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FairMormon Conference Podcast #38 – Spencer McBride, “Joseph Smith in Van Buren’s White House: Lessons in Electoral Politics and Religious Freedom”

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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2018 conference. If you would like to watch the presentations from our 2019 conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Spencer McBride, Joseph Smith in Van Buren’s White House: Lessons in Electoral Politics and Religious Freedom

Transcript available here.

Spencer W. McBride is a historian of early American history. He earned his PhD in history at Louisiana State University and is a historian and documentary editor at the Joseph Smith Papers Project. An expert in the intersections of religion and American politics, he is the author of Pulpit and Nation: Clergymen and the Politics of Revolutionary America (University of Virginia Press, 2017). He is currently writing a book on Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign (under contract with Oxford University Press).

Audio and Video 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 #37 – Randall Spackman, “Chronological Structure and Symbolism in the Small Plates of Nephi”

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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2018 conference. If you would like to watch the presentations from our 2019 conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Randall Spackman, Chronological Structure and Symbolism in the Small Plates of Nephi

Transcript available here; handout available here.

For more than thirty years, Randall Proctor Spackman has pursued an avocational interest in the chronological texts of the Book of Mormon. Limited aspects of his work with these texts have been published as a FARMS Preliminary Report and in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and The FARMS Review. Since 2010, he has maintained www.bookofmormonchronology.net as a publishing venue for his most recent writings on selected chronological issues. This website was put on hiatus while he and his wife, Susan Sperry Spackman, served two missions as senior missionaries for the Mormon Church in 2015-2017. The website is currently being reorganized to reflect insights gained while they served in Besançon, France. These insights have led to comprehensive linguistic and semantic analyses of the 426 year-related expressions in the Book of Mormon. An introduction to the structure and symbolism of these expressions will be presented publicly for the first time at the 2018 FairMormon Conference.

Randall was born and raised in southern Alberta, Canada. He received B.A. and M.S. degrees from Brigham Young University and a J.D. degree from Duke University. For forty years, his law practice involved franchise, commercial and real estate transactions and litigation management for franchise companies headquartered in southern California. He also served as a member of the Franchise Law Committee of the California State Bar Association and as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Fantastic Sam’s, a multi-national franchise company with more than 1,300 franchised hair salons.

Randall and Susan, who is also a published author and was a special education teacher for more than twenty years, have been married for more than fifty years. Their principal residence is in Saint George, Utah. They are the parents of four children and the grandparents of seventeen grandchildren. Their first great grandchild is expected in September 2018.

Audio and Video 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 – First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins

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book cover
Available in the FairMormon Bookstore

First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins by Steven C. Harper is the latest entry into the fascinating scholarship focused around what members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints refer to as Joseph Smith’s First Vision. However, as discussed by Harper in this latest volume, the First Vision wasn’t always styled as such. Nor did the young boy prophet’s theophany always occupy its present prominent place in the faith’s founding narrative.

Dr. Harper is not a newcomer to his subject and has published and presented on the First Vision before in a number of Latter-day Saint scholarly venues.[1] He is comfortable with the scholarship and historiography of his subject, and is able to present his research extremely clearly to his readers as a result. This volume: [Read more…] about Book Review – First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins

FairMormon Conference Podcast #36 – Elder Craig C. Christensen, “Foundations of Our Faith”

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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2019 conference that was held last week. You can still purchase the video streaming if you would like to watch all the presentations.

Elder Craig C. Christensen, Foundations of Our Faith

Elder Craig C. Christensen was sustained as a General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on October 5, 2002. At the time of his call he was serving as a member of the Fifth Quorum of the Seventy in the Utah South Area.

As a General Authority, Elder Christensen served as President of the Mexico South Area from 2003 to 2007 while living in Mexico City. He has also served in various departments and assignments at Church headquarters, such as Executive Director of the Priesthood and Family Department. He is currently serving in the Missionary Department.

Elder Christensen graduated from Brigham Young University with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. He went on to earn a master of business administration from the University of Washington. Over the years, he has been a visiting instructor of business and religion courses at several universities, including Brigham Young University.

At the time of his call as a General Authority, Elder Christensen was a self-employed businessman in the retail automotive, insurance, and real estate development industries. He previously worked as an executive with several privately owned companies and with an international accounting and consulting firm based in San Francisco, California.

Elder Craig C. Christensen was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on March 18, 1956. He married Debbie Jones in March 1978. They are the parents of four children.

Audio and Video Copyright © 2019 The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. Any reproduction or transcription of this material without prior express written permission is prohibited.

2019 John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award

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Congratulations to this year’s recipient of the John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award, Spencer Marsh!

Each year, FairMormon awards the John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award to a volunteer who made meritorious contributions to FairMormon’s mission and outstanding personal efforts in helping defend The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Potential recipients are nominated by members of the FairMormon management team and recipients are selected by the board of directors.

Prior recipients include:

  • 2018 Michael W. Hickenbotham
  • 2017 Marion Allen
  • 2016 Julianne Hatton
  • 2015 Nick Galieti and Ben McGuire
  • 2014 Trevor Holyoak
  • 2013 Neal Rappleye and Hales Swift
  • 2012 Steve Densley and Cassandra Hedelius
  • 2011 Ken Kyle
  • 2010 Tanya Spackman
  • 2009 Roger Nicholson
  • 2008 Tyler Livingston
  • 2007 Greg Smith
  • 2006 Mike Parker
  • 2005 Mike Ash
  • 2004 Marc Schindler (posthumously)
  • 2003 Sharon Bunch
  • 2002 Allen Wyatt
  • 2001 Scott Gordon

FairMormon Conference Podcast #35 – Jeff Lindsay, “‘Arise from the Dust’: Digging into a Vital Book of Mormon Theme”

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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. Please join us for the 2019 FairMormon Conference coming up August 7-9! You can attend in person (tickets are no longer being sold online, but will be available at the door) or purchase the video streaming.

