Posts Tagged ‘ polygamy ’

I was pleased to attend a book signing at Pioneer Book in Orem, Utah Saturday night. Brian Hales has put together a new comprehensive set of 3 volumes concerning the theology and history of polygamy in the early church. Initially the book was over 1000 pages, so the editors at Greg Kofford Books asked if [...]

Human brains naturally use locations in space and time to make sense of events. Why should we expect eternal spirits to follow that protocol? The question has always bothered me. What follows is speculation about a different way of looking at the relationship between the physical and the spiritual than the Restoration faiths adopted in [...]

The LDS Church has produced an update to the scriptures, following 8 years of work by historians on the Joseph Smith Papers Project.  You may have heard about some of the changes, as our own Andrew S was the one that alerted me, but By Common Consent has some fantastic posts on the subject as [...]

I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ 1996 documentary series on The West.  It’s a 9 part series, so it takes a bit of effort to get through.  Of course Burns spends some time discussing the Mormons, and I found his treatment of Mormons within the context of the western United States very interesting. In Part 4: [...]

We’re in the home stretch of the US Presidential elections.  Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent to try to pursuade voters to vote one way or another.  We have a Mormon running for the first time against a first-time African-American president.  We have multiple issues – massive debt, economic problems, wars and rumors of wars [...]

Sunstone began on Wednesday, but unfortunately, I could only attend Friday. I thought I would give some impressions of the Friday sessions. Todd Compton started off the day with the polygamist ancestry of Mitt Romney. It was interesting to see that Parley P. Pratt is the great-great grandfather of Mitt Romney. Parley’s fourth wife, Mary [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about some aspects of the new Mormonism 101: FAQ that were confusing.  These seemed confusing in the sense that they seemed to change things that I thought were taught as doctrine in the church as I was growing up.  While I pointed out some things I didn’t like [...]

Given the increased media interest in the Church over the past year, the Mormon Newsroom recently published a document entitled “Mormonism 101: FAQ” .   Overall, the document does a good job of clearing up some misconceptions about the Church, and it is very well written, but I do have an issue with some of the [...]

I recently read an excellent OP on By Common Consent by Brad titled Notes Toward a New Vision of the Prophet.  I’ve always had some contradictory thoughts about JS, and I’m not sure this changes them. JS does seem to be a megalomaniac and opportunist to me, someone who became increasingly blind to the consequences [...]

I know I’m behind the times.  I don’t watch television very often, and I don’t have cable or satellite tv.  But I recently got a Netflix subscription, and I discovered that Sister Wives was on.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched all 18 episodes of season 1 and season 2.  It really is entertaining.  [...]

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” That’s a somewhat simplistic, but nevertheless effective way to teach the law of conservation of momentum, and I think there’s actually some metaphorical version of that law which applies to churches. When someone leaves a church, his/her absence allows/pushes the church that remains to go [...]

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Mormon History Association meetings in St George this weekend.  For those who enjoy Mormon history, this is a truly refreshing, wonderful conference.  I can’t recommend it enough.  I gave a longer version of highlights from Days 1, 2, and 3 from my blog, but thought I would [...]

I received a wonderful surprise in the mail a few weeks ago.  I received an advance copy of The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History from Signature Books.  It will be released on March 24, and I just added it to my Books and Movies page.  If you pre-order, Amazon is offering it for 34% [...]

Joseph Smith said, “Friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism.” A few years ago, Mark Brown inaugurated (kinda) his posting stint at By Common Consent with an article that elaborated on such. He wrote about a deeply structural difference to the way Mormons go about their church experience than do other religious [...]

With a 2004 lawsuit came the coining of the term “Lost Boys” to describe those young men in the FLDS community who have been cast out — ostensibly to reduce competition for older men in the sect who marry large numbers of younger wives. This phenomenon is apparently limited to the FLDS because of the [...]

Today’s guest post comes from Cornponebread. I started this out as a “Mormons vs. Latter-day Saints” article.  There had been a few things lately which bothered me about those who practice the “Culture of Mormonism” as opposed to those humble seekers of truth;  the followers of the true doctrine of the restored Gospel.  What I [...]

I have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us. Our own bodies seem to be a part of the problem of inequality.  While women and men can have equal intelligence, work skills, emotional intelligence, and work experience, there are still some inherent physical differences.  Women tend to have smaller physical frames than men (rendering them [...]

Don’t forget to vote tomorrow.  With the election tomorrow, I thought I should do a sort of political post.  But you know me, I like history too, so I can’t resist.  Mormons fascination with the Republican party seems so strange.  The Republican Party was specifically founded in 1856 to rid the country of the “twin [...]

Today’s guest post is by MoHoHawaii.  We’ve all heard stories of men who had a midlife crisis and ended a decades-long marriage in order to trade up to a younger, often blonder, wife. Here’s a story from my own family. As it turns out, my entire genome marched across the plains with the Mormon westward [...]