![\"Looking](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2019\/10\/brightspotcdn.byu_.jpg\")
<\/a>At this point, I\u2019m pretty sure that you regret having spent last night watching that boring and utterly predictable football game between BYU and Oklahoma State when, instead, you could have been in the audience for a screening of Six Days in August<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0And, of course, you have nobody to blame for that but yourself. \u00a0Fortunately, though, you still have a shot at redemption. \u00a0Go see it today!<\/p>\n I jest but, candidly, turnout for Six Days in August<\/em> has been quite disappointing, and (to me) surprisingly so. \u00a0UEA and two BYU home games in an increasingly exciting season probably haven\u2019t helped us, but I\u2019m still puzzled. \u00a0I\u2019m very close to Six Days<\/em>, of course, but I think it a good and worthwhile movie that tells an interesting and important story quite well. \u00a0Moreover, we\u2019ve had good publicity (at least in the \u201cMormon corridor\u201d), and the overwhelming majority of those who have<\/em> seen the film have reported liking it very, very much. \u00a0There simply haven\u2019t been enough<\/em> of them in the first place. \u00a0I\u2019ve been hoping that word-of-mouth would give Six Days<\/em> the boost that it needs. \u00a0And maybe, just maybe, that will still happen. \u00a0Maybe it will turn out the way last night\u2019s game did. \u00a0As of right now, though, and for whatever reason, it is what it is.<\/p>\n A poor financial return on the film will make the creation of future movie projects (such as Witnesses<\/em><\/a> [2021], Undaunted Witnesses of the Book of Mormon<\/em><\/a> [2022], and Six Days in August<\/em> <\/a>itself) much more difficult, if it doesn\u2019t put them altogether beyond reach. Moreover, I don\u2019t know how much longer we\u2019ll be able to keep Six Days in August<\/em> in theaters if it continues to underperform. \u00a0So, if you\u2019re interested at all in seeing Six Days<\/em>\u00a0on a big screen \u2014 where its beautiful cinematography is shown to best effect \u2014 you\u2019ll need to go sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n Happily, though, interest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> still seems to be on the rise among filmmakers outside of the Church: \u00a0The Lifetime Channel\u2019s Mormon Mom Gone Wrong: The Ruby Franke Story<\/em><\/a> will debut next week. \u00a0The Hugh Grant vehicle Heretic<\/em><\/a> will open in early November. \u00a0The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives<\/em> appears to be a mega-hit \u2014 see this curious item from the New York Post<\/em>: \u201c\u2018Utah curls\u2019 trend makes $1.5K extensions look low-effort: \u2018Like having Rapunzel hair\u2019\u201d<\/a> \u2014 and the show has been renewed for a second season. \u00a0And Secret Lives<\/em> builds upon such pre-existing cinematic achievements as The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City<\/em>, Hulu\u2019s Under the Banner of Heaven<\/em><\/a>, and, several years earlier, September Dawn<\/em><\/a> \u2014 which, like Six Days in August<\/em>, centers to a considerable degree upon Brigham Young. \u00a0It\u2019s comforting to know that, even if we don\u2019t tell our own stories, others will still be happy to tell our stories for us.<\/p>\n We have remarkable stories to tell, and a remarkable message to share. \u00a0Some time back, I read a superb book by Fiona Givens and Terryl Givens entitled The Christ Who Heals: How God Restored the Truth that Saves Us<\/em>. \u00a0I sometimes encounter derisive comments from certain critics about how shallow Mormonism supposedly is. \u00a0Such complaints astonish me. \u00a0I find the implications, entailments, and disclosures of the Restoration radical and utterly profound. \u00a0And so, it seems, do Fiona and Terryl:<\/p>\n Mormonism is so rich in doctrine, so expansive in its teachings, that we may be too easily distracted from this one cardinal proposition: \u00a0The Restoration recovered that Christ who is the most remarkable being in the history of religious thought. \u00a0(1)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n They endeavor to show, in fact, that the figure of Christ \u201ccomes into his full splendor and beauty through the lens of the Restoration\u201d (1).<\/p>\n Mormonism has immense theological profundity. \u00a0It repudiates notions of inherited guilt and depravity, restores vulnerable compassion and empathy to a Heavenly Father, recaptures the saga of human preexistence and our literal co-heirship with Christ, and provides a coherent scheme of salvational plenitude for the dead as well as the living. \u00a0Its doctrines are alternately exhilarating and consoling, controversial and common-sensical. \u00a0(2)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I strongly suspect that one of the factors in recently declining conversion rates and in some retention problems among young Latter-day Saints is our failure to adequately exhibit the exciting and radical depth of the Restored Gospel. \u00a0This book is a helpful instrument for reminding ourselves and others of what we\u2019ve sometimes allowed to be obscured.<\/p>\n Especially in this context, I like their comments on what Latter-day Saints often call the \u201cGreat Apostasy\u201d:<\/p>\n This \u201cfalling away\u201d does not represent some minor corruptions of sacramental liturgy or ritual forms. \u00a0It is not about wicked priests whom God punished by removing their priesthood. \u00a0It is about a fundamental misapprehension of the background and purpose and extent of the covenant (premortal origins, mortal incarnation, and eventual theosis and sealing into the eternal family). \u00a0It is the loss of the mode by which that covenant is executed (through temple covenants that create those chains of infinite belonging, completing our journey from intelligence to joint heirship with Christ).<\/p>\n The loss of the larger cosmic context was compounded by failing to see the Fall as a necessary and premeditated immersion of humankind into the crucible of experience, suffering, and schooling in the practice of love. \u00a0The loss was not about baptizing at the wrong age or in the wrong medium. \u00a0It was about not knowing that baptism makes us \u2014 all of us eventually \u2014 literally members of Christ\u2019s family and co-heirs with him as planned in premortal councils. \u00a0What is at stake is not simple difference in standards of sexual practice or marriage\u2019s purpose per se. \u00a0It is about failing to see the family structure as a divine mode of eternal association that is at the very heart of heaven itself. \u00a0In sum, the \u201cRestoration\u201d is not about correcting particular doctrines or practices as much as it is about restoring their cosmic context. \u00a0(14-15)<\/p>\n BYU Studies<\/em> has made this interesting article available at no charge, presumably for a limited time: \u00a0\u201cBook of Mormon Grammar and Translation,\u201d<\/a> written by Stanford Carmack<\/a><\/p>\n This paper discusses some of the Book of Mormon\u2019s nonstandard grammar, showing how in many cases it was not the kind of grammar that Joseph Smith would have been expected to produce, since it was neither his native usage nor a presumed biblically influenced English. In these contexts, if he had been in control of the wording of the text, it is highly likely that he would have expressed things differently. Quite a few examples are provided in support of this claim, along with additional matching examples found in early modern texts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/a><\/a>