Index of Selected Posts

This index page displays links to selected DMI blog posts displayed by category. Several "greatest hits" lists in the right sidebar display some of my better posts by year rather than by category. The "About This Site" list at the top of the second sidebar provides links to additional resources. For the regular list of scrolling blog posts, click here.

The Bible

• Two Approaches to Isaiah
• The Rise of Biblical Criticism and the Mormon Response
• Did Jesus Exist?
• The Earliest New Testament
• Revelation
• A Revolutionary Paul
• Reading Paul's Letters
• A Mormon View of Paul
• Bible and Authority
• Who Wrote the Gospels?
• Putting Bible Problems on the Shelf
• Apocrypha
• How to Read the Bible
• Jonah, Overboard
• Genesis and Genre
• The Deuteronomist
• The Exile and the Beginnning of the Old Testament
• Scriptural Transmission: Adding or Taking Away?
• The Ethical Jesus
• Armstrong on the Emergence of Torah and Scripture
• The Apocalyptic Jesus
• Different Views of Inerrancy
• Bart Ehrman on Contradictions in the Bible
• Hebrews and Authorship
• Biblical Cosmology
• Between the Testaments: From Malachi to Matthew
• Misquoting Jesus
• Reading the New Testament, Part 1
• More on Secret Mark
• The Documentary Hypothesis, Part 2
• The Documentary Hypothesis, Part 1
• The Secret Gospel of Mark
• English Bibles
• Biblical Literary Types

Blogs and Blogging

• Young Mormon Scholars, Bloggers, and Readers
• Anonymity as Virtue or Vice
• Blogging and the Decline of Authority
• Mormons Encouraged to Use New Media
• Blogger Exed
• Internet Mormonism: Threat or Opportunity?
• Defining the Bloggernacle
• What I Have Learned as a Mormon Blogger
• Blogs as an Open Forum
• Legal Guide for Bloggers
• Blogs, Magazines, and Journals
• Efficient Blogging: The Three-Paragraph System
• Blogging as Public Discourse

Christianity

• The No-So-Great Apostasy
• Bible, Church, and Mystic
• Review: Losing My Religion
• Prophets in America
• Finding Christian Heretics in Strange Places
• Christianity and Equality
• A Short History of the Megachurch, and Why There Aren't Any Mormon Megachurches
• Christianity by Continent
• Things Evangelicals Don't Like To Talk About
• Getting to Know Evangelicals
• How To Be A Good Anti-Mormon
• Pope on Faith and Doubt
• Cities of God: How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome
• Evangelical Cults of Personality
• The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus
• The Judas You Never Knew
• The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition
• Faith and Reason
• Understanding Baptists
• Kung on Modernity
• Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas
• Masonic Religion
• The Gospel of Thomas
• The Evangelical Mind
• Modern Fundamentalism, Part 2
• Calvin the Modernist
• Faith, Evidence, and Rationality
• In the Footsteps of John Wesley

Evolution and Science

• Mormonism at the Scopes Trial
• The Day Creationism Died
• Science, Mormonism, Dialogue
• Science as Friend or Foe
• God and Galaxies
• The Fate of the Earth
• You and Your Righteous Religious Mind
• Religious Anti-Intellectualism
• Creationism and LDS Seminary
• The Language God Talks: On Science and Religion
• Is Evolution a Secular Religion?
• Carl Sagan on God and Mormonism, Part 1 | Part 2
• Science and Religion: Enemies or Partners?
• An LDS View on Science and Religion
• God and Science
• Theology in the Wake of Evolution
• Teaching Evolution
• Religion as a Learning Community
• The Undeluded Believer
• Mormons and Science
• Augustine Contra Fundamentalism
• God's Universe
• A Scientist, Two Popes, and a Prophet
• The Selfish Meme
• The Deseret News on Evolution

Interfaith

• Evangelicals Need Inoculation Too
• A Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation: Idaho Falls Edition
• A Different Jesus?
• The Possibility of Joseph Smith
• Nope, Not a Cult
• Mormon Scripture
• The Mormon Trinity
• Stendahl's Three Rules of Religious Understanding

Law

• Who Owns That Church?
• American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
• Church and State
• Legal Guide for Bloggers

Philosophy and Theology

• Socially Constructed Mormonism
• Knowledge or Faith?
• Thrown Into This Mormon Life
• Mormonism: How Thinkable Is It?
• What Mormon Theology Looks Like
• Volcanism, Mormonism, and Historical Contingency
• Assessing the Optimal Degree of Religious Certainty
• Reading Scripture in the 21st Century
• Tsunami (problem of evil)
• Myth and Ritual
• Beliefs and Causes
• The Problem of Evil, or the Great Plan of Misery
• Modernism and the Mormon Intellectual
• I've Seen All Good People
• Schleiermacher: Confronting Modernity
• Theology and Conversation
• Modern Responses to the Problem of Evil
• Why We Suffer: The Problem of Evil
• Religious Pragmatism
• Modern Theology in One Easy Lesson
• McMurrin on Evil
• The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy
• Metaphysics and Mormonism
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Wanted: A Few Good Nihilists
• Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy
• The Disappearance of God: A Divine Mystery
• A Very Brief History of Philosophy
• The Making of a Philospher
• Faking It, Round Two and Round One
• The Perfect Storm: Sooner or Later, We All Go Down With the Ship
• Critic Unlimited: Bloom on Hamlet
• Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue
• Madness: A Brief History

