Year: 2025

  • CFM 1/13-1/19: Poetry for “I Saw a Pillar of Light”

    The First Vision is clearly one of the major images or symbols of the restoration. We reference the image of a pillar of light regularly in our literature, although I sometimes think that we don’t use the image as broadly as we might—the pipe-like image of delivering revelation, the brightness in the midst of darkness,…

  • OT Epistemology

    Reading Stephen’s Old Testament posts I found them interesting but tended to come back to how to think about certainty.  I started writing a comment but once I hit 500 words I figured it made more sense to just write a separate post. Start with a general observation: the claim “in the field of x,…

  • Spiritually Moving Great Art, Part II

    Spiritually Moving Great Art, Part II

    A few years ago I wrote a post on spiritually moving great art. Since then I have kept a Google Doc where I keep copies of good art that I find, so I thought it was time for a part II. Don’t worry, this isn’t another excuse to be a shill for the glorious AI…

  • OT Historicity 4: “Standard Views”

    Before I move on, I’m feeling like we’re getting a little confused over a few issues. 1) Claiming that the more “standard views” of the books I’ve mentioned are somehow novel or unsupported. 2) That I’m somehow going out on a limb by presenting such views as “pretty standard.” 3) That I’m doing something edgy…

  • Wrestling with the Restoration: a Review

    I highly recommend Wrestling with the Restoration: Why This Church Matters, by Steven C. Harper, for any member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is, at its heart, apologetics done well. In other words, it is a response to critics of the Church on a series of historic and praxis concerns.…