National Review carries today a fascinating interview of the authors of Washington’s God, a book that emphasizes our first president’s religiosity.
Personally, I’m skeptical of the new revisionist histories that tend to see our Founding Fathers as a bunch of Enlightenment-loving near-atheists. Some recent historians, when discussing Washington’s religiosity, tend to describe him as a “Deist.” The Novaks take on this claim with the following comment:
The LA Times’ story on DNA research undermining the Book of Mormon is getting fairly big play nationwide. In fact, the play is big enough that the Church responded on its web site to the story.
For people who have been following this issue, there is little new going on. The Church web sites has a variety of links that respond to the DNA issue to my satisfaction, including one by the venerable Jeff Lindsay of M* fame. Can I just emphasize once again that for people who have actually read the Book of Mormon the DNA controversy is a non-issue? For those who have not read the book, my suggestion is, read it!
Update: Right Side Redux, a blog I had never heard of, has a thorough and very interesting look at this issue here.
The connection is hardly a secret. Many websites cover this (some of them are rather hostile towards the church, but others are friendly or neutral – the best one is here.)
But for those who came in late, I’ll cover the basics and then move into deeper territory afterwards.
Ann Althouse, a respected legal mind in the greater blogosphere, and a self-described moderate, says her “sad” experience is that people on the right generally try to give her positive reinforcement while people on the left spending their time snarking at her. I’m not a moderate, but I would tend to agree, although I would also point out that there are a huge number of “lefty” Latter-day Saints who do try to engage in civil discourse. I’m honestly interested in the experiences of those in the bloggernacle. Do you agree with Althouse’s take?
M* is pleased to announce that another blogger has joined our team. Jeff Lindsay may be one of the best-known members of the bloggernacle. He was a pioneer in using the internet for apologetics through his page www.jefflindsay.com. His blog Mormanity is also well-known. Just for fun, check out the Wikipedia page on him.