***   I’m pleased to report that I’ve just been notified that I will be speaking between 3:45 and 4:45 PM on Saturday, 3 September, at the 2022 annual convention of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS).  It will be held this year in Salt Lake City.  I’m really pleased with that date and time, and had actually requested it, because I will have just returned about forty-eight hours earlier from a stay in Europe.  My title... Read more

    ***   I’ve lately suggested a way to approach the forthcoming FX/Hulu miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven and some resources for strengthening that approach.  (See here, for example.)  Now here’s another valuable article — from the estimable Hal Boyd — that some will find helpful:   “Perspective: Under the Banner of Hollywood: Too much real-life anger comes out of Tinseltown. It’s time for Dustin Lance Black and company to let go of the angst toward Latter-day Saints”  ... Read more

    ***   I want to call your attention here to the newly revamped website for our forthcoming two-part docudrama, which will be available on DVD just one month from now, on 24 May 2022:   Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon   On the website, you will be able to watch the one-minute trailer for the docudrama.  You will also be able to watch our short-feature videos — our “reels,” as we’re calling them — as they... Read more

    ***   I know that it really irritates a small group of my worst critics, but irritating them isn’t actually the reason that I continue from time to time to post notes about near-death experiences.  I simply find such accounts fascinating, and I know that many others do, as well.  I also find them very important.  Anyway, my most obsessed and implacable detractors would still regard me as both a buffoon and an abomination even if I were... Read more

    ***   I’ve said for quite some time here that, as part of the overall Witnesses project — which was not at all exhausted by last summer’s Witnesses theatrical film — we would eventually be posting a series of short features on social media, for viewing at no charge.  Well, I’m extremely gratified to announce that the first of them, this one weighing in at slightly more than eight minutes in length, is now up: Undaunted Witnesses Episode... Read more

  ***   I like to think about such things as these from time to time, and I hope that you find it interesting and valuable, as well.  First, though, a lead-in passage that comes, perhaps rather unexpectedly, from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.  It nicely expresses the ancient belief, which flourished up through the time of Shakespeare, in the so-called “harmony of the spheres” — which was another way, in a sense, of referring to the mathematical harmony that... Read more

    ***   It’s Friday, so, with wearisome predictability, another new article has appeared in the online Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.  Like all such articles, it is offered to you at no charge (though we certainly hope that you’ll consider offering a little something to support our ongoing efforts):   “Putting Down the Priests: A Note on Royal Evaluations, (wĕ)hišbît, and Priestly Purges in 2 Kings 23:5 and Mosiah 11:5,” written by Matthew L. Bowen:... Read more

    ***   Precisely nobody appears to be clamoring for this information right now.  But here it is, nonetheless:   It seems very probable that I’m going to be speaking at a YSA stake fireside in southern Alberta (possibly in Lethbridge, though I’m not yet certain about that) on Saturday, 16 July 2022, and maybe in a sacrament meeting there in Lethbridge on the following Sunday, 17 July 2022.   It also seems that I’ll be the keynote speaker... Read more