March 27, 2024

  Before the Interpreter Foundation altogether disappears (as has been reliably predicted), I would like to call your attention to a few more of its most recent last gasps: Conference Talks: The Priestly Interests of Moses the Levite: 2020 Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses Conference, presented by John W. Welch and Jackson Abhau John W. Welch and Jackson Abhau spoke at the Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses Conference on Saturday, September 19, 2020 about... Read more

March 26, 2024

  Some people will be very disappointed by these reports: Deseret News:  “Gallup polling: Latter-day Saints have the highest rate of weekly church attendance: Two-thirds of Latter-day Saints attend church weekly or nearly weekly” Gallup:  “Church Attendance Has Declined in Most U.S. Religious Groups: Three in 10 U.S. adults attend religious services regularly, led by Mormons at 67%” And some folks will be indignant at this: Public Square Magazine:  “An Open Letter to the New York Times: Latter-Day Saint women challenge the... Read more

March 25, 2024

  This week commemorates the most important week in the history of the world.  Here are some links that might help you to mark it, to remember it, and to ponder its meaning: Christianity Today:  “Why Every Day This Week Is Holy: Christians should celebrate from Palm to Easter Sunday—and everything in between.” “The ‘Lamb of God’ Seeks to Spread the Hope of Jesus Christ at Easter Season: Rob Gardner’s oratorio about the Savior’s death, Atonement, and Resurrection is performed by volunteers... Read more

March 24, 2024

  I think that, this time around, I’ll lead off with something from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™.  I mean, this claim, asserted by Dr. Stephen Cranney, is so horrible and so very alarming that it really does cry out for drastic emergency action: “Are religious people happier? The science is pretty clear:  According to many studies over the years, and confirmed in my new data analysis, religious people are, statistically speaking, measurably more likely to... Read more

March 23, 2024

  News from along the frontier of religious liberty: National Catholic Reporter:  “Wisconsin Supreme Court makes bad law in religious liberty case” Christianity Today:  “Must Social Service Providers Nix Their Faith to Receive Federal Funds?  Rather than follow the equal protections secured in Supreme Court decisions, the Biden administration opted for a complicated and soul-killing alternative.” Christianity Today:  “Nigeria’s Christian Repression Continues” National Review:  “How Utah Has Turned Religious Freedom from a Controversy to a Consensus: Utah leads the way... Read more

March 22, 2024

  With friends, my wife and I attended the open house this morning of the renovated Manti Utah Temple, which was built and first dedicated nearly a century and half ago.  (We were intending to go yesterday, but life intervened.)  For many reasons, the temple in Manti has long been one of my very favorite temples.  (Among other things, I love its location overlooking the valley in which it sits, and I love the cream-colored oolitic limestone of which it... Read more

March 21, 2024

  I’ve lately begun reading a new book by Robert Christophor Coppes entitled Impressions of Near-Death Experiences: Quotations from Over 100 Experiencers.  Dr. Coppes is an economist who is now retired from a career spent at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, a French bank, and eventually the Dutch Central Bank, which is roughly comparable to the U.S. Federal Reserve. There are several things of interest on every single page. Here’s a passage from the book that that I’ve... Read more

March 20, 2024

  Several years ago, before the devastating fire that severely damaged it on 15 April 2019, my wife and I spent a substantial portion of the day in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris.  At one place, in the transept to the right of the nave near the southern rose window, we saw a plaque commemorating the conversion of the prominent French poet, playwright, and diplomat Paul Claudel (1868-1955), eventually the recipient of multiple nominations for the Nobel Prize in... Read more

March 19, 2024

    [Ooops.  This week isn’t Holy Week!  For some reason, I keep thinking that Easter is this coming weekend.  But it’s not.  Does anything like that ever happen to you?  My apologies.] This week is “Holy Week,” about which I wrote this column a while back.  (I have fairly strong feelings about Holy Week.)  And here are a couple of potential resources for this week for Latter-day Saints: “#BecauseofHim: New Ways to Celebrate Christ This Easter: New resources at ChurchofJesusChrist.org... Read more

March 18, 2024

  On Saturday, here in this very space, I posted a couple of references to the alleged “transfiguration” of Brigham Young that is said by quite a few to have occurred while he was speaking to an outdoor audience of Latter-day Saints at Nauvoo, Illinois, on 8 August 1844.  (See “Two Witnesses to a Pivotal Event.”)  This speech, of course, was given in the wake of the 27 June 1844 assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith that had left the... Read more

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