![\"Jordan,](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2020\/02\/78303409_724328758068083_143358500737646592_o.jpg\")
<\/a>It\u2019s late tonight, so I think that I\u2019ll share three passages that I marked during my reading, some time ago, of Richard Lyman Bushman\u2019s book Joseph Smith\u2019s Gold Plates: A Cultural History<\/i> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023):<\/p>\n John\u2019s mother, Mary Whitmer, another plain-spoken witness, said she saw the plates when she went to do the milking. In 1878, years after the event, her son said that his mother had grown weary with the work of housing and feeding the translating contingent. In June 1829, Joseph, Oliver, and Emma squeezed into an already crowded household. Emma must have been pressed into service, but the two men were of no help. They spent their days in an upstairs room recording the translation. Mary Whitmer had reason to complain of the added burden. Mary\u2019s son David told Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith in 1878 that as his mother was going to milk the cows, an old man carrying a pack met her in the yard. He recognized that \u201cyou are tried because of the increase of your toil,\u201d and so \u201cit is proper therefore that you should receive a witness that your faith may be strengthened.\u201d Then he took the plates out of the knapsack and showed them to her. Whitmer said that seeing the plates \u201cnerved her up for her increased responsibilities.\u201d One of Mary\u2019s grandsons, John C. Whitmer, added that \u201cthis strange person turned the leaves of the book of plates over, leaf after leaf, and also showed her the engravings upon them.\u201d Then he vanished with the plates. . . .<\/p>\n Mary Whitmer did not record the experience herself, but she told the story to her grandchildren \u201con several occasions.\u201d Her account was of a piece with other stories the Whitmers told. David Whitmer linked his mother\u2019s angel to the \u201cvery pleasant, nice-looking old man\u201d he had seen on the road while bringing Joseph and Oliver to Fayette. His nephew John also described the visitor as \u201ca stranger carrying something on his back that looked like a knapsack\u201d and \u201cspoke to her in a kind, friendly tone.\u201d (57)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Mary Whitmer\u2019s experience is depicted in the 2022 Interpreter Foundation docudrama Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon<\/em>, which is available for free viewing at The Witnesses Initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n John Corrill\u2019s account of his 1831 acceptance of Mormonism<\/a> tells of his methodical weighing of all the facts in a measured effort to determine its truth. In describing the Book of Mormon, he noted only that \u201celeven persons besides Smith bore positive testimony of its truth. After getting acquainted with them, I was unable to impeach their testimony.\u201d (61)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Not everybody, of course, was so positively impressed:<\/p>\n In the South Bainbridge area, Abram Benton, an early critic, reported that Mormons<\/a> proselyted \u201cweak and silly women, and still more silly men, whose minds are shrouded in a mist of ignorance which no ray can penetrate, and whose credulity the utmost absurdity cannot equal.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n A letter of Palmyra residents to the Painesville Telegraph in March 1831 claimed that no one in their area took an interest in \u201cthe \u2018gold bible\u2019 question\u201d but \u201cthe dregs of community, and the most unlettered people that can be found any where.\u201d (65)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n We spent Thursday night, all day Friday, and Friday night in Park City with a group of our neighbors. \u00a0On Friday night, we had really good Japanese food at Yuki Yama Sushi<\/a> on Main Street and then walked uphill to the venerable Egyptian Theater for a concert. \u00a0I didn\u2019t organize this trip \u2014 the neighbors are obviously my wife\u2019s<\/em> friends, since, given my toxic personality and my depraved character, I myself<\/em> certainly can\u2019t have<\/em> any friends \u2014 and, frankly, I didn\u2019t even know that we were to attend a concert. \u00a0And then, when I found out what the concert was, I confess that I was somewhat less than enthused.