The Church In Tonga, Though Perhaps Not On Planet Earth

First of all, however, Happy New Year!

The Cardston Alberta Temple (LDS Media Libraary)

In the Interpreter Foundation’s regular chapter reprint series, an article by Dr. Gregory L. Smith went up this week: Steadfast in Defense of Faith: “All Bleeding Stops . . . Eventually”: Helaman”s Warriors and Modern Principles of Trauma Revisited”:

“In 2002, Dialogue published an article entitled “Helaman’s Stripling Warriors and the Principles of Hypovolemic Shock.” The author addresses the report in Alma 57:25–26 that 200 of Helaman’s 2,060 stripling warriors suffered loss of blood sufficient to faint but that none of them perished. In it, the author argues that principles of trauma medicine rationally make the story “highly unlikely or even outright impossible” since the fatality rate among the 200 who fainted should have been much higher.”

MoTab and OTS — The Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle
(LDS.org)

My wife and I are in California, so we were unable to attend the funeral of President Jeffrey R. Holland earlier today. And, because we were literally on the road at the time, we weren’t even able to participate online. But we intend to do so, probably tonight. A link to a video of the funeral services is provided here: “President Holland Remembered as a Teacher, Father and Apostle of Love, Learning and Hope ‘President Jeffrey R. Holland left a huge mark, loving personal memories of his influence, and his unforgettable testimony of God on all that he touched,’ says President Dallin H. Oaks”

Temple in Tonga — The Nuku‘alofa Tonga Temple (LDS Media Library)

I’ve just watched a twenty-minute video about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Kingdom of Tonga: “The Mormon Monarchy of Tonga — The Rise of the World’s Most Devout Latter-day Saint Nation”

It is, to put it mildly, very, very strange. I’m no specialist on Tonga — I’ve never even been there — and I cannot speak with any authority about the accuracy of what is said in the video regarding Tongan history, political culture, and sociology, or about their interactions with the Church. But have a look at the thing! The visual illustrations are exceedingly odd. Do those “Latter-day Saint missionaries” look anything remotely like real Latter-day Saint missionaries to you? Do the purported “Tongans” look very Tongan? The Latter-day Saint scriptures that the people are reading don’t look like our real scriptures. The church interiors that are shown are distinctly foreign to our chapel architecture. At least three or four enormous Tongan “temples” are shown, but none of them looks like the two real temples in Tonga — neither the one in Nuka’alofa nor the one that’s nearing completion in Neiafu. (Is that really supposed to be the Angel Moroni on top?) I presume that this video (or whatever the heck it is) is a product of artificial intelligence, and that it’s telling us something quite significant about the reliability of AI. And it makes me disinclined to trust the account that the video provides of the progress of the Church in Tonga. Is this sober history, or is it mere carnival fun-house distortions?

Tennyson in a frontispiece — Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), onetime poet laureate of England
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

There’s only one brief period in the year when citing it is wholly appropriate, so I really wouldn’t be able to look myself in the face if I didn’t take this opportunity to quote “In Memoriam [Ring out, wild bells],” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892):

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Of course, you may have the opportunity to sing some of these words on Sunday. (There are perhaps two Sundays annually when congregations sing it.) Whether you do or you don’t, though, Lord Tennyson’s words are worth lingering over and thinking about. I wish you a very Happy New Year, a wonderful 2026!

Christopher Hitchens meme — A meme from the “Christopher Hitchens Fan Club”

This is a solemn occasion: I’m dipping into the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™ for the last time ever in 2025. And here’s what I’ve come up with for today: