FAIR

Faithful Study Resources for Come, Follow Me

FAIR Conference

Issues of Race, Sexuality and Gender to be Addressed at FAIR Conference

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With the approaching Republican presidential nomination of Mitt Romney, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as its history and doctrines has been the focus of much media scrutiny. The annual FAIR Conference of scholars, apologists, and interested individuals will meet August 2-3, 2012 at the South Towne Exposition Center in Sandy, Utah. At least fourteen scholars this year will address important and potentially controversial issues that have been highlighted by the national media or are confronting Latter-day Saints, including gay marriage, the impact of California’s Proposition 8, polygamy and questions of polyandry, Black Latter-day Saints, the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, difficult issues in Mormon history, the threats to American religious freedom, and dealing with issues of faith and loss of faith.

Among the presenters are Brian C. Hales, author of Modern Polygamy and Mormon Fundamentalism: The Generations after the Manifesto and the forthcoming Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, who will discuss new evidences relating to controversies about Joseph Smith’s sexual polyandry. Kathryn Lynard Soper, founder and editor-in-chief of Segullah, a journal of literary and visual art for Mormon women, and Neylan McBaine, associate creative director at Bonneville Communications, will both discuss issues confronting Mormon women. Hannah Smith, Senior Counsel of the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, will discuss the unprecedented threats to American religious freedom and what Latter-day Saints can do. Joshua Johanson, an outspoken advocate for Mormons with same-gender attraction, will share insights he has gained as a faithful, married, Latter-day Saint who also experiences same-gender attraction.

Relating to ancient scripture, Royal Skousen, editor of the Book of Mormon critical text project, will speak about whether Latter-day Saints need to make changes to the Book of Mormon text. John W. Welch, who has published extensively on issues dealing with the Book of Mormon and Mormon doctrine, will discuss chiasmus in the Book of Mormon while Don Bradley, author of the soon to be published, Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Missing Contents of the Book of Mormon, will discuss those 116 pages. John Gee, a professor of Egyptology, will talk about the Book of Abraham and Rosemary Avance, a non-Mormon doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication, will discuss parallels in Mormon conversion and de-conversion stories. Hartt Wixam, a retired BYU professor and investigate reporter for the Deseret News, will give a presentation entitled “Perception and Reality: Then and Now.” And Mesoamerican scholar, Brandt Gardner, will discuss the problem of cardinal directions in the Book of Mormon.

Rounding out the conference are popular speakers like the venerable Darius Gray, one of the founders of Genesis Group for Black Latter-day Saints and co-writer of the documentary, Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons, Ugo A. Perego who will be traveling from Rome, Italy to discuss aspects of DNA research and Mormon history, and Daniel C. Peterson who will talk about the restoration of the gospel.

Members of the media are particularly invited to visit with these and other conference participants, as well as to attend this important and informative conference in August.

FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of LDS doctrine, belief and practice. Along with the annual conference, which is open to everyone, FAIR also sponsors a website that includes answers to difficult questions. FAIR has an “Ask the Apologist” option where people can pose questions to apologists and FAIR also sponsors MormonVoices which responds to public discussions and comments from public figures that misrepresent The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For details on the FAIR Conference, visit the FAIR website. Tickets may be purchased at the FAIR online Bookstore, here.

Mormon FAIR-Cast 73: Purpose, history and offerings of FAIR

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Mike Ash and Martin Tanner discuss the purpose of FAIR, the history of FAIR, various FAIR publications and the topics covered in the 2011 FAIR Conference in this episode of Religion Today that originally aired on July 31, 2011.

This recording was used by permission of KSL Radio and does not necessarily represent the views of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or of FAIR.

Best of FAIR 13: “Uh oh!” to “Ah ha!” in Apologetics: 20/20 Foresight for a Faithful Future in Defending the Church

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In this address from the 2009 FAIR Conference, John Lynch provides practical advise on how to help those who are struggling with their faith. “What we’re about at FAIR is the idea of tending the gardens of the heart. . . . Our real objective is the preservation of faith and not the presentation of definitive answers. To that end, it’s not enough to answer the arguments of the critics any more than it is enough to weed the flowers in our garden. We must also nourish them and water them and give them ongoing light to reach towards. This means several things need to occur.

