It’s appropriate, on the Sabbath, to experience feelings of awe and humility.  Here’s a short article that will help you to do precisely that today:   http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/01/the_incomprehensible_power_of_a_supernova.html   Oh Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonderConsider all the worlds Thy hands have made,I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder —Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul,My Savior, God, to Thee:How great Thou art!How great Thou art!     Read more

      Critics of the Book of Mormon have often criticized the idea, contained in today’s reading (2 Nephi 5), that Nephi built a temple in the New World.  I saw a video two or three years ago for which a rabbi had been recruited to mock the notion.   No good Jew, they say, would ever have built a temple except upon the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  (And what bad, irreligious Jew would want to?)   But the archaeological facts... Read more

    A nice explanation for those who might — and probably do — find us and our buildings rather puzzling:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mette-ivie-harrison/why-do-mormons-have-churc_b_8914054.html   After all, sometimes our chapels are even right next to our temples, sharing the same parking lot.  Why do that?  Why have two separate buildings — they’re both churches, right? — next door to one another?  Are Catholic parish churches ever built directly adjacent to cathedrals?   (Thanks to Anne Palmieri for alerting me to this... Read more

    This is a story that shouldn’t be overlooked.  Not just the story of the heroic Salah Farah, upon whom be peace, but the overall story of Muslims who stood up for their Christian neighbors during a brutal attack:   http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35352763   As Jordan’s Queen Consort Rania points out in a Fox News interview with Maria Bartiromo, the majority of the victims of ISIS have been, and continue to be, Muslims.   http://www.foxnews.com/shows/sunday-morning-futures.html     Read more

    https://baptistnews.com/culture/social-issues/item/30843-scholar-disputes-pollsters-dire-predictions-for-faith-in-u-s   Compare my own short Deseret News column on roughly the same topic:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865643849/Sociologist-shares-how-the-world-may-be-more-religious-today-than-ever-before-in-The-Triumph-of.html     Read more

    Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.Where there is hatred, let me sow love;Where there is injury, pardon;Where there is doubt, faith;Where there is despair, hope;Where there is darkness, light;Where there is sadness, joy.O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seekTo be consoled as to console,To be understood as to understand,To be loved as to love;For it is in giving that we receive;It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;It is in dying to... Read more

    Truth in advertising:  He wasn’t an LDS missionary.  (I say this because many readers of my blog will inevitably assume, at the first, that he was.)   But it doesn’t matter at the moment.  He should be remembered and honored — and he will be blessed — anyway:   http://www.wsj.com/article_email/the-missionary-killed-by-islamist-terror-1453419371-lMyQjAxMTE2NjIwMjIyMDI2Wj   I can’t help but note the vast difference between what his religious beliefs motivated Michael Riddering to do and what their religious beliefs — so they describe them... Read more

    I have to admit that, while I once thought that my own church was largely immune to these sorts of influences, I’m not quite so confident any more:   http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2016/01/23/what_secularism_wrought_in_catholicism.html   I have great confidence in the Brethren.  I believe them to be genuine apostles and prophets.  But I worry at what I see as an increasing tendency on the part of too many intellectually-inclined and/or politically active Latter-day Saints to take their governing principles not so much... Read more

    https://www.facebook.com/notes/speaker-paul-ryan/why-we-march-for-life/966213873427139   It’s easy to look down upon earlier generations for their now discredited racism and their seemingly reflexive sexism.  We’re astonished that so many antebellum Americans were able to convince themselves of the moral acceptability, even sometimes the nobility, of black slavery.   Someday, however, future generations will look back upon our willingness to kill millions of unborn children — often by crushing their skulls and dismembering them, and all too often for the most superficial of... Read more

    I don’t know quite what to make of this.   I don’t believe that Mr. Trump is a neo-Nazi or an anti-Semite, and I’m not insinuating that he is.   But good grief:   http://forward.com/opinion/331449/that-time-donald-trump-retweeted-nazis/   If any candidate other than The Teflon Donald were connected with anything like this, it would be the lead story on the nightly news — and his or her political career might not survive.   (Thanks to Jabra Ghneim for calling this... Read more