
I’m very pleased to announce that the 2021 Interpreter Foundation theatrical film Witnesses is now available — and will remain available for the duration of the month of February — for free streaming: Watch Witnesses Free!
So, whether you saw Witnesses in a theater and would like to view it again, or whether you missed it altogether, you now have the opportunity for the remainder of this month to watch it at no charge. And, in fact, you can watch it for free even if you’ve already posted a blisteringly negative review of it, sight unseen! Think how exciting it will be to see your confident rebukes vindicated! You knew that the dishonest makers of Witnesses would refuse to show the failure of the Kirtland bank. You knew in advance that the movie would be a propagandistic whitewash. You were certain that the filmmakers would avoid any mention of early Latter-day Saint plural marriage, and that Joseph Smith’s so-called “seer stone” and his hat would be carefully scrubbed from the narrative. Watch Witnesses! And then take a well-earned victory lap!
I’m pleased to note, too, that Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — the 2022 Interpreter Foundation docudrama that was created to follow Witnesses itself — is now also available for free streaming, but with no cut-off at the end of the month. You can find the relevant link at The Witnesses Initiative.
We have put both Witnesses and Undaunted up online in order to support this month’s focus, in the Come, Follow Me curriculum of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on the translation of the Book of Mormon and on the witnesses to the golden plates. We earnestly hope and believe that many students and teachers of the Come, Follow Me curriculum will find these materials helpful.

Finally, I’m pleased to mention again that the most recent Interpreter Foundation film, Six Days in August (2024), is also now available for streaming, from various for-profit platforms. Yesterday, I shared a list of such platforms that had been prepared by Susan Tuckett. Today, I share a somewhat different list that has been prepared by James Jordan:
Hey, everyone, Six Days in August is NOW available to stream! Please share this post with those you think might be interested.Check out the links below. (Available to watch on Fandango, Amazon, AppleTV, Google Play, Spectrum, and Microsoft.)https://athome.fandango.com/content/browse/details/Six-Days-in-August/3867515
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DTQD19FK
https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/six-days-in-august/umc.cmc.4pfakmzvipigmak2q5gpfuz2h
https://play.google.com/store/movies/details/Six_Days_in_August?id=ACCyw5JsfR0.P&pli=1
https://ondemand.spectrum.net/movies/28351062/six-days-in-august/
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/six-days-in-august/8d6kgwz2d7zb?activetab=pivot:overviewtab
Happily, the same generous terms apply: Even if you already published your devastating anonymous online take-down of Six Days in August many months ago without ever actually seeing the movie, you can still watch it even at this late date with absolutely no penalty. Bask in complete self-justification as you witness with your own eyes how gratifyingly on-target your mockery of it was as a boring and amateurishly produced specimen of one-dimensional apologetic propaganda! Laugh anew at its sheer ineptitude, its innumerable technical blunders! Make popcorn! Make green Jell-o! Make funeral potatoes! Invite like-minded friends over for parties! Pretend that you’re something like Mystery Science Theater 3000! Consider this: Super Bowl LIX will fill only one afternoon this month. Only one afternoon this entire year! What can you find to occupy the rest of those lonely days and lonely nights? Who ya gonna call?

Here is one journalist’s take on a recent statement from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “LDS Church: Members should care for the needy ‘regardless of immigration status’ (RNS) — ‘We seek to provide basic food and clothing, as our capacity allows, to those in need, regardless of their immigration status,’ the LDS statement read.”
I trust that it will be noted that the Church’s statement took no position on specific policy matters, though it’s simply implausible to suggest that its timing was completely unconnected to the recent change of administrations in the White House and the flurry of executive orders that has ensued in its wake.
I’m reminded of the memorable conference talk given in April 2016 by Elder Patrick Kearon, then of the Seventy, entitled “Refuge from the Storm.” To this day, I continue to regard it as one of the greatest, most moving, experiences of my now many decades of conference listening. (“This moment does not define the refugees, but our response will help define us.”) Elder Kearon and I had had some contact prior to that conference address and, once or twice during encounters thereafter, we shared rueful but humorous comments about the hate mail that we had received from certainLatter-day Saints because of public stances that we had taken — I because of my attempts to provide a systematic and accurate understanding of Islam and Muslims for the members of my church and he because of his completely non-political exhortation to treat refugees with Christian kindness and charity. Elder Kearon has, of course, and to my very great delight, since been called to serve as the newest member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He is a remarkable man. His was and is a remarkable message.

(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)
You’re probably aware of the famous prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi (d. 1226). But perhaps you’re not. In either case, it’s a gem, well worth becoming acquainted with or, alternatively, reading again. It’s highly appropriate for a Sabbath evening’s reflection:
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved, as to love.For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Marvelous words.