Making our history one step at a time
"Teach lessons, not people." Oh. Wait. Got that backwards. "Teach people, not lessons." The targets we use to quantify success can lead to (often harmful) unintended consequences.
I added American Universities and the Birth of Modern Mormonism after listening to an interview with the author, Thomas Simpson, at the Maxwell Institute Podcast. It got me excited, because I had recently read another book with "Modern Mormonism" in the name, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Greg Prince. Simpson's... Continue Reading →
I am shamelessly proud of my Church and the great strides they have made in the publishing of Saints: The Standard of Truth. This is fantastic history and beautiful prose. I have always been an avid reader, my early encounters with Church history weren't positive: I remember reading excerpts from Our Heritage in Sunday School... Continue Reading →
The President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Russell M. Nelson visited church members in Seattle, Washington this past Saturday in the Mariners Safeco Field stadium. I was excited to attend with my in-laws, and felt a little bad I was going at the expense of my wife, who was staying at... Continue Reading →
I teach the 16-18 year-old Sunday School class in my ward/congregation, and September begins a discussion on the commandments. I gave a lot of thought on what to share this week, and I decided to do a compare/contrast setup with common secular views of commandments with the religious rationale for commandments. Perhaps I was waning... Continue Reading →
I was called to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Germany Hamburg mission. I can already tell that I am most likely going to overwhelm my readership with Mormon-esque lingo, but I'm going to do my darnedest to explain myself. Young men and women members of the... Continue Reading →
I added this book to my shelf for the two oxymorons built into the existence of this book. The first is the juxtaposition of genres: a book...about video games?! (Pardon my rant here) I suppose the Venn diagram of bookworms and video game addicts could have some sort of intersection, and the presence of the... Continue Reading →
When you grow up in Utah, the name Bennion in ubiquitous. You probably have met a Bennion somewhere in school or at work or at church. The name Bennion to me brings to mind the Bennion Center at the Union building on the University of Utah campus. But while the name became familiar, I never... Continue Reading →
I first encountered Stephen Peck on an LDS Perspectives podcast entitled A Religion of Both Prayers and Pterodactyls. The interview conducted by Laura Harris Hales dealt with the intersection of science and religion and how Peck, a scientist himself, reconciles the two. I added several of his books to my reading list, including A Short... Continue Reading →
