The Spiritual Benefits of Sin

Over at LDSLF, Dave Landrith asks an interesting question: can sin ever profit the soul? This is a topic I’ve pondered at some length over the years. Contra Dave, I believe that sinful acts can have real eventual spiritual benefits.

Enlisting the Snarky Amongst Us

Several years ago I ran a marathon. As anyone who has run a marathon can tell you, training for it is a lot of work. I tend to be a pretty undisciplined person, so when I started training for the marathon, I decided that I needed some sort of commitment device to keep me on schedule. My solution was to tell all of my friends and family that I was training for a marathon, indeed that I would be running a marathon in the fall. That way I got my sense of shame to discipline me. If I slacked off and didn’t train, then I would be awfully embarrassed when I didn’t run the marathon in the fall. It worked. Fear of shame kept me on schedule, and I finished the Richmond Marathon. (With an absolutely abysmal time, I might add.) This post is a similar exercise. Blogging at Times & Seasons and reading and (sporadically) commenting elsewhere in the Bloggernacle has been taking up way too much of my time of late. I am behind at work. I am behind on other projects. I need to get caught up and spend more time with my family. So I am going to be taking a hiatus from the Bloggernacle for a bit. I am sure that I will end up coming back, but for at least the next month and a half, I will not be posting here. This isn’t…

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We sang one of my favorite hymns in church last Sunday, a hymn that describes a beautiful and intimate way to feel and know God.

An Interview with Todd Compton

Independent scholar Todd Compton is the author of the much acclaimed volume In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (hereafter, ISL) and three forthcoming books: Victim of The Muses: Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior and Hero in Greco-Roman and Indo-European Myth and History (Harvard University Press), Fire and the Sword: A History Of The Latter-Day Saints In Northern Missouri From 1836 To 1839 (Greg Kofford Books), and Cyril of Jerusalem: Initiatory Lectures (translation and commentary, FARMS).