Equipping Saints • Engaging Culture • Examining Claims
A Theological Essay from a Traditional Christian Perspective Introduction: A Different Starting Point When Elder Ronald M. Barcellos rose to address a gathering of Latter-day Saint students, he opened with a premise that most Christians in the room would have found jarring — had they been there. With warm pastoral affection and the cadence of…
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…
Illustration: Faith meets the fossil record. This Google Gemini AI illustration captures the introduction to the blog post, highlighting the irony of a modern religious monument standing beside a scientifically verifiable prehistoric excavation site. A Scholarly Examination of Book of Mormon Archaeology in Light of Current Evidence “Biblical archaeologists can barely keep pace with the…
In the power vacuum following Joseph Smith’s murder in June 1844, a little-known convert named James Jesse Strang made an audacious play for control of the Latter-day Saint movement. Producing a letter he claimed Smith had written before his death — naming Strang as successor — he launched one of the most brazen religious confidence…
Photo: From the diary of James Strang (see attached PDF). Via Archive.org. Publisher: Michigan State University Press. Copyright review: Public domain according to HathiTrust rights database. The Mormon King Nobody Remembers: James Jesse Strang and His Island Empire of Fraud The Blood of a Prophet and the Ambitions of a Pretender In the spring of…
Part 1… Right-click and select “Save As” to download the MP3 audio file of Are-Mormons-Christian-Part-1. Part 2… Right-click and select “Save As” to download the MP3 audio file of Are-Mormons-Christian-Part-2. Part 3… Right-click and select “Save As” to download the MP3 audio file of Are Mormons Christian Part 3.
Photo: When Quentin L. Cook told Brigham Young University students to “Choose truth when deception is easy,” ChatGPT heard him loud and clear—then chose neon when beige was easy. No truths were altered in the making of this image… just the color palette. 🌈 On March 3, 2026, Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum…