Sic Et Non

  From the Interpreter Foundation: Nibley Lectures: Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 9: “The Worth of Souls Is Great”: D&C 18 During 1978, 1979, and 1980, Hugh Nibley taught a Doctrine and Covenants Sunday School class. Cassette recordings were made of these classes and some have survived and were recently digitized by Steve Whitlock. […]

  I continue my incessant whining about the hit Netflix miniseries American Primeval by calling attention to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune that you may be able to access.  It was published on Sunday, and it’s titled “Commentary: To learn the real lessons of history in ‘American Primeval,’ we need the real story: Reducing […]

  It’s a cold and dreary day today in central Utah, but, for some reason, I’ve been thinking about what many religious believers take to be God’s self-disclosure in the beauties of nature.  So, of course, two favorite poems from Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) come to mind.  The first is “God’s Grandeur”: The world is […]

  You’re probably aware of this:  “The Prophet Announces Salt Lake Temple Open House Celebration Dates: This landmark house of the Lord will reopen for tours from April 2027 to October 2027” Wonderful news.  The open house is still more than two years away, of course, and the rededication will follow it.  But it’s nice to […]

  “Utah may join 12 states that recognize Good Friday as a legal holiday: ‘In my personal opinion, the more we reflect on the love of Jesus, the better people we are. Regardless of what the state does, it’s a sacred day for us,’ Father Stephen Tilley said” I’m not absolutely committed to the idea of […]

  Important:  The form on the Witnesses Initiative website was inadvertently created in such a way that it prevented people who live outside of the United States from accessing Witnesses and Undaunted.  (They are currently available there for free streaming.)  I’ve received inquiries from Australia and Switzerland seeking such access, and I think that we’ve […]

  Controversy about the proposed McKinney Texas Temple (actually to be located in adjacent Fairview, north northeast of Dallas), appears to be bubbling up again, and critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are, once again, accusing the Church of trying to bully and intimidate a humbly idyllic little community into rolling […]

  There’s a new book to which I’m looking forward.  Here are a couple of articles about it: Mariya Manzhos, Deseret News:  “Why everyone should be religious, according to Ross Douthat: In his new book, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat offers a roadmap for thinking your way into religious belief” ““Believe,” which is Douthat’s […]

  Several years ago, as I’ve mentioned here before, I read (and was very impressed by) Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind (2008).  Here’s how the blurb on Amazon.com describes the book: In 1991, when her daughter’s rare, hand-carved harp was stolen, Lisby Mayer’s familiar world […]

  Are you aware that you can watch Witnesses and Undaunted, right now, at no charge?  Do you realize that you could do that tonight?  In fact, tonight would be a really good night to watch one or both of them.  Maybe an especially good night, if your team loses the Super Bowl.  Or, alternatively, […]

  Some critics that I observe — most of them specimens of the type of detractor who finds fault, day in and day out, with virtually everything that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does — have derived a great deal of hostile mirth from President Russell M. Nelson’s admonition that we try […]

  Newly posted on the never-changing, essentially moribund website of the Interpreter Foundation, in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:  “Prepping for the Last Battle,” written by one Daniel C. Peterson: Abstract: Intellectually acute, deeply learned, brilliantly imaginative, yet popular and easily accessible, C. S. Lewis was arguably the greatest Christian apologist […]

  Newly posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Joseph Smith and Our Preparation for the Lord’s Final Judgment: Essays by George L. Mitton, “Foreword: Eschewing the Ephemeral,” written by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw: “In every conversation I’ve had with George, what impresses me most is his earnestness about the important, enduring matters of life. […]

  Well, the click-bait headline worked, as they typically do.  Gotcha. First of all, let me make it plain that I’m saddened by excommunications.  I don’t, as one very small pod of my somewhat unhinged personal critics pretend to believe, rejoice when people are excommunicated.  More precisely, though, I’m saddened by the acts of immorality, […]

  Our 2021 theatrical film, Witnesses, was dedicated to the memory of “Richard Lloyd Anderson, a witness to the witnesses.”  Now it comes down to you.  One of the many spin-offs of the overall “Witnesses” project is this one, which is available for your viewing:  “Episode 17: What is your Witness?” Witnesses of the Book […]

  The current issue of the Journal of Near-Death Studies, the official journal of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS), to which I subscribe, arrived two or three weeks ago, and I’m finally beginning to read it.  It’s dated “Summer 2023,” which seems to make me really late.  But, alas, such delays are all […]

  I’m very pleased to announce that the 2021 Interpreter Foundation theatrical film Witnesses is now available — and will remain available for the duration of the month of February — for free streaming:  Watch Witnesses Free! So, whether you saw Witnesses in a theater and would like to view it again, or whether you […]

  I’ve been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to announce that the 2024 Interpreter Foundation theatrical film Six Days in August is now available for streaming.  I haven’t yet checked any of these, so if there are people out there who successfully view the movie at one or more of these sites, I would welcome confirming […]

  “Perspectives on the Soteriological Problem of Evil: Nuancing the “Universalist” Theologies of Henri de Lubac and Joseph Smith,” written by Timothy Gervais. Abstract: Since the discovery of the new world by Christian European explorers during the age of discovery, the increasingly global community of the modern age has confronted Christian theologians with difficult soteriological […]

  Our exit from Afghanistan was badly botched.  And America’s abandonment of those Afghans who had helped us there — often at considerable risk to their lives and the lives of their families — has long been a national disgrace and an obvious moral failure, as well as a disastrous precedent that will be remembered […]