We are pleased to have Brooke, from ExpertTextperts, return as our guest.

I was reading the book of Acts (because when your religion class is Christian History it’s still more a religion class than a history class, and also why would you ask that?), or as my favorite apostle, Jeffrey R. Holland, has affectionately renamed the book: “The Acts of the Resurrected Christ Working through the Holy Spirit in the Lives and Ministries of His Ordained Apostles.” (See Acts 1)

Anyway, as I was saying—I was reading the book of Acts in the 10th chapter. [Read more…]

The following call for submissions comes to us by way of John Sillito, the Mormon History Associations awards chair for student papers.
[Read more…]

We are pleased to have the bloggers from experttextperts as our guests over the next few weeks.

Brooke is a blogger at Expert Textperts who tricked a pretty smart guy into marrying her a couple of years ago. She is a Spanish Education major at BYU – Idaho and currently holds more jobs than is considered normal or socially acceptable.

This semester at BYU – Idaho, I took a class on Catholicism in the Hispanic world. We spent a large portion of the semester studying the religion and rites, and the remainder watching movies about Catholic figures (The Mission and Romero—both of which I would highly recommend) as well as hearing and/or giving presentations on aspects of the religion that I just didn’t know or hadn’t thought of before. While I still think some of the things that Catholics do can be a little weird, like keeping fingers once belonging to saints, I have found my own faith strengthened by a few Catholic practices, like Holy Week and the stories of various saints. [Read more…]

We are pleased to have the bloggers from experttextperts as our guests over the next few weeks.

I, Casey Walrath, graduated from BYU with a BA in History in 2010 and, finding that my degree is underappreciated in the job market, currently work in IT while blogging on the side. I’ve been married to my wife (and co-blogger) Brooke for just over two years. We currently live in Idaho while she finishes school. My primary goal at this point is to not live in Idaho or Utah longer than necessary. 

Now that the Mormon Moment has subsided (at least until Tagg 2020), I’ve been thinking about what it all meant. What did the spotlight do for us as Mormons? What did it do to us? Webster’s dictionary defines “moment” as “the expected value of a power of the deviation of a random variable from a fixed value,” and like many of you, I have indeed felt moments of power, value, and deviation over the last five or six years. In the interest of sorting things out, I’ve written a stray few observations for public benefit to help us all grasp what “The Mormon Moment” was about. [Read more…]

Welcome to Sunday Morning session of the 182nd Semiannual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Also, I am a Mormon, and I love it. [Read more…]

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf conducts. [Read more…]

We are pleased to announce two stellar individuals to our ranks of contributors here at By Common Consent. They are both veteran authors and are familiar to many, not least because of their writing over at the Juvenile Instructor. And don’t worry, they will continue to write for the JI while simultaneously offering their cogent insights on more general topics here. Welcome aboard: [Read more…]

Title: Keeping the Sacred: Silence, Taboo, and Power in LDS Discourse.

Date: September 19, at 11 am, room 206c of the Sorensen Student Center on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, Utah.

Description: [Read more…]

An online petition recently posted at a site with a domain name similar to BCC’s is not associated with this blog or any BCC permabloggers. We take no position regarding their objectives, and we regret that they have attempted to draw traffic by creating confusion.

Welcome to the BCC Saturday Morning General Conference Thread, as part of By Common Consent’s live coverage of the 182nd Semi-Annual General Conference! We will be providing you with near-continuous live commentary, and other goodies throughout the weekend’s activities.  We also encourage you to (if you’re not already doing so) watch Conference live, streaming from LDS.org.
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And, here in SLC, where it’s sunny and ridiculously gorgeous weather in preparation for Winter’s arrival tomorrow…

First Presidency is on the stand, the choir is in fuschia/magenta/orchid pink, Wilberg conducting High on the Mountain Top.

President Uchtdorf conducting.

