Tag: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

  • Volume One: Introduction

    The first twenty-eight pages of A Cultural History of The Book of Mormon walk us through the meta-text generated about The Book of Mormon even before it was published. Daymon Smith extracts excerpts from newspapers at the time that showed how stories surrounding the unpublished book helped form/frame perceptions of it. “Gold Bible” stirred up…

  • Cultural History

    I’ll be re-reading The Cultural History of The Book of Mormon over the next several weeks. It is five volumes and covers a lot more than meets the eye. I’ll do my best to share what stands out and what blows my mind.

  • Energy Healing is Satanic! … or something

    Editors Note: I originally wrote this back in 2016 on another blog. I decided to re-publish and update it after seeing the recent Church Policies and Guidelines. I read a lengthy post on Facebook about how “energy healing” is from Satan and that it is probably the mark of the beast – ok, it doesn’t…

  • Dreams, Recollections, and Reality

    Recollection “Are you praying, Elder?” asked Elder Ward. “Hmmm? Oh. Yes. I am!” he responded. Truthfully, he hadn’t been. He had been captured a daydream, in which he was somewhere else. He had been thinking not of home, but of a future life. Besides, to pray to God is not to hear from God, and…

  • Resignation

    There is a common idiom in the English language: resign oneself to (something). The individual accepts what one must do, undertake, or endure. It is a type of acceptance of fate, or what one knows must come next. I look from my third story apartment across the way. I see three young men, each wearing…