Jonathan Neville is terrified of the forthcoming ScripturePlus App
Seemingly, Jonathan Neville is so paranoid that he would literally rather have the Church languish in obscurity and fail in its mission of spreading the gospel than to have people be exposed to “M2C.”*
Perhaps you think I’m being hyperbolic? Check out his September 9, 2019, blog post “Overseas perspective.”
Quoth Neville:
Jonathan Neville believes it is a good thing that more people don’t know about the restored Church of Jesus Christ because too many people believe in a Mesoamerican Book of Mormon geography and not enough believe people believe the Heartland hoax sold by Neville and his colleagues.
In other words, Neville is saying: “Only about 1 billion out of the 7.5 billion people on Earth have ever heard of the Church. This is fortunate, IMO, because of M2C.”
Jonathan Neville loathes “M2C” so much that he would literally prefer that people be kept from accepting the restored Gospel on the off-chance that they might come to believe “M2C.”
If this isn’t a sure sign of hysterical madness, then I don’t know what is.
Besides being fanatical, though, Neville is also scared. He’s downright terrified at the forthcoming ScripturePlus app that Book of Mormon Central announced at last month’s FairMormon Conference. His post goes to great lengths to attack, smear, and even demonize an app that hasn’t even been released yet. Why?
Probably because the Heartland hoax preys on ignorance, and ScripturePlus is aimed at informing Latter-day Saints and combating the exact kind of pervasive ignorance the Heartland Hoax needs to thrive.
Let’s be real about this: Jonathan Neville’s entire craft is being fundamentally threatened by the imminent launch of ScripturePlus. Millennials and Generation Z kids, by and large, prefer digital smart devices over old-school reading. Heartlanders are predominantly Baby Boomers who are not prepared to reach younger generations in engaging ways. (Don’t believe me? Attend a FIRM Foundation conference and take stock of the overwhelming demographic of the people in attendance.) Book of Mormon Central, on the other hand, is adept at reaching a younger audience with social and digital media. They are on social media (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube), and they already have a previously-released app on the market.
Neville himself recognizes this:
By the way, does Neville realize how absurd he sounds when he says stuff like this?
The Gospel Library app already has Saints, the Gospel Topics Essays, and will soon have the Church’s new Book of Mormon videos with their Mesoamerican imagery and sets. By every one of Neville’s own bizarre metrics, the Gospel Library is already imprinting “M2C” and “revisionist Church history” on the minds of the Saints.
Whenever I read Neville’s blog posts, I am struck by how narrow his religion is. It reminds me of Elder Uchtdorf’s talk about the man who bought a cruise ticket but didn’t realize that it was all-inclusive, so he stayed in his room the entire trip and ate canned beans.
This is Jonathan Neville’s religion. He’s eating canned beans instead of the fantastic buffet. He’s hunched over in a lonely room and never looking up at the beautiful sky outside. But the difference is Neville does it by choice; he prefers it.
And then everyone wonders why he came on such a great cruise in the first place.
—Captain Hook
* “M2C” is Jonathan Neville’s acronym for the theory that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica and that the hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is not the same hill in New York where Joseph Smith received the plates of Mormon.
Perhaps you think I’m being hyperbolic? Check out his September 9, 2019, blog post “Overseas perspective.”
Quoth Neville:
Last year, Elder [Kevin W.] Pearson said at the FairMormon conference that only about 1 billion out of the 7.5 billion people on Earth have ever heard of the Church. This is fortunate, IMO, because there is a lot of confusion and discord in the Church today that needs to be resolved before the people of the world can take the truth claims seriously.Let’s be very clear what Neville is saying here:
Jonathan Neville believes it is a good thing that more people don’t know about the restored Church of Jesus Christ because too many people believe in a Mesoamerican Book of Mormon geography and not enough believe people believe the Heartland hoax sold by Neville and his colleagues.
In other words, Neville is saying: “Only about 1 billion out of the 7.5 billion people on Earth have ever heard of the Church. This is fortunate, IMO, because of M2C.”
Jonathan Neville loathes “M2C” so much that he would literally prefer that people be kept from accepting the restored Gospel on the off-chance that they might come to believe “M2C.”
If this isn’t a sure sign of hysterical madness, then I don’t know what is.
Besides being fanatical, though, Neville is also scared. He’s downright terrified at the forthcoming ScripturePlus app that Book of Mormon Central announced at last month’s FairMormon Conference. His post goes to great lengths to attack, smear, and even demonize an app that hasn’t even been released yet. Why?
Probably because the Heartland hoax preys on ignorance, and ScripturePlus is aimed at informing Latter-day Saints and combating the exact kind of pervasive ignorance the Heartland Hoax needs to thrive.
Let’s be real about this: Jonathan Neville’s entire craft is being fundamentally threatened by the imminent launch of ScripturePlus. Millennials and Generation Z kids, by and large, prefer digital smart devices over old-school reading. Heartlanders are predominantly Baby Boomers who are not prepared to reach younger generations in engaging ways. (Don’t believe me? Attend a FIRM Foundation conference and take stock of the overwhelming demographic of the people in attendance.) Book of Mormon Central, on the other hand, is adept at reaching a younger audience with social and digital media. They are on social media (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube), and they already have a previously-released app on the market.
Neville himself recognizes this:
Plus, I wanted to observe, from a distance, the imminent disaster of ScripturePlus, the new app from Book of Mormon Central designed to entice Church members away from the Gospel Library to imprint revisionist Church history and M2C on the minds of the Saints, starting at a young age.That’s why he is scared and needs to demonize ScripturePlus.
[emphasis added]
By the way, does Neville realize how absurd he sounds when he says stuff like this?
The Gospel Library app already has Saints, the Gospel Topics Essays, and will soon have the Church’s new Book of Mormon videos with their Mesoamerican imagery and sets. By every one of Neville’s own bizarre metrics, the Gospel Library is already imprinting “M2C” and “revisionist Church history” on the minds of the Saints.
Whenever I read Neville’s blog posts, I am struck by how narrow his religion is. It reminds me of Elder Uchtdorf’s talk about the man who bought a cruise ticket but didn’t realize that it was all-inclusive, so he stayed in his room the entire trip and ate canned beans.
This is Jonathan Neville’s religion. He’s eating canned beans instead of the fantastic buffet. He’s hunched over in a lonely room and never looking up at the beautiful sky outside. But the difference is Neville does it by choice; he prefers it.
And then everyone wonders why he came on such a great cruise in the first place.
—Captain Hook
* “M2C” is Jonathan Neville’s acronym for the theory that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica and that the hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is not the same hill in New York where Joseph Smith received the plates of Mormon.
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