It was a feast

The Interpreter Foundation’s docudrama Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, already available on DVD, is now streaming via Living Scriptures.

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The 2022 FAIR Conference is now over.  I think it was a strong one. Here’s a run-down of the Thursday presentations, since I’ve already provided a quick summary for the Wednesday session:

• Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to listen to all of Jed Woodworth’s remarks — always a recurring problem for me at the Conference but rather better for me this year than in recent years, at least on the first day — which treated the “problem of doubt” in the third volume of Saints.  The parts that I did hear, though, were good, and they make me want to go back and watch his presentation when it’s up online.
• Kent Jackson’s address (on whether the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible was influenced by outside sources) were very cogent.  A couple of years ago, there was a flurry of attention given to allegations that Joseph had been strongly influenced by Adam Clarke’s Bible commentaries.  I never thought it would be a particularly big deal if he had been, but that little wave seems to have crested, at least partly because the evidence for the allegations was exceedingly weak.  And Professor Jackson deserves a lot of the credit for pointing that out.
• Matthew McBride discussed the simultaneously inspiring and saddening case of William Paul Daniels, a faithful Black convert from Capetown, South Africa, who passed away in the thirties of the last century.  Once again, my attention was distracted and I didn’t hear all of what Brother McBride had to say.  But it was a great and affecting account.  And, as Brother McBride points out, while a relatively high degree of attention has justifiably been given to Black members during the nineteenth century (e.g., Green Flake, Jane Manning James, and Elijah Abel; see, for example, “President Ballard Dedicates Monument to Black Pioneers: Utah community celebrates Green Flake, Hark Wales, Oscar Smith and Jane Elizabeth Manning James”), the small but remarkable group of faithful Black Saints from the early to mid-twentieth century have scarcely been noticed.  (Of course, this fits the general pattern: Latter-day Saint history during the lives of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, for instance, receives much more notice than does, say, the history of the Church between 1950 and 1960.)
• A series of presentations — by Brent Andrewsen, followed by Carol Rice, followed by Nathan and Jelaire Richardson — then ensued that focused on the so-called “Family Proclamation.”  I was distracted multiple times, but I think that I heard most of what they had to say.  They all seemed to be connected with TheFamilyProclamation.org.  I clearly need to spend some time on their website.  Potentially, I think, it may help to serve a very big need:  Many of those who are having testimony issues these days, or so it seems to me, start off by having problems not so much with scriptural or modern Church history with the teachings of the Church about family, sexuality, and gender.  Which leads me to the last presentation given on Thursday:
• Cassandra Hedelius, who appears to be not only extremely bright but utterly fearless, gave a densely evidenced and argued presentation entitled “Compassion and Evidence: The Wisdom of Church Guidelines for Transgender Individuals and Their Families.”  It abundantly deserves a re-view.