![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2023\/05\/20230512_074520-1.jpeg\")
<\/a>From left to right, Jeffrey Mark Bradshaw, Elder Willy Sabwe Binene (since October 2022, an Area Authority Seventy), James G. Jordan, Russell M. Richins, and, in the background, their driver, Leon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
This review essay, written by Jeff Lindsay, just went up on the blog of the Interpreter Foundation:\u00a0 \u201cBrent J. Schmidt\u2019s\u00a0Relational Faith<\/em>: An Essential Book for Understanding the New Testament Meaning of \u201cFaith\u201d and for Better Appreciating the Beauty of the Restoration\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n As did this archived recording of our weekly AM radio program:\u00a0\u00a0Interpreter Radio Show \u2014 May 7, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n In the 7 May 2023 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Terry Hutchinson, Spencer Kraus, Hales Swift, and Brent Schmidt discussed Come, Follow Me<\/em> New Testament lesson 23, the windows in Jaredite barges, and the recent BYU New Testament Commentary Conference.\u00a0 Their discussion has now been edited to remove commercial breaks, archived, and posted for your listening convenience<\/p>\n The \u201cNew Testament in Context\u201d portion of this show, for the\u00a0Come, Follow Me<\/em>\u00a0New Testament lesson 23, \u201cIn Remembrance\u201d covering Matthew 26, Mark 14, and John 13 will also be posted on Tuesday, May 30.<\/p>\n The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard live on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ll share here some notes from Michael Guillen,\u00a0 Believing is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith<\/em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Refresh, 2021):<\/p>\n According to the Pew Research Center, about 18 percent of American Atheists believe in a \u201chigher power.\u201d\u00a0 And 31 percent of American Atheists say they \u201coften feel a deep sense of spiritual power and well-being.\u201d\u00a0 (191)<\/p>\n In 2007, neuroscientist and popular Atheist Sam Harris caught flak from many attendees of the Atheist Alliance conference in Washington, DC, when he delivered a speech titled \u201cThe Problem with Atheism.\u201d<\/p>\n One problem with atheism . . . is that it seems more or less synonymous with not being interested in what someone like the Buddha or Jesus may have actually experienced.\u00a0 In fact, many atheists reject such experiences out of hand, as either impossible, or if possible, not worth wanting. . . .<\/p>\n \u201cAs atheists, our neglect of this area of human experience puts us at a rhetorical disadvantage.\u00a0 Because millions of people have had these experiences, and many millions more have had glimpses of them, and we, as atheists, ignore such phenomena, almost in principle, because of their religious associations \u2014 and yet these experiences often constitute the most important and transformative moments in a person\u2019s life.\u00a0 Not recognizing that such experiences are possible or important can make us appear less wise even than our craziest religious opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n Ouch<\/em>.<\/p>\n In 2o14, Harris wrote a book called Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion<\/em>, in which he doubles down on his critique of Atheism\u2019s small-mindedness.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the publisher\u2019s summary of Harris\u2019s basic thesis:<\/p>\n \u201cWaking Up<\/em> is for the twenty percent of Americans who follow no religion but who suspect that important truths can be found in the experiences of such figures as Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history.\u00a0 Throughout this book, Harris argues that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow.\u201d\u00a0 (192-193)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s interesting that Harris \u2014 once, at least, one of the most prominent among what were known as the \u201cNew Atheists\u201d (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and the late Christopher Hitchens, were sometimes dubbed the \u201cFour Horsemen\u201d of the movement) \u2014 took a notably and controversially accepting attitude toward \u201cextrasensory perception\u201d (ESP) or \u201cpsychic phenomena\u201d or psi<\/em> on page 41 of his 2004 bestseller The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason<\/em>, acknowledging \u201ca body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which has been ignored by mainstream science.\u201d\u00a0 He goes on to observe that<\/p>\n \u201cThe dictum that \u2018extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence\u2019 remains a reasonable guide in these areas, but this does not mean that the universe isn\u2019t far stranger than many of us suppose.\u00a0 It is important to realize that a healthy, scientific skepticism is compatible with a fundamental openness of mind.\u201d\u00a0 (The End of Faith<\/em>, 41)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, I should be clear that I don\u2019t regard psi<\/em> , if it exists, as a matter of religion \u2014 and I\u2019m guessing that Sam Harris doesn\u2019t, either.\u00a0 If it exists at all (and I\u2019m currently somewhat inclined because of the same data to which Harris alludes, to think that it probably does, though typically at a very low level of intensity, efficiency, or effectiveness), it\u2019s probably a natural power of the mind.\u00a0 However, it if exists at all it also seems to me pretty conclusive evidence that materialism or naturalism as it\u2019s typically conceived is incorrect.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here are three responses to Sunday evening\u2019s CBS Sixty Minutes<\/em> \u201cexpos\u00e9\u201d on the financial holdings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:<\/p>\n In this context, I can\u2019t help but be reminded of the devotional address given by Elder Shayne M. Bowen at Brigham Young University back in 2018:\u00a0 \u201cI Can Sleep When the Wind Blows\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019m reminded, too, of a story about President Heber J. Grant\u2019s call to the apostleship. \u00a0He received a letter shortly thereafter from a business acquaintance in (if I remember correctly) San Francisco. \u00a0This man wrote saying, effectively, that he had always supposed that the leaders of the Mormon Church were scoundrels. \u00a0Now that Elder Grant was among them, though, he realized that he owed them all an apology, because he knew that Heber J. Grant, a man whose integrity he knew and respected, would never be part of such a thing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I close, as I often do, with some infuriating items from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122:<\/p>\n \u201cMeeting Special Needs in Morocco: Non-governmental organizations receive support from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cLatter-day Saints Continue to Provide Earthquake Relief in T\u00fcrkiye and Syria\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>\n
<\/a>