Kudos to Bret Stephens for his defense of Latter-day Saints. Kudos to Simon Critchley for a similarly generous article. And kudos to the always terrific Laurie Goodstein at the New York Times for her article about a fragment of a document suggesting Jesus may have had a wife. In a way she didn't likely intend, Goodstein enhanced my faith in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. More on the Goodstein piece in a moment.
First, as a fan of the American news media at its best, I can't let pass my take on the first two pieces, oft-mentioned columns from last week that provided robust defenses of Latter-day Saints in two of America's leading news outlets.