Remembering the First Vision

First Vision by Jorge Cocco Sanangelo

(by Daniel Peterson deseretnews.com 3-23-17)

Some years ago, two Latter-day Saint writers arrived separately at the conclusion that Joseph Smith’s First Vision probably occurred on Sunday, March 26, 1820. (See “Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning: Sun 26 Mar 1820?” ) In other words, this coming Sunday may mark the 197th anniversary of the commencement of the Restoration.

Of course, we can’t be certain of the date. Unlike most of Joseph’s fundamental visions, it was received alone. (See "Many of Prophet's revelations were shared experiences," Feb. 24, 2011.) Nonetheless, the anniversary must be near at hand, and this seems a good time to reflect on that pivotal event. Fortunately, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has made excellent resources available for such reflection, including a collection of various accounts of it that supplement the familiar 1838 narrative found in Joseph Smith-History in the Pearl of Great Price in "First Vision Accounts" in the Gospel Topics section of lds.org. For obscure reasons, Latter-day Saints have neglected these other versions of the story thus far. But we no longer have any excuse for doing so.

In this column, I’ll provide a few details from those other accounts that I find interesting:

In a May 24, 1844 interview, Joseph told Alexander Neibaur that, just prior to the First Vision, “his Mother & Br got Religion, he wanted to get Religion too wanted to feel & shout like the Rest but could feel nothing, opened his Bible the first Passage that struck him” was James 1:5. This agrees with Joseph's comment, in an August 1843 interview by David Nye White, editor of the Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette, that he had found that passage “promiscuously” — which is to say, in the language of his time, randomly, without deliberate design.

The earliest formal account of the First Vision, recorded in 1832, has the Lord saying, “Joseph my son thy sins are forgiven thee.” This emphasis on personal forgiveness dovetails nicely with the implicit account of the First Vision and the visit of Moroni given at Doctrine and Covenants 20:5-8, which dates to April 1830, if not before.

And it agrees with an account from 1835 in which Joseph describes the details of his vision: “A pillar of fire appeared above my head,” he says, “it presently rested down upon me, and filled me with joy unspeakable, a personage appeard in the midst, of this pillar of flame which was spread all around, and yet nothing consumed, another personage soon appeard like unto the first, he said unto me thy sins are forgiven thee.” (Note that, in this telling, the Father and the Son didn’t appear simultaneously, as we often assume, but sequentially.)

Orson Pratt’s 1840 narration of the story is second-hand, but, because of his long and close association with Joseph Smith, it’s of considerable interest: “While thus pouring out his soul, anxiously desiring an answer from God, he, at length, saw a very bright and glorious light in the heavens above; which, at first, seemed to be at a considerable distance. He continued praying, while the light appeared to be gradually descending towards him; and, as it drew nearer, it increased in brightness, and magnitude, so that, by the time that it reached the tops of the trees, the whole wilderness, for some distance around, was illuminated in a most glorious and brilliant manner. He expected to have seen the leaves and boughs of the trees consumed, as soon as the light came in contact with them; but, perceiving that it did not produce that effect, he was encouraged with the hopes of being able to endure its presence. It continued descending, slowly, until it rested upon the earth, and he was enveloped in the midst of it. When it first came upon him, it produced a peculiar sensation throughout his whole system; and, immediately, his mind was caught away, from the natural objects with which he was surrounded; and he was enwrapped in a heavenly vision, and saw two glorious personages, who exactly resembled each other in their features or likeness.”

Strikingly, both the famous “Wentworth Letter” and Orson Hyde’s German-language pamphlet “Ein Ruf aus der Wüste” (each published in 1842) agree that the Father and Son were precisely identical to each other in appearance.

Afterwards, in the 1832 account, Joseph recalls that “my soul was filled with love and for many days I could rejoice with great Joy and the Lord was with me but could find none that would believe the hevnly vision nevertheless I pondered these things in my heart.”

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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865676233/Remembering-the-First-Vision.html

What started out as a BYU devotional talk has become a new book on 'grace' for author Brad Wilcox

(by Trent Toone deseretnews.com 3-22-17)

On July 12, 2011, author Brad Wilcox delivered a devotional speech at Brigham Young University titled "His Grace is Sufficient."

