isn’t necessary since all my predictions came true):
Read the rest of this entry »

Part I of the interview is available here.

BCC: What sort of conflicts (social, personal, religious, or professional) do you encounter as Mormon scholars studying your own community? What tactics have you adopted to negotiate your paths through such conflicts? Read the rest of this entry »

In reviewing the new PBS documentary, “The Mormons,” the Boston Globe thinks most Mormons will choke on Yale archaeologist Michael Coe’s characterisation of Joseph Smith as a “shaman.”

Mayhap. It’s certainly better than “charlatan.” But I’m wondering, is “shaman” such a bad way to describe the Prophet? “Shaman” has many definitions, but here’s something quick and easy: “an intermediary between the natural and spiritual world, who travels between worlds in a state of trance.”

I imagine “intermediary” sits fairly well, but inter-world travel, “trance”? If that makes you uncomfortable, then consider these: could The Vision (D&C 76) be described as a trance? As for inter-world travel, do you think, had you been out walking the dog in the grove that day, you would have seen the Father and the Son too? In what way was Moroni actually in that shared bedroom all night long? In other words, it what way did Joseph’s visions occur in real time and space?

I agree, it’s a loose fit, but not utterly wacky. I wonder what Coe meant?