Marvin Schroeder kindly brought this interesting article to my attention:   https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/02/23/mcmaster-has-the-islamophobes-worried-and-thats-a-good-thing/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=fp   I’m delighted, as I’ve now said at least three times on this blog, with the selection of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Ph.D., as the national security advisor to the president.  I hope that he will have a very positive influence within the Executive Branch.     Read more

    I posted an item yesterday on the extraordinarily interesting and provocative notion of Rod Dreher’s proposed “Benedict Option” and how it might be relevant to Latter-day Saint thinking:   “Should Mormons Choose the Benedict Option?”   The occasion for my blog entry was an article by Hal Boyd of the Deseret News.   Now, Rod Dreher himself responds to Hal Boyd’s article:   “Mormons & The Benedict Option”   And, while we’re at it, here’s another examination of... Read more

    The Danish Christian existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) offers a wonderful parable in his Philosophical Fragments.  It’s intended, plainly, to help us understand the Son’s coming to Earth as a humble Galilean peasant:   Imagine there was a King who loved a humble maiden. She had no royal pedigree, no education, no standing in the royal court. She dressed in rags. She lived in a hovel; she lived the ragged life of a peasant. But for reasons no... Read more

    Doug Ealy and one of my sons (himself a former Navy nuclear officer) called my attention to this item:   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/politics/hr-mcmaster-trump-islam.html?smid=fb-share   I mentioned on my blog the other day that I was very pleased with Mr. Trump’s selection (after two misfires) of Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster as his national security advisor.  Dr. McMaster — he holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — represents the kind of scholar-warrior for... Read more

    An interesting account in and of itself, from the invaluable Jeff Lindsay.  But it also has implications for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon:   http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2017/02/conversation-with-antique-map-dealer.html     Read more

    This is a very, very good article (in a Jewish publication) by the admirable Turkish Muslim writer and thinker Mustafa Akyol:   http://forward.com/opinion/362987/what-judaism-can-teach-islam-about-reforming-the-faith/   It represents the kind of serious, grown-up thinking that I wish were more common among both Muslims and their often-uninformed critics in the United States.     Read more

    The article to which I link below may suggest some implications for my own family’s history, as well as for the genealogies of more than a few readers of this blog.  (It may also have something to suggest about today’s refugee situation and the treatment of immigrants.)   http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2017/02/25/why_did_danish_vikings_move_to_england.html   My paternal grandfather was from Denmark.  He came over to the United States as a baby (or — we’re still not sure about this — was born almost immediately after... Read more

    Has Sweden become Hell on Earth because it’s being overrun by Muslims?   I spent a fair amount of time there last summer — followed by a separate two-week trip to neighboring Norway shortly thereafter — and I confess that I didn’t notice that it had.   It’s refreshing, once in a while, to read a balanced discussion by an adult:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445169/sweden-rape-sexual-assault-non-muslim-immigrants   One of my Facebook “friends” unfriended me yesterday when she belatedly realized that, owing to my historical... Read more

    I strongly agree that this is a book that merits wide reading and serious discussion among American Christians today — including Latter-day Saints, who have a history of “gathering” and, as we all know, of withdrawing to “the valleys of the mountains” when we were obliged to do so:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865674191/Should-Mormons-choose-the-6Benedict-Option7.html   Rod Dreher calls it the “Benedict Option.”  We’ve traditionally called something like it the doctrine of “The Gathering of Israel.”     Read more

    “Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance . . .  the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.” Montesquieu (1689-1755)     Read more