I’ve just returned from a very stimulating and convivial conference in Philadelphia sponsored by the Agora Institute – a very well-conceived young outfit animated by some very thoughtful and well-read people. This conference was on the theme of “Subjectivity” – a term that itself is more a question than a stable concept.  There is the modern self, with its bent towards relativism; but then it seems that the modern subject emerges somehow from what we might take to be its... Read more

  All of you are probably aware of Elder Bednar’s very striking exhortation at BYU’s recent Education Week to use new technologies in sharing the gospel: My beloved brothers and sisters, what has been accomplished thus far in this dispensation communicating gospel messages through social media channels is a good beginning—but only a small trickle. I now extend to you the invitation to help transform the trickle into a flood. Beginning at this place on this day, I exhort you... Read more

Rachel Sheffield, policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation (and, let me add, BYU alumna), posted a valuable article. just this morning at Public Discourse.  (Public Discourse is a consistent go-to source, by the way, for intelligent discussion of the intersection of morality and politics – especially as concerns family questions.)  The gist of her argument is that the “sexual freedom and experimentation” that “pervade our culture… jeopardize the outcomes that most people say they desire.”  “The human heart longs for... Read more

  1. Elder Nelson at BYU Commencement    “Man simply cannot make moral what God has declared to be immoral.”   2. Elder Cook vs. Ideological Bondage     When evil choices become the dominant characteristic of a culture or nation, there are serious consequences both in this life and the life to come. 3. BYU’s Opinon Editor “We need not make a choice as to whether same-sex marriage is moral…”       Read more