<\/p>\n It was Peter Noone<\/a>, the original Herman, and Herman\u2019s Hermits<\/a>. \u00a0I expected it to be a nostalgic but fairly depressing walk down Memory Lane. \u00a0But it wasn\u2019t. \u00a0They were extremely entertaining. \u00a0Peter Noone is a consummate showman with lots of energy, and his voice is still very good. \u00a0(I was unaware of it, but he\u2019s had a pretty significant musical and theatrical career since his days as a teenage heartthrob during the British Invasion.) \u00a0He performed a number of the classic Herman\u2019s Hermits songs, but also classic pieces by other artists (e.g., by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys), and he did a really funny but spot-on impression of Mick Jagger. \u00a0I loved the show.<\/p>\n This morning, the board of directors of the Interpreter Foundation had its quarterly meeting \u2014 a quite productive one, in my opinion. \u00a0There are some good things on the horizon. \u00a0We met for the first time in Sandy, in a new venue that I like very much. \u00a0After which, some of us went out for lunch nearby.<\/p>\n My wife and I then headed up to the Capitol Theater<\/a> in Salt Lake City for a performance of The Screwtape Letters<\/em><\/a>, a play produced by the Fellowship for Performing Arts<\/a>. \u00a0As the organization defines itself, it is a not-for-profit New York City-based production company that seeks to engage a diverse audience by producing theater and film from a Christian point of view.<\/p>\n I admire their mission very, very much, and I loved their 2021 film The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C. S. Lewis<\/em><\/a> \u2014 even though it preempted the film that Mark Goodman, James Jordan, Russell Richins, and I had recently discussed making about . . . well, about the story of C. S. Lewis\u2019s conversion.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, I really<\/em> didn\u2019t like The Screwtape Letters<\/em>. \u00a0Nor did my wife. \u00a0(Fairness demands, though, that I acknowledge the fact that everybody around us seems to have loved the play. \u00a0It received an enthusiastic standing ovation.) \u00a0I thought that the actor \u2014 there is only one speaking part, that of \u201cScrewtape\u201d \u2014 was somewhat difficult to understand and to follow. \u00a0But that wasn\u2019t my chief objection: \u00a0I\u2019ll admit that it\u2019s been quite a while since I read C. S Lewis\u2019s great epistolary novel (on which, obviously, the play is based), but my sense of the character Screwtape is quite different than his depiction in the play. \u00a0I recall him as urbane, clearly hostile to The Enemy (that is, to God) and to humans but not in a volcanically angry way and, for a very long time, not obviously an enemy to his nephew Wormwood. \u00a0In the play, though, Screwtape rages angrily and loudly almost from the very beginning. \u00a0Maybe I need to re-read the book, but the \u201cScrewtape\u201d of the play seemed wrong to me.<\/p>\n Afterwards, Max McLean<\/a>, the founder and leader of the Fellowship for the Performing Arts and the star (as the mature C. S Lewis) of The Most Reluctant Convert<\/em>, came out on stage for a brief statement followed by questions and answers. \u00a0I enjoyed that.<\/p>\n You might enjoy this item, from WUNC (North Carolina Public Radio). \u00a0It\u2019s less than seven minutes long: \u00a0\u201cGov. Cox of Utah looked to his Mormon faith<\/a> in hopes of keeping the state free of political violence. Is that possible now?\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 (\u201cWriter Mckay Coppins talks about his article on Utah\u2019s Governor Spencer Cox and the shooting of Charlie Kirk that took place in the state.\u201d)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 It\u2019s late tonight, so I think that I\u2019ll share three passages that I marked during my reading, some time ago, of Richard Lyman Bushman\u2019s book Joseph Smith\u2019s Gold Plates: A Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023): John\u2019s mother, Mary Whitmer, another plain-spoken witness, said she saw the plates when she went to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":112925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39185,39179,39191,39176,39182,39188],"class_list":["post-112922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fellowship-for-performing-arts","tag-hermans-hermits","tag-park-city","tag-peter-noone","tag-screwtape","tag-yuki-yama-sushi"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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