A new anti-Mormon DVD is supposed to be distributed tomorrow, and FAIR (The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research) has a response up already. From the FAIR wiki site:

On 25 March 2007, a ninety-minute video entitled Search for the Truth was distributed to thousands of homes across the United States. The video has excellent production values but, unfortunately, its contents are not of a similar quality.

Though it purports to be an objective Christian evaluation of the teachings, history, and beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it contains much that is inaccurate and very little that is balanced. Rather than focus on what they believe, the video’s producers have taken it upon themselves to describe and interpret LDS beliefs and teachings, often in ways that would be objectionable or unrecognizable to Latter-day Saints.

The video contains many of the same anti-Mormon claims that misguided critics have been repeating for years. The issues it raises have been repeatedly addressed by faithful Latter-day Saints, but the video does not address or take those responses into account.

This page provides information that will help you compare the video’s claims with the actual history, teachings, and beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Feel free to pass this info on to others and post it elsewhere. www.JosephSmithDVD.org

The title here is a bit provocative: I know why many people don’t do their home teaching (HT) and visiting teaching (VT). Anybody who has served in a leadership role in an adult priesthood or relief society quorum has heard all of the reasons: I’m too busy, I couldn’t reach my companion, the family wasn’t home, etc. Usually it’s just: I couldn’t get around to it.

All of this makes me thinks that when it comes to HT and VT we Latter-day Saints are becoming like Catholics.

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I thought this review of “Amazing Grace” was particularly well done. The movie is, in my view, wonderful and inspiring, a fine example that good, uplifting movies are still being made.

It includes one of the most memorable lines ever in a movie, by Albert Finney playing John Newton: “I know I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” Those interested in reading about William Wilberforce, and the role his Christian conversion played in his opposition to slavery may want to read this Wikipedia entry.

I enjoyed reading this article in the NY Times today: there is some grumbling at some schools that BYU sports teams have an advantage because so many of the players are older because they went on missions.

There’s an easy solution, of course: more schools need to recruit more Mormon young men and women! And then everybody with lots of Mormon players would have an advantage.

Interesting side note: according to the article, 82 percent of BYU men and 13 percent of BYU women go on missions. As a complete outsider with nothing to do with BYU, I would have expected both numbers to be higher.

It seems about time somebody pointed this out:

Herein lies the moral danger behind global warming hysteria. Each day, 20,000 people in the world die of waterborne diseases. Half a billion people go hungry. A child is orphaned by AIDS every seven seconds. This does not have to happen. We allow it while fretting about “saving the planet.” What is wrong with us that we downplay this human misery before our eyes and focus on events that will probably not happen even a hundred years hence? We know that the greatest cause of environmental degradation is poverty; on this, we can and must act.