The message found an audience. Nearly six years later, the talk is the most viewed speech of all time among BYU speeches, and has more than 400,000 views on YouTube.

Because the message continues to resonate, Wilcox, an associate professor in the BYU Department of Ancient Scripture, has written a new version of the talk in book form and titled it "Changed Through His Grace."

"The purpose of this book is to help all of us choose to receive Christ's grace and more fully rejoice in the gift and the giver," Wilcox wrote in the book's introduction.

"We must understand what grace is, what it isn't and its connection to the Atonement," he wrote. "We need to know how a covenant relationship allows us to receive grace in greater and greater abundance and escape the bondage of addictions. Through the Holy Ghost — the messenger of grace — we can be strengthened, saved and transformed. As we more fully value and appreciate grace, we can offer it to others as liberally as it is offered to us."

One of the main questions addressed in the book is the argument about whether Mormons believe in being saved by grace.

"It is not the definition of grace that sets us apart from other Christians, but our larger and more comprehensive view of 'saved,'" Wilcox wrote.

"They see salvation as just getting into heaven. For us, salvation also includes the opportunity to become heavenly," Wilcox wrote. "That is where we are different, not in recognizing our total dependence on Christ, but because we see a bigger salvation."

Another part of the book involves looking at levels of grace.

"If grace is God's enabling power, how is it different from the gift of the Holy Ghost or the power with which we are endowed in temples, or priesthood power, etc.?" Wilcox wrote. "I propose that these are not different powers, but different levels of the same power. We do not do ordinances and make covenants as works in place of faith, but as outgrowths of faith. They are not evidences that we don't need grace, but rather that we are ready and willing to invite more and more grace into our lives."

The book is full of real-life accounts and personal experiences that demonstrate the power of Christ's grace, along with teachings from the scriptures and leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In one chapter titled, "Succored by Grace," Wilcox tells about an Australian student named Tyler who had a cancerous brain tumor. While the battle against cancer is still ongoing, for now there is a happy ending as Tyler is preparing to get married in April, Wilcox wrote.

Wilcox has authored several books in recent years, including "The Continuous Atonement," "The Continuous Conversion" and "The 7-Day Christian." He is a popular speaker at BYU's Campus Education Week, Especially for Youth and Time Out for Women. He has served as a member of the Sunday School general board and as a LDS Church mission president in Santiago, Chile.

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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865676174/What-started-out-as-a-BYU-devotional-talk-has-become-a-new-book-on-grace-for-author-Brad-Wilcox.html

His Grace is Sufficient by Brad Wilcox

LDS members assist in returning lost WWII flag to family of fallen Japanese soldier

(by Trent Toone deseretnews.com 3-21-17)

A lost and forgotten World War II Japanese flag, found in an Alabama middle school closet 15 years ago, was recently returned to the son of the soldier who once carried it, thanks in part to a few members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

How it happened is something of a family history miracle, said Dennis Sellers, a Montgomery, Alabama middle school math teacher and Mormon who helped reunite the family with the flag.

"God had a hand in this," Sellers said. "It was special for the son to have something from his father, to keep the memory of his father alive."

It all started when Veronica Hill, a history teacher, found the national flag of Japan, featuring a white rectangle with a red circle in the middle, folded in the corner of a teacher's closet, according to Associated Press. Japanese writing encircled the red symbol.

Hill kept the flag and learned that it was a "good luck soldier flag," Sellers said. It was customary for Japanese family and friends to sign it and for the soldier to carry it with them into battle. Apparently, this flag was taken by an Allied soldier when its owner was killed, Sellers said.

"One of the most common and precious token they gave was a flag from their home or community to be signed by family and friends," Hill told the Montgomery Advertiser. "Many Japanese soldiers, with their dedication and honor knew they would not be returning. This flag was very precious to them."

Hill wanted to return the flag to the family of the soldier. She knew that Sellers had served an LDS mission in Japan and asked if he could help her find the family.

Sellers enlisted the help of the Nozaki family, a Japanese family in his Montgomery, Alabama, LDS ward. With the soldier's name on the flag, they translated what they could and searched. Eventually the group learned that a Japanese government agency specializes in finding and returning these flags. The flag was sent to Japan, Sellers said.