  • Answers need to include not only refutation of false ideas, but affirmations of true concepts.
  • We need to not only respond with evidences against the arguments of our critics but arguments in favor of the hope that is in us.
  • We need to help members interpret their religious world in the light of true principles including those that allow for mistakes.”

The text of Brother Lynch’s address can be found here.

John Lynch is a Silicon Valley sales and marketing executive specializing in high-tech startup ventures. He is a member of the Board of Directors of FAIR and serves as its Chairman. Having served in many missionary callings, including twice as a Stake Mission President, multiple times as a Ward Mission Leader, and having worked at the Provo Missionary Training Center as a teacher and trainer, John has seen the impact of both well-prepared and poorly prepared defenders of the faith. John is currently the Young Men’s President for the Los Gatos Ward, Saratoga California Stake.

Best of FAIR 11: “Believest thou…?”: Faith, Cognitive Dissonance, and the Psychology of Religious Experience

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In this episode of Best of FAIR, Wendy Ulrich, Ph.D., observes: “In my experience, neither critics nor apologists for the Church do much to convince me whether or not to believe. Debates, analysis, and scientific evidence may alternately undermine or support my beliefs, but belief itself is a choice I wrestle God for, somewhere in a dark swampland of my inner landscape, where not only God’s credibility but my own are at stake.

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“I have noticed that many of the people I have known who have left the Church did not do so because they believed too little, but because they believed too much. In their excessive idealism, they have held Church leaders or God to expectations which were inevitably disappointed, and they have felt betrayed. They have not believed God when He told them that ours is a lonely, dreary world where we will surely die, and they have chosen instead to believe another version of reality, one which claims that they can be protected from being molested, disappointed, or made afraid. They have been angry at God or other Church leaders for not keeping promises which God has not, in fact, made. I note with interest that of all the names for the Savior in holy writ, He is never called the Preventer. Agency is the plan, and this means that all of us, including Church leaders, learn by our mistakes and are subject to misinformation, blindness, hubris, and error. The old joke is too often true: In the Catholic church everyone says the pope is infallible but nobody believes it; and in the Mormon church everybody says the prophet is fallible but nobody believes it.

“When Christ asks the question of His remaining disciples, ‘will ye also go away?’ it seems to be in recognition that they may be feeling betrayed or disillusioned by His words and requirements, as others were. Their response is not brimming with irrational enthusiasm. They seem to say, somewhat wistfully, as if recognizing that perhaps leaving would be an easier choice, ‘to whom, Lord, shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.’ We do not leave because we are blind to the challenges or brainwashed into commitment, but because we will have more cognitive dissonance, more to explain to ourselves, if we leave. We have found here things that we hold dear, that support and enrich our lives. We, like the reluctant disciples of old, have found here words of eternal life, which is to say that we have found knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. These relationships, these pearls of great price, are worth the sacrifices and the disappointments and the askance looks of our friends who wonder what we could be thinking.”

Wendy Ulrich, Ph.D., was a psychologist in Ann Arbor, Michigan for 20 years before moving to Montreal, Quebec for a three-year mission. She has served as president of the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists, has authored numerous professional articles in both psychology and business, and has done consulting and training for such corporations as Marriott, Johnson & Johnson, University of Michigan, General Electric, and United Way. Dr. Ulrich is founder of Sixteen Stones Center for Growth in Alpine, Utah, providing seminar-retreats for LDS members seeking personal and spiritual growth and development. She and her husband have three children.

Dr. Ulrich is the author of the book Weakness is Not a Sin. The full text of Dr. Ulrich’s talk can be found at Fairlds.org.

Best of FAIR 10: On Being An Apologist: Imperatives, Predicaments, Perils, and Blessings.

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Robert White discusses his experience as a church leader and as an apologist. He explains why apologetics is important and cautions against some pitfalls of apologetics. As C.S. Lewis said, “nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologist. Because no doctrine of that Faith seems to me so spectral, so unreal as one that I have just successfully defended. . . . That is why we apologists take our lives in our hands and can be saved only by falling back continually from the web of our own arguments … from Christian apologetics [in]to Christ himself.  That is also why we need one another’s continual help — oremus pro invincem (let us pray for one another).”

