What will it be like for a marriage to continue past death into the eternities? What does it mean to have a perfected body, or to love an eternal being? Stephenie Meyer has an answer. Breaking Dawn, the last novel in her Twilight series, presents a sustained and vividly imagined view of one of the core elements of Mormon personal salvation.

[This post is going to discuss all the details of Breaking Dawn, including how it ends, so please stop reading now if you don’t want to know.]

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Rod Dreher, I think, has a it right. Conservatives ought to support same-sex marriage legislation. (more…)

US Government JPATS (Justice Prisoner and Alien Transporation System) plane, used for mass deportation. Image by Cubbie_n_Vegas via Flickr

A High Priest I know is in crisis. He is an immigrant who, like many other Church members, came to the US without a visa, according to what I understand of the situation. After arriving here he joined the Church, and eventually fell in love and married a U.S. Citizen, a wonderful, faithful Church member. This situation would normally put him on track for a green card and U.S. citizenship.

But this brother is facing deportation, and his ward and stake are praying for a miracle that will keep him here in the United States.
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We’ve just completed upgrading the software that runs Times and Seasons. The upgrade requires us to also update the files that control how the site looks. It may take a while for us to get Times and Seasons to the way we want it to look, so please be patient.

In the run up to and in the wake of Prop 8, Latter-day Saint proponents of the measure have often tried to parse their words carefully when discussing their support for it in order to avoid charges of bigotry and hate for opposing the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry. Echoing a refrain from the late Gordon B. Hinckley, Mormon Prop 8 supporters have often tried to explain that they are “not anti-gay, but pro-marriage.” This effort, however, has clearly failed to shield members from allegations of discrimination. (more…)

One of the subterranean threads running throughout the Book of Mormon is the mystery of whose bones are heaped upon the land northward. (more…)

The Associated Press reported yesterday that Mormon employees at the University of Phoenix benefited from discrimination based on religion, according to a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The University settled the suit, paying $1.9 million to 52 employees (an average of more than $36,000 each!) and agreeing to a “zero-tolerance” policy to religious discrimination, but did not admit wrongdoing.

What’s up with that?
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Today is a good day to celebrate the soldiers I have known and 9 years of marriage. (more…)

By Lord Dunsany: (more…)

Is anyone else just the teeniest bit bothered that the government wants to lend two trillion of our dollars but will not tell us to whom they are lending it or what kind of collateral they have? (more…)

The Joseph Smith manual had one of my favorite quotes in it this week:

“I say to all those who are disposed to set up stakes [limits] for the Almighty, You will come short of the glory of God. To become a joint heir of the heirship of the Son, one must put away all his false traditions.”
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Penguin Books has just published a “Penguin Classics” edition of the Book of Mormon edited by Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp. Penguin Classics, of course, are the paperback editions of literary staples like Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. They are printed and marketed largely as texts for college classes. The assumption is that a text included in the Penguin series has become a stable part of the high-brow diet of books, or at least ought to be. It is worth reflecting a little bit about what this edition of the Book of Mormon might or might not mean.

The Penguin book itself is based on the 1840 edition of the text rather than our current edition of the scriptures. The text was chosen because this was the last version that Joseph Smith was personally involved in editing. Also strictly speaking there is no standard 1830 version of the text for the simple reason that Grandin edited the book as he was printing it, with the result that different copies of the 1830 edition contain different versions of the text. Our current edition, in contrast, contains an elaborate set of interpretive aids that were added long after Joseph was murdered. Hence, the Penguin edition is printed without versification or the current chapter breaks, both of which were added in Utah by Orson Pratt. Rather, it is printed as regular prose – much like a novel – with the original chapter breaks, which were much longer than our current chapters. The Penguin edition retains the colophons that were in the 1840 edition of the text, but does not contain any of the chapter headings that are part of current LDS editions. I actually think that reading the text in its original format is a useful way of escaping the framing that the textual apparatus of current church editions imposes, as well as providing a better guide to the underlying structure of the narratives, as broken up by the original chapters. Previously the only way of doing this was by either getting a facsimile copy of the 1830 edition or else by using Grant Hardy’s expensive reader’s edition. The Penguin Classics version will provide a convenient and low price way of reading the Book of Mormon in its original textual format. (more…)

