“There is this God, and this God actually helps to make sense of things.”

Last updated on: May 2, 2020 at 10:21 pm By Dan Peterson

I’ve often had occasion here and elsewhere to mention the prolific Alister McGrath, an Anglo-Irish theologian who earned his doctorate in divinity from Oxford before earning an Oxford doctorate in intellectual history but after earning an Oxford doctorate in molecular biophysics. Between pages 235 and 267 of Eric Metaxas, Life, God, and Other Small Topics: Conversations from Socrates in the City (New York: Plume/Penguin, 2011) there is a transcript of a New York City speech by Dr. McGrath... Read more

“Book of Moses Insights” and Arab Voices

Last updated on: May 2, 2020 at 10:17 pm By Dan Peterson

Newly published on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Book of Moses Insights: Introduction to the Book of Moses” “Book of Moses Insights: Enoch’s Prophetic Commission (Moses 6:26–36): Introduction” And, while we’re on the subject, be sure not to forget about the upcoming 18-19 September 2020 conference on “Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses,” co-sponsored by the Interpreter Foundation, Brigham Young University’s Department of Ancient Scripture, Book of Mormon Central, and FairMormon: 18-19 September... Read more

On the manufacture of fake history

Last updated on: May 2, 2020 at 10:14 pm By Dan Peterson

Earlier this evening, I was listening to a recorded interview with the Evangelical Protestant apologist Michael Licona. He said something that I found amusing and that I would like to try to share here: The State of Illinois sent a tall, lanky man named Abraham Lincoln to the Congress of the United States. After that, he was elected twice to the presidency. In the television series 24, Dennis Haysbert played David Palmer, a fictional character who was... Read more

Some reflections on Peter’s deliverance from prison

Last updated on: May 2, 2020 at 10:12 pm By Dan Peterson

There is an amusing story in Acts 12. I suppose, of course, that the amusement of it is enhanced by not being an ancient Judean prison keeper or the apostle James: 12 Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. 2 And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. 3 And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the... Read more

“Death to Seducers!”

Last updated on: May 2, 2020 at 10:10 pm By Dan Peterson

A newly-published article, this one by Craig Foster, has just appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “Death to Seducers! Examples of Latter-day Saint-led Extralegal Justice in Historical Context” Abstract: Some people have suggested a strain of violence within nineteenth- century Latter-day Saint culture as violent as and perhaps more so than that of most Americans around them. Critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints point to a few well-known acts of extralegal... Read more

“The Temple on Mount Zion”

Last updated on: May 2, 2020 at 10:07 pm By Dan Peterson

Call for Papers: 2020 “Temple on Mount Zion” Conference The biennial Temple on Mount Zion Conference will be held on Saturday, November 7, 2020, at Brigham Young University (details of the location at BYU will be forthcoming). This conference has been a forum for Latter-day Saint scholars to deal with the ancient temple in the light of the most up-to-date scholarship from the perspective of faith and commitment to the principles of the Restoration. We would like to... Read more

Pagan Natural Theology

Last updated on: May 4, 2020 at 1:54 pm By Dan Peterson

Here are some notes based upon Alister McGrath, Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 13-14: Natural theology — that is, an attempt to reason from phenomena in the natural world (rather than from revelation) — is scarcely confined to the Christian tradition. In fact, it antedates Christianity and flourished among writers in the classical world. In his De natura deorum (“On the nature of the gods”), for example, Marcus Tullius Cicero... Read more

There is still a chance to go with us to Egypt in late November!

Last updated on: May 2, 2020 at 10:03 pm By Dan Peterson

Are you tired of being cooped up at home? Are you yearning to get out and see the world? How about a trip to Egypt during 20-30 November 2020? At this stage, of course, we don’t know whether it will actually go. (Let’s hope that normal life can begin again, at least more or less, by that time!) But we’ve already filled one bus, and now it’s been decided to run a second bus. So you still have... Read more

For your “Christopher Hitchens Memorial ‘How Religion Poisons Everything’ File”

Last updated on: April 29, 2020 at 11:36 pm By Dan Peterson

I offer just a bit more from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004). Like those in the previous entry that draws from Paul McFate’s book, these scientifically-supported benefits of church attendance are excellent materials for those who want to keep their Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” Files growing at a healthy pace: Improved Self-Image (19). One study surveyed the residents of four 200-bed nursing homes... Read more

From my reading: “Arab Voices”

Last updated on: April 29, 2020 at 11:26 pm By Dan Peterson

James Zogby is a very prominent figure in the Democratic Party, an Arab-American (born to Lebanese Catholic immigrants), and the brother of the prominent pollster John Zogby. (I once hosted him — for three days, as I recall — during a visit to Brigham Young University, and thereby hangs an amusing and instructive tale.) His book Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why It Matters (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) is based on international surveys conducted... Read more