Another part of the Church’s official 2016 Easter campaign:   https://www.mormon.org/easter/follow-him   Please share it.     Read more

  This is a very interesting place, and it may well be the right one:   http://blog.chron.com/mormonvoice/2016/03/khor-kharfot-the-mormon-connection-to-a-muslim-land/   If you would like to know more, here are some excellent resources:   S. Kent Brown, “New Light from Arabia on Lehi’s Trail”   S. Kent Brown, “Jerusalem Connections to Arabia in 600 BC”   S. Kent Brown, Peter Johnson, et al.  Journey of Faith (video)   S. Kent Brown and Peter Johnson, Journey of Faith: From Jerusalem to the Promised Land... Read more

    It’s revealing, I think, how perfectly well Donald Trump fits into the world of Game of Thrones:   https://www.facebook.com/TheIndependentOnline/videos/10153435367316636/?pnref=story   I don’t watch the show, but I have a pretty good idea of what it is.   Thanks to Nicol Sorenson-Legakis — who says that she also doesn’t watch Game of Thrones — for bringing this wonderful little item to my notice.     Read more

    On 27 February 1933, an arsonist did substantial damage to the German Reichstag or parliament building.  A Dutch Communist confessed to setting the fire, although there is still serious dispute as to whether he was framed (and possibly tortured into confession), whether he acted alone if he did it, whether the Nazis did it themselves in order to manufacture a crisis, and so forth.  In any event, the newly elected German chancellor, one Adolf Hitler, lost no time... Read more

    Easter may seem boring to children, and it is blessedly unencumbered by the silly fun that plagues Christmas. Yet it contains the one thing needful for every human life: the good news of Resurrection. Frederica Mathewes-Green   Read more

    Please share the message at this Easter season.   There is power in social media — for good, not just for ill.  Use it, please, for the greatest of all messages.     Read more

    A very interesting little article about what promises to be a very interesting new book:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865649567/QA-How-to-be-a-Christian-in-a-society-thats-increasingly-skeptical-of-faith.html?nm=1   I’ve read (and liked) other things from David Kinnaman and the Barna Group.     Read more

    Whenever you’re feeling too secure, too complacent, just read something like this:   http://news.discovery.com/earth/ancient-super-eruption-reconstructed-160310.htm   And remember that you may well be living near something like the Yellowstone Supervolcano or the Campi Flegrei, or within easy mega-tsunami range of Kilauea and Mauna Loa.   The eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii was relatively small potatoes, as was the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.   Just a pleasant thought for the Sabbath.   Now back... Read more

    We haven’t typically taken tour groups to Sepphoris — I think that relatively few tour groups go there, whether LDS or non-LDS — but I’m delighted that my next tour to Israel, at the end of April, is scheduled to visit the ruins of the ancient city.  It’s a rapidly changing archaeological site, and it has been producing interesting finds for quite a few years now:   http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/inscriptions/sepphoris-inscriptions-reference-rabbis/   I suspect that Jesus and Joseph may have done construction work there,... Read more

    As we approach the book of Mosiah in this year’s adult Sunday School curriculum, I think it might not be entirely inappropriate for me to dust off a piece that I published in 2006, but which was, in its turn, based on an earlier article that first appeared in 1991.  (A quarter of a century ago!  I never really imagined myself being so very, very old.)  I still rather like it.     Read more