*** We spent the day in and around Salzburg today. (That is to say, we spent it in Austria.) This is a place that I have genuinely loved since I first came here in 1970, and it was very pleasant to see familiar places again — including two favorite bookstores. First, we met a local guide, Ilse, for a visit to the trick gardens (the Wasserspiele) erected by the prince-archbishop of Salzburg, Graf Markus Sittikus von Hohenems,... Read more
Back in July 2018, I wrote a newspaper column devoted to the question “Was Adolf Hitler religious?” My answer to that question was that he was not religious. Certainly not in any common understanding of the term, whether Christian or simply theistic. I’ve sometimes been challenged on my answer, but I stand by it. One of the titles that I bought at the book shop at KZ-Dachau a couple of days ago is Hitler: Die 101 wichtigsten... Read more
*** With several friends, we spent a substantial part of yesterday visiting the former Nazi concentration camp of Dachau, which is located in what is now pretty much a pleasant suburb of Munich. Fifty-two years ago, I was scheduled to visit Dachau with a group of recent high school graduates during my first visit to Europe. Our tour guide, though, was a neo-Nazi — not at all the stereotypical skinhead thug that I would have expected; he... Read more
*** With his kind permission, though somewhat belatedly, I share this response by Jim Bennett to the last installment of the Andrew Garfield FX/Hulu miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven, with which, I’m told, I’m utterly obsessed, and which, I’m told, has reduced me to an impotent twitching rage. Please note that it opens by twice using a word that has, to the best of my recollection, never sullied my chaste lips nor marred my dainty and... Read more
*** Come, Follow Me — Old Testament Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 25, June 13-19: 1 Samuel 8–10; 13; 15–18 — “The Battle Is the Lord’s” Jonn Claybaugh has generously provided yet another concise set of helpful notes for students and teachers of the scriptures. Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 25: “The Battle Is the Lord’s”: 1 Samuel 8–10; 13; 15–18 In the Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 25, “The Battle... Read more
*** I first visited Munich in 1970 and have been back a few times since. But I’ve seldom really concentrated on the city itself. Typically, I’ve stayed in the vicinity and focused on Austria or the Bavarian Alps. Today, though, with our friends from the cruise ship and with another couple, friends of our friends whom we’ve met previously and who are joining us for the rest of this trip, we latched onto a walking tour of... Read more
*** I was elected student body president at my high school. Here’s a note about that: I had never, I think, held (or run for) an office in student government. (My memory is actually a bit fuzzy on this point: It’s possible that I once served on a class council. I really don’t remember.) But there was somebody — let’s call him SB (for “somebody,” not his initials) — who had been class president at... Read more
*** And now for a new item on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. Actually, it’s not quite new. It went up yesterday, Saturday, at 7 PM. But I’m out of sync with North American time zones and not always at my computer, so this is the best that I’ve been able to do: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — Insights Episode 7: Did the Witnesses Ever Deny their Testimonies? Critics of the Church have claimed... Read more
*** We spent yesterday morning with friends looking around the Cathedral of Bordeaux — or, more precisely, the Cathédrale-Primatiale Saint-André de Bordeaux. Dedicated to St. Andrew the apostle, recognized by UNESCO for its importance and important position along one of the French pilgrimage routes to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela, and the seat of the archbishop of Bordeaux, the church, or anyway a forerunner, was first mentioned (so far as anybody today knows) in a document... Read more
*** Three new articles appeared this afternoon (Utah time) in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “Interpreting Interpreter: Believing All the Words,” by Kyler Rasmussen This post is a summary of the article ““Believe All the Words”: A Key to Spiritual Outpouring” by Mark Campbell in Volume 51 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/. The Takeaway: Campbell identifies nine examples of a... Read more
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