After two years of searching, Hill was notified in February that the family had been located. She received a translated letter from a man named Katsuhiko Hata and cried for two days, Sellers said.

"Reading the letter about broke my heart and I realized that we did the right thing in returning it to them," Hill told the Montgomery Advertiser.

Katsuhiko Hata, 71, said his father, Shigezo Hata, was 35-years-old when he went to war while he was only five-months-old, leaving him with no memories of his father beyond a photo and what his mother told him, the letter said.

His father was killed at the Admiralty Islands in May 1944. News of his death came from a public service announcement by the Japanese government. The body was not returned. There were no dog tags. All the family received was a rock from the area where he died. The flag he carried with him, signed by family and friends, would have been his most prized possession, Hata wrote.

Hata was surprised to learn about the flag's existence because it had been more than 70 years since his father died, he wrote in the letter to Hill.

"I was half in belief and half in doubt," Hata wrote in the translated letter. "When I received and saw the actual flag, I was moved completely. ... I sincerely thank you for returning the flag to us. I would like to thank all ... from the bottom of my heart."

Hata said he got "goose bumps" as examined the white flag and recognized the names of his uncle, aunt, cousins and co-workers written on the fabric. This realization "made my whole body shake and me realize his present strongly," Hata wrote.

Sellers said he was grateful to help and felt he was spiritually sent to help Hill return this flag.

For Hill, whose father and grandfather were soldiers, returning the flag was a journey "to right a wrong and to ease the pain of a family far away," she told the Montgomery Advertiser.

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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865676117/LDS-members-assist-in-returning-lost-WWII-flag-to-family-of-fallen-Japanese-soldier.html

Joseph Smith's conflicts with media vital to backstory of the Articles of Faith

(by Tad Walch deseretnews.com 3-14-17)

Joseph Smith had a tempestuous relationship with newspapers from the beginning of his ministry, when one editor wrote that he was a long-legged ignoramus, to his death, when another editor stood trial for his murder.

Objectivity was not yet a concept in American journalism in the 1830s and early 1840s. Such indignities sometimes led Smith to rail at the media after another misrepresentation of him or Mormonism.

 

 

"I have been in their mill," he once said. "I was ground in Ohio and New York states. I was ground in the Presbyterian smut machine, and the last machine was in Missouri, and now I have been through the Illinois smut machine."

"He was talking about the press," said Terryl Givens, author of "The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism," who relishes the colorful quote. American newspapers at the time were overtly political and biased. Many of their subjects easily would have understood the metaphor of feeling like they had been put through the machine that separated smut fungus and other substances from wheat to make it fit for grinding.

No matter how bad it got, the first prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints yearned for a voice in the papers, said biographer Richard Bushman. Ironically, Smith's persistent efforts to work with rowdy, obstreperous editors eventually led to new Mormon scripture, a list of beliefs that are striking because of Smith's long reluctance to publish them and remarkable because of their staying power in spite of leaving out key hallmarks of LDS theology like the temple.

Every Mormon child sets out to memorize them. Virtually every Mormon missionary knows them. The list, known as the Articles of Faith, were first published 175 years ago this month and later canonized.

Historians say the origin story of the Articles of Faith is more interesting and richer than the one most Primary children hear, just as Mormon studies scholars say LDS theology is richer, broader and deeper than what is found in the Articles of Faith.

Pirated scripture

One of Joseph Smith's contemporaries, the writer James Fenimore Cooper, described newspapers in the 1830s as self-interested — many were organs of political parties or existed to support a single agenda. He also said they displayed no tolerance and frequently exhibited no decency.

Smith experienced it all, beginning even before he organized the LDS Church in April 1830.

One editor pirated portions of the Book of Mormon before Smith could publish it. The Reflector, a freethought or atheist newspaper, was printed in the same Palmyra, New York, shop where printer E.B. Grandin was preparing the Book of Mormon for publication in the fall of 1829. The Reflector's editor, Abner Cole, stole sections of the Mormon scripture and mockingly leaked them in the paper months before the book would appear for sale in March 1830. When Smith confronted him, Cole challenged Smith to a fist fight and, in print, called him a "spindle shanked (long-legged) ignoramus."

