FAIR

Prophets

Vaughn J. Featherstone’s Atlanta Temple Letter

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[FairMormon has received several questions about this recently, so we were pleased to see Interpreter publish this essay by Christopher J. Blythe. It has been cross-posted with permission.]

Abstract: In this essay, I examine a letter written by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone in 1983 and deposited in the cornerstone of the Atlanta Georgia Temple. The letter is addressed to twenty-first century members of the Church and is written with the expectation that these future Saints will have been alive for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. I consider the claims made about this letter from a recent viral video entitled “7 Year Tribulation in the SEVENTH Seal TIMELINE.”

On March 12, 2020, the video “7 Year Tribulation in the SEVENTH Seal TIMELINE” was released on YouTube.1 Six weeks later it had 375,000 views and had made the rounds on various Facebook groups, including one devoted to discussion among seminary teachers. The video presents a last days timeline that places the Second Coming in the very near future. The video’s creator, Masayoshi Montemayor, makes his points largely through official Church sources, including the Church’s website, institute manuals, and conference reports. However, in other instances, he points to obscure sources, including an April 1983 letter written by Seventy Vaughn J. Featherstone. This letter serves as Montemayor’s final piece of evidence for an imminent second coming. In this essay, I examine this document to understand its limitations for the argument Montemayor makes. My goal is not to criticize Elder Featherstone or to disparage sincere Latter-day Saints — among them presumably this video’s creator — who like myself are eager to be present for our Savior’s coming. [Read more…] about Vaughn J. Featherstone’s Atlanta Temple Letter

Book Review – 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction

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Available from the FairMormon Bookstore

This is the first in a series of books from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute meant to seek “Christ in scripture by combining intellectual rigor and the disciple’s yearning for holiness,” (page vii) and focusing on theological aspects of the Book of Mormon. “In this case, theology, as opposed to authoritative doctrine, relates to the original sense of the term as, literally, reasoned ‘God talk’”  (page viii). This volume is by Joseph Spencer, an assistant professor of ancient scripture at BYU and the editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.

At 146 pages, the book is indeed brief. It is a small paperback, but it has a lot of nice features. The front cover is embossed and both the front and back covers have flaps that can (almost) be used as bookmarks. There are woodcut illuminations matching those in the recent “Study Edition” of the Book of Mormon, also published by the Maxwell Institute. And the text has orange highlights and notes throughout.

The book has two parts. The first part, “The Theological Project of 1 Nephi,” was the most interesting to me. It talks about the original chapter breaks, and how they made it easier to see that Nephi intentionally structured the book to have two parts. The first part is an abridgment of the record kept by Lehi, and the second part, beginning with the original chapter three (now chapter ten) is about Nephi’s life. “The first half of the book prepares for the second by explaining how Nephi’s family came to possess the two key prophetic resources [the brass plates and the vision of the tree of life] essential to Nephi’s own subsequent ministerial efforts. The second half of the book then recounts Nephi’s ministry to his brothers, built on parallel expositions of the two key prophetic resources from the first half of the book” (pages 19-20). This is all shown in two diagrams, which explain that each of the original chapters had a theme and how they relate to each other. [Read more…] about Book Review – 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction

Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses

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2020 Interpreter Foundation Conference

 

Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses

September 18-19, 2020
Brigham Young University, Tanner Building, Room 251
(If temporary COVID-19 restrictions preclude gathering on campus, we will hold the conference virtually. For late-breaking news, watch this website.)

Presented by
The Interpreter Foundation
Brigham Young University Department of Ancient Scripture
Book of Mormon Central
FairMormon

Because we believe that the Book of Moses includes authentic history, the possibility of evidence for that belief interests us as scholars. Although the primary intent of Joseph Smith’s translations is to meet the needs of modern readers, not to provide precise matches to texts from other times, we consider significant patterns of resemblance to ancient manuscripts that the Prophet could not have known and of unexpected conformance to conditions imposed by an archaic setting as potential indicators of antiquity that are best explained when the essential element of divine revelation is acknowledged. [Read more…] about Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses

Interpreting Scripture, History, Science, and Creation

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Ben Spackman is a Latter-day Saint scholar who works in American religious history, history of science, and Biblical interpretation. He is writing a dissertation at Claremont on LDS creationism/evolution conflict in the 20th century, and has spoken at the FairMormon Conference in 2017 and 2019. This is cross-posted at his site, BenSpackman.com

May 4th holds significance in LDS history: it’s the day Joseph Smith introduced temple ordinances in the upper room of the red brick store in 1842. The temple ties together a number of questions, like: [Read more…] about Interpreting Scripture, History, Science, and Creation

In the News: Chad and Lori Daybell and Gospel Extremism

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In recent news coverage of Chad and Lori Vallow Daybell, such as this article in the East Idaho News, people within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may look at the situation as a warning against looking beyond the mark. However, it is important that those outside of the Church realize that they do not represent faithful members of the Church, and that we have been counselled against such fanaticism.

FairMormon member Cassandra Hedelius spoke at the 2015 FairMormon Conference, warning against this very thing. In fact, some of the people, groups, and sites she was referring to are the very ones mentioned in the East Idaho News article.

In 2016, Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles also gave a warning:

While there are many examples of looking beyond the mark, a significant one in our day is extremism. Gospel extremism is when one elevates any gospel principle above other equally important principles and takes a position that is beyond or contrary to the teachings of Church leaders. One example is when one advocates for additions, changes, or primary emphasis to one part of the Word of Wisdom. Another is expensive preparation for end-of-days scenarios. In both examples, others are encouraged to accept private interpretations. “If we turn a health law or any other principle into a form of religious fanaticism, we are looking beyond the mark.”

[Read more…] about In the News: Chad and Lori Daybell and Gospel Extremism

FairMormon Questions: Is the church excessively “hoarding” money that should be given to charities?