Welcome from President Monson, “no unhallowed hand…”

You Can Make the Pathway Bright–can’t decide if this is the moment to deploy the one snarky musical comment I’ve allotted myself for this session.

President Packer–“These children of whom I speak represent all of our Heavenly Father’s children. ‘Children are an heritage of the Lord…”

“The ultimate end of all activity in the Church is to see a husband and his wife and their children happy at home, protected by the principles and laws of the gospel, sealed safely in the covenants of the everlasting priesthood.”

“Many times I have puzzled over why I should be called as an Apostle and then as the President of the Quorum of the Twelve in spite of having come from a home where the father could be termed less active. I am not the only member of the Twelve who fits that description. Finally, I could see and understand that it may have been because of that circumstance that I was called. And I could understand why in all that we do in the Church we need to provide the way for parents and children to have time together as a family. Priesthood leaders must be careful to make the Church family friendly.”

“There are many things about living the gospel of Jesus Christ that cannot be measured by that which is counted or charted in records of attendance.” (!!)

Sister Cheryl Esplin–“Teaching Our Children to Understand”
I like the pairing of President Packer talking about learning from our children with this admonition to teach children.

Nice story about prayer with Ashley. I always told my kids they weren’t allowed to pray for their siblings’ repentance :)

“The divine privilege of raising our children is a much greater responsibility than we can do alone without the Lord’s help.”

“Sometimes the most powerful way to teach our children to understand a doctrine is to teach in the context of what they are experiencing right at that moment.”

“We can know our children are beginning to understand the doctrine when we see it revealed in their attitudes and actions without external threats or rewards. As our children learn to understand gospel doctrines, they become more self-reliant and responsible. They become part of the solution to our family challenges and make a positive contribution to the environment of our home.”

I really like this emphasis on children’s development, and the respect for them as real humans!

Elder Hallstrom is cribbing from Gene England :)

Elder Paul Koelliker:

[missionaries] are a powerful, persevering force for good, which is having a profound effect on their lives and upon those who are touched by their service.”

Missionary experience [can] be applied as a template for nurturing others throughout the rest of their lives.

Awakening the desire to know enables our spiritual capacities to hear the voice of heaven.
When we actually live the gospel in the pattern taught by Jesus Christ, our ability to help others increases.

Seeking the patterns leads us to the doctrine of Christ as taught by the Savior and His prophets.

The ultimate means by which we can enjoy the gift and power of the Holy Ghost…is our LOVE for Christ and our fellow man.

The Savior defined the pattern of love…

The Father’s plan designated the pattern of the family organization to help us learn, apply and understand the power of love.

There is seemingly no end to the expansive capacity to love.

Elder Oaks: The incomprehensible suffering of Jesus Christ ended sacrifice by the shedding of blood, but it did not end the importance of sacrifice in the gospel plan. Our Savior continues to require us to offer sacrifices, but the sacrifices he now commands are that we “offer for a sacrifice unto [Him] a broken heart and a contrite spirit.” (3 Nephi 9:20)

“Many Christians have voluntarily given sacrifices motivated by faith in Christ and the desire to serve Him. Some have chosen to devote their entire lives to the service of the Master. This noble group includes those in the religious orders of the Catholic Church and those who have given life-long service as Christian missionaries in various Protestant faiths. Their examples are challenging and inspiring…”

But Mormons sacrifice a lot in lay ministry, missionary work, sacrifices of conversion, temple service, and tithing and offerings and volunteering.

“Such examples strengthen all of us.”

“I also see unselfish Latter-day Saints adopting children, including those with special needs, and seeking to provide foster children the hope and opportunities denied them by earlier circumstances. I see you caring for family members and neighbors who suffer from birth defects, mental and physical ailments, and the effects of advancing years. The Lord sees you also, and He has caused his prophets to declare that “as you sacrifice for each other and your children, the Lord will bless you.” (ETB, 1988)

Just as the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ is at the center of the plan of salvation, we followers of Christ must make our own sacrifices to achieve the destiny that plan provides for us.

