A Church Stocking Stuffer Wishlist Merry Christmas! At our home, Santa puts his big gifts under the tree. But the candy, the chocolate, and some smaller wrapped gifts end up in (or next to) the stockings that hang from our banister (because we don't have a chimney---I had to give Santa a key so…

Everything Old is New: A Christmas Series from the Past Years ago, I put up a series of posts on the Christmas story from the Gospels. It was fun at the time, and you may find it useful in the present. Here you go, and Merry Christmas from all of us at BCC:

It May Be Christmas, But Easter is Coming In a major oversight on the part of my Bishop, I was asked to share a five minute message during our Christmas service. I would like to share what I prepared for my ward with the BCC family as well. Merry Christmas, and thank you for being part of this…

Ready for your Abrahamic or Marian test? Merry Christmas! Update on garment survey at end of post. Earlier this year, I had what you might call an Abrahamic Test. I felt very, very strongly prompted that I should do a Specific Thing. I was uncomfortable with it. It went against my grain in a…

Claiming Incarnation The word “incarnation” has had a tough ride in LDS circles. At the most basic level, the word incarnation communicates the idea that in Jesus, God became flesh. However, this is where things get a little complicated for the LDS community. In most Christian circles, when they…

Looking Forward to the Hebrew Bible As 2025 comes to a close, the LDS study of the Doctrine and Covenants also wraps up (I hope everyone will read WVS’s series on “The Family: A Proclamation to the Word” in preparation for the discussion tomorrow!). And with the transition from 2025 to 2026, LDS…

The Future of LDS Bible Study (Hopefully) By Matt Bowman The LDS church has authorized the use of non-KJV Bibles. There are two reasons why this shift is significant. First, not to be underestimated, I think this will lead to more LDS study of the Bible. King James English is even somewhat more…

The Grand Inquisitor and the Christ Child After the shepherds had returned to watch their flocks at night, after the wise men had left to their own country, deliberately avoiding another audience with Herod, after the shepherds had returned to watch their flocks at night, the Holy Family received…

How Are The New Garments? The last time we discussed garments, the conversation centered on where they came from, things that feel powerful about their symbolism, and nods to specific ways the culture around them objectifies women's bodies. Now that the new garments have been out for a little…

Joseph Smith and The 1995 LDS Proclamation on the Family, part 9 Families Are Forever? A Building Block of Rhetoric for the Proclamation The sealing of parent to child, husband to wife, and the living to the dead suggested (or at least partly enabled) by D&C 132 and Joseph Smith’s preaching, was…

Christmas Albums 2025 Once we pass Thanksgiving, it's officially Christmas music season! And there is absolutely a wealth of Christmas music---if no new Christmas album ever came out, we could probably still be content for decades. But Christmas music does keep coming out. And some of it is…

Religious Refugees A person becomes a refugee when the point of moving is to leave, not to arrive. When the familiar isn’t safe, so they seek safety in the unfamiliar. What about people who leave their faith to find spiritual safety in the religiously unfamiliar?

Count Your Blessings And I want to open up By Common Consent to that seasonally-appropriate attitude. Because even with everything that's going on in the United States and the world, recognizing and being grateful for our blessings is powerful, both societally and for our own souls.

Baptism for the Remission of…Migraines? My youngest child, H, loves the story of “Jesus coming out of the water,” aka, Jesus’ baptism. Almost every time we read scriptures, she'll ask for this story. One night, I started at the beginning of Matthew 3, and got as far as verse 4 before our real…

Timeline of the Saturday Evening Session of LDS General Conference I'd forgotten that the Saturday evening session of LDS General Conference had been canceled before. Given this week's announcement that President Oaks is eliminating the Saturday evening session I made this timeline.

