Here’s my latest column for Meridian Magazine. I used it to report on a book that I recently read and that I really liked. Perhaps somebody out there will enjoy the column, or profit from it, or at least find it uproariously funny: “Did Jesus Really Claim to Be Divine?” Newly posted on the never-changing and pretty-much-moribund website of the Interpreter Foundation: Joseph Smith and Our Preparation for the Lord’s Final Judgment: Essays by George L. Mitton: “Joseph Smith... Read more
Two propositions: Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine did not start the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is neither an admirable man nor a good one, and he is not our friend. Both propositions are eminently defensible, though neither of them should really require any defense. With my late and much lamented colleague and friend William J. Hamblin, I published the column below in the Deseret News on 22 February 2014 — which is now almost exactly eleven... Read more
From the Interpreter Foundation: Nibley Lectures: Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 9: “The Worth of Souls Is Great”: D&C 18 During 1978, 1979, and 1980, Hugh Nibley taught a Doctrine and Covenants Sunday School class. Cassette recordings were made of these classes and some have survived and were recently digitized by Steve Whitlock. Most of the tapes were in pretty bad condition. The original recordings usually don’t stop or start at the beginning of the class and there... Read more
I continue my incessant whining about the hit Netflix miniseries American Primeval by calling attention to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune that you may be able to access. It was published on Sunday, and it’s titled “Commentary: To learn the real lessons of history in ‘American Primeval,’ we need the real story: Reducing peoples from the past to simple caricatures won’t help us answer the hard questions.” The article was written by Janiece L. Johnson, who is also... Read more
It’s a cold and dreary day today in central Utah, but, for some reason, I’ve been thinking about what many religious believers take to be God’s self-disclosure in the beauties of nature. So, of course, two favorite poems from Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) come to mind. The first is “God’s Grandeur”: The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil... Read more
You’re probably aware of this: “The Prophet Announces Salt Lake Temple Open House Celebration Dates: This landmark house of the Lord will reopen for tours from April 2027 to October 2027” Wonderful news. The open house is still more than two years away, of course, and the rededication will follow it. But it’s nice to have a definite date, to see light at the end of the tunnel. More than a few people — myself among them — are hoping... Read more
“Utah may join 12 states that recognize Good Friday as a legal holiday: ‘In my personal opinion, the more we reflect on the love of Jesus, the better people we are. Regardless of what the state does, it’s a sacred day for us,’ Father Stephen Tilley said” I’m not absolutely committed to the idea of making Good Friday a legal holiday, but I’m certainly not opposed to it. And making a three-day holiday of Easter weekend seems to me not... Read more
Important: The form on the Witnesses Initiative website was inadvertently created in such a way that it prevented people who live outside of the United States from accessing Witnesses and Undaunted. (They are currently available there for free streaming.) I’ve received inquiries from Australia and Switzerland seeking such access, and I think that we’ve now fixed the problem. But I’m in the United States and can’t quite verify that on my own. Can anybody from Canada report whether the... Read more
Controversy about the proposed McKinney Texas Temple (actually to be located in adjacent Fairview, north northeast of Dallas), appears to be bubbling up again, and critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are, once again, accusing the Church of trying to bully and intimidate a humbly idyllic little community into rolling over and playing dead while the Mormons callously impose an enormous, triumphalist temple on innocent rural people. (For aerial views of the neighborhood immediately surrounding... Read more
There’s a new book to which I’m looking forward. Here are a couple of articles about it: Mariya Manzhos, Deseret News: “Why everyone should be religious, according to Ross Douthat: In his new book, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat offers a roadmap for thinking your way into religious belief” ““Believe,” which is Douthat’s eighth nonfiction book, offers a roadmap for navigating the stumbling blocks along the way to belief. “The universe is not a trick” is a recurring... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In