Some Mormon-related viewing and reading for the weekend

Interpreter‘s article for the week is likely to go up a bit late today, owing to . . .  well, to some real-life matters that need attending to by the person who puts our articles up, who has just moved across the continent.

So, in the meantime, I’ll provide links to some things that I’ve found interesting:

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“One of the ‘Sistas in Zion’ tweets her thoughts on people who leave the LDS faith”

I myself have noticed, over the years, that Latter-day Saints who lose their faith tend, on the whole, not to migrate over to other Christian communions but — and perhaps increasingly so in recent years, corresponding to the widely remarked rise of the religious “nones” — to abandon theism altogether.  I don’t have statistics on this, but it’s my strong impression that this is so.

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I’m very pleased that Elder Cook was invited — and that therefore, by extension, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was invited — to participate in this event:

“Mormon leader tells Black Leadership Summit that religious liberty means ‘fairness for all'”

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This is exactly the way I think we ought to respond in such cases:

“The Unexpected Way the Church Responded to a Blackmail Attempt”

And, quite often, we have.

When, for example, the Book of Mormon musical came out, ridiculing Mormons as good-natured simpletons, we didn’t organize boycotts or protests or fume.  We took out ads in Playbill and them on buses and in London tube stations.  “You’ve seen the play, now read the book!”  “The is always better than the play!”  And so forth.

When critics try to uncover skeletons in our historical closet, the best response is full transparency regarding our history.  The Gospel is true.  The claims of the Restoration are valid.  They will withstand historical scrutiny.

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Dr. George Handley is an associate dean in my college (Humanities), and I serve on a college committee with him.

Now, an approximately 45-minute interview with him is available via the website of the Interpreter Foundation, and I think that more than a few of my readers may find it of considerable interest:

“The Delicate Art of Critical Judgment”

And, since it’s referred to in connection with the interview, here’s a link to his November 2015 talk titled “On Criticism, Compassion, and Charity”:

You may notice that this blog post takes a slightly different form than my posts customarily have.  For at least a couple of reasons, I’m going to try to change my approach to this blog, posting fewer but longer entries.  We’ll see how the experiment works.