I’m finally finding a few stolen moments in which to begin reading Richard Lyman Bushman’s newest book, Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates: A Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023), and here is a chain of related passages from it that I would like to share with you: As his [Joseph Smith’s] account made clear, the plates were both of the earth and of heaven. They were mundane, material, historical, on the one hand, and divine, mysterious, holy, on... Read more
You might justly view yesterday’s blog entry here as a full-length installment from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™. In a very real sense, that is exactly what it was, and I hope that you’ll take the opportunity not only to buy something yourself but to call the opportunity to the attention of others. I already called attention a few days back to a brief excerpt from an Interpreter Foundation interview with Elder Dale G.... Read more
As you’ve probably noticed — I’ve scarcely been subtle or coy about it! — we are in the process of making a theatrical movie under the title of Six Days in August, and I’m urgently seeking additional funds for the completion of that venture, for which the actual filming is now approximately 82% finished. Much still remains to be done after the filming, including postproduction, editing, distribution, publicity, and the like, and the costs for such things have... Read more
Newly posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Largely Shadow, Short of Reality,” written by Allen Wyatt Review of Ronald V. Huggins, Lighthouse: Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Despised and Beloved Critics of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2022). 392 pages. $39.95 (hardback), $24.95 (paperback). Abstract: Jerald and Sandra Tanner have had a long ministerial career trying to convince people that that the truth claims of the Church are wrong. Even though their ministry has closed its... Read more
These new items have gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Not By Bread Alone: “A Place of Peace in War-Torn Goma”: Blog Post #2 For more information on the “Not by Bread Alone: Stories of the Saints in Africa” series, go to https://notbybreadalonefilm.com/en/ For more information in French, go to https://notbybreadalonefilm.com/fr/ To see all of our posts about The Church in Africa, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/africa/ Conference Talks: Prayer with Uplifted Hands, presented by Stephen D.... Read more
Why do I pay attention to the Peterson Obsession Board? My nickname for it explains the reason. I look in on the POB several times each week because, on a daily basis for something like the past fifteen years — in other words, for however long it has existed — I have been a regular target there and, arguably, the single principal target, for criticism, mockery, and, yes, character assassination and defamation. It’s the only anti-Mormon website... Read more
First of all, I want to thank the readers of this blog, who continue to read it, or at least to summon it up on their computer screens, despite my manifold (and manifest) incapacities. I read a couple of appraisals of myself online this morning that indirectly illustrate just how charitable and forgiving you are. According to one of those appraisals, which wasn’t making any particular effort to be kind, I’m immature, stupid, and entirely without class. According... Read more
The passing of President M. Russell Ballard of the Twelve represents the departure of a long-familiar figure from Church leadership. He had been a General Authority since 1976 (nearly half a century), and an apostle for thirty-eight years, since 1985. With his death, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland becomes the senior apostle within the Quorum. But Elder Holland’s health still appears to be poor, and that may mean that effective leadership of the Twelve will fall to Elder Dieter... Read more
On a message board where harshly negative reviews of the Interpreter Foundation’s as-yet uncompleted film project Six Days in August have been pouring in by the dozens, appraisals of Brigham Young have also been abundant. Brigham was, it seems, not a decent man. Indeed, he was a frightening bully and a murderous tyrant. One earnest soul even offers a reading list of contemporary nineteenth-century perspectives on President Young in order to support such judgments — contemporary sources, of... Read more
Newly posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Preview Video of “Not by Bread Alone: Stories of the Saints in Africa I found this article unusually interesting: “It’s Not Politics: Fatherhood Decline Causing Rise of Religious Nones” It reminded me of a column that I originally wrote for the Provo Daily Herald back on 14 April 2000: A widespread assumption, especially among intellectuals, holds that belief in God derives from irrational, immature needs and wishes,... Read more
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