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[Editor’s note: Latter-day Saint Charities just released their 2019 Annual Report, available here.]

FairMormon has a service where questions can be submitted and they are answered by volunteers. If you have a question, you can submit it at http://www.fairmormon.org/contact. We will occasionally publish answers here for questions that are commonly asked, or are on topics that are receiving a lot of attention. The question below has been edited for brevity.

Question:

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal said that Ensign Peak Advisors has amassed about 100 billion dollars for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over the years because of prudent investment. I applaud the fact that the Church is fiscally conservative and stays out of debt, however “hoarding” 100 billion dollars seems very excessive given the fact that there is so much poverty in the world. I am concerned that too little (percentage wise compared to the overall revenue) is being given to the poor and needy.

Answer from FairMormon Volunteer Sarah Quan:

Frankly, we don’t know enough about Ensign Peak as a general populace to really say one way or another. The issue is nuanced, and a single whistleblower report is not enough for us to draw a good conclusion about the church’s financial situation or intentions. In response to the WSJ article, Bishop Waddell commented that the budget for humanitarian aid has increased to close to a billion dollars in welfare per year.[1] Here are four doctrinal considerations to help us better understand the church’s position.   [Read more…] about FairMormon Questions: Is the church excessively “hoarding” money that should be given to charities?

Book Review: The Rise of the Latter-day Saints: The Journals and Histories of Newel Knight

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Available from the FairMormon Bookstore

Newel Knight lived from September 13, 1800 to January 11, 1847. He met Joseph Smith in 1826 and remained close friends with him until Joseph’s death. He was directly involved in some of the early events in church history, so his autobiography and journals are valuable to historians. However, these have only been available in manuscript form, in several different versions, which have made them difficult to use. This book amalgamates them in a coherent form and provides a transcription that can be better understood and cited.

The book splits Knight’s writing into five parts, covering different chronological periods of his life. Each section has an introduction with a biographical summary. Editorial remarks are given in footnotes, and spelling and punctuation are generally retained, except in cases where the editors felt clarification was necessary (which to me seemed inconsistent, and in at least one case, possibly incorrect[1]).

There are many things included that are important, such as a letter from Joseph Smith that has not been published in the Joseph Smith Papers Project, Christ’s appearance in the Kirtland Temple[2], many accounts of healings, the aftermath of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and the exodus from Nauvoo. Despite his human imperfections, Knight comes to life as a role model worth emulating with his tremendous faith, even during discouragement, and always remembering to be grateful for the blessings that followed.

I found this particular episode of 1839 in Nauvoo to be very interesting, involving his wife Lydia: [Read more…] about Book Review: The Rise of the Latter-day Saints: The Journals and Histories of Newel Knight

FairMormon Conference Podcast #51 – Scott Hales, “The Exodus and Beyond: A Preview of Saints, Volume 2: No Unhallowed Hand”

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Podcast: Download (79.2MB)

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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2019 conference. If you would like to watch the presentations from our 2019 conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Scott Hales, The Exodus and Beyond: A Preview of Saints, Volume 2: No Unhallowed Hand

You may also be interested in FairMormon Conference Podcast #49 – Angela Hallstrom, “Women’s Voices in Saints Volume 2” and FairMormon Conference Podcast #39 – Matthew McBride, “Answering Historical Questions with Church History Topics,” which are mentioned in the presentation.

Scott A. Hales has been a historian/writer for the Church History Department since 2015. He currently works as a writer and story editor for Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, the new four-volume narrative history of the Church. He has a BA in English from Brigham Young University and an MA and PhD in American Literature from the University of Cincinnati. He has published scholarly articles on Mormon and American literature in several academic journals, including Religion and the Arts and The Journal of Transnational American Studies. He currently lives in Eagle Mountain, UT with his wife and five children.

Audio Copyright © 2019 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 Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture

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Most members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have probably never thought of the Pearl of Great Price as controversial. The Book of Mormon, yes—it has been under attack practically since the night Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith. Yet, Givens and Hauglid [1] use this book to argue that the Pearl of Great Price is even more so. Unfortunately, the majority of the effort goes into attempting to prove the point, and it leaves the book less than faith-promoting. It does have some bright spots, however.

The book begins with the assertion that “without the Book of Mormon, the Church of Jesus Christ would lose its principal evangelizing tool and its most conspicuous sign of Smith’s prophetic vocation but relatively little of its doctrine.… With the Doctrine and Covenants, the church would lose a good bit of its ecclesiology—organization templates and guidelines for church government and its offices—but would not suffer a devastating loss of the deeper theological underpinnings of its faith.” [2] I found these statements to be very surprising. The Book of Mormon has enough unique doctrine in it for Tad Callister to devote an entire chapter of his recent book to it, and in several places Givens admits that doctrine found in places like the Book of Moses was first taught in the Book of Mormon. In addition, the Doctrine and Covenants contains a great deal of unique doctrine, in spite of the removal of the Lectures on Faith (which the book points out is commonly thought to have been the Doctrine of the Doctrine and Covenants). A comparison of our edition with that of the Community of Christ shows some of what would be missing without it.

The book goes on to make its point: “Mormonism, in other words, is absolutely inconceivable apart from this collection of scriptural texts that provided the faith’s theological core from the beginning but only received canonical recognition in 1880. At the present moment, controversies regarding multiple accounts of Smith’s ‘First Vision,’ as well as the origins of the text of the Book of Abraham, have brought unprecedented attention to this hitherto largely neglected work. The consequence is that the Pearl of Great Price represents at one and the same time the greatest vulnerabilities and the greatest strengths of the Church of Jesus Christ.” [3] As I argue below, this is quite an overstatement. [Read more…] about Book Review: The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture