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The Miracle That Needs Explaining: Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the Burden of Divine Translation
An Essay in Historical and Literary Criticism I. The Room With No Curtain There was no curtain. That single fact, so easily lost in two centuries of argument, is where any serious inquiry into the Book of Mormon must begin. In the spring of 1829, in a farmhouse in Fayette, New York, a twenty-three-year-old man…
HOW THE BOOK OF MORMON WAS COMPOSED: A Summary and Analysis of Mormon Stories Episode 1615
Claude AI summary of Mormon Stories podcast “How the Book of Mormon was Composed” Ep. 1615 Source Program: Mormon Stories Podcast, Episode 1615 — “How the Book of Mormon was Composed,” installment ten of the LDS Discussions series. Participants: John Dehlin (host); Mike of LDS Discussions (guest); Douglas Stilgoe, known online as “Nemo the Mormon”…
Did Jesus Repent of a Slur? A Biblical Rebuttal of the Claim That Christ Was Morally Wrong in Matthew 15:26
When exegesis is not your forté. A sermon circulating in Presbyterian circles argues that Jesus committed an ethnic slur in Matthew 15:26, was corrected by the Canaanite woman, and repented by widening his mission — all on the premise that being wrong is not the same as being sinful. This essay dismantles that argument on…
House to House: The Half of Acts 2:46 We Quietly Stopped Obeying
A Theological and Practical Examination of Koinonia in the Modern Church Introduction: Eleven Minutes Stand in the back of almost any evangelical church in America on a Sunday morning and time the emptying of the sanctuary. In most congregations it takes about eleven minutes. The benediction is pronounced, the instrumentalists play something warm and unhurried,…
Flock Cameras and the Quiet Expansion of Mass Surveillance
Flock cameras are motion-activated license plate readers that capture images of passing vehicles, use software to read the plates and identify vehicle characteristics, and then upload the data to a cloud platform for authorized users to search or receive alerts. They are not traditional continuous-video cameras, though they do capture every vehicle that passes their…
The Exit Doors: What the Ex-Member Movements of Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Scientology Reveal About High-Control Religion
“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” — 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV) Introduction: What the Exit Doors Reveal Every religious movement loses members….
The LDS Word of Wisdom: A Revelation Examined from a Traditional Christian Perspective
The Revelation That Wasn’t a Commandment: How a Cup of Coffee Came to Guard the Gates of Mormon Heaven “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” —…
Render Unto Whom? Tithing, Trust, and the $300-Billion Question in Latter-day Saint Stewardship
LDS Vs Traditional Christianity – A study in comparative theology ❦ ❧ ❦ Introduction: A Tenth, a Temple, and a Trillion Dollars Few subjects reveal the distance between traditional Christianity and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as sharply as the doctrine of tithing. On the surface, the two traditions appear to agree:…
The Silence of Infinite Spaces: The Vast Universe, the Infinite God, and the Limits of Human Knowing
A Philosophical and Theological Essay ❦ ❖ ❦ I. The Terror and the Question More than three centuries ago, the mathematician and Christian apologist Blaise Pascal set down a confession that has haunted every thoughtful reader since: the eternal silence of the infinite spaces frightened him. He was not a man given to fright. He…
Reading the Rocks, Reading the Heavens: The Case for a Young Earth and the Logic of a Creator
The Argument for God That Even Skeptics Take Seriously ❧ ————— ❧ ————— ❧ Introduction: A Question Written in Stone Stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon at first light, and you are looking at a question rather than merely a landscape. A mile of stratified rock falls away beneath your feet — sandstone,…