Elder Eyring: Mountains to Climb

There seems to me no better answer to the question of why trials come and what we are to do than the words of the Lord Himself, who passed through trials for us more terrible than we can imagine: “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent.”

President Monson has also wisely taught that a foundation of faith in the reality of those promises takes time to build. …My purpose today is to describe what I know of how we can lay that unshakeable foundation.

Building lasting foundations for buildings was hard work [when I was young]. It also required patience.

In a similar way, the ground must be carefully prepared for our foundation of faith to withstand the storms that will come into every life. That solid basis for a foundation of faith is personal integrity.

Choosing the right consistently creates the solid ground under our faith. Those choices, hundreds in most days, prepare the solid ground on which our edifice of faith is built.

One of the keys to an enduring faith is judging correctly the curing time required. The curing does not come automatically through the passage of time, but it does take time. Getting older does not do it alone. It is serving God and others persistently with full heart and soul that turns testimony of truth into unbreakable spiritual strength.

Shawn Tucker is a Latter-day Saint scholar who teaches Humanities in North Carolina at Elon University as well as teaching Institute (until the CES finds out who they have allowed to teach impressionable minds). He has an article in the Spring edition of Dialogue and he made this picture…

[Read more…]

Samuel Brown, BCC perma and author of In Heaven as It Is On Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death, will be in Seattle the weekend of February 26-27, giving two talks.

On Saturday, Sam will speak at Molly Bennion’s home in the 98112 zip code in Seattle at 7pm on February 25. The subject for the evening will be “Investigating Mormon Masonry.” [Read more…]

This Saturday, November 5th at 6:00pm, the Mormon Women Project is hosting a fundraiser at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in SLC, with the theme: “Crafting A Deliberate Life: Making Choices That Are Purposeful, Personal and Powerful”.

It promises to be a tremendous evening — here is the schedule and speakers (further info here):

Keynote Address: Emma Lou Thayne, Author and Poet [Read more…]

From our friends at Claremont, a new call for papers on a highly engaging topic —

Claremont Mormon Studies Student Association
Biennial Student Conference
Call for Papers

Laying Up Treasure: Mormons in the Marketplace

March 30–31, 2012

Claremont Graduate University

[Read more…]

Melissa De Leon Mason is a BCC blogger emerita and a scholar of political science and international studies. We’ve missed her fondly while she was living in Egypt. Now she kindly shares with us her view on the currently turmoil in that country.

It was a familiar sight to me. Dozens of men standing silently in a straight line, then bending to their knees, rising again, kneeling, their foreheads touching the ground. I had witnessed it a hundred times before in Cairo. Patrons in the markets, shopkeepers outside their storefronts, security guards and bawaabs behind their huts, all stopping whatever they happened to be doing when the muezzin began the call from the local minaret and performing the salaat, the ritual Islamic prayer. Watching it on Al-Jazeera English earlier today, it almost looked normal. But the kneeling men were not only facing Mecca, they were also facing crowds of uniformed riot police who watched as the men rose at the end of their prayers. And then with loud cracks, chaos one again erupted as tear gas canisters were fired into the crowd. [Read more…]

The Mormon History Association (MHA) is pleased to announce a new award for 2011. The Silver Award for Mormon Women’s History will be awarded for an outstanding article published in 2010 on the history of Mormon women in the 19th and 20th centuries. This award includes a prize of $350. All submissions must be sent electronically (as either a Word or PDF document) to subcommittee chair Sheree Bench at shereebench@msn.com. Submissions should include a cover sheet detailing the author’s name, contact information, affiliation, etc. Submissions must be received by February 15, 2011, to be considered. Awards will be presented at the MHA annual meeting in St. George, Utah, in May 2011. The Silver Award is sponsored by the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team (MWHIT) and funded by the Silver Foundation. Third party submissions are welcome.

Please help our man in Vienna: [Read more…]