The LDS Church's position on gambling hasn't liberalized, but fewer Mormons now see gambling as immoral. What happened? @RNS

And ... we're open! The EESI is a new academic Mormon Studies writing retreat. Now taking applications from 1) grad students, 2) ind scholars who have yet to publish a book, & 3) junior academics within 5 years of receiving their PhD who have not published their first monograph.

@Exchairstacker @MormonMSSA @TaylorPetrey @BenjaminEPark Applicants just need to be in one of these 3 categories: "1) graduate students, 2) independent scholars who have yet to publish a book, and 3) junior academics within five years of receiving their PhD who have not published their first monograph."

The Netflix series #AmericanPrimeval is riddled with problems, including some outright fabrications about Mormon history, says guest columnist @bjonesbrown. Here’s a rundown of what is fact & what is fiction: @RNS

I’m the guest this week on Valerie Hamaker’s Latter-day Struggles podcast, sharing research-in-progress about who is more likely to leave the LDS Church, and why: #latterdaystruggles

The 2025 LDS Primary curriculum teaches kids that if church leaders ask you to do something "hard"—like practice polygamy—you should do it even if your conscience says no. @rns Guest columnist @carollynnpearsn says this type of obedience is dangerous.

@emmacruises So sorry to hear this, Emma, both for your sake & bec I’m taking a transAtl cruise next month specifically to make progress on a book deadline. I was looking at all those cheap sea days as an ideal writing retreat, but that might have been a gross miscalculation! Rooting for you!

@electionwa24 @benjaminknoll28 Just for the record, we don’t make a living at this research. Because I’ve had to say no to new editorial clients and also reduce my writing for @RNS while writing the book, I’ve been losing income for many months. It’s a sacrifice for my family, but I’m glad to do it. (Mostly!)

RT @MormonMSSA: Save the date! The MSSA will hold a one day conference at Utah Tech University in St. George on Saturday, April 12, 2025. J…

I’m really loving the new hymns that have been added to the @LDSchurch hymnal so far. But maybe that’s because I converted from Protestantism, and the theology expressed in these songs makes me feel right at home. @RNS

RT @TaylorPetrey: I could not be more excited to announce the Eugene England Summer Institute led by myself and the incredible @janariess a…

@profsamperry I’d be interested to read a sociological study exploring the nation’s drop in fertility in the late 20th c & its rising expectations that parents would monitor kids 24/7. The time required for socially acceptable parenting became a MUCH higher bar…correlation? Any causation?

@profsamperry Right? The only way I can get GenZers to understand how much freedom we had is to tell them it was exactly like “Stranger Things” but without the monsters.

RT @MerriamWebster: ‘Phonetic’ is not. ‘Abbreviation’ is 12 letters. ‘Thesaurus’ doesn’t have a synonym. Say what you will about English,…

People leave religion because they wanted to sin and/or are lazy. (Or so go some popular explanations that religious people have.) Sociologists @rcragun & Jesse M. Smith dive into the data and find that actually, nonreligious people are boring. @RNS

Got to speak with @NPR's @bmluse of "It's Been a Minute" about LDS women social media influencers, especially why non-Mormon Americans find them so fascinating. Fun interview! We did not resolve the question of why they all have the exact same hair. @RNS

Latter-day Saints are once again on the wrong side of justice, the wrong side of the gospel and the wrong side of history. Post-election thoughts for @RNS:

RT @MerriamWebster: During the Renaissance, people in Venice would vote by dropping little balls into an urn. The Italian word for “little…

@profsamperry Sam, I’m with you on how obvious the new trend line about younger women seems, but OTOH this flavor of cons Protestantism has been misogynistic for decades. So there *is* a mystery here for research about religion and gender, which is: Why now vs. in earlier generations of women?

RT @KUER: Why the change now? Globalization and some younger members’ lack of compliance have played a part, but @janariess says there’s mo…