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The BCC Best Albums Project
The other day, I came across the Apple Music 100 Best Albums. Intrigued, I took a look … … and, well, it’s precisely as bad as you’d think it would be, as long as you think it would be really bad. I mean, the LP (basically, the album) began to be prominent in the 1950s,…
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BCC Press Introduces John Stevens’ Courtship by Susa Young Gates: Creating the Monogamous Mormon Romance Novel
Shortly after graduating with a PhD in English and Comparative literature, I realized that I had never read a novel by someone from my own Mormon culture in an academic setting. I had read plenty of books about Mormons, most of which sensationalized polygamy or reduced Mormons to naive or sinister stereotypes. But not ones…
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On The Primary Answers
To that end, in the context my Elder’s Quorum President was speaking, it may not matter if the “primary answers” work or not. What matters more is that we can’t just throw them out like bandaids to be applied to every situation. This half-hearted approach to ministry and spirituality cannot be what God has intended…
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Jared Buys His First Beer: A Very Mormon Tale
My 48M very Mormon spouse bought his very first beer Sunday. Here’s how it happened…
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(Relationality and) Speaking Up*
In Christian circles generally and in LDS circles specifically, “speaking up” usually has an evangelical flair to it.[1] It is often cognitively connected (and usually pretty directly) with missionary work of some kind or another. In LDS circles, it almost seems as if speaking up without including an invitation to participate in LDS worship (or…
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Huntsman Hearing Today (Wednesday 9/25)
Today’s the day that Huntsman and the church (or, rather, their attorneys) argue in front of the en banc Ninth Circuit. The hearing is set for 2:30 pm Pacific time. If you want to watch, it looks to me like the Ninth Circuit streams its oral arguments. You can find links to the streams here;…
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Ministering: how is that working out for you?
Six years ago, the church ended its home and visiting teaching program in favor of “ministering,” which was meant to be a higher and holier way of serving our brothers and sisters in Christ. Most people received this news with joy—no more prescribed home visits, no more monthly reporting, no more guilt over the fact…
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The Name of God
I subscribe to Biblical Archeology Review. The most recent issue had a letter to the editor upset that some authors use the name of God (that is, Yahweh) in their articles, contrary to a Jewish religious taboo on using the actual name of God. The editor explained that this is a scholarly publication and so…
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Anti-Nephi-Lehies for Our Day
Right around the mid-point of the Book of Mormon, we read about the Anti-Nephi-Lehies. There’s some interesting politics going on at the time that are beyond the scope of this post, but the short version is: a group of Lamanites convert and repent of their sins (including violence). They become pacifists and, as they become…
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Dear Mormon Voters of the American West (But Actually, Mainly Just Arizona): Let’s Try This One More Time, Okay?
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] The presidential election campaign will come to an end 50 days from today. A lot could change in 50 days, but probably won’t. Ours is a deeply divided nation, as anyone who pays attention to politics already well knows, and that division is significantly the result of structural and sociological…
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Last day?
It’s August 25th and I’m getting ready for church. I haven’t been in a couple of months while I recovered from jaw surgery. It feels like a return, or at least it should. Instead, every step of getting ready this morning felt like the last. That wasn’t my conscious thought, but I could feel the…
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Jesus, take the wheel
A few months ago I read Tim Alberta’s latest book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. The political success of Donald Trump and his continuing hold on the Republican party (despite two impeachments and several criminal charges) have highlighted some disturbing trends in American evangelicalism, but Alberta…
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A Huntsman Twist?!?
As I mentioned a week and a half ago, oral arguments in James Huntsman’s suit against the church are scheduled for the 25th of this month, when the Ninth Circuit will hear them en banc. I’ve been assuming that they would have to decide whether courts can adjudicate the religious definition of “tithing.” But about…
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The Handbook and Leviticus
Is the Church Handbook of Instructions of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints canon? A modern Leviticus? Does it matter?
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Head’s-Up On Huntsman Suit
I last wrote about James Huntsman’s suit against the church about 11 months ago. (Short version: he sued for the return of some or all of his tithing, saying he’d been fraudulently induced to donate to the church.) A year ago, the Ninth Circuit made a preliminary ruling in Huntsman’s favor. A month later, the…
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Where We Come From
James Cone observed that “[w]hat people think about God, Jesus Christ, and the Church cannot be separated from their own social and political status in a given society.”[1] Quotes like these can put folks on the defensive because, for whatever reason, we like to believe that our individual approach to God and religion is, somehow,…
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Advocates for Mercy
November 5, 2015, was the closest I ever came to rage-quitting the Church. I paced my parking lot for hours, crying about the unChristlike cruelty of the policy of exclusion. The next day, a gay work colleague encouraged me to order my first-ever coffee as an act of rebellion. That could have been the beginning…
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Another Song: We Have Chosen Wholeness
I have, a few times now (see here and here), offered alternative texts to hymn used in LDS services which employ war/conflict imagery. As we consider the “war chapters” of Alma, such hymns sometimes show up as supplementary material in the Come, Follow Me study guide. Now, I fully acknowledge that military/war imagery is part…
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Can a Faithful Latter-day Saint Vote For Donald Trump?
