An Easter message for the doubter. Christmas (see here for my Christmas for the doubter essay) and Easter are two deeply meaningful days for Christians to spiritually connect with their Savior Jesus Christ. Going through faith deconstruction made those two days especially difficult for a few years until my faith reconstruction helped me piece it […]

Here are my charts for the LDS Membership Statistics Report, updated with the numbers reported March 31, 2018. These statistics are for calendar year 2017. See last year’s statistical report here.   Total membership: 16,118,169 Stakes: 3,341 Wards and Branches: 30,506 New children of record during 2017: 106,771 Converts baptized during 2017: 233,729 Full-time Missionaries: […]

A recent article from Ben Shapiro on Daily Wire discussed youth suicide. The alarming statistic is that from 2006 to 2016 in the U.S., teen suicide increased 70%. Additionally, suicide across all ages in the most recent statistical year, 2016, was at a 30 year high. In our community, we have discussed the alarming nature of Utah’s […]

  In Saturday afternoon’s conference session, we will see two new apostles called into the Quorum of the Twelve. These two men will have significant impact on the Church in the future. Let’s take a look at the recent patterns and some of the most likely candidates and make some predictions. Here is some information, […]

    In latest podcast episode from Jordan Peterson, he answers a question on religion fundamentalism that relates to Mormonism and the faith crisis and reconstruction topic I talk about.  Sorry to Dr. Daniel Peterson for the opportunistic use of you representing the Fundamentalist Mormon Apologists, I couldn’t resist the play on the two Petersons.   […]

This is a lesson plan for Gospel Doctrine Lesson 10 ‘Birthright Blessings; Marriage in the Covenant’ covering the story of Rebekah and Isaac and Jacob and Esau. Great lesson today. We are going to cover Genesis 24 – 33, which is a lot. We don’t have time to cover everything thoroughly, so I hope everyone […]

Andrew S gave a great reply to my post last week, which I decided to turn into a new post. I always like bantering with Andrew because he is a smart, thoughtful guy, and we don’t see eye to eye on things, so it provides a good opportunity for me to expand my point of […]

I’ve been making notes on Book of Mormon geography for the purpose of making an extended analysis of it. I’ve got a 30 page Word doc now documenting the BOM verses that cover the geography, along with summaries of various theories. It’s very interesting to me, but I haven’t taken the time to put it […]

  John Dehlin did a five hour exit story podcast episode with Brooke and Josh Miller, a 30 something, exMormon couple from Saratoga Springs, Utah. What piqued my interest was the teaser that it featured “their attempt to seek support and answers from Spencer Fluhman of the BYU Maxwell Institute”. If you want to hear the […]

The following is a Gospel Doctrine lesson plan for Lesson 8 of the Old Testament, Living Righteously in a Wicked World, the Sodom and Gomorrah Lot and Abraham story.   OK last week, we were introduced to Abram and Sarai, the story in Genesis 12 of how they went to Egypt due to the famine, […]