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***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n You may not yet have seen<\/em> these two new items on the webpage of the Interpreter Foundation.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019re not there<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Come, Follow Me<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 D&C Study and Teaching Helps Lesson 15, April 5\u201311: D&C 30\u201336 \u2014\u00a0\u201cYou Are Called to Preach My Gospel\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Audio Roundtable:\u00a0Come, Follow Me<\/em>\u00a0Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 15\u00a0\u201cYou Are Called to Preach My Gospel\u201d\u00a0<\/em>D&C 30-36<\/a><\/p>\n The Interpreter Radio Roundtable for\u00a0Come, Follow Me<\/em>\u00a0Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 15,\u00a0\u201cYou Are Called to Preach My<\/em> Gospel,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0on D&C 30-36, featured Steve Densley, Matthew Bowen, and Mark J. Johnson as the discussants. This roundtable has now been extracted from the 28 February 2021 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show, where it may be heard at no charge and blessedly free of commercial interruptions. The complete program may be heard at\u00a0https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/interpreter-radio-show-february-28-2021\/<\/a>. The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at\u00a0ktalkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Many of you, I expect, will enjoy this Meridian Magazine<\/em> column or article by my friend Robert Starling:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAre Baptists Christians? \u2013 \u2013 A Case for Latter-day Christianity\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some of you will perhaps be aware that I myself have long had a strong interest in the issues that he\u2019s addressing:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A reader here who comments on the blog from time to time as dCyl has kindly called my attention to a fine performance of yet another very appropriate\u00a0piece of music for the Easter season:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBach \u2013 St Matthew Passion BWV 244 \u2013 Van Veldhoven | Netherlands Bach Society\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Plainly, Bach\u2019s St. Matthew Passion<\/em> (Matth\u00e4us-Passion<\/em>) is a horror and an abomination that belongs squarely in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u00a9:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThinking about J.S. Bach: As it turns out, it\u2019s hard to ignore the composer\u2019s views on doctrine\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n When my wife and I lived in Cairo, one of our neighbors and friends was the American pastor of the non-denominational church that served the many expatriates who lived in our neighborhood, south of Cairo.\u00a0 One year, he invited us to his Easter sunrise service.\u00a0 Since our LDS branch met on Fridays at that time, we were able (and happy) to go.\u00a0 (Eventually, though, we began doing branch felucca<\/em> rides \u2014 boat rides \u2014 on Easter Sunday mornings, our own<\/em> Easter sunrise services.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Anyway, I can barely express how disappointed I was in his remarks.\u00a0 They were all about the rising of the morning sun after darkness, the return of spring, and the rebirth of spring flowers.\u00a0 If he said anything at all about the Risen Son, I honestly don\u2019t remember it.\u00a0 From many conversations with him, I\u2019m quite confident that he was a genuine Christian believer.\u00a0 I can only assume that, since he served as the pastor of an interdenominational church with a wide variety of congregants \u2014 mostly but not entirely American \u2014 he was trimming his theological sails in order to avoid giving offense.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Which sets me up to introduce one of my two favorite Easter poems (the other being a brief item by A. E. Housman that I reproduced here a few days ago).\u00a0 It\u2019s the late poet and novelist John Updike\u2019s \u201cSeven Stanzas at Easter.\u201d \u00a0Updike (1932-2009) was a two-time winner of the National Book Award and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In order to understand the poem completely, you need to know the noun\u00a0remonstrance<\/em> (re-MON-strance), which denotes \u201ca forcefully reproachful protest\u201d:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Make no mistake: if he rose at all<\/strong><\/span> It was not as the flowers,<\/strong><\/span> The same hinged thumbs and toes<\/strong><\/span> Let us not mock God with metaphor,<\/strong><\/span> The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,<\/strong><\/span> And if we have an angel at the tomb,<\/strong><\/span> Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0<\/p>\n In part, Updike\u2019s poem reminds me of a declaration from the Prophet Joseph Smith:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.\u201d<\/strong> \u00a0(History of the Church,<\/em>\u00a03:30; from an editorial published on page 44 in the\u00a0Elders\u2019 Journal,<\/em>\u00a0July 1838; Joseph Smith was the editor of the periodical)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Over the nine or ten years that I contributed a personal column to the\u00a0Deseret News<\/em>, I often wrote a special article for the Thursday just before Easter. \u00a0Here are some of those Easter columns. \u00a0Perhaps somebody out there will enjoy one or two of them:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe mysterious 40-day ministry of Jesus after Easter\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCan modern people believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEaster\u2019s answer to the \u2018terrible question\u2019: One of the most obvious facts facing human beings is the inevitability of death\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe gospel truly brings joyful news\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cChrist\u2019s resurrection was a witnessed fact, not a later fantasy\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA great \u2018cloud of witnesses\u2019 at Easter\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and C.S. Lewis on the hope of Easter\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And here are some relevant specimens from the biweekly column that my late (and much missed) friend and colleague Bill Hamblin and I used to write for the Deseret News<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe challenge of the empty tomb\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHoly Week aids Easter reflections\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe words of Easter\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe tomb of Jesus\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
\n It was as His body;<\/strong><\/span>
\n If the cell\u2019s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,<\/strong><\/span>
\n The amino acids rekindle,<\/strong><\/span>
\n The Church will fall.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
\n Each soft spring recurrent;<\/strong><\/span>
\n It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the<\/strong><\/span>
\n Eleven apostles;<\/strong><\/span>
\n It was as His flesh; ours.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
\n The same valved heart<\/strong><\/span>
\n That\u2014pierced\u2014died, withered, paused, and then regathered<\/strong><\/span>
\n Out of enduring Might<\/strong><\/span>
\n New strength to enclose.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
\n Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,<\/strong><\/span>
\n Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded<\/strong><\/span>
\n Credulity of earlier ages:<\/strong><\/span>
\n Let us walk through the door.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
\n Not a stone in a story,<\/strong><\/span>
\n But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of<\/strong><\/span>
\n Time will eclipse for each of us<\/strong><\/span>
\n The wide light of day.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
\n Make it a real angel,<\/strong><\/span>
\n Weighty with Max Planck\u2019s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in<\/strong><\/span>
\n The dawn light, robed in real linen<\/strong><\/span>
\n Spun on a definite loom.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
\n For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,<\/strong><\/span>
\n Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed<\/strong><\/span>
\n By the miracle,<\/strong><\/span>
\n And crushed by remonstrance.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n