The Federal Republic of Germany turns eighteen today — at least in its reunified form. On October 3, 1990 the official Reunification of a country divided for 45 years by what seemed an insurmountable geopolitical estrangement took place in Berlin, the besieged city at the very heart of the Cold War. The scene played out on the steps of the famous Reichstag building upon which the words in the title of this post are inscribed just below the pediment: DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE — “To the German people”. (more…)

Randomly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the word “Mormon” on the page of a book a commuter was reading in the subway train on my way to work. (It must be some kind of Mormon radar — I’ve this kind of experience many times before.) Although I don’t make a habit of reading over other people’s shoulders while commuting, I glanced up from my own book to take a closer look and caught the following sentence, which, likely due to its direct relevance to me and its shocking content, I was able to memorize immediately before he turned the page: (more…)

The Church’s opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment (the ERA) in the 1970s and early 1980s periodically comes up in discussions of the Church’s involvement in political or social issues. For those of us who were in pre-school in 1980, the substantial paper insert contained in the March 1980 issue of the Ensign (posted below) is instructive about this episode in the history of the Church. I stumbled upon it while browsing through old Ensigns I came across at my ward building a couple of weeks ago and figure that many members have never seen it even though they might occasionally be confronted with questions about the Church’s involvement in opposing the ERA. (more…)

From my observations, social gatherings in the professional world frequently — usually — consist of “drinks” after work at a local bar or pub. It is interesting to note that the modern interpretation of the Word of Wisdom prohibits Latter-day Saints from partaking of the precise substances that constitute the focus of such social gatherings in today’s society: alcohol, tobacco, and coffee/tea. In fact, people can often be observed using all three at such occasions and, at least in my observation, these substances themselves seem to be the central attraction of such social gatherings. (more…)

Two ranches are featured in today’s U.S. headlines: (more…)

Last month a potentially controversial essay appeared in Germany’s Die Welt newspaper that is both substantively interesting in its own right and informative about historians’ interpretation of facts and the historical record more generally. (more…)

Discussing loss of faith always proves to be controversial. Not only brazen statements about loss of faith, as we have seen recently, meet with no small degree of umbrage, but also much more muted attempts to explore the topic seem to provoke indignation even as to terminology used. (more…)

The assertion has been made in hundreds of media articles, blog posts, and comments to both that there was no core to Mitt Romney as a presidential candidate — that he seemed phony, plastic, robotic, and of course, that he seemed to have flip-flopped on issues. (more…)

I still haven’t had the chance to see the new Beowulf but advertisements for the film and anticipation of seeing it eventually prompted me to use my daily commute to re-read the epic poem a couple of months ago. It was very rewarding. (more…)

john f. is a lawyer with an interest in literature, foreign languages, history, theory, and comparative religion. He has been blogging with his brother Jordan F. at a bird’s eye view since July of 2004 and has been commenting at By Common Consent for even longer. In ancient Bloggernacle history they were once described as “the most dangerous minds on the net” although they never quite figured out what this meant except they are pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment.
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The anniversary of Roe v. Wade today falls within an election season that could conceivably threaten a fissure in the coalition that the Church seems to have formed in recent decades with Evangelical Christians on certain social issues, including abortion. Specifically, the vocal opposition of many Evangelical Christians to Mormonism and the faith of its adherents has found new outlets in the mainstream media because their view of Mormonism and its adherents now has some relevance on the national political stage as a result of Mitt Romney’s candidacy for the presidency. The increased intensity of Evangelical denunciations of Mormons has also given opportunity to reflect on the political positions of Evangelical Christians (and other creedal Christians) and, more specifically, why they take those positions. (more…)