Old Faith Blog

I delivered this talk in Sacrament meeting on January 25th, 2009: [Good morning brothers and sisters.] I am privileged for this opportunity to speak here in Sacrament meeting and pray that the Spirit has been with me as I prepared this talk. Before I begin though, I’d like to just share a few updates on my family. My son is in his first year of primary and from what I can tell, he really enjoys it. I think there are six or seven kids in his class and knowing how rambunctious those kids are, all I have to say is that the Bishop owes Sister Ferguson big time! Julieta is teaching full time in primary and has quite the class herself. I’m really proud of how well she’s handled her kids. I can see how much she loves them and they love her in the way they’re quick to give her a hug. She has also been enjoying Activity Days with Sister Smith and Sister Parry. For myself, and I say this with true sincerity, I have really enjoyed Gospel Doctrine and the opportunity to lead our discussions on the

Chris Brown, writing for LDSFreemen.com , gives an excellent critique of the argument that money, and subsequently capitalism, is evil. The article can be found here and includes much on the government's monopoly power to print baseless money. An excerpt: Of course, money is a good thing, although it—like most things—can be used for evil purposes. It is simply a medium of exchange, used to serve as a common denominator, which then makes more exchange possible. Money is actually useful and necessary in a complex society, allowing a society to move from barter to more advanced civilization. It helps the entrepreneur allocate resources according to their relative prices, and provides the ability to calculate revenues and expenses, profits and losses. It facilitates specialization and the division of labor. In short, it makes economic calculation possible. But the love of money is something very different; for the love of anything over God would be breaking the first commandment, of l

ABC's Nightline  aired an 8 minute special on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last night. I thought it did a fair job and featured interviews with Apostles Ballard and Cook. It's nice seeing the Church get access to this type of exposure. The link below, I am unable to embed it here. Mormon Temple Revealed - Nightline

A week ago, I saw headlines all over Google News from various media outlets reporting on new findings published in the January 1st edition of  Pediatrics . The headlines included "Virginity Pledges Don't Stop Teen Sex" by CBS, "Virginity pledges don't mean much" by CNN, and "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds" by the Washington Post. Reading the articles lead one to believe that abstinence pledge or not, all teens were equally promiscuous. The unfortunate thing is that such a conclusion is not based on the actual study used to write those articles. Here to clear up the half-truths delivered by these "elite" media outlets is William McGurn writing for  The Wall Street Journal . The article can be  found here . The introduction: The chain reaction was something out of central casting. A medical journal starts it off by announcing a study comparing teens who take a pledge of virginity until marriage with those who don'