The Mormon Monk

I grew up in Northborough, Massachusetts. It's a small, suburban town where little extraordinary happens--trust me, I lived with the town's police chief for twenty years. Northborough also doesn't have the rich history that other Massachusetts towns/cities do--Henry Walden Thoreau didn't build a cabin within town limits, John Adams didn't own a farm there, and James Naismith didn't throw a ball through into a Northborough peach basket. But, there are a more than a few individuals who were either born in Northborough or who lived there for substantial periods whose ties to Northborough should be celebrated, and William Francis Allen (1830-1889) is one of them. Allen was an educator whose career seems fairly uninspiring: he spent 8 years as an assistant principal at a high school and 22 years as a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While years of academic service are highly admirable (at least from my admittedly biased perspective), there are many o...

My mother always told me to "choose my friends wisely," a piece of advice that I suspect most parents pass on. But did she--do you--realize how important those friends were? Did she know that choosing the right friends may have been more important than--or at least the same thing as--choosing the right religion? Rodney Stark's The Rise of Mormonism (2004) is a book explaining why, "If growth during the next century is like that of the past, the Mormons will become a major world faith;" to put that statement in perspective, Stark considers Islam the last religion to "become a major world faith" and we know how important that religious movement is today. Stark is not Mormon; his interest in the church is that of a sociologist who wants to know what has made the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints successful in attracting and retaining converts at a growth rate of 40% per decade (no, that's not a typo). In truth, his book is less about Mormon...

I read books for a living. It's not a very good living...but that's another story. Still--I am paid to read, so I don't throw around words like "MOST IMPORTANT BOOK I'VE EVER READ" without some serious consideration. Those words need a qualifier, of course; I should have said that Supercapitalism is the "most important book I've ever read not written by God," but the title seemed snappier and more weighty without the qualifier. Even with the qualifier this is a heavy statement. To emphasize the importance of this book in another way: I don't think you should be allowed to vote if you haven't read this book. I don't want to disenfranchise anyone, but I don't want you voting unless you understand what Robert B. Reich has to say either. (Incidentally, Reich's book strives to remain non-partisan, and he skewers both parties regularly. Supercapitalism isn't politics as usual; it's a striking illumination of the nation'...

Three weeks ago or so, my wife and I were made ward missionaries. As this is a calling in which Alana and I will have to jointly leave the house and our two (very) small children, our bishop was very hesitant to extend such a calling--but we were excited, and it has already been a wonderful blessing. Wanting to engage right away, we jointly agreed that one of us would prepare a backup gospel principles lesson each week, just in case the regular teacher happened to be absent without providing for a backup (which he had been occasionally, or so we'd heard). Well--that very first week, the regular teacher was absent, and I got to hear Alana give the best lesson on service that I have ever had the privilege to attend. As part of that lesson, she taught about the importance of learning to accept service as well as give it, something that readers of this blog will know is a lesson we have learned this summer. In describing the process of learning to be served, Alana explained that most o...