This is the first part of my two-part 2019 Thanksgiving column: “The miracle of Earth’s atmosphere design and the air we breathe: As the Thanksgiving holiday draws near, there is much for us to be thankful for — including the very air that we breathe” Part two should appear on Thanksgiving Day itself. *** This chapter from one of our books, previously available only in print, is now accessible at (as usual) no charge on... Read more
I was struck by Theodore Dalrymple’s review of Jérôme Fourquet’s L’archipel française: naissance d’une nation multiple et divisée on pages 56-58 in the December 2019 issue of the superb magazine First Things, to which I subscribe. The reviewer, Anthony Malcolm Daniels — Theodore Dalrymple is a pen name — is an English cultural critic, prison physician, and psychiatrist who worked both in Great Britain and in sub-Saharan Africa before his retirement from medicine and who currently divides his time between England and France. ... Read more
The fact that many highly successful scientists are also people of faith doesn’t, of course, demonstrate in and of itself that there is a God, that theism is true. However, it does strongly seem to suggest that facile claims that theism is flatly contradictory to science might not be true. Here are a couple of examples of what I have in mind: Sir Nevill Francis Mott (1905 -1996), a British physicist, won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1977 for... Read more
I continue here with a folkloric account, recorded in the eighth century AD, of the building of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. (For the earlier portion, see “How Solomon Built His Temple.”) The tale comes from Ma‘mar ibn Rashid, The Expeditions: An Early Biography of Muhammad, translated by Sean W. Anthony (New York and London: New York University Press, 2015), 106-108. Centuries after its destruction, that famous building seemed literally magical to many. When this part of the story opens, the temple... Read more
I published this column in the Deseret News for Thanksgiving 2013: It’s the season of Thanksgiving, and, so, minds like mine turn naturally to etymology, to word origins. Please be patient. There is method in my madness. The origin of the word “religion” is obscure, and has been much debated. But all suggestions for it seem to agree that remembrance, an awareness of dependence and obligation, is at the core of what it means to be... Read more
From Ma‘mar ibn Rashid, The Expeditions: An Early Biography of Muhammad, translated by Sean W. Anthony (New York and London: New York University Press, 2015), 106-108, I quote an interesting folkloric account, recorded in the eighth century AD, of the building of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. That famous sanctuary was considered so remarkable that its construction absolutely had to be the product of magic: Solomon declared to the demons [that is, to the jinn], “Verily, God has... Read more
Is it true, as some devotees of scientism who like to denigrate religious faith insist, that science limits itself entirely to rigorous extrapolations from known and objectively verified facts? I’ll cut directly to the chase: No. It’s not. There are lots and lots of illustrations of this truth, but, for right now in this blog entry, I’ll limit myself to some quotations from Roger Trigg, Beyond Matter: Why Science Needs Metaphysics (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton... Read more
If you haven’t watched this yet, please take a couple of minutes to do so: “The Christ Child: A Nativity Story – Full Trailer” *** “Church Celebrates Milestone in Vietnam: Official certification granted under the Law on Belief and Religion” “President and Sister Nelson Embark on Weeklong Southeast Asia Ministry: Elder and Sister Christofferson traveling with prophet to four countries” *** “How Angel Moroni Statues Protected Temples During Lightning Strikes” *** “A... Read more
The 10 November 2019 edition of the Interpreter Radio Show featured Terry Hutchinson, John Gee, and Kevin Christensen. The first hour of their discussion covered the textual history of biblical manuscripts. In the second hour, they had a roundtable conversation about the upcoming Come, Follow Me lesson #47 on 1–3 John and Jude. The entire program is available at no charge and with all commercial and other interruptions removed on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Interpreter Radio Show —... Read more
Here’s a passage from the chapter of our principal textbook that I discussed with my “Introduction to the Religion of Islam” class late on Thursday afternoon: “From its origins, Islam has been closely identified with settled forms of social and economic life, in both the town and the city. The romantic and Western associations of Bedouin of the desert and a monotheism born from meditation in vast expanses under a brilliant sky are far from the facts.... Read more
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