FAIR

Trevor Holyoak

Come, Follow Me Week 45 – Doctrine and Covenants 125-128

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By Cassandra Hedelius

It’s difficult to write this post, because the subject is baptism for the dead, and my grandpa is dying, and I love him, and he’s never accepted the gospel. His death from old age isn’t tragic, but it would be if we didn’t have so much revelation from God about His plan. For this, I thank God for prophets.

When Joseph’s older brother Alvin died, a minister preached at his funeral and “intimated very strongly that [Alvin] had gone to hell, for Alvin was not a church member.”[1] This was obviously a tactless thing to say to a grieving family, but based on the knowledge that minister had, he wasn’t really wrong! The Bible is pretty clear that baptism is an eternal necessity. What that minister needed wasn’t sensitivity training, but more revealed truth. Let’s take the charitable view that he would have been ecstatic to learn that Alvin was not in fact damned, and that God is perfectly able to overcome paltry obstacles like people dying before having a chance to accept the truth.  [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 45 – Doctrine and Covenants 125-128

FAIR Conference Podcast #64 – Jeffrey Thayne, “Worldview Apologetics: Revealing the Waters in Which We Swim”

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Podcast: Download (10.9MB)

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This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch the presentations from our 2021 conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Jeffrey Thayne, Worldview Apologetics: Revealing the Waters in Which We Swim

A transcript is available here.

Jeffrey’s book, Who Is Truth: Reframing Our Questions for a Richer Faith, is available from our bookstore.

Dr. Jeffrey Thayne graduated from BYU with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in psychology. He completed his doctorate in Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences at Utah State University. He runs the popular Latter-day Saint Philosopher blog, and spends time engaging in worldview apologetics (articulating and exploring the worldview assumptions that inform our faith). He currently resides in Washington state with his wife and two children.

FAIR Conference Podcast #63 – Carl Trueman, “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution”

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Podcast: Download (12.6MB)

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This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution

Carl’s book by the same name is available from the FAIR Bookstore.

Carl R Trueman is a graduate of the Universities of Cambridge (MA) and Abderdeen (PhD) and formerly served on faculty at the Universities of Nottingham and Aberdeen and Westminster Theological Seminary (PA).  Before joining the Grove City College faculty in 2018, he was the William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life at Princeton University.  He is married with two adult sons and is also an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.  He is the author of numerous books, including Histories and Fallacies and The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, both from Crossway, and joint editor (with Bruce Gordon) of The Oxford Handbook of Calvin and Calvinism (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Come, Follow Me Week 44 – Doctrine and Covenants 124

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By Cassandra Hedelius

In 1840, John C. Bennett was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. His wife and children didn’t come with him to Nauvoo, and it’s not clear what his original motive was for posing as a bachelor instead of being truthful about his family status. His eventual motive was extremely clear: as Bennett ingratiated himself to Joseph and other leaders, and gained high religious and civic positions, he lied to women in order to take advantage of them sexually. Bennett is one of the earliest and most egregious cases of a conundrum we’re each likely to sometime face: if the church is guided by revelation, how do bad people fool its leaders? [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 44 – Doctrine and Covenants 124

Come, Follow Me Week 43 – Doctrine and Covenants 121-123

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By Cassandra Hedelius

It was the first time in my life I felt real terror.

On a lovely spring day in 1999, I was a high school sophomore eating lunch. My school was about twenty miles from Columbine. I vaguely overheard some snippets of conversation about something frightening. We finished lunch and went to class, and the vague murmurs coalesced into rumors–murder. Shooting. We were locked down in our classrooms. The teacher told us there was an attack at another school and a possible threat at ours. Finally they said to go straight outside, do not stop at your locker, get on your bus and go home. I watched the news, horrified, all evening. I didn’t sleep well, and imagined armed killers in the hallway.

The next morning in Seminary, it was my turn to choose a scripture for the devotional. I hadn’t prepared ahead of time, and I was still upset and afraid. I aimlessly opened the Doctrine and Covenants and read: [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 43 – Doctrine and Covenants 121-123

Come, Follow Me Week 42 – Doctrine and Covenants 115-120

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A Defense and a Refuge

By DeeAnn Cheatham

There are two significant examples in the scriptures where a people of Zion existed. One occurred when Christ came to the Americas and taught his gospel to the Nephites and the Lamanites. He then selected twelve apostles, who organized his church and continued to teach the people.  After a few years, every person had converted to the Lord, creating a community where there was no contention because “the love of God did dwell in the hearts of all the people and every man dealt justly with each other” (4 Ne 1:2).  “Surely there could not be a happier people” (4 Ne 1:16). This state of Zion lasted for almost two hundred years.

The city of Enoch is another example of a Zion community. Enoch was instructed by the Lord to preach repentance to the people. He did this for many years and eventually gathered the righteous and established a City of Holiness. They were surrounded by people who were described by the Lord as the most wicked of his creations (Moses 7:36). And yet, in the midst of all this sin, they were able to create a refuge and attain such a level of righteousness that eventually the entire city was taken up to heaven.

