Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 52

We did have a nice celebration

  This time, I think that I’ll lead off with a few items that I’ve retrieved from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™.  Sometimes, it’s just plain advisable to get the painful and the bitter out of the way first: “Helping Premature Babies Survive in South Africa: “This is faith in action […]

From Rome’s Temple Square

  These new articles went up yesterday on the Interpreter Foundation website.  My apologies for being late in calling attention to them; the eight-hour time difference between Rome and home throws me off my routine in some ways: “The Seven Women Seeking the Bridegroom: Isaiah 4:1 as Transition Point in a Redemption Allegory,” written by […]

The Scarlet and the Black and the Temple

  I love Rome.  And, perhaps rather curiously, it is the Christian heritage of “the eternal city” that fascinates me even more than its fascinating classical history.  Here are a trio of past columns that I wrote about Rome for the Deseret News: “Why was Peter in Rome?” (https://www.deseret.com/2014/6/12/205...) “There is much of Christian history, […]

How beautiful are the waters of Muhazi Lake!

  First of all, I share with you some images (and their captions) that have been sent to me by Jeff Bradshaw (under the fitting title of “Detective Work at Historic Sites”) from Rwanda, where he and others are gathering additional material for the Interpreter Foundation’s Not by Bread Alone film project (on which, see […]

“Even some colors I’d never seen before”

  We walked this morning over to Ravenna’s octagonal “Arian Baptistry,” which was erected by the Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great around the end of the fifth century AD or the beginning of the sixth century, roughly contemporary with the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo (which we visited yesterday).  The mosaic illustrations on the interior […]

“God’s holy fire”

  I recently came across a story that I had heard before about the late Queen Elizabeth II.  I heard it once when she was still alive, and then again during the period of mourning shortly after her death.  I think that it’s really funny, so I’m sharing it here just in case somebody reading […]

A glorious outpost of Byzantium in the West

  The other day, while we were driving about in Virginia, we had some very good views of a full or nearly full moon.  And they reminded me of a poetic bit of science writing that I had recently re-encountered, from .Dava Sobel, The Planets (New York and London: Penguin Books, 2006).  Ms. Sobel begins […]

“Six Days in August” has its gala European premiere!

  Well, our new Interpreter Foundation theatrical film, Six Days in August, just had its first European screening.  My wife and I watched it on my computer here in our hotel room.  It’s the second time that we’ve seen the whole movie; we saw it the first time, in a slightly different (and very slightly […]

Some Saints you may still not have met

  I’m falling behind on the photographs that Jeff Bradshaw, one of the Interpreter Foundation’s vice presidents, has been sending to me.  (He is over in Africa, working on the Interpreter Foundation’s Not by Bread Alone film project.)  Here, for example, are some photos that arrived in my inbox fully a week ago under the […]

A witness at 1500 miles

  This week, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship offers the perspective of a non-Latter-day Saint looking in:  “The Eucharist of the Latter-day Saints: The Sacrament in the Broader Christian Context,” written by Robin Douglas Abstract: This paper views the sacrament prayers and rituals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day […]