How to Find a Therapist: LDS edition If you've ever wanted a step-by-step guide to finding a therapist that understands how the church fits with your needs -- you've come to the right place! Here are 5 questions that will help you find an LDS therapist that is right for you. (Note: most of these…

On Rejecting Unjust Systems Before I begin, I acknowledge that the ideas in this post do not have full consensus, though a number of prominent theologians have proposed ways to understand Jesus’s mission that are similar to the language in this post.[1] And based on my experience within the modern…

More on the Trump Administration’s Assault on Religious Liberty This afternoon, ICE agents parked outside of a church in Charlotte, NC. They rushed onto church grounds, and grabbed people who were doing yard work at the church, while their children were playing and their spouses were cooking.…

USCCB and Immigration When it comes to religion, immigration is not a left-right issue. Rather, the dignity of immigrants finds roots in Christian and Restoration scripture, in our history and rhetoric. Protecting the dignity and rights of immigrants is an issue that has significant moral…

Joseph Smith and The 1995 LDS Proclamation on the Family, part 8 Reinterpreting Polygamy and the Mormon Theology of the Afterlife The July 12, 1843 revelation (D&C 132) made no reference to sealing dead partners or the living to the dead, though a vital subtext was the endurance of sealing beyond…

2025 Christmas Gift Book Guide It is time again for the annual Christmas Gift Book Guide!

I [the Lord] Restore All Things As much as D&C 132 can teach us about experiences of abuse, women of the restoration also point the way forward and show us how the Lord “restore[s] all things.”

Broadview and Religious Liberty The events at Broadview represent the most significant attacks on religious liberty by the federal government that I can think of in my lifetime. Even if the church does not involve itself---and it should!---as members of the church, we can and should demand that…

Against the multiverse hypothesis Most science vs. religion arguments in the realm of cosmology are very outdated, taking into account neither new scientific hypotheses nor the work of a new generation of philosophers. I would invite interested readers to follow the work of Durham's Phillip Goff…

Virgins Are Given Unto Him: Abuse in D&C 121 and 132 Once upon a Tempernacle, I was a brand-new missionary in a small Utah town. We had temple trips twice per transfer, and my companion and I usually went with our district leader and his companion. Every temple trip, once we got to the Celestial…

On Homelessness, Utah, and the Church On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Utah is in the midst of a massive rethinking of its homelessness policy. And the direction that Utah is moving, while consonant with Donald Trump's vision of dealing with homelessness, is inimical to both policy…

ICYMI: An LDS Calendar of “Unofficial” Events Gospel Tangents and Exponent II have collaborated to bring you a LDS Calendar of Events that includes unofficial LDS symposia, retreats, and conferences.

She shall believe or she shall be destroyed: Abuse in D&C 121 and 132 Joseph F. Smith reflected in 1878 that, when written, the text of D&C 132 “was not then designed to go forth to the church or to the world. It is most probable that had it been then written with a view to its going out as a…

Two Comments and Two Questions About Religious Liberty   Last week I attended the "Kansas Summit for Religious Freedom," a gathering designed to provide representatives of multiple different faith traditions here in Wichita, KS--Christian, Judaic, Islamic, Buddhist, and more--to share thoughts…

Without Compulsory Means: Abuse in D&C 121 and 132 This week we’re going to talk about the end of D&C 121, verses 41-46. This is a very-often-discussed scripture in LDS circles, and I’m going to sidestep the most common points of conversation on it. (What did “reproving betimes with sharpness”…

How the Church Can Help Immigrants. Right Now Earlier this week, ICE kidnapped a member of the church here in Chicago. This member is here legally. He has work authorization. He has not committed any crimes. He has complied with all of the things that we expect immigrants to comply with.

Joseph Smith and The 1995 LDS Proclamation on the Family, part 7 Previous parts: More on the Metaphysics of Polygamy and its Influence on the Proclamation: LGBT On heavenly sex as the source of human souls, Brigham Young would add another twist: the Gods (the revelation—D&C 132 names women as Gods…

“Joy and Rejoicing”: on the status and treatment of animals We lost a beloved pet recently. Books always soothe my heartache and I ended up doing a deep dive on Christian views of animal ensoulment. Inspired by a recent book by a Jesuit scholar, I have been exploring what a soteriology of animals…

