Equipping Saints • Engaging Culture • Examining Claims
The Convenient Civilization: Why the Jaredites Fit Joseph Smith’s World, Not 2200 BC’s Introduction: A Battlefield with No Bodies Imagine a battlefield so vast, so saturated with carnage, that nearly two million people are said to have been slain by the sword—and yet not one archaeologist has ever identified a single bone, weapon, or site…
Nepotism, Family Networks, and the Question of Divine Calling in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints A Theological and Historical Analysis Introduction: The Family at the Top of the Kingdom Imagine attending a large corporate shareholder meeting, only to discover that nearly every seat at the executive table is occupied by a member…
Going Global While Growing Distant: The LDS Church’s Shifting Charitable Focus Introduction: The Question Jesus Asked First A lawyer once asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” It was a reasonable question, and Jesus answered it with a story about a man who crossed racial, religious, and social barriers to help a stranger left bleeding…
Image: An AI-generated image imagines the LDS theology of premortal existence, where spirits before birth were in the presence of God, where they developed character, exercised agency, and prepared for mortality. A Theological Essay from a Traditional Christian Perspective Introduction: A Different Starting Point When Elder Ronald M. Barcellos addressed BYU–Hawaii students in February 2026,…
Overview and Purpose Published in 2020 by Deseret Book, 175 Temple Symbols and Their Meanings is a 310-page reference guide by Donald W. Parry, a professor of the Hebrew Bible at Brigham Young University and a contributor to the Dead Sea Scrolls translation project. The book draws on President Russell M. Nelson’s teaching that “each temple is…
A Shockwave Through the Hierarchy On August 8, 2017, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a brief, carefully worded statement: James J. Hamula had been “released as a General Authority Seventy… following church disciplinary action by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.” That sentence — understated and clinical —…
Brigham Young’s Race Theology and the Murder of a Black Mormon Prologue: A Body on the Hill It was the afternoon of December 11, 1866, and a group of boys playing on the rocky bench above Salt Lake City stumbled upon something that would haunt Utah’s history for more than a century and a half….
The Shelf: When Faith Meets Unanswered Questions For many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), faith is a carefully constructed edifice. Beliefs are meticulously placed upon a mental shelf, each one bolstering the others. But what happens when troubling questions begin to accumulate, threatening the stability of the entire…
ANCHORED: Hope That Holds Hebrews 6:9–20 ESV The anchor is well documented as an early Christian symbol in the Roman catacombs, especially in tomb inscriptions and grave markings from the late 1st through 4th centuries AD. The strongest published summaries specifically note examples from the cemeteries of St. Priscilla, St. Domitilla, and St. Callixtus, with…
On Sunday, March 8, Pastor Joey Sampaga delivered a message from Luke 11:29–36, building on the previous week’s warning about the danger of an outwardly cleaned but spiritually empty heart. Jesus calls the generation “evil” for demanding signs despite witnessing His miracles. He declares the only sign they will receive is the sign of Jonah—His…