![\"Gallentine](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2021\/03\/154795605_10218999813918776_6450391521064164464_o.jpg\")
<\/a>I want to remind you, yet again, of the Orem, Utah, fireside that is approaching in little more than a week now and of the Interpreter Foundation conference that will follow on the weekend thereafter, on the campus of Brigham Young University:<\/p>\n
- \n
- \u201cUnveiling History: Six Days in August<\/em> Fireside\u201d<\/a> (Wednesday, 25 September 2024). Incidentally, I\u2019ve just seen a 32-minute slide show, created by Russ Richins, the producer of Six Days in August<\/em>, that will, as I understand it, be running prior to the beginning of next week\u2019s fireside. \u00a0It contains still photos from the movie, as well as photos of cast and crew and sets and so forth, with music running behind them. \u00a0I liked it very, very much. \u00a0It gives a sense of the remarkably complex operation and the many people that are required for the production of a feature film. \u00a0And ours was a relatively small shoestring production team.<\/li>\n
- Temple on Mount Zion: Seership, \u201cCraftsmanship, and Fellowship\u201d: The Seventh Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference<\/a> (Saturday, 28 September 2024)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
And I call your attention to two new items that have just gone up on the monotonously unchanging website of the Interpreter Foundation:<\/p>\n
Interpreter Radio Show \u2014 September 8, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n
During the 8 September 2024 installment of the Interpreter Radio Show, Terry Hutchinson, Kevin Christensen, and Mark Johnson discussed Come, Follow Me<\/em> Book of Mormon lesson 40, \u201cSecret Lives of Mormon Wives,\u201d and several other topics.<\/p>\n
Recorded and with commercial breaks removed, the 8 September 2024 show has now been archived and made available for your listening pleasure. \u00a0The \u201cBook of Mormon in Context\u201d portion of this show, for the Come, Follow Me<\/em> Book of Mormon lesson 40, will also be posted separately on Tuesday, 24 September 2024.<\/p>\n
Each and every week of the year, the Interpreter Radio Show can be heard on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640. \u00a0If that doesn\u2019t work for you, you can still listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Come, Follow Me<\/em> \u2014 Study and Teaching Helps (2024): Lesson 39, September 23-29: 3 Nephi 8-11: \u201cArise and Come Forth unto Me\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s Note: Four years ago, Jonn Claybaugh began writing the Study and Teaching Helps series of articles for Interpreter. We now have these wonderful and useful posts for all four years of Come, Follow Me lessons. Beginning this year we will be reposting these articles, with dates, lesson numbers, and titles updated for the current year\u2019s lessons. Jonn has graciously agreed to write new study aids for those lessons that do not directly correspond to 2020 lessons.<\/em><\/p>\n
![\"Waterhouse,](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/08\/320px-John_William_Waterhouse_-_The_Crystal_Ball.jpg\")
<\/a>John William Waterhouse, \u201cThe Crystal Ball\u201d (1902)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/blockquote>\n Prediction, as the saying goes, is very difficult. \u00a0Especially when it\u2019s about the future.<\/p>\n
Somewhat more than eleven and a half years ago on a far-away message board, a pseudonymous critic took it upon himself to prophesy. \u00a0And this is what he said. \u00a0This is what that critic said:<\/p>\n
By Jan. 1, 2014 Interpreter will be dead. . . . \u00a0Either totally dead or down to token \u201cblog\u201d style postings. (Bond James Bond, 25 January 2013)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Interpreter Foundation was about five and a half months old when he pronounced his oracle. \u00a0Today, it\u2019s somewhat more than twelve years of age.<\/p>\n
He seems to have disappeared for quite a while, not emitting even token \u201cblog\u201d-style postings. \u00a0But he\u2019s now back (under an abbreviated but recognizable pseudonym). \u00a0And, obviously buoyed by the precision, accuracy, and success of his previous exercise in vaticination \u2014 Interpreter has long been almost totally dead, and barely on life-support \u2014 he has recently returned to prophecy.<\/p>\n
Within a hundred years, he predicts, there will be only a million members in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>, although it will have an investment fund of a trillion dollars.<\/p>\n
Alas, though, it will obviously be a little bit difficult \u2014 a century from now \u2014 for him, or for anybody who saw his latest prophecy when it appeared, or for any of us here to confirm or deny his accuracy.<\/p>\n
Happily, though, one of Bond\u2019s disciples \u2014 \u201cDeutero-Bond,\u201d one might call her \u2014 has stepped forward to revise the initial prophecy: \u00a0Says Deutero-Bond, the Church will count only a million members (and a trillion dollars in assets?) within just ten<\/em> years!<\/p>\n
Now, this is a prophecy that many of us living today will still be around to verify.<\/p>\n
