John 15:26-27   Religious skeptics often mock the Latter-day Saint idea and claim of spiritual witness.  That’s scarcely surprising.   What does surprise, though, is to hear such mockery from professedly believing Christians.  Have they not read these verses?  Do they not believe them?     Read more

    Today’s installment in the “Social” component of the “A Savior is Born” campaign features a performance by Tiffany Alvord:   https://www.mormon.org/christmas/tiffany-alvord     Read more

    John 15:18-25 Compare Matthew 10:24-25; Luke 6:40; John 13:16   Being hated for your religious beliefs and practices doesn’t prove them correct.  If that were the case, ISIS and the Westboro Baptist Church would have good claims to truth and legitimacy.   But, overall, if the world at large loves your religious beliefs and practices, that’s apparently pretty good evidence that you’re wrong — and powerful reason to be concerned.   Latter-day Saints shouldn’t be surprised or particularly upset that their faith... Read more

    In this clip, Chanticleer performs what I, at least, consider to be one of the most achingly, exquisitely beautiful pieces of music ever composed, Franz Biebl’s 1964 setting of “Ave Maria”:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVyCJlPiHFg   V. Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariæ. R. Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto. Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. V. Maria dixit: Ecce Ancilla Domini. R. Fiat mihi secundum Verbum tuum. Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus... Read more

    John 15:9-17   Once again, Jesus doesn’t teach salvation by faith alone, but commands his disciples to love — and plainly indicates, by mentioning the most humanly demanding of all acts (surrendering one’s life for something/someone else), that such love is expressed by action.   He then proceeds to speak of his disciples’ duty to obey his commandments, and of his having chosen them with the expectation that they will produce results.     Read more

    Potentially one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent history:   http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/intact-packed-etruscan-tomb-found-151204.htm     Read more

    Robert Boylan, the Interpreter Foundation’s very impressive man in Ireland, looks at an Old Testament passage that has sometimes been deployed as a weapon against Mormonism:   http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.com     Read more

    “Sabbath, in the first instance, is not about worship.  It is about work stoppage.  It is about withdrawal from the anxiety system of Pharaoh, the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being.” Walter Brueggemann     Read more

    John 15:1-8   The imagery, in this passage, of vine and branches is inescapably reminiscent of Jacob 5.   For a (large) anthology of very good articles on that astonishing chapter, see The Allegory of the Olive Tree: The Olive, the Bible, and Jacob 5 (1994)     Read more

    A nice bit of analysis from Stephen Smoot:   http://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2015/11/does-helaman-1316-plagiarize-view-of.html#comment-form     Read more