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FairMormon Conference Podcast #26 – Matt McBride, “Women of the Global Church: Stories on history.lds.org”
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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This episode is a presentation from our 2018 conference.
Matt McBride, Women of the Global Church: Stories on history.lds.org
Transcript available here.
Matthew McBride is the web content manager for the Church History Department and a graduate student in American history at the University of Utah. He is the author of A House for the Most High: The Story of the Original Nauvoo Temple and coeditor of Revelations in Context: The Stories behind the Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. Matthew has also published in the Ensign and the Journal of Mormon History. He lives in American Fork, Utah, with his wife Mary and their four children.
Audio Copyright © 2018 The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. Any reproduction or transcription of this material without prior express written permission is prohibited.
Book Review: The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition
I’ve been reading and collecting the Book of Mormon my entire life in one form or another, from the illustrated “Book of Mormon for Beginning Readers” (or whatever it was called in the 1970s) to the official blue copy I handed out as a missionary, to Royal Skousen’s “Earliest Text.” I’ve also collected books written about the Book of Mormon, including much of Skousen’s Critical Text Project. I’ve appreciated being able to learn about the book and read it in these various formats particularly because I don’t usually like reading the same book more than once. This book edited by Grant Hardy gives a fresh new way to read it again, taking the official 2013 text and reformatting it to make for easier reading as well as to more easily identify various aspects, and also adding footnotes and other markers to point out changes gleaned from Skousen’s work, internal consistencies, and other interesting tidbits.
The book begins with the introduction from the 1981 edition “with minor modifications in 2013 (and the substitution of people for men in the third and next-to-last paragraphs),” (page vii) and then has the usual testimonies of three and eight witnesses, but then it also has the testimony of Emma Smith, taken from an interview by Joseph Smith III in 1879. In this, she mentions that Joseph did not have any manuscripts or books, what the plates felt like, that he did it “sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the [seer] stone in it,” (page ix) and that she did not believe her husband capable of composing it by himself.
This is followed by the Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith and Brief Explanation about the Book of Mormon, as you would find in a regular edition, although the Brief Explanation has an explanatory phrase inserted about the Plates of Ether. Then there is a Brief History of the Text, which is used as the editor’s introduction. In this, Hardy recounts the translation, printing, and subsequent editing and printing of the second edition. [Read more…] about Book Review: The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition
2017 FairMormon Conference Presentations Now Available on FairMormonTV for Roku
The FairMormonTV Roku channel has now been updated with FairMormon Conference presentations from 2017. You can add the free channel to your Roku account here.
FairMormon Conference Podcast #25 – Jeff Robinson, “Thinking Differently About Same-Sex Attraction”
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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This episode is a presentation from our 2018 conference. (If you would like to watch the video of this and the other presentations from the 2018 conference, you can still purchase video streaming.)
Jeff Robinson, Thinking Differently About Same-Sex Attraction
Transcript available here.
Dr. Robinson received his Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Brigham Young University. His doctoral dissertation was a qualitative study in of married Latter-Day Saint men with histories of homosexual activity. For the last 25 years he has worked in private practice specializing in assisting individuals experiencing a conflict between their experience of same-sex attraction and their religious beliefs and/or personal values. He has given numerous presentations on the issue of same-sex attraction and has conducted training for therapists and a variety of settings. He and his wife Wendy are the parents of eight children and the grandparents of eight.
Audio Copyright © 2018 The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. Any reproduction or transcription of this material without prior express written permission is prohibited.
FairMormon Conference Podcast #24 – Brad Wilcox, “‘Have You Been Saved By Grace?’ How Do We Respond?”
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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This episode is a presentation from our 2018 conference. (If you would like to watch the video of this and the other presentations from the 2018 conference, you can still purchase video streaming.)
Brad Wilcox, “Have You Been Saved By Grace?” How Do We Respond?
Transcript available here.
Brad Wilcox is a professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University where he also enjoys working with such programs as Especially for Youth, Women’s Conference, and Campus Education Week. He is the author of the book The Continuous Atonement and the BYU devotional “His Grace is Sufficient.” Brad grew up in Provo, Utah, except for childhood years spent in Ethiopia, Africa. He served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chile and later returned to that country to preside over the Chile Santiago East Mission from 2003 to 2006. He and his family have also lived for a time in New Zealand and Spain where he directed study abroad programs for Brigham Young University. Brad has served as a member of the Sunday School General Board. He and his wife, Debi, have four children and six grandchildren. Reading, writing, teaching, and traveling are some of his favorite things. He loves Peanut M&M’s and pepperoni pizza, but he realizes that doesn’t sound too healthy so he is really trying hard to learn to love salads.
