The Mormon Archipelago

2023-2024 Graduate Research Fellowship in Mormon Studies (University of Utah) @ Juvenile Instructor
  -   THE DEADLINE FOR THE 2023-24 MORMON STUDIES FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION IS MARCH 1, 2023....

Book Talk: Imperial Zions @ Juvenile Instructor
  -   Friends: be sure to check out this conversation between Amanda Hendrix-Komoto and...

Faith of Our Fathers @ Keepapitchinin
  -  This morning the prelude music in one of the several wards I listen to by Zoom included...

Corianton: BYU Screens the Restored Movie @ Keepapitchinin
  -  Corianton

“Keepapitchinin: A Sonnet, ” by … Chatbot! @ Keepapitchinin
  -  Keepapitchinin: A Sonnet

MHA Article Awards due February 15, 2023 @ Juvenile Instructor
  -   Friends and colleagues, the time has come to submit articles for Mormon History...

Is the Children’s songbook full of false doctrine? @ New Cool Thang
  -  In a recent ward conference, a local church leader made the claim that David Bednar told...

You have been listening to the Tabernacle Choir and Organ Broadcast, 7 April 1968 @ Keepapitchinin
  -  Choir and Organ

Job Ad: Women’s Historian at the Church History Library @ Juvenile Instructor
  -   JOB DESCRIPTION This job is to assist the Church History Department in its...

JOB: JWHA Journal Editor @ Juvenile Instructor
  -   Position Summary: The Editor of the John Whitmer Historical Association will...

CFP: GLOBAL MORMON STUDIES 2023 CONFERENCE, ONLINE ONLY @ Juvenile Instructor
  -   “This prison . . . . of a crooked, broken, scattered, and imperfect...

Forthcoming Books in Mormon History/Studies 2023 @ Juvenile Instructor
  -   Start saving your pennies now; this promises to be a banner year! BYU...

Flatland: The Most Important Book I Ever Read @ Keepapitchinin
  -  Flatland

2022 in Review: Article and Book Highlights @ Juvenile Instructor
  -   This is my third year(!) doing this recap and I decided to limit listing five for each...

Review: *Restorations: Scholars in Dialogue from Community of Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints* (BYU Religious Studies Center, 2022) @ Juvenile Instructor
  -   Magen Edvalson is an independent historian associated with the Oral History Project for...

Launch Event: Eliza R. Snow and Emmeline B. Wells Papers @ Juvenile Instructor
  -   Links to: Eliza R. Snow PapersEmmeline B. Wells Papers On Thursday,...

Guest Post: Supporting Evidence for the Legend of Mary Fielding Smith @ Keepapitchinin
  -  Supporting Evidence

“We Will Ever Gratefully Acknowledge His Hand”: Escaping an 1884 Train Wreck @ Keepapitchinin
  -  Acknowledge His Hand

Allen Allensworth: From Slavery to High Military Honor (Utah history) @ Keepapitchinin
  -  (Reupping this 2010 post — originally one of my Salt Lake Tribune history columns...

Review: Fact, Fiction, and Polygamy / MacKinnon and Alford @ Keepapitchinin
  -  Fact, Fiction & Polygamy

Grifters Gonna Grift (Australia 1885 edition) @ Keepapitchinin
  -  Grifters

Remembering Chris Henrichsen @ Faith-Promoting Rumor
  -   Note: This post was written by John C. I lost my friend the other day. Chris...

The left hand shall not say to the right, I have no need of thee @ New Cool Thang
  -  A Trowel is a small handheld tool with a flat pointed blade, used to apply and spread...

What should BYU and the church do to reduce future firestorms regarding LGBTQ issues? @ New Cool Thang
  -  Hey y’all. I’m back. Or I guess I’m still here… As you know,...

Literacy, Imitation, and Literary Borrowing in Early Mormon History @ Faith-Promoting Rumor
  -   Recent academic discussions about the composition of the Book of Mormon and the concept...

John Gee’s Book is only a Symptom of Serious Intellectual Disease at BYU @ Faith-Promoting Rumor
  -   A few recent posts have called attention to a deeply problematic, unethical, and even...

Sensationalism? Nauvoo and the Angst of Tradition @ Faith-Promoting Rumor
  -   Book reviews, especially as done back and forth among the academic community, are not...

The Problem of Claiming Liberal Bias in Biblical and Mormon Scholarship @ Faith-Promoting Rumor
  -   Blake Ostler’s 1987 essay on the Book of Mormon as a modern expansion, by Joseph...

freeing neighborhoods and nations from the virus of poverty pt 3 what the data says works @ New Cool Thang
  -  A short one today: A brief summary of Moller, Stephanie, et al. “Determinants of...

The Curious Announcement of Donald Parry’s Editorship for Biblia Hebraica Quinta @ Faith-Promoting Rumor
  -   Back in 2009 BYU University Communications announced that Donald W. Parry, professor of...

