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“Reclaiming Jefferson’s University”

“Reclaiming Jefferson’s University”

Last updated on: March 28, 2025 at 4:18 am by Dan Peterson

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“Reclaiming Jefferson’s University” 2025-03-28T04:18:32-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The Archbishop of Canterbury conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon Margaret Barker in 2008. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image of Canterbury Cathedral in the 1890s)

This Thursday Interpreter Foundation chapter reprint — not to be confused, although some folks really seem to enjoy being confused on the subject, with a Friday journal article — went up on, well, Thursday: “The Lead Books,” written by Margaret Barker, from The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs:

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs, edited by Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/the-temple-plates-patterns-patriarchs/. For video and audio recording of this conference talk, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/conferences/2022-temple-on-mount-zion-conference/videos/barker/.

“In 2011 The Jewish Chronicle announced that some metal books had been found in Jordan, together with other artifacts. Various stories were told as to how they had been found, where they had been found, and when. Above all, who owned them. At first they were welcomed as ancient objects, then they were dismissed as fakes. Other items began to appear, which were obviously fakes, manufactured for the tourist market.”

A sunset near Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Yesterday, we had a really delicious (and definitely fresh) lunch at Merriman’s, in Waimea. We’ve eaten there before, including once with a large group of our neighbors and friends from Utah, and the excellence of the food wasn’t a surprise. Today, we spent the morning off of the Kohala Coast aboard a large catamaran. A substantial portion of that time was spent snorkeling and, both sailing out to the snorkeling area and sailing back, we watched Hawaiian spinner dolphins.

But there is sadness today, as well. BYU’s run in “March Madness” came to an end against Alabama. I wasn’t altogether surprised but, still, I would like it to have gone on longer. However, the blow that really hurts is the decision by the leaders of the Sundance Film Festival to take it over to Boulder, Colorado, beginning in 2027. I haven’t always been pleased by what has been screened there — to the extent that I’ve followed it — and I’m far from an uncritical fan of Hollywood, but, for forty years, Sundance has been not only an economic boon but a cultural flagship for my adopted home state. I’m deeply sorry to see it go.

When we finished with our time offshore at about noon, we drove a few blocks uphill to the site of the Kona Hawaii Temple, which is said to be “closed for renovation.” Now that’s an understatement: It’s gone. We’ve attended sessions in that temple and Sunday services in the adjacent chapel. What is visible on the temple site right now is part of the metal frame of the new temple that will replace the one with which we were familiar. That’s it. The new temple will look much like the previous one, but will be 2000-3000 square feet larger. I have no idea why it was deemed necessary to reconstruct it essentially from scratch.

After sunset — life is one ordeal after another, ain’t it? — we went snorkeling again, somewhere offshore north of Kona International Airport. We spent our time floating above giant manta rays. The people running the tour set up lights to attract plankton, which in turn attracted hungry mantas. I’ve been swimming with mantas before (or, more accurately, trying to stay as nearly motionless as I could in the water with mantas) but these were significantly larger. They look like aliens, or like some sort of fighter spacecraft from a science fiction movie. Multiple times, I thought that they were going to brush against me or even collide with me but, somehow, they never quite did. It was an otherworldly evening.

The Utah State Capitol Building (Wikimedia Commons pubic domain image)

I strongly support this bill in the Utah State Senate, crafted and introduced by my friend John Johnson: “Reclaiming Jefferson’s University: Academic Freedom, Civic Renewal, and the Utah Model — Thomas Jefferson envisioned education as essential for liberty, founding the University of Virginia to cultivate an informed citizenry capable of self-governance. However, modern universities have veered from this mission, resulting in widespread civic illiteracy. Utah’s Senate Bill 334 aims to restore civic education and philosophical inquiry to higher education, ensuring students engage with foundational texts and ideas.”

Certain sectors of science may be taking a very interesting turn these days. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

With all of the turbulence in the news that, for some inscrutable reason, has been erupting virtually everywhere over the past three months — from the Gulf of Australia (in the middle of which I’m currently typing) all the way to Russia’s breakaway province of Ukraine and our foes in Denmark, from Central Command to the editorial offices of The Atlantic, from Marjorie Taylor Greeneland to our once and future American canal in Panama, from the enemy regime in Ottawa to the Gulf of America — it’s easy to overlook little stories like this one that can bring a welcome ray of hope into our otherwise troubled lives:

The Panama City Panama Temple (LDS.org). I’ve never been through the Panama Canal, nor even to Panama. But I’m told that the temple is clearly visible from cruise ships on the Canal.

This may seem rather perfunctory, but it’s not. I close with four items taken directly from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™. Even when we lack the time to lament such atrocities appropriately and to express our indignation against them properly, it’s important to continue to document the relentless parade of horrors that are imposed upon innocent, long-suffering humanity by theists and theism:

Posted from the Kohala Coast, the Island of Hawaiʻi, Hawaiʻi

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