A pool in our area had a free admission day this summer and I’m nothing if not cheap so there we were. Imagine the delighted looks on my kids’ faces when they saw not only a FREE pool, but FREE inflatable bouncers, FREE snowcones, FREE hot dogs, FREE chips, and FREE games with prizes. (more…)

A few months ago, a sister in our ward asked my daughter to babysit. On a Monday evening. That’s right. Monday Evening. We try to be diligent with family home evening on Monday night, so the answer needed to be “no,” but I was a bit confused about how to convey that message. (more…)

While the candidates have been talking the talk about cooperation and unity, a few humble LDS editors have been walking the walk.

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The results are in, and the Mormon officials in congress is facing some changes as a result. From what I can tell, the new congress will include either 5 or 6 Mormons in the Senate and 9 in the House of Representatives. [FWIW, outside of the U.S., I only know of 1 LDS Church member currently serving in a national legislature, down from 4 eight years ago.]
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I haven’t found a news organization that’s called Prop 8 yet, and CNN’s exit polling showed it failing 48%-52%, but my county-by-county analysis shows that it will likely pass. With 93.6% of precincts reporting state wide, Prop 8 is leading by 406,519 votes (4.1%), and almost all of the precincts yet to be tallied are in counties that have favored Prop 8 by good margins. (more…)

A horrible, no-good, very bad blog can still run a great series on missionary work. Read it, take it to heart, recommend it to others.

Part I
Part II
Part III.

***
Bumped.

In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Let’s remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.

Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

Let’s take about Christmas. (more…)

On the issues I care about (and therefore not including the topic addressed from various perspectives so eloquently by my esteemed colleagues), I prefer the positions of the Democratic Party platform and candidate. I directly benefited from Barack Obama’s work as a state senator while I lived in Illinois, he seems to know what he’s talking about on important issues, and it looks like he ran a pretty competent campaign. For my taste, McCain and Palin didn’t offer much more than the politics of fear and resentment, and they seemed more likely to stay trapped in the conflicts of the twentieth century than their opponents. I know it’s fashionable to affect hand-wringing uncertainty about choosing between two candidates, but I cast my vote for Obama with unmitigated enthusiasm.

Who did you vote for?

People who want to vote for Obama labor mightily to get around his extreme pro-choice/pro-abortion record. (more…)

Barack Obama has sought to bring pro-lifers and pro-choicers together to find a middle ground on the issue of abortion. With the help of noted conservative legal scholar, pro-life activist, and former Romney supporter Doug Kmiec (more…)

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Barack Obama is the most pro-choice/pro-abortion candidate to ever run for President in any major party. (more…)

An anti-Prop 8 organization has released a new commercial drawing Mormon missionaries into the fight over Proposition 8. To say the ad is inflammatory is putting it lightly. (more…)

The J. Reuben Clark Society’s annual student conference will be held this year at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Registration is now open, and I urge LDS students, lawyers, and interested laypersons to attend. FYI.

Dear Michelle,

First, let me say how much I’ve enjoyed getting to know you over the last couple of months. (more…)

Here are a few reasons why you should not vote for John McCain: (more…)

This is Part Two of responses provided by representatives of the LDS Newsroom to a set of questions submitted by T&S permabloggers. See Part One for the first six questions and responses. (more…)

Man is hungry for status like he is hungry for food (and they say the public schools don’t teach you anything!). (more…)

Last week’s sacrament meeting was unique. While on the surface it was just the annual Primary Sacrament Meeting program, the room was packed and the overflow took up most of the cultural hall. But the best part was the congregational hymns, a joyful cacophany that mangled the hymns, making them hard to understand, but communicating clearly the spirit.
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Strangely enough, I didn’t catch the irony until just now, as my first- and sixth-graders ran outside to catch the carpool.

