The 1978 Priesthood Revelation, Church Finances, and So Forth

I think that some of you may find this piece, now available on the blog of the Interpreter Foundation, of considerable interest:

“Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s Witness of the 1978 Revelation on the Priesthood”

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If you would like to read about — or to view — Friday night’s celebration of that great 1978 revelation, here’s the site for you:

“At ‘Be One’ Celebration, a Call for Optimism and Overcoming Prejudice”

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On a quite distinct topic, I was pleased to read this item:

“Church Honors Cardinal Wuerl of Washington for Commitment to Religious Liberty”

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Over the past few days, I’ve been following a rather intermittent online conversation about a recent review (titled “D. Michael Quinn, Mormon Capitalism, and New Mormon History”) of D. Michael Quinn’s book The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power, which was published in August 2017.  The conversation involves a small group of very harsh critics of Mormonism and of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and they deeply dislike the review.

Still, they compare the new review, of which they strongly disapprove, with the allegedly vicious style cultivated by me and my minions at the old FARMS Review, and they imagine how nasty old-style apologists like me and my lamentable associates would handle Dr. Quinn’s book.  Presumably, they seem to concur, our approach would be full of ad hominem attacks on Dr. Quinn.

Well, there’s no real need to fantasize or to speculate, because, in fact, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture — the flagship journal of the Interpreter Foundation, of which I’m currently both the president and the chairman of the board — has actually published a review of The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power.  Our review is easily available, for free and online, for inspection:

“Through a Glass Darkly: Examining Church Finances”

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I’ve just finished listening to this week’s Interpreter Radio Show, which featured Neal Rappleye (as host), Kwaku El, Jasmin Gimenez, Stephen Smoot, and Hales Swift.

I hope that you were listening, too.

If not, repentance is possible.  A new episode of the Interpreter Radio Show — with varying hosts and varying discussants and a variety of topics — is broadcast every single Sunday night.  And those weekly programs are eventually archived on the Interpreter Foundation website.

The discussants this week focused first on Friday night’s remarkable celebration and then opened onto the history of blacks in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as the priesthood ban and priesthood revelation themselves.

Good stuff.  Serious discussion of serious topics.  But fun.