\u201cSurvey: White evangelicals, Hispanic Protestants, Mormons most likely to believe in QAnon: The groups are also the most likely to consume far-right media, which researchers noted is \u2018by far the strongest independent predictor of QAnon beliefs.'\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Seriously, folks.\u00a0 This does us no good.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t build or defend the Kingdom.\u00a0 It will cause few if any outsiders to want to consider the claims of the Restoration.\u00a0 It makes us look . . . umm, bad<\/em>.\u00a0 QAnon is a kind of substitute religion.\u00a0 It is madness.\u00a0 Please note that it isn\u2019t being taught by the Lord\u2019s chosen apostles and prophets.\u00a0 If you\u2019re personally into QAnon, please come up for air.\u00a0 If somebody you know is into it, please consider mounting an intervention of some sort.\u00a0 I know.\u00a0 I know.\u00a0 The folks who are enmeshed in this stuff are often very tightly bound.\u00a0 They\u2019re hard to save.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had my own encounters with them, and I know.\u00a0 But their souls are precious and they\u2019re worth saving.\u00a0 So is America.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think that the argument outlined here is conclusive.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t provide definitive proof, and it doesn\u2019t claim to do so.\u00a0 Nonetheless, I think that Angela Hallstrom makes a very serious point that needs to be considered \u2014 one that resonates with me personally and particularly:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
![Cole, \"Garden of Eden\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/08\/800px-Thomas_Cole_The_Garden_of_Eden_detail_Amon_Carter_Museum.jpg\")
<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m pleased beyond expression that\u00a0the new Interpreter Foundation film Witnesses<\/em><\/a>\u00a0will now be available in forty of the fifty United States of America.\u00a0 (What\u2019s up, I wonder, with the other ten?)\u00a0 In many of these locations, Witnesses<\/em> will be prominently displayed on the theater marquee, advertised by theatrical posters, and on the regular schedule of the movie house.\u00a0 In others, and particularly in areas where the Latter-day Saint audience is relatively small, the film will be available but may best be accessed via arrangements for private party screenings.\u00a0 I hope that wards and stakes, elders quorums, Young Men and Young Women organizations, and family groups will consider such a possibility.\u00a0 (The instructions for doing so are available on the website.\u00a0 It\u2019s my understanding that the costs for such private screenings are not prohibitive.)\u00a0 In my judgment, too, Witnesses<\/em> is appropriate for bringing non-member friends.\u00a0 It will, I believe, provide missionary opportunities and spark interesting discussions.\u00a0 Having said all that, I probably need to assure you once again that not a single penny from this effort will go into my pocket, neither directly nor indirectly.\u00a0 Nor will anybody else at Interpreter be earning royalties.\u00a0 I do not want anybody to be under the impression that, in promoting Witnesses<\/em>, anyone at the Interpreter Foundation is looking to feather his or her own nest.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In the meantime, you might enjoy this interview with Camrey Bagley Fox, who plays Emma Smith in the film.\u00a0 Her interview\u00a0was broadcast on KSL-TV in Salt Lake City yesterday (Friday):<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNew Film Follows the Faith Journeys of Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n For whatever it\u2019s worth, I myself will be on the Interpreter Radio Show with Martin Tanner and Terry Hutchinson between 7 PM and 9 PM (Utah time) on this coming Sunday night.\u00a0 One hour of the two-hour program \u2014 probably the second hour, but I\u2019m not certain of that \u2014 will be devoted to a discussion of Doctrine and Covenants 76, which is the account of their magnificent vision of the three degrees of glory written by Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon.\u00a0 The other hour will focus \u2014 big surprise! \u2014 on the Witnesses<\/em> film, which officially premieres at Thanksgiving Point, in Lehi, Utah, on Wednesday, 2 June.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard each week, including this week, on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640 \u2014 my impression is that reception may be sketchy beyond Salt Lake County \u2014 or you can listen live on the Internet (the option that I generally choose, and that I have<\/em> chosen from places like Arizona, California, Virginia, and Hawaii) at\u00a0ktalkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Newly posted on the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s website:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Book of Moses Essays #57: Moses Sees the Garden of Eden (Moses 3):God Instructs Adam and Eve (Moses 3:15\u201317)<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Are culturally conservative and\/or religious voices being silenced and\/or targeted by media hegemons?\u00a0 Here are four articles that might interest you on that question:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNew podcast: New York Times still ignoring religion ghosts in \u2018demographic winter\u2019 trends\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnother trial by media: In defense of Mother Teresa and why she is a saint, not a \u2018cult leader'\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAre religious and culturally conservative groups silenced on the Internet?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cStill thinking about (trigger alert) a scary Twitter topic \u2013 Elizabeth Bruenig and motherhood\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But I\u2019m not critical only of censorious secularizers.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I would like to humbly suggest to my fellow Latter-day Saints that seeing the world through the lens of QAnon is, perhaps, not the best of the options available.\u00a0 (I will keep private and unexpressed my horror at the thought that more than a few of my fellow-believers seem to have fallen for the abject reality-defying nonsense that QAnon both represents and promulgates.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPolls find most Republicans say 2020 election was stolen and roughly one-quarter embrace QAnon conspiracies\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n