Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 95

Am I a stone, and not a sheep?

    “The Goodness of the Cross and Good Friday: Lessons from Bavaria,” written by John W. Welch Abstract: It is natural to wonder how the day on which Jesus was crucified could come to be known as Good Friday. In this exploration of the topic, John Welch examines the many events which occurred on that […]

Setting the imagination free

    Just in from a bit of shoveling snow at my father-in-law’s place across the street from the parking lot of the Bountiful Utah Temple.  It is a beautiful, clean, clear, sunny day.  Spring may actually, finally, be on its way.   A lecture went up fairly late yesterday on the website of the […]

“That the church may stand independent”

    There has been huge indignation in some circles — including, sadly, among some active and professing Latter-day Saints — over the revelation that, under the aegis of a group called Ensign Peak Advisors, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has built up a reserve investment fund (or a “rainy-day fund”) of […]

Written from the eye of the storm

    Since their arrival on Saturday night from the eastern United States, one of my granddaughters and her Dad have been staying with us for the week.  At six years of age, she is something of a hurricane; we’ve already gone through all of the craft projects that we had lined up for her […]

“Never Delay a Prompting”

    It was, in my judgment, a wonderful General Conference; I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I’m thrilled at the announcement of fifteen new temples — some of them in places where I have friends with whom I’ve already communicated about the news.  (And in Jakarta, Indonesia!)  Now, too, we have an Easter video from […]

On Being “Perfect” (Part One)

    [Prefatory clarification:  The title of this blog entry notwithstanding, it doesn’t actually constitute the first installment of my autobiographical memoirs.]   The fifth chapter of the gospel of Matthew closes with one of the most daunting challenges in all of scripture:  “Be ye therefore perfect,” says the Savior at Matthew 5:48, “even as […]

Easter Week and a Distant Beginning

    I’ve thoroughly enjoyed General Conference thus far.  The talks have been uniformly excellent, although I’m sad to hear that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland is home sick with COVID and also to realize, in that light, that he won’t be speaking this weekend.  He is always a favorite, and not merely with me. I […]

“How Things Look from Here”

    A new article went up today at noon in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:  “How Things Look from Here,” written (and, by the way, audio-recorded by) Daniel C. Peterson Abstract: Do defenders of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ see themselves as fighting a desperate rearguard battle against the evidence, hoping […]

“A very bright, keen, designing lot of fellows”?

    I frequently read online comments, especially from former believers, claiming that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a corporation that cares only for its own interests and doesn’t care about the needs of its members. I must admit that I find such remarks baffling.  Weird, even. It’s true, of course, […]

“Frankenstein Mathematics” and the Unimaginable

    I’ve begun to read Chris Ferrie and Geraint F. Lewis, Where Did the Universe Come From?  And Other Cosmic Questions: Our Universe, from the Quantum to the Cosmos (Naperville IL: Sourcebooks, 2021) — a relatively brief book with a very long title.  Chris Ferrie is a physicist and an associate professor of quantum […]