By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

Before marrying me, my wife was a well-known interior and furniture designer in Finland. She is a SAHM, but to stay current in the field, she enters design competitions and does pro bono work from time to time.

I’m a school teacher who recently started 9 weeks of summer holiday. We decided it would be better for her and the family if she were to do her design work ‘full time’ for the summer when we aren’t traveling. She leaves at 8 and returns at 5, roughly the schedule I follow during the school year. She does a lot of visits to exhibitions, architects and manufacturers, plus my school gave permission for her to use my empty classroom as an office space. And I take care of our two year old boys. Read the rest of this entry »

It takes some work to go from an idea floated by friends via email to a fully-formed conference. Here’s the programme for the inaugural conference of the European Mormon Studies Association: Read the rest of this entry »

So read the title of concurrent session 5E of the 2007 Mormon History Association Conference. Earlier, Elder Jensen, the Church Historian, spoke to a packed ballroom over lunch. One of his main topics was the movement in the Family and Church History Department of the Church. This movement was highlighted in the session 5E and portends to be one of the greatest changes in Department’s lifetime. Read the rest of this entry »

So I read the New York Times article on Romney’s candidacy today. I have to say, it was one of the more balanced things I’ve read about Mormons in the national press since this campaign season began. The author took a novel step: she asked actual Mormons about church doctrine and culture. Wow! Read the rest of this entry »

Continuing the Captain Caveman series… Read the rest of this entry »

Just about every day in the bloggernacle, church correlation gets a black eye and a fat lip. Whenever the conversation turns to church manuals, CES, the role of women, insipid gospel doctrine lessons, or snore-inducing talks in sacrament meeting, correlation gets put on the ropes where it receives yet another beating. If this were a heavyweight fight, the referee would have stopped it long ago on humanitarian grounds. Read the rest of this entry »

I broadly agree with the theory of human evolution and the dispersal history of our hominid ancestors. I say “broadly” simply because I am only familiar with the popular science accounts of the subject; my own training kicks in when homo sapiens was established in Eurasia and approaching civilisation. Still, what I’ve read seems to make sense of the data, fragmentary and contested though it is.

The most accepted model of human evolution states that homo sapiens evolved from earlier hominids and left Africa about one hundred thousand years ago. For whatever reason, our ancestors beat other homo species in the game of survival. Studies of the mitochondrial DNA from some skeletal remains complicates the picture somewhat, but the above is the generally accepted view.* Read the rest of this entry »

My Ensign comes from the UK, and my favorite part is the eight page insert, ‘News of the Church / British Isles.’ This month’s starts with an article by Elder Patrick R. Kearon, (Second Counsellor in the Europe West Area Presidency, from Clevedon, England) entitled, ‘Midsummer’s Day — Out of Darkness and into His Marvelous Light.’ OK, it’s a Mormonish metaphor, but a metaphor about Midsummer, not baseball or beet farming.

The articles that follow are like a small town newspaper: ‘Long-Term Blood Donor Receives Award,’ ‘Girls Praised for Saving Man’s Life,’ ‘Musical Sisters,’ ‘Relief Society Sisters Help Children in Kenya.’ The articles tend to focus on service projects, with great pictures of RS presidents handing over giant cheques and youth groups making quilts. Read the rest of this entry »

I was born in 1955–the year Rosa Parks made her bold stand (or sit) on the Montgomery bus. I grew up being aware that my church did not have Black members–not even in Bloomington, Indiana. By the time I was twelve, I was troubled by the priesthood restriction. When I was fourteen, I told my seminary teacher that I thought some of what he said was racist. His response was a authoritatively voiced testimony that [n-word plural] really were inferior. That marked the first time I knew a Church teacher–an authority figure to me–was dead wrong. I dropped out of seminary for a time. Read the rest of this entry »

June 8, 1978

To all general and local priesthood officers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout the world:

Dear Brethren:

As we have witnessed the expansion of the work of the Lord over the earth, we have been grateful that people of many nations have responded to the message of the restored gospel, and have joined the Church in ever-increasing numbers. This, in turn, has inspired us with a desire to extend to every worthy member of the Church all of the privileges and blessings which the gospel affords.

