Many Americans think of the Arab/Israeli conflict as one between Muslims and Jews.  That’s not accurate.  Many Palestinians are Christians.   Here’s one Palestinian Christian voice, from the first half of 2014:   http://time.com/110920/naim-ateek-palestinian-pope/     Read more

    Luke 5:1-11 Compare Matthew 13:1-3; 4:18-22; Mark 4:1-2; 1:16-20; John 21:1-11   On one level, it seems a fairly insignificant miracle.  But it’s a teaching moment.   “You’re impressed by a miraculous catch of fish?” Jesus implicitly asks his astonished disciples.  “Don’t be afraid.  From this point on, you’ll be catching men.”   In after years, persecuted, harassed, traveling with difficulty even when not being threatened, encountering rejection, the apostles could look back on this experience and regain… Read more

    Somebody has launched a website in order preemptively to counter the inevitable narrative from John Dehlin, his supporters, and the all-too-eager news media:   https://dearjohndehlin.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/john-dehlin-and-censorship/     Read more

    “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”   Martin Luther   Read more

    An article in the 20 December 2014 issue of the Economist discusses the question of methane gas on Mars, which is, by far, the most studied planet (other than Earth, of course) in our solar system.   Most of the results sent back by interplanetary probes have suggested that Mars is biologically and geologically dead.  That is, that there is no life on it and that it lacks active volcanism, plate tectonics, and so forth.   But “most”… Read more

    For the 130th consecutive Friday, a new article has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/whoso-forbiddeth-to-abstain-from-meats/     Read more

    I’ll be speaking tomorrow at the Winder West Stake Education Weekend, in Salt Lake City.   Anybody and everybody is welcome.  Here’s the full program (which also includes a concert tonight, Friday):   Winder West Stake Education Weekend, January 17, at 4551 So. 1200 E., Salt Lake City, Utah.: 9:00    Richard Fox (cello, Salt Lake Symphony Orchestra, with Marie Ashton as accompanist)           Elder John H. Groberg, Quorum of the Seventy emeritus (Keynote)… Read more

    My friend Keith Lane, who teaches at the Laie, Hawaii, campus of Brigham Young University, has reminded me of a review essay that he published in the FARMS Review more than a decade ago, but which is highly relevant to certain recent discussions of scripture and its relationship with history.   I recommend it:   http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/15/2/S00003-5176b0ddb28d53Lane.pdf     Of course — be warned! — you need to be prepared for the mean-spirited and narrow-minded viciousness that characterized the FARMS… Read more

    This is a follow-up to something that I posted yesterday:   http://www.wncn.com/story/27857809/duke-university-to-hold-weekly-muslim-prayer-service   I can’t really say that I’m surprised.     Read more

    Matthew 8:16-17; Matthew 4:23 Mark 1:32-39 Luke 4:40-44   Notice, in the records of the sick people who are healed in the evening at Capernaum, that, of the three synoptic accounts — John doesn’t mention the incident — only Matthew says “This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.'”  Such observations (“This was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the mouth of the… Read more