“Walk in the Spirit”

Two more items have gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation.  As is typically the case, they are available to you at no charge:

The New Testament in Context Lesson 40: “Walk in the Spirit”: Galatians

In the 3 September 2023 Come, Follow Me segment of the Interpreter Radio Show, Terry Hutchinson (the moderator), Spencer Kraus, Brent Schmidt, and Hales Swift discussed New Testament lesson 40, “Walk in the Spirit,” covering Galatians.

You can listen to or download the New Testament in Context segment of the September 3 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show via the link given above. The other segments of the 3 September 2023 radio show can be accessed at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-september-3-2023.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard weekly on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640.  Or, if that doesn’t work for you or if you prefer, you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

Come, Follow Me — New Testament Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 40, September 25 — October 1: Galatians — “Walk in the Spirit”

As he regularly does, Jonn Claybaugh has again kindly provided those who follow the Interpreter Foundation with a concise set of notes to accompany the Church’s “Come, Follow Me” curriculum.

In the meantime, the Interpreter Foundation’s new film project continues.  Once again, I’m sharing a few still photographs from the current location of our crew and our actors in Ontario, Canada.  It’s impractical to do much filming in Nauvoo today, what with tourists and automobiles and power lines and historical sites that remain staffed and open.  But Upper Canada Village offers similar landscapes, virtually identical foliage, and buildings and roads that have been carefully conserved in their early-nineteenth-century form.

Back in 2018 and 2019 — and, I’m now told, for several years prior to that — my wife and I donated to Operation Underground Railroad and encouraged others to do so as well.  (Child sexual trafficking seems about as unambiguously evil a crime as can be imagined — not unlike its near-cousin, slavery.)  Moreover, a little more than two  months ago, we watched the film Sound of Freedom, which tells a story connected with the founder of Operation Underground Railroad, Tim Ballard.  I mentioned the film here on this blog (in an entry largely on the subject of “Searching Out the Truth about the Mountain Meadows Massacre”), as follows:

My wife and I saw Sound of Freedom on Tuesday, the Fourth of July.  There isn’t a trace of QAnonism in it, so far as I could tell.  (I have no sympathy whatever for QAnon.  Quite the contrary, in fact.)  My only complaint, to be perfectly candid, is about the film’s pacing.  I thought it somewhat slow, especially in its first half, and overly long.  It could have been edited down a bit.  That said, I hope that as many people as possible will go to see it.  Efforts like this need to be supported, and the cause to which the film seeks to call attention is enormously important:  “God’s Children Are Not for Sale.”

And, by the way, Tim Ballard — who is portrayed in the film by Jim Caviezel (who starred in such films as The Passion of the Christ and in The Count of Monte Cristo) — is a Latter-day Saint, and, although the film doesn’t mention his religious affiliation (it actually shows him drinking coffee and tea and, on one occasion, smoking a cigarette to create rapport with a captured pedophile) and wasn’t produced by members of the Church, Angel Studios, which is distributing Sound of Freedom, is based in Provo, Utah.

At the same time, we were also donating to — and encouraging others to donate to — what was then known as the Liahona Children’s Foundation, which has since changed its name to Bountiful Children’s Foundation.  Eliminating malnutrition in children seems to me, quite clearly, to be another unambiguously good cause.

Now, it seems, there is a controversy swirling around Tim Ballard (who evidently left Operation Underground Railroad back in June or so).

This is extremely unfortunate.  Human trafficking does exist, and the sexual trafficking of children is, in a sense, especially heinous.  Anything that hinders the goal of putting an end to the sexual exploitation of minors is, to put it mildly, regrettable.

All I know about this particular matter, though, is what I’ve read online, and I haven’t been following it with any special care until today.  But here are five relevant links that have now provided me with at least some slight orientation:

FAIR LDS:  “Tim Ballard – Current Events”

“LDS Church removes content promoting Tim Ballard”

“Sound of Freedom’s Tim Ballard Is a Star on the Right. Why Would His Church Denounce Him?  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is conservative. But maybe not like this.”

“LDS Church Delivers Blow to Tim Ballard’s Hero Status”

“Tim Ballard, former CEO of Operation Underground Railroad, issues response to church statement”

I intend to try to monitor what, if anything, comes of this.

I posted a blog entry here on Saturday, under the title of “More about “LD$ Inc.,”” in which I shared the links to three very good analyses of Church finances.  Here now, I offer a fourth link that is very relevant to the discussion:

“The Latter-day Saints the Washington Post Forgot: While the Washington Post sheds light on the Church of Jesus Christ’s finances, it overlooks key perspectives, instead allowing our critics to speak for us.”

The last few paragraphs of an article that I wrote for Meridian Magazine a couple of months ago may also be apropos:  “Are Latter-day Saint Temples Too Lavish?”

As for me, to be perfectly candid, my faith in both the Church and its mission and in the goodness and sincerity of its leaders (more than a few of whom I’ve had the good fortune to know) is such that, to be honest, I can’t really generate much personal interest in this topic — let alone any indignation.

Posted from Park City, Utah