Aware of the promises made by the prophets and presidents of the Church who have preceded us that at some time, in God’s eternal plan, all of our brethren who are worthy may receive the priesthood, and witnessing the faithfulness of those from whom the priesthood has been withheld, we have pleaded long and earnestly in behalf of these, our faithful brethren, spending many hours in the Upper Room of the Temple supplicating the Lord for divine guidance.

He has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood, with power to exercise its divine authority, and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows therefrom, including the blessings of the temple. Accordingly, all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color. Priesthood leaders are instructed to follow the policy of carefully interviewing all candidates for ordination to either the Aaronic or the Melchizedek Priesthood to insure that they meet the established standards for worthiness.

We declare with soberness that the Lord has now made known his will for the blessing of all his children throughout the earth who will hearken to the voice of his authorized servants, and prepare themselves to receive every blessing of the gospel.

Sincerely yours,

SPENCER W. KIMBALL
N. ELDON TANNER
MARION G. ROMNEY

Read the rest of this entry »

Our crafty little scheme has been exposed!

Time to close up shop, I guess…

Joseph Smith’s Abraham project has occasioned much confusion and debate over the almost two centuries since it began in 1835. To contribute to the confusion (and illustrate something of the social history of the vignettes–dubbed facsimiles), I offer the following tidbit. Read the rest of this entry »

For many years, the Lord instructed the prophets that those of Black African descent could not receive the priesthood or the ordinances of the temple. The Brethren said that the reasons for this restriction had not been fully revealed. But they taught that these children of Heavenly Father would someday receive these blessings. (See First Presidency letter, Dec. 15, 1969; in Church News, Jan. 10, 1970, 12.) — D&C Teacher Resource Manual, p.272.

Here is the letter referred to and which CES seems to deem the most authoritative statement on the matter (emphases mine): Read the rest of this entry »

During the period of the racial priesthood ban, missionary work was nonexistent in entire regions of the world. Obviously, no missionary work was done in much of sub-Saharan Africa — the major exception being South Africa, where missionary work was largely confined to British and Afrikaner groups. Yet the ban also froze the church out of areas much closer to the church’s U.S. home. The Caribbean, for example, was considered largely off-limits until after the ban. For most islands in the region, no missionary work was done, the church had no congregations, and indeed there were often no members whatsoever. Read the rest of this entry »

This week at BCC, we are pleased to commemorate the 1978 revelation on the priesthood which extended the priesthood offices to all worthy males, regardless of race. Through a joint effort with Dialogue, we will be looking back at the ban on black church members holding the priesthood through a series of posts that use the lenses of history, culture and memory to help us understand this part of our church history. Read the rest of this entry »

Five years ago, I first walked into an LDS chapel, with a squirmy babe-in-arms, and sat alone in the back, amazed by the parade of young people bearing their testimonies. At that meeting, the vocabulary and vernacular was unfamiliar, but the spirit present was what I had been seeking. I didn’t “know” much, but I knew I was coming back.

Until today, I have stood to bear my testimony only twice. Both times, I was strongly moved to do so, but my testimony has never mirrored those of my ward brothers and sisters. It marvels me that folks I know and hold dear stand up and state with surety that they “Know” something… “Know” the church is true. “Know” the Savior lives. “Know” Joseph was a prophet. Read the rest of this entry »

The latest Dialogue, 40/2 (Summer 2007), hit my mailbox on Friday. You can see a summary of contents here, and subscription information is available here. I thought I would try to summarize briefly one of the pieces, by John Donald Gustav-Wrathall, under the caption Personal Voices, entitled “Trial of Faith.” Read the rest of this entry »

When I was a boy, every year we would go to a boy scout camp called Chin-Be-Gota, near Wausau, Wisconsin. One year our leaders decided to take us to Church on Sunday, and so we went looking for the small Mormon branch up there. They got lost, and asked a local policeman for assistance. He said he knew right where it was, and offered to lead us there. He promptly drove us to the Church of the Nazarene. We boys thought that was hilarious, and we laughed and laughed. But whenever I think of that story, my mind is called to one of the great mysteries of the Bible. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pew Forum has recently published the transcript of an address and question and answer session by Richard Bushman on Mormonism in politics. The questioners included major journalists from around the Nation and World and considered a wide variety of issues. It is simply splendid. Thanks to the Pew Forum for the great work.