Review of Ronald V. Huggins, Lighthouse: Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Despised and Beloved Critics of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2022). 392 pages. $39.95 (hardback), $24.95 (paperback).

Abstract: Jerald and Sandra Tanner have had a long ministerial career trying to convince people that the truth claims of the Church are wrong. Even though their ministry has closed its doors, Sandra Tanner still gives interviews recounting their adventures in fighting the good fight. This image is burnished by a biography of the Tanners and their ministry written by Ronald V. Huggins. In this review I examine the way in which Huggins approaches his subjects in his book.

I must start this review by making it explicitly clear that I am not reviewing the Tanners, but I am reviewing a book about the Tanners and their ministry. It is not my intent here to give a full review of the Tanners’s lives; such would be virtually impossible. Instead, my focus is much more limited to providing a review of Huggins’s recounting of the Tanners’s lives. I do so by examining Huggins’s approach and the recounting of several key events within his book.

My knowledge of and interest in the Tanners goes back decades (just under 45 years). My knowledge of and interest in Huggins’s book summarizing the Tanners’s lives and ministry does not go nearly so far. I first learned about Lighthouse1 in early June 2023 when I attended a business conference. A non-member friend of mine, whom I only see at such conferences, mentioned that his wife had been reading a book [Page 136]and something caught her eye. It was a reference to me, and she (and her husband) were intrigued by the mention.

This caught me by surprise, and I asked my friend what the name of the book was. He sent me a link to the book, and I ordered it. It was when I saw the link that I understood why my name should be mentioned in the book. (It has to do with a lawsuit; more on that shortly.)

When I received Lighthouse, I immediately started reading it. Like many historical fiction novels, I found it to be a real page-turner; I couldn’t put it down.2 The main characters were larger than life, effusing nothing but pure intent and exemplifying dogged determination. They not only occupied the moral high ground, but they blazed new trails in that ground. They were, collectively, David — chosen personally by God to deliver Israel from the wicked, evil Goliath.

This was good stuff! It was hagiography3 at its best, playing fast and loose with the historical facts to present the God-conjoined