This is part of a series by John Dehlin. The series introduction is here, and the introduction to The Chosen is here.

As Part 2 in our Book Club series on “The Chosen”, it’s time to discuss chapters 1-3.

I won’t try much to direct the discussion this time, other than to offer a few of my favorite quotes:

“I had never really had any personal contact with this kind of Jew before.” Reuven p. 28

“My father had told me he didn’t mind their beliefs. What annoyed him was their fanatic sense of righteousness, their absolute certainty that they and they alone had God’s ear, and every other Jew was wrong, totally wrong, a sinner, a hypocrite, an apikoros, and doomed, therefore, to burn in hell.” Reuven p. 28 (more…)

A few years ago the New York Times food editor suggested the only way to crack black walnuts was to run over them with a large SUV. But, just before trying our heaviest vehicle, a 3/4 ton 59 Ford pickup, I found a nutcracker strong enough to break the shells. Thinking I might eventually amass enough nutmeat to bake with it, I googled black walnut cake recipes tonight and found a prominent ad for a free Book of Mormon on multiple pages of the Cooks.com black walnut info. The ads are not on all the site’s recipe pages. These were the first ads I’d seen on non-Mormon sites. So I’m curious. Where have you seen Church ads on non-religious sites? Does anyone know what theories currently motivate the Church’s advertising buys? Are we who love black walnuts really more likely to embrace the Church?

I was grousing the other day to my bishop about how the Church during my halcyon days of youth seemed to have a number of practices and activities that were fun, challenging, at times embarrassing, but ultimately productive ways of forming community and strengthening the ward. I realize that correlations and the ever-growing CHI have stifled many of these activities, some for good (and liability-limiting!) reasons, but still — I’m bringing churchy back. Most of these, upon reflection, are simply ways to use the stages in our cultural halls.

1. Roadshows. (more…)

Soon 2008 will pass away as all things must, and 2009 will bring with it the standard changes in Sunday meeting time slots, primary classes, and, most delightfully, Gospel Doctrine curriculum. You see, on January 4, we will meet together and study the old testament of our own fashioning. Concomitant with such shifts is an offering by Deseret Book to enrich the lives of the Saints. Two years ago, the offerings were excellent; last year, not so much. This year we have an intriguing volume…let’s see how it stacks up. (more…)

The moth-eaten parchment fragment fell from the false lid of the blackened old cedar chest, its letters atrophied, its ink faded. (more…)

At the UN, where I’m doing my sabbatical right now, it’s much the same everyday. First, we plot how to get blue-helmeted peacekeeping troops in La Verkin (which as you know declared itself a UN-Free Zone) and then toast the election of Obama and the coming new world order.

Seriously, it’s the office training that I enjoy. I suppose anywhere you work you have to go through some orientation on how to handle the day-to-day problems that might crop up during an average workday. (more…)

Today I learned that an awful lot of people have convinced themselves that Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ. Someone wrote in with a question about this based on an e-mail he had received. To see how widespread this bizarre idea has become, just do a google search on the terms barack lightning anti-christ. (more…)

As some of you may know, we are holding an online, multi-part book club discussion around Chaim Potok’s first novel: The Chosen. This is the first discussion post of the series. Expect 2 or 3 posts per week over the next few weeks until we all become sick and tired of Reuven and Danny. (more…)

Each election season, I make a point of re-reading George Orwell’s brilliant, cranky little essay Politics and the English Language. It is useful for reminding me to pay closer attention to what people say and mean, and less attention to the sound of their words. I am easily beguiled by pretty words, and so I need this reminder at least annually. It is also, more painfully, a necessary invitation to self-criticism: weighing my speech and my writing against the standard Orwell sets out, I always find my prose froofy and my thinking lazy.

Since many of the things that I think and write about are Mormon-ish, I’ve been trying to translate Orwell’s critique from political speech to Mormon speech, thinking about the characteristic ways in which Mormons obscure, rather than communicate, their thoughts, and the ways in which we use language to avoid thinking at all. (more…)

For sometime now, I have embraced the view that the idea of a literary canon – the idea that there is a timeless set of literary masterpieces worth continually studying – is theoretically problematic but institutionally convenient.   Leaving aside debates about what belongs in and if there should be a canon, it is rather obvious that the typical student is not stimulated to further reading and writing by an Austen novel.  In my own experience, students are far more eager to read and write about events that they deem current, and they develop a wider range of skills when reading and writing in multiple, often non-literary genres. After all, one is never evaluated on how well one reads a novel after graduation.  But despite the obvious advantages of diversifying the kinds of reading we give students, we still persist (though there are some places where change is coming) in over-emphasizing teaching through the canon in secondary schools and many general college courses.  Why?  In a cynical moment, I decided that one major advantage to teaching the canon is that it reduces costs in the short-term.  (In the long-term, it is probably harmful if we fail to teach basic skills.) (more…)

So a few weeks ago I got Deseret Book’s 2008 Fall Catalog in the mail. I’m not sure how we got on this mailing list, but since they’re not calling me on the phone and demanding my money, I’m going to accept it and move on. I couldn’t resist taking a peek, though, so I opened the catalog, and the first thing I saw was Alonzo L. Gaskill’s Odds Are, You’re Going To Be Exalted: Evidence That the Plan of Salvation Works. Now, I’m sure Brother Gaskill’s book is just fine. Not having read it, I can’t properly judge the value of its message or the delivery thereof. I suppose that technically I’m opposed to people banking on getting exalted. But really, it’s just the title that gives me pause. I’m not sure if I dislike it, exactly; deliberate or not, it has a certain kitschy appeal. I can almost hear Phil Hartman saying, “Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You might recognize me from such Mormon motivational films as Egads, They’ve Called Me to the Nursery! and Odds Are, You’re Going To Be Exalted.” (more…)

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Please justify your choice below. Don’t be ashamed of it either because the circle of our love, it goes forever. Take your time, we will wait for you.

