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Relative to Abortion and Sanctity For Life
Over the last couple days, ProPublica has reported on at least one woman and one teenage girl who have died in Texas as a result of the state’s strict anti-abortion laws. The teenage girl went to the emergency room three times, waiting at least 20 hours before being admitted, and doctors insisted on two ultrasounds…
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A Bedrock Moral Issue and the Election
I’ve written in the past about our scriptural obligation to love and care for immigrants. But it’s not just ancient scripture: the modern church teaches that we have an imperative here too. A little over 13 years ago, the church issued a statement on immigration. And that statement makes a couple really important assertions: On…
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Jesus Said “Eyes Up Here”
Jesus said: Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Or, to paraphrase: Eyes up here.
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Just Sit Down and Let Us Sing
Imagine this scenario with me, if you can: As the scheduled time for the conclusion of Sacrament Meeting approaches, the final speaker, who is rushing to deliver all of his/her prepared remarks, gives the clock a quick glance and says, “well, I’m about out of time so let me finish with this final story…” and…
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Garment-wearing for women, a lifetime of shaming
From birth, some members believe that girls should be wearing garment-approved clothing. I remember about ten years ago when a well-meaning mother stood up in a testimony meeting and explained that was their plan for the newly-blessed baby girl. She would never be in anything sleeveless or too short, she testified as she held her…
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What If Church HQ Were Located in Vienna?
I know, I know—the Vienna temple remains a wish the heart makes, and here I am about to propose relocating the 28-story Church Office Building! Actually, this post calls for nothing of the sort; rather, I would like to invite you to join me in a thought experiment. Read on!
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Sam’s BCC Best Albums Project
So now we get to my slate of best albums for the BCC Best Albums Project. As I explained in my inaugural post, I’ll lay out my criteria, then the albums and why they meet my criteria. I’ll also link most of them to Spotify (or, if they don’t exist on Spotify—and they don’t all…
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Standing in Holy Places: Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness
Last year I had the privilege to join a week-long, non-commercial boat trip down an 80-mile stretch of the Wild Main Salmon River through the Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness. I say privilege in light of the critical roles luck, permits and resources played in making the trip happen: in order to protect the…
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Best Albums Project: M. David Huston’s Contribution
I strongly believe people’s bookshelves and album collections reveal more about them, their history, and their view of the world than just about anything that might come out of their mouths. To reveal our literary and musical tastes is to reveal something about the core of who we are (maybe a “Best Books Project” should…
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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…
Recent Comments
“We can’t just hand wave illegal entry away,”Why not? We generally do wink at immigrants who overstay visas, or who…
It appears the formatting in my previous comment and got messed up. I was trying to quote the post and…
We need to be aware that because of trumps expanded global gag rule this is also happening to third world,…
Antonio, a couple things. First, crime, poverty, and food deserts are unrelated to immigration. Immigrants (both documented and undocumented) commit…
If you’re really pro-life, you need to pass stricter gun control laws.
Sam – what, if any, are the limits that the USA can sustain when it comes to mass illegal immigration?…
Michael, you assert that it is better for a nonviable baby to be born and given palliative care, but you…
If Michael read the ProPublica story maybe he missed the part about the end of this young woman’s life. She…
Michael, Having a baby born alive who is going to die anyway inflicts trauma (and expense) on everyone involved: The…
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
So natural abortions, i.e. miscarriages, occur in a large proportion of pregnancies. If God cannot value fetuses highly or this…