Rel Ed Faculty Who Fail to Launch @ Faith-Promoting Rumor
  -   There is a curious rash of legitimate PhD holding, BYU Rel Ed faculty whose professional...

freeing neighborhoods and nations from the virus of poverty pt 2 Single Parents @ New Cool Thang
  -  Single Parent Families with Children under 18 have a markedly higher rate of poverty....

freeing neighborhoods and nations from the virus of poverty pt 1 Introduction @ New Cool Thang
  -  Jeffrey Holland at one point said, speaking of the current pandemic: “We pray for...

BYU Religious Education’s Investment in Its Students @ Faith-Promoting Rumor
  -   A major theme over the years at the Faith Promoting Rumor blog has been the department...

Take 2: Blumell, New Testament History, Culture and Society @ Faith-Promoting Rumor
  -   Review of Lincoln H. Blumell, ed., New Testament History, Culture, and Society (Provo...

The BYU Honor Code Office and the Idea of Reasonableness @ Faith-Promoting Rumor
  -   Those aware of the similarities and differences between Brigham Young University-Provo...

Gettin’ Healthy Phase Two: Fasting Protocols @ New Cool Thang
  -  In the first installment of this series I talked about how the first step I took to...

I decided to get less fat this year: Phase One @ New Cool Thang
  -  So I’ve cut like 30 pounds of fat this year. I figured I’d blog about it....

20 years up and running @ New Cool Thang
  -  20 Years ago today, I was baptised. 20 years on, I still believe.    

Teaching the Old Testament: An Official Statement About Interpretation @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  The course of study for LDS Gospel Doctrine classes for 2018 is the Old Testament, which...

Fiction and History @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  I'll give you a couple of book discussions after one short paragraph on fiction and...

What the LDS Can Learn From the NFL @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   It has been a tough year for the NFL. Football is a sport; the NFL is a brand. After...

The Brigham Option: Living in a Post-Christian Nation @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   I have heard a lot about Rod Dreher's The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in...

Insulting Utes on Twitter @ New Cool Thang
  -  Hey look! I just noticed I still own this blog… nice. Ok, I knew I still owned NCT....

Review of Perspectives on Mormon Theology: Apologetics @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   After a few warm-up posts last month (here, here, and here), it's time to get serious...

Practical Apologetics: What's Wrong With You? @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  How do you talk to an Ex-Mormon? Or a less-active Mormon who you bump into at church or a...

Practical Apologetics: The Doubting Elder @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  Time for another installment in this occasional series. As reported in the Deseret News,...

What's Worse, Bad Apologetics or No Apologetics? @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  The golden era of Mormon apologetics ran from Nibley to FAIR and Old FARMS. With so many...

Review: A Peculiar People, or How Protestants Viewed Mormons in the Nineteenth Century @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   So I finally got around to reading J. Spencer Fluhman's book "A Peculiar People":...

6 Questions for Tom Kimball on the Kirtland Temple @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  The Sunday School curriculum is currently covering the Kirtland period of LDS history,...

Religion and Self-Deception @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  I just finished The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life...

Let's Talk About Sorcery @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  Borrowing the title from my good friends at BCC, let's talk about sorcery, another...

Mason on the Professionalization of Mormon History @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  Millennial Star posted links to a podcast discussion with Patrick Mason on the...

MormonLeaks Posts Additional Documents @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  The MormonLeaks site continues to periodically post documents providing a bit of inside...

The Evolution of Adam @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   That's a book by Christian scholar Peter Enns: The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible...

Mormonism in the (Post)Modern World @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  The Wheatley Institution hosted a conference at BYU last month, "Reason for Hope:...

Sunday School 2.0 (sort of) @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   Love it or hate it, it's still around: Gospel Doctrine in LDS Sunday School. The SL Trib...

The Misguided Quest for a Common Moral Framework @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  The Mormon Newsroom just posted a new think-y piece titled "The Quest for a Common Moral...

The Policy: Year One @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  Happy birthday, Policy, you are one year old today. In January I posted "Policy or...

Five Possible Wrong Turns for Religion @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   I've read several books and essays in the science versus religion genre, some by secular...

Conditional Love Is Back @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  The recently announced LDS doctrine of conditional divine love comes from President...

Future Mormons? @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   This is a review of and a response to Adam Miller's recent book, Future Mormon: Essays...

Classroom Discussion: Productive or Not? @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  The LDS Sunday School General President posted this short article at LDS.org (in the...

Korihor the Witch @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. (Ex. 22:18)I recently read Peter Charles Hoffer's...

"Come Back" -- with some thoughts on why they left in the first place @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  A couple of weeks ago I taught Lesson #12 in the Howard W. Hunter manual, titled Come...

Thoughts on Planted: Apologetics in an Age of Doubt @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   Patrick Q. Mason's Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt (2015) is the latest...

The New Harmonized First Vision Account @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   Sunday night, Elder Richard J. Maynes, of the Presidency of the Seventy, delivered a CES...

Calling All Millennials @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   The most interesting talk at UVU's just-completed Mormonism and the Art of Boundary...

Review of Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -   I enjoyed reading Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings (OUP, 2016), a 300-page collection...

Elder Ballard on Building a Better Boat @ Dave's Mormon Inquiry
  -  In October 2014, Elder Ballard delivered his "Stay in the Boat" talk at General...