“There is nothing more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.” Homer, Odyssey     Read more

    This incident came up during an hour-long radio interview that I did a couple of days ago, but I had, at that point, heard nothing about it.  Now, though, Jabra Ghneim has alerted me to these two articles:   “When a school assigned homework on Islam, it drew so many threats the district shut down” “Augusta County Schools Will be Closed on Friday Due to ‘Tone and Content’ of Calls and E-mails”  Okay.  Maybe she shouldn’t have assigned precisely... Read more

    As an additional gift for Christmas, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture offers this piece — our second article today — from Steve Smoot:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/the-fiery-darts-of-the-adversary-in-1-nephi-1524/     Read more

      Late last year, we at the Interpreter Foundation decided to publish a more devotional article at each Christmas and Easter, written especially for Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture.  Our first Christmas piece was written by Orson Scott Card.  A few months later, our first Easter piece came from Mitt Romney.   This year’s Christmas essay comes from Clayton M. Christensen, of the Harvard Business School:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/he-did-it-a-christmas-message/   Merry Christmas from the Interpreter Foundation!     Read more

    Matthew 27:44 Mark 15:32 Luke 23:39-43   Only Luke, of the three synoptic gospels, tells us that one of the thieves was penitent.   The depth to which Jesus had allowed himself to be taken is shown in the fact that even a convicted thief, in the last minutes of his life, as he’s been executed, mocks the Savior.   He did this for us.     Read more

    W. Bradford Wilcox, of the University of Virginia, takes issue with a recently-released and much trumpeted study:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/15/the-latest-social-science-is-wrong-religion-is-good-for-families-and-kids/   Of course, Dr. Wilcox is probably a deceptive Mormon apologist.  After all, there’s a Mormon college out in Virginia and it’s probably the university he teaches at — the same place where BYU’s Bronco Mendenhall will soon be the head football coach.   So, plainly, anything he says can be summarily dismissed.   (Thanks to Eric Lopez for bringing this... Read more

    This recording or posting has some drawbacks, but Mack Wilberg’s arrangement of The First Noel is exquisitely beautiful, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs it to perfection:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkEeTJOY96g     Read more

    Matthew 27:38-43 Mark 15:27-32 Luke 23:35-38 Compare Matthew 27:37, 48; Mark 15:26, 36; Luke 23:33; John 19:18-19, 29   Those who mocked Jesus on the cross presumed that he couldn’t save himself.   But the remarkable fact is that he wouldn’t.   That’s one of the most astonishing and impressive parts of the story.       Read more

    I expect that the votes cast by Mette Ivie Harrison typically cancel mine out, and there are things in this article with which I disagree or, at least, quibble.  Still, I welcome it and the overall spirit of it:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mette-ivie-harrison/no-one-should-be-more-lov_b_8804912.html   She’s right.  We’re not the retrograde agents of hate that some of our critics on the political Left assume us to be.     Read more

    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865643921/LDS-Church-video-A-Savior-Is-Born-reaches-millions.html   If you haven’t been involved in this campaign yet, there’s still time!     Read more