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Channel: Sam Brunson – By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog
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Happy Birthday, Sister Jean!

In 2018, when the Loyola Ramblers burst into the NCAA basketball Final Four, my school burst into the national spotlight. But it wasn’t just Loyola University Chicago: it was also the Ramblers’...

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Anti-Racism, the Bystander Effect, and BYU

Friday night, a racist BYU fan harassed a Black women’s volleyball player playing for Duke. Among other things, he threatened her and called her a racial slur that is arguably the most offensive word...

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Religious Liberty and Short-Termism

On Wednesday, a Texas district court found that the ACA’s mandate that insurance cover PrEP violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. (Opinion here.) A couple quick explanations before we go on:...

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Faith, Reason, and CES

Last week, the Deseret News published an essay by Elder Clark Gilbert, the commissioner of CES. (Remember, CES is over the church’s secondary education system, including the BYUs and Pathways.) In it,...

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Oman, A Possible Theology of Same-Sex Marriage Sealings

This morning, Nate Oman posted what may be the most important and consequential piece of Mormon theology I’ve read in a long time over on his Substack. In it, he explores whether and how same-sex...

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$906 Million

The church recently released its 2021 Annual Report. The church’s Annual Reports detail its humanitarian and social safety-net endeavors.[fn1] These endeavors should come as no surprise: as in years...

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Rethinking Plagiarism

Last week, in the wake of General Conference, there was a mini-scandal: it appears that in Elder Bednar’s talk “Put on Thy Strength, O Zion,” he borrowed his interpretation of a parable from a 2016...

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A Church Ombudsman

Several years ago, while we were waiting for the church to build a building in downtown Chicago, my ward met in a rented public school on Sundays. And honestly, it was a great location–the nursery was...

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Church Finances in Canada and Australia

Over the last week or so, a number of people have pointed me to investigative journalism regarding the church’s finances in Canada and Australia and asked my opinion on them. Which is flattering but,...

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The LDS Church Supports the Respect for Marriage Act

You may have heard that yesterday the church came out in support of the Respect for Marriage Act. For reasons I’ll describe in a minute, this support is, in my humble opinion, a big deal. But before...

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Sorrow and Thanksgiving

On Election Day, I woke up to my daughter freaking out. Our cat had fallen down her sister’s ladder and was unresponsive. Almost instantly awake, we did a quick Google search and discovered that there...

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BYU and Cryptic Standards

A couple weeks ago, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that BYU-I was declining to renew[fn1] instructors’ contracts based on nebulous and unexplained criteria. And yes, I understand that the BYUs have...

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Light, Dark, and St. Lucia

Last week, my family and I went to the St. Lucia services at Ebenezer Lutheran Church in Andersonville. We’ve meant to go for several years but, since a friend’s sons were participating, we had the...

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Profits, Bonneville, and the Church

Once upon a time,[fn1] a couple wealthy alumni left all of the shares of the Mueller Pasta Co. to NYU’s law school. The donation kinda freaked people out: a pasta company owned by a tax-exempt...

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About Those Lost Billions [Updated] …

A couple days ago, the Tribune reported that for the third straight quarter the church had lost billions of dollars on its investment portfolio. As it stands, on September 30, 2022, Ensign Peak...

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Say It Again, Sam (a Plea to Bishops)

You know that moment: the person blessing the sacrament looks at the bishop. The bishop shakes his head. And, instead of standing up and handing the trays of bread or water, the person repeats the...

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Guess I’ll Go Eat Worms

About a month ago, YouGov released the results of a poll asking how Americans feel about various religions. Respondents were asked a simple question: “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of...

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Avoiding Affinity Fraud: The Las Vegas Mormon Ponzi Scheme

Today, the Washington Post published a story detailing an alleged Ponzi scheme that targeted Mormons. (It’s worth noting that one of the alleged fraudsters—the one who seems to have thought up the...

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What We Owe to Each Other: Humanitarian Aid Edition

By now, I’m sure you’ve read about the devastation in Türkiye[fn1] and Syria. As of this writing, there are at least 7,700 dead in those two countries, a number widely expected to rise. In Türkiye...

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The Church, the Investment Advisor, and the SEC

By now, I assume you’ve heard that the church and Ensign Peak Advisors have settled an SEC investigation, with EPA agreeing to pay a $4 million fine and the church agreeing to pay a $1 million fine....

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