Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 267

Yet, again: Has Richard Bushman declared the “dominant narrative” of Church history “false”?

    I first posted this blog entry back on 31 July 2017.  However, since a claim about Professor Richard Bushman and the alleged “falsehood” of “the dominant narrative” of Mormon history has come up yet again, I think I should probably post it yet again:   There is a short YouTube video making the rounds — […]

For Kenneth, Eight Years On

    Eight years ago today, I received the 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 day.  Literally […]

“Natural Theology” and the Natural Sciences: A Prologue

    Over the next few weeks, probably, I’m intending to read gradually through Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), by the astoundingly prolific Anglo-Irish theologian Alister McGrath, who holds Oxford doctorates in both divinity and intellectual history — which he earned after he had first received an Oxford doctorate in molecular […]

House Churches, Restored

    For the first three centuries of the Christian era, until Constantine legalized the faith, persecution subsided, and congregations moved into larger buildings and began to build their own, Christian believers typically met in homes.   Several biblical passages specifically mention Christian meetings in apparently private  houses.  The first “house church” on record, for […]

“Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep”

    Quite a number of years ago, I wrote the article on Allah for the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World.  In 2015, I revised that article for the Encyclopedia‘s second edition.  Among other things, I created a very short sidebar to accompany my main entry.  This is how it reads, including my own translation from the Arabic […]

“Coronavirus: Church is helping Iran, Italy, China and 13 other countries”

    Anybody out there who is still zealously stuffing illustrative examples into his or her Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File is likely to feel himself or herself in proverbial “hog heaven” these days.  And I’m happy to help.  Consider this specimen, for example:   “Coronavirus: Church is helping Iran, Italy, China […]

Some resources for a Sunday at home

    Here are two new items on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   “Teachings and Testimony of the First Vision: A Missionary Receives a Testimony of the First Vision, As told by former Presiding Bishop Merrill J. Bateman, and a few other like experiences: Part 17 of a Series Compiled by Dennis B. Horne”   “Jacob 2: […]

Act Now!

    I was so impressed by these two (somewhat lengthy) articles, and I regard them as so urgently important, that I’ve signed the accompanying petition and I’m citing them here again — and am sending them to my senators, my congressman, my state senator, my state representative, and my governor:   “Coronavirus: Why You […]

Free Market, Latter-day Saint, and Other Reactions to COVID-19

    Tyler Moulton kindly called my attention to the second of the two articles immediately below and then, from it, I found the first of the pair.  They’re longish, but they’re really interesting and thought-provoking and I would love to hear responses to them from readers who know more about medicine and public health […]

“Coronavirus presents millennials with a generational moment”

    I’m shocked and dismayed at the number of people who still don’t appear to be taking COVID-19 seriously.  For those — and especially for the young and, therefore, the immortal among them — I offer some links.  The first, especially, should be rather sobering:   “Modeling study suggests 18 months of COVID-19 social […]