I support the right to keep and bear Howitzers.   If guns are outlawed, how will we shoot liberals?   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425527/gun-control-costs-lives     Read more

    John 10:40-42 John 11:1-44   I wrote a column on divine emotion back at the beginning of 2014:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865595143/The-most-moved-mover.html?pg=all   I still regard this as a vitally important theological point.   And if, as passages such as Colossians 1:15 and Hebrews 1:3 suggest, Christ is a perfect representation of the Father, the emotion on display in John 11 is profoundly significant.     Read more

    Here’s the Church’s news release regarding that recent conference on Mormonism and the black experience held at the University of Utah and, specifically, the remarks that Elder Joseph Sitati gave there:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/elder-sitati-address-race-self-reliance-growth-africa     Read more

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11918537/First-edition-of-King-James-Bible-from-1611-found-in-church-cupboard.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000051   Thanks to Helen Condon for bringing the story to my attention.     Read more

    The Interpreter Foundation publishes a journal.   It also publishes books.   And it posts recorded scripture roundtables.   You probably knew all that.   But did you know that it’s been publishing resources for teachers and students of the scriptures?   Here’s the latest, from Dr. Taylor Halverson:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/acts-21-28-faithfully-witness-of-christ/     Read more

    John 10:22-39 Compare Luke 4:29-30   I published an extended analysis of part of this passage fifteen years ago:   “‘Ye Are Gods’: Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the Divine Nature of Humankind”   Much more recently, Daniel McClellan published an article in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture that’s somewhat critical of my position:   “Psalm 82 in Contemporary Latter-day Saint Tradition”   I actually think that the two approaches are largely reconcilable.  But... Read more

    I’ll be speaking tomorrow (Wednesday) night on “The Beauty, the History, and the Challenge of the Holy Lands”  at 9118 South Redwood Road. With questions and so forth, the program is scheduled to go from 7 PM to 9 PM. There’s a charge of eight dollars per person, and it’s necessary to reserve your seat in advance: http://www.cruiselady.com/learn-our-religion-lecture-series/ I have no idea whether or not any seats remain available.     Read more

    Matthew 20:1-16 Compare Matthew 19:30; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30   1.   Many people reject the idea of “deathbed repentance.”   I don’t.   The problem with “deathbed repentance,” as it’s often considered, is that it isn’t really repentance at all.  It’s the cynical calculation — not infrequently a miscalculation, I think — that one can sin right up until the end and then, when death is imminent, apologize rather insincerely and get a clean bill of spiritual... Read more

    “ISIS to execute 180 Christians”   And don’t miss this, from the former Reagan-Bush administration official Elliot Abrams — who, as it happens, is Jewish:   “Why do we not save Christians?  They need help, and they have no good place to go”     Read more

    http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/no-scientists-have-not-found-the-gay-gene/410059/     Read more