American newspapers experienced dramatic expansion and broad upheaval during the Jacksonian era. In a single decade, the number of papers more than doubled, proliferating far faster than a fast-growing population. The advent of the Penny press caused a huge spike in circulation. The media objectivity Americans argue over today didn't exist in frontier newspapers of the time. In fact, one paper in each state served as the Democratic Committee organ for President Andrew Jackson.

"You were derelict in duty as a newspaper, you were kind of wimpy, if you didn't have a political perspective," said Elliot King, chair of the communications department at Loyola University of Maryland and founder of the Media History Exchange. "Newspapers in places like Chicago, which is still a backwater in 1842, are very personal, owned and run by one person, two people. They're publishing 500 copies in small shops, with a single editor/publisher."

King and other media historians say the initial ideas about objectivity first began to emerge in the East during this time, though the term was never used by journalists and the concept was slow to take root.

The idea that journalists should apply objectivity began to take hold broadly in the 1890s, but it didn't emerge in the way Americans understand it today until after World War I.

Eventually, "news" triumphed over editorial and "facts" over opinion, media historian Michael Schudson wrote in his book, "Discovering the News."

Multiple requests

Editors did regularly ask each other for information about news in another paper's area. Eber D. Howe, the editor of an abolitionist newspaper, the Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph, wrote a letter in 1830 to a newspaper publisher in Canandaigua, New York, W.W. Phelps, asking him about the origins of the Mormon faith. Howe's wife, sister and niece — and Phelps — soon joined the church. By early 1831, Howe became Smith's antagonist, Bushman said, eventually writing, "Mormonism Unvailed," the chief critical work against Mormons in the 1830s.

Smith persisted.

"He really yearned to have a voice in the papers because he was always looking for every way to get the word out," said Bushman, author of the definitive Smith biography, "Rough Stone Rolling." "So when anyone was sympathetic to him, then he was very grateful."

In 1833, Noah Saxton, the editor of a revivalist paper in New York, the American Revivalist and Rochester Observer, asked Smith to write a statement of what he was about. Smith provided a long explanation. Saxton printed just two paragraphs. Bushman said Smith was frustrated.

"I was somewhat disappointed on receiving the paper with only a part of my letter inserted," Smith wrote to Saxton. "The letter which I wrote you for publication I wrote by the commandment of God, and I am quite anxious to have it all laid before the public." He admitted "some parts of the letter were very severe upon the wickedness of sectarianism ... (but) this is no reason why it should not be published but the very reason why it should."

Saxton never replied.

By the late 1830s and early 1840s, Smith began to find sympathetic ears in the East, where, again, the first ideas about objectivity were circulating.

"He's eager to take advantage of any publicity that he can get through the national press," Bushman said. "He really sees himself as a national figure. When he runs for president, he'd had some experiences with sympathetic editors complaining of the mistreatment of Mormons. He thought he could appeal through those people for support and eventually votes. That's really his aim in writing."

Reluctant prophet

Meanwhile, some continued to ask for clarification about what Mormons believed.
 

"People wanted to know, what's the content of the revelations?" Bushman said. "What's new?"
Smith resisted because he was allergic to the formal statements of belief traditionally made by Christian faiths and known as creeds. One LDS leader at the time wrote that Mormonism is "the great leveling machine of creeds."

"Against this need to state what we believed," Bushman said, "there was the problem of a disillusionment with creeds for lots of Mormons, including Joseph, who didn't want nailed down exactly what we believe because of ongoing revelation, his belief that there would be growth and development. You could never say at one given moment a final statement on what we stood for."

Smith was grateful to supply a summary of the origins of the church or provide a list of grievances of church members abused in Missouri and Illinois, but he was reluctant to make a list of the new faith's beliefs.

After all, he had declared that God was speaking again through a prophet, restoring the pure gospel of Jesus Christ previously obscured by creeds. In fact, Smith said God told him in the First Vision that creeds were an abomination. For early Latter-day Saints, a creed or list of beliefs was useless and possibly dangerous; ongoing revelation was expected to provide new doctrine, and Smith intended to leave space for it.

"The Latter-day Saints have no creed," he said, "but they are ready to believe all true principles that exist as they are made manifest from time to time." He added, "It feels so good not to be trammelled."

Some church members even objected when Smith published the faith's second set of scriptures, the Doctrine and Covenants, in 1835. They feared the publication of these revelations would stabilize church beliefs.

