Two new items went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Come, Follow Me — New Testament Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 7, February 6 — 12: John 2–4 — “Ye Must Be Born Again” Once again, Jonn Claybaugh generously supplies a set of helpful notes for teachers and students of the Church’s “Come, Follow Me” curriculum. The New Testament in Context Lesson 7: “Ye Must Be Born Again” In the 15 January 2023 Come,... Read more
I sometimes read that faith is irrational. And sometimes I even hear that said by committed Latter-day Saints. I strongly disagree. I readily concede that faith goes beyond the evidence and that, sometimes, it will even seem to go, or will really go, against at least some of the evidence. I’ve long appreciated this quotation from Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr: “Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” In the long... Read more
We inadvertently attended a Tongan ward in Lahaina this morning and were thoroughly rewarded for doing so. Almost the entirety of the sacrament meeting was in Tongan, but we had headsets and were able to understand through a very good translator. The talks were very good. And the singing? Spectacular. Magnificent. A cappella. (Nobody was accompanying on the organ or the piano.) Plainly, our haole wards back in Utah Valley very badly need a transfusion of Polynesians. I... Read more
So far as I recall, I first came to the island of Maui in 1970. (I visited the Hawaiian Islands for the first time, and for the only time prior to 1970, when I was five years old. But I think that we went only to Oahu and Kauai on that occasion, and not to Maui.) I remember staying in the old Pioneer Inn, in Lahaina. It’s still there, beside a very impressive and very old banyan tree. ... Read more
I’m a bit late in announcing the two articles below, which went up on Friday on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. I was otherwise occupied: “Assyria and the “Great Church” of Nephi’s Vision,” written by Todd Uriona Abstract: The Book of Mormon begins at a pivotal point in Israelite history and in the history of the ancient Near East more broadly. With the fall of Assyria and the power vacuum that grew out of Assyria’s demise, questions of... Read more
Dipping briefly back into Eugene England, Brother Brigham (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980): In February 1849, when the Saints were still relatively new in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, President Brigham Young learned that some of them were going hungry while others seemed to be hoarding private supplies of grain. According to John D. Lee — not yet the infamous John D. Lee of the massacre at Mountain Meadows — Brigham’s reaction was verbally fierce:... Read more
Conference Talks: “Why Evolution and LDS Thought are Fully Compatible,” given in late 2013 by Steven L. Peck Steven Peck, a professor of biology at Brigham Young University, takes it as “axiomatic that evolution in its broad sense is the way the biological world works, although details are still being worked out and amazing discoveries will continue for centuries.” Using vivid examples, he explains both the compelling nature and the complexity of evolution. He also describes what he... Read more
First, though: The Interpreter Foundation continues to pour out materials that, we hope, are of benefit to those who follow what we do. I’m grateful for the generosity of donors and volunteers, without which this would not be possible: Interpreter Radio Show — January 8, 2023 — In this, the 8 January 2023 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Terry Hutchinson, John Gee, and Kevin Christensen discuss (1) claims that the Book of Mormon was plagiarized and (2)... Read more
I’ve long been interested in what are called “fine-tuning” arguments for the existence of God. I’ve posted many entries here that have been devoted to them either wholly or in part. (See, for example, my several discussions of the late British particle physicist Sir John Polkinghorne, who spent his last decades as an Anglican priest, and the blog entries that I’ve based upon Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A. Barnes, A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos... Read more
The terrible mass shooting that occurred last night in Monterey Park, California, hit literally close to home. The Star Ballroom is located at 122 West Garvey Avenue, between Garfield Avenue and Alhambra Avenue. Garvey was effectively the southern border of my everyday, familiar world when I was a child, and Garfield was my world’s western border. The family business was located just off of Garvey, a bit to the east of Monterey Park. The first movie that I... Read more
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