http://www.studioetquoquefide.com/2016/04/some-lessons-in-assimilation.html#more     Read more

    https://stream.org/escape-america-syrian-christian-perspective/     Read more

    And I can feel it.   But it gives me a chance to mention two good Wasatch Front restaurants.   A couple of my brothers-in-law have been visiting, one from Arizona (with his wife) and the other (without his wife) from Washington.  So a sizable chunk of the extended family who’re in Utah at the moment got together for lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Sandy called Joy Luck.  My wife and I had never been there before.  They... Read more

    “Sabbath observance invites us to stop. It invites us to rest. It asks us to notice that while we rest, the world continues without our help. It invites us to delight in the world’s beauty and abundance.” Wendell Berry     Read more

    Yes, it may still be too little, too late, but I’m nonetheless glad to see some Evangelicals speaking out against those on their team who have shamed themselves by becoming shills for Trumpism:   http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/04/07/evangelical-leaders-blistering-message-for-christian-pastors-and-pundits-who-have-supported-trump/   I feel the same way about this that Michael Cromartie does.     Read more

    Taylor Halverson recounts an amusing (and revealing) story from Paul Cox:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865651869/The-surprising-story-of-a-Book-of-Mormon-in-the-Harvard-library.html?pg=all     Read more

    Thanks to Chris Shearer for alerting me to this interesting little video:   https://www.facebook.com/BuzzFeedNews/videos/1128055720548778/?fref=nf   It’s surely possible, even probable, that it was selectively edited to heighten the contrast between the two groups.   Unfortunately, though, I suspect that it’s more true than false.   Which is just one of the many reasons that I find the Trumpist phenomenon deeply troubling.     Read more

    It is said that, back in the glory days of the former FARMS, under my reign of terror there before the 2012 Purification, our periodicals and books — particularly what was then called the “FARMS Review” — were essentially long strings of pseudoscholarly ad hominems, slanders, and personal insults linked together by occasional periods and commas.   This article, which considers the question of how Latter-day Saints should view their own past, is a typically vicious product of that mercifully bygone era:... Read more

    Today’s reading, Mosiah 27, covers one of the most dramatic stories in the Book of Mormon.   Alma the Younger, son of the chief priest, and his companions, the sons of King Mosiah, were among the unbelieving and cynical critics of the Church.  In fact, they were arguably the most visible, vocal, and hostile of such critics.  It’s probably not coincidental that they were also privileged aristocrats, members of the elite of their society, with advantages of status and education... Read more

    I have to confess that I’m genuinely astonished at the mild and relatively indifferent response in the West to the harassment, despoliation, rape, and, sometimes, torture and mass slaughter of ancient Christian communities in the Near East.   Here’s an Israeli Jewish perspective on the situation:   http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0416/glick040816.php3   Thanks to Chrystine Heward Reynolds for alerting me to this article.     Read more