“Fawn M. Brodie, whose classic life of Smith earned her excommunication from the Mormon Church, saw the Book of Mormon as 'one of the earliest examples of frontier fiction, the first long Yankee narrative that owes nothing to English literary… — Diarmaid MacCulloch Copy Share Image
“Sometimes the Church patently tried to profit from such incidents: the Benedictine monks of Norwich Cathedral in England, encouraged by their bishop, were pioneers in the blood-libel business when in the 1140s they tried to foster in their own church a cult of an alleged young victim of the Jews called William. Unfortunately for the monks, the good folk of… — Diarmaid MacCulloch Copy Share
“The only way in which Darwin's data made sense was to suppose that species battled for survival, and that evolution came when one slight adaptation of a species proved more successful than another in the battle: a process which he named 'natural selection'. There was nothing benevolent about the providence which watched over the process. Reason was served her notice… — Diarmaid MacCulloch Copy Share
“Yet so much of the story so far has not been about unbelief at all, but sincere and troubled belief. When children of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and the children of the Jewish Diaspora turned on the religions which had bred them, they mostly sought not to abolish God but to see him in a clearer light. ( p698)” — Diarmaid MacCulloch Copy Share
“Equally important is the effect of Last Days thinking on questions of world environmental damage. If the Last Days are coming, it is a profane distraction to bother with problems of pollution or exhaustion of natural resources, which in any case have been supplied in God’s providence for humans to use. Hence the Christian Right’s long-standing lack of interest in… — Diarmaid MacCulloch Copy Share
“The city of Granada, so gloriously provided with architectural reminders of its Islamic heritage, was particularly anxious to show that it was a more… — Diarmaid MacCulloch Copy Share Image
“We know of the tensions between the first Church in Jerusalem and Churches in which Paul of Tarsus became the prominent teacher .. The… — Diarmaid MacCulloch Copy Share Image
“Fawn M. Brodie, whose classic life of Smith earned her excommunication from the Mormon Church, saw the Book of Mormon as 'one of the… — Diarmaid MacCulloch Copy Share Image
