Under the Faultline
March 29, 2018The night before, the earth had jolted us,
A ripple in our sleep till Dad called it
A quake and brought to life the massive plates
Beneath us gnashing the ages. It was
DiaBLOGue
Social Forces that Imperil the Family
March 29, 2018Since mid-century, dramatic changes in family demographics have characterized patterns of parenthood and sexual partnerships in America. As age at marriage has increased, the age at initiation of sexual inter course has decreased so that adolescents and young adults are spending several years sexually experienced but not married. Cohabitation is becoming a common experience during this stage of their lives. The age at which people start having children has not changed as much as has age at marriage so that an increasing proportion of children are born to single parents. At the same time, marriages have become much less stable so that adults are spending more time single after marriage, and children are more likely to live at least part of their lives with a single parent.
The Basic Tune of the Sparrow
March 29, 2018Outside the glass that keeps us warm,
the sparrows,
most common of creatures,
of whom the promise is made
Was Jesus a Feminist?
March 29, 2018The answer to the question, “Was Jesus a feminist?” depends on how you define feminism. Just as we have come to realize that there was not just one monolithic “Judaism” in Jesus’ time, but many…
Evidence without Reconciliation | LaMar Petersen, The Creation of the Book of Mormon: A Historical Inquiry
March 29, 2018One cannot read or write about the Book of Mormon without acknowledging a position with respect to its truth claims. Even to profess no stake in any such claims is to take a position. People…
Bringing Balance to Our Historical Writing | Valeen Tippetts Avery, From Mission to Madness: Last Son of the Mormon Prophet
March 29, 2018David Hyrum Smith was Joseph Smith’s last child, born several months after the assassination of his father. He followed his oldest brother, Joseph Smith III, and his mother, Emma, into the RLDS Church and became a…
Missionaries, Missions, Converts, Cultures | Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd, Mormon Passage: A Missionary Chronicle
March 29, 2018To social scientists, missionaries are a great unknown. Perhaps the most important agents of social change around the globe, they have competed with scholars whose goal is to understand and appreciate people rather than to…
Building Cultural Bridges | Jessie L. Embry, Asian American Mormons: Bridging Cultures, and Jessie L. Embry, “In His Own Language”: Mormon Spanish Speaking Congregations in the United States
March 29, 2018As a missionary in Denver, I served in a Spanish-speaking branch—a re warding and sometimes frustrating experience. Because of the limited size of the congregation, I wondered about the segregation and whether the Spanish speaking…
Mission Complexities in Asia | R. Lanier Britsch, From the East: The History of the Latter-day Saints in Asia, 1851-1996
March 29, 2018As a missionary in Taiwan many years ago, I often reflected on the historical significance of our work. President Hyer numbly reminded us that we were only the most recent phase of an historical process…
Plural Marriage, Singular Lives | Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith
March 29, 2018Joseph Smith’s polygamous relationships have been a topic of great interest and controversy among Mormons and non-Mormons alike. The reactions of the women whom Joseph Smith took as plural wives and the way in which…