I have recently noticed on Twitter,the hashtag #DezNat pushing back against apostates, anti-mormons, and liberal Mormons, and whatever apostasy they were encouraging. Apparently, there is a lot more apostasy than I realized at BYU, and places like the Maxwell Institute in particular. Many of them, the liberal varieties especially, are the epitome of niceness at its most venomous and cruel nadir.  (#DezNat is short for Deseret Nation)

On one hand, I want to encourage those who are trying to defend the church, when almost no one else is doing it in social media. We have been commanded to do this.

But on the other, I want to give a warning. (more…)

If you act on something because you believe it’s true (even though you don’t know that it’s true), that is faith.

If you act on something because you know that it’s true, then that is not faith, because you know.
(more…)

Pistols at dawn, cannons at midnight, to the death, to the pain, etc.
We have a long, if dubious, history of dueling and sorting things out physically. (more…)

The Boy Scouts of America have mortgaged Philmont.

.

Some reflections on Paul:

Paganism, or the Law, condemned weakness and praised strength.

The False Christ of Sin praises weakness and condemns strength.

The True Christ makes weak things strong.

The old virtue takes our nature as a given and commands us to do the best we can with it.

The vice tells us to deny our awareness that we are broken and pretend that our crookedness is straight.

The new virtue makes us something better than we are.

The stern  men of old say Know Your Place

The mocking devil says You are OK Just the Way You Are

Our Christ says Become as Gods and Angels

And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.

(more…)

Once a King set out to build a cathedral.  A famous old architect oversaw the construction of a grand edifice of arches and domes in a sound baroque style.  In a master stroke, the architect found a source of very light stone that would weather well for the main construction, but a nearly black stone with a different texture for accents and structural elements.  Even when the building was going up, any one could see how spectacular and lovely the final result would be.

The King and the architect consulted together and employed the most skilled craftsmen to build.

When the work was nearly finished, the king and the architect were taking a tour and noticed one lone gargoyle sticking out sideways from the dome, in a pink stone.

(more…)

(This prognostication is not proponed as prophesy, just “Yankee guessing,” i.e., “rampant speculation.”)

At the last General Conference, October 2019, President Nelson teased some big changes for the coming Conference of April 2020.  I took it to mean both in the format of General Conference, and more policy and program changes in the church.

Some ideas have popped into my head. I suppose they are more likely to be products of a vivid imagination, or wishful thinking, than anything divinely inspired.
(more…)