Jeff Lindsay, “Arise from the Dust”: Digging into a Vital Book of Mormon Theme

Transcript available here.

Jeffrey Dean Lindsay and his wife, Kendra, are residents of Shanghai, China. Jeff has been providing online materials defending the LDS faith for over twenty years, primarily at JeffLindsay.com. His Mormanity blog has been in operation since 2004. He also wrote weekly for Orson Scott Card’s Nauvoo Times from 2012 through 2016. Jeff has a PhD in chemical engineering from BYU and is a registered U.S. patent agent. He serves as Head of Intellectual Property for Asia Pulp and Paper, one of the world’s largest paper companies. Formerly, he was associate professor at the Institute of Paper Science (now the Renewable Bioproducts Institute) at Georgia Tech, then went into R&D at Kimberly-Clark Corporation, eventually becoming corporate patent strategist and senior research fellow. He then spent several years at Innovationedge in Neenah, Wisconsin, helping many companies with innovation and IP strategy. Jeff has been in China for five years, where he works with various APP companies and mills in advancing their intellectual property and innovation. Since 2015, Jeff has been recognized as a leading IP strategist by Intellectual Asset Magazine in their global IAM300 listing based on peer input. He is also lead author of Conquering Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009). He is active in the chemical engineering community and was recently named a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Jeff served a mission in the German‑speaking Switzerland Zurich Mission and currently serves as counselor in the district presidency of the Shanghai International District. He and his wife Kendra are the parents of four boys and have nine grandchildren.

Audio and Video 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: If Truth Were a Child: Essays

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Available from the FairMormon Bookstore

George B. Handley is a humanities professor at Brigham Young University. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MA and PhD from UC Berkely. This book, part of the Maxwell Institute’s “Living Faith” series, is a collection of personal essays he has written about “the seamlessness of humanities and belief, intellect and faith” (page XI).

Handley explains in the preface that “What keeps me in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint and what keeps me working at living according to its principles is the fundamental fact that I accept the tenets of my faith as plausible, compelling, and deeply moving. They make sense to me intellectually. More importantly, they have taken root in my very being as a result of acts of faith that brought personal witnesses of the gospel’s spiritual truths” (page XII).

There are several essays that I particularly enjoyed. In “Why I Am a Christian,” he says “We talk of sin as a deliberate rejection of God, but sin often feels to me more like being a slave to myself, unable to escape my own psychology, genes, upbringing, habits, or personality even and especially when I am aware that life calls me to better habits and deeper commitments” (page 3). He further explains, “nothing has given me more confidence in the living reality of Jesus Christ as the Redeemer and resurrected Son of God than the way that my trust in him has converted my awareness of my insufficiencies into hope, into a palpable increase of love for myself, for others, and for life itself that is beyond my natural instincts…. A willingness to repent and then to declare my faith has opened me to deeper appreciation for the meaning and power of Christ’s atonement” (pages 4-5). He also makes the important distinction that “Christ’s pure love is not the same thing as blanket tolerance for all human behavior or belief” (page 7). [Read more…] about Book Review: If Truth Were a Child: Essays

FairMormon Conference Podcast #34 – Jeffrey Bradshaw, “Stories of the Saints in the DR Congo”

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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. Please join us for the 2019 FairMormon Conference coming up August 7-9! You can attend in person or purchase the video streaming.

Jeffrey Bradshaw, Stories of the Saints in the DR Congo

Transcript available here.

Dr. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, Florida. His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence (www.jeffreymbradshaw.net). Jeff has been the recipient of several awards and patents and has been an adviser for initiatives in science, defense, space, industry, and academia worldwide. He chairs the Scientific Advisory Council for the Nissan Research Center—Silicon Valley and is a former co-editor of the Human-Centered Computing Department for IEEE Intelligent Systems. He was a member of the Defense Science Board 2015 Study on Autonomy, the Board on Global Science and Technology for the National Academies of Science, and the National Research Council Committee on Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience Research.

Jeff serves as a vice president for The Interpreter Foundation and is on the Advisory Board for the Academy for Temple Studies. His articles on temple studies and the ancient Near East have appeared in Studies in the Bible and Antiquity, Element: A Journal of Mormon Philosophy and Theology, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, Meridian Magazine, and BYU Studies. Jeff has written detailed commentaries on the book of Moses and Genesis 1-11 and on temple themes in the scriptures. For LDS-related publications, see www.TempleThemes.net.

Jeff was a missionary in France and Belgium from 1975–1977, and his family has returned twice to live in France: once from 1993–1994 as a Fulbright Scholar and a second time from 2005–2006 as an unexpected “sabbatical” in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan. Jeff has served twice as a bishop and twice as a counselor in the stake presidency of the Pensacola Florida Stake. He and his wife, Kathleen, are the parents of four children and twelve grandchildren. In June 2018, they finished two years of service in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa Mission.

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 Questions: Why does Nephi quote from Isaiah in the Book of Mormon?

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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.

QUESTION:

Why are chapters 12 – 24 in 2 Nephi in the Book of Mormon? They are hard to understand. What meaning can be obtained by reading them? Why are they present?

ANSWER FROM FAIRMORMON VOLUNTEER MICHAEL HICKENBOTHAM:

I assume you realized these chapters contain 12 Isaiah chapters (Isaiah 2-14) with some slight modifications. These are part of 21 chapters of Isaiah found throughout the Book of Mormon. A few years back I thought about why so many chapters of Isaiah were included in the Book of Mormon and after researching the subject, I wrote the following: [Read more…] about FairMormon Questions: Why does Nephi quote from Isaiah in the Book of Mormon?