If you’re familiar with Betteridge’s Law, you already know what the answer here is going to be. The initial skeleton for this post came several weeks ago, when attendees at the Republican National Convention began, en masse, holding signs that said, “Mass Deportations Now!” I’ve previously written about our scriptural obligation to love and support…
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A Seminary Teacher’s Dirty Little Secret
[Jenny Smith is a designer who likes Star Trek, peanut M&Ms, and tomatoes — but not necessarily all at once.] It was summertime – right about this time of year – when the Stake Counselor over Seminary motioned for me to join him in the tiny, un-airconditioned room at our Virginia stake center. He wanted…
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Relationality and Revelation
Sometimes, in the LDS church, we speak about revelation as if its primary objective is to convey (or confirm) propositional knowledge, knowledge-that. Knowledge-that: God and/or Jesus lives, the Book of Mormon is true, there is a prophet, the church organization is divinely inspired, a certain policy or practice is correct, etc. In my experience, having…
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Still? Always.
Ye saints who dwell on Europe’s shore / Prepare yourselves for many more / To leave behind your native land / For sure God’s judgments are at hand. For you must cross the raging main / Before the promised land you gain / And with the faithful make a start / To cross the plains…
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Some Thoughts While Singing “Carry On” During Sacrament Meeting In Chicago
Mountains may well be firm, but, well, they’re definitely not “around us.” In fact, Illinois is both the second-flattest and the second flattest-looking state in the country (after Florida). According to the internet, the closest mountain to Chicago is in Wisconsin, about 120 miles away from us. And calling it a “mountain” might be a…
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Relationality and Obedience
Previously, I have looked at the way in which the primacy of relationality impacts how we view reconciliation, other people, and creation. Here, I want to pick up a thread of discussion to which I alluded in an earlier post and look at how our understanding of the primacy of relationality impacts the way we…
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Relationality and Creation
In early June, I wrote about the way in which the LDS church’s understanding of the primacy of relationality might change the way we think about human diversity. I concluded that discussion noting that nature models for humanity the way in which interconnectedness and relationality ought to work. As the examples of trees, rainbows, and…
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No More Kings?
Now the leader of those who were wroth against their brethren was a large and a strong man; and his name was Amalickiah. And Amalickiah was desirous to be a king; and those people who were wroth were also desirous that he should be their king; and they were the greater part of them the…
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Bright Spark: A Film on Trevor Southey, Art, Mormonism, and (Partial) Reconciliations
Trevor Southey, a gay Mormon painter, sculptor, and artist of significant renown, passed away nearly 10 years ago. In the years before his death, the Utah-based educator and artist Nathan Florence had the opportunity to interview and work with Southey and the artists and family members that were central to his artistic story, both before…
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In Praise of Grant Hardy’s Annotated Book of Mormon
Kevin Barney commented on Grant Hardy’s marvelous annotated edition of The Book of Mormon back in January, and I don’t have much to add to that. But I recently wrote a review of the book for Dialogue, and as my review won’t appear for a while, I want to say something here, while those who…
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I Was a Stranger (and You Supported Me)
Last night, a friend sent me a New York Times article about Utah’s recent reaction to Central American migrants. She suggested that this would be a great way for the church to spend some of its endowment/operating reserves. And she’s absolutely right. More on that in a minute. But first, some quick background: in August…
Recent Comments
Thanks for these lists! And keep them coming. I’m giving myself some arbitrary rules, like no live albums and (probably)…
Intriguing lists so far. For a slightly different take, a completely subjective list of some of the great live albums…
Miles Davis’s Jazz-Rock tetralogy (In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew, A Tribute to Jack Johnson, On The Corner) are all…
Ha! I happened to be listening to Kind of Blue when I read this post. Lists are fun. Lists of…
These albums are part of the soundtrack of my life… Weezer The Blue Album U2 Joshua Tree Van Halen 1984…
My Classic Rock Top 10 Albums: Who’s Next Rubber Soul The Yes Album Wish You Were Here Santana The Doors…
I hear there is another storm even worse about to hit, and that deranged Trump is saying the aid money…
Bravo!
Made me tear up a little 🥺
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
(Also, I can’t speak to my cobloggers, but I can guarantee that my list won’t include any punk or indie!)