"There's this sort of tension," Bushman said. "How do we state what we stand for, but on the other hand how do we prevent it from becoming so static that we lose the dynamic development of the church?"
 

Many contributions

While Smith resisted, others in his inner circle began to publish lists, often compelled by missionary work. Oliver Cowdery listed eight items when he published "broad principles" of the faith in 1834, beginning with, "We believe in God, and his Son Jesus Christ."

In 1836, Brigham Young's brother Joseph Young provided a list he called the faith's "principal articles of faith" to a man publishing a book on American denominations. Over the next four years, Parley P. Pratt wrote a book, "Voice of Warning," and several pamphlets with phrases echoed in the Articles of Faith. Pratt's brother, Orson Pratt, published a pamphlet in Scotland in 1840 with what would become the first Article of Faith: "We believe in God the Eternal Father, and his Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost... ."

In 1841, Orson Hyde wrote to Smith and said, "I have written a snug little article on every point of doctrine believed by the Saints."

While Hyde was working to publish his list in Germany, another American newspaper contacted Smith. George Barstow, who was writing a history of New Hampshire, had written a letter to Col. "Long" John Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat, asking Wentworth to have Smith, who was living in Nauvoo, Illinois, provide a summary of the history of the church and its beliefs.

Perhaps thinking of Saxton, who had slashed a previous summary to two paragraphs, Smith complied while making a single, clear request of his own.

"As Mr. Barstow has taken the proper steps to obtain correct information," Smith wrote, "all that I shall ask at his hands is that he publish the account entire, ungarnished and without misrepresentation."

Articles of Faith

Neither Wentworth nor Barstow published Smith's summary of his history, with the Articles of Faith listed in 400 succinct words at the end.

"We don't even know if Wentworth received it," said David Whittaker, co-editor of the first two volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers Project.

Nothing new appeared in the Wentworth list of beliefs, Whittaker said. "Every item had been presented in Mormon literature before the time of its composing."

But what happened to the Articles of Faith over the next 40 years fascinates religious historians.
"Mormonism is one of the richest archives or labs we have, whether one is a believing Latter-day Saint or not, as I am, for how religions are made and how scripture is made," said Philip Barlow, a 2017 fellow at BYU's Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. "It's a fascinating thing to see the history of how something becomes scripture when we're so close to the situation and have such rich, historical documents accessible to us.

"It's really a prism through which to understand how religions are birthed."

Smith published the Wentworth Letter in the Mormon newspaper Times and Seasons in March 1842. Assassins murdered him two years later. For the next 20 years, multiple lists appeared, according to Whittaker, who wrote the definitive study, "The Articles of Faith in Early Mormon Literature and Thought" in the 1987 book, "New Views of Mormon History: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Leonard J. Arrington."

In the 1850s, Mormon missionaries in England published a broadside to hand out with the Articles of Faith and a blank space where they could fill in their preaching times and locations.
 

By the 1860s, the centralization of the Mormon press standardized the usage of the Wentworth list; as early as the 1870s, young children were memorizing the Articles of Faith. Missionary cards containing the 13 articles soon became standard.

Finally, the Wentworth list was canonized as "The Articles of Faith" along with the rest of the final set of LDS scriptures, The Pearl of Great Price, during the church's October 1880 general conference. The Articles of Faith were re-canonized in 1890 when church President Wilford Woodruff asked Elder Orson F. Whitney to read the Articles of Faith just prior to the announcement of the manifesto which rescinded church approval of plural marriage.

Legacy of faith

Today, 175 years later, Mormon children memorize the Articles of Faith — which Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has called "our only formal declaration of belief" — while attending weekly Primary classes between the ages of 3 and 11.

LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson, now 89, has told the story of how a Primary teacher helped him, as a rambunctious boy, memorize them.

"They do serve as a sort of a portal, a handy entryway" for children and for missionaries and members describing their beliefs to others, Barlow said.

"It is a little ironic," he added. "They do sort of function as an informal creed. We do catechize with it. We don't use terms like the Catholics do, but we do school our young people in Primary to study these things, memorize the Articles of Faith, and even the missionaries. They weren't working like that in Joseph Smith's lifetime and in Brigham Young's lifetime."

