FOURTH ANNUAL FAIR VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
Foundations of Faith
Defending the New Testament in the Latter Days
October 8–10, 2026 · Online
About This Conference
The 2026 FAIR Virtual Conference explores the New Testament through faithful apologetic, historical, theological, and cultural perspectives. Presentations examine scripture, early Christianity, the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and His Apostles, and connections between the New Testament and Latter-day Saint doctrine.
Presentations
Explore presentations from the 2026 FAIR Virtual Conference examining the Gospels, New Testament interpretation and theology, the Epistles, the early Christian Church, and the Great Apostasy.
The Conference will be streamed on FAIR’s YouTube channel.
Opening Keynote
Lincoln Blumell
Lady Eclecte: Recovering a Woman in the New Testament
Description coming soon
THE GOSPELS, INTERPRETATION & THEOLOGY
Daniel Gullotta
“Cunningly Devised Fables”: The Jesus Myth Theory and Its Problems
Daniel N. Gullotta examines the Jesus myth theory—the claim that Jesus of Nazareth never existed—which has surfaced periodically since the late eighteenth century. Drawing on evidence from the Apostle Paul, the Gospels, and critics of Christianity, he argues that its central claims fail on historical grounds. He considers why the theory flourishes online without gaining acceptance among historians, with particular attention to where Latter-day Saints are likely to encounter it. Gullotta presents Jesus’s historicity as common ground for Latter-day Saints, Catholics, and Protestants, who draw on the same evidence and reach the same conclusion, making defense of the New Testament a shared undertaking.
Allen Hansen
The Midrash of Matthew: How the Passover Reveals the Messiah
Allen Hansen examines how Jewish interpretive traditions beyond the biblical text shape Matthew’s presentation of Jesus as the fulfillment of scripture. Drawing on Josephus, midrash, and the Passover Haggadah, he explores Passover parallels in Jesus’ birth, the star of the magi, Joseph’s dreams, the flight into Egypt, the wilderness temptations, and the Sermon on the Mount. Hansen argues that Passover provides the organizing logic of Matthew’s Gospel, connecting Christ’s birth, ministry, and atoning sacrifice. He considers how these traditions illuminate Matthew’s selection and interpretation of events, and how understanding Passover’s significance for Matthew and his audience can deepen readers’ appreciation of Christ.
Stephen Smoot
The Olivet Discourse Restored: Approaching Joseph Smith–Matthew
Stephen Smoot examines readings of Matthew 24 that treat Jesus’s prediction of Jerusalem’s destruction in AD 70 as ex eventu prophecy—a prediction written after the event—and considers their implications for the Gospel’s dating and historical reliability. He draws on Joseph Smith’s 1832 prophecy on war, now Doctrine and Covenants 87, which he presents as accurately anticipating the Civil War’s outbreak in South Carolina. Situating this comparison within the Latter-day Saint understanding of continuing revelation, Smoot challenges the assumption that accurate prediction necessarily implies post-event authorship. He argues that the Restoration’s prophetic tradition offers a framework for reading the Olivet Discourse as genuine prophecy rather than retrospective composition.
Devon Bollin
“The Spirit of Truth”: A Latter-day Saint Reading of the Johannine Prologue
Devon Bollin reads John’s Prologue through Doctrine and Covenants 93, shifting attention from what the Word is to what the Word does in becoming flesh. Connecting Christ as “the Spirit of truth” with teachings on truth, embodiment, and a fullness of joy, he suggests that truth is personal, lived, and made complete in embodied existence. Bollin presents a Restoration framework in which growth, covenant, and relationship are basic features of reality, and God and humanity are continuous in kind while differing in degree. In dialogue with other Christian accounts of sharing in divine life, he argues for reading John’s Prologue as a story of disclosure and transformation in which flesh expresses divine life rather than obstructing truth.
