Follow us @WheatnTweet!
FAIR 2012 Recap
By: Mormon HereticIn past years, it seems that the Sunstone Symposium and FAIR (Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research) have overlapped, so it was difficult to attend both. However, this year they were not the same week. I was able to attend my first FAIR conference, though my time was limited to just 2 speakers. Since this was my first FAIR conference, I thought I would give some initial impressions before telling about the speakers I heard.
I was first struck by the slogan “Defending Mormonism”. While it is also noted on their website, it just struck me differently. Living in Utah, Mormonism doesn’t need defending in my view, though that is probably not true anywhere else. Another difference between FAIR and Sunstone was that there were far fewer speakers. The good thing is that they don’t overlap, so you don’t miss anything, unlike Sunstone. There was another unusual thing I noted in the session. At Sunstone and MHA meetings, there is usually an open microphone so that the audience can ask questions during the Q&A session following each speaker. There is no mic at FAIR. Instead there are people that walk around and pass out paper if you want to ask a question. At first, I didn’t know what these people were doing, and it seemed like they were counting people like the ward clerk does in Sacrament meeting. That was kind of weird.
I don’t think I liked the written question format for a few reasons. The speakers had a hard time reading some of the handwriting. There is also the question of whether the speaker interpreted the question properly, or would choose not to answer the question because of “bad handwriting.” I guess the benefit of such a procedure is that the question is clearly heard by the audience. Another benefit is that sometimes people at Sunstone go off on tangents and make statements rather than ask questions. Still, I like the Sunstone format better.
I guess one of the highlights of the two speakers that I heard was the fact that the first non-LDS member ever addressed the FAIR conference. Rosemary Avance talked about similarities between Mormon conversion and de-conversion stories. It was very similar to her address at UVU available at Mormon Stories. It was interesting, though I had heard it before. I think president Scott Gordon invited her to speak because he felt that it is important to better understand the disaffected Mormon point of view so that members can better relate and understand them better.
Don Bradley spoke on the lost 116 pages. He is coming out with a book from Greg Kofford books (as soon as he finishes about 116 more pages…) ;) Anyway, he said that some people complain there isn’t much Mormonism in the Book of Mormon, saying that there isn’t much information about temple work in the Book of Mormon, for example. He said we can learn about the lost 116 pages from external and internal sources. Martin Harris’ brother, Emer Harris has told information contained in the lost manuscript. Don also referenced some internal references within the Book of Mormon. For example, he said there is a passing reference to Aminadi in the Book of Alma. Aminadi is a descendant of Nephi that saw writing on the temple wall. Bradley makes the case that this obscure reference (among others) shows that there may have been more information about the temple in the lost pages. Bradley also makes the case that Nephites had no Levites among them, therefore no levitical priesthood. He said that Nephi was more like a priest-king Melchizedek in the Old Testament. It was a pretty interesting presentation, and I look forward to the book.
I really wanted to attend a Book of Abraham presentation by John Gee, but was unable to do so. I talked with another attendee, and the person told me that Gee said that there was a miscalculation on the length of the Hor scroll, but Gee wouldn’t specify what the miscalculation was. My friend said that such a question “wouldn’t fly” in a Sunstone crowd. It was cool to see some Sunstone attendees there, but I think I have to agree. I wish I could have attended more sessions. Did you attend any sessions or have any comments to add?
This was interesting. Do you have some more notes to share?
Like this comment?
0
Thank you for sharing these notes! I had honestly never even heard of these conferences (FAIR and Sunstone) still I started lurking around the LDS blogs. It’s very interesting to me to read about what is discussed and how they operate.
Like this comment?
2
Millennial Star did a series over there. Starting with FAIR conference, talk number one: ‘Joshua Johanson, Navigating the Labryrinth Surrounding Homosexual Desire’
Unfortunately they don’t have tags for their posts (that I could see) so you’ll have to start with the first and work your way forward.
http://www.millennialstar.org/page/4/
Note: the link above could be old depending on how long one waits to access it.
Like this comment?
