The other day, here on this blog, I posted an appreciation of Walt Disney and of the Walt Disney Company that he founded slightly more than one hundred years ago in Los Angeles, California, on 16 October 2023. Rather mysteriously, it was titled “In praise of Disney.” The immediate impetus for my post wasn’t Disney’s centenary but, rather, the fact that some of us had, in company with the principal locus of Cuteness in the western United States, been... Read more
This new article went up earlier today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “Pixelated Prophets: A History and Analysis of Book-of-Mormon-Themed Video Games,” written by Geoffrey M. Draper and Aaron M. Curtis Abstract: Video games represent an innovative medium for entertainment and artistic expression with potential for fostering deeper engagement with religious texts such as the Book of Mormon. Over the past three decades, developers have produced dozens of video games based on the Book... Read more
I thought this article, written by Jacob Hess, an interesting one and worth commending to your attention: “What is the modern apostleship? Elder Patrick Kearon enters an order Latter-day Saints believe to be ancient, divinely inspired” But now, on to a very different topic: I explained a few days ago that, inspired by President Russell M. Nelson’s recent book, Heart of the Matter, I’m trying to keep a kind of “gratitude journal.” I don’t share every entry, but here... Read more
The subject of this coming year in the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will, of course, be the Book of Mormon. At the very beginning, the Witnesses of the Book of Mormon will be a focus. Accordingly, it seems an appropriate time to call attention, yet again, to the Interpreter Foundation’s “Witnesses” project, which includes not only the Witnesses theatrical film but the closely related two-part docudrama Undaunted: Witnesses of... Read more
I love Brigham Young University. I believe in it. I never wanted to teach anywhere else. I was deeply influenced by President Spencer W. Kimball’s memorable 1975 address, “The Second Century of Brigham Young University.” It still feels strange to me to be retired from BYU and to be, now, only a (small and insignificant) part of its history, rapidly receding into the rear-view mirror. I also worry about the University. So I was very interested in this article by... Read more
I noticed this Public Square Magazine article online the other day and found it interesting. And then found, to my surprise, that I myself was mentioned in it: “Tapped Out: Criticism an Unsustainable Fountain for Faith: The fact that accusation clouds religious epistemology is a lesson we can all learn from a debacle on a popular YouTube channel.” I have not seen this film, although I hope to watch it reasonably soon. So I’m not endorsing it. Obviously, I’m... Read more
My mother grew up in St. George, and my ten-years-older brother was baptized in the St. George Utah Temple. The temple in St. George has long held a special place in my heart and soul; it played a particular role in the earliest stirrings of my own personal faith. And President Jeffrey R. Holland means a great deal to me (as he does to many others), so I was delighted for him that he was able to rededicate that... Read more
You should really take a couple of minutes to read Elder Dale G. Renlund’s account of what he — a physician, by the way — explicitly identifies as the miracle of President Jeffrey R. Holland’s recovery from a very serious illness that brought him to the brink of death: “Of President Holland’s health and recovery, Elder Renlund writes, ‘God is in the details’: ‘It was a miracle’: Elder Renlund writes on social media of visiting President Holland in the hospital... Read more
I would like to suggest a Christmas gift to you, both for yourself and for family and friends. I have in mind the Yale edition of the Book of Mormon — formally, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text— edited by Royal Skousen. (You can read something of my personal view of the Yale edition on the Amazon page to which I’ve just linked. For one of my several longer comments on it, see this 2010 Deseret News column... Read more
I return, yet again, to BYU Studies Quarterly 61/4 (2022), which is a special issue of the regular quarterly publication BYU Studies. It was created by four faithful Latter-day Saint Egyptologists — Stephen O. Smoot (Ph.D. candidate, Catholic University of America), John Gee (Ph.D., Yale University), Kerry Muhlestein (Ph.D., University of California at Los Angeles), and John S. Thompson (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) — and bears its own unique title: A Guide to the Book of Abraham. As I’ve... Read more
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