Curiously, the zest for prophesying seems to have become contagious. \u00a0Another in the same online location has declared that Dallin H. Oaks will prove the downfall of the Church. \u00a0Which should, given even a minimal knowledge of actuarial science, be a testable prediction. \u00a0I\u2019m reminded of a little-known textual variant of 1 Samuel 10:10-11:<\/p>\n
And when they came thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him; and the Spirit of Bond came upon him, and he prophesied among them.<\/p>\n
And it came to pass, when all that knew him beforetime saw that, behold, he prophesied among the prophets, then the people said one to another, What is this that is come unto the son of Shirts? Is Kerry also among the prophets?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I\u2019m also reminded of an editorial that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune<\/em> following the death of Brigham Young on 29 August 1877. \u00a0It read, in part, as follows:<\/p>\n
The Mormon church<\/a> was stronger at four o\u2019clock Sunday afternoon than it ever will again become; the remarkable will and organizing force of the dead leader departed with him, and have been transmitted to none other in his church; and we may now watch with complacency, if not with joy, the gradual disintegration of the whole Mormon fabric.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
![\"It's](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2024\/09\/Car_Crash_7-1-18_2246_42450607644.jpg\")
<\/a>It\u2019s understandably tempting to gawk. But is it worth the accompanying traffic jam? Is it worth the delay? \u00a0It\u2019s far better, I\u2019m convinced, to just take an alternate route if one is available.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nI\u2019ve been accused by at least one (predictable) anonymous critic of being obsessed with Hulu\u2019s miniseries The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives<\/em>. \u00a0The accusation is (predictably) false; I haven\u2019t watched so much as a second of it, and I very likely never will, not just out of principle and protest but because I\u2019m just not interested and I have too many other, better, things to do. \u00a0And I probably won\u2019t ever think about it again after it has receded into the rear-view mirror. \u00a0My world will go on quite unchanged.<\/p>\n
Right now, though, my news feed is absolutely bursting with articles about The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives<\/em>, very often to the exclusion of anything else, and it\u2019s apparently drawing considerably more attention than its subject merits. \u00a0(As I\u2019ve said before, I\u2019m astonished and somewhat discouraged at the interest it seems to have generated in some circles.) Here are two pieces on the subject that I did<\/em> read, however, and that I can recommend to you and to others:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Sarah Jane Weaver<\/a>, in the Deseret News<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cOpinion: The \u2018Secret Lives of Mormon Wives\u2019 does not represent me: To ignore every bit of reality on \u2018Reality TV\u2019 \u2014 especially related to something as sacred as the faith of millions of people \u2014 is hurtful, unfair, unkind and mischaracterizes religion\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n
- Meagan Kohler<\/a> and Jacob Hess<\/a>, in the Deseret News<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cOpinion: Why is it exciting to watch others betray their faith and families on Hulu? \u00a0The desperate attempts to find a feminist angle about the new Hulu series about \u2018Mormon wives\u2019 makes everyone feel better about gawking at a caricature of suburban American excess\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 I want to remind you, yet again, of the Orem, Utah, fireside that is approaching in little more than a week now and of the Interpreter Foundation conference that will follow on the weekend thereafter, on the campus of Brigham Young University: \u201cUnveiling History: Six Days in August Fireside\u201d (Wednesday, 25 September 2024). Incidentally, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":106983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[28272,2905,788,55,37923,2201],"class_list":["post-106980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hulu","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-mormon","tag-mormonism","tag-the-secret-lives-of-mormon-wives","tag-women"],"yoast_head":"\n
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- Meagan Kohler<\/a> and Jacob Hess<\/a>, in the Deseret News<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cOpinion: Why is it exciting to watch others betray their faith and families on Hulu? \u00a0The desperate attempts to find a feminist angle about the new Hulu series about \u2018Mormon wives\u2019 makes everyone feel better about gawking at a caricature of suburban American excess\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Temple on Mount Zion: Seership, \u201cCraftsmanship, and Fellowship\u201d: The Seventh Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference<\/a> (Saturday, 28 September 2024)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n