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FairMormon Conference Podcast #43 – Scott Gordon, “CES Letter: Proof or Propaganda?”

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

Scott Gordon, CES Letter: Proof or Propaganda?

Transcript available here.

Scott Gordon serves as President of FairMormon, a non-profit corporation staffed by volunteers dedicated to helping members deal with issues raised by critics of the LDS faith. He has an MBA from Brigham Young University, and a BA in Organizational Communications from Brigham Young University. He is currently an instructor of business and technology at Shasta College in Redding, California. Scott has held many positions in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints including serving as a bishop for six years. He is married and has 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.

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.

Tad Callister Interview – A Case For The Book of Mormon

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[A review of the book can be found here.]

Tad R. Callister is author of the book “A Case For The Book of Mormon. Tad Callister received a bachelor of science degree in accounting from Brigham Young University, a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of California–Los Angeles, and a master’s degree in tax law from New York University Law School. He spent most of his professional career practicing tax law. He and his wife Kathryn Saporiti are the parents of six children.

Brother Callister was serving in the Presidency of the Seventy and as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy when he was called as the 21st Sunday School general president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has served in a number of Church callings including full-time missionary in the Eastern Atlantic States Mission, bishop, stake president, regional representative, mission president, and Area Seventy.

Brother Callister was released as Sunday School General President in the April 2019 General Conference where he gave his 6th and possibly last General Conference talk. 1/3 of his General Conference talks were about our subject on this podcast episode, The Book of Mormon. He is the author of the book “A Case For The Book of Mormon”, published by Deseret Book. He is scheduled to speak at the 2019 FairMormon Conference in August. This Podcast Episode is published from the Latter-day Saint MissionCast podcast with Nick Galieti.

Jim Bennett: Standing My Ground

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[Jim Bennett is the author of “A Faithful Reply to the CES Letter from a Former CES Employee“]

So it’s been a few days since Bill Reel published our twelve hours of recorded conversations we had for his Mormon Discussions podcast. And since then, I’ve been wading through the comments and finding that the consensus seems to be that in our Historic Podcast Battle for Church Trueness, Bill won handily, and I, and the Church, lost.

That assessment comes from the regular audience for Bill Reel’s podcast, which I’d be willing to bet includes far more disaffected or former church members than it does active Latter-day Saints. I expected their reaction to what I said to be interpreted through a far more skeptical lens than my own, and it doesn’t surprise me to see them giving the victory to “their guy” instead of me. Even so, I don’t think their interpretation is a fair or objective assessment of the discussion that took place.

I did not know Bill Reel prior to these podcasts, but a mutual friend thought it would be fun to see the two of us go “toe to toe” about the response I’d written to the CES Letter. My reply, perhaps naively, was that I was happy to speak to anyone about it, but I wasn’t interested in a debate so much as a discussion. Bill agreed to that, and we had the first of six early-morning recording sessions a few weeks ago. I thought the exchanges were respectful; I thought Bill gave me ample opportunity to represent my position, and I was overall pleased with the conversation as a whole.

Then they were published, and comments like the following started rolling in:

[Read more…] about Jim Bennett: Standing My Ground

Book Review: We’ll Sing and We’ll Shout: The Life and Times of W. W. Phelps

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Available at a discount at the FairMormon Bookstore

William Wines Phelps (usually known as W. W. Phelps) is probably most often thought of in conjunction with some of the most beloved hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Praise to the Man,” “The Spirit of God,” “Gently Raise the Sacred Strain,” and “If You Could Hie to Kolob” are just a few of the fifteen hymns that he wrote that appear in the current hymnal. But there was so much more to his life, and Bruce Van Orden, an emeritus professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University, has been researching it for decades. This research was recently given a boost by the Joseph Smith Papers Project, which gave greater access to materials that Phelps was involved with.

There is little known about Phelps’s early life, or where and how he was educated, but he grew into a very intelligent and articulate man. He joined the Church in 1831 at age 39, and his talents were immediately put to use. He served in church leadership councils, including the Council of Fifty (it was he that coined the term “theodemocracy”); he was a writer, poet, and printer, and actually did more ghostwriting for Joseph Smith than was previously realized. He was also very much a family man, as well as a close friend of Joseph (again, moreso than has previously been understood). This book concentrates on these facets of his life.

[Read more…] about Book Review: We’ll Sing and We’ll Shout: The Life and Times of W. W. Phelps

Book Review: Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Vol. 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts

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Available in the FairMormon Bookstore

This new volume of the Joseph Smith Papers is another Facsimile Edition, which means it is an oversized volume (approx. 12 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches, matching the other Facsimile Editions in the series) with all of the items related to the Book of Abraham available to the public for the first time in full color. It contains photos of the extant papyri, the collection of documents commonly known as the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, and the Book of Abraham as first published in the Times and Seasons, along with the printing plates that were used.

