I really rather dislike posting about politics on conference weekend, but . . . well, this is a pretty big deal   More coming, though not before Monday.     Read more

    I suspect that there are at least a few who would love to see the LDS Church become so openminded:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/09/29/can-an-atheist-lead-a-protestant-church-a-battle-over-religion-in-canada/   You might enjoy browsing through the website of West Hill United Church:   http://www.westhill.net   Those other progressive Canadian Christians are so darned judgmental and exclusive!     Read more

    I publish a column every Thursday in the Deseret News under the recurring title “Defending the Faith.”  Additionally, with my friend and former BYU colleague William Hamblin, I publish a column every other Saturday that’s overwhelmingly devoted to non-LDS religious topics.   The latest installment of that latter column went up this morning, while I was on an airplane:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865663694/The-opening-of-the-Quran.html     Read more

    This is a really exciting story:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865663385/Perpetual-Education-Funds-success-led-to-massive-expansion-of-LDS-effort-to-lift-the-poor.html   But, of course, as the late Christopher Hitchens loved to say, “Religion poisons everything.”   Posted from Cleveland, Ohio     Read more

    Jamie Huston makes a very good point here:   http://mormanity.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/internal-book-of-mormon-evidence-lesson.html   Posted from Cleveland, Ohio     Read more

    The Chicago Tribune declines to endorse either Hillary Rodham Clinton or Mr. Donald J. Trump — sounding a recurrent theme along the way:  Mr. Trump is “unfit” to be president:   http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-gary-johnson-president-endorsement-edit-1002-20160930-story.html   Thanks to Cody Quirk for alerting me to this editorial.     Posted from Cleveland, Ohio     Read more

    Religion has always, I think, implied a belief in some fundamental harmony, some sort of reconciliation between the claims of our own nature and the facts of the universe. J. M. E. McTaggart (d. 1925)   Posted from Cleveland, Ohio     Read more

    Our five days of Interpreter Foundation filming in the Kirtland area came to a close this evening.  We began the morning at the Kirtland Temple and then worked at the earliest Kirtland baptismal site, which is located between the Latter-day Saint visitors’ center and the reconstructed grist mill.  Then we spent most of the rest of the day filming in the former home of Bishop Newel K. Whitney and Elizabeth Ann Whitney.   Yesterday, we worked for most of... Read more

    They can’t bring themselves to endorse Mrs. Clinton, but they beg us not to vote for Mr. Trump:   http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/09/29/dont-vote-for-donald-trump-editorial-board-editorials-debates/91295020/   Pretty much my own position.   Posted from Cleveland, Ohio     Read more

    Is this another instance of a seeming error on Joseph’s part that, on inspection, turns into a really remarkable bull’s-eye?   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/creator-of-the-first-day-the-glossing-of-lord-of-sabaoth-in-dc-957/#more-9492   Posted from Cleveland, Ohio     Read more