I can’t help but be reminded of C. S. Lewis’s Perelandra, the second volume (with Out of the Silent Planet and That Hideous Strength) of his brilliant “Perelandra trilogy”:   http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2017/04/-alien-water-worlds-most-habitable-planets-may-have-oceans-spanning-90-of-their-surface.html   Posted from Park City, Utah     Read more

    I’m pleased to announce another occurrence of that rare event, the publication of a new article in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/looking-deeper-into-joseph-smiths-first-vision-imagery-cognitive-neuroscience-and-the-construction-of-memory/   Posted from Park City, Utah     Read more

    Today’s college students are, in many cases, a fragile and sensitive lot, skittish and easily frightened.  They need “safe spaces.”  And if someone assigns them a book containing ideas that are different from theirs, or a speaker expresses troubling or even unfamiliar thoughts, they frequently need counseling.   The Onion, one of America’s leading investigative journals, reports on a crisis that has seized the Berkeley campus of the University of California:   http://www.theonion.com/article/berkeley-campus-lockdown-after-loose-pages-wall-st-55815   It’s news that you... Read more

    I was set to be in attendance for the Governor’s signing of this joint resolution of the Utah State Legislature on Monday morning until a last minute family problem arose that prevented my going.  But I’m very pleased by the resolution and want people to be aware of it:   http://www.sltrib.com/home/5186915-155/utah-resolution-tells-world-we-favor?page=1   Congratulations to Senator Brian Shiozawa (R-Cottonwood Heights) and Representative Patricia Arent (D-Millcreek), the co-sponsors of SCR 6 (“Guarding the Civil Liberties and Freedoms For All American People”);... Read more

    I’ve spent more time than perhaps I should have down in the trenches, dealing with alienated and disaffected members as well as with never-Mormon critics of the claims of Joseph Smith and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and this tallies with my experience:   Mormon leaders have trust issues   It isn’t typically this or that specific historical or doctrinal issue that takes former believers out of the Church, but, more commonly, a suspicion that... Read more

    Thanks to Ralph Hancock for alerting me to this article on genuine diversity in higher education by Peter Augustine Lawler:   Let Middlebury be Middlebury. And BYU be BYU   Posted from Park City, Utah     Read more

    “More consequences for thought and action follow the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question.” Mortimer Adler (1902-2001) Read more

    “O’Reilly, Ailes, and the Toxic Conservative-Celebrity Culture”   Amen.   And, again, amen.   I’ve watched with horror as we’ve descended from William F. Buckley, Jr., to Michael Savage and Sean Hannity, from Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.   I’m not accusing Savage (whom I cannot abide and to whom I’ve never really listened) or Hannity (to whom I no longer listen) of sexual misdeeds or immorality.  But I do think that current political discourse... Read more

      A “friend of the court brief” was filed today with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in reference to President Donald J. Trump’s executive order on immigration.  I’m among the nineteen signatories.  Professor Nathan Oman, Rollins Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Markets at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, drafted the document.  This is an introductory statement that he also wrote:   “Earlier today... Read more

      This is very bad news for religious freedom, and perhaps a threatening harbinger of things yet to come:   https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/04/20/russian-court-bans-jehovahs-witnesses-extremist-group/100701524/   Thanks to Marc Norton for alerting me to the news item.   Posted from Park City, Utah     Read more