Recently, FPR bloggers have alleged that Daniel Peterson’s recent Deseret News column closely followed the author’s summary of a book he was reviewing, without attribution. At least one commenter has asked for more evidence of this claim. In response, I want to demonstrate the close relationship between Peterson’s review and the author’s work at a textual level. I present the two texts in a linked PDF below, one marked as written by Daniel Peterson [DCP] and the other by the author, Robert J. Hutchison [RJH] .... Read more

When I think of Mac and Cheese, I tend to think of the boxed product of tiny noodles and a cheese powder. I’ve eaten it many times in my life. It made many appearances on my plate as a child, and I have many positive associations with it. It was an expression of love from my parents, a part of American food culture, and no doubt satisfied my hunger and cravings many times. As I grew older, I became aware... Read more

For those interested, I’ve posted a review of Thomas Römer’s The Invention of God (2015) on my personal blog. The book summarizes recent archaeological findings and biblical scholarship on how Israelite polytheism developed into Jewish monotheism: https://ryansthomas.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/review-of-thomas-romer-the-invention-of-god-2015/ Read more

Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else; if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, as one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism. Joseph... Read more

  I finally found time over the holidays to read Brant Gardner’s Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History, which he describes as an attempt to read the BoM “in history and as history” (p. 52). Publicized as the state of the art in BoM apologetics, I was curious to see what Gardner had to say about BoM historicity. As a part-time student of the historicity debates myself, I have written a number of articles here at... Read more

1)Tell us about your background, education, and career goals when you were just starting out? Did they change over time? I graduated from a small liberal arts college with a B.S. in Physical Recreation and Recreation, while working as a swim coach. Upon graduation, I served an LDS mission. When I returned, I enrolled in a Master’s program at BYU in Educational Psychology. I married a few months after beginning the program, and in less than a year delivered the... Read more