Church leaders and scholars alike acknowledge that despite their long, evolutionary history, the Articles of Faith are incomplete, missing several hallmarks of Mormon theology.

Mormon theology

The beauty of their conciseness, Whittaker said, make them strong, minimal statements of Mormon doctrine intended primarily for a Protestant audience in a missionary context.

They are effective, too, at helping LDS children begin their religious scholarship.

"At that age, it's a good place to start," Givens said, "as long as at the earliest opportunity we inculcate in our young people an appreciation for the much greater richness and depth and power of Mormon ideas."

Givens and Barlow agreed on this point.

"It's all well and fine to honor and celebrate the Articles of Faith," Givens said, "as long as we don't make the mistake of thinking that in any way, shape or form they capture the essence of what really makes Latter-day Saint thought distinctive and a valuable contribution to the world of Christian thought. Our most powerful, revolutionary and redeeming ideas are not found in the Articles of Faith — the eternal nature of the soul, a Godhead that comprises a Heavenly Mother, a possibility of eternal sociality, a much more vibrant conception of individualized dialogic revelation and literal co-heirship with Jesus Christ. Those are the ideas that have the power to revolutionize the Christian world, and our Articles of Faith are silent about those contributions."

Barlow called the Articles of Faith "quite remarkable statements" but partial in scope.

"There's no eternal progress in this list," he said, "there's no temple, with temple ritual coming out at the very same time (in the 1840s), and eternal marriage or polygamy or three kingdoms or the possibility of partaking of the divine nature. There's a reference to Zion...but there's no articulation of what that means, what Zion even is."
 

Final act

They may have been largely palatable to Thomas Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal. Joseph Smith gave Sharp unprecedented access. Sharp visited Nauvoo, attended rallies of the Nauvoo militia and ate with Smith. But when Smith changed his vote from Whig to Democrat in 1843, Sharp turned against him, and he turned the Warsaw Signal into an anti-Mormon paper.

"Joseph was furious, and wrote him a scalding letter about the way he'd been mistreated," Bushman said.

The relationship turned ugly. When the Nauvoo City Council declared the Nauvoo Expositor was a "nuisance" and directed the police to destroy its press, the Signal wrote, "War and extermination is inevitable." Three days later, in an extra edition, Sharp published that the Mormons should be driven out of Nauvoo and should hand over Smith or "a war of extermination should be waged to the entire destruction, if necessary for our protection, of (Mormonism's) adherents."

Thirteen days later, Smith and his brother Hyrum were murdered in an Illinois jail by a mob. Sharp stood trial with four others for the murders, but a jury acquitted them.

Ironically, Whittaker said, "The very last thing (Joseph Smith) did before his death was to respond to Daniel Rupp, who published a history of U.S. denominations. Joseph and W.W. Phelps sent a response to Rupp in Philadelphia with the note, 'Please publish this as given you.'"

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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865675564/Joseph-Smiths-conflicts-with-media-vital-to-backstory-of-the-Articles-of-Faith.html

Mormon joy, Lehi’s dream, and the love of God

(by Mette Harrison religionnews.com 3-9-17)

One of my favorite stories in Mormonism is Lehi’s dream in the Book of Mormon.

After Lehi has left Jerusalem before its destruction, he has a vision of an allegorical tree with beautiful, pure fruit on it. When he tastes it, it is “most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted.” He also says that it “filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also” (1 Nephi 8:11-12).

It’s interesting to note that unlike the allegorical tree of the “knowledge of good and evil” which Adam and Eve sample in the Garden of Eden story, partaking of this fruit has no dark side to it. There are no negative consequences, and no one has to trick anyone into taking it.

The dream continues with Lehi being successful in getting some of his family (his sons Sam and Nephi and his wife Sariah) to partake of the fruit, but not his sons Laman and Lemuel, who are the problem children for most of the beginning of the journey to the new world. Laman and Lemuel are caught in the “mists of darkness” and pay attention to being mocked by those in the “great and spacious building.”

Of course, this dream is meant to be an allegory for our lives on Earth and the ways in which we are led astray from finding the delicious fruit of the tree, which an angel explains is meant to represent the “love of God.” The love of God waits for anyone who wishes to come and partake of it. It is an invitation to all, and no one is prevented from receiving it. The only people who do not get to taste it are those who choose to deny themselves its goodness.