Practical Apologetics

• The First Vision
• Keeping the Faith
• Defining the middle path in Mormonism
• Help, I want to go back to church

LDS Apologetics

• The Mormon Challenge, Part 1: Creation
• Inoculation Works
• Translation and Apologetics
• FAIR Combats New Oubreak of Folk Doctrine
• The New Mormon Apologetics
• Generations
• Trends in Apologetics
• FARMS and Authorship

LDS Books

Browse the sidebar lists or review the LDS Books category for more.

• The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South
• Mormon Christianity: What Other Christians Can Learn, Part 1 | Part 2
• The Life and Times of Parley P. Pratt
• Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
• Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia
• Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader's Guide
• All Abraham's Children
• The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction
• Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction, Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
• Massacre at Mountain Meadows
• The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation
• David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism
• Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage
• Rough Stone Rolling
• Adventures of a Church Historian
• Brigham Young: American Moses
• By the Hand of Mormon
• The Mormon Experience, Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
• Emma Smith: Mormon Enigma, Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

LDS Culture

• Salt Lake City, We Have a Problem (Missionaries Returning Early)
• Calibrating the Definition of Apostasy
• Two Churches, Two Gospels
• The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception
• The Problem With Correlation
• Mauss on Dialogue
• Mormon Boundaries
• Cafeteria Conference
• Unchurched Mormons: Spiritual But Not Religious?
• What Correlation Looks Like in Japan
• Mormonism: A Religion of the Head or of the Heart?
• The Bott Affair: Winners and Losers
• LDS Men Aren't Incredible
• Cafeteria Correlation
• Church Discipline in the Internet Age
• Making Mormons in the 21st Century
• More on the Mormon Gender Gap
• Almost Mormon
• Downgrading Doctrine
• Correlation is Killing Sunday School
• Underwhelming Thoughts on Correlation
• Good Thoughts on Teaching Sunday School
• Calling All Introverts
• Scriptural Skills: What Are They and Can They Be Taught?
• We're All Middle-Way Mormons
• Life on the Fringe
• New Primary Lesson Needed: Not Going to Church
• A Statistical Portrait of Mormons
• God and Robots
• Is Mormonism a World Religion?
• Contrasting Views of Mormonism
• Upbeat Reflections on BYU
• Mormonism as a Symbol Whose Meaning Is Changing
• The Puzzling Mormon Gender Gap
• The Mormon Sort
• Being Orthodox in the Modern World
• The Mormon Community
• So-Called Stages of Faith
• A Puzzle for Mormon Feminists
• Dutcher's Long and Winding Road
• Faith and Fame
• An Ethics of LDS Teaching
• Gladys Knight and Mormon Music
• Claudia Bushman on Mormon Women
• Friends in Strange Places: Harold Bloom
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Former Mormon
• Spiritual Crocodiles 2.0
• Telling Stories: More on Folklore
• Mormon Symbols
• Americanized Mormonism
• Jan Shipps: Stranger in a Strange Land
• Books for LDS Missionaries
• The Mormon Laundry List
• Postmodern Mormonism, Take Two
• Postmodern Mormonism?
• Church in Smallville
• The King's English, Part 2
• The King's English
• Defining "Anti-Mormon"
• The Plight of the Smart LDS Woman
• Correlation: Blessing or Curse?
• Southerton Exits
• Excommunication: Policy versus Practice
• All About Excommunication
• Deep Mormon Bench
• Conservatives and Liberals in Religion
• How to Make Friends and Influence Christians
• Permissible Dissent
• Gender Roles
• Mormon Establishment of Religion in Utah? Part 1 | Part 2
• Palmer Endgame: A Draw?
• LDS Revenues and Assets
• Where's All That Tithing Money Going?
• Liahona Dreams
• Don't Believe Everything You Hear: On Not Disseminating Private Notes
• Unwritten Rules
• A Man Named Zelph
• A Curriculum Experiment: What's in the Priesthood Manual
• Kierkegaard and Mormonism
• Gardens and Testimony
• One Thing I Like About the Church
• Mormon Exhorters

