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Voices for dignity, respect, truth, happiness, and Jesus

Voices for dignity, respect, truth, happiness, and Jesus

Last updated on: September 5, 2025 at 5:07 pm by Dan Peterson

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Voices for dignity, respect, truth, happiness, and Jesus 2025-09-05T17:07:20-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The newly organized First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2018: President Russell M. Nelson, center; first counselor, President Dallin H. Oaks, left; second counselor, President Henry B. Eyring, right.

If all goes according to current expectation, he will celebrate his 101st birthday next week and, thereby, enter his 102nd year on earth. And he’s just published a short and simple article in Time Magazine: “Russell M. Nelson: We All Deserve Dignity and Respect.” Some, I have little doubt, will mock its simplicity. But that won’t detract from the power of what he has to say. I’m reminded of words that I’ve heard attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “Es ärgert die Menschen, daß die Wahrheit so einfach ist.” (“It irritates people that the truth is so simple.”)

An icon of the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus located in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

This book review appeared today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “The Islamic Jesus,” written by Dennis Newton

Review of Mustafa Akyol, The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017). 288 pp., $17.99 (paperback).

Abstract: In his book, The Islamic Jesus*, Muslim author Mustafa Akyol paints a portrait of the Qur’an’s Isa (Jesus) and attempts to locate this picture within the landscape of Judeo-Christian biblical scholarship. He is excited to find Islamic Jesus parallels within the Gospels, the Epistle of James, and early non-canonical Christian writings such as the Didache and the Gospel of Thomas. Akyol follows the path of these discoveries to so-called “Jewish Christianity” and postulates that remnants of this Christian movement might have been active in seventh-century Arabia. Ultimately, he writes to encourage Muslims to embrace Jesus as a focal point of much-needed reform within the Islamic world. In my review, I highlight three major themes in Akyol’s book. Each theme represents a topic over which I believe Latter-day Saints can ally with our Muslim neighbors theologically or at least glean helpful learnings from Akyol’s journey of discovery.*

And yesterday — sorry, but I fell a bit behind yesterday — saw the posting of this “reprint” from Seek Ye Words of Wisdom: “Eve’s Role as a “Help” (‘ezer) Revisited,” written by Donald W. Parry:

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Seek Ye Words of Wisdom: Studies of the Book of Mormon, Bible, and Temple in Honor of Stephen D. Ricks, edited by Donald W. Parry, Gaye Strathearn, and Shon D. Hopkin. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/seek-ye-words-of-wisdom/.

“Twice the garden of Eden narrative (see Gen. 2:18, 20) attests the Hebrew ‘ezer to refer to Eve: “The Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone; I will make him an help [ezer] meet for him” (Gen. 2:18); about sixty words later the text states, “But for Adam there was not found a help [‘ezer] meet for him” (Gen. 2:20). Scholarly opinion varies widely regarding the meaning of ‘ezer and Eve’s status in the companionship with Adam. Major views range from older hierarchical models to more recently articulated egalitarian declarations.”

I want to stress again that the first article above appeared today (Friday), while the second article appeared yesterday (Thursday). The first is an original article, while the second is a republication. They are not the same article, nor even the same kind of article. Further, it should be noted that yesterday is a distinct day from today, just as Thursday is a different day than Friday.

I want to make such distinctions as clear as possible so as to avoid repeating an incident from two or three years ago: A critic over at the Peterson Obsession Board, having become disoriented, grew indignant over what he mistakenly thought was a deceptive attempt, on our part, to substitute reprinted old content for new content and, thus, to defraud our audience. Or something like that.

Preparing to film the experience of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon
(A 2019 still photograph by James Jordan taken on the set of the Interpreter Foundation’s 2021 theatrical film “Witnesses.”)

Once again, I remind all decent people who may be in or near the Pacific Northwest a week from today — on the evening of Friday, 12 September 2025 — that they should steer well clear of the chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that is located at 4195 Southwest 99th Avenue in Beaverton, Oregon, that evening between approximately 7:00 PM and 8:30 PM. Indeed, it might be prudent to avoid Oregon’s Washington County altogether– from late afternoon until midnight — just to be on the safe side. I will be speaking there during that time, on the subject of the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon.

Albrecht Dürer’s 1508 sketch of “Praying Hands.”
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Finally, as I am wont to do, I close with some materials garnered from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™:

I begin with an article that was written by Stephen Cranney and Samuel Wilkinson for the Deseret News: “Happiness levels are higher for those remaining active in their faith, according to national Pew data: The claim that leaving religion behind leads to greater happiness is popular, but that narrative is not consistent with what the best national data tells us.”

The next three items are thematically related. The third of them is, perhaps, the most obviously a product of the Hitchens File:

And, in the meantime, here’s something else that I found in the Hitchens File: “Service Missionaries Lead Photo Archiving Project at Morehouse College in Atlanta: Service missionaries digitize approximately 400 pictures in the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel”

Posted from Seaside, Oregon

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