By Living Waters

Britain360.co.uk hosts a stunning 360 of Palace Green (hosting the cathedral, castle, departments of theology, history and law, and a library), as well as a host of other 360 scenes. Enjoy!

A fascinating and troubling series on the struggles faced by former Muslims in the UK. I suggest we pray for our Christian brethren facing these trials…and that we seek to find tangible ways to serve them.

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I’m fast approaching 20 years since I resigned my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly known as Mormonism). It remains an area of great interest to me, of course. I regularly read books and articles by and about Mormon(i)s(m). I find it somewhat predictable that when a Mormon writes about why people leave the Church, the options are limited. In a recent article (17 September 2007), Kevin Whitaker writes the following:

For various reasons, there are a number of people leaving the LDS church: Some are excommunicated. Some are offended by a local leader. Some have simply lost faith.

In fairness, Whitaker then states that the “reasons are quite numerous.” Even so, he limited the specific reasons in a way that seems to betray a particular bias. No big deal; we all have our biases, many of which we do not see. (more…)

While at the British New Testament Conference I participated in a number of seminars focused on interpreting the New Testament in light of the literature of Second Temple Judaism. One presentation discussed positive and negative forms of “the golden rule”: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It was noted that most often the rule appears in a negative form: don’t to to others what you would not like them to do to you.

Some have proposed that the negative form is more limited since it merely discourages doing harm to others rather than doing service for them. As such, the negative version may lend itself to a more restrictive application (e.g., “hey, I didn’t hurt anyone”). Others have proposed that the two forms imply each other. I could see the positive formulation implying the negative, though the obverse is more difficult to manage (it seems to me). (more…)

I remember my own investigations when coming out of Mormonism (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) in the late-80s. One particularly revealing area was that of The Book of Abraham, a book nestled within The Pearl of Great Price, one of the books of Mormon scripture (others being the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants). Recently a video I once saw was brought to my attention. I recommend watching it, if you’re at all interested in the many discussions surrounding Mormonism.