Why did Joseph Smith practice plural marriage? There are three different places we could go for answers.

We can go to the naturalists—like Fawn Brodie—and the cynics, which are kind of in the same group. We can go to Latter-day Saint apologists, who gave us their own set of reasons. And then we can go to Joseph Smith himself. I’d like to look at these three sources.

The first source is the naturalist—and what I mean by that is somebody who is sure God’s not involved. Okay? It’s all natural processes—hormones, libido, job one—and sex. That’s what’s driving polygamy. That’s their answer.

And Fawn Brodie kind of codified this idea in her 1945 biography, which unfortunately is still probably the most influential book ever written on Joseph Smith. Brodie totally botched the treatment of his sexuality in polygamy. She didn’t even want to get it right—that’s my frustration.

The purest naturalistic view is found in George D. Smith’s 2008 novel, which he called “Nauvoo Polygamy: … but we called it celestial marriage.” I doubt there will ever be a purer naturalistic view written of Joseph the man.

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The post Classic FAIR – Why Did Joseph Smith Practice Polygamy? – Brian Hales, 2010 appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2024 conference. If you would like to watch all the presentations from our 2025 conference held last month, you can still purchase the video streaming.

This audio podcast version has been made available for convenient listening. If you would like to watch or read the full presentation, it is available here.

Elder Ahmad S. Corbitt was sustained as a General Authority Seventy in April 2023. A former mission president, public affairs director, and trial attorney, he holds a law degree from Rutgers. Currently, he serves the Church with extensive experience in leadership, communication, and global outreach.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #84 – Ahmad S. Corbitt, “Prophets of the Past, Faithfulness in the Present” appeared first on FAIR.

February 24, 2005 was one of those beautiful false-spring days when we all leave our coats at home and venture out in shirt sleeves, despite the fact that we all know that winter will have one final gasp before yielding to spring. The snow had all melted from the valley floor, but the mountains were covered with a brilliant white snow pack that contrasted sharply against the deep blue sky. The temperatures were making their first climb into the seventies, and everyone wanted to be outside. My students and I were all restless as I plodded through another lecture on formatting research papers. Between classes, I stopped by my office to check my e-mail when I got a call from my wife. “He’s gone,” she practically whispered. I immediately knew. Hugh Nibley was no longer with us. We believe that, like the rest of us, Hugh had simply longed to be outside, to leave the hospital bed that had been his home for almost two years and enjoy the beautiful day.

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The post Classic FAIR – “What I Learned about Life, the Church, and the Cosmos from Hugh Nibley” – Boyd Petersen, 2005 appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2025 conference held earlier this month. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

This audio podcast version has been edited to make it easier for listening. If you would like to watch the full presentation, it is available here.

Daniel C. Peterson is the president of the Interpreter Foundation, which publishes the online periodical Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, produces books, convenes conferences, and sponsors a weekly radio program:  https://interpreterfoundation.org.  He and his wife were the executive producers of the 2021 theatrical film Witnesses and have served in the same capacity for its 2022 docudrama sequel, Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon.

A native of southern California who earned his doctorate at UCLA after study at BYU, in Jerusalem, and in Cairo, he retired on 1 July 2021 as a professor of Islamic studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University, where he had taught since 1985.

Formerly director of research and chairman of the board of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), now BYU’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, he is also a former president of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology and is currently a member of the board of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy.

Dr. Peterson served in the Switzerland Zürich Mission (1972-1974), and, for approximately eight years, on the Gospel Doctrine writing committee for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He also presided for a time as the bishop of a singles ward adjacent to Utah Valley University.

He is married to the former Deborah Stephens, of Lakewood, Colorado, and they have three sons and three granddaughters.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #83 – Daniel C. Peterson, “Brigham Young and Slavery” appeared first on FAIR.

I don’t have a testimony of the history of the Church. That is why I can be a historian and also a believing Latter-day Saint. I will expand on this idea, but first let me address some related questions.

Do all well-informed historians become anti-Mormons?

The critics would have you believe that they are disinterested pursuers of the truth. There they were, minding their own business, going about their conscientious study of Church history and–shock and dismay!–they came across this, whatever this is, that blew them away. As hurtful as it is for them, they can no longer believe in the Church and, out of love for you, they now want to help you see the light of day.

Let’s get one thing clear: There is nothing in Church history that leads inevitably to the conclusion that the Church is false. There is nothing that requires the conclusion that Joseph Smith was a fraud. How can I say this with such confidence? For the simple reason that the historians who know most about our Church history have been and are faithful, committed members of the Church. Or, to restate the situation more precisely, there are faithful Latter-day Saint historians who know as much about this subject as any anti-Mormon or as anyone who writes on the subject from an outside perspective. With few exceptions, they know much, much more. They have not been blown away. They have not gnashed their teeth and abandoned their faith. To repeat, they have found nothing that forces the extreme conclusion our enemies like to promote.

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The post Classic FAIR – I Don’t Have a Testimony of the History of the Church – Davis Bitton, 2004 appeared first on FAIR.

by Scott Gordon at the 2025 FAIR Conference

In 1997, I logged in to America Online Mormonism message board 1 expecting to find friends. Instead, I found critics. I was quickly surprised by the sheer volume of vitriol and criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Common claims included:

Even baptism was weaponized, declaring that it was a work that can’t save you.

These arguments, of course, were unfair, misrepresentative, or flat out wrong. And yet, this year, some seminary students in my ward in Redding, California, reported hearing these same arguments at school.

