Bites of the Best Books: April 2021
This month we feature passages from Tolstoy on the struggles of the spiritual life and David Brooks on
the importance of building moral character.
Author: Samuel B. Hislop
Samuel B. Hislop is a writer for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has also written for the Deseret News, Real Clear Religion, and Faith Counts. He has a master's degree from Southern Utah University.
Stay a While by the Cross this Easter
Christianity’s darkest day gives surprising hope for all those with a “cross to bear.”
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Bites of the Best Books: March 2021
This month, passages about the most potent moral figure in Western culture, the influences on Augustine,
and the enduring wisdom of the prophet Jeremiah.
Bites of the Best Books: February 2021
This month, passages on the unending quest for knowledge, what we should pray for, and the importance of charitable thinking.
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The Challenge of Chosenness
With a new year comes a new focus of study for Latter-day Saints—and an opportunity to think more expansively about what “the Church” is.
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Bites of the Best Books: January 2021
This month, passages on rebirth, the pursuit of utopia, why we are commanded to honor parents, the importance of welcoming a God who can contradict us, and the need to embrace interfaith solidarity.
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Bites of the Best Books: December 2020
This month, passages on the dangers of political power for the religious, the problem of idealizing the
past, the need for deep souls, and the instructive power of pain.
The 2020 Vision of Joseph Smith and George Orwell
True, people can be self-interested, calculating, megalomaniacal, partisan, and power-hungry. But God sees the whole person—and so should we.
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Rabbi Sacks, the Snow, and Our Common Humanity
As the election dust settles and the snow falls, some thoughts on something deeper than our many differences – a witness born most eloquently by the remarkable and recently deceased Rabbi Sacks.
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Bites of the Best Books: November 2020
Five books that contain sentences and paragraphs and pages full of unique ideas that move our minds, touch our hearts, and fill our souls with light.
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The Steep Price of Hypocrisy in Christian Witness
The battle with sin is our shared inheritance. Nobody is immune to a fall from grace. We must pray that our Father “suffer us not to be led into temptation” and then live to make that a reality.
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Bites of the Best Books: October 2020
Five books that contain sentences and paragraphs and pages full of unique ideas that move our minds, touch our hearts, and fill our souls with light.
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A Book of Mormon Missive for the 2020 Election
Can a country founded on the idea that all of us are created equal accept Jesus’s admonition to see contention as the devilish delusion that it is?
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Bites of the Best Books: September 2020
Five books that contain sentences and paragraphs and pages full of unique ideas that move our minds, touch our hearts, and fill our souls with light.
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Why Aren’t We There Yet as a Society? A Latter-day Saint Case for Hope
In response to those sensitive souls asking, “Why am I not there yet as a person?” or “Why are we not there yet as a society?” Latter-day Saint theology offers a patient optimism for steady growth in us and around us—along with the anticipation of collective light to become “brighter and brighter until the perfect day.”
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Bites of the Best Books: August 2020
Five books that contain sentences and paragraphs and pages full of unique ideas that move our minds, touch our hearts, and fill our souls with light.
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Seeing the Faces Behind Our Costly Covid-19 Blessings
As we find gratitude in the midst of pandemic, it’s important we give our gratitude not just generally but specifically to those who have helped us.
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Bites of the Best Books: July 2020
Five books that contain sentences and paragraphs and pages full of unique ideas that move our minds, touch our hearts, and fill our souls with light.
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Piecing Together Scripture’s Puzzling Profile of Race
In today’s fractured conversations about race in America, scripture is often seen with the same suspicion as everything else. Let’s take a second look.
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Bites of the Best books: June 2020
Five books that contain sentences and paragraphs and pages full of unique ideas that move our minds, touch our hearts, and fill our souls with light.
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