0
Not at this time Steve, though I may do a follow up post on Don’s presentation. I thought it was interesting, because he opened up the BoM in a way I hadn’t considered.
Natsy, glad you enjoyed the post, even though it seems like it wasn’t as popular as say Mitt’s tax returns. ;)
Like this comment?
3
Popular, schmopular. I’ve spent more time reading FAIR transcripts than news lately. I am looking forward to your post on Don’s. I wish all of the presentations were being discussed more widely than they are and I may put up my next post about one of them, even though I wasn’t there in person. Good stuff.
Like this comment?
0
I second Natsy’s comment. I hadn’t either. Any chance any of the sessions (FAIR and Sunstone)are likely to be up on U-tube at all?
Your comment on the written questions reminded me of firesides we had as youth at church. We got to submit our questions anonymously, but they all knew which questions were mine… I’ve always asked difficult questions.
Like this comment?
0
That’ll be YouTube (I always do that …sigh! I blame Apple and it’s ‘i’…)
Like this comment?
0
FAIR has published transcripts of all the presentations, available at http://www.fairlds.org/fair-conferences/2012-fair-conference
(Don did get some laughter with his Mark Hoffman references. For those who don’t know, Hoffman is a convicted document forger. Prior to his prison sentence for murder, he claimed he had found the lost 116 pages.)
As for Sunstone, not all presentations were recorded on video, but you can go to their website and click on a link for those presentations that were. See https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/ Also, you can purchase audio of any of the sessions at that same link.
Like this comment?
0
It is a little curious to infer from a passing reference to Aminadi seeing writing on the wall that a lot was revealed in the 116 pages about modern Mormon temple rites. After all, there were marvelous experiences recorded at the Kirtland Temple, yet the rituals changed much between there and Nauvoo. Kirtland had no baptismal font, for example, as I recall. I certainly never saw one in the times I’ve been there, and I’ve even been in the bell tower.
Like this comment?
0
The 116 pages were supposed to largely cover the writings of Lehi, unless I am mistaken. Additionally, it was Nephi who was to create an additional accounting of Lehi’s ministry, for reasons only God knew. Are we to understand then that Lehi’s job was to cover all of the Mormon theological idiosyncracies, such as three degrees of glory, temple ordinances, the pre-existence, etc????
This is just another example of an apologist taking advantage of some percieved gaps in the narrative, to try and explain away inconsistencies with a simple, “what if”. The problem however is not just that the Book of Mormon writers make no mention of Mormon idiosyncracies, but they implicitly contradict them. Nephi states that when we die we go straight to the judgement bar of God. He refers to both God and Christ in trinitarian language. Many of the writers dichotomize the after life simply in terms of heaven or hell. It’s a nice try to rationalize the inconistencies this way, but it is clearly not a well thought out defense.
For years as a Sunday school student I figured that I just didn’t understand the logic behind Joseph being forbid to retranslate, I guessed that the logic was just over my head. I’ve come to realize in later years that it was just bad logic, and probably a good thing that I didn’t “get it”. The idea is that “bad people”, facilitated by Martin Harris’s wife, had gotten a hold of the 116 pages, and had a devious plot. They would wait until Joseph re-translated the plates a second time, then they would change the 116 pages to make it look like Joseph hadn’t recreated things properly. My question was, why would any sane person do that??? If they were able to compare the original 116 pages against the second 116 pages, and find that they were nearly identical, that wouldn’t impress them? It actually seems like a very reasonable test. Secondly, wouldn’t Joseph Smith have been eager to do so, if he felt he actually could reproduce the record with no errors? Thirdly, how on earth could these guys alter the original 116 pages, in 1828, without making it obvious that they had done so? Conversely, if the original 116 pages were not actually translated, and did not have a secondary source, such as the Gold Plates, from which the original content could be retranslated from, how foolish would a fraud have been to make a second attempt? Instead, a story such as God commanding Nephi to engage in a little redundant record keeping, under circumstances where the process was supposedly extremely difficult, is probably the best “out” that a person could hope for.
Like this comment?
1