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Scott Gordon serves as President of FAIR (Faithful Answers, Informed Response) which can be found online at www.fairlatterdaysaints.org. FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping members deal with issues raised by critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has an MBA and a BA from Brigham Young University. He is currently an instructor of business at Shasta College in Redding, California and teaches business classes online at BYUI. Scott has held many positions in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints including serving as a bishop, ward mission leader, seminary teacher, and member of the elder’s quorum presidency. He is married, has five children and 14 grandchildren.

The post FAIR’s history and impact appeared first on FAIR.

by Junior Banza and Jeffrey Bradshaw at the 2024 FAIR Conference

That’s fun to do this, because if you’re an academic, if you’re a professor, you talk for a living. So, you’re glib; you don’t have to know anything about what you’re talking about, but you can sound really convincing.

So that’s what I’m going to try to do here. I’ve been asked to chair this session, I guess because I’m the president of the Interpreter Foundation, and this project is really fascinating. The project that they’re going to be talking about is under the auspices of the Interpreter Foundation, so I’ll let them do that talking. Then we’ll see how this goes.

But I thought I would first introduce Jeff Bradshaw, who will then introduce Junior Bonza, and then we’ll get the ball rolling.

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Junior Banza was born and raised in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. In October 1979, his parents joined the Church in Geneva, Switzerland, but they returned to the DR Congo soon afterward. Junior was baptized in June 1986 right after the Church was officially recognized there. As a young man, he began his full-time mission in the DR Congo Kinshasa mission and finished in Johannesburg, South Africa. Junior and his family live in West Jordan, Utah, where he works in the financial industry. He and his wife Annie are the parents of two daughters and a son. Department in efforts to encourage outreach and historical engagement.

Jeff Bradshaw is a vice president of the Interpreter Foundation and a Church service missionary for the Church History Department. See www.TempleThemes.net for his Church-related publications. Jeff and his wife, Kathleen, began to research and recount the stories of Church history in Africa during their first mission to the DR Congo in 2016. They have four children and sixteen grandchildren. Professionally, Jeff is a senior research scientist for the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (www.ihmc.us/groups/jbradshaw).

The post Not By Bread Alone: Capturing the Inspirational Stories of the Saints in Africa on Film appeared first on FAIR.

Over the last century a number of scholars have looked at names and other transliterated words in the Book of Abraham and in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers in an attempt to determine their authenticity. In some cases it can be demonstrated that the name is actually attested in Ancient Near Eastern documents. For unattested names it is sometimes possible to postulate an etymology based on known words in Egyptian and other ancient languages in use in the time of Abraham.

While I can claim credit for some of the work contained in my presentation today, it is appropriate to acknowledge that I’ve drawn upon research by various others such as Hugh Nibley, A. Richards Durham, Robert F. Smith, John Gee and John M. Lundquist. Indeed one of the most thorough researchers of the Book of Abraham onomasticon is Robert F. Smith most of whose contribution is embodied in a series of unpublished manuscripts that he shared with me during the 1960s and ‘70s. I’ve mentioned some of his research in previous publications. I must acknowledge however that I’ve added my own contributions and I’m the only one who can really be faulted for any mistakes here.

One of the primary sources of the names used in this study is of course the Book of Abraham as published in our Pearl of Great Price. These names have been carefully compared with the forms as found in the four extant handwritten manuscripts of the Book of Abraham, one of which you see on the left here, that’s held in the LDS Church Archives.

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The post Classic FAIR – Ancient Names in the Book of Abraham – John Tvedtnes, 2005 appeared first on FAIR.

Scott asked me if I would share with you some of my work defending our LDS understanding of God and to that end I have prepared a bibliography. There’s two sets of materials being passed out, one is a packet. There is a copy of the bibliography in that packet and then there’s two individual sheets and you should either get the packet or the pair of two separate sheets and you’ll find the bibliography in one of them. I’ve also copied a few reprints of articles.

As time permits, I want to look at two or three of these articles but before I launch into a consideration of those, I’d like to provide just a little personal background if you will indulge me that will perhaps explain how I developed a passion for apologetics and also put apologetics in a proper perspective.

Growing up in Ephraim in Sanpete County I was acquainted, and then only casually, with four non-Mormons–two of whom subsequently converted. There must’ve been some in my community who openly challenged Mormon beliefs, but somehow I never encountered them. My first exposure to such challenges occurred after my sophomore year of college when I began my tour of active duty with the United States Army Reserve.

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The post Classic FAIR – Defending the Faith – David L. Paulsen, 2004 appeared first on FAIR.

by Mandy Davis at the 2024 FAIR Conference

Nine years ago, I had the opportunity to start attending meetings at the United Nations. After the very first time going, I knew that it was going to be a hinge point in my life; and that I would never be able to unsee just how calculated the efforts were to undermine and fight against God’s plan in many areas of society. I knew that I would have to get to a point in my life where it became a well-used habit to be able to view the culture and trends of the world with a gospel lens.

So each time, after coming home from the United Nations, I would discuss things with friends and family about my experience. I shared with them some of the things that we needed to watch for and that we would start seeing in society. And some of the people really took things to heart and believed what we were seeing, and others didn’t.

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Mandy Davis grew up in Alberta, Canada. She graduated from Utah State University with a Communications degree. While there, she met her husband and they now reside in Cache Valley with their 3 children. Mandy has had the opportunity to attend meetings at the United Nations both in the United States and abroad. Her experiences at the United Nations deepened her resolve to defend the family at a time when it was becoming unpopular to do so. Her Instagram account, @ChristianOverCulture helps encourage people to view trends in society through a gospel lens. She teaches how to put Christ over the culture of the world and practice intentional discipleship.

The post Viewing Today’s Culture Through the Lens of the Gospel appeared first on FAIR.