“Perhaps Close Can Count in More Than Horseshoes”

A group of us made the decision to establish the Interpreter Foundation over lunch at Provo’s Olive Garden restaurant back in July of 2012.  It has been approximately 204.5 weeks since that lunch meeting.  Today marks the 203rd consecutive Friday on which the Foundation’s principal publication, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, has published at least one article:

Perhaps Close can Count in More than Horseshoes

(This was actually the second piece published today.)

Those who confidently predicted an early death for Interpreter have gone curiously silent regarding their prediction.  Plainly, they were wrong on that issue.  (In my experience with many of them, they’re virtually never right on any issue.)

Now, though, some of them have taken to contemptuously dismissing Interpreter as a mere blog.  (Again, my experience with them suggests that contempt is their default emotional setting.)

Well, you can judge for yourself:

•  Well over two hundred reviews and peer-reviewed articles.
•  Multiple books.
•  Several conferences and videos.
•  Resources for teachers and students of the scriptures.
• As of today, 174 recorded scripture roundtables.
• Several podcasts.
• With much more to come.
• And, yes, we have a blog.

Does this look like a mere “blog”?

Certain detractors are so pathologically determined to dismiss and denigrate something that they hate, loathe, and (perhaps) fear, that, in an age that’s increasingly turning to paperless offices and online publications, they would rather pose as technological fossils than grant the legitimate accomplishments of the Interpreter Foundation, which is still not quite four years old.

Oh well.  As the saying goes, the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.

And, in that regard, there is at least one bright spot that I can detect in the Trump presidential candidacy:  In 2012, the year that Interpreter was born, Mitt Romney was running for the presidency and a very great deal of Mormon money was donated to his campaign.  This year, he’s not running.  In fact, the Republican nominee is a man to whose appeal Latter-day Saints have been exceptionally resistant.  Which means, I hope, that a lot of Mormon money won’t be going to Mr. Donald J. Trump but will remain available for . . .  Have I mentioned the Interpreter Foundation?

Almost all of our work is done by volunteers.  The highest officers of the Foundation have the right, under our bylaws, to receive up to $500 per year in compensation for our labor, but none of us have ever taken so much as a cent.  Claims that my travel expenses have been paid by Interpreter — I’ve seen such claims online — are flatly false (and, typically, malicious).  When I met with the two Interpreter vice presidents for a business dinner at a nice Utah restaurant several weeks ago, the Foundation didn’t pick up our dinner tab.  We each did, individually.

We stretch donations about as far as they can be stretched.  We take our stewardship of donated funds very seriously.  But an organization like this does need money.  It cannot function without paying certain bills.

And yes, I’m hinting.

I’m deeply grateful for all the time, money, effort, and expertise that has gone into the building of what has already been created.  We hope to do much more still.

Posted from Newport Beach, California