I’ve already posted this link once before:   http://www.theonion.com/article/man-already-knows-everything-he-needs-to-know-abou-17990   But that was quite a while ago, it seems exceptionally appropriate right now.  Thanks to Andrew Heiss for reminding me of it.     Read more

    And now for a change of pace:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugV6QGcafEE&list=PLD60B23A37F523BE3     Read more

    Matthew 26:47-56 Mark 14:43-52 Luke 22:47-53 John 18:2-12 Compare John 17:12; 18:20, 36   1.   The fact that Judas needed to identify Jesus (ironically, with a kiss) for those who had been sent to arrest the Savior demonstrates that Jesus didn’t have an unusual appearance.  He didn’t, for example, habitually levitate six inches off the ground, or glow, or wear luminescent white robes.   This is obvious, of course, when we think about it.  But I mention it... Read more

    From the Washington Post:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/12/08/donald-trumps-attacks-on-muslims-fit-a-pattern-of-persecution-just-ask-jews-catholics-and-mormons/     Read more

    http://thefederalist.com/2015/12/08/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-same-sex-mormon-family/     Read more

    For that cause, We decreed for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a person except for murder or corruption in the land, it’s as if he had killed all humankind.  But whoever saves a life, it’s as if he had saved the life of all humankind.  Our messengers had come to them with clear signs, but then, even afterwards, many of them committed excesses in the land.  (Qur’an 5:32, my translation)     Read more

    Matthew 26:36-46 Mark 14:32-42 Luke 22:39-46 John 18:1 Compare Matthew 26:30; Mark 14:26; John 12:27; 14:31   1.   The Garden of Gethsemane isn’t and wasn’t a garden in the sense familiar to most Europeans and North Americans.  That is, it featured neither carrots, cherry tomatoes, and lettuce,  nor different varieties of roses.  It probably wasn’t very green.  It was (and is) an olive orchard.  And it was probably a favorite place of the Savior’s because the most... Read more

    In my judgment, one of the most unearthly and beautiful pieces of modern classical Christmas music is Morten Lauridsen’s setting of O magnum mysterium:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ch7uottHU   Latin text O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in praesepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum. Alleluia. English translation O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the new-born Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy... Read more

    John 17:1-26   For all the historical Christian talk about the oneness of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Trinity (or the Godhead), there is, to my knowledge, only a single passage in the New Testament that actually suggests the nature of that oneness:   In John 17:11, Jesus prays to the Father on behalf of his disciples “that they may be one, as we are.”   It seems fairly obvious that, if the oneness of the Father and the... Read more

      Charles C. W. Cooke, an Oxford-educated Briton who has lived in the United States since 2011, sees the problem (and the threat) clearly:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428208/trump-anti-constitutional-authoritarian     Read more