It really doesn’t matter whether or not you like his teaching

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A really impressive project was done for the Primary kids in my ward today by Joseph Vancott, with whom — and this may perhaps be my one chance at fame — I served for a while in our ward Sunday School presidency:

“LDS Daily Shares Pictures of Incredible Replica Tomb for Primary Children”

He mentioned to us just before sacrament meeting that he had constructed a replica of Jerusalem’s Garden Tomb but, when I actually looked into the Primary room, I was blown away.  I expect that the children will remember this one for a while.

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CBS News recently did a nearly five-minute segment about the soon-to-be-rededicated temple that stands just outside of the federal capital of the United States.  It was broadcast nationally this morning:

“Inside the Latter-day Saints’ Washington D.C. Temple”

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Among other things, Richard Ostling was formerly the chief religion writer for the Associated Press and a senior editor for Time.  And, by the way, he and his late wife, Joan Ostling, co-wrote a book in 1999 entitled Mormon America: The Power and the Promise.  It was far and away not the worst outsider treatment of the subject that I’ve encountered.  Anyway, I would need to check but I don’t think that I’ve shared this:

“Did Jesus Exist?”

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As this year’s Western celebration of Easter draws to its close, I hope that you’ve had a good one.  I want to share a few good quotations on the topic, though, before the clock strikes midnight:

It cost God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost Him crucifixion. (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, ch. 10)

To preach Christianity meant (to the Apostles) primarily to preach the Resurrection. . . .  The Resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reported in the Acts. The Resurrection, and its consequences, were the ‘gospel’ or good news which the Christians brought.”  (C. S. Lewis, Miracles, ch. 16)

If the truth is that after death there comes a negatively spiritual life, an eternity of mystical experience, what more misleading way of communicating it could possibly be found than the appearance of a human form which eats broiled fish?  (C. S. Lewis, Miracles, ch. 16)

‘What are we to make of Christ?’ There is no question of what we can make of Him, it is entirely a question of what He intends to make of us. You must accept or reject the story.  (C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock, ch. 19)

If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.  (Timothy Keller)