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<\/a>The moribund and never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation continues to post new items. \u00a0Here\u2019s one that went up earlier today: \u00a0Interpreter Radio Show \u2014 August 11, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n For the 11 August 2024 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Terry Hutchinson, Mark Johnson, and Kevin Christensen discussed Come, Follow Me<\/em> Book of Mormon lesson 36, the recently-concluded FAIR Conference, books on Bruce R. McConkie and Joseph Fielding Smith, the completion of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project, and Kevin\u2019s latest article in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>.<\/p>\n Their discussion was recorded, and it has now been edited, archived, and made available for your edification and delight. \u00a0The \u201cBook of Mormon in Context\u201d portion of this show, for the Come, Follow Me<\/em> Book of Mormon lesson 36, will also be posted separately, on Tuesday, 27 August 2024.<\/p>\n A vast international audience tunes in live each and every week of the year to the Interpreter Radio Show. \u00a0Streets and public parks are deserted worldwide on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640. \u00a0In such places as Pyongyang and Provo, where live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here is an article that some might find of interest: \u00a0\u201cThe True Origins of the CES Letter: Was the CES Letter an honest plea for answers? Rather than a sincere letter, it was a calculated deception to undermine faith.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n And here\u2019s a loosely related item: \u00a0\u201cChurch continues to expand resources for those with gospel questions: The Church\u2019s efforts to help individuals find answers to gospel questions continue to expand within the Gospel Library\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n In our Sunday school lesson yesterday, one of the verses that we read was Alma 43:30, from the Book of Mormon. \u00a0It\u2019s speaking about the great Nephite general Moroni:<\/p>\n And he also knowing that it was the only desire of the Nephites to preserve their lands, and their liberty, and their church, therefore he thought it no sin that he should defend them by stratagem; therefore, he found by his spies which course the Lamanites were to take.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, I realize that my small anonymous cadre of dedicated critics will want to say that I take this verse as my charter for a no-holds-barred apologetic defense of the Church and its claims, uninhibited by ethical restraints or moral scruples. \u00a0(They are what they are.) \u00a0But that\u2019s not what I choose to discuss here.<\/p>\n For some reason, reading that verse, I thought of a gripe that has bothered me in a number of Hollywood films. \u00a0The one that I have specifically in mind here is the 2012 movie Jack Reacher<\/em>, starring Tom Cruise in the title role, along with Rosamund Pike, Werner Herzog, and Robert Duvall. \u00a0But the kind of clich\u00e9d scene that I\u2019m thinking about has appeared in numerous productions:<\/p>\n The villain is thoroughly evil and apparently in complete control of things. \u00a0Along, though, comes our hero, who systematically and brilliantly fights his way through the cadre of the minions who serve the villain. \u00a0Finally, it\u2019s one on one against the evil archfiend who has masterminded all of the cruelty and injustice that have occurred in the story. \u00a0(In Jack Reacher<\/em>, the one-on-one confrontation is with the pitiless chief enforcer of the criminal mastermind, \u201cZek Chelovek.\u201d)<\/p>\n At this point, our hero has the bad guy cornered. \u00a0Perhaps he has fought him to the point of defeat and even disarmed him.<\/p>\n But now comes the point that irritates me. \u00a0Our hero decides to make it a \u201cfair fight.\u201d \u00a0He grandly throws his weapon to the ground, thereby foregoing the advantage that he has gained, often at considerable cost. \u00a0Rather, he chooses to fight his opponent as an equal, hand to hand, or something like that. \u00a0(Commonly, of course, the villain, being a villain, will suddenly produce a hidden knife, or something of that sort. \u00a0Villains, you see, feel no internal commitment to the idea of a \u201cfair fight.\u201d)<\/p>\n Can anybody out there think of additional examples from television or the movies where the hero decides to yield up his advantage and fight a monstrously evil victim on \u201ceven ground\u201d?<\/p>\n Whenever I come across such a scene, I want to scream out \u201cNo! \u00a0You have no obligation to make the fight \u2018fair\u2019 or to give your opponent a \u2018sporting chance\u2019!\u201d \u00a0He\u2019s evil, he started it, the consequences of his winning would be dreadful, and you should just defeat him, once and for all.<\/p>\n In the 2012 Jack Reacher<\/em> film, to continue with that specific example, Reacher surrenders his advantage over the absolutely conscienceless henchman of \u201cZek Chelovek\u201d in order to fight him hand to hand. \u00a0Which makes for some really gripping film. \u00a0And, of course, we know that this is Jack Reacher. \u00a0He\u2019s not going to lose. \u00a0But all it would really take, in the actual world, is a failure to get the proper footing, just once. \u00a0Or a slip in the rain and the mud. \u00a0Just one small shift. \u00a0An inferior fighter can get lucky and defeat a superior fighter. \u00a0It happens.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the fate of Rosamund Pike\u2019s character is hanging in the balance. \u00a0If Reacher somehow loses, she will most definitely be murdered. \u00a0She knows too much. \u00a0And, in that case, \u201cZek Chelovek\u201d will continue his vicious criminal career, which has already taken the lives of more than half a dozen people in this story alone and which, we\u2019re given to understand, extends many years into the past, with innumerable victims.<\/p>\n I simply see no reason for our hero to be \u201csporting\u201d with someone who is gratuitously and lethally evil. \u00a0All such movie heroes should learn a lesson, instead, from the example of Indiana Jones<\/a>.<\/p>\n I parcel these horrifying items from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122 out incrementally, in small doses, because I don\u2019t want to overwhelm anybody out there with dark despair. \u00a0So here\u2019s a pair out of the South Pacific:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
(Arnold Friberg, LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>