I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least. Dorothy Day (1897-1980)   Posted from Mentor, Ohio     Read more

    A quite short but also quite interesting little piece:   http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/how-old-is-the-bible   Please, as you read it, keep the fact in mind that Joseph Smith’s claim of a sacred book written on metal plates has seemed absurd to many.  Now note the material on which the oldest known biblical text was written.   Posted from Mentor, Ohio     Read more

    Timothy Keller is an interesting thinker, and he’s been extraordinarily successful in building up a congregation of people in New York City who had previously been living ostensibly secular lives.  I think there’s much to be learned from him:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865663048/Prominent-theologian-says-secularism-not-religion-is-set-to-decline.html   Posted from Mentor, Ohio     Read more

    In 2013, my friend and former Maxwell Institute colleague Dr. John Gee — who is currently enjoying a sabbatical research leave at the University of Heidelberg in Germany — published a fascinating article comparing the patriarch Abraham, as he’s depicted in the Book of Abraham, with Idrimi, an ancient ruler of Alalakh, in Syria, who was a near contemporary of the patriarch:   http://publications.mi.byu.edu/publications/jbms/22/3Gee.pdf   Robert Boylan reminded me of it today with a post on his excellent... Read more

    In the 181st scripture roundtable posted by the Interpreter Foundation, Bruce Webster and Martin Tanner focus on 3 Nephi 8-11, in connection with 2016 Gospel Doctrine lesson 37:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/scripture-roundtable-181-book-of-mormon-gospel-doctrine-lesson-37-whosoever-will-come-him-will-i-receive/   Posted from Mentor, Ohio     Read more

    http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/september-web-only/what-happened-when-christian-writers-watched-all-muslim-mov.html   I haven’t seen it yet, either.  Hadn’t even heard of it.  But now I want to.   Posted from Mentor, Ohio     Read more

      At the conclusion of his classic essay “The Will to Believe,” William James cites the English writer, lawyer, and judge Fitzjames Stephen, from that author’s Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, 2nd ed. (London, 1874), 353.  It’s a nice summary of the position in which humans find themselves with regard to secular public arguments for and against religious faith:   “What do you think of yourself? What do you think of the world? . . .  These are questions with which all must... Read more

    Trying to meet his financial obligations and support his family, Joseph Smith established a store in Kirtland fairly late in 1836.  The sojourn of the Saints there would turn out to have little more time to run after that, and he apparently operated the store for less than a year — partly, it seems, because his compassion outpaced his desire to make a profit.   Brigham Young’s recollections (at Journal of Discourses 1:215 and 3:121) are tinged with more... Read more

    “Religions differ so much in their accidents [i.e., in their specific attributes] that in discussing the religious question we must make it very generic and broad.  What then do we now mean by the religious hypothesis?  Science says things are; morality says some things are better than other things; and religion says essentially two things. “First, she says that the best things are the more eternal things, the overlapping things, the things in the universe that throw the... Read more

    Well, some bloggers might resist that judgment.  Nonetheless, the “Mormon mommy blogger” phenomenon is pretty remarkable, and it’s been remarked quite a few times.  Here’s an article from Friday:   https://www.thestar.com/life/2016/09/23/mormon-mommies-have-the-best-blogs.html     Read more