Coyote Laughter
March 26, 2018The flask lay under a loose plank on the back porch. To someone lifting the board there was only an empty space, but when Wayne knelt and reached to his elbow beneath the adjacent board,…
DiaBLOGue
Another Death
March 26, 2018One Saturday morning Jimmy wondered about himself as he lay in bed instead of watching cartoons on TV or shooting baskets through the hoop under the eaves. They didn’t have a garage, but they didn’t…
Cemetery Life
March 26, 2018My yellow 1946 house faces Provo’s peculiarly Mormon-Utah-style cemetary. Tall trees line small lanes which are set at precise right angles, a perfect grid made by Latter-day pioneer planners. The lanes come complete with miniature…
Scenes from the Movie
March 26, 2018I spent my 1970s boyhood in one of those remote subdivisions that had begun sprouting up along the foot of the Oquirrh Mountains in the westernmost part of the Salt Lake Valley. From just about…
Plinka! Plinka! Plinka!
March 26, 2018We had to get to Glendora, California, to comfort our daughter, whose husband had died, suddenly and unexpectedly, the previous Sunday morning. When we finished loading the car and turned the key, nothing happened. The…
Power and Powerlessness: A Personal Perspective
March 26, 2018In his book Power and Innocence, Rollo May defines power as “the ability to cause or prevent change.” May identifies five kinds of power: exploitative, “the simplest and, humanly speaking, most destructive kind of power”; manipulative, which is “power over another person”; competitive, “power against another”; nutrient, “power for the other”; and integrative, “power with another person.”
The LDS Church and Community of Christ: Clearer Differences, Closer Friends
March 26, 2018Dialogue 36.4 (Winter 2003): 177–192
In this paper I will briefly discuss what I see as the six major differences between the two churches during the first century of their existence, and then I will look at eight new differences that have emerged over the past forty years or so. I make no claim that either is a complete list.
On Being Adopted: Julia Murdock Smith
March 26, 2018Julia Murdock Smith was one of the infant twins adopted by Joseph and Emma Smith. She was raised as the oldest child in the Smith household. In recent years, biographers have claimed Julia as primary…
Sidney Rigdon’s 1820 Ministry: Preparing the Way for Mormonism in Ohio
March 26, 2018One month after Sidney Rigdon’s conversion to Mormonism, he visited Joseph Smith in New York, occasioning the following revelation:
I say unto my servant Sidney, I have looked upon thee and thy works. I have heard thy prayers, and prepared thee for a greater work. Thou art blessed, for thou shalt do great things. Behold, thou wast sent forth, even as John, to prepare the way before me. . .and thou knewest it not. (Doctrine and Covenants, hereafter D&C, 35:3-5)
The Search for the Seed of Lehi: How Defining Alternative Models Helps in the Interpretation of Genetic Data
March 26, 2018A culture’s level of scientific understanding significantly influences how its religious texts are interpreted. The interplay between scientific discovery and scriptural understanding has been controversial throughout history. For example, the Catholic church’s response to scholars…