When my children were younger, we used baking clay to create part of this dream so that the children could retell it to us and to each other. We made a tree with fruit, along with all of the figures in the dream, the mists of darkness, the great and spacious building, and the “iron rod” which helps guide those along the path to the tree.

I feel strongly that Lehi’s dream is a seminal part of Mormonism, which is a strain of Christianity that emphasizes the all-encompassing nature of God’s love and that proclaims universal resurrection for all of God’s children who have been born on Earth and a degree of heaven for everyone. The only hell Mormons believe in is the hell we create for ourselves by our own guilt. God loves us all and therefore spends all of His time trying to convince us to go partake of the fruit of the tree of His love.

Yes, there are people who do not reach the tree, but it isn’t because God has denied them access. Sin keeps us away from the tree, but once sin is renounced, we can get back to the path by holding to the rod. Nothing is a permanent barrier to our own happiness except for our own choices.

I love that instead of the prickly story of the tree in Eden, in which Adam and Eve had no real way to follow both of the conflicting commandments to replenish the earth AND not to partake of the tree, the tree in Lehi’s dream is all about experiencing joy. It’s also about the importance of family in finding that joy in this life and in the life to come. Adam and Eve had no children when they were tempted by Satan. They had to fall in order to experience mortality and the joy of family. But Lehi’s dream isn’t about the fall. It’s about redemption and love, about how we are taught about God’s love largely through the lens of the love of our family.

For me, the fruit of the tree can represent many other joys in life, which can all be ways for us to experience God’s love. Books and stories in general are a major way I experience joy. I often find myself finishing a perfect book and wanting to share that with someone else. If I offer you a book I’ve loved, it means that I consider you part of the family of my heart.

But it doesn’t always work that what I find joy in, you will find the same joy in. My children frequently reject or mock things I love, from Ironman triathlons to Longmire to knitting. It can be painful when this happens. It can divide us. But God’s love is greater than any of the things I love and find Him through. If one way to share love doesn’t work, there are other ways. Even my children who are atheists, I believe, find ways to share God’s love with me through laughter, family time, and meditation.

Lehi’s dream—and indeed the Book of Mormon as a whole—teach me about the binding power of family and about the great love that will always be there waiting for us, when we are ready to receive it.

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http://religionnews.com/2017/03/09/mormon-joy-lehis-dream-and-the-love-of-god/

Famous Notre Dame football walk-on 'Rudy' joins LDS Church

(by Trent Toone deseretnews.com 1-23-17)

Rudy, the former University of Notre Dame football walk-on whose story became a feature film, is now a Mormon, with word of his conversion taking to social media over the weekend.

Daniel E. "Rudy" Ruettiger was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Saturday, Jan. 21, by Highland resident Randy "Rudy" Garn, as acknowledged Monday by James Clarke, a friend of Ruettiger who was also present at the service.

"It's a fantastic story of friendship. He was loved into the church," said Clarke, one of the speakers at the service. "I was honored to witness such a remarkable conversion process and series of events to get Rudy there."

Ruettiger, now 68, lives in Las Vegas. He became famous when his early life and experience as a walk-on football player at Notre Dame was made into a movie, "Rudy," in 1993. Since then he has made a career as a motivational speaker.

Ruettiger's interest in the LDS Church was primarily fostered by Garn's friendship. The two men met in October 2005 at the University of Southern California-Notre Dame game, also known as the "Bush Push" in which USC won in the game's final seconds. In the years that followed, their friendship deepened, Garn said.

A turning point came in 2013, when Garn, Clarke and a small group of friends invited Ruettiger to attend a cold, late November game between Brigham Young University and Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. The group flew to the game and watched the action from the BYU sideline.

During the game, Ruettiger interacted with some of BYU's players and felt a connection. On the flight home, he began to ask questions about the LDS Church, Clarke said.

News and photos of Ruettiger's baptism were shared on social media networks over the weekend, and many people thought it was a joke, Clarke said.

"Many people have wondered if this is another 'Steve Martin Mormon myth' story, but it's true, Rudy was baptized," Clarke said.

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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865671699/Famous-Notre-Dame-football-walk-on-joins-LDS-Church.html

The Real Rudy - 125 Years of ND Football

Can the Book of Mormon be explained as the work of a conspiracy?

