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After the snot-nosedness from some of the commenters last week–suggesting that The Process is somehow non-revelatory in nature–Steve and I decided that you’ll no longer be treated with clear insights into how stuff gets Ranked. Anyway, all of the talk recently about Honor Codes led us to seek inspiration on the true ranking of Codes.
As always, these rankings are authoritative. [Read more…]
We’re going to give you a peek into The Process today: How stuff gets ranked. I’m going to lift the veil of secrecy and show the names of who lists what, and how we hash out our differences, with time stamps and everything. You won’t be disappointed.
As always, these rankings are authoritative. [Read more…]
It’s been a long time since we ranked stuff! I apologize for that! With our ranking muscles kind of flabby, Steve and I had a pretty hard time ranking stuff today. Here are some of our failed efforts before we finally found our stride today:
Because we know you’re all playing the LotteryBall tonight, Steve and I thought we’d put together a short list of what we plan to buy when we win tonight.
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
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As the Ammon Bundy headlines continue to dominate the news cycle, many have been wondering whether these views are inherently Mormon as the Bundy clan claims or if Mormonism encourages these types of attitudes. While this episode has a libertarian theme, which may or may not relate to the question of anti-modernism, I wanted to revisit a post I wrote in 2013 about the anti-modernist streak that seems to be emerging in various faith traditions, including Mormonism.
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
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God’s Army came out my senior year at BYU. And it was a revelation. Fifteen years later, I can still remember the impact of seeing a movie, an actual real live movie, about my people, about my experiences. One that took those experiences seriously.
At the time, I was studying English, with a focus on creative writing. And I was thinking seriously—or, at least, as seriously as I could—about Mormon art. I mean, there was plenty of kitsch, plenty of inspiring-but-not-artistic stuff out there. But Richard Dutcher created a Mormon movie without the kitsch, something quality.[fn1]
After I graduated, though, and moved away from Utah, Mormon filmmaking had almost zero impact on me. Some Mormon cinema was great—I have New York Doll sitting in my DVD collection. Some of it wasn’t. Most of it I never saw, because it never came to New York or Chicago, where I lived. So I was excited to hear that Once I Was a Beehive was going to make its Chicago debut on Friday, October 30. [Read more…]
Our semi-regular feature at BCC, in which we answer questions from our readers and then Rank stuff. Have a question you want us to answer? Send us an email!
Your questions have been burning a hole in our inbox. We must answer.
If I’m walking across the BYU campus in the morning when the national anthem plays over the speakers, do I really have to stop walking and put my hand over my heart?
It’s a common claim among participants of Mormon internet groups that people feel they cannot be themselves at church or can’t say what they think for fear of being ostracized. They feel they are discouraged from being honest or authentic, that they would be rejected if they disagreed with the party line or articulated a non-conforming viewpoint. Certainly many examples have been given of individuals who were viewed suspiciously for sharing unpopular opinions openly. These are complaints that they feel they must be inauthentic to be accepted. [Read more…]
To protect or whatever
Steve Evans: We’re back! And I need to warn you guys that I’m going to be interspersing some lyrics from #Hamiltunes
GST: I don’t know what that is.
Steve: KEN DOES! All right. Let’s get this Spruce Goose off the ground. I call Police Beat my Spruce Goose because I collect my urine in empty milk bottles, just like Howard Hughes. Just FYI.
Ken Jennings: show me all the blueprints
show me ALL the blueprints
show me all the BLUEprints
Our semi-regular feature at BCC, in which we answer questions from our readers and then Rank stuff. Have a question you want us to answer? Send us an email! We can’t do this column without you. Actually, I guess we could.
You can drop three hymns from the hymnbook, and you can add three hymns in their place. Which do you drop/add and why?
Our semi-regular feature at BCC, in which we answer questions from our readers and then Rank stuff. Have a question you want us to answer? Send us an email!
What would someone have to say during a talk or testimony to get escorted off the stand and not allowed to speak again? I’m not talking blatantly speaking against the church or preaching false doctrine, but here are some hypotheticals: Talking too candidly about their own transgressions; outing another ward member on a serious transgression; direct MLM pitch over the pulpit; threatening to physically harm President Obama (I wonder if this one has occurred and gone unchecked); quoting an R-rated movie … with the attendant R-rated language.
These last couple days, there’s been a thing going around on Facebook. Maybe you’ve seen it. Some anonymous poster’s friend’s relative is high-up in the Boy Scouts and has the inside scoop on why the BSA allowed gay leaders, knows that the church is going to leave BSA, and knows that it’s going to be over gay issues, not in the interest of gender fairness.
And with that description, you know it’s not true, right? Like, it’s as credible as those email forwards your uncle sends every election cycle (frankly, whether your uncle is liberal or conservative, because what really matters is, your uncle’s crazy, amirite?).
And yet, people are credulously sharing and believing it. So, as a public service, and in the interest of not getting email forwards or seeing these kinds of things on Facebook, a quick review of how to evaluate the plausibility of internet rumors: [Read more…]
After a four-year hiatus, it’s time to reboot the Church-Hacker series. For those of you who weren’t here four years ago, everyone’s input is welcome, and this series is simple: We post ideas that you can try in your ward or calling to make the meeting block more spiritual or more engaging.
