Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 2

Getting It Wrong. Again.

  A pseudonymous online critic has launched an attack against my supposed view that irreligious people cannot be moral — a view that is obviously false and that I do not hold.  He also suggests that, in my opinion, people only rein in their impulses and restrain their actions because they’re terrified of the wrath […]

“Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration”

  For many years now, my wife and I have belonged to a monthly reading group, the rarely used but genuine formal title of which is The Gadianton Polysophical Marching and Chowder Society.  I led our discussion this past Sunday evening, on Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration, by Robert A. Rees.  My wife and I […]

Thirteen years gone

  Unbelievably, it’s been thirteen years since I received the (to me) completely unexpected and devastating news that my brother, Kenneth Dee Walters — strictly speaking, my half-brother — my only sibling, to whom I was exceptionally close, had died. I was stunned and immobilized.  I still think of him, and I still miss him, every […]

My persecution complex is calling to me

  A number of the addresses given at our just-completed general conference really spoke to me, and I look forward to reading them.  I’ve been thinking of my late friend Ann Madsen (my friend Truman Madsen’s widow), and of something that I posted in remembrance of her when she passed away back in 2022: Once, […]

Bringing conference (and a notable week) to a close

  The story that we told in the Interpreter Foundation’s 2024 dramatic film Six Days in August — and on which we’ll be expanding in our forthcoming series of short Becoming Brigham documentaries — continues to be directly relevant to current events in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as general conference proceeds […]

An “apostolic interregnum,” two plays, and an eatery

  The president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is dead.  The First Presidency of the Church has been dissolved.  As the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, led by President Dallin H. Oaks, has assumed leadership of both the Church and this weekend’s general conference, we are seeing a kind of reenactment […]

Resources and a Review

  A new review essay went up earlier today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:  “Some Good Questions, but Large Inferences from Tidbits,” written by David M. Belnap Review of R. Kent Crookston, Book of Mormon Ecology: What the Text Reveals about the Land and Lives of the Record Keepers (Provo, […]

Why I care about being recognized as Christian

  Today, Thursday, is the Interpreter Foundation’s traditional day for sharing materials online that have previously been published in print as book chapters.  Here is the latest:  Seek Ye Words of Wisdom: “The Reach, the Handclasp, and the Embrace: Gestures of the Gods in the Ancient Egyptian Abydos Formula,” written by David Calabro Part of […]

Faith, Hope, and Love

  “Elder Bednar ministers in Michigan to victims of Sunday’s deadly attack: Apostle leads families at devotional to sing ‘Gethsemane’ twice, says Quorum of the Twelve wants them to feel their love in person” Yesterday, I mentioned here a fundraiser that has been organized by an inspired Latter-day Saint for the widow and the special-needs son […]

“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

  I’m pleased to announce the imminent arrival of Stephen O. Smoot, ed., The Pearl of Great Price: A Study Edition for Latter-day Saints, published by Scripture Central and the Interpreter Foundation.  Rarely, every once in a while and to the shocked surprise of those who have long declared it either dead or near death, […]