http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/blake-ostler-on-fall.html   Gaye Strathearn reviewed Blake Ostler’s Fire on the Horizon: A Meditation on the Endowment and Love of Atonement in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   “Looking at the Endowment and Atonement Through a Different Lens”   So, too, did Kevin Christensen:   “Profound Depth in a Slender Book”   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    I’m not absolutely sure that the person who called my attention to this article — which is sure to cause indignation (and, perhaps, indigestion) in some circles — wants his/her name publicly disclosed.  So, for the moment at least, I’m going to withhold it.  I’m grateful, however, that s/he brought it to my attention:   http://www.mormonwomenstand.com/a-protected-class-of-sin/   A very few years ago, a statement such as this would have been utterly uncontroversial.  It’s a measure of how far... Read more

    Having forced Stephen Smoot into exile in the frozen north and compelled him to study Egyptology there, I was interested to notice, last night, that our flight path took us very close to Toronto, the small, remote Inuit village where he lives during the academic year.   I checked the temperature outside the aircraft, and it was seventy-five (75) degrees below zero.   Seventy-five degrees!   In June!   And that was south of Toronto.  Think how much... Read more

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. P.J. O’Rourke   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    You might enjoy the broadcast to which Terry Mattingly refers:   https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2017/6/2/getreligion-drinking-game-tmatt-visits-catholic-answers-to-explain-why-this-blog-exists   He’s really quite good at what he does.   Posted from Boston, Massachusetts     Read more

    But Mr. Donald J. Trump calls it a “travel ban”:   http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/05/politics/trump-travel-ban-courts/index.html   Just so we’re clear on that.   Posted from Boston, Massachusetts     Read more

    A few of us, at least, have probably been puzzled in similar circumstances.  So this story, and the woman’s response to it, is interesting:   http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-shanghai-testimony-on-hidden-wisdom.html   Of course, we can’t prove such things.  And we don’t exactly have total access to the mind of God.  And skeptics will mock.  (That’s what some of them do best.)   But believers trust that God knows what he’s doing, and that, for all their human limits, our leaders do actually receive inspiration.... Read more

    In hopes of heading that question off before it’s asked of me, here are three relevant articles:   “London’s [Muslim] Mayor Says ‘We Will Never Let These Cowards Win’”   “Mosques and Muslim leaders ‘united in disgust’ after London Bridge terror attack”   “Affront to Religion:  London Bridge attackers slammed by Muslim Council of Britain as ‘cowards’ for launching attack during Ramadan”   Posted from Boston, Massachusetts     Read more

    I realize that this sounds like a mid-twentieth century Hollywood horror plot, but it’s real and rather serious:   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/bats-rabies-deforestation-brazil-urbanisation-diseases-humans-animals-transmission-between-species-a7768666.html   My use of the photograph above to make a little joke merely reveals, yet again, my tastelessness and lack of compassion.   Posted from Boston, Massachusetts     Read more

    Robert Boylan has called attention to this interview, from way back in 2011:   http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/daniel-petersons-four-part-mormon.html   A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, but, although I’ve never actually watched the interview myself, I doubt that there’s much in it with which my now much older and more decrepit self would disagree.   Some might find it interesting, at least as a study in abnormal psychology.     Read more