Some critics of Mormonism have triumphantly announced that they’ve identified Joseph Smith’s source for his Book of Mormon . . .  in a book called The Late War, and/or in a book called The American Revolution.  (Their theory doesn’t account for the Witnesses, or correlations between the Book of Mormon and its claimed setting in Pre-Columbian America and the ancient Near East, and so forth.  It ignores those matters.)   On 7 August 2014, in that year’s FairMormon conference,... Read more

    Still inspired by something that Elder David A. Bednar said roughly two years ago in a speech at Brigham Young University, and in sync with the 2016 Gospel Doctrine curriculum of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I’m launching a project to read through the Book of Mormon, one chapter each day, and to post something about each chapter on my blog.   What I post will be very brief, with no pretense of being exhaustive.  (If I try to... Read more

    Three serious but very different (non-Mormon) responses to Christmas:   “The Only Christmas Gift That Matters”   “Christmas in an Age of Existential Crisis”   “This Christmas, We Must Revive the Virtue of Gratitude”   And, as an extra treat, something that promises simultaneously to depress, irritate, and amuse you:   “Students Sign ‘Petition’ to Ban ‘White Christmas’ Because It’s Racist”   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    On 8 August 2014, Robert F. Smith delivered an interesting paper at the annual FairMormon conference.  The text is available online, and it makes for good reading in connection with the approaching focus of the adult Sunday school curriculum on the Book of Mormon:   http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PREPOSTEROUS-BOOK-OF-MORMON.pdf   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    Reflecting on the Christmas story and its legacy:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428980/christmas-scenes-strange-families   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    Even on Christmas Day — if it falls on a Friday — Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture continues to produce:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/jesus-christs-interactions-with-the-women-of-the-new-testament/   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    A little item — don’t expect too much — from the non-LDS historian John Turner:   http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2015/12/joseph-smiths-last-christmas/   As for us, we’ve been hitting some of the family Christmas traditions:   We had the missionaries (Sister Lawson and Sister Gerrigues) over last night for a Cuban pork dinner, accompanied by juca (or cassava) and beans and rice and followed up by a fairly close analogue of “figgy pudding.”  (We had had them over for pizza on Tuesday night.)  And... Read more

    A nice LDS contribution to Christmas in southern California:   http://timesofsandiego.com/life/2015/12/21/how-mormon-volunteers-launch-the-best-christmas-lights-in-san-diego/   And, as a bonus, I add this item (brought to my attention by Jabra Ghneim):   “Twenty photos of temples looking like winter wonderlands”   Posted from Richmond, Virginia, which is warm, green, and humid today     Read more

    For my final installment of “Music of Christmas” for 2015, I offer two pieces.   I’ve always loved Miklos Rozsa’s score for the movie Ben Hur.  And his “Star of Bethlehem” is, in my opinion, one of its two highlights:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0cFMotGzUs   I heard a wonderful arrangement of it not long ago, performed by Jenny Oaks Baker.  But I can’t find a version of that that I can use online.   And J. S. Bach’s O Jesulein süss (“O, sweet... Read more

    Dear friends:   Another year is coming to a close, and it’s closing upon a world racked with violence, fear, and evil.  But, as always, it closes with the boundless promise and the remarkable grounds for optimism represented by Christmas.   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s words come to mind, written in the darkest days of the American Civil War.  Not long before, as the result of a tragic fire that had grievously injured him too, he’d become a widower... Read more