Extracted from Alister E. McGrath, Surprised by Meaning: Science, Faith, and How We Make Sense of Things (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011):   One of the most significant scientific discoveries of the last generation is that the universe was pregnant with the possibility of human existence right from its very start.  The laws of nature seem to be “fine-tuned” in order to make life possible.  As we noted in an earlier chapter, the early universe produced nearly... Read more

    Continuing with my manuscript on Islam for Mormons:   It is on the basis of his or her faith and good works, the Qur’an explains, that the fate of the individual soul is determined.[1] We are assured that life and death were created in order to test us: “We try you with evil and good for a testing, then unto Us you shall be returned.”[2] This test is fairly and carefully constructed, and every man and woman has... Read more

    The latest installation of the ongoing biweekly Hamblin/Peterson column  has appeared in the Deseret News:   “Teaching of Plato versus Genesis”   ***   With regard to the recent passing of President Monson, I found this article touching:   “Daughter of President Thomas S. Monson says ill health didn’t end service for ‘whirlwind of a man'”   ***   I also recommend these video interviews:   “Video interviews with President Eyring, President Uchtdorf, Sister Ann M. Dibb released by... Read more

    Not a few Latter-day Saints were displeased to read the obituary published by the New York Times the other day in response to the death of President Thomas S. Monson.   I was among them, and I posted a blog entry on the topic:   “Fidel Castro, Hugh Hefner, and Thomas S. Monson”   Here’s another response from a Latter-day Saint:   “Friday Traditio: Thomas S. Monson”   At least two Jewish observers also noticed and were displeased by... Read more

    All the way back in 2004, following the deaths of Elders Neal A. Maxwell and David B. Haight, I published an article titled “Reflections on Two Apostles” in Meridian Magazine.  I thought of that article again now, as the unique fellowship of modern, living apostles has, once again, been deprived of two of its senior members:   After the longest period of stable membership since its founding in early 1835, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church... Read more

  Another passage from my current manuscript-most-in-progress:   Even more detailed than the Qur’an’s portrayal of hell is its depic­tion of paradise. It is a picture that has inspired much derision among Westerners—most of it quite ignorant and beside the point. The Qur’anic paradise is a garden, a place of darkest green, filled with palms and pomegranates and running streams. A shady region “as vast as heaven and earth,” it suffers from neither scorching heat nor biting cold. It is... Read more

      I posted an entry yesterday titled “Fidel Castro, Hugh Hefner, and Thomas S. Monson.”  So I was bleakly amused to learn this morning — my thanks to Kyle Pratt for bringing it to my notice — that, over at The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro has made essentially the same point that I did:   “The New York Times Proves It Hates Religious Americans With This Obituary”   Incidentally, unlike me Ben Shapiro isn’t a truth-hating Mormon apologist.  He’s... Read more

    A nice capsule summary of the life of President Monson:   “President Thomas S. Monson:  1927–2018”   In this 3.5-minute excerpt from an address years ago, President Monson tells the remarkable story of the approval of the construction of the Freiberg Germany Temple by the government of then-Communist East Germany — the German Democratic Republic — four years before the fall of the Berlin Wall:   “Freiberg Temple — Lord’s promise and East Germany’s approval — Thomas S. Monson”   Here,... Read more

    The admirable Ed Gantt has drawn my attention to the fascinating contrast in tone between the obituaries given by the New York Times to Fidel Castro, Hugh Hefner, and Thomas Monson.   Here are some opening lines from the Times’s notice of the passing of the Líder Máximo:   Fidel Castro, the fiery apostle of revolution who brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959 and then defied the United States for nearly half a century as Cuba’s... Read more

    Mark Helprin’s article in today’s Wall Street Journal is an important one.  If you can gain access to it and you’re concerned at all about world peace and the future of the United States, I commend it to your attention:   “America’s Alarmingly Archaic Arsenal: The U.S. nuclear deterrent has kept the peace for years. If it withers, it will keep the peace no longer.”   I think, for example, that this is a significant point:   “Believers in total... Read more