As the release date for Six Days in August approaches, I find myself thinking about the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, the Patriarch. Thomas Sharp and his conspirators down in Warsaw to the south, and the mob that did the deed in Carthage to the east, thought that, by murdering Joseph and Hyrum, they had put an end to “Mormonism.” Now, though, Thomas Sharp and his cronies are completely forgotten — except as evil... Read more
This is a stunning story about the converting power of the Book of Mormon and about the motivating power of personal faith: “Refugee walks 728 miles to be baptized after reading Book of Mormon: Amos Makulu walked across Tanzania to be baptized as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now in New York, he is instrumental in creating a Swahili-speaking branch.” It offers yet another example of the fascinating stories that are emerging out of... Read more
Last night, my wife and I watched a video — not quite an hour long — entitled Pioneers of Africa. Directed by Marcy Brown and produced at least partially under the auspices of Brigham Young University, it’s about the limited, tentative, and awkward approaches of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the continent of Africa prior to the 1978 revelation on priesthood, and about the history of African Latter-day Saints thereafter up to the time of... Read more
On 28 August 2024, I recorded a lecture in connection with the Interpreter Foundation’s approaching Mesoamerica tour. It was entitled “The Importance, and Non-Importance, of Knowing the Geography of the Book of Mormon,” and it is now up on the Interpreter Foundation website. Truth be told, it wasn’t one of my better outings — though it might still be preferable to an equivalent amount of time spent watching old reruns of The Young and the Restless or just about... Read more
I’ve fallen a bit behind, so it’s high time to catch up: These two pieces appeared on Friday on the Interpreter Foundation’s completely comatose website: “Restoring Melchizedek Priesthood,” written by John S. Thompson Abstract: Church historical sources make four differing claims as to when, how, and by whom Melchizedek priesthood was restored. These seemingly conflicting sources have led to many theories about what happened, including the idea that Joseph Smith changed his narrative and rewrote history as his ideas... Read more
One or two folks have shown up on my blog attacking Brigham Young as greedy and corrupt. Brigham enriched himself, they say, by giving himself interest-free loans from Church funds in order to establish businesses. The lesson, supposedly, is that, if you want to become rich, you should become the head of a church. The commenters provide a list, from the late D. Michael Quinn, of businesses that Brigham owned and which he is said to have set up... Read more
Somewhat spontaneously — we didn’t make the decision until last night — we drove down to Cedar City today to catch as much as we’re able to catch of this year’s Utah Shakespeare Festival. Owing to our crammed travel schedule last season, we were unable to attend. Prior to that, though, we hadn’t missed the Shakespeare Festival since, I think, sometime in the first half of the 1990s. It had become our end-of-summer ritual. And we didn’t want to... Read more
Mark Goodman, James Jordan, Russ Richins, and I had already been talking, while we were still working on Witnesses and Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, about what, if anything, we would like to do next. We were actually pretty sure that, if we could, we wanted to do another film. But what should be its theme? One proposal that we discussed quite seriously — I recall that our first conversation about it arose during a long drive... Read more
Professor John Turner, a member of the faculty at Virginia’s George Mason University who is not a Latter-day Saint, is the focus of the newest very short video clip (“Ask God Whether It is True”) from the Interpreter Foundation. These clips have been drawn from the 2022 Interpreter Foundation docudrama Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon. As before, we hope that you will enjoy this one and that you will pass it on. Here is something that might... Read more
Correcting the falsehoods regularly purveyed by my Malevolent Stalker and his handful of zealous disciples over at the Peterson Obsession Board could easily be a full-time job if I permitted it to be. Sometimes, though, I do find it advisable to publicly contradict their allegations and accusations. Now is one of those times. I’ll be brief: No, my wife and I receive no compensation — we have received no compensation, and we will receive no compensation — from our... Read more
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