FAIR

FAIR Conference

FAIR’s history and impact

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by Scott Gordon at the 2025 FAIR Conference

History of FAIR

In 1997, I logged in to America Online Mormonism message board 1 expecting to find friends. Instead, I found critics. I was quickly surprised by the sheer volume of vitriol and criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Common claims included:

  • You can’t add to the Bible (referencing, of course, the Book of Revelation)
  • You preach a different gospel (quoting from Galatians),
  • You believe Jesus is the brother of Satan (I’m not sure where that comes from in the scriptures, but it was there)
  • You’re getting your own planets; and
  • Mormon women will be eternally pregnant.

Even baptism was weaponized, declaring that it was a work that can’t save you.

These arguments, of course, were unfair, misrepresentative, or flat out wrong. And yet, this year, some seminary students in my ward in Redding, California, reported hearing these same arguments at school.

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Scott Gordon
August 2019

Scott Gordon serves as President of FAIR (Faithful Answers, Informed Response) which can be found online at www.fairlatterdaysaints.org. FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping members deal with issues raised by critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has an MBA and a BA from Brigham Young University. He is currently an instructor of business at Shasta College in Redding, California and teaches business classes online at BYUI. Scott has held many positions in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints including serving as a bishop, ward mission leader, seminary teacher, and member of the elder’s quorum presidency. He is married, has five children and 14 grandchildren.

Thank You for Making the 2025 FAIR Conference Unforgettable!

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Dear Friends,

What an incredible FAIR Conference we had this year! From thought-provoking presentations to heartfelt conversations, we are so grateful to every sponsor, attendee, speaker, volunteer, donor, and supporter who made this year’s event at Thanksgiving Point one to remember.

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The FAIR Conference is almost here!

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🎉 It’s FAIR Conference Month!

The highlight of our year is here! Join us for the 2025 FAIR Conference on August 6–8 at The Barn at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah. The LAST DAY to get in-person tickets is Thursday, July 31st!  After that date only streaming tickets will be available! If you want to come in person, NOW IS THE TIME TO GET YOUR TICKETS! 🙂

🎤 Speakers include:

[Read more…] about The FAIR Conference is almost here!

Not By Bread Alone: Capturing the Inspirational Stories of the Saints in Africa on Film

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by Junior Banza and Jeffrey Bradshaw at the 2024 FAIR Conference

Introduction to the Session “Faith and Growth of the LDS Church in the DR Congo” – Dan Peterson

That’s fun to do this, because if you’re an academic, if you’re a professor, you talk for a living. So, you’re glib; you don’t have to know anything about what you’re talking about, but you can sound really convincing. [Read more…] about Not By Bread Alone: Capturing the Inspirational Stories of the Saints in Africa on Film

Classic FAIR – Defending the Faith – David L. Paulsen, 2004

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“The God of Abraham, Isaac and Joseph Smith: Defending the Faith” by David L. Paulsen at the 2004 FAIR Conference

Scott asked me if I would share with you some of my work defending our LDS understanding of God and to that end I have prepared a bibliography. There’s two sets of materials being passed out, one is a packet. There is a copy of the bibliography in that packet and then there’s two individual sheets and you should either get the packet or the pair of two separate sheets and you’ll find the bibliography in one of them. I’ve also copied a few reprints of articles.

As time permits, I want to look at two or three of these articles but before I launch into a consideration of those, I’d like to provide just a little personal background if you will indulge me that will perhaps explain how I developed a passion for apologetics and also put apologetics in a proper perspective.

Growing up in Ephraim in Sanpete County I was acquainted, and then only casually, with four non-Mormons–two of whom subsequently converted. There must’ve been some in my community who openly challenged Mormon beliefs, but somehow I never encountered them. My first exposure to such challenges occurred after my sophomore year of college when I began my tour of active duty with the United States Army Reserve.

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Viewing Today’s Culture Through the Lens of the Gospel

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by Mandy Davis at the 2024 FAIR Conference

Nine years ago, I had the opportunity to start attending meetings at the United Nations. After the very first time going, I knew that it was going to be a hinge point in my life; and that I would never be able to unsee just how calculated the efforts were to undermine and fight against God’s plan in many areas of society. I knew that I would have to get to a point in my life where it became a well-used habit to be able to view the culture and trends of the world with a gospel lens. [Read more…] about Viewing Today’s Culture Through the Lens of the Gospel

Classic FAIR – DNA and The Book of Mormon – Ryan Parr, 2005

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“DNA and The Book of Mormon” by Ryan Parr at the 2005 FAIR Conference

I would like to thank the organizers of the conference for being invited to talk about two really great subjects and that is the Book of Mormon and DNA which, when you look at its structure and its design, is no less of a divine inspired molecule!

We live in a very exciting age. Now, by the time you finish watching CNN you may not think that, but there is a lot of good that is going on in the world today and actually we call- so this is sort of a public service announcement on DNA—you’ll often hear the word “genome” and genome refers to the entire complement of genes that each one of us has and for humans that’s between 30-80,000 genes and this is really going to be the basis of an economic revolution in countries that will take note. In fact Bill Gates has said that if he had the opportunity to do it over again he would be in biotechnology because with the early days of this type of research, it was pre-1995 (they call the ancient days), and now since we’ve actually looked at and deciphered the entire human genome there are many things that we think we can now do. We can use DNA as a biosensor to detect what we’re thinking; all types of diseases; cancers that now we treat after their clinical manifestations; long before there are clinical manifestations; so we really stand on a cusp and a threshold of a revolution much like the antibiotic revolution of the last century.

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Preserving and Protecting “Plain and Precious” Truths In Our Families

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by Brent Andrewsen at the 2024 FAIR Conference

How do we help our young people avoid deception, or keep them from “stumb[ling] exceedingly”? We keep the “plain and precious” parts of the gospel front and center in their lives. [Read more…] about Preserving and Protecting “Plain and Precious” Truths In Our Families

Classic FAIR – The Fallacy of Fundamentalist Assumptions – Blake Ostler, 2005

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“The Fallacy of Fundamentalist Assumptions” by Blake T. Ostler at the 2005 FAIR Conference

I’d like to begin my presentation (there should have been an outline that was handed out that you have in front of you). But I want to begin a bit off outline. I was amused- I was reading this morning that we have (and Chris Buttars is a good friend of mine) and he’s wondering whether he should introduce intelligent design into Utah schools. And I was thinking intelligent design? Chris is a Mormon and he probably doesn’t even realize what he would be teaching isn’t Mormon cosmology.

And I was reading another article—as a matter of fact just last night—about how the Big Bang proved this story of Genesis and I was thinking, apparently the people who read- who know all about the Big Bang have never read Genesis. (Laughter)

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