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Given the time difference between where it was posted and where I am right now, it was a little difficult to call attention to this short newly posted video in a timely fashion.\u00a0 So I\u2019m calling attention to it a bit late:<\/p>\n
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Witnesses of the Book of Mormon \u2014 Insights Episode 17: What is your Witness?<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Yesterday, I finished reading the third volume of the German edition of Saints<\/em>, the ongoing official history being published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\u00a0 I enjoyed it very much, and I was pleased that its final, climactic chapter was largely focused on the dedication of the Bern Switzerland Temple in 1955.\u00a0 Quite appropriately, in my judgment, President David O. McKay pronounced that dedication the beginning of a new era.\u00a0 Quite appropriately, too, the cover art for the volume, which is shown at the top of this blog entry, features the Swiss Temple, which is actually located in Zollikofen, outside<\/em> of Bern.\u00a0 And shown behind it, not to scale, are the three most famous mountains in the Berner Oberland region of Switzerland, where we\u2019ve been staying: the Eiger on the left, the Jungfrau on the right, and, between them, the M\u00f6nch.\u00a0 I spent seven months of my mission in Interlaken, the heart of the Berner Oberland, and I\u2019ve loved the region ever since.\u00a0 I love the color illustration, too.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We tend to make more progress, spiritually, in times of stress, sorrow, sadness, opposition, and difficulty than in times of ease. \u00a0It\u2019s rather like going to the gym, I suppose; exercise with fifty-pound weights builds more strength than does working out with half-pound weights. \u00a0Or, as the great thirteenth-century Muslim poet and mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi put it, \u201cThe wound is the place where the Light enters you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean that we enjoy it.\u00a0 And it doesn\u2019t always mean that, while it\u2019s happening to us, we can see good in it.\u00a0 Sometimes, it\u2019s just horrible.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n From time to time, I feel moved to post this item, which I first wrote many years ago. \u00a0I feel impressed to do so yet again.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Other books and materials could easily be added to this list, addressing these and scores of other specific topics, but these will do for starters:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m sometimes contacted by people who\u2019re experiencing doubts about the claims of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or whose spouse or father or daughter has lost faith. \u00a0I always ask what the specific issues might be, and I then try to address those or to locate colleagues or published\u00a0resources that might help resolve their concerns.<\/span><\/p>\n I think that such efforts are extraordinarily important. \u00a0Elder Neal A. Maxwell, for whom the Maxwell Institute was named, was fond of Austin Farrer\u2019s praise of the great C.\u00a0S. Lewis: \u201cThough argument does not create conviction,\u201d Farrer wrote, \u201clack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.\u201d \u00a0(See Austin Farrer, \u201cGrete Clerk,\u201d in Jocelyn Gibb, comp.,\u00a0Light on C. S. Lewis<\/em>\u00a0[New York: Harcourt and Brace, 1965], 26.)\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Farrer\u2019s words \u00a0long served as a kind of unofficial motto for several of those who were associated with the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), which later became the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. \u00a0I think that motto was entirely appropriate.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t, however, like to play only defense. \u00a0I don\u2019t want to spend all my time putting out brushfires, playing catch-up, responding to crises. To use a very popular modern buzzword, I much prefer to be proactive. \u00a0I want to build faith to such a strength that crises will be less common, to create conditions under which such brushfires will be much more difficult to kindle. \u00a0Back to the sports metaphor: \u00a0If the defense is always out on the field, it may be able to keep the opposing team from scoring. \u00a0But if the offense doesn\u2019t eventually come out to play, the prospects of victory will be very low. \u00a0A single error by the defense, simple growing weariness, one moment of inattention or poor execution, will be enough to lose the game.<\/span><\/p>\n One way that I choose to be proactive is to suggest a basic packet of books that I would like as many Latter-day Saints to read as possible, a set that I especially wish faltering members to be familiar with. I offer a few nominations here:<\/span><\/p>\n Richard Lloyd Anderson,\u00a0<\/strong>Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981)<\/a>. \u00a0I was once, I confess, sitting at the back of a rather unexciting church class, rereading\u00a0Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses<\/em>, when an academic colleague of mine from BYU sat down beside me. He looked over at what I had been reading. \u00a0\u201cNext to the scriptures,\u201d he commented, \u201cthat\u2019s the most faith-promoting book I\u2019ve ever read.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m inclined to agree with him. Richard Anderson, who earned a law degree from Harvard before receiving a doctorate in ancient history from the University of California at Berkeley, is one of the finest scholars the church has ever produced. \u00a0In this book, he subjects the Book of Mormon witnesses to meticulous examination. \u00a0They emerge from the process as sane, lucid, honest, reliable men\u2014a fact of perfectly enormous importance because of the way their testimony directly corroborates central claims of Joseph Smith and Mormonism.<\/span><\/p>\n Brother Anderson has written many other very important articles on the witnesses\u2014and on other relevant topics\u2014since his book was published. \u00a0These are available online at the Maxwell Institute website, including but not limited to \u201cAttempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Journal of Book of Mormon Studies<\/em>\u00a014\/1 (2005): 18\u201331; \u201cPersonal Writings of the Book of Mormon Witnesses,\u201d<\/a> in\u00a0Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins<\/em>, ed. Noel B. Reynolds (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1997), 39\u201360; and \u201cThe Credibility of the Book of the Mormon Translators,\u201d<\/a> in\u00a0Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins<\/em>, ed. Noel B. Reynolds and Charles D. Tate (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1982), 213\u201337. \u00a0But\u00a0Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses<\/em>\u00a0remains, I think, the place to start on this vital subject.<\/span><\/p>\n John W. Welch, ed.,<\/strong>\u00a0Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820\u20131844<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2005)<\/a>. \u00a0In this book, the prolific polymath John W. Welch has assembled an impressive collection of original documents relating to six foundational topics in Mormon history: (1)\u00a0the first vision, (2)\u00a0the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, (3)\u00a0the restoration of the priesthood, (4)\u00a0Joseph Smith\u2019s visionary experiences generally, (5)\u00a0the restoration of temple keys, and (6)\u00a0succession in the presidency (specifically the \u201ctransfiguration\u201d of Brigham Young in Nauvoo).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>
My favorite landscape on Earth, thus far.\u00a0 It\u2019s not far from where we\u2019ve been staying.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/a>