LDS Doctrine

• The Practical Atonement
• The Theological Atonement
• The Atheological Atonement
• The Atonement as Moral Influence
• My Problem With the Couplet
• The Veil: Thick or Thin?
• Getting Past the KJV
• Troubling Dreams
• Polygamy 2012
• Mormon Doctrine: Confusion or Clarity?
• Doctrine and Practice
• Church and Family
• Lineage: A Troubling Concept
• You Make the Call: What Is an Unorthodox Mormon?
• Do We Need A Fifth Mission?
• Terry Eagleton on Two Kinds of Faith
• AWOL: The Threefold Mission of the Church
• The Meanings of Zion
• Reason and Revelation in Mormonism
• Mormonism, Fundamentalism, and Absolute Truth
• Against Literalism and Inerrancy
• Mormons and Restorationists
• Quakers, Shakers, and Mormons
• The Mormon Trinity
• Essential Gender Differences
• Myths for the Modern World
• Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy, Ch. 3-5
• Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy, Ch. 1-2
• Kent P. Jackson on Faith and Scholarship
• Higher Criticism and Mormonism
• Good Exmos, When They Die, Go To Colorado
• Pondering Proving Contraries
• All About Excommunication
• Saving Brother Ryan
• Stupid Things
• Reformed Mormonism
• Mormon Testimony
• Brigham Young on Science and Theology

LDS History

• The Council of Fifty: A Documentary History
• Historians Saying Interesting Things About Mormonism
• Floating Through a Billion Years of Mormon History
• The Mormon Reformation
• The Mormon People, Intro | Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
• What Did We Lose?
• Mountain Meadows: A Thin Line Between Good and Evil
• Brigham Young and the West, Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
• Pioneers and Indians in Utah Valley
• President Hinckley and Mormon Memory
• The Devilish Details of Inoculation
• Missing Essentials
• A Mormon Narrative for the 21st Century
• Biographies of a New World Man
• The Utah War: Nine Conclusions
• The Utah War | More on the Utah War
• Joseph in the Land of Lincoln
• Welcomed Into Zion
• A Sense of Mormon Community
• Three Takes on Mormon History
• Going West With the Mormons
• The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle
• An Approach to Religious History
• Looking Back on the McKay Era
• A Spectre Haunting Mormonism
• Faithful History
• James Strang: The Man Who Would Be King
• Mormon Militarism?
• Bushman on Joseph's Three Biggest Accomplishments
• City on a Hill and Mormon Zion
• Bushman on Mormon History
• Our Man Paul (on Paul H. Dunn)
• The Prophet Puzzle, Part 1 | Part 2
• Knowing Mormon History
• Brigham Young in England
• Dangerous History: Exploring the Role of Mormon Women
• A Joseph for the 21st Century
• Online Biographies of Joseph Smith
• Becoming the American Religion
• Ten Reasons to Study LDS History

LDS Places

• Looking for Middle-Earth
• Walls Around Sacred Places
• Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise, Part 1: Founding
• Nauvoo, Part 2: Flourishing
• Nauvoo, Part 3: Polygamy
• Reflections on the Mormon Trail
• LDS Historical Sites
• Mormon Cities
• A Visit to Mountain Meadows
• Jacob Hamblin's House and Wives

LDS Scripture

• On Not Reading the Book of Mormon
• The Book of Mormon as Literature
• Sharp Dressed Man
• The Real World of the Book of Mormon
• The Book of Mormon as Narrative
• Rethinking the Proclamation
• A Very Short Introduction to the Book of Mormon
• The Keystone Metaphor
• Millet on Book of Mormon Historicity
• Nephite DNA
• The Shadow of Abraham
• Punctuation Matters
• Descendants of Lehi
• Alma 1 - The Nephite State Church
• Tolkien, Depth, and the Book of Mormon
• The Limits of "Most Correct"
• What Did Joseph Know About the Nephites?
• Chiasmus, and Other Clever Tricks

General Books

• Challenges of Church History
• He Is Not in the Desert
• Dickens on the Mormons
• States and Nations: 20th Century Conflict
• Facing East: A Native History of Early America
• Civilization: A New History of the Western World
• The End of Faith: A Tree Died for This?
• Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England
• A War Like No Other: The Peloponnesian War
• A Nation Among Nations: America's Place in World History
• England Calling: Writings in Honor of Eugene England
• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
• The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Modern Temple Worship
• The Sociopath Next Door
• Thomas Jefferson: Our New World Man
• At Sea With Jack London
• Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
• A Tough Year in Massachusetts: The Salem Witch Trials
• Roads to Modernity
• The Twilight of Disbelief: The Rise and Fall of Atheism
• Reading Beowulf
• Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction
• Harold Bloom on Mormonism

Other Stuff

• Excerpts and comments on interviews from the PBS show
  "The Mormons": Jeffrey R. Holland | Marlin K. Jensen | Gregory Prince
• History and Identity
• 3:10 to Salt Lake City
• Curing Religious Illiteracy
• The New Atheism
• Synchronicity, Prayer, and Meteors
• Orwell's Encounter With Mormonism
• On Politics and the English Language
• A Word From Grant Palmer
• FARMS Through the Years
• The Insider: Prying Into Palmer
• The Churching of America: Our Religious Economy
• Modern Fundamentalism, Part 1
• Modern Fundamentalism, Part 2

True to the Faith posts

• A is for Agency
• B is for Body Piercing
• C is for the Cross
• D is for Divorce
• E is for Exaltation
• F is for the Family

This page is presently updated through: December 31, 2014.