Inevitably, critics of everything Mormon are attacking the Church’s Mormon Helping Hands projects.   “Too self-promoting,” they say.  “All those icky yellow shirts,” they cry.   Well, here’s an interesting website on some of the Church’s humanitarian undertakings:   https://www.ldscharities.org   “I’ll have nothing to do with such things,” vows one critic.   And, since he’s inactive and hostile to the Church, he presumably won’t.   Now perhaps he’s doing even better things on his own, or through... Read more

    An amusing spoof regarding an issue on which I’ve previously posted, here and here.     Read more

    In the 178th scripture roundtable posted by the Interpreter Foundation, Martin Tanner and Bruce Webster discuss Helaman 6-12.   These chapters are the focus of 2016 Gospel Doctrine lesson 34.   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/scripture-roundtable-178-book-of-mormon-gospel-doctrine-lesson-34-how-could-you-have-forgotten-your-god/       Read more

    I’ve said it before and — you knew this was coming — I’ll say it again:  I’ve been enormously proud of my people’s resistance to Caesaro-Trumpism and to Mr. Donald J. Trump himself.   Here’s a really interesting article on the topic:   http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/mormons/498506/?utm_source=atlfb   Thanks to Tyler Moulton for bringing it to my notice.   Utah will, in the end, almost certainly fall to Mr. Trump, simply because we’re an overwhelmingly Republican state and because he’s running... Read more

    Somebody has finally had the nerve to tell the truth, publicly, about the situation on American Indian reservations:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439686/locked-disgraceful-state-indian-country   I’m very far from an authority on the topic, but here are two personal notes:   1.   Soon after I joined the faculty at BYU, I delivered a paper at the annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association, which was held that year on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  (Candidly, that’s... Read more

    The indispensable (and prolific) Robert Boylan addresses an anti-Mormon argument that has been around for many, many generations:   http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-meaning-of-mormon-responding-to.html   Incidentally, the notion of Joseph Smith (or one of his invisible co-conspirators) consulting a Greek lexicon and finding the Greek synonym for bugbear — a kind of bogeyman or hobgoblin — in order to come up with the name Mormon strikes me as ineffably absurd.  Just for the record.     Read more

    http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/09/physicists_go_hunting_for_consciousness.html   Wish them luck.     Read more

    Political discourse has become so rotten that it’s no longer possible to tell the stench of one presidential candidate from the stink of another. P. J. O’Rourke     Read more

    Owing to various issues (including, but not limited to, the ordinary chaos of summer), our production of scripture roundtables has been a bit irregular of late.   I apologize for that.   Here, though, is the Interpreter Foundation’s 177th roundtable:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/scripture-roundtable-177-book-of-mormon-gospel-doctrine-lesson-33-a-sure-foundation/   It features Martin Tanner and Bruce Webster, and they focus on 2016 Gospel Doctrine lesson 33, which covers Helaman 1-5.   I actually taught this lesson on Sunday, so I know that it’s a bit... Read more

    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865661735/LDS-leaders-visit-flood-victims-in-Louisiana.html   I’ve been posting about the very large Mormon clean-up effort in Louisiana.  (See here.)  Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have every reason to take satisfaction in what is being done there.   But remember:  The funds need to be in place well before an emergency.  So please consider making an additional donation now, whether large or small, so that, the next time such a thing happens, the Church will have the... Read more