Last Night’s Film Premiere

Yesterday began in a one-hour conversation with my friend Safi Kaskas, about faith and religion from Latter-day Saint and Muslim points of view.  He has been in town for the 31st Annual International Law and Religion Symposium of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University.  Anybody who is interested can watch a video of our discussion at this link:  https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/x4cxlmuj0tpow1b38adms/Safi-Kaskas-Daniel-Peterson.mp4?rlkey=v2mkpzhtxzxk8il5ncg8uviqs&st=c0s5z85s&dl=0

Last night, we had the formal premiere of Six Days in August at Thanksgiving Point, in Lehi.  Somewhat more than five hundred people were in attendance.  Among them — I think that I dare mention this, since they certainly weren’t hidden and since, with their permission, I announced their presence to the audience — were President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his wife, Kristen, and members of their family; Elder Gary E. Stevenson, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, with his wife, Lesa; Elder Kevin W. Pearson, of the Seventy, who currently serves as president of the Utah Area of the Church, with his wife, June; and Elder Robert C. Gay, an emeritus member of the Presidency of the Seventy, and his wife, Lynette.

The audience seems to have enjoyed the film.  (Even for the actors, this was their first opportunity to see the whole thing.)  They reacted in the right way at the appropriate moments, and many told me how much they had enjoyed it.  I myself liked it, even more than I had liked it on the four previous occasions that I’ve seen the entire movie.

Over at the Peterson Obsession Board, at least two anonymous individuals had claimed, on the basis of information that they had purportedly obtained from Unidentified Inside Sources, that President Russell M. Nelson was intending to announce a Church-wide all-media fast at October conference.  In response, several members of the Obsession Board chorus gleefully predicted that this announcement would annihilate the box office receipts for the opening weekend of Six Days in August.

It appears, however, that no such all-media fast was announced.  (I trust that you’re as surprised at the falsity of the prediction as I was.)

And, speaking of Six Days in August, it opens tonight in eighty-eight theaters scattered across sixteen states, with more confirmed for the following weeks.

I hope that you’ll go out and see Six Days in August — early and often!  Of course, if you don’t like it, we hope that you’ll remain completely mum about it.  Forget that you ever saw it.  “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”

If you do like it, though, please say so to friends, relatives, neighbors, ward members, your dentist, any and all shoe salesmen, your hair stylist, the waiter, and (of course) total strangers on the street, on buses and trams, and those who sit next to you on airplanes.  Please say so on social media.  Our advertising budget is modest, especially beyond the so-called “Mormon corridor,” so we need your help to get the word out.

Again, if you do like it, we hope that at least some of you will post positive online reviews.  This is very important—not least to counter the reviews that will inevitably be posted by critics of the Church or of Brigham Young himself who may never have actually seen the film.  (This isn’t our first rodeo; we saw lots of such behavior with Witnesses.)  As with the movie itself, this is a part of “telling our own story” instead of letting others tell it for us.

Today, the far-flung editorial team for Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship is having its first in-person face-to-face meeting.  We’ve never done this before; things are typically done virtually and, even more, by email.  I was able to be with them up until almost lunchtime, and then I had to scurry back home to join in on the regular monthly virtual coordinating meeting that the leaders of the Interpreter Foundation hold with the leaders of FAIR and Scripture Central and the B. H. Roberts Foundation.

Coming up this Saturday, please don’t miss Understanding and Defending the History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: A Virtual Conference by FAIR (Faithful Answers, Informed Response).  The program for the conference looks extremely interesting, and I’m hoping to catch most if not all of it.

Also, by the way, I hope that those of you who will be attending the BYU/Arizona game on Saturday will keep an eye out for the widower Brigham Young and his new bride, Mary Ann Angell Young.  They tell me that they hope to be there.

This topic continues to be controversial in certain circles:  “‘Epic’ Salt Lake Temple renovation ‘is the biggest preservation project’ in Latter-day Saint history: Project managers, historian say the temple is not a museum that excludes people but a flagship to the world”

Also in the news:  “BYU names inaugural dean of medical school: The founding dean of the BYU Medical School is a University of Utah graduate and surgeon who has worked at Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Stanford”

But I close with a couple of horrors from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™:

“6,000 Latter-day Saints Bring Relief to Hurricane Helene Victims: Volunteers from 400 congregations restore faith and hope in affected communities”

“The Church Partners with Ghana Health Service to Vaccinate 5.2 Million Children in Four Days: Church Funded Print Communication Key to Campaign Success”

And, while we’re talking about the Hitchens File, here’s another gross atrocity wrought upon the world by theism and theists:  “An unforgettable moment from the children’s choir everyone is talking about”