Clik here to view.
Ezra Taft Benson chronology, August 4, 1899 – April 10, 1952
This year’s Relief Society/Priesthood manual (2015) covers the teachings of Ezra Taft Benson. In conjunction with this topic, I’ve assembled a lengthy chronology of the life of Ezra Taft Benson — a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ezra Taft Benson chronology: Secretary of Agriculture
Ezra Taft Benson Chronology (Part II): Nov 5, 1952 to January 20, 1961 (years as Secretary of Agriculture) Overview Early in life, Benson was a county agricultural agent and then became involved in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: ‘Grace Is Not God’s Backup Plan’
Review of Adam S. Miller, Grace Is Not God’s Backup Plan: An Urgent Paraphrase of Paul’s Letter to the Romans (2015). When I heard about Adam’s new book, I was excited. The length and structure...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ezra Taft Benson chronology: Early battle against communism
Ezra Taft Benson Chronology (Part III): May 22, 1961 to October 7, 1963 (Apostle; post-Secretary of Agriculture; pre-2nd European Mission; early John Birch association) Overview After his service in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Swords of Damocles, Laban, and the Lord
According to legend, the ancient Syracusan tyrant Dionysius II had a flatterer named Damocles. One day Damocles praised the king’s luxurious lifestyle. The king asked, “So, Damocles, since this life...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Did Joseph Use a Bible in Compiling the Book of Mormon?
The Book of Mormon often quotes the King James Bible. It even reproduces entire chapters from Isaiah, Malachi, and Matthew. Historians disagree as to how these Bible passages came to be in the text....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Miller Eccles Study Group – Texas Edition: Neylan McBaine & the Hidden Beauty...
At the end of Roger Scruton’s controversial documentary Why Beauty Matters, the British philosopher arranges a performance of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in the St. Pancras railway station. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Twenty-Fourth Century Mormon Parallel
“[T]he first speaker sat down by my side and in a low tone begged pardon for his manner to me and confessed that I had . . . learned him . . . more astronomy that evening than he had ever known...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Great and Spacious Building
“[I]t appeared to reach to the very heavens. It was full of doors and windows, and they were all filled with people, who were very finely dressed.” (Lucy Mack Smith 1853, 59, describing a dream of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ezra Taft Benson Chronology: Continued fight against communism (through McKay...
Ezra Taft Benson Chronology (Part IV): Oct 18, 1963 to January 18, 1970 (Apostle; 2nd European Mission; promotion of Birch Society; exploration of U.S. presidential bids) Ezra Taft Benson Overview Ezra...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Review of “Moroni and the Swastika: Mormons in Nazi Germany”
Moroni and the Swastika: Mormons in Nazi Germany By David Conley Nelson Copyright 2015 University of Oklahoma Press 416 pages ISBN: 978-0-8061-4668-3 $29.95 The contextual place of Mormonism in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ezra Taft Benson Chronology during the Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee...
Ezra Taft Benson Chronology (Part V): January 23, 1970 to November 10, 1985 (Apostle, President of the Quorum of the Twelve) Ezra Taft Benson Overview Under the presidencies of Joseph Fielding Smith,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Race and the Mormon Struggle to Revise Whiteness
Mormonism’s nineteenth-century white Protestant critics often cast the Latter-day Saints as racially degenerate—a tragic decline into non-white barbarism. Anxious about the lack of obvious physical...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Miller Eccles Study Group – Texas Edition: Julie Smith and Reading the New...
This is how I spend most of Sunday School. I used to have a ritual headache every Sunday I didn’t have to work. I used to think it was due to hunger based on weird church hours that cut into lunch. Or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ezra Taft Benson Chronology: Presidency
Ezra Taft Benson Chronology (Part VI): November 10, 1985 to 2014 (President of the Church) Overview Ezra Taft Benson became the 13th President of the LDS church in 1985 after the death of Spencer W....
View ArticleToo Much Monkey Business: Reconstructing Joseph Smith’s Polygamy for the...
Title: Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding Authors: Brian C. Hales and Laura H. Hales Publisher: Greg Kofford Books Genre: Religion Year Published: 2015 Number of Pages: 204 Binding:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Family Breakdown, the Welfare State, and the Family Proclamation: An...
Laura Compton at Rational Faiths has an enlightening and informative post on the origins of the Family Proclamation. She effectively demonstrates that the controversy surrounding Baehr v. Lewin–the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Church Unveils Joseph Smith Seer Stone in Drive toward Historical Transparency
At a press conference yesterday the LDS Church released photographs of the chocolate-colored, egg-shaped seer stone that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon. For decades the stone has...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Magical Artifacts and Book of Mormon Translation
Joseph Smith initially told the story of the golden plates in the language of folk-magic and treasure-digging culture.[1] In the 1820s Joseph possessed at least three seer stones, which he used to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Joseph Smith’s Seer Stone: A Historiographical Glimpse
The recently released images of Joseph Smith’s brown seer stone in the Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 3: Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon and forthcoming article...
View Article