The conspiracy mindset of the Heartland movement
A friend, who I’ll call Wendy Darling, has been looking at the schedule and “speaker bio’s” [sic] for the upcoming “FIRM Foundation EXPO, featuring the 30th International Book of Mormon Evidence Conference,” scheduled for October 20–22, 2022.
Wendy sums up Saturday’s presentations thus:
Something else interesting about the FIRM EXPO schedule web page is that it uses the acronym LDS over fifty times. (This is something that Jonathan Neville also does regularly on his blogs). This is contrary to the explicit instructions in the Church’s General Handbook that, when referring to the Church or its members, “titles such as ‘Mormons’ or ‘LDS’ is discouraged” (38.8.33).
—Peter Pan
Wendy sums up Saturday’s presentations thus:
Dean Sessions: Scientists are lying to you about the age of the earth, the Flood, and evolution.An astute observation. As I’ve pointed out numerous times, the Heartland movement is thoroughly rooted in conspiracy theories.
Tim Ballard: Historians are lying to you about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Hannah Stoddard: The Church is lying to you about Church history.
Bob Wright: Scientists are lying to you about the age of the earth, the Flood, and evolution.
Rod Meldrum: The Church is lying to you about Book of Mormon geography.
Eric Moutsos: Everyone is lying to you about COVID, Trump, and the 2020 election, and the prophet is wrong about masks and vaccines.
Jonathan Neville: The Church is lying to you about Church history and Book of Mormon geography.
Jen Orten & Sophie Anderson (“Two Red Pills”): Everyone is lying to you about COVID, Trump, and the 2020 election.
Kate Dalley: Everyone is lying to you about COVID, Trump, and the 2020 election.
The dozens of booths on the convention center floor: Doctors are lying to you about the true causes and treatments of disease.
In short: Flattery upon flattery that you, the FIRM conference attendees, are the very few who see through all the lies.
Something else interesting about the FIRM EXPO schedule web page is that it uses the acronym LDS over fifty times. (This is something that Jonathan Neville also does regularly on his blogs). This is contrary to the explicit instructions in the Church’s General Handbook that, when referring to the Church or its members, “titles such as ‘Mormons’ or ‘LDS’ is discouraged” (38.8.33).
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They all need to read them some Peter Enns. I recommend starting with "The Sin of Certainty", where he basically says that we often make being sure of our ideas (or knowing the 'right' things) about God a substitute for faith (trust) in God himself, using Job and Ecclesiastes as examples of how to trust when the whole ideological world (flat or not) comes crumbling down around you.
ReplyDeleteHeartlanders would almost certainly accuse Enns of being a left-wing progressive on matters of faith…and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. I like Enns and recommend some of his books, but he’s very much on the side of normalizing LGBTQ+ and other socially liberal groups within Christianity.
DeleteI haven’t read “The Sin of Certainty” yet, but I’d agree with the thesis as you described it. Our recent Come, Follow Me reading of Job drove home for me the importance of not ascribing motivations to God.
Heartlanders and Enns' former Evangelical congregants would be in agreement with that characterization -- it's why he was forced out of his professorial job around 2010. It's amazing to me how much those two groups have in common. Fundamentalists gotta fund, I guess.
DeleteWhat I found even more startling is that this is their 30th conference.
They hold two conferences each year (April and October) and have been doing it for 15 years. So 15 × 2 = 30. But I’m sure they’re not displeased if someone mistakenly thinks they’ve been doing it for 30 years.
DeleteI also wonder what makes their conference “international.” Has it been held in other countries? Or do they have a few people come from Canada every year to attend, so therefore it’s “international”?