So claims an article published in the Salt Lake Tribune:   http://www.sltrib.com/news/4655393-155/some-mormon-women-ask-how-could   “Since Donald Trump’s election,” writes Tribune columnist Paul Rolly, “I know of a few Mormon women who have stopped going to church, at least temporarily, because of the support their fellow worshippers gave a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women.”   Now, I have no idea whether his claim is true or not.  I expect that it holds for at least a few women.... Read more

    To me, the Wheatley Institution and the Law School’s International Center for Law and Religion Studies are, far and away, the two most interesting centers at BYU for the academic consideration of religious questions.   Press coverage of the Wheatley Institution’s recent symposium on “Reason for Hope: Responding to a Secular World” — as given in this article and a few others like it — has drawn some pretty strong and sometimes passionate responses.   I wasn’t able... Read more

    The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed Him, and to be manifested according as they could bear it,... Read more

    A bit more than two years ago, we at the Interpreter Foundation decided to publish special Christmas and Easter messages on the Fridays nearest to those two holidays.  Unlike our usual offerings, they would be personal statements rather than scholarly treatises, appropriate (we hoped) for reading on or near those important commemorations.   It occurs to me that some of you may not have seen all of them, and that some who’ve already read them might enjoy reading them again.... Read more

    I’m not a fan of Fidel Castro.  I don’t miss him.  And I’m not a fan of the Black Lives Matter movement:   http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/442711/peaceful-group-black-lives-matter-sure-does-love-cop-killers-and-murderous-dictators     Read more

    Exactly!   http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.com/2016/12/jesus-and-his-earliest-followers-were.html     Read more

    This continues to interest me a great deal:   http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2016/12/uto-aztecan-and-its-connection-to-near_2.html   The historical implications, if the thesis is sustainable, are profound.  And, as I’ve observed before, while it wouldn’t prove the Book of Mormon true — and while the Book of Mormon could easily be true even if it’s false — demonstrated links between the Uto-Aztecan language family and languages in the ancient Middle East would significantly transform the background against which the claims of the Book of Mormon... Read more

    Reflecting my mixed views of President-Elect Trump’s recent actions:   I like his choice of James Mattis for Secretary of Defense:   “Why Our Allies Love James Mattis and Our Adversaries Fear Him”   “General Mattis is a Great Man — and a Good One”   But, although his supporters have been boasting about Mr. Trump’s saving of all those Carrier jobs, I dislike it:   “The Winners and Losers of the Carrier Deal”   “The Economic Stupidity of... Read more

    Does anybody else out there find this at least slightly worrisome?   http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/442695/here-come-three-parent-children   Call me crazy, but I’m not quite entirely certain that humanity is wise enough or good enough to initiate such fundamental changes.  We worry about tinkering with small ecosystems, lest we cause unforeseen and possibly disastrous ripple effects.  But fundamentally transforming human reproductive biology and basic human social structures?  No biggie!     Read more

    “Like a Bach fugue, the Universe has a beautiful elegance about it, governed by laws whose mathematical precision is meted out to the metronome of time.  These equations of physics are finely balanced, with the constants of nature that underpin the equations tuned to values that allow our remarkable Universe to exist in a form where we, humanity, can study it.  A slight change to these constants, and poof, in a puff of gedanken experimentation, we have a... Read more