Women
Mormon Women Blessing the Sick
As a follow up to my previous article discussing female priesthood holders in Ancient Christianity, I thought it would be interesting to discuss a now discontinued practice of Mormon women anointing and blessing the sick. Did you know that Mormon women used to wash, anoint with oil, and lay hands on the sick until 1946? […]
Women with the Priesthood in Ancient Christianity
I attended Sunstone back in August. Bridget Jack Jeffries (who runs a blog called Clobberblog), gave a fascinating presentation on female priesthood holders in the ancient Christian church. Bridget is a “never Mormon” that attended BYU, graduating in 2005. She “seduced” (her words, not mine) and married a BYU priesthood holder while there, and she is […]
Fundamentalist Mormonism: More Diverse Than you Thought
Anne Wilde wrote the chapter on Fundamentalist Mormonism in Hamer/Bringhurst’s book Scattering of the Saints. I’ve always viewed Fundamentalist Mormons like an embarrassing relative, and I haven’t really wanted to learn much about them. However, Anne’s chapter was incredibly interesting, and I learned that Fundamentalist Mormonism is much more diverse than I realized.
Sunstone Recap 2010
I wanted to get this post up sooner, but I’ve been really busy correcting final exams. I really enjoyed the last day of Sunstone, since I was able to attend all day, rather than a session here or there. Don Bradley gave a presentation titled “Dating Fanny Alger”, a bit of a play on words. […]
Hanging Out With Apostles at Sunstone
caption id=”attachment_1147″ align=”alignright” width=”150″ caption=”Apostle Paul Savage of the Church of Christ with Elijah Message”][/caption] Sunstone has been going on since Wednesday here in Salt Lake City. It ends tomorrow, and I thought I would give a few words about the conference. I have been blogging at Mormon Matters for about a year and a […]
A Horrific Tale of Forgiveness
I really miss my book club, but I am participating in the Stay LDS Book Club. The first book that we have decided to read is Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza. It is her story of the Rwandan Genocide. I previously discussed the movie Hotel Rwanda, describing the events from Paul Russebagina’s point of […]
The Shakers of D&C 49
After Christmas, we decided to finally upgrade our television, and got a new 55 inch HD LCD. It’s pretty nice. As part of the package, we are able to download Netflix directly to the television. The first Netflix movie I watched on my new television was Ken Burns’ America: The Shakers (1985). I picked it […]
Why Mormons Hated Republicans in the Late 1800’s
I just finished the book by Sarah Baringer Gordon, The Mormon Question. It was a very different book from the previous book I read, More Wives than One, by Kathryn Daynes. Gordon has degrees in both Law and Religion. She looked at Constitutional theory and the arguments before the Supreme Court and Congress as the […]
Dec 23: Joseph’s Birthday, Emma’s Anniversary
Today is Joseph’s 204th birthday. (He was born in 1805 for those of you curious about the math.) Since Dec 22 is the first day of winter, and the day with the shortest amount of sunlight, I’ve heard people say that Joseph’s birth was symbolic. Joseph was bringing light into the world after a period […]
Economics of Polygamy, Divorce, and Happiness (Daynes part 4)
Ok, I’ve talked about this book quite a bit–I’ll probably take a break for a while after this post. (If you’re tired of the topic, perhaps you’d like to see what I wrote over at Mormon Matters: Utah Happiest State in Nation.) One of the stereotypes of polygamy has been that Mormon men were just […]
Mormon Heretic 