“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? They haven’t had a war here for such a long time. Without a good war, where do you get your moral standards from? Everything goes to pot in peacetime. People eat what they like. You see them wandering about with cheese on their bread and then a great smear of bacon fat on top! How many men are there in that town down the road? How many horses? Nobody knows. They’ve never... Read more

    One really cheery bit of news over the past few days — right up there with the fact that Donald Trump may be losing in Wisconsin — is the recapture of the ancient city of Palmyra by Syrian military forces.   For images of the magnificent ruins there, see this photo essay:   http://www.nationalreview.com/slideshows/palmyra#0   ISIS, practicing its usual barbarism, destroyed important antiquities there and beheaded the elderly Syrian archaeologist who had devoted his life to caring for the... Read more

    I’ve recently read several indignant comments from bitter critics of Mormonism about how the coldhearted Church has abandoned the missionaries who were injured in those recent terrorist attacks in Brussels.  When missionaries are no longer useful, it seems — as these missionaries, because of their serious wounds, no longer are — the Church simply spits them out.  Good riddance!  We exploit you until you have no further value to us, and then we treat you like trash.   So far as... Read more

    In the Interpreter Foundation’s 162nd posted scripture roundtable, Shon Hopkin, Martin Tanner, and Bruce Webster discuss Mosiah 12-17, the chapters on which Lesson 18 of the 2016 Gospel Doctrine manual is based:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/scripture-roundtable-162-book-of-mormon-gospel-doctrine-lesson-18-god-himself-shall-redeem-his-people/     Read more

    This week’s Thursday Deseret News column is up:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865651207/Editing-out-the-bad-grammar-in-the-Book-of-Mormon.html   6 April should be an easy date to remember.     Read more

    I don’t know how many people saw this debate, which was held just prior to the caucuses in Iowa, between Donald Trump and Donald Trump:   https://www.facebook.com/DigitalAfro2.0/videos/518242555023871/   I think it’s very instructive to see both of the candidate express his views side-by-side, so that voters can see the contrast between him.     Read more

    On Tuesday, 22 March 2016, slightly more than a week ago, Rev. Charles J. Chaput, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Philadelphia, delivered these remarks on the campus of Brigham Young University:   http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/03/awakenings     Archbishop Chaput is a remarkable man, very courageous and dedicated to principle.  This was at least his second visit to BYU, because, while I was obliged to miss this lecture, I attended an earlier one.     Read more

    Three notes about today’s reading, Mosiah 17:   1.   Royal Skousen suggests a “conjectural emendation” — in other words, an adjustment to a text based on other considerations but lacking direct manuscript support — for Mosiah 17:13:   He suspects that, when it’s said of Abinadi that his royal executioners “scourged his skin with faggots, yea, even unto death,” it should actually read that they “scorched his skin with faggots.”  (See Professor Skousen’s brief discussion here, published back in 2002, during the... Read more

    You don’t — anyway, I don’t — think of such things as happening in tranquil, green Britain.  But this one evidently did, about eight thousand years ago:   http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160323-the-terrifying-tsunami-that-devastated-britain     Read more

    For a limited time only, you can listen to Steve Densley, Craig Foster, Kristine Frederickson, Benjamin McGuire, Daniel Peterson, and Martin Tanner discuss Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine lesson 17, which focuses on Mosiah 7-11, in the Interpreter Foundation’s one hundred and sixty-first (161st) scripture roundtable.  (Offer expires at the end of the world.) http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/scripture-roundtable-161-book-of-mormon-gospel-doctrine-lesson-17-a-seer-becometh-a-great-benefit-to-his-fellow-beings/   We had fun doing it.  We hope you’ll find it useful.     Read more