He shares his thoughts on the idea of inoculating the saints against anti-Mormon arguments. In providing an inoculation, can we be sure we know what disease, or argument, each individual will be exposed to? Is it possible that we may do more harm than good in administering the wrong inoculation? He contrasted inoculations with transfusions. The Gospel Principles manual is designed “not [to] inoculate but transfuse into the lives of the Latter-day Saints the fundamental faith in the fundamental gospel restored through the Prophet.” If people know the Church is true, then they will be strengthened against the attacks of anti-Mormon arguments when encountered.

The full text of this address can be found here.

Robert B. White, Q.C., served a mission in Eastern Canada after which he returned to Edmonton and received degrees in finance (with distinction) and law (with distinction and the Silver Medal) at the University of Alberta. He is a senior partner and litigation practice group leader in a large, multi-national law firm with offices across Canada and in Japan. Robert works exclusively in trials and appeals and loves the law. He is listed in each of the three published, peer reviewed “Best Lawyers in Canada” lists. He was hired as an adjunct professor in law while in my third year of law school, and while practicing he taught for 18 years. He has written four law books, all published by Canada Law Book, with a second edition of one under way. Robert has served in many Church positions, including bishop, stake president, and area seventy. He is married to Lonni. They have six children and twenty grandchildren.

Best of FAIR 10: Mormon Defense League Announcement

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Scott Gordon and John Lynch report from the 2011 FAIR Conference on the announcement of the Mormon Defense League, its purpose, and the way in which it has been received. Scott also reviews the various websites associated with FAIR.

Best of FAIR 9: The Lives of Mormon Women

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Claudia Bushman asks, is the self sacrifice motif for women in the Church so strong that no interest and care should be taken about their own lives? She observes that “too many women in the church live passive lives. We cannot afford to do that. We have talents to multiply.”

She also addresses the role of feminism in the Church. Only a few years ago, she told a Salt Lake Tribune writer that feminism was dead and that the word itself had become so frightening that the movement was now moribund and extinguished. She nevertheless, acknowledges that there are still “many old self-described LDS feminists around.” In fact, she considers herself to be a feminist and said “I doubt that many people would disagree with my definition of feminism, that the talents of women should be developed for the benefit of their communities, their church, their families and themselves.” By this definition, the Relief Society organization itself is a feminist organization. “Mormon women find emotional support and personal and spiritual growth there. The Relief Society, even in its curtailed form, provides a network for us to know, teach, and befriend each other. In Relief Society we are encouraged to exercise that most important feminist strategy, reaching beyond our patriarchal structure to a personal relationship with deity through which we can discover our own personal revelation and destinies.”

She adds: “Without autonomy, women would seem to have little power in this religion. But what is power in religion? Leadership seems important, but many religions, certainly ours, have stressed the humble vineyard worker as the powerful position. The greatest of all is the servant of all.”

She concludes by asking, what can women hope for from the Church? She states: “Women should realize that the Church is a great enabler, not a hindrance. The Church provides a wonderfully welcoming arena for working out our own ideas and building our talents as we seek for and follow our own revelation.”

The full text of Sister’ Bushman’s address can be found here.

Claudia L. Bushman holds degrees in literature and American Studies from Wellesley College, Brigham Young University, and Boston University and now teaches history and American studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. Dr. Bushman is the author and editor of ten books including Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah, Building the Kingdom (with Richard Bushman), and Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-day Saints in Modern America, as well as a variety of other American history books. She was the founding editor of Exponent II. Dr. Bushman is married to Richard Lyman Bushman and is the mother of six. Having held all the usual Church positions, she now finds most of her Church work off the books in such areas as chairman of the Harlem Bridge Builders committee, producer of the Manhattan Temple Jubilee at Radio City Music Hall, and chairman of the committee to install a statue of Joseph Smith near Wall Street in New York in honor of his 200th birthday.

