![\"Pearl](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/09\/USS_Arizona_burning_Pearl_Harbor.jpg\")
<\/a>Significantly more Americans have died from the coronavirus than were killed during the Second World War.\u00a0 And we\u2019re not yet done.\u00a0 We can still drive the death toll considerably higher!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The most recent installment of my new twice-a-month column for Meridian Magazine<\/em> has now appeared:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMartin Harris: Skeptic or Gullible Dupe?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n For some odd reason, the Book of Mormon witnesses have been on my mind quite a bit lately.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In case you missed them:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Russell M. Nelson and the COVID-19 vaccine: What the church leader has said and done: Revered as a prophet by Latter-day Saints, he prayed throughout 2020 for a vaccine to relieve world suffering caused by the pandemic.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The other day, a member of the Church pronounced people like me and President Nelson \u201cmask weirdos.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m not unhappy to wear either the title or the mask.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCOVID Conspiracists Are as American as Apple Pie:\u00a0Vaccine \u2018skepticism\u2019 and other coronavirus-related kookiness fit seamlessly in a long historical tradition.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m worried about this, too.\u00a0 I wonder how many Latter-day Saints, having slipped into more or less enforced inactivity in the Church, won\u2019t return if and when COVID-19 has left the scene:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHow to Prevent \u201cGoing Inactive\u201d After the Pandemic Ends\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Yes, we can!\u00a0 We can still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cExperts say the U.S. may never reach herd immunity. Here\u2019s why that matters: The New York Times<\/em> reports that experts don\u2019t see the country hitting herd immunity in the foreseeable future\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c2 Billion COVID-19 Vaccinations Roll out to At-Risk Populations: Church donation helps support UNICEF\u2019s role in global effort\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCovid-19 vaccine myths: These reasons for not getting a shot don\u2019t hold up. In fact, they\u2019ll set the US back\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe CDC is warning states to remove COVID-19 vaccine-card templates as pro-Trump forums spread tips on how to forge the document\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018I Have Changed My Mind And Do Not Want A Divorce From This Amazing Handsome Man,\u2019 Says Glossy-Eyed Melinda Gates After Receiving Vaccine\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And there\u2019s this, in Meridian<\/em>.\u00a0 It comes from a Latter-day Saint scientist by the name of Emily Bates.<\/a>\u00a0 Please don\u2019t miss the short videos that accompany the article:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCan the Bible teach us about our role in ending the pandemic?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The stories in this article make me almost physically sick:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018It just hurts my heart\u2019 \u2014 How COVID dissent pushed some Latter-day Saints away from their church: When the fellowship they yearned for turned to bickering, doubts arose and faith crises ensued.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I can\u2019t help being reminded, in this light, of Paul\u2019s discussion in 1 Corinthians 8 of whether or not first-century Christians should eat meat that had been offered to idols:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 8<\/strong>\u00a0Now concerning\u00a0food offered to idols: we know that\u00a0\u201call of us possess knowledge.\u201d This \u201cknowledge\u201d\u00a0puffs up,\u00a0but love builds up.<\/span>\u00a02\u00a0<\/sup>If anyone imagines that he knows something,\u00a0he does not yet know as he ought to know.<\/span>\u00a03\u00a0<\/sup>But if anyone loves God,\u00a0he is known by God.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 4\u00a0<\/sup>Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that\u00a0\u201can idol has no real existence,\u201d and that\u00a0\u201cthere is no God but one.\u201d<\/span>\u00a05\u00a0<\/sup>For although there may be\u00a0so-called gods in heaven or on earth\u2014as indeed there are many \u201cgods\u201d and many \u201clords\u201d\u2014<\/span>\u00a06\u00a0<\/sup>yet\u00a0for us there is one God, the Father,\u00a0from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and\u00a0one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and\u00a0through whom we exist.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 7\u00a0<\/sup>However, not all possess this knowledge. But some,\u00a0through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and\u00a0their conscience, being weak, is defiled.<\/span>\u00a08\u00a0<\/sup>Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.<\/span>\u00a09\u00a0<\/sup>But take care\u00a0that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block\u00a0to the weak.<\/span>\u00a010\u00a0<\/sup>For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating\u00a0in an idol\u2019s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols?<\/span>\u00a011\u00a0<\/sup>And so by your knowledge this weak person is\u00a0destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died.<\/span>\u00a012\u00a0<\/sup>Thus, sinning against your brothers\u00a0and\u00a0wounding their conscience when it is weak,\u00a0you sin against Christ.<\/span>\u00a013\u00a0<\/sup>Therefore,\u00a0if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Even if you \u201cknow\u201d that masks represent a Progressive Marxist plot to enslave you and your descendants even unto the fourth generation by weaponizing a fake-news scamdemic, even if you\u2019ve discerned Bill Gates\u2019s nefarious plot to control the universe via injected nanobot-laden vaccines \u2014 or, for that matter, even if you recognize that the overwhelming majority of medical and scientific experts worldwide aren\u2019t evil Satan-worshiping pedophiles \u2014 please don\u2019t use your political ideology or your \u201cinsights\u201d on the matter of COVID-19 to justify turning your back on God and your covenants, or to drive others into doing so.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n They\u00a0seek\u00a0not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man\u00a0walketh\u00a0in his\u00a0own\u00a0way, and after the\u00a0image\u00a0of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which waxeth\u00a0old\u00a0and shall perish in\u00a0Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall.\u00a0 (Doctrine and Covenants 1:16)<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And please don\u2019t imagine that that passage from the Doctrine and Covenants can\u2019t ever be justly applied even to active Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.\u00a0 (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil\u2019s Dictionary<\/em>)<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If\u00a0you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the\u00a0end\u00a0make no difference what you have chosen instead.\u00a0 (William Law, 1686-1761)<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And, finally, I share a few other items that have caught my attention on Meridian<\/em>.\u00a0 The first of them comes from our friend Karl Ricks Anderson, whom President Gordon B. Hinckley once dubbed \u201cMr. Kirtland\u201d:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhy Kirtland is the \u201cHoly Ground\u201d of Our Dispensation\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Strength of Joseph\u2019s Character\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n