The prophets have asked every Church member to read and study the Book of Mormon. But for some teens, reading every day becomes at best a chore and at worst a trigger for a fight with Mom and Dad. Here are five simple ideas to help increase your teen’s interest in reading the Book of Mormon.

There’s a lot of marriage advice out there: another blog to read, great ideas how to improve your relationship, things to do, things to say. But most of this advice is fleeting, and it seems that there is always a new piece of advice to try every week.

There’s a humorous adage about Internet discussion boards called Godwin’s Law that goes something like this: The longer any online debate continues, no matter what the topic, the greater the probability that someone will criticize some point made in the debate by comparing it to the beliefs of Hitler.

As a process theologian, I affirm the universality of revelation. God is present in every moment of experience. While most moments have few religious messages, on occasion a synergy between God’s call and our response awakens persons to a deeper knowledge of God’s vision for themselves and the world. Surely this was the case in the writing of the Gospels, the prophetic writings, and the epistles of the New Testament, to name a few. Yet, we must remember that divine inspiration was present at every stage of the process, including the oral traditions, the process of writing, the written word, and the spoken or read word. If revelation is universal, then biblical revelation may only be different in degree – and that would not necessarily apply to all of the bible – and not different in kind from other inspirational literature. Because God seeks beauty and wholeness, every divine revealing has the potential of becoming a spoken or written revelation.

The proverbial “third rail” issue for a Christian blogger on a Jewish website is Jewish conversion to Christianity. It is one of the few issues that unites practically all Jews, and well-funded organizations (e.g., Jews for Judaism) have been set up to keep Jews from converting. Although many Jews who know me well have asked why a Jew would become a Mormon, I have declined to blog on the subject because I considered it too sensitive. Until now. After more than two years blogging for the Jewish Journal, I’m pretty confident that readers know that my purpose in writing this column is not to convert Jews. A few weeks ago a prominent Jewish leader asked me why Jews decide to become Mormons. I decided to pose a series of questions to my friend Marlena Tanya Muchnick, a well-known Jew-turned-Mormon speaker, author, and researcher.

The current hymnal used by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was first published in 1985. In the years leading up to the creation of the hymnal, the Hymnbook Executive Committee was formed to select and edit the texts and music of the hymnal. Marvin Gardner and Vanja Watkins were both members of that committee and, in an unusual way, created the beloved hymn “Press Forward, Saints.”

We asked our online readers to share some cute things they're heard children pray for, and the list was just too silly and sweet not to share. Check out this sample of some of our favorites:

I was working out at the gym the other day and one of the trainers approached me and asked, “Why is my wife always so tired?” Two other men were standing closeby, so they came over to listen. “What do you mean ‘always tired’?” I asked. “Well, she doesn’t have the energy to exercise. She takes loads of vitamins but those don’t do a thing. I worry about her because she always seems down on herself. She’s not the same person I married anymore. Do you see any of that in your practice?”

Mitt Romney, speaking last week in Jerusalem, shows why religion is and ought to be part of our campaign discourse—not the pointless question of who is more Christian than whom, but the investigation of how the worldviews that religious communities conserve inspire the way that candidates read circumstances. During the primaries, we were so busy trying to figure out if Romney is a real Christian, we didn’t look very closely at what really matters in his religious worldview. If we had, his recent declaration that “culture makes all the difference” in Israel would not have so surprised and bewildered us.

“[Latter-day Saints] don’t just believe but actively teach that most of what you gain in this life you cannot take with you. One of the only things that you can gain that will come with you at some future time is ... the stuff you learn, what you have in your head.”