By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

When the book Jesus Christ and the World of the New Testament came out, Julie at T&S posted a very positive review, and I followed that up with my own (see “Finally!” FARMS Review 19/2 [2007]). A couple of months ago Julie and I had the chance to meet one of the coauthors of that book, Eric Huntsman, and found him to be as delightful a person as he is fine a scholar. Read the rest of this entry »

Those of you who have participated in the Bloggernacle for any length of time have no doubt electronically met my friend Bridget Jack Meyers (who goes by “Jack”). She’s an evangelical who attended and graduated from BYU in classics (the same thing I studied at BYU many years ago), which makes her a delightsome oddity and led to our immediate bonding. Now she’s pursuing graduate work in Illinois. Read the rest of this entry »

In 1941, Morton Smith spent two months of meditative seclusion at the monastery of Mar Saba, about a dozen miles southeast of Jerusalem. Three years later he would be ordained an Episcopalian deacon, but eventually he informally left the clerical life for that of the scholar, quipping that he was giving out cigars because he was no longer a Father. 17 years after his first visit, in 1958 (the year of my birth), he returned to the monastery as a 43-year old professor of history at Columbia University. This time he did not observe the monastic life, but was come as part of his research into old books in monasteries in Greece, Turkey and the Holy Land. Read the rest of this entry »

A reader has asked us to do a post reviewing the article “Fidelity in Marriage” from the September 2009 Ensign. The tag line reads: When a spouse has developed a relationship that compromises his or her spiritual fidelity, he or she should be humble and take the necessary steps to restore the marital relationship. Read the rest of this entry »

I know a woman who used to live in our ward but moved to Utah a few years ago. She just reported that she was excoriated by a friend for putting out Halloween decorations, her friend arguing that as Christians we need to set the example and not celebrate the devil’s day. My friend was completely unprepared for that comment and taken aback and wondered how one responds to something like that. Read the rest of this entry »

The Fall 2009 issue of BYU Religious Education Review hit my mailbox recently, and I thought I would point to some stories of interest. Read the rest of this entry »

Today was Fast Sunday. Our ward has a tradition that every Fast Day whoever is conducting reads excerpts from the letters home of our missionaries who are out serving. We have two, both Spanish speaking, one in Mexico and the other in Honduras (or some place like that; I forget). As the bishop read the letter from our second elder, the young man told us about a missionary he had met who was out from Nicaragua. Our elder had overheard as this Nicaraguan missionary tried to call home, and his family wouldn’t take the call; they had disowned him when he joined the church (one year before leaving for his mission). It was a reminder that some people make much greater sacrifices than the temporary discomforts we experience when we serve far from home. This story sort of put me in a missionary mood. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was a boy growing up, it was pretty much a given in the church that the end of the world would come in the year 2000. A friend told me of a BYU religion professor who actually had the then number of years to 2000 as the answer to a test question, “In how many years will Jesus return.” Well, Y2K paranoia notwithstanding, 2000 came and went with no armageddon in sight. So now some Saints appear to have recalibrated their apocalyptic expectations on the year 2012, complete with a cgi-overloaded movie coming soon to a theater near you. I have been getting a lot of questions about this, so I thought I would throw up an answer here so I can just refer future questioners to this blog post. The short answer is, no, the world isn’t going to end in 2012. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a funny scene in the movie Singles’ Ward where one of the characters gets his mission call. He finally opens it and learns he is goiing to Idaho. His buddies are all disappointed for him–but he is actually excited for the prospect. The humor derives from the likelihood that probably no prospective missionary dreams of going to Idaho for his mission. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know whether it was by coincidence or intentional, but Affirmation and Evergreen both held their annual conferences in SLC yesterday, thus resulting in an opportunity to compare and contrast their two divergent approaches to the issues surrounding homosexuality in the Church. Read the rest of this entry »

A friend of mine attended the funeral of Robert Matthews this past Thursday. He told me that his favorite story came from one of the daughters. She says that her father was on an airplane a number of years ago, reading his triple combination (leather, with his name embossed on the cover in gold). The woman seated next to him was quite talkative, so he eventually closed his scriptures and had a pleasant conversation with her. When they arrived, as they were headed toward luggage pick-up, she shook his hand and remarked that she had really enjoyed meeting him, and congratulated him on his book. He was puzzled at first, and then realized that she meant his scriptures. “Oh, no,” he said. “I didn’t write that book.” “Don’t be modest,” she responded. “Your name is on the cover. The Book of Mormon is a very famous book, and it’s been a great honor to meet its author.”