The caption is the Greek expression from 1 Cor. 15:29 rendered “which are baptized for the dead” in the KJV. What is Paul talking about here? There are lots of places where we Mormons read our own theology into a passage and see in it what we want to see. But this is one where the most natural reading is in fact the Mormon one, referring to “those who are baptized on behalf of the dead” in a proxy sense. Paul alludes to the practice neutrally, neither affirming nor rejecting it; that the Corinthians did such a thing was simply a part of his argument in favor of a physical resurrection. (more…)

Jeffrey R. Holland, Broken Things to Mend (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2008, viii, 221, index).

This attractive volume is a compilation of public addresses, largely from LDS General Conference with an occasional Regional Conference or similar speech. (more…)

The story goes that in 1651 an Angolan slave, living just outside of Lima Peru and wholly converted to Catholicism, painted a mural of a black Jesus on a wall. (more…)

My wife engineered this coup for the Salt Lake area. Dr. Braude is a wonderful speaker with a sharp mind, and her lecture should be great. (more…)

Wherein Brad, Amri, and Ronan try hard to ignore Prop 8, but can’t quite avoid it. Bonus: House of Lords, black Jesus in South America.

Although it won’t come off this way, this is me at my least self-righteous. (more…)

There’s another state — Arkansas — that has recently voted to bar those “cohabitating outside a valid marriage” from adopting or fostering. The measure affects gay and straight alike, but its authors, the Arkansas Family Council admit that it is designed to counter the “gay agenda.”

I suspect that most readers of BCC believe that children should, if possible, be brought up in a home with a mother and a father. Let’s not argue that point. Rather, let’s imagine the following situation: (more…)

Picture a small boy. A pleasant lad, standing in sixth grade against a classroom wall. His classmates are lined shoulder to shoulder, faces forward, anticipation and determination gracing their eager faces. A list of words is proffered down the line, one to each child who, in turn, must spell back the word in clearly enunciated English. The words are easy at first. In the first pass none are expected to be asked to sit down. The first group of words are part of the ‘confidence building’ round. But as the first-round word reaches our young man, he stammers a bit, trying hard, but it is to no avail. He can’t spell it. He is asked to sit. He sits alone for four more passes through every child in the line before (more…)

Enough politics, already. Here we go, strictly for fun.*

A deer, a female deer
A drop of golden sun (more…)

Without touching on any of the merits of one or the other side of the same-sex marriage/marriage equality debate, I’d like to suggest a possible answer to the following question: How can Mormons who feel that the Church is wrong about the threat gay marriage poses to families reconcile their doubts on this particular question with their faith in the restored gospel, and in the identity of Church leaders as prophets, seers, and revelators? (more…)

Cynthia’s thread reminded me that the dinner conversation after the leadership training session at my stake conference was one of the highlights of my weekend. (more…)

This is the first of a series of guest posts by our friend John Dehlin.

How could I teach my son the way I was taught by my father, and not drive him away from Torah? Because this is America, Reuven. This is not Europe. It is an open world here. Here there are libraries and books and schools. Here there are great universities that do not concern themselves with how many Jewish students they have. I did not want to drive my son away from God, but I did not want him to grow up a mind without a soul. I knew already when he was a boy that I could not prevent his mind from going to the world for knowledge. I knew in my heart that it might prevent him from taking my place. But I had to prevent it from driving him away completely from the Master of the Universe. And I had to make certain his soul would be the soul of a tzaddik no matter what he did with his life. — Reb Saunders, The Chosen

(more…)

As a California resident, I’ve spent the last several weeks never more than a few yards from a cheerful yellow and blue “Protect Marriage” campaign sign. Our seaside state was awash in them; my life online and off, at church, at home and at school, was awash in the pro and con arguments for Prop 8. It was in the midst of this marriage-protecting fervor that I came to the conclusion that I had a personal and urgent calling to preserve my marriage by taking up arms. Yes, firearms.
(more…)

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Please post your reasons for your answers below (also, ideally, pictures from the reception).

More than entertainment, actually. Greg Prince, author of (most recently) David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism will give talks on Saturday and Sunday evening. Greg is a wonderful speaker and lots of fun to talk to–you’ll be kicking yourself for years if you miss a chance to meet him and ask him questions. Details below the fold. You can also feel free to contact me with questions–myfirstandlastname at yahoo. (more…)

In response to the accusation that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opposed “gay rights,” the church’s online “Newsroom” made the following statement: (more…)

Short(ish), possibly accurate answers to some legal questions about Prop 8.

Q1. What happens to the 18,000 same-sex couples who married in the interim?

A. Nobody knows. (more…)