Bridge of Reason

Thomas S Monson, Mormon president, has announced yet another temple, bringing to 15 the number temples in Utah. There are currently 130 temples around the world. Someone wrote to Reachout recently asking about temples and here is his question and my answer:   “I am confused surely the whole purpose of the atonement of Christ was to overcome the need for animal sacrifice. He was the ultimate sacrifice. So it seems natural that by Jesus bring this higher law that superseded the Levitical laws that required animal sacrifice in temple the purposes of a temple would also change and the rituals that take place within them would develop and alter. Your suggestion that the event taking place in the modern Mormon temples does not match the operations of the ancient temples is therefore redundant as they should not be doing so but rather the Mormon temples are there to provide the ability to carry out rituals relating to this higher law of Jesus. Please respond I am genuinely in need of ...

C4 Sunday 16 August 2009 7pm Revelations: How do you know God exists? Written and produced by Anthony Thomas An arresting opening image: a burning effigy on a busy western city street. We try to figure out what it is- some religious protest against the Mohammed cartoons, perhaps? As it turns out, it's a model of a banker. In commencing his contribution to the Revelations series, Anthony Thomas may be trying to show how materialism has failed as a concept, and that as western capitalism turns on itself, religious solutions to man's dilemmas may begin to reemerge. Thomas chooses five leaders from major world religions (Judaism, Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism and Hinduism) to explain to him and the viewer how they know there is a God. The five men (and they are men, as my wife dryly observes) are Jonathan Sachs (chief rabbi of Orthodox Jews in the UK), Rowan Williams (Church of England Archbishop of Canterbury), Vincent Nichols (Catholic Archbishop of Westminster), Tari...