“I beheld with my eyes. And handled with my hands the gold plates from which it was translated. I also beheld the Interpreters.”  (Oliver Cowdery) Quoted in Reuben Miller, Diary (October 21, 1848), quoted in Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling: A Cultural Biography of Mormonism’s Founder (New York City: Vintage, 2007), 78.   “I personally heard him [David Whitmer] state in Jan. 1876 in his own house . . . in most positive language, that he did truly see in broad... Read more

    I close this little series with the tenth and final installment of an article that I originally wrote for Richard C. Martin, et al., eds.,  Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of “Muslim Identity”:   The Persistence of Islamic Identity Through the ideological turbulence of the past two centuries, the fundamental self-understanding of Muslims as Muslims remained intact, though sometimes tacit.  The first Arab rebellion against Ottoman... Read more

    I have occasionally used the term scientism here on this blog.   Some of my critics claim that, by scientism, I mean science that has come to conclusions of which I disapprove, or that conflict with my religious beliefs.   This isn’t even remotely accurate.   Mistaken science is still science.  Unpleasant scientific discoveries are still scientific discoveries.   Scientism, as I use the term, isn’t science at all.  It’s an ideological position about the scope and ability... Read more

    What follows is the ninth (and penultimate) installment of an article that I originally wrote for Richard C. Martin, et al., eds.,  Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of “Muslim Identity”:   Iran, the ancient Persia, resembled Egypt in its long and distinguished history and relatively clear borders.  It spoke a distinct language rooted deep in antiquity.  Perhaps most importantly, it was distinguished from the Sunni Ottomans... Read more

    The most recent iteration of the bi-weekly column that Bill Hamblin and I write for the Deseret News was published on 20 July 2018.  Titled “Was Hitler Religious?” and following Richard Weikart’s book Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich (Regnery History, 2016), we set forth the claim that Hitler was neither an atheist nor a Christian but, almost certainly, a pantheist who deified Nature and who derived his ethical views from what is commonly referred to... Read more

    Another passage from Joseph Smith comes to mind as I think about our various friends and neighbors who have been, are, or soon will be serving as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints around the world:   “A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.”   ***   My FreedomFest 2018 debate with... Read more

    Below is the eighth installment of an article that I wrote for Richard C. Martin, et al., eds.,  Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of “Muslim Identity”:   The Mughal Empire Founded in 1526 and lasting until the mid-eighteenth century, the Mughal empire ultimately dominated the entire Indian subcontinent excepting the south.  Yet the existence of a vast subjugated population of Hindus had always posed a problem... Read more

    My wife and I have reached that point in our lives where many of our friends are retiring and/or serving missions.   This afternoon, we attended a sacrament meeting in another ward and stake where former neighbors of ours spoke.  It was their missionary “farewell.”  They’re heading off for two years to Berlin, Germany, where he will serve in a mission office and she will serve as (presumably among other things) the mission nurse and medical person.  ... Read more

    I’m sometimes assured that even religious scientists don’t allow religion to infect their science.  Instead, they compartmentalize it and keep it strictly separate from their rational thinking.  And this, say such critics of religion, is the best case scenario.  More commonly, religion is the irrational enemy of science.   James Hannam’s book The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution (Washington DC: Henry Regnery, 2011) argues that such assumptions are, at a minimum, simplistic... Read more

    This is the seventh installment of an article that I wrote for Richard C. Martin, et al., eds.,  Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of “Muslim Identity”:   Local patriotism did appear in Egypt, somewhat later than in Turkey, largely under the influence of Shaykh Rifa‘a Rafi‘ al-Tahtawi (d. 1873).  In numerous odes and poems, al-Tahtawi, also fond of the formula “love of country is part of... Read more