David Harper
Is It Written? Scriptural Context and Interpretive Methods
David Harper examines how ancient Israelite, Jewish, and Christian communities interpreted scripture, arguing that they gave earlier passages inspired meanings beyond those intended by their authors or understood by their original audiences. Drawing on the Old and New Testaments, Qumran writings, other Second Temple texts, and works by Philo and Josephus, he assesses how interpretive approaches such as allegory, typology, and midrash account for these patterns. Harper contends that modern criticisms of Latter-day Saint interpretations for departing from original meanings would also apply to biblical authors. He argues that Restoration prophets and apostles follow an ancient pattern of renewing scripture’s relevance by giving it new meaning for contemporary audiences.
Stephen Johnsen
The Bible and Book of Mormon: Exceptional Evidence of Christ
Stephen Johnsen examines the Book of Mormon as a source of empirical evidence beyond the Bible for central Christian claims. Drawing on Latter-day Saint and non–Latter-day Saint research, he argues that the book challenges assumptions of Joseph Smith’s time and contains information unavailable then but later confirmed. He contends that these features exceed what writers of that era—or even a century later—could have produced. Acknowledging unresolved questions and the limits of archaeology in establishing biblical miracles, Johnsen presents the accumulated research as exceptional evidence for the Book of Mormon’s truthfulness and, in turn, for a God who interacts with humanity, Jesus as the Messiah, and the reality of His resurrection.
Paul Bryner
“Spirits Which Ye Could Not Understand” (D&C 50:14): A Restoration Analysis of Biblical Evil Spirit Theology
Paul Bryner examines biblical accounts of evil spirits through Restoration teachings that affirm their existence while emphasizing divine sovereignty and limits on their power over nature and human agency. Drawing on the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and prophetic teachings, he argues that physical control by evil beings is rare and that some possession accounts may primarily describe healings of serious mental illness. He also considers how Alma 22:15, Doctrine and Covenants 50, and early Christian confirmation practices illuminate the displacement of evil spirits. Bryner advocates spiritual healing alongside medical treatment, regardless of whether evil spirits are shown to cause particular suffering, as a way to continue Christ’s healing ministry while affirming New Testament historicity and accounting for biological phenomena.
Michael DiPaolo
Restorationist Metaphysics and the Evidential Problem of Evil
Michael DiPaolo examines how assumptions about divine perfection, humanity’s relationship to God, and freedom in heaven shape the evidential problem of evil—the challenge posed by apparently pointless suffering. Drawing on Latter-day Saint theology and biblical accounts of Christ growing in wisdom, learning obedience, and exercising entrusted authority, he argues that wisdom and stewardship require development and cannot be instantly conferred on free agents intended to participate in the divine nature. He considers natural and nonhuman suffering within a world of moral formation, delegated stewardship, and ongoing responsibility. DiPaolo also presents heaven as continued moral and creative participation. He argues that this framework of eternal agency makes suffering intelligible without treating it as gratuitous or incompatible with divine goodness.
THE EPISTLES, EARLY CHURCH & APOSTASY
Brent Schmidt
Restoring Heavenly Father as the Divine Patron in Romans
Brent Schmidt examines Paul’s use of the Greek definite article ho (“the”) before the word for God in Romans. He argues that this grammatical feature, obscured in English translations, identifies Heavenly Father as a personage separate and distinct from Jesus Christ. Drawing on the ancient patron-client system and 1 Corinthians 8:6, Schmidt interprets Romans as presenting the Father as the divine patron—the source of all blessings—and Jesus as the mediator of His gifts, including the Holy Ghost. He explores how these gifts call for a faithful response and how this understanding encourages disciples to love and trust Heavenly Father and cultivate a covenant relationship with Him through His Son.
Jonathon Riley
Zenos, Lehi, and Paul: How the Book of Mormon Illuminates Romans 11
Jonathon Riley examines how the Book of Mormon’s grafting imagery may illuminate Paul’s declaration that “all Israel will be saved” in Romans 11. He traces how the Book of Mormon connects grafting with remnants of both the northern and southern kingdoms, then interprets Romans 11:25–32 with the northern tribes in view. Using an audience-oriented approach, Riley argues that the passage can be read as referring to both northern and southern Israel. He presents this interpretation as a more expansive understanding of Israel’s salvation, encompassing not only Jews and Gentiles but also scattered Northern Israelites.
