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Once again, I must register a political protest

Once again, I must register a political protest

Last updated on: January 30, 2025 at 2:53 pm by Dan Peterson

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Once again, I must register a political protest 2025-01-30T14:53:46-07:00 Dan Peterson

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A cropped image of Muhammad’s Call to Prophecy and the First Revelation; Journey of the Prophet ; leaf from a copy of the “Majma‘ al-Tawarikh” (“Compendium of Histories”), creatied ca. 1425 AD in Herat, Afghanistan. It is currently located in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Our exit from Afghanistan was badly botched. And America’s abandonment of those Afghans who had helped us there — often at considerable risk to their lives and the lives of their families — has long been a national disgrace and an obvious moral failure, as well as a disastrous precedent that will be remembered whenever we again seek local allies somewhere. Furthermore, alas, the situation isn’t improving: “Trump’s refugee ban leaves Afghan allies abandoned: Thousands of Afghans who aided the U.S. military are stuck in limbo after Trump paused all refugee resettlement”

An 1845 broadside depicting “The Record of Rajah Manchou of Vorito,” commonly known as the “Voree Plates,” which were allegedly discovered by James J. Strang and used to promote his leadership of the Latter Day Saint movement.

(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Since the Come, Follow Me curriculum will be focusing during February 2025 on the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and since the witnesses to the Book of Mormon are an explicit part of that focus, we at the Interpreter Foundation are calling attention to the short-video features that we created as part of our overall Witnesses film project, Today, I call this particular video to your notice: Episode 11: What were the Voree Plates?

Witnesses of the Book of Mormon—Insights Episode 11: In 1845, former member of the Church James Strang claimed to have found ancient metal plates. What were the Voree Plates? This is Episode 11 of a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. . . . These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. In this episode, we feature Gerrit Dirkmaat, Associate Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. For more information, go to https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org/. Learn about the documentary movie Undaunted—Witnesses of the Book of Mormon at https://witnessesundaunted.com/.

And please watch Undaunted — for free! — through the link that is provided at The Witnesses Initiative. Moreover, we encourage you to share these resources with friends and family and other interested parties. If you like them and feel so inclined, don’t hesitate to mention them in Come, Follow Me discussions where their content might be helpful and relevant.

At the 10 May 2024 event honoring George L. Mitton, who was in his ninety-seventh year at the time. From left to right: Louis C. Midgley, John Mitton, George Mitton, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, and an unidentified interloper who apparently wandered in from the street in a desperate quest for human contact.

Today’s installment in the Thursday series of online book reprints for our website is Joseph Smith and Our Preparation for the Lord’s Final Judgment: “George Mitton Tribute,” written by John P. Mitton. The Interpreter Foundation thereby remembers a dear and faithful friend who was present at its establishment, as well as — earlier — in the efforts at the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) and, until a putsch made such service impossible, at the successor organization to FARMS, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Thereafter, he gave generously of his time, talents, and energy to help Interpreter succeed:

George L. Mitton was raised in Logan, Utah. Following military service, he served in the British Mission (1949–51) and later in many church callings. He received a master’s degree in political science at Utah State University and did additional graduate studies at the University of Utah and Columbia University. He is retired from a career in education and state government in Oregon and now lives in Utah. He assisted for a decade as an associate editor of the FARMS Review and published there, in Dialogue and in BYU Studies Quarterly. He was a founding member and was on the Board of Advisors of The Interpreter Foundation, and has published in its Journal. His marriage was to the late Ewan Harbrecht Mitton. They have four children, twenty grandchildren and thirty-seven great-grandchildren. George passed away on the morning of Tuesday, 20 August 2024. Quoting Dan Peterson (Founder of Interpreter) “George was soft-spoken, kind, funny, incisive, hard-working and deeply loyal to the Kingdom of God.”

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Joseph Smith and Our Preparation for the Lord’s Final Judgment: Essays by George L. Mitton. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/joseph-smith-and-our-preparation-for-the-lords-final-judgment/.

“Into the Wild” with the Interpreter Foundation during its initial filmmaking foray into Africa some time back. From left to right, Jeffrey Mark Bradshaw, Elder Willy Binene (a Congolese Area Authority Seventy), James G. Jordan, Russell D. Richins, and, in the background, their driver, Leon.

Finally, though, here are c0uple of juicy morsels for my anti-religious readers, lest their craving for additional evidence of the depravity of theists and theism go altogether unsatisfied. They come, of course, from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™, that mighty and ever growing repository of the crimes that continue to be committed by fanatical religious zealots:

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Contributes to the Renovation of a Catholic Primary School in Kimwenza, Democratic Republic of Congo: “This renovation is a gift from heaven; the entire NTEMO community is joyful to have this new opportunity.””
And you may have missed this earlier horror from the same general area of the world: “Government Hospital in Western Ghana Receives Medical Equipment from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Donation Benefits Over 165 Newborns Per Month.”

By the way, we would welcome any support that you might be able to give for the Interpreter Foundation’s Not by Bread Alone documentary effort, which seeks to preserve and to tell inspiring stories from the pioneering Latter-day Saints of Africa. The project is a relatively inexpensive one, with a a great deal of donated volunteer labor going into it, so even small monetary donations make a measurable difference.

And, before I close, I want to remind you of this wonderful seventeen-year-old video of Latter-day Saints from Cameroon wending their difficult way to the temple in Aba, Nigeria. It’s not quite six minutes long, but it’s extraordinarily powerful. At least, it powerfully touches my stone-cold, unemotional, northern European heart,

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