Movie/Book Reviews
Introduction to Spalding’s “Manuscript Found” Part 1
I was surprised at the recent burst of activity on my post back in April titled, Debunking the Spaulding Manuscript Theory. One of my commenters (Roger) seem to believe the Spaulding Theory still has merit. I even had Craig Criddle stop by. He is a leading proponent of the theory and published a peer-reviewed article […]
Reddick Allred: Mormon Hero
This is a post to talk about a lesser known Mormon hero. My wife has many pioneer ancestors. In reading The Forgotten Kingdom, by David Bigler, he makes a few references to Reddick Allred, who is a distant uncle of my wife. I wanted to highlight a good, Mormon man, relatively unknown, who just did […]
U of U Really is School of the Prophets
Back in July, the University of Utah football team signed a player out of California by the name of Joseph Smith. I joked that with his signing, and President Hinckley and President Monson’s status as alums of the U, that it was the “School of the Prophets.” (Joseph Smith had originally set up a School […]
The Anti-Polygamy Raids
If one searches around the bloggernacle, you’ll find a snarky comment about how the church traded polygamy for statehood, or that the church just wimped-out on polygamy. Such comments don’t seem to take into account how much pressure the US government was putting on the church–it was literally trying to snuff it out if the […]
Successors of Consecration: Tithing and Fast Offerings
I’ve learned a lot about consecration in the last few books. While most of us know that tithing was instituted as a “lower law” because the early saints weren’t capable of the “higher law” of consecration, I have still learned some interesting things about both tithing and fast offerings. For example, Fast Offerings were instituted […]
Carthage Conspiracy: Trial of Joseph’s Assassins
I’ve recently been invited to a website called StayLDS.com. Let me quote the mission of StayLDS: StayLDS.com is dedicated to helping people who are struggling in some way to remain involved in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after a major shift in (or challenge to) their faith. We are committed to being […]
United Order vs Consecration
I always thought the United Order and Consecration were the same thing. I’ve been reading a book called Great Basin Kingdom by Leonard Arrington (former church historian) and learned they are actually different. The basic difference to me seems to be that with Consecration, one gave all they owned to the church, and then were […]
Would you recognize this church?
Often on the bloggernacle, someone will ask (such as Faithful Dissident did recently) What Would Joseph Smith Think About The Modern LDS Church? The implication often is that we moderns have strayed. Perhaps, but another answer is we have evolved. But if we moderns were to travel back in time, would we recognize them?
Knowing – Nicolas Cage
I just saw this movie last night. I had never heard of it before, and literally knew nothing about it. I told my wife to pick a movie, and I thought she would pick a chic flick. She said she thought I might like it because it had something to do with numbers and predicting […]
Did Moses Copy Hammurabi’s 10 Commandments?
A friend of mine let me know about this news item at Signature Books. Apparently, one of their authors (David Wright) has a new book published by Oxford University Press. For those of you who don’t know, Oxford is known as a pretty tough place to publish. They have pretty high scholarly standards, so getting […]
Mormon Heretic 