Routine can become rut, and after a lifetime of sameness, even very small changes to The Way Things Are Done can make people sit up, put their phones away, and pay more attention in lessons and meetings. Church-Hacker hunts for those small ideas that can have an outsize impact.
And now for this week’s idea:
As a new semi-regular feature at BCC, we’ll answer questions from our readers. Have a question you want us to answer? Send us an email!
What’s the best Book of Mormon name to give a kid? I think if you are going to do a BOM name you’ve got to stick with Nephi. That makes it easier for everyone to hate you.
What with all the talk of Seer Stones and Peep Stones and whatnot going around these days, Steve and I figured we had better set the record straight as to the proper ranking of stones.
John Stones, Everton Hero
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
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For the last several months, my ward has had monthly priesthood lessons on the Gospel Topics essays that the church has released over the last year or so. I teach in Primary, so I haven’t been to most of them. A friend taught the Race and the Priesthood essay in June, though, and invited me to his class; he did an excellent job, and it was well-received.
And then, three weeks ago, he asked if I’d teach a class. My topics? Book of Mormon and DNA Studies, Book of Mormon Translation, and Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham. (If only the class had been two Sundays later … ) [Read more…]
The version of this post I originally drafted in my head was going to be easy: I’d describe a trek activity (mob attack—more on that in a minute) that, in spite of its being clearly inappropriate, seems to be gaining currency. Then I’d have a poll, asking you what you thought about it, with lighthearted, smart-alecky answers. The end.
The post would have been good for a couple laughs and, hopefully, an icebreaker if you were on a trek committee and somebody suggested said mob attack. [Read more…]
Yesterday was Memorial Day, but just because Steve and I weren’t ranking things on the blog doesn’t mean we weren’t ranking things in our hearts. Indeed, our text messages show that we both bleed red, white, and blue. Mostly just red and white, though, since Steve is a Canadian, and hates freedom. So I am really the only one with blood the color of a mountain sky over Kansas. But I have enough for the both of us.
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
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Scott: some quality in here
Steve: it’s perhaps better than the ranking we have up now!
Scott: easily!
Steve: who cares, let’s post another one right now.
Scott: i’ll load it up
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
[Read more…]
It’s been a busy week! So busy, in fact, that Steve and I realized we’d deprived the 27 people who still read this series of their guidance for maintaining order in their lives. We apologize, and offer this list of reasons we haven’t been ranking things like we should be.
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
[Read more…]
Over the past few years, it seems like there are a lot of talks in GC in which the speaker introduces some specific challenge to living the gospel and then proposes a numbered list of principles to help explain how we can overcome said challenge. Steve and I were talking about this and concluded that there are still some things that need to be explained in this fashion.
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
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Our coverage of General Conference has been spectacular over the past week, though definitely a bit different than the open threads we’ve hosted in years past. Admittedly, Steve and I found ourselves actually missing the commentary on the outfit selections for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir that were usually found in our GC open threads. Fortunately, we used this as our inspiration for this week’s rankings.
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
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Some people love General Conference! Some other people don’t love General Conference! Some people, like Steve and I, have experienced both highs and lows during General Conference. Earlier this week, we talked about the lows. Today, we’re going to talk about the highs.
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
[Read more…]
Some people love General Conference! Some other people don’t love General Conference! Some people, like Steve and I, have experienced both highs and lows during General Conference. Today, we’re going to talk about the lows.
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
[Read more…]
To some–notably John F.–ranking things is not a worthy endeavor. But Steve and I know better, and we know that ranking things is the responsibility of every Latter-day Saint as part of the building of Zion. It is part of our faith. Indeed, you could say that Steve and I follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things should be ranked, we hope all things will be ranked, we have ranked many things, and hope to be able to rank all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek to rank these things. If there are any things that aren’t like those other things, we seek to rank those things also. Today, Animals!
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
[Read more…]
Are we reaching the bottom of the barrel? Are we running out of things to rank? A day may come when the supply of things to rank fails, when Steve and I forsake our weekly foray into meaningless listicle nonsense and break all commitments to carrying on this ridiculous tradition, but it is not this day. No, today we rank violations of the Word of Wisdom, in order of least to most sinful.
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
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Two (2) authoritative rankings in one week? Events over the past few days (i.e., we both happened to have 20 minutes free) have mandated that we do so, even at risk of shark-jumping accusations from our colleague by john f. This time, Steve and I settle a controversial topic that has plagued society for years: Who are the best Williamses?
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
[Read more…]
So did you all hear that Anonymous has threatened to take over LDS.org if the big JD gets the axe? I don’t want to play spoiler or anything, but the truth is, Steve and I have been running LDS.org ourselves for the past 3 years, and we can already tell you the dirtiest-dirt there is. Brace yourselves, folks–Shiz is about to get real.
As always, these rankings are authoritative.
[Read more…]
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