Audio Copyright © 2018 The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. Any reproduction or transcription of this material without prior express written permission is prohibited.
Three Excerpts from “Answers Will Come: Trusting the Lord in the Meantime” by Shalissa Lindsay
[A review of the book can be found here.]
Not having all the answers is more blessed. (p. 29)
In our quest for faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a tremendous and indispensable asset. But not because it offers all the answers to every possible question. Even—perhaps especially—within the restored gospel, there have to be some opportunities for us to question and doubt. They provide the opposition against which faith can grow and strengthen. In fact, Christ has deliberately withheld some things for this express purpose.1 He told Mormon, “I will try the faith of my people.”2
Hence, the Lord supports faith but does not demand it. He lets us discover substantial internal evidences in latter-day scriptures, but withholds incontrovertible proof. He gives us eleven witnesses of the gold plates, but leaves Book of Mormon geography uncertain. By not compelling us to believe, Christ offers us the chance to be “more blessed.” He told the Nephites who had seen him that “more blessed are they who shall believe in your words because that ye shall testify that ye have seen me.”3
And He told his doubting Apostle Thomas, “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”4 [Read more…] about Three Excerpts from “Answers Will Come: Trusting the Lord in the Meantime” by Shalissa Lindsay
Book Review: Answers Will Come: Trusting the Lord in the Meantime
[Excerpts from the book can be found here.]
The main thing that FairMormon as an organization tries to do is to provide reasonable answers to questions and criticisms in an easily digestible format. However, there are some questions that don’t seem to have satisfying answers at this time. These are the questions that require us to have faith and keep holding on, choosing to continue believing and living the gospel while we pray and wait for answers to be revealed to us. This can be very difficult for someone going through a faith crisis or other trials, when it seems as if we have to have answers now in order to just keep going.
That is where this book fits in. It is written by a woman who has been through many trials and a crisis of faith, and has learned to trust while waiting for answers. “When I was a young adult, my unanswered gospel questions threatened to overwhelm my testimony, choking my trust in God. I begged the Lord for doctrinal answers only He could give. Instead, He wisely offered me tutorials in trust. In this book, I share those in-the-meantime answers that for me have created intellectual breathing space. These ideas help me joyfully choose faith until all the answers come” (Introduction page).
The book is written in an unusual way. There is one idea per page, with the body text appearing only on the odd-numbered pages. The alternating pages have a (usually) very brief topical title or summary. This is so that you can read a little bit at a time, and it works remarkably well. [Read more…] about Book Review: Answers Will Come: Trusting the Lord in the Meantime
FairMormon Conference Podcast #23 – Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Explaining Away the Book of Mormon Witnesses”
Podcast: Download (57.4MB)
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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This episode is a presentation from 2004. If you would like to watch the presentations from our most recent conference, you can still purchase video streaming.
Richard Lloyd Anderson, Explaining Away the Book of Mormon Witnesses
Transcript available here.
Richard Lloyd Anderson (1926-2018) was a Professor Emeritus of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, and senior research fellow at the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History at Brigham Young University. More information about him can be found in this tribute. His book, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses, is available at a discount from the FairMormon Bookstore.
Audio and Video Copyright © 2004 The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. Any reproduction or transcription of this material without prior express written permission is prohibited.
Bishop Vaughn J. Featherstone’s Experience with the Scriptures and the Savior
Cross-posted from Truth Will Prevail
Cobbled together by Dennis B. Horne
Note: In his earlier years, in some talks given in the 1970s, as a counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone referenced a marvelous spiritual experience he received. The below contains both published text and newly transcribed wording that was withheld for whatever reason (perhaps felt to be too sacred then), from the published version, that gives further insight into the experience. Links are provided so readers can listen to both of the talks at their convenience:
Let me tell you the greatest experience I believe I have had in all my readings of the scriptures—and I am sharing something that is very tender with me. I remember the night that I read 3 Nephi the 17th chapter [3 Ne. 17]. That is when I discovered the Lord Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, the Lord of lords, the King of kings, my Savior, my personal Savior; and I believe that is where I finally found the description of the Savior as I thought him to be.
He had been with the Nephite people all the day long, you will recall, and finally said: [Read more…] about Bishop Vaughn J. Featherstone’s Experience with the Scriptures and the Savior
