From “England’s Green And Pleasant Land”

Actually, it's in Newchapel, Surrey, south of London — The London England Temple. It’s actually located about twenty-five miles south of London, not too terribly far from London Gatwick Airport. But we came nowhere near it during today’s travels. (LDS Media Library)

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And now for a new item on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. Actually, it’s not quite new. It went up yesterday, Saturday, at 7 PM. But I’m out of sync with North American time zones and not always at my computer, so this is the best that I’ve been able to do:

Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — Insights Episode 7: Did the Witnesses Ever Deny their Testimonies?

Critics of the Church have claimed through the years that one or more of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon—and of the Gold Plates—eventually denied their testimonies. Is there any truth to these claims?

This is the seventh in a series providing insights from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. This series of mini-films is being released each Saturday at 7pm MDT. These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. For more information, go to https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org/ or watch the documentary movie Undaunted.

Short clips from this episode are also available on TikTok and Instagram.

Be sure to Like and Share this video, as well as subscribing to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/theinterpreterfoundation and our other social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

The UK's second temple — The Preston England Temple, shown here in winter, was the second Latter-day Saint temple to be built in the United Kingdom. For what little it’s worth, I led two back-to-back Church history tours to England in May 1998 that each included attendance at its open house. And now the construction of a third British temple has been announced, this one for Birmingham. (LDS Media Library)

Understandably, and beginning already before the recent seeming wave of mass shootings, many voices have expressed frustration, even cynicism, about public announcements from politicians that their “thoughts and prayers” are with the victims of these vicious crimes and with their families. And I fully get that. Surely, there must be something that we can do to stop, or at least to reduce, such incidents — though, frankly, few of the measures proposed seem as if they would have prevented the tragedies that we’ve seen. Rather, in quite a few instances, they’re grand public gestures for the ideological base or even mere virtue-signaling. Still, though, we want something done. And, if we can get past the posing and posturing, there might be meaningful steps that can be taken. But here’s a Wall Street Journal article contending that

“Thoughts and Prayers Do Help: As Lincoln showed, they can spur action, if earnest and hopeful.”

And I think that the point of the essay can easily be generalized beyond the matter of gun violence.

Posted from London Heathrow Airport