A horrific judicial decision has just emerged out of the United Kingdom: “U.K. Supreme Court issues unanimous ruling on the definition of ‘woman’: The ruling is a significant development in the country’s ongoing debate over transgender issues.” If this sort of thing goes much further, some people will begin to imagine that reality and biology are real and that words have determinate meaning. And to think that such things are happening in the land of Lewis Carroll! “I don’t... Read more
Many, many years ago — probably in 1979, or maybe in 1980 — my wife and I took a trip during Christmas vacation from Cairo, Egypt, to Nairobi, Kenya. It remains one of my favorite trips of all time. It was astoundingly cheap — as the result of some sort of special deal for American educators (for which we qualified because my wife was on the teaching faculty at Cairo American College) — and, relatively impoverished though we were... Read more
An avid anonymous participant over at the Peterson Obsession Board who calls himself something like Everybody’s WC has, for years, specialized in manufacturing fictional stories designed to illustrate my depraved buffoonery — stories that he passes off as real. These tales often rest upon information supposedly shared with him by (probably fictional) confidential informants or even, in a few cases, upon his own supposed personal knowledge of me. For reasons known only to him, I’m his favorite single theme... Read more
A passage in the stake president’s remarks at our stake conference this morning got me to thinking along the following lines, closely related to but not identical with the line of thought that he was pursuing: I sometimes hear from former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and from grace-alone evangelical critics of the Church, that escape from Mormonism often delivers the escapee from the demoralizing sense that he is never good enough, that she... Read more
The late Bill Hamblin and I — how it still surprises and grieves me, even now, to write that phrase, “the late Bill Hamblin”! — published the article below in the 19 April 2014 issue of the Deseret News. It’s relevant again, today, as we’re on the eve of Palm Sunday: Historically, Easter has been the most important Christian holy day, as well as the oldest. Since the Reformation, many Protestant groups have simplified their Easter celebrations, focusing only... Read more
This article went up earlier today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “Spiritual Implications of the Timing of the Death of Jesus Christ,” written by C. Thomas Black: Abstract: Centuries-long speculation continues regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of the Savior. Whether he died sooner than would have been expected, as some scholars believe, or lived longer than expected, statements from the scriptures and modern-day prophets indicate that the Lord died at the exact moment... Read more
This previously-published book chapter was posted today, Thursday, on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs, “She Took the Veil and Covered Herself,” written by T. K. Plant. For those who may still be confused by what is going on — as at least one unfortunate soul has been — we publish journal articles on Friday. On Thursdays, we post electronic versions of book chapters that have already appeared in print. These are two different... Read more
Our film team — Camrey Bagley Fox, Mark Goodman and his wife, James Jordan and his wife, Russell Richins, John Donovan Wilson, and my wife and I — drove today from Rochester, New York, to Kirtland, Ohio. We traversed roughly the same land route that would have been covered by the very early Latter-day Saints emigrating from the cradle of the Restoration to the newly appointed gathering place — and approximately the route that Heber C. Kimball, Joseph Young,... Read more
We spent all day today filming for our Becoming Brigham documentary series. It was tough going. At one point, we checked the temperature and found it to be a bracing 31°F (approximately -0.6°C), with a windchill factor of 9°F (roughly -12.8°C). The day was blustery, too, and, especially in the morning, fairly serious snow was falling. (My wife and I were in Hawai’i just a few days ago!). I found myself thinking of the greatest film ever made,... Read more
My wife and I drove around today to look at the Eastman School of Music, from which two of our friends graduated, and at the University of Rochester and its medical school (where a former next-door neighbor earned his medical degree). We crossed the Erie Canal several times and went to the former home of Susan B. Anthony, in the parlor of which, in 1872, she was arrested for violating the law that prohibited voting while female. She was... Read more
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