(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)
A number of the addresses given at our just-completed general conference really spoke to me, and I look forward to reading them. I’ve been thinking of my late friend Ann Madsen (my friend Truman Madsen’s widow), and of something that I posted in remembrance of her when she passed away back in 2022:
Once, many years ago, I was over in the old Joseph Smith Building on the BYU campus for some sort of meeting. When that meeting finished, I was trying to decide whether I should walk back to my office in another building, since I had yet another (unrelated) meeting in the Joseph Smith Building less than an hour thereafter. Suddenly, I ran into Ann in the hallway. She was a bit surprised to see me in her building. She was off to teach a class, and she offered to let me sit in her office while I waited for the next meeting to start. That was good, as I had work with me that I could do while biding my time.
I sat down at her desk, in her chair, as she had invited me to do. From that vantage point, I noticed something that nobody else in the office would be able to see: Taped to one of her filing cabinets so that she could easily see and read it, she had a typed-out list of all of the speakers at the most recent installment of the General Conference of the Church. And, next to each name, she had a specific resolution of something that she personally intended to do in response to that speaker’s remarks. I was both inspired and a little shamed by what I saw. Plainly, she was very serious about General Conference in a way that rather put me in the shadow. Since that time, I’ve made sporadic and not very impressive efforts to follow her example. My results have been mixed, but I still remember the standard that she set for me.
I’m really looking forward to the conference edition of the Church magazine. I plan to buy two special copies of it, one for me and one for my wife. Then, we intend to go through them, marking them up one talk at a time, making a list of resolutions for ourselves. Ann’s example continues to challenge and inspire me.
This recording was posted earlier today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: The Interpreter Foundation Podcast — September 24, 2025: “Holiness to the Lord: Latter-day Saint Temple Worship, by Jonathan Stapley”
For the 24 September 2025 episode of the Interpreter Foundation Podcast, Terry Hutchinson, John Gee, and John Thompson interviewed Jonathan Stapley about his new book, Holiness to the Lord: Latter-day Saint Temple Worship.
For several days after the murderous attack on that stake center in Grand Blanc, Michigan — and for several days after news of the attacker’s hatred for Latter-day Saints had been fairly widely reported — I continued to see articles speculating about possible motives behind his crime. It’s pretty generally recognized now that he felt a burning animus against the Church and its membership, but this piece in the Babylon Bee (“Fake News You Can Trust”) still seems relevant to me: “UK Police Still Searching For Motive Of Terrorist Named ‘Jihad Jewkiller.'”
And some have begun to notice historical precedents. Thus, for example, this piece on CNN: “Attack on LDS Church harkens back to its early history of religious persecution”
Yakima Herald-Republic: “Yakima man charged with assaulting Latter-day Saint missionaries with rocks.” I missed this story when it appeared somewhat more than a month ago. According to an affidavit, the suspect “called them “heretics,” and said they should be “put to death” and needed to leave the neighborhood.”
9News (Australia): “Mormon church in Sydney’s west destroyed by fire.” I know no more about this incident than what is contained in the article but, from my untutored perspective, the fact that fires were reported “in three sectors of the complex” sounds more than a little suspicious.
Do such reports suggest a new trend? I don’t know. I don’t see any obvious link between an apparently unhinged man’s lone-wolf attack in Michigan and another evidently unhinged man’s lone-wolf attack in Washington State, let alone any connection with a possible case of arson in Sydney, Australia. Further, if there is a link between the three incidents, it’s difficult to think of a reason why such things would be happening now.
In any event, the question arises for us of how we should respond.
“If America is going to make it it will be because people choose forgiving things they should never have had to forgive over hurting people they have every right to be angry with.” (Kelsey Piper, on X)
In the New York Times, the estimable David French, an Evangelical Protestant who has been consistently friendly to Latter-day Saints — he and his wife headed up “Evangelicals for Mitt” back in the day — has published a wonderful reflection on the LDS-led fundraiser for the widow of Thomas Jacob Sanford, the Michigan mass murderer. I hope that some of you will be able to access it: “There’s a Path Out of This Divide.”
Samuel J. Abrams and Sarah Jane Weaver published this piece in the Deseret News: “For Jews and Latter-day Saints, tragedies can be a foundation, not a weight: In Jewish and Latter-day Saint tradition, tragedy and rebuilding are real. The blood of martyrs consecrated the ground, but the living chose to sow new beginnings”
Deseret News: “Opinion: Choosing love over division — Arthur Brooks’ recent University of Utah keynotes”
Finally, I close with something from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™: “Forum: Pathway to Hope; BYU-Pathway in Africa.” I do want you to see this 22.5-minute video: “General conference special: ‘Pathway to Hope: Jane Clayson Johnson in Africa.'” It will give you at least some inkling of the kind of toxic theistic evil against which poor beleaguered secularists must struggle — although I should grant you fair warning that it may tempt a few who see it over to The Dark Side.
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