(by Daniel Peterson deseretnews.com 3-2-17)

The Book of Mormon has sometimes been explained as the product not of simple fraud perpetrated by one fiendishly, peerlessly clever individual (Joseph Smith), but of a more complex, collective fraud. We might call this notion “Collective Deceit” (deception, that is, by Joseph Smith, the witnesses of the Book of Mormon and presumably others).

 

 

This hypothesis would explain the “supernatural” events associated with the recovery of the Book of Mormon by declaring, simply, that they never happened. Everybody testifying to them must have been lying.

However, it collides with abundant evidence regarding the character of Joseph Smith (see, for example, the materials gathered by Mark McConkie in his 2003 book “Remembering Joseph”). Moreover, it clashes directly with what we know about the character of the witnesses and their subsequent behavior (most conveniently summarized in various works by Richard Lloyd Anderson, including his classic 1981 volume “Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses”).

Many of those who interviewed David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, over his last decades noted the reverential awe with which he regarded the manuscript of the Book of Mormon that he had in his possession. He refused to part with it for any price, although he was by no means wealthy, and both he and his family felt not only that it was divinely protected but that they would share in that divine protection so long as they owned it (see Lyndon Cook’s 1991 collection of “David Whitmer Interviews”). Whether their sense of the manuscript’s near-supernatural potency was misplaced or not is irrelevant to the issue at hand: Such attitudes are impossible to square with cynicism and conscious deception.

There is simply no sign of dishonesty, no evidence for a conspiracy, among Joseph Smith’s associates — and, in the case of a group so large (11 official witnesses, plus Mary Whitmer, Emma Smith, Lucy Mack Smith and William Smith), it would have been inconceivably difficult to keep such a conspiracy secret. Particularly so since the alleged conspirators suffered a great deal (including death, in a few cases) for their supposed plot, gained nothing, were (in many cases) alienated from Joseph Smith and, collectively, lived several decades after the death of the Prophet and entirely isolated from any supportive or ego-gratifying community.

As the lawyer James H. Moyle, who had interviewed David Whitmer, justly observed (and is noted in the “David Whitmer Interviews”), “If there had been fraud in this matter Joseph Smith would have cultivated those men and kept them with him at any cost. The truth is that when they became unworthy they were excommunicated, even though they were witnesses to the Book of Mormon.”

In a letter dated Sept. 22, 1899, David Whitmer’s grandson, private secretary and business partner, George Schweich, recalled of his grandfather, “I have begged him to unfold the fraud in the case and he had all to gain and nothing to lose but to speak the word if he thought so — but he has described the scene to me many times, of his vision about noon in an open pasture — there is only one explanation barring an actual miracle and that is this — If that vision was not real it was HYPNOTISM, it was real to grandfather IN FACT” (capital letters in the original, in Cook's “David Whitmer Interviews”).

I’ve argued in previous columns and elsewhere that hallucination, whether individual or collective, cannot explain the facts surrounding the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. I won’t relitigate that issue here. But the facts are heavily against conscious conspiracy, too. As the early 19th-century Mormon convert John Corrill remarked, “As to its being a revelation from God, eleven persons besides Smith bore positive testimony of its truth. After getting acquainted with them, I was unable to impeach their testimony, and consequently thought that it was as consistent to give credit to them as credit the writings of the New Testament, when I had never seen the authors nor the original copy” (cited by Anderson in “Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses”).

William McLellan was closely acquainted with the Smith and Whitmer families from the time of his 1831 conversion. He carefully questioned them about the Book of Mormon. In 1880, long alienated from Mormonism, he still asserted their credibility (published in "William E. McLellan's Testimony of the Book of Mormon" by Larry C. Porter, BYU Studies, 1970): “I believed them then and I believe them yet.”

David Whitmer was once confronted by a mob of 400-500 Missourians who demanded, on pain of death, that he deny his published testimony of the Book of Mormon. Instead, he forcefully reasserted it (see Anderson's “Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses”). Neither he nor the other witnesses come across as cynical conspirators.

Editor's note: Portions of this column are based on a previous presentation by the author.

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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865674612/Can-the-Book-of-Mormon-be-explained-as-the-work-of-a-conspiracy.html