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Resource Constraints & Shifts In Religious Behavior Patterns
The recent issue of BYU Studies contains a paper written by my co-blogger Jonathan Stapley regarding the Relief Society’s burial services the early 1900′s. The paper addresses a decline in Relief...
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King Follett and Clouds of Meaning
We’ve just experienced the Mormon preaching festival. That is, general conference! In addition to inspired teaching, it gives the outside world a chance to experience some of the variety of Mormon...
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Polygamy, Society, and the Mormons
When I returned to my office after winter break, I found two large brown boxes (with “Joe Christensen” written on the sides) waiting for me in the mailroom. I was pretty sure I knew what they held and,...
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Church Finances, 1947-Style
In April 1959, the Church published its last financial report. The last here is important, though, because, for almost half a century leading up to that report, the Church presented a relatively...
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Vestigial Polygamy
The church officially—and in fact—ended its experiment with polygamy more than a century ago. Yet polygamy and its effects remain with us today. And no, I’m not talking about D&C 132; we’ve...
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Women of Vision
Yesterday my family and I went to Chicago’s Field Museum. After checking out several other exhibits, we went to the Women of Vision exhibit. Women of Vision shows some photography that 11 female...
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Textual Studies of the Doctrine and Covenants: The Plural Marriage Revelation
I’ve got a book in the editing process at Greg Kofford Books [it’s about D&C 132]. With luck, it may appear this December or possibly February 2017. Here’s a bit of the preface (excuse typos, it’s...
View Article#TaxDay 2018: For Ye Were Strangers
The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like a native citizen among you; so you must love him as yourself, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. —Leviticus 19:34 My liturgical...
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Review: Thunder From The Right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and Politics
Matthew L. Harris, ed. Thunder From the Right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and Politics. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2019. Hardcover, 260 pages. Footnotes. Bibliography. Index. Cloth:...
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The Tax Roots of OD2(?)
It’s become an article of faith in some circles that the end of the racial temple and priesthood ban was motivated, at least in part, by the specter of the church losing its tax-exempt status. And...
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