A refuge is a place of shelter, protection, or safety We are similarly surrounded by chaos and sin and need a refuge, a place of safety. Within our homes, wards, stakes, and communities, we can work to creates “pockets of refuge”. In D & C 115:5-6, the Lord stated: [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 42 – Doctrine and Covenants 115-120

Come, Follow Me Week 41 – Doctrine and Covenants 111-114

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Finances and Faith in the Kirtland Crisis of 1837

by Elizabeth Kuehn

(This is from a presentation given at the 2017 FairMormon Conference)

While I will cover nineteenth-century economics and the Kirtland bank briefly in my presentation today, I also want to focus on the period of spiritual crisis in Kirtland in 1837 and ways I hope we can learn from the Kirtland experience for our current moment of spiritual crisis.

The crisis within the Mormon community of Kirtland has been inseparably connected to the founding and subsequent failure of the church’s Kirtland bank. However, there is too often a direct causal connection assumed between the bank and the 1837 crisis. The focus of my presentation today is to demonstrate the complexity of this period of history, contextualize both the bank and the crisis, and address several prevailing assumptions about each.

Although most Kirtland narratives place the bank amid the financial devastation of 1837, the Kirtland Safety Society Bank was organized in November 1836. As such, understanding developments in Kirtland in 1836 is key. [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 41 – Doctrine and Covenants 111-114

“A Life Lived in Crescendo”: Selected Punctuation Marks of Joseph Smith’s Final Years

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A “Come, Follow Me” YouTube Virtual Fireside Series Sponsored by

The Interpreter Foundation, Book of Mormon Central, and FAIR

 

The next presentation will be on Sunday, October 17, at 6:00 PM Mountain Time. Jeffrey Bradshaw will be speaking on “Freemasonry and the Origins of Latter-day Saint Temple Ordinances.” A flyer is available here.

Introduction

[Joseph Smith] lived his life in crescendo, it grew in intensity and volume as he approached its close. Higher and still higher the inspiration of God directed his thoughts; bolder were his conceptions, and clearer his expositions of them. So far was he from being a “fallen prophet” in the closing months of his career, as apostates charged, that he grew stronger with each passing day; more impressive in weight of personal character, and charm of manner; for he preserved amid all the conflicts and trials through which he passed—until the shadows of impending death began to fall upon him in Carthage prison—the natural sweetness of his nature, and the intellectual playfulness characteristic of him from boyhood—so do not fallen prophets (Elder B. H. Roberts, Introduction to Joseph Smith, Jr. History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints, 6:xli-xlii). [Read more…] about “A Life Lived in Crescendo”: Selected Punctuation Marks of Joseph Smith’s Final Years

Come, Follow Me Week 40 – Doctrine and Covenants 109-110

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by David W. Smith

 

“A Fulness of the Holy Ghost”

From the beginning of his presidency, President Russell M. Nelson has repeatedly emphasized the blessings of temple service. In his very first address as President of the Church he said:

As a new Presidency, we want to begin with the end in mind. For this reason, we’re speaking to you today from a temple….The ordinances of the temple and the covenants you make there are key to strengthening your life, your marriage and family, and your ability to resist the attacks of the adversary. Your worship in the temple and your service there for your ancestors will bless you with increased personal revelation and peace and will fortify your commitment to stay on the covenant path.
(“As We Go Forward Together,” Ensign, April 2018)

In a later address he counseled: [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 40 – Doctrine and Covenants 109-110

Come, Follow Me Week 39 – Doctrine and Covenants 106–108

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Reading D&C 107 as a Daughter of Eve

by V.H. Cassler

D&C 107 contains many interesting elements. We learn Noah was ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood when he was but age 10, for example. We learn quite a lot about various levels of hierarchy in the Church, differences between the lesser and greater priesthoods, and the mandates of various offices in the priesthood. We also learn about the privileges of those ordained to these priesthoods, such as communing with the Church of the Firstborn or even Heavenly Father and Jesus.

However, on the surface, 107 appears to be a profoundly “womanless” section of the D&C.  Whereas many sections of the D&C seem equally applicable in their exhortations to both women and men, even if women are not explicitly mentioned, it is much harder to say that about section 107. There just seems no place for them at all.

Of course, women are used to being completely overlooked in scripture, and may find this unremarkable. After all, scripture is mostly heavenly men speaking to men on earth about men’s ecclesiastical responsibilities. Perhaps men need more explicit guidance in these things; after all, negotiating hierarchies, which are meant to defuse competition, is tricky business among men. Questions of authority, power, keys, and so forth might need to be settled among men in very clear fashion by God in order for the work of men in the kingdom of God on earth to proceed unhindered.

However, the older I’ve become, the more I see beneath the surface to things implied by womanless scripture that have relevance not only to women, but also to the subject of male-female relations in the family of Adam and Eve. I would like to offer two examples of reading women into D&C 107. After all, if we can read women into this most womanless of sections, that offers hope that we can cease seeing the scriptures as primarily messages from men to men. This would be spiritually helpful for both men and women, as many interpret this not only as suggesting a hierarchy between men and women, but also a separation between church and family. We know from the doctrine of the Church that there is no hierarchy between men and women. We also know that in the hereafter, the family is the form of divine governance, not the church. This suggests that we are likely to suffer from misconceptions if we take seemingly womanless sections such as 107 on a purely superficial level. Let’s look a little deeper, then. [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 39 – Doctrine and Covenants 106–108