There will be a conference of FairMormon this coming Thursday and Friday in the city of Darmstadt.  Details about location and speakers are available, auf Deutsch, here:   http://de.fairlds.org/?page_id=5219   As you can readily see, I’ll be speaking early on Thursday afternoon.  Which means that you could still come on Thursday morning or all day on Friday and enjoy the conference.   Posted from Bayreuth, Germany     Read more

    Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out.  (Jean Paul, early 19th-century German poet)   Posted from Bayreuth, Germany     Read more

    The official name of the city of Wittenberg is actually Lutherstadt Wittenberg, “Luther City Wittenberg.”  The great Reformation university is essentially gone, having moved quite some time ago to Halle, and its name is now Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, so the city’s claim to fame is its association with the great Reformer, not its eminence as the seat of an illustrious school.   And that’s a great claim to fame.  A phenomenal one.  The Protestant Reformation is one of the... Read more

    http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/2570574-155/how-a-new-mormon-apostle-is   Posted from Bayreuth, Germany     Read more

    Some nice remarks from Sharon Eubank (who’s in a position to know) on some of the tangible good — it’s just a relatively small proportion — done by the Church:   https://www.lds.org/church/news/lds-charities-heals-aids-builds-character-director-says?cid=HP_TU_5-26-2015_dCN_fCNWS_xLIDyC-3_&lang=eng   As an acquaintance of mine, now serving in the Seventy, remarked about Church relief efforts following recent disasters in the Philippines, members of the Church would be very, very proud of their church if they knew all that had been done.   I’m glad that... Read more

    A really nice portrait of Elder L. Tom Perry in the Salt Lake Tribune (!) by my long-time friend — or, at least, my friendly acquaintance of long-standing; we met each other, gulp, nearly forty years ago — Peggy Fletcher Stack:   http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/2570111-155/l-tom-perry-the-mormon-apostle?fullpage=1   Posted from Wittenberg, Germany     Read more

      As I mentioned yesterday, the historical alchemist and astrologer Johann Faust (about whom Christopher Marlowe wrote his famous play Doctor Faustus, and about whom J. W. von Goethe wrote his enormous poetic play Faust, and about whom, in high school, I once began a never-completed spoof entitled Dr. Faustus, M.D.) lived for a couple of years just down the street to the left.  And, for what it’s worth, the Russian czar Peter the Great, visiting the town, wrote his... Read more

    Wittenberg is a quiet, quaint little town — and especially so on Sundays like today.   But it was the center of one of the major revolutions in the history of Western Civilization, and there are more UNESCO World Heritage sites concentrated in a smaller area here than anywhere else on Planet Earth.   As I write, I’m about a hundred yards from Martin Luther’s house on the one side (maybe less), and perhaps fifty yards, on the... Read more

    “Elder L. Tom Perry — An uncommon life of service and enthusiasm”   “21 uplifting quotes from Elder L Tom Perry”   “Family, dignitaries honor Elder L. Tom Perry’s ability to connect with leaders, regular people”   Enthusiasm, ability to connect with common folk as well as dignitaries — these were certainly striking characteristics possessed by Elder Perry, along with striking height and, as Princeton’s Robert George points out in the first of the three articles, a complete... Read more

    The idea is popular in certain very small circles within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and on its fringes:   http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.de/2015/05/tad-r-callister-vs-book-of-mormon-as.html   Posted from Wittenberg, Germany     Read more