I’m only a translator in the sense that people keep paying me to translate things for them.
Notes on the Book of Abraham
Author: Jonathan Green
Home church (part 1/x). Pandemics for kids
They say novel Coronavirus disease is easier on kids, but I’m not sure that’s the case.
The Crux of Historicity
For all their differences, the essential and irreducible historical dilemma of the Old Testament, New Testament, and Book of Mormon is very much the same.
Times and Seasons Welcomes (back) Steve Smith
To update what Craig wrote in 2010: Times and Seasons is happy to welcome as a guest blogger Steve Smith, who teaches and writes mainly about religious freedom, constitutional law, and jurisprudence. His most recent book is Pagans and Christians…
Pagans and Christians in the City (2/2)
Don’t bring immanent evidence to a transcendent argument.
“Should Mormons use Medicaid?”
Yes. Should historians write about current events? Maybe not. But when they do, they shouldn’t do it like this.
Devotion
Do not ascribe to fear or compulsion what can be best explained by love.
Notes on Revelation
When I teach Revelation 1-11 to my youth Sunday School class, I’ll probably start off by saying something about gasoline.
Pagans and Christians in the City (1/2)
Steven Smith (who has occasionally favored us with comments here at T&S) is not the first to describe our current cultural moment as a new conflict between pagans and Christians. As Smith describes at length in Pagans and Christians in…
Scouting for Life
I don’t know if a complete break with Scouting was necessary. I would have been content if the church had only eliminated Cub Scouts and the Eagle Scout rank.
Worst General Conference posts, ranked
General Conference begins in two days. I’m looking forward to it, but not as much to the online responses.
Voir dire
Voir dire, from Norman French, is pronounced “jury selection” by normal people, but I had always stayed one step ahead of the law and never seen it first hand.
Remembering Clark Goble
This hit my inbox this afternoon: In case you hadn’t heard, Clark Goble just passed away from a stroke.
This has all happened before
Over at the Interpreter, Nate Oman asks an important question. How will the church explain its relevance to a new generation that is less interested in the narratives that have served the church well in the past? Or as he…
Neutrality
During this particularly awful political moment, I allow myself a sigh of relief when I read news articles about Evangelical leaders and institutions embracing the current president.
Adiaphora
Adiaphora is a term that has played an important role in Lutheran history but not much in our own, although perhaps it should.
Your apocalyptic hymnbook
Hymns are useful evidence of religious practice. Hymns are a basic element of personal devotion, but at the same time the compilation of the hymnbook is carefully monitored by church leaders and the performance of hymns is modeled during the…
If this goes on—
If we wanted to hazard a guess at what the upcoming years and decades hold in store for the church in the United States, the decisive factors will likely be to what extent the country as a whole becomes more…
An International Church in an Isolationist Age
The most paranoid fantasies your persecution complex can dream up will probably come true eventually, although not where you live, but somewhere else in the world. It’s an unavoidable risk of establishing local branches of the church in places that…
Don’t Reform the Honor Code
The current round of dissatisfaction with the BYU honor code will hopefully result in some tinkering around the edges and perhaps a few personnel changes, and then quickly be forgotten before it has a chance to undermine the university’s educational…