The Great Middle Initial Scandal

skdlfjlsjfksaj. Robert E. Lee. sdfkjskjdlfk — Confederate General Robert E. Lee poses in a late April 1865 portrait taken by Mathew Brady in Richmond, Virginia. Lee’s surrender to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865, shortly before this portrait was taken, marked the end of the American Civil War. Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox was one of the most significant events in the storied history of Pompous Mormon Middle Initials.

Two new items have appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:

Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 30 “The Great Plan of Happiness” Alma 39-42

Martin Tanner turned in a solo performance for the Interpreter Radio Show that was broadcast on 28 June 2020. The Interpreter Scripture Roundtable that was focused on Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 30, “The Great Plan of Happiness,” on Alma 39-42, has now been extracted from that broadcast, stripped of commercial and other interruptions, and archived.

And there’s this, too, from Jonn Claybaugh. which is also available at no charge on the Interpreter Foundation website, from Jonn Claybaugh:

Come, Follow Me — Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 30, July 27–August 2: Alma 39-42 — “The Great Plan of Happiness”

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And, while we’re on the subject of Come, Follow Me, here’s another link to the quite important Neville-Neville Land blog:

“Come, Follow Me 2021 doesn’t care about Jonathan Neville’s opinions”

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I’m not making this up:

I sometimes encounter mockery from apostate members of the Church of the propensity of Latter-day Saint leaders to use middle initials. It’s a characteristically LDS sign of pomposity, they say. Or something like that.

And perhaps it is.

Just look at how many Latter-day Saints have done it:

Ulysses S. Grant

Robert E. Lee

John C. Calhoun

Roger B. Taney

Salmon P. Chase

Chester A. Arthur

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Harlan F. Stone

Benjamin N. Cardozo

Henry A. Wallace

Alben W. Barkley

Harry S. Truman

William O. Douglas

Robert A. Taft

Dwight D. Eisenhower

John F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy

Robert S. McNamara

Lyndon B. Johnson

Hubert H. Humphrey

William J. Brennan, Jr.

William F. Buckley, Jr.

Richard M. Nixon

Spiro T. Agnew

Warren E. Burger

Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

Gerald R. Ford

Nelson A. Rockefeller

Walter F. Mondale

Edward M. Kennedy

George H. W. Bush

George W. Bush

John G. Roberts

Pompous and self-important Latter-day Saints, every single one of them.

And the list could be extended indefinitely.

This has to be one of the very silliest complaints against the Church, the Restoration, and Saints that I’ve ever encountered.

Posted from Vail, Colorado