As with all the books in the JSP series, there is a great volume introduction that gives the historical background and an overview of what the volume contains. It explains how the mummies and papyri came into the possession of Joseph Smith, what the various sets of documents are and how they might relate, and how revelation and translation were understood at the time by Joseph and the Saints. This is important since it has been known since the extant fragments were recovered in the 1960s that they actually contain common funerary texts (see https://archive.org/stream/improvementera7101unse#page/n13/mode/2up). There are two theories that explain this discrepancy  – either the scriptural text was on the much larger portion of papyri that was lost, or it was revealed without regard to what the papyri actually contain (see  https://www.lds.org/topics/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham?lang=eng) – the introduction focuses on the latter. [Read more…] about Book Review: Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Vol. 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts

A NEW New Testament Translation and Study Bible!

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A NEW New Testament? Finally!

Do you find that reading King James Version of the  New Testament English feels old, out dated, or just hard to understand? Have no fear, Thom Wayment is here. Our guest on this episode of the Latter-day Saint MissionCast is the translator of a NEW translation, a more modern translation of the New Testament Study Bible for Latter-day Saints! Brother Wayment is a professor of Classics at Brigham Young University. He joined the faculty of Religious Education in June of 2000 after completing a PhD in New Testament studies at the Claremont Graduate School, and he later joined the faculty of Comparative Arts and Letters at BYU in 2018. His recent research interests focus on Christian literary papyri, Oxyrhynchus, and the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. He served as the publications director of the Religious Studies Center from 2013 until 2018.

In this episode we learn about the translation process he took, the history of the King James Version of the New Testament, and how the study hints and helps that he brings forth makes a tremendous impact on the way we study the Bible. This is great content considering the 2019 Curriculum with the Come, Follow Me – For Individuals and Familiesas well as Come, Follow Me – For Sunday School and Primary that will be featuring the New Testament. This is also a great resource for missionaries looking to study the gospel on or off their missions. The New Testament is our bridge to other Christian Faiths, and it contains the words of Christ. This new edition is being published by BYU and Deseret Book, released in November 2018.

THE BOOK IS NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH Deseret Book! CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE A COPY!
The New Testament - Latter-day Saint Study Bible

FairMormon Conference Podcast #17 – John Gee, “Selling Our Birthright for a Mess of Pottage: The Historical Authenticity of the Book of Abraham”

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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. In celebration of the release of the Facsimile Edition of the Joseph Smith Papers Revelations and Translations Vol. 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts, this episode is a presentation from our conference earlier this year. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the 2018 conference, you can still purchase video streaming. You can also buy John Gee’s latest book, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, at a discount from our bookstore.

John Gee, Selling Our Birthright for a Mess of Pottage: The Historical Authenticity of the Book of Abraham

Transcript available here.

John Gee is a Senior Research Fellow, and the William (Bill) Gay Research Professor at the Maxwell Institute. He is the editor of eight books and has edited a peer-reviewed international Egyptological journal. He has published over eighty articles and one book. He has served on the board of trustees of national and international organizations.

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: 1,001 Facts About the Prophet Joseph Smith

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Available at a discount from the FairMormon bookstore

This is a short (151 pages) paperback book that contains 1,001 numbered paragraphs that chronologically narrate the life of Joseph Smith, essentially constituting a simple biography. “One of the main goals of this book is to tell the real story, while making it simple to read and understand. 1,001 Facts about the Prophet Joseph Smith is a history book for this generation. The entire book can be read in one sitting, or readers can jump around to different moments in the prophet’s life and learn about their favorite and the more fascinating events” (page 2). The author also intends the book to combat the anti-Mormon propaganda being spread on the Internet.

Here are several examples from the book that I thought were of interest: [Read more…] about Book Review: 1,001 Facts About the Prophet Joseph Smith

The 2018 FairMormon Conference in Review

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We had another great conference last week (it was our 20th!). This time it ran for 3 days. Some of the topics covered were lesser-known women’s stories in church history, the Gospel Topics Essays, stories of members of the church in India and Africa, the new Saints church history series coming out from the church, grace, the Book of Abraham, homosexuality, horses in the Book of Mormon, and how to help people having a faith crisis. We also had a general authority speak for the first time. Elder Kevin W. Pearson spoke about the good that FairMormon and other organizations are doing to help correct misunderstandings about the church, and that more voices are needed in the effort. Awards were given to Scott Gordon, Louis Midgley, and Michael Hickenbotham for their service, and a painting of “Mary Whitmer and Moroni” in honor of Lynne Hilton Wilson was unveiled.

Each day, one presentation was live-streamed free on Facebook, where you can still watch the recordings. You can also watch them here:

  • Jenny Reeder: “Fire In My Bones”: Women’s Stories on churchhistorianspress.org
  • John Gee: Selling Our Birthright for a Mess of Pottage: The Historical Authenticity of the Book of Abraham
  • Elder Kevin W. Pearson: A Sacred and Imperative Duty

It’s not too late to purchase the streaming and watch the videos of the entire conference. After purchase, they will be available to view on any device with a web browser, as well as on a Roku box. You can buy it here.

We have had several articles published about the conference (this section will be updated as more appear):

Mike Ash, one of our volunteers who is a great photographer, has posted photos from the conference on our Facebook page.

Transcriptions of the presentations will be posted on our website after they are prepared by our volunteers.

The full conference schedule can be reviewed here.