52: Approaching History Part 2
If it is in a history book you can trust it. Right? No. I'm afraid not friends, we can't trust anything without qualification. Historians have been tasked to accomplish an impossible task of reconstructing the past. Once we shed the myth of actually making the map...
52: Approaching History Part 1
If it is in a history book you can trust it. Right? No. I'm afraid not friends, we can't trust anything without qualification. Historians have been tasked to accomplish an impossible task of reconstructing the past. Once we shed the myth of actually making the map...
Social Psychology and Religious Behavior
In chapter 2 of The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama gives a compelling overview of how human biological and social evolution has provided the basis for modern political organization. In brief, he argues: 1. As humans, we have always existed in groups. 2....
Even in Brokenness There is Beauty
I work up close and personal with disability every day. When people found I was going into child neurology their first question was often, “why?” I often hear about how it’s too sad or too depressing. Fellow physicians struggle with the fact that there often isn’t...
Knowing Better from the Margins, Doing better from the Center
There’s a beautiful thing that happens when 9 verses are removed from a chapter and given a chance to expand into healing scripture. This is one of the things that has troubled me about the correlation of LDS curricula - all of the answers are there. There’s little...
Faith, Doubt, AND CONTEXT
Members of the LDS church will frequently use different definitions, or versions, of the words faith and doubt. The two most common versions are what I call “truth-oriented” and “objective”. It’s important to realize that many, if not most, of the debates we have on...
Defending the Family
Meridian Magazine (ldsmag.com) recently started a column inviting scholarly discussion of significant cultural and moral topics. More explicitly: Meridian EXPAND will be anxiously engaged in the good cause of defending core teachings of the Church concerning morality...
The End of Apologetics: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context
In The End of Apologetics: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context, author Myron Bradley Penner presents a vivid anecdote pertaining to the kind of Christian witness he would like to see ended. He recounts the story of John, a “self-described atheist-Roman Catholic”...
51: Ask a Mormon Sex Therapist Part 6
In this episode of “Ask a Mormon Sex Therapist”, Laurel and Brian talk with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife on the topics of re-framing masturbation and sexuality in general for children/youth and staying sexy while accepting the effects of age. During the discussion on...
Lest They Be Converted: Mark’s Messianic Secret
While we are studying the New Testament in Gospel Doctrines; get ready! This is not your typical Gospel Doctrines lesson... While teaching a New Testament class last year at the community college where I work, I stumbled upon the following verse in Mark: “That seeing...
Six Reasons Why Middle-Way Mormonism Sucks
I was going to write about why Middle-Way Mormonism is awesome, but complaining is a lot easier. I was also going to write a sizable introduction with all of the nuance and balance that you would expect from someone trying to make a middle-way work. I took the easy...
A Book of Mormon Mystery
There is a mystery in the middle of the Book of Mormon. It involves a stone. But not just any stone. A very unusual stone. A stone that shines. A stone that recalls the words of Galadriel, “May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” This...
Reductio ad Absurdum: Joseph Smith and His Critics
“Liar,” “Fraud,” “Adulterer,” “Charlatan,” “Pedophile,” “Con-man,” “Blasphemer,” “Anti-Christian.” These are just some of the negative epithets that Joseph Smith’s critics use in describing him. The Latin phrase reductio ad absurdum means literally “reduction to the...
50: Top Ten Books on Mormon History – The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith
Where did Mormonism come from? What is it's purpose? Where is it going? We don't have the answers to the second and third questions due to a discernment and prognostication deficiency at Rational Faiths. Until we fix that we'll keep working on answering the first...
Grace is Not God’s Backup Plan — A Review
It’s tempting at first to pass off Adam Miller’s new book as simply an attempt – much like the New International Version of the Bible – at making Paul’s writing to the Romans more understandable. Despite the fact that it does that, a deeper dive into his latest work...
The Keystone Dichotomy
"This book must be either true or false. If true, it is one of the most important messages ever sent from God... If false, it is one of the most cunning, wicked, bold, deep-laid impositions ever palmed upon the world, calculated to deceive and ruin millions... The...
LGBTQ Mormon Crisis
Two Printable handout for bishops and stake presidents that talks empirically about LGBTQ suicides:
The LGBTQ Mormon Crisis: Responding to the Empirical Research on Suicide
Youth Suicide Rates and Mormon Religious Context: An Additional Empirical Analysis
The Barker Brothers’ Projects
These videos were created for Latter-day Saint parents and allies to voice their love for their LGBT brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. They want to give a message of comfort and support to other parents who are navigating the difficult conflicts that can arise in families around this issue.
“Cogito!” (“I think!”) follows the intellectual adventures of a recovering academic outside the walls of academia.
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