The Mormon Monk

This post is a special gift to my bachelor readers, who might not realize that marriage--and especially marriage to Mormon maidens--is now within their financial grasp. Like any other man, I had to show the future Mrs. Monk a glistening chunk of carbon before she would consent to marry me. For the last 150 years or so, Mormon bachelors have spent many an hour toiling away to buy the rock that would convince their girlfriends to marry them; toil no more, my brothers! Turns out that engagement rings are meant to purchase something that you don't want to buy--and that any morally upright Mormon maid doesn't want to sell. Apparently engagement rings are a fairly recent invention, an insurance policy meant to decrease the likelihood that a jilted maiden would file a breach of promise lawsuit . We all know that young men are willing to lie in order to get young women to agree to have sex with them , and one of the lies that young men used (and probably still use) quite frequent...

It's not too hard to figure out why Alma's counsel to Shiblon on avoiding sexual temptation is a good idea , but Alma provides an explicit reminder of the stakes of this particular commandment in his subsequent rebuke to Corianton: "Know ye not, my son, that [sexual sins] are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost?" (Alma 39:5). The negative consequences of sexual sin are made quite clear, but what are the spiritual blessings that naturally come to those who bridle their passions? After all, as King Mosiah teaches, there is a blessing--a positive externality--tied to every act of obedience: "he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you" (my emphasis; Mosiah 2:24). So by bridling "all your passions"--and not just your sexual passions, mind you--we do more than guarantee that we w...

In the Book of Mormon , Alma offers his second son Shiblon some advice that--given his third son's interest in the harlot Isabel--might have been better directed toward Corianton. He tells Shiblon to "bridle all your passions." We commonly interpret this counsel as advice that is particularly applicable to cases of sexual temptation, and secular research has recently confirmed the wisdom of making decisions about sexual morality well before the time to actually make such decisions is nigh. Dan Ariely--the author of Predictably Irrational , and a man with interesting fashion insights --has done important research on the bridling of passions. He asked a number of male undergraduate students to take a survey rating their propensity to engage in a number of different sexual behaviors if and when they were sexually aroused. A sample of some of the questions: "Is just kissing frustrating?" "Would you tell a woman that you loved her to increase the chance that she...

A must-see (and thought provoking) video from the author of one of my favorite works of non-fiction (about which you will hear more soon):

Before I get to my thoughts on Barack Obama's speech to school children (which you asked for ), let me briefly note that as of today I am the creator and subject of a new website designed to aid me in my quest for full time employment as a college professor. Your feedback is welcome (particularly if you are a departmental administrator looking for an early Americanist). Now--as to President Obama's speech. I think there are two important points that should be made up front: 1. This was not a new idea. The first President Bush and President Reagan both delivered addresses to school children. 2. This was not a politicized speech. There were no partisan statements in there; in fact, the most political sentence was his suggestion that "maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team." Hardly a call to elect activist judges and socially liberal government officials. Obama...

My time in the Holy Land was wonderful, every minute of it. But...for the first few days that I spent walking the streets that Jesus walked and visiting the sites associated with events in his life, I was less than touched. The sights were magnificent and inspiring, but the experience did not inspire me or move me in the way that I might have expected it to. It was, to be frank, a little depressing. Then, on a Saturday morning, I hired a taxi to take me to the BYU Jerusalem Center for church services. This is what I saw: And here's an aerial shot that captures the grandeur and magnificence of the building far better than I could do from the ground: I entered almost an hour before sacrament meeting was scheduled to begin and took a seat, looking forward to a little time alone with my scriptures, but as soon as I sat down an elderly sister missionary approached me and asked me if I would be willing to sing with the ward choir that would be performing that morning. I said yes...and so...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently issued a somewhat generic press release describing the back-to-school experience of "hundreds of thousands" of college-age students who attend institute. There are some interesting factoids hidden in there (Did you know that there are 55,000 more institute students outside the US than in?), but I found the press release much more interesting because of a book I'm currently reading: Religion on Campus , by Conrad Cherry, Betty A. Deberg, and Amanda Porterfield. The book is an in-depth examination of the religious culture at four different universities (whose identities are made anonymous), and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is conspicuously absent from its pages. I understand why the Church might not be a robust presence at three of these colleges; you are unlikely to find an overabundance of LDS students at "a Lutheran liberal arts college, ... a Roman Catholic school" or a traditionally ...