Sic Et Non

  On Saturday, 5 April, my friend Don Bradley lost his son Donnie suddenly, in an unspeakably tragic and horrible incident.  (I don’t feel that, on my own initiative, I can go further into the details of what happened.)  I’ve spoken with Don within the past few hours.  As you can easily imagine, he is […]

  In his very brief article “The Seven Seals, the Age of the Earth, and Ongoing Revelation” (BYU Studies 64/1 [2025]: 95-96, Professor Nicholas J. Frederick argues that Doctrine and Covenants 77 — which is built upon a revelation received by the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1832 — should not be taken in isolation when […]

  Yesterday, I published an article in Meridian Magazine about a reported phenomenon that puzzles me and that some of you might find . . . well, curious: “Remarkable Signs in the Heavens the Night Joseph Got the Plates.”  If nothing else, you might enjoy it. Two very different takes on the legacy of Pope […]

  “First Presidency Offers Condolences on Passing of His Holiness Pope Francis” As the First Presidency has already done, I offer my condolences on the death of Pope Francis to any Catholic readers who may perhaps wander through here.  The Pope’s passing comes as a surprise to many, including me, because he seemed to be […]

  A traditional greeting is given on Easter Sunday (beginning at midnight and continuing throughout the day) across much of the Eastern Christian world.  It is often expressed in Greek, but often, too, in whatever the actual local language happens to be.  In Greek, it goes like this: Χριστὸς ἀνέστη! Christos Anesti (in modern Greek […]

  I intended to do more than I have, both here on this blog and personally, with Holy Week or Passion Week — the term passion refers not to emotions in our modern sense, but to Christ’s suffering — which began last weekend on Palm Sunday.  I’ll try to make up for it, at least […]

  Many years ago, not long after our launch, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship began to commission a special article for publication every year at Christmas time and at Easter — or, more accurately in the latter case, to appear annually on Good Friday.  Today is Good Friday, and here is […]

  An article reprint — that is, a chapter from an already-published book — has gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation.  These reprints, which go up on Thursdays, are not to be confused with the articles in Interpreter:  A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, which go up on Fridays.  A […]

  I mentioned this case in my immediately prior post, but I regard it as such a manifest outrage that I’m going to mention it again — and I’m going to encourage you to write your senator and your congressman about it:  “BYU Ph.D. student’s international student visa revoked over apparent fishing license violation: Husband and […]

  A horrific judicial decision has just emerged out of the United Kingdom:  “U.K. Supreme Court issues unanimous ruling on the definition of ‘woman’: The ruling is a significant development in the country’s ongoing debate over transgender issues.”  If this sort of thing goes much further, some people will begin to imagine that reality and […]

  Many, many years ago — probably in 1979, or maybe in 1980 — my wife and I took a trip during Christmas vacation from Cairo, Egypt, to Nairobi, Kenya.  It remains one of my favorite trips of all time.  It was astoundingly cheap — as the result of some sort of special deal for […]

  An avid anonymous participant over at the Peterson Obsession Board who calls himself something like Everybody’s WC  has, for years, specialized in manufacturing fictional stories designed to illustrate my depraved buffoonery — stories that he passes off as real.  These tales often rest upon information supposedly shared with him by (probably fictional) confidential informants […]

  A passage in the stake president’s remarks at our stake conference this morning got me to thinking along the following lines, closely related to but not identical with the line of thought that he was pursuing: I sometimes hear from former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and from grace-alone […]

  The late Bill Hamblin and I — how it still surprises and grieves me, even now, to write that phrase, “the late Bill Hamblin”! — published the article below in the 19 April 2014 issue of the Deseret News.  It’s relevant again, today, as we’re on the eve of Palm Sunday: Historically, Easter has […]

  This article went up earlier today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:  “Spiritual Implications of the Timing of the Death of Jesus Christ,” written by C. Thomas Black: Abstract: Centuries-long speculation continues regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of the Savior. Whether he died sooner than would have been expected, […]

  This previously-published book chapter was posted today, Thursday, on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:  The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs, “She Took the Veil and Covered Herself,” written by T. K. Plant.  For those who may still be confused by what is going on — as at least one unfortunate soul has been — […]

  Our film team — Camrey Bagley Fox, Mark Goodman and his wife, James Jordan and his wife, Russell Richins, John Donovan Wilson, and my wife and I — drove today from Rochester, New York, to Kirtland, Ohio.  We traversed roughly the same land route that would have been covered by the very early Latter-day […]

  We spent all day today filming for our Becoming Brigham documentary series.  It was tough going.  At one point, we checked the temperature and found it to be a bracing 31°F (approximately -0.6°C), with a windchill factor of 9°F (roughly -12.8°C).   The day was blustery, too, and, especially in the morning, fairly serious […]

  My wife and I drove around today to look at the Eastman School of Music, from which two of our friends graduated, and at the University of Rochester and its medical school (where a former next-door neighbor earned his medical degree).  We crossed the Erie Canal several times and went to the former home […]

  It was exhilarating to watch President Russell M. Nelson, well into his hundred-and-first year, announce fifteen new temples this afternoon.  “Some say, ‘I do not like to do it, for we never began to build a temple without the bells of hell beginning to ring.’ I want to hear them ring again.” (Discourses of […]