Coming home early from work today to start the holiday weekend, I was reading the paper (the Chicago Tribune) on the train. On p. 2 of the main section was a short article entitled “It’s a man’s, man’s man’s Bible.” The substance of the article was about the announcement by Biblica this past September 1st at Trinity Christian College that the Committee on Bible Translation is going to completely redo the New International Version (NIV) for publication in 2011 (the 400-year anniversary of the King James Version). This will be the first complete revision of the NIV since it was first published in 1984. The gender neutral edition, called Today’s New International Version (TNIV), will, according to the article, “vanish” in 2011. You can watch the news conference or ask questions or make suggestions here. Read the rest of this entry »

A significant part of the plot of The Best Two Years revolves around Dear John letters (or tapes) received by two of the missionaries who are featured in the film. I imagine myself in their shoes, and how brutal it must be to get one of those letters. Read the rest of this entry »

When I came home from my mission, I only half jokingly asserted that I would be married or excommunicated within a year. [snort!] And in fact I was–I got married just two weeks shy of my 22nd birthday, when I was still 21. It’s not like it was hard or anything. BYU is a big ponzi scheme set up for just this sort of matrimonial action. Getting married there was like falling off a log; if we still practiced polygamy, I could have gotten married ten times over before my senior year. Read the rest of this entry »

I was looking for something else on my work system, and I happened to stumble upon an outline of a talk on personal prayer I gave four years ago. I have only the barest memory of giving this talk. Anyway, I thought I would throw it up here in case it is useful for anyone else who is asked to speak in church along these lines. (don’t ask me what the joke was or the MHA story; I don’t remember.) Read the rest of this entry »

My mother gave me a bag of presents to take home with me. As I sorted through the gifts to leave the ones for my son with him, I saw a real jewel. In the bag she had given me my father’s journal from 1953. Read the rest of this entry »

Sunstone is over for another year. I finally have access to a computer, so I thought I’d jot some notes on my experience there this year. Read the rest of this entry »

MAD TV used to have a running gag called “Lowered Expectations,” which was the name of a dating service for the, shall we say, less than desirable. They showed clips of dating profiles from various outlandish people. It was a funny bit. I like that title, and think that therein lies the key to happiness in the Church. Read the rest of this entry »

The Preliminary Program for the 2009 SLC Sunstone Symposium (12-15 August at the Sheraton) is up at the Sunstone website. I’m planning on attending. If any of you are on the fence, take a look at the program and see whether it might entice you over the line into attending. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a friend, a sister in my ward, who is involved in a Christian Bible study group in her neighborhood. This is her first experience in such a group. They are focusing on Colossians; last I talked to her, they were still in chapter 2. Read the rest of this entry »

I was a late convert to rock music. I can remember when my parents were taking my older sister to see the movie “Help,” and I refused to go; I didn’t want to hear any of that rock and roll stuff. And in junior high, at first, at least, I was probably the only kid who didn’t listen to WLS a.m. out of Chicago, the top 40 radio station of choice for the young, with Larry Lujack and Bob Sirott and John “Records” Landecker. I preferred WGN, which had more of a talk format. Read the rest of this entry »

Benchmark Books will be hosting a screening of “Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons” at their store, 3269 South Main Street, Suite 250, Salt Lake City, on Tuesday, June 30th (one week from today), at 6:00 p.m. Margaret and Darius will both be present to discuss the film and respond to questions. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes people post the question “If you weren’t Mormon, what would you be?” As I think about that question, I’m a little bit torn. There are so many other churches and faith traditions I have my share of sacred envy for, and which I deeply respect and appreciate. But for me, the ultimate answer is probably that I would be an atheist. I do have a rational bent of mind. Read the rest of this entry »

I came back from my morning movie and, after several days of nothing worthwhile showing up in the mail, was pleasantly surprised to find the latest issues of Dialogue and Sunstone waiting for me on the living room couch. The summer issue of Dialogue is Kristine’s second as editor, and I think she is doing a terrific job. So anyway I’ve started to read it, and I thought I would open a thread here for my own commentary as I go and for anyone else to share their reactions. Read the rest of this entry »

We now go from the sublime (Russell’s “My Gifts” reflections upon Pentecost below) to the ridiculous. To wit: the growing practice of assigning ward members to speak on General Conference talks. Read the rest of this entry »

KSL is reporting that Elder Nelson, his wife and two other couples were attacked and robbed in Mozambique. The wife of one of the Mission Presidents present suffered a broken arm; the others superficial cuts and bruises. You can see the video of the report here. Read the rest of this entry »

After spending a couple of days in Nauvoo with friends, I am now checked into the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel & Conference Center. In a few minutes I’ll be joining an old friend for dinner; we’ll probably miss the opening reception, but the opening plenary address is at 8:00 p.m. in the ballroom. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t live in Utah and so I am not as closely familiar with Governor Huntsman as others are, although from a distance I have appreciated his moderateness and his support for civil unions in the state. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, almost. This happened on May 16, 1979. I had been transferred from Northglenn, Colorado, down to Colorado Springs. I was supposed to take the bus. But we had a car, and it was not that long of a drive, so my companion and I decided to just drive me down there. So we’re going south on I-25, and I glance over to the right, and in the lane next to us is our mission president, tooling along in his car! Holy crap! Here is my epic journal entry recounting this experience: Read the rest of this entry »

The Mormon Theology Seminar is rolling out a new detailed consideration of a passage of scripture. The latest version of the seminar is going to be looking very closely at the final two chapters of the NT, Revelation 21-22. The blog posts and comments from the seminar participants may be followed here. The concluding in-person seminar will take place in Austin, Texas, sometime in September (date to be determined). My initial post on the reading as a whole is now posted; check it out.