Best of FAIR 8: DNA and the Book of Mormon

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Dr. David Stewart examines the issues surrounding DNA studies used to condemn the Book of Mormon.  He concludes: “The recent explosion of molecular DNA data has led to a considerable increase in knowledge about our roots. However, some individuals have drawn and widely publicized conclusions far beyond those validated by existing data. The claims of critics that DNA evidence disproves traditional LDS teachings about Native American ancestry are based in a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of science and ignorance of history and scripture. There is still much we do not know about the genetics of ancient and modern populations, but careful study demonstrates that the teachings of LDS prophets are fully consistent with existing DNA data.”

The full text of this address can be found at FAIR LDS.

David Stewart, M.D., was raised in Massachusetts and Maryland. He was a presidential scholar at Brigham Young University, graduating with summa cum laude honors in molecular biology in just two years. He received his medical degree from the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 1999. He completed surgical internship and orthopedic surgery residency at the University of Texas Medical Branch and completed fellowship training in pediatric orthopedic and scoliosis surgery at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Dr. Stewart is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society and has received numerous awards for excellence in clinical practice and medical research and for his contributions to international health. He is fluent in several Eastern European languages and is active in international medical charity and education work in Eastern Europe and Asia. He served a full-time LDS mission in Russia and has written on LDS topics including church growth, missionary work, and DNA and the Book of Mormon. He lives in Las Vegas with his wife and young children.

Best of FAIR, 5: A Black Man in Zion: Reflections on Race in the Restored Gospel

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Marcus H. Martins was the first Black man to serve a full-time mission after the revelation that extended the priesthood to worthy men with Black African ancestry in 1978. He was also among the first to be ordained a high priest in 1981 and quite possibly–at least outside of Africa–may have been among the first to be ordained a bishop in 1987. Since 1994, he has been the first Black man to work as a religion professor in the Church’s universities: Brigham Young University; then Rick’s College; BYU-Idaho and BYU-Hawaii. In this 2006 FAIR Conference address, he speaks of the burden carried by Latter-day Saints with Black African ancestry, and how he has been able to reconcile the pain he has experienced with his faith in the Church.

Brother Martins is the author of the book Setting the Record Straight – Blacks and the Mormon Priesthood, which can be purchased at the FAIR Bookstore.

The full text of this address can be found at FAIR LDS.

Best of FAIR, Episode 4: Shaken Faith Syndrome

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In this address from the 2008 FAIR Conference, Michael R. Ash discusses “shaken faith syndrome.” He explains that “a shaken faith typically arises from two scenarios—1) Someone loses their faith because of a disaster in their life (such as a death, divorce, or other tragedy.) 2) Someone’s faith is shaken because they are exposed to information that seems to question the truth claims of the Church.” His address focuses on the second category.

Confronting information that seems to question the truth claims of the Church can create cognitive dissonance. “When we encounter cognitive dissonance with weighty issues—such as religious beliefs—we can experience a very uncomfortable and emotional state of mind. This discomfort has been called a “negative drive state” because it causes psychological tension almost like hunger or thirst and requires immediate attention and resolution. Reducing this distress may require a change in belief or behavior. There are at least four ways in which this is generally accomplished, and we are not often consciously aware of doing so. We will either: (1) reject the new information—the competing cognition—as false; (2) reject the new information as unimportant; (3) reject old beliefs in favor of the new information; or (4) add information (additional cognitions) to validate the original belief.”

Ash goes on to explain, “When critical information destroys conclusions based on straw men or false assumptions, some members will lose their entire testimonies. The most common misconceptions that seem to factor into personal apostasy include: (A) Unrealistic Expectations of Prophets (B) Confusing Tradition With Doctrine (C) Imposing Our View on Others (D) Unrealistic Expectations of Science and Scholarship”

He concludes with some thoughts on inoculation against shaken faith syndrome: “While adding cognitions may salvage damaged testimonies, a change in paradigms before encountering challenging issues often serves as an inoculation against shaken faith syndrome. Inoculation, however, can also cause damage on its own.”

The full text of this address can be found at FAIR LDS. You can also watch the video of this presentation on YouTube.

Brother Ash is author of the book Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt, as well as the book, of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith. Both books are available for purchase online through the FAIR Bookstore.