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Believe!

Believe!

Last updated on: February 11, 2025 at 6:10 pm by Dan Peterson

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Believe! 2025-02-11T18:10:06-07:00 Dan Peterson

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St. Paul’s Cathedral on 29 December 1940, during the “Blitz” (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

There’s a new book to which I’m looking forward. Here are a couple of articles about it:

Mariya Manzhos, Deseret News: “Why everyone should be religious, according to Ross Douthat: In his new book, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat offers a roadmap for thinking your way into religious belief”

““Believe,” which is Douthat’s eighth nonfiction book, offers a roadmap for navigating the stumbling blocks along the way to belief. “The universe is not a trick” is a recurring theme in the book. In fact, modern science, rather than discrediting religion, has strengthened its plausibility. The fine-tuning of physical laws, the unresolved nature of consciousness and the persistence of religious experiences all suggest that it’s likely that a divine intelligence underlies reality. “Reason still points godward,” Douthat writes.”

Brad East, Christianity Today, “Ross Douthat Bets on Belief: The Catholic journalist’s new book updates Pascal’s wager for our secular-yet-spooky age.”

“Something is happening. Christianity is having a moment. Our culture is shifting. Whether this change will be minor, temporary, or tectonic, we cannot know. Nor can we know where it will end—or even whether it will be good. . . .

“Time will tell. For now, we should be keen to read the signs of the times. Intellectuals are converting. Atheists are softening. Agnostics are hungry. No longer are believers on the back foot, defending alleged irrationality before a hostile consensus. Crystals and hexes, seances and saints, meditation and manifesting, angels and aliens, goop and God—the whole syncretistic bundle is out in the open now. Religion is afoot in the public square. . . .

“He isn’t demonstrating with certainty that God exists, in the manner of William Lane Craig or Edward Feser. He’s standing alongside readers, directing their gaze to a transcendent explanation for their own observations and experiences. . . .

Second, Douthat’s interreligious generosity is unfeigned; he really would prefer a reader embrace a religion other than Christianity than remain irreligious, agnostic, or noncommittal. And Christian convictions anchor this preference: For Douthat, the truth of Christian revelation is not an all-or-nothing affair. Neither the Shema nor the Nicene Creed requires the total falsehood of every idea, text, and practice of every other spiritual tradition in the world. Much good and many true things may be found there, and adherents are not wrong to prize them.

“Further, Douthat believes in divine providence. A step toward Christ outside the church is nonetheless a step in the right direction. In this he takes Christ at his word: “Everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matt 7:8).”

At least as Brad East describes Douthat’s attitude and project for Christianity Today, they resonate very strongly with me. I, too, believe that there are strong clues out there pointing to a world bigger than that accepted by “physicalism,” but that they are not coercive “proofs.” And I, too, committed and believing Latter-day Saint though I am, am happy to see people accept Christianity even if they can’t make their way the entire distance toward the Restoration, and to see them become theists of one stripe or another if they’re unable to reach Christianity. My brief discussion, in my recent Interpreter “Introduction,” of C. S. Lewis’s story of Emeth in The Last Battle is very much to the point here.

The experience of the Eight Witnesses as re-created for the documentary “Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon,” in a still photograph by James Jordan. I frankly confess that I was disappointed, at first, by the very mundane appearance of this scene. But then I realized that my reaction was irrational. That the experience of the Eight Witnesses with the plates of the Book of Mormon was mundane, prosaic, matter of fact, is precisely the POINT of their experience and what gives their account its remarkable evidentiary power.

Just in time for this particular phase of the 2025 Come, Follow Me curriculum: “Episode 22: What Else did the Witnesses See?”

Witnesses of the Book of Mormon—Insights Episode 22: While trying to dismiss claims that the witnesses interacted with the gold plates, critics often gloss over—or even completely ignore—the fact that many of the witnesses also interacted with other ancient objects. What were these objects? This is Episode 22 of a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. . . . These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. This week we feature Daniel C. Peterson, President of the Interpreter Foundation and Executive Producer of Witnesses. For more information, go to https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org/. Learn about the documentary movie Undaunted—Witnesses of the Book of Mormon at https://witnessesundaunted.com/.

And don’t forget that you can now watch Undaunted for free — and that (for the rest of February) you can also watch Witnesses itself at no charge. Go to The Witnesses Initiative for the relevant links.

Also apropos: Come, Follow Me — D&C Study and Teaching Helps (2025): Doctrine and Covenants 12–17; Joseph Smith—History 1:66–75: February 17–23: “Upon You My Fellow Servants”

Jonn Claybaugh supplies yet another of his helpful and concise notes on a reading assignment for the Come, Follow Me curriculum.

The Supreme Court Building in Washington DC. Will Mr. Huntsman’s complaint be heard here? Probably not. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

You may have heard of the recent unanimous ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit regarding James Huntsman’s lawsuit over back tithing against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (The Ninth Circuit, headquartered in San Francisco, is commonly reckoned the most liberal appeals court in the United States.) Perhaps you’re not entirely clear about the issues that were involved, nor about what the court’s ruling portends. This lucid article by a Latter-day Saint law professor about the judges’ reasoning in the case may be helpful to you: James Huntsman v. the Church: The End(?)

You may have seen one or more reports of this story: “United Airlines flight from SFO to Chicago diverts to Denver for disruptive passenger” Most accounts, however, failed to include a curious detail about it: “”Where are the Mormons?!” United Airlines Flight Diverts to Denver after Man “Hunts” for LDS Passengers Onboard” There is, by the way, currently no reason to suspect that the disruptive passenger involved was James Huntsman. Mr. Huntsman probably flies by private jet, anyway.

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