I’ve written recently about the Catholic philosopher Stephen Webb, who was in Utah again just a few days ago for the FairMormon conference and the third birthday party of the Interpreter Foundation.   I’m not done writing about him, either, as will shortly be obvious.   In any event, with that in mind, I’m grateful to Kevin Taylor and Kevin Flanigan for bringing this item to my attention:   http://ldssmile.com/2015/08/10/non-mormon-professor-mormonism-obsessed-with-christ/     Read more

    If not, you’d better get with the program.   And the sooner the better — in case you need to adjust some of your theology.   http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/08/11/chaplains-banned-from-preaching-that-homosexuality-is-sin.html?intcmp=hpbt3     Read more

    A remarkable and exciting discovery, if it proves to be true:   http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/08/11/lost-resting-place-egyptian-queen-nefertiti-may-have-been-hidden-by-tutankhamun/?intcmp=hplnws     Read more

    Luke 17:20-21 Compare Matthew 24:23; Mark 13:21;   The King James translation “the kingdom of God is within you” has occasioned a lot of New Agey nonsense, among other things (some good, some bad).   But it’s wrong.   ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ ἐντὸς ὑμῶν ἐστιν means “The kingdom of God is in your midst.”   (Still, it helped to inspire a song that I really like from my quasi-countercultural youth in the California of the late 60s.)     Read more

    “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.” Winston Churchill     Read more

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/10/politics/jewish-concern-obama-rhetoric-iran-nuclear-deal/index.html     Read more

    http://www.cruiselady.com/learn-our-religion-lecture-series/   If you want to come, I think you have to call and reserve a place.  I’m assuming, though I don’t actually know it for sure, that there are still seats available.     Read more

    Years ago, in the wake of Mark Hoffman’s “discovery” of the so-called “white salamander letter” — which, it turned out (even before his conviction for two gruesome murders), he had forged — there was an eruption of Mormon writing on “magic,” early American “folk religion,” frontier “treasure digging,” and the like.   Some of it was really quite good.   I had imagined that we were done with such issues.  They had been taken care of.  But it... Read more

    Aieee!  We’re doomed!   http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/10/universe-slowly-dying-gama-old-stars-fade-faster-than-new-ones-born   Thanks to David Wills for calling this article to my notice.     Read more

    Luke 17:11-19   To me, Doctrine and Covenants 101:8 has always been one of the most striking passages in that volume of scripture:   “In the day of their peace they esteemed lightly my counsel; but, in the day of their trouble, of necessity they feel after me.”   The episode in the Savior’s life recorded at Luke 17:11-19 is a clear illustration of that principle — and it’s altogether too humanly familiar.   I doubt that I’m alone in... Read more