First grader=John McCain

Sixth grader=jihadist Afghani

Most online discussions of gay marriage are not worth the effort, because no actual discussion takes place (more…)

Representatives from LDS Public Affairs who manage and direct the Newsroom site at LDS.org agreed to respond to a dozen questions submitted by the T&S permabloggers. We are pleased to post the first six questions and answers below, with the second set of six to follow shortly. We appreciate the time and effort that went into preparing these detailed responses. They should help make the Newsroom an even more useful resource for LDS readers. (more…)

The Lovely One and I were lazing in bed and got to talking about life expectancy. Barring mishap, we figured we’d reach our 50th wedding anniversary, no problem. (more…)

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chapstick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don’t mean I’m in love tonight

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The New York Times has an interesting write-up on the latest infidelity research. Among other morceau, researchers have found a rise in infidelity among young couples and speculate that increasing porn use may be responsible.

Just kidding about the “often” part. Are you an early voter or a procrastinator? Here’s why I voted early: (more…)

I’m not sure whether or not Halloween is actually “Mormon” to any significant degree. Mormons generally participate in the holiday here in the U.S., of course. And we even have a few requirements of the holiday in a Church setting — for example, we don’t allow masks at Church-sponsored Halloween events. But I don’t think that these facts quite give us a Mormon Halloween.

Perhaps what we need is a good, Mormon-specific monster!
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A few days ago, Russell passed around this quote backstage (yes, T&S has a backstage–that’s where the permabloggers hang out, fight, and make fun of you): (more…)

One competitor’s vehicle exploded on camera already. The next attempt is at 2:30 Mountain Time. You can watch a live webcast here. The challenge t is being held in Las Cruces, NM, but is not open to the public.

Naysayers regarding Sarah Palin’s promise to be an advocate for children with special needs can stand down for now rant all they want, but I’m still excited. (more…)

It behooveth the great Creator that he suffereth himself to become subject unto man in the flesh . . . that all men might become subject unto him.

-2 Nephi 9:5

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Thirteen-year-old son: Mom, can I watch “The Sarah Connor Chronicles”?
me: No.
son: Why not? There’s nothing bad about it.
me: I disagree.
son: Well, I disagree with you.
me: That’s okay. (more…)

This is a post about a new intertubes meme I’ve noticed–your mileage may vary–and whether it has minor moral implications. This is just my $.02. Heh. (more…)

BYU recently chose to rescind the diploma of Chad Hardy, the missionary calendar guy, because he was excommunicated from the church between the time he earned his degree and the graduation ceremony. (more…)

The FBI released its files on Gordon B. Hinckley last week in response to a FOIA request from the Salt Lake Tribune. Apparently the FBI conducted a background check on President Hinckley in 1951 in order to ensure he wasn’t a communist and clear him for a potential position with Voice of America. The results… no dirt. The verdict seemed to be that this Gordon B. Hinckley was a “loyal American” whose reputation and work ethic were unimpeachable. The whole (slightly redacted) file is pretty interesting and definitely worth a look.

The following is making the email rounds with lightning speed. It claims to be talk given recently by President Packer. Can anyone confirm or deny? (more…)

Just as I went to publish this post, I saw Ben’s post about the conference on Mormons and Evangelicals. It’s a nice coincidence. As are the recent posts by Kent and Marc on labeling and categorizing.

I was already scheduled to attend another conference this week, an annual conference for historians of the Reformation (surely you knew about it), where I’ll be part of an ongoing panel devoted to issues in teaching. This year’s issue is “Defining Protestantism,” as everyone is rightly concerned about labels we impose on people. Five or six scholars make up the panel, and we all get about 10 minutes to reflect on our particular experience with that issue. I’m supposed to talk about teaching the Reformation to Mormon students, both in general and in regard to defining Protestantism, as some of the panelists are wondering how Mormons fit or not.

I’m planning to touch on some of the following, but would be happy to hear what T&S readers have to add. (more…)