“The Sacred Embrace and the Sacred Handclasp in Ancient Mediterranean Religions”

Last updated on: June 15, 2020 at 12:29 pm By Dan Peterson

New on the website of the Interpreter Foundation, from my longtime friend and onetime missionary companion in the onetime Switzerland Zürich Mission, Professor Stephen D. Ricks: “The Sacred Embrace and the Sacred Handclasp in Ancient Mediterranean Religions” Abstract: This article describes examples of the sacred embrace and the sacred handclasp in the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms of ancient Egypt, in ancient Mediterranean regions, and in the classical and early Christian world. It argues that these actions... Read more

“It’s our glory that we can rise to the dignity of despair.”

Last updated on: June 15, 2020 at 1:39 pm By Dan Peterson

Eric Metaxas, Life, God, and Other Small Topics: Conversations from Socrates in the City (New York: Plume/Penguin, 2011) includes, among others, a transcript of a 23 January 2003 New York City speech by the philosopher Peter Kreeft, of Boston College. One of the tasks that Professor Kreeft undertakes is to set forth six answers that have been given to the question of why we suffer. The passage below coheres nicely, I think, with the position for which I... Read more

“It’s possible to be physically dead while your mind lives on.”

Last updated on: June 14, 2020 at 8:27 pm By Dan Peterson

Pim van Lommel is a well-respected Dutch cardiologist who has become one of the leading authorities in the world on the near-death experience or NDE. Here I continue with a few notes taken from Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010). First, I share a comment in which someone who had experienced an NDE draws a striking conclusion from it: It’s possible to be physically dead while your mind... Read more

Religion and Health, with Notice of COVID-19

Last updated on: June 14, 2020 at 2:55 pm By Dan Peterson

From the Deseret News: “Here’s what the science says about the links between religion and health: Scientists say stress levels, healthy habits and community support could be key to beating the virus” And, continuing in that spirit, I offer a few more items from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004). All of them, plus the Deseret News article above, are board-certified as appropriate for inclusion in your... Read more

“It really is easier to keep the commandments 100 percent of the time than it is 98 percent of the time.”

Last updated on: June 15, 2020 at 11:22 am By Dan Peterson

From a devotional address given by the late Clayton Christensen at Brigham Young University’s Idaho campus on 8 June 2004: The fourth decision I made for which I am very grateful was also one that I made when I was at Oxford. You may have noticed how high they had to raise this podium – I am 6’8″, and when you are tall you don’t have to be very good to play basketball. So I tried out... Read more

“British anti-racism protestors call for destruction of Giza Pyramids”

Last updated on: June 14, 2020 at 2:50 pm By Dan Peterson

I am entirely in favor of meting out severe punishment to policemen who abuse the power that society has entrusted in them in order to do unjustified injury, to exploit, or to oppress. The death of George Floyd appears to represent such a case, and I will be happy if, the courts having done their job properly and the perpetrators having been found culpable, just penalties are imposed that will have a deterrent effect on others. Moreover, if... Read more

Some hear mere noise, while others hear a tune

Last updated on: June 14, 2020 at 12:57 pm By Dan Peterson

Continuing with some notes from Alister E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009): The existence of stars rests on several delicate balances between the different forces of nature. These require that the parameters that govern how strongly these forces act be tuned just so. In many cases, a small turn of the dial in one direction or another results in a world not only without... Read more

She would have been six years old today

Last updated on: June 14, 2020 at 12:56 pm By Dan Peterson

Six years ago today, on 13 June 2014, our first grandchild was born in Orlando, Florida. She was born in a wing of a local Orlando hospital that had been built with generous Disney donations, and the hospital’s public spaces were decorated everywhere with characters from Disney cartoons. As it rapidly became obvious that Lena would not, and could not, survive, I became acutely aware of how much I had looked forward to one day introducing her to those... Read more

Making sense of “surprising” facts

Last updated on: June 14, 2020 at 12:54 pm By Dan Peterson

Some passages from Alister E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009): The topic of this book is the quest for God in the natural sciences and Christian theology, traditionally known as “natural theology.” Although this has been a subject of human interest since the dawn of recorded history, it has been given a new injection of intellectual energy in recent years by theologians and... Read more

“Vaughn J. Featherstone’s Atlanta Temple Letter”

Last updated on: June 14, 2020 at 12:52 pm By Dan Peterson

A new article — this one by Christopher J. Blythe — has just appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “Vaughn J. Featherstone’s Atlanta Temple Letter” Abstract: In this essay, I examine a letter written by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone in 1983 and deposited in the cornerstone of the Atlanta Georgia Temple. The letter is addressed to twenty-first century members of the Church and is written with the expectation that these future Saints will have been... Read more