My Monday was exceptionally long and very busy, and I had no time whatever, none at all, to do any writing today. Not even on my blog. But I’ve made it a practice to post a daily entry on this blog, and I’m going to be traveling almost all of Tuesday. Which means that I’m likely to fall even further behind. So I’ve elected to re-post something that I wrote several years ago. I think that it’s still worthy... Read more
This column in the Deseret News is worth a look: “Perspective: Online influencers aren’t accurately representing Latter-day Saint reality: Disaffected influencers might be leaving a religious movement, but they’re not leading one” So is this piece, from the Deseret News Editorial Board: “Opinion: Regaining trust in vaccinations” And this, too: “Ready to join the new counterculture? Braver Angels’ leader says it will take courage: In a culture of widening contempt, we have the power to choose something better, says Maury Giles” ... Read more
It’s late tonight, so I think that I’ll share three passages that I marked during my reading, some time ago, of Richard Lyman Bushman’s book Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates: A Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023): John’s mother, Mary Whitmer, another plain-spoken witness, said she saw the plates when she went to do the milking. In 1878, years after the event, her son said that his mother had grown weary with the work of housing and feeding... Read more
This timely new book review was published today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation, where nothing new is ever published: “Learning Political Civility from Pahoran to Lincoln,” written by Brian Warby: Review of Rodney Dieser, Cease to Contend: Healing a Nation Through Christlike Civility in Politics (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 2025). 136 pp., $16.99 (paperback). Abstract: In Cease to Contend: Healing a Nation Through Christlike Civility in Politics, Rodney Dieser offers a timely and faith-centered response to the growing... Read more
I’ve indicated here more than once that I try to make my blog practically useful to its readers by offering occasional comments on such things as movies, plays, pieces of music, restaurants, and travel destinations. Here, for example, is a short but important video about an airport that should definitely be avoided: “Kafka International Named World’s Worst Airport” The place seems almost Kafkaesque, doesn’t it? To put it mildly, I’m not a fan of Steve Bannon, who was Donald... Read more
Earlier this year, I participated in a conference on religious freedom and related subjects in Uzbekistan. One of the others who attended and presented there was Shima Baradaran Baughman, who was born in Iran and who is now Woodruff J. Deem Professor of Law at Brigham Young University. I’ve been impressed by an essay that she recently published in the Deseret News, not least because of the somewhat dramatic personal family story that she tells in it: “Perspective: The... Read more
My attention has been called to a Latter-day Saint blog — located, like mine, here on Patheos — that is entitled Ye Shall Prosper in the Land. The entry that I first read on it was this one: “Who Is Behind the Murder of Charlie Kirk and What Happened?” It turns out that former Senator Mitt Romney, Senators John Curtis and Mike Lee, and especially Governor Spencer Cox may well be involved in Charlie Kirk’s assassination; that the attempted... Read more
The still relatively new Orem Utah Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stands across the I-15 freeway, a short distance to the southwest of the campus of Utah Valley University (UVU). That campus, of course, is where Charlie Kirk was assassinated last week. The temple is a bit of a walk from UVU, but it’s plainly visible from much of the university and there is a pedestrian walkway over the freeway that makes it reasonably... Read more
A new interview went up today that I commend to the notice of anybody who might have an interest in the Prophet Joseph Smith: “Rough Stone Rolling: Richard Bushman Reflects 20 Years Later: Joseph Smith still eludes me.” It being Sunday, the day on which, according to the New Testament accounts, Jesus rose from the dead, I think it appropriate to share some notes that I’ve amassed on that subject: “Essentially all critical scholars today agree that in 1... Read more
Driving back from the coast to drop our friends off at the airport in Portland, we stopped by the Portland Oregon Temple and walked around its grounds. We didn’t have enough time, alas, to do a session there — though we’ve attended sessions in it once or twice before. I’ve always liked its striking architecture and the beautiful marble with which it’s clad. And, of course, its grounds are gorgeous. Yesterday, its many and varied flowers were exceptionally pretty.... Read more
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