A brief semi-official statement from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sixth in a series:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/balance-law-freedom     Read more

    In a very brief entry, Robert Boylan highlights a passage from an ancient Armenian text that’s been titled Concerning Adam, Eve, and the Incarnation and that has struck me ever since I first came across it:   http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/the-mortality-of-god-father-in-armenian.html   For those who may be unaware:  Armenia is the first state in the world to have adopted Christianity as its official religion.  That occurred in AD 301.   By contrast, the Edict of Milan, issued by Constantine the Great and... Read more

    James McLachlan reviews two important works by Blake Ostler:   https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/exploring-mormon-thought-attributes-god-and-problems-theism-and-love-god   Please be aware that the two paragraphs that will appear when you click on the link don’t represent the entirety of Professor McLachlan’s review.  Note the free “Download PDF” button in the upper right of the screen.     Read more

        Cappadocia — pronounced KA-pa-DOK-ya — is one of the strangest and most interesting places on Earth.  I certainly hope that the current disorders in Turkey will calm down, so that tourists will feel completely comfortable going to that wonderful country again.       In the meantime, please enjoy this roughly one-and-a-half-minute video about one of the area’s famous underground cities:   https://www.greatbigstory.com/stories/uncharted-turkey-s-hidden-underworld/?iid=ob_homepage_deskrecommended_pool     Read more

    This is an interesting list:   http://www.ldsliving.com/The-Ultimate-List-of-LDS-Classics-Every-Mormon-Should-Read/s/79969?utm_source=ldsliving&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=popular&utm_content=pop2170531   It’s not, however, exactly the list that I would have created.   What Latter-day Saint books, if any — not including the scriptures, of course — do you think are must-read “classics”?   I would genuinely be interested in seeing what people come up with.     Read more

    Once you understand what he’s asking, this is an extraordinarily interesting question:   https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-u-s-education-system-producing-a-society-of-ldquo-smart-fools-rdquo/   And it’s one where, I like to think and hope, Latter-day Saint educational institutions — including not only the Utah, Idaho, and Hawaii campuses of Brigham Young University, but our seminaries and institutes and our Sunday schools and youth programs and the experiences that many of our youth have as missionaries — might have something to offer.  And where we at BYU might... Read more

    Light travels faster than sound.   That’s why some people appear to be bright until you hear what they have to say.     Read more

    It isn’t yet clear who is responsible for tonight’s horrific events in London, but I’ll be enormously surprised if one or more of them weren’t terrorist attacks carried out by radicalized Muslims.   In response, Mr. Trump has said that “We need the travel ban.”   Well . . .   Perhaps it would be advisable on other grounds.   And perhaps the perpetrators of tonight’s outrages will turn out to be foreign-born.   But a British travel ban wouldn’t have... Read more

    Here’s a curious story:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/france-policeman-posthumous-wedding_us_593018eee4b09ec37c32168e   Latter-day Saints apparently aren’t the only people who see some sort of point in marriage to, for, and on behalf of the dead . . .     Read more

    This topic isn’t receiving nearly enough attention:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865681212/Do-US-efforts-to-help-persecuted-Christians-around-the-world-help-or-hurt.html   Incidentally –I may have made this comment before, but, in this context, I feel like making it again — while living in Egypt (for four years) immediately after our marriage, my wife and I had a very close Egyptian Christian friend.  He told me once of how often he had been asked, by American and European Christians, who it was that had converted his family.  Was it the English, they... Read more