“A Christian life involves the whole person”

The latest installment of the biweekly Hamblin and Peterson column on world religions and religious history has appeared in the Deseret News:

“The ‘Donation of Constantine’ and the powers of medieval popes and emperors: Though often challenged and threatened, medieval popes could not be ignored”

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A nice piece by the astoundingly industrious Irish Latter-day Saint Robert Boylan:

“Is it true the Book of Mormon Contains No Doctrine that is Already in the Bible?”

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This story, accompanied by a brief video, warms my heart (and will probably irritate the heck out of the anti-Islamic polemicists in my audience, which also warm my heart):

“Church Leaders Visit New Zealand Mosque: Latter-day Saints help Muslim community rebuild following terrorist attacks”

But there are other readers who will, no doubt, be very grateful for it as yet another piece to add to their already overflowing Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” file.  And to add to their bliss, I offer the following too, which is a veritable treasure house of theistic abominations:

Latter-day Saints Around the World: Country Newsroom Websites, October 25, 2019

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I share the following with you in confidence, contingent upon your willingness to hold off getting tickets for yourself and yours until my family and I have ours.  Deal?

“Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square Announces 20th Annual Christmas Concert Guest Artists: New Process for Requesting Complimentary Tickets Introduced”

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In stolen moments, I’ve begun reading Michael Rota’s promising book Taking Pascal’s Wager: Faith, Evidence and the Abundant Life (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2016).  Here’s an early passage that, in my opinion, makes an important point:

While this book will focus on the rational case for Christianity, it’s important to acknowledge that there are many factors involved in a decision to commit to a Christian way of life, factors that go beyond impersonal philosophical reasoning.  One’s upbringing, one’s experiences with individual Christians, the attitudes and views of one’s closest friends and family, one’s emotional life, one’s deep-seated hopes and fears and one’s own particular way of viewing the world — all of these come into play when one encounters the message of Jesus.  I believe that the philosophical argumentation contained in this book will be helpful to many people, but philosophical argumentation is only one part of a larger picture.  When it comes to religion, logic may or may not be where one starts, but it’s certainly not where one should end.  Living a Christian life is an act of the whole person — mind and heart, body and soul.  Still, precisely because a Christian life involves the whole person, there is a place for the mind, and thus for reason, evidence and logic.  (16)

I’ve said much the same thing, many times, about the role of apologetics.

Posted from Orlando, Florida