A daguerreotype has been found that may well be an image of Joseph Smith. Joseph was 38 years old when he died; I suppose the photo looks like someone about that age, if they’d had a hard life. The man in the photo doesn’t look all that charismatic or appealing…
Category: Community of Christ
The Final post from my notes: Spaulding Rigdon Timeline and details
6 years in the making, and crosslinking to almost every other timeline I’ve made, this post comprises everything I have found that ties together Smith, Rigdon and Spaulding. It includes quotes by Oliver Cowdery’s partner claiming he confessed to the Spaulding-Rigdon theory, as well as preachers saying that they saw…
SOME THINGS I HAVE LEARNED BY BEING GAY AND MORMON
SOME THINGS THAT I HAVE LEARNED One thing that I have learned is: although Gay people are born gay; when gays have gone through the process of: first denial, then self-loathing and other steps, and finally acceptances; then Gay people are ready to move on to healthy relationships. Another thing…
Because the Need to Understand a Relationship Often Doesn’t Die When the Relationship Does
Not surprisingly, one of the best parts of Sunstone for me involved Main Street Plaza. After the closing banquet (which included a terrific talk by Eunice Rho of the American Civil Liberties Union about the efforts of the ACLU to protect the religious rights of members of minority religions, like…
Your Sunday School Lesson: The First Vision
According to the philosopher Mircea Eliade, of whose work I learned at BYU, every community, tribe, or nation requires an origin myth. The account of a community’s or practice’s origin has far reaching consequences because it implies how they relate to the cosmos, which is necessary for human beings to…
How to deconvert ’em just enough…
DMI Dave recently wrote a piece on how to be a good anti-Mormon. His first recommendation? “be a good Christian.” I have to agree with Dave on this one since — although atheists famously can’t speak for one another — I don’t think any self-respecting atheist would choose to be…
A Review of September Dawn
I saw an advance screening of the much anticipated September Dawn on Wednesday night. I’ve spent the week at the Kirtland Temple and the local theater invited all the staff here to a free screening. (I wonder if they issued a similar invitation to the LDS Mormons down on the…
My Pilgrimage to Zion
Although my graduate work was in Medieval European history, I’ve also always had a fascination with my own family history, which, by extension, includes Mormon history. Since we got together ten years ago, my partner Mike and I have done a lot of research in Mormon history. We also do…