Lynne Hilton Wilson
Set Free and Counted: Women in the Apostolic Church
Lynne Hilton Wilson examines claims that the apostolic Church was hostile to women, drawing on forty-one New Testament passages that she identifies as affirming women’s worship and ministry. She reassesses the restrictive passages in 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 and 1 Timothy 2:9–15 through questions of translation, congregational circumstances, possible textual changes, and Restoration scripture. Her study also identifies twenty-four named female disciples in Acts and the Epistles, including Phoebe, Priscilla, and Junia. Acknowledging unresolved difficulties, Wilson argues that the broader scriptural witness affirms women praying, prophesying, teaching, serving, and leading, rather than making restrictive passages the defining theology of the apostolic Church.
Jennifer Roach Lees
From Diakonos to Relief Society: Reclaiming Biblical Precedents for Women’s Spiritual Authority
Jennifer Roach Lees examines parallels between New Testament women and contemporary Latter-day Saint women, distinguishing spiritual authority from modern conceptions of priesthood office. Drawing on Phoebe, Priscilla, Lydia, Junia, and Philip’s four daughters, she argues that women exercised gospel leadership through spiritual gifts and the direction of the Spirit, sometimes within specific callings. Lees presents these examples as a theological foundation for recognizing women’s gifts and normalizing their voices in decision-making within the Church’s revealed structure. She advocates a shift from leadership grounded in hierarchy to practical, Spirit-led initiative, arguing that this approach does not require changes to the priesthood structure revealed by modern prophets.
Christopher Meldrum
Order, Authority, and Service in 1 Timothy 2–3
Christopher Meldrum examines 1 Timothy 2–3 through ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman understandings of sacred order, mediation, and diakonia—entrusted, tested service. He argues that Paul’s instructions to women in 1 Timothy 2:9–15 address preparation for responsibility and premature or usurped authority rather than female incapacity. He reads Paul’s appeal to Genesis as a narrative about sacred order rather than a claim of gender hierarchy. Meldrum connects this interpretation with chapter 3’s emphasis on testing, blamelessness, and the inclusion of women “likewise,” presenting the passage as a coherent vision of Church order. He briefly notes a resonance with early Latter-day Saint understandings of entrusted service, without treating that parallel as proof.
Spencer Kraus
“They Went Out From Us”: Apostasy in the Johannine Writings
Spencer Kraus examines apostasy as an internal challenge to the early Church, drawing on John’s writings, Paul’s letters, and other early Christian texts. Examples include the Judaizer movement in Galatians and Diotrephes in 3 John. He explores apostolic responses to movements labeled “gnostic,” clarifies the term’s limitations, and uses the Nag Hammadi codices to examine their differing beliefs. He also considers how some teachings may reflect authentic doctrines and ordinances, including baptism for the dead, later abandoned partly because of their association with heretical movements. Kraus argues that these movements departed from one apostolic Christianity by rejecting its teachings, while advocating discussion and defense of the doctrine of apostasy with clarity and charity.
Kerry Hull
Vocabulary of Deviation: Heresy, Schism, and the Construction of Orthodoxy, c. 1st–5th Centuries
Kerry M. Hull examines how Christian writers from the first through fifth centuries used the language of heresy, schism, error, innovation, and tradition to defend what they understood as apostolic teaching. Drawing on authors including Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Augustine, he explores competing appeals to apostolic authority and the institutional consequences of disagreement, including rebaptism controversies, the removal of bishops, and condemnations by councils. Hull places the warnings of apostasy in Acts 20:29–30, 2 Thessalonians 2, and 1 Timothy 4 alongside these doctrinal conflicts. He invites Latter-day Saints to recognize both early Christianity’s persistent doctrinal fragmentation and the sincere efforts of its leaders to preserve apostolic faith.
