For the better part of a decade now, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship has published special essays — usually more personal, and not necessarily academic — for Christmas and Easter. They always appear on the Friday prior to the holiday (or sometimes, obviously, in the case of Christmas, on the Friday of the very holiday itself). This year’s Christmas essay has now appeared, accompanied by an audio version that is read by the author: ... Read more
Perhaps, had he not been born so close to the super-holiday of Christmas, Joseph Smith’s birthday would have been widely commemorated among contemporary Latter-day Saints in the manner of, say, Pioneer Day. I rather doubt it, but perhaps. As it is, like a celestial object that’s positioned adjacent to the sun in the daytime sky, any thoughts of Joseph’s birth that might arise among members of the Restored Church are overwhelmed by the festival of Christ’s birth and... Read more
A new link has been posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Conference Talks: “Joseph Smith and Modern Cosmology,” given by Ron Hellings In this Interpreter presentation, originally given in 2013, the late physicist Ron Hellings took a look at some of the teachings of Joseph Smith to try to understand these in light of modern cosmology, the study of the foundations of matter, time, and energy throughout the universe. He found reasonable ways to harmonize these perspectives,... Read more
“The New Testament in Context Lesson 1: “We Are Responsible for Our Own Learning” In this week’s Come, Follow Me segment of Interpreter Radio, our hosts Bruce Webster, Kris Frederickson and Martin Tanner introduce our new show format. Each show will be divided into a number of segments that may vary from week to week. One segment will provide information that will supplement the study of the Come, Follow Me lesson material for 2023 and will be called “The New Testament in... Read more
Herewith, I share some more notes that have been inspired by and/or are based upon Michael Guillen’s Believing is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Refresh, 2021). Dr. Guillen, who grew up in East Los Angeles (not too terribly far from where I myself was raised, although he’s a few years younger than I am) before studying mathematics, physics, and astronomy at UCLA and Cornell,... Read more
I published this column in the Deseret News for Christmas 2016: Behind the tinsel and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, beyond Santa Claus, Christmas represents an enormously serious claim—the incarnation of God or, literally, God’s “enfleshment.” “And the Word was made flesh,” says John 1:10, “and dwelt among us.” It’s a proposition unique to Christianity among the Abrahamic religions; Judaism and Islam make no such claim about the divine. In the first chapter of Genesis, God repeatedly observes... Read more
I spoke today at the U.S. Hazara Conference 2022, which was held in Provo, at the BYU Conference Center. The program describes it as “the first ever Hazara conference.” “The conference aims to gather the Hazaras across the U.S., harmonize with the interfaith groups of Utah, provide them with an interactive platform, strategize about the future of the Hazaras in the U.S., and organize the Hazara genocide case.” The Hazaras (هزاره) are a persecuted ethnic group that is... Read more
Last night, my wife and I attended the first evening of the annual three-night Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir program in the magnificent and magnificently decorated Conference Center in Salt Lake City. We thoroughly enjoyed it. The special guests this year are Lea Salonga and Sir David Suchet, and they were very good. Every year, the program includes narration of the Nativity story, as recounted in the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke; Sir David did it... Read more
Yesterday, I posted a brief preliminary note inspired by and drawing upon Michael Guillen’s Believing is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Refresh, 2021). It concerned the modern collapse of confidence in the “certainty” of mathematics and logic, which have surely seemed the most certain of all human intellectual pursuits. But I didn’t finish my note, and so I continue it here. This is... Read more
The following went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Conference Talks: “The Scale of Creation in Space and Time,” given by John S. Lewis In this presentation, which was given at the 9 November 2013 Interpreter Symposium on Science and Mormonism: Cosmos, Earth, and Man, the distinguished planetary scientist John S. Lewis, an adult convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, discusses several aspects of the creation stories in scripture for... Read more
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