An article in today’s Deseret News by Taylor Halverson:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865638713/Nephi-becomes-a-man.html     Read more

    An interesting article in the Deseret News by an exceptionally good young writer:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865638616/A-history-of-Peter-Pan-in-print-onstage-and-on-screen.html?pg=all#bUV1Qwy8VQYRU8fL.01     Read more

    My friend and former Maxwell Institute colleague John Gee endorses Michael MacKay and Gerrit Dirkmaat’s 2015 book From Darkness unto Light:   http://fornspollfira.blogspot.com/2015/10/read-this-not-that.html   I myself published an endorsement of the book back in June:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865631371/From-Darkness-unto-Light-takes-a-fresh-look-at-recovery-publication-of-the-Book-of-Mormon.html?pg=all   I commend it to your attention.   It will solidify and correct Latter-day Saint understandings, and, in my opinion, it offers substantial new challenges to critics of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.  (If past experience is any guide, of... Read more

    A nice article by a former neighbor:   http://ldsmag.com/the-book-of-mormon-as-brilliant-literature/     Read more

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/06/a-new-chapter-in-the-worlds-oldest-story/   Thanks to Jabra Ghneim for bringing this interesting item to my attention.     Read more

    A man filled with the love of God is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race. Joseph Smith, Jr. Read more

    I published this column in the Deseret News very nearly four years ago:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700207011/Joseph-Smith-was-known-as-truthful.html?pg=all   I think — especially in view of a private email that I received this evening — that it remains very relevant.     Read more

    “Kindness is a mark of faith, and whoever is not kind has no faith.”     “To overcome evil with good is good, to resist evil by evil is evil.”   It would be nice if some of his self-professed modern followers would pay attention to such statements.     Read more

    “If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one. . . .  Faced with the enormous sum of lucky draws behind the success of the evolutionary game, one may legitimately wonder to what extent this success is actually written into the fabric of the universe.” Christian de Duve (1917-2013), organic chemist and  1974 Nobel laureate     Read more

    Joseph Smith was controversial. There were and are voices who claim that he was dishonest and destitute of character. But John Taylor, for one, was quite certain about their motivation. “Joseph Smith,” he said, was a virtuous, high-minded, honorable man, a gentleman and a Christian. But he introduced principles which strike at the root of the corrupt systems of men. This necessarily comes in contact with their prepossessions, prejudices, and interests; and as they cannot overturn his principles,... Read more