Sic Et Non

  As has been our tradition at the Interpreter Foundation for most of our existence, today — Good Friday — we have published a devotional essay for Easter.  Unfortunately, I’m the author (and the audio narrator) of today’s essay, which is entitled “Christ is Risen! Truly, He is Risen!” The person who was slated to […]

  A new article of mine has appeared in Meridian Magazine:  “What Archeology Has Taught Us About Lehi’s Jerusalem.” Try not to let it ruin your day, let alone your Easter weekend.   Another article has been newly posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:  Hugh Nibley Observed: “Hugh Nibley and the Church,” written […]

  Before the Interpreter Foundation altogether disappears (as has been reliably predicted), I would like to call your attention to a few more of its most recent last gasps: Conference Talks: The Priestly Interests of Moses the Levite: 2020 Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses Conference, presented by John W. Welch and Jackson […]

  Some people will be very disappointed by these reports: Deseret News:  “Gallup polling: Latter-day Saints have the highest rate of weekly church attendance: Two-thirds of Latter-day Saints attend church weekly or nearly weekly” Gallup:  “Church Attendance Has Declined in Most U.S. Religious Groups: Three in 10 U.S. adults attend religious services regularly, led by Mormons at […]

  This week commemorates the most important week in the history of the world.  Here are some links that might help you to mark it, to remember it, and to ponder its meaning: Christianity Today:  “Why Every Day This Week Is Holy: Christians should celebrate from Palm to Easter Sunday—and everything in between.” “The ‘Lamb of […]

  I think that, this time around, I’ll lead off with something from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™.  I mean, this claim, asserted by Dr. Stephen Cranney, is so horrible and so very alarming that it really does cry out for drastic emergency action: “Are religious people happier? The science is […]

  News from along the frontier of religious liberty: National Catholic Reporter:  “Wisconsin Supreme Court makes bad law in religious liberty case” Christianity Today:  “Must Social Service Providers Nix Their Faith to Receive Federal Funds?  Rather than follow the equal protections secured in Supreme Court decisions, the Biden administration opted for a complicated and soul-killing […]

  With friends, my wife and I attended the open house this morning of the renovated Manti Utah Temple, which was built and first dedicated nearly a century and half ago.  (We were intending to go yesterday, but life intervened.)  For many reasons, the temple in Manti has long been one of my very favorite […]

  I’ve lately begun reading a new book by Robert Christophor Coppes entitled Impressions of Near-Death Experiences: Quotations from Over 100 Experiencers.  Dr. Coppes is an economist who is now retired from a career spent at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, a French bank, and eventually the Dutch Central Bank, which is roughly […]

  Several years ago, before the devastating fire that severely damaged it on 15 April 2019, my wife and I spent a substantial portion of the day in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris.  At one place, in the transept to the right of the nave near the southern rose window, we saw a plaque […]

    [Ooops.  This week isn’t Holy Week!  For some reason, I keep thinking that Easter is this coming weekend.  But it’s not.  Does anything like that ever happen to you?  My apologies.] This week is “Holy Week,” about which I wrote this column a while back.  (I have fairly strong feelings about Holy Week.)  And […]

  On Saturday, here in this very space, I posted a couple of references to the alleged “transfiguration” of Brigham Young that is said by quite a few to have occurred while he was speaking to an outdoor audience of Latter-day Saints at Nauvoo, Illinois, on 8 August 1844.  (See “Two Witnesses to a Pivotal […]

  First of all, Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of those out there who have ever been Irish, or thought about being Irish, or know somebody who’s Irish, or have heard of either Ireland or St. Patrick’s Day, or who haven’t.  We enjoyed our corned beef, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes today, and I hope […]

  Recently, Adam Colvin provided me with copies of two documents from his family history.  With his kind permission, I share portions of them here.  The first extract comes from a “Life Sketch of Simeon Adams Dunn,” compiled by Nancy Dunn Watson: James Dunn, the brother of Simeon, came to their home in Van Buren […]

  A new article has just been posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:  “Premortal Life and Mortal Life: A Fearful Symmetry,” written by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw Abstract: Bodily weakness, along with the varied circumstances into which we were born, provide the essential initial and ongoing conditions that shape the challenges and opportunities of […]

  Last night, I was among a group of people who had been invited to a meeting with Elder Clark G. Gilbert, a member of the Seventy, who currently serves as Commissioner of Education for the Church Educational System; Elder Alvin F. Meredith III, who is also a member of the Seventy and who was […]

  I occasionally use the expression objective public proof.  I’ve recently been asked what I mean by it. Let me take the phrase apart just a bit. “Proof,” as the word is typically used and as I am using it here, is a fact or a piece of information that demonstrates the existence of something […]

  The following is basically a close paraphrase or a gloss (for my note-taking purposes) of “A Beginner’s Guide to the ‘Fine-Tuning’ Argument” by Max Baker-Hytch of the University of Oxford.  As always with such notes, I make no claim of originality for what follows but share them because, while I’m taking notes for my […]

  I think that apologetics, as such, is inevitable.  Stripped of specifically religious elements, it’s merely the defense of a position.  Scholars defend positions all the time, as they should.  So do all the rest of us. Whenever there is disagreement — e.g., over religion, politics, political candidates, even favorite restaurants or best vacation destinations […]

  For many years now, my most devoted atheist commenter here (never a Latter-day Saint) has repeatedly (and repetitiously) asserted that religious claims can neither be examined, tested, nor investigated.  (Which, I’m guessing, is intended to show — in what might perhaps be a kind of folk echo or pop version of once-fashionable logical positivism […]