Whatsoever Thing is Good is Just and True Recently, Taylor Petrey published an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune in which he argued that The Family Proclamation should be read as “commentary” rather than “revelation.” To be clear, he did not mean that the document is therefore irrelevant. Rather, it…

Amen to the Priesthood of that Man: Abuse in D&C 121 and 132 D&C 121:36-39 describes a slippery slope into using the priesthood as a tool of power and control to commit abuse, along with consequences for priesthood holders who do so. This is one of the clearest, most poignant, and most powerful…

Your Non-English Music Recommendations! Anyway, in light of the Deseret News's skepticism of the accessibility of non-English language music, and as a follow-up to my Bad Bunny post on Friday, I figured I'd ask all of you smart people: what are your favorite songs and albums in languages other…

Bad Bunny, the Super Bowl, and the Deseret News Two days ago, Jennifer Graham, the Ideas and Culture Editor for the Deseret News, wrote an op-ed entitled "The Super Bowl halftime show will be even worse than we think." She is, of course, talking about Bad Bunny, who will be performing the halftime…

Elder Oaks and the Rule of Law President Dallin H. Oaks is now the presumptive next president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And his (soon-to-come) call could not be more auspicious. Pres. Oaks spent his pre-apostolic career in law, spent practicing, teaching, and sitting on…

ICYMI: It’s Now Easier to Quote LDS Women in Talks and Lessons If you're like Emily Ard and Lauren Geddes, you have noticed that it's hard to quote female LDS leaders, especially ones who are living, in your lessons. When Emily and Lauren were Activity Day leaders, they felt it was important for…

O God, Where Art Thou: Abuse in D&C 121 and 132 Welcome to Domestic Violence Awareness Month, everyone! We’re fast approaching one of the most comforting (D&C 121) and discomfiting (D&C 132) sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. Like last time these sections came around, we're going to spend a…

A Quick Defense of Elder Jackson’s US Ward I wasn't able to listen to the first session of Conference (son's soccer game) or the second (work obligation), but I was able to listen to the third session this evening. And Elder William Jackson's talk stuck out to me, for reasons both good and bad.…

Joseph Smith’s History of the Church, Annotated So, I put this annotation together in 1997. It's still pretty fun even if largely superseded by the Joseph Smith Papers Project. The main differences are, of course, more primary sources in the JSP, and a different focus about what's going on in the…

On Moving Forward, our collective thoughts. Earlier this week I asked my fellow bloggers at By Common Consent to offer there thoughts on moving forward in the wake of the shooting in Michigan. This project was partly self-serving. Like many in our community, I was and am deeply troubled by this…

Love your Enemies This post started as a meditation on the politically-motivated American late-night TV cancellations, Charlie Kirk’s death, and our obligation as Christians to love our neighbor. And yes, politically-motivated crackdown on free speech is bad, and antithetical to loving our…

We Mourn. And We Continue On. Like, I imagine, many of you, I spent a significant portion of yesterday glued to the news (for me, that means updating the New York Times breaking news page). Also, like many of you, after the assault on an LDS congregation in Michigan, I attended church. I took the…

Folding our Arms: an LDS Gesture to Keep or Cull? Is it time for the Primary to teach children to manifest a reverent attitude by folding their hands in their laps instead of crossing their arms across their chests to accommodate modern presumptions about body language? Where did this tradition…

On Apologetics, Briefly (Second in the Series) Understood as “the intellectual defense of the truth of the Christian religion, usually considered a branch of theology,” Christian history is filled with luminaries who ventured into realm of apologetics by defending their belief with rigorous,…

On Apologetics, TikTok, and Testimonies This post is the first of a new series examining the role of apologetics in Latter-day Saint life. The views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of all the bloggers at By Common Consent. Our hope is to spark a broader conversation…

Jack Mormons vs Middle-Way Mormons What is the difference between Jack Mormons and Middle Way Mormons? Is there any?

Us and Them And here's the thing: even though his wording is infelicitous, I totally get his sentiment. When people do bad things, it's easy to hope it's Them and not Us who did the bad thing.