We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened.  But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen. Thomas Merton   Read more

    As I indicated earlier today, some have taken a recent remark from the distinguished Latter-day Saint historian Richard L. Bushman,  Gouverneur Morris Professor of History emeritus at Columbia University in New York City and former Howard W. Hunter Professor at Claremont Graduate University, as signaling that he’s backing away to some degree or another from at least certain of the foundational claims of the Restoration.   With his permission, I share a note that I’ve just received from him.  I think that... Read more

    “I think perfect objectivity is an unrealistic goal; fairness, however, is not.”  (Michael Pollan, journalist, writer, and teacher at the University of California at Berkeley) Read more

    No, I don’t think so.  I doubt it very, very much.   Yet that’s a suggestion that’s making the rounds in certain circles.   We’re not close pals and drinking buddies, but I’ve known Richard for many years now, and the Richard that I know is a believer.   I would be enormously surprised if that has changed — and (although I think his wording was unfortunate), I don’t think that there’s really anything in his recent comments to... Read more

    From time to time, I read online that I’m a young-earth creationist.  This is helpful to me, because, had I been left to my own resources on that topic, I would have assumed that I’ve never been one.  I can’t recall a time when I thought that the Earth was only a few thousand years old or denied the existence of dinosaurs.  In fact, one of my childhood dreams was to become a paleontologist.  (Plainly, all of this... Read more

    This looks potentially interesting:     Read more

    Professor Noah Feldman, of Harvard Law School, provides a short but very clear and useful explanation here.   I’m politically conservative.  There was a time when I thought highly of Newt Gingrich.  I still believe him to have a number good qualities.  He is, among other things, a trained and often insightful historian (educated at Emory and Tulane, where he earned his Ph.D.), and some of his political ideas when he was in Congress were quite brilliant.   But... Read more

    There’s a new entry from Drs. Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack on the blog of the Interpreter Foundation:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/editing-out-the-bad-grammar-in-the-book-of-mormon/     Read more

    “Earth, stars, and the vastness of space; yesterday, today and tomorrow; and the endlessly increasing knowledge of the relation of forces, present an illimitable universe of numberless phenomena. Only in general outline can the universe be understood. In its infinite variety of expression, it wholly transcends the human mind. . . .  In the midst of this complexity man finds himself. As he progresses from childhood to manhood, and his slumbering faculties are awakened, he becomes more fully... Read more

    I’ve been otherwise occupied over the past forty hours or so, but, of course, I need to comment, first, on the horror in Nice; then on the coup in Turkey; and, finally, on the emerging horror that is Newt.   1.   Words are inadequate.  And I mean, by that, that mere verbiage cannot begin to undo the crime that has been done in France or comfort those whose lives have been so cruelly shattered, and that words... Read more