One year after Justice Kennedy redefined the primordial institution of marriage for us, a philosophical reflection on where we stand:   http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/06/obergefell-and-the-new-gnosticism   Posted from Amsterdam, The Netherlands     Read more

    There are a couple of points at which I would quibble, but, fundamentally, I think he’s right:   http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2016/06/30/whatever_the_soul_is_its_existence_cant_be_proved_or_disproved_by_natural_science_107121.html   Posted from Amsterdam, The Netherlands     Read more

    An extremely interesting little article, well worth pondering by both Southern Baptists and others:   Where do Southern Baptists go when they leave? The answer in one chart   Posted from Amsterdam, The Netherlands   Read more

    A perspective of which people who want to understand Islam and the Middle East ought to be aware:   http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/29/opinions/muslim-victims-terrorism-moghul/index.html   Posted from Amsterdam, The Netherlands     Read more

    The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. Vincent Van Gogh         We spent most of today (a portion of what one anonymous internet critic recently termed my “miserable life”) at the Van Gogh Museum, with a little bit of time thereafter to see some of the Rembrandts and Vermeers at the Rijksmuseum.  We got around by boat on... Read more

    Today’s reading, Alma 42, is among my favorites, and yet there’s no single passage from it that stands out to me or that seems particularly quotable.  The whole chapter is good.   Its discussion of the relationship between justice and mercy is classic, and its account of this life as a time of probation is, I think, pivotal for the Latter-day Saint understanding of the purpose of mortality.  So pivotal that I suspect, again, that we may now take... Read more

    My father died thirteen years ago today.   I still miss him very much.  I think about him every day.  Certain sights always remind me of him.  There are many things that I would like to tell him.   More and more of the people I’ve known and loved, the people who formed me and to whom I looked up, are now gone.  The collection of my friends and family on the other side continues to grow.   As... Read more

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437325/enid-mickelsen-rnc-convention-rules-committee-donald-trump-fight   In the meantime: “Cache [County Utah] GOP leaders resigning party affiliation.”   And “Mitt Romney: My Conscience Won’t Allow Me to Vote for Trump or Clinton.”   Which is, alas, where I am, as well.   I simply can’t do it.   Posted from Amsterdam, The Netherlands     Read more

    This week’s installment in my Thursday column for the Deseret News is up:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865657149/2-ways-of-taking-the-gospel-to-others.html   Posted from Amsterdam, The Netherlands     Read more

    I am, both for personal family reasons and on political-historical grounds, deeply interested in World War II and the crimes of the Nazis.  Last year’s visit to Berlin was, to a large degree, devoted to the subject, and we watched a documentary just last night about Hitler’s Adlerhof or “Eagle’s Nest” in the Obersalzburg area of Bavaria, near Berchtesgaden — a place that I’ve visited many times.   It’s impossible for me, in these areas, not to think... Read more