Bryan Habashi
Evidence of the Apostasy? Contradictions between a 2nd Century Bishop and the New Testament on the Necessity of Apostles and Prophets in the Christian Church
Bryan Habashi compares Irenaeus of Lyon’s teachings on apostolic succession with the New Testament’s accounts of Church leadership. He examines the second-century bishop’s claims that the Apostles appointed bishops as their successors and that other churches must agree with Rome’s doctrine. Habashi argues that these claims contradict apostolic teaching and invalidate Roman Catholic claims of unbroken succession. He presents Irenaeus’s theology on this issue as evidence of an apostasy from the original Christian Church. Emphasizing apostles and prophets as essential to Church leadership, he seeks to strengthen Latter-day Saints’ faith that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the original New Testament Church restored to the earth.
John Gee
Theologia and Apologia
John Gee examines Latter-day Saint ambivalence toward theology and how the term’s use differs from its meaning as a professional discipline in other denominations. He traces theology’s origins as a way of interpreting Homer and Hesiod, then explores how and why Christianity adopted it. Gee considers the consequences of that adoption and problems some Christians identify within Christian theology. He contrasts this history with the role of apologetics, arguing that a practice viewed unfavorably by some Latter-day Saints today was considered an imperative duty by early Christians and sanctioned by Jesus himself.
Conference Schedule
Join us online October 8–10, 2026, for three days of presentations exploring the New Testament, early Christianity, Latter-day Saint theology, and the Great Apostasy.
Thursday, October 8 — Opening Keynote
Keynote Address
7:00–7:45 p.m. — Lincoln Blumell
Friday, October 9 — The Gospels, Interpretation & Theology
Morning Session
10:00–10:35 a.m. — Daniel Gullotta, “Cunningly Devised Fables”: The Jesus Myth Theory and Its Problems
10:35–11:00 a.m. — Allen Hansen, The Midrash of Matthew: How the Passover Reveals the Messiah
11:00–11:35 a.m. — Stephen Smoot, The Olivet Discourse Restored: Approaching Joseph Smith–Matthew
11:35 a.m.–12:30 p.m. — Devon Bollin, “The Spirit of Truth”: A Latter-day Saint Reading of the Johannine Prologue
12:30–1:30 p.m. — Lunch Break
Afternoon Session
1:30–2:05 p.m. — David Harper, Is It Written? Scriptural Context and Interpretive Methods
2:05–2:40 p.m. — Stephen Johnsen, The Bible and Book of Mormon: Exceptional Evidence of Christ
2:40–2:50 p.m. — Short Break
2:50–3:25 p.m. — Paul Bryner, “Spirits Which Ye Could Not Understand” (D&C 50:14): A Restoration Analysis of Biblical Evil Spirit Theology
3:25–4:00 p.m. — Michael DiPaolo, Restorationist Metaphysics and the Evidential Problem of Evil
Saturday, October 10 — The Epistles, Early Church & Apostasy
Morning Session
10:00–10:35 a.m. — Brent Schmidt, Restoring Heavenly Father as the Divine Patron in Romans
10:35–11:10 a.m. — Jonathon Riley, Zenos, Lehi, and Paul: How the Book of Mormon Illuminates Romans 11
11:10–11:20 a.m. — Short Break
11:20–11:55 a.m. — Lynne Wilson, Set Free and Counted: Women in the Apostolic Church
11:55 a.m.–12:30 p.m. — Jennifer Lees, From Diakonos to Relief Society: Reclaiming Biblical Precedents for Women’s Spiritual Authority
12:30–1:30 p.m. — Lunch Break
Afternoon Session
1:30–2:05 p.m. — Christopher Meldrum, Order, Authority, and Service in 1 Timothy 2–3
2:05–2:40 p.m. — Spencer Kraus, “They Went Out From Us”: Apostasy in the Johannine Writings
2:40–2:50 p.m. — Short Break
2:50–3:25 p.m. — Kerry Hull, Vocabulary of Deviation: Heresy, Schism, and the Construction of Orthodoxy, c. 1st–5th Centuries
3:25–4:00 p.m. — Bryan Habashi, Evidence of the Apostasy? Contradictions between a 2nd Century Bishop and the New Testament on the Necessity of Apostles and Prophets in the Christian Church
4:00–4:35 p.m. — John Gee, Theologia and Apologia
4:35 p.m. — Closing
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