Film

To read more from Daniel, visit his blog: Sic Et Non. 

In the summer of 2021, the Interpreter Foundation premiered its first full-length theatrical film, “Witnesses,” which tells the story of Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer, the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon.  (https://witnessesfilm.com)  Thereupon followed a docudrama, “Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon” (https://witnessesundaunted.com), which brought in additional Book of Mormon witnesses—the official Eight and several unofficial witnesses (including women)—as well as expert commentary.  Since then, Interpreter has produced thirty-two short features that are available online at no charge (https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/witnesses-insights/), with two or three yet to come, as well as a website devoted to the various witnesses (https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org).

Now, Interpreter has undertaken another major film project under the title “Six Days in August.”  That title refers to the extraordinarily important period in August 1844 when Sidney Rigdon and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, led by Brigham Young, stated their respective claims for leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints following the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.  The Saints had never before experienced the death of a president of the Church; this was uncharted territory.

As I write, our actors and filmmakers have completed their work at Upper Canada Village in Ontario and at the Genesee Country Village & Museum near Rochester, New York.  (The actual sites in Palmyra, Kirtland, and Nauvoo have too many paved roads, telephone lines, automobiles, and, well, tourists to be optimal as movie sets.)  Further filming will then be done elsewhere.

There is a logic to the sequencing of our films.  The “Witnesses” project was designed to tell a story that, if it is true, demonstrates that God was really, genuinely, involved in the early events of the Restoration and that, accordingly, Joseph Smith really was a prophet who had been called of God.  Those are vitally important and absolutely fundamental points.  Please permit me to illustrate:

Years ago, my colleague and friend Louis Midgley drew my attention to an anecdote that had been related by the eminent Protestant church historian Martin Marty, a professor at the University of Chicago.  I believe that it conveys a vital lesson.  Moreover, Professor Marty himself applied it to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The story goes as follows:

Marie de Vichy-Chamrond (d. 1780), the Marquise du Deffand, was a famous eighteenth-century French hostess, as well as a friend of Voltaire, Montesquieu, and other leading French intellectuals of the day. She was also a notable cynic and a skeptic.

One day, while she was discussing religious matters with the powerful Roman Catholic Cardinal de Polignac (d. 1742), he cited a purported ancient miracle. He spoke of the mid-third-century martyr St. Denis (Dionysius), who may have been the first Christian bishop of Paris.  According to legend, St. Denis, having been decapitated by Roman soldiers, had walked a hundred miles after his execution, carrying his own head in his hand.

Madame du Deffand immediately replied that, “In such a promenade, it is the first step that is difficult.”

Now, whatever one thinks of the tale of St. Denis and his supposed walk—just for the record, I myself don’t buy it—her response is very cogent.

She meant, of course, that it’s not the claim that St. Denis walked a hundred miles that poses a difficulty. (Most sources describe a walk of only about six miles, incidentally, with the saint preaching eloquently all along the way.)

The distance is immaterial, a mere historical quibble.

The fundamental question is whether, after his beheading, St. Denis walked at all. If he did, the rest is mere detail.

Martin Marty used the story to identify what is fundamental in the claims of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, particularly as those claims have come under the lens of what he termed “the crisis of historical consciousness.”

That crisis, he said, has been caused by the skepticism and intense scrutiny of modern historical scholarship, which has been directed against virtually all traditional beliefs, both religious and otherwise, all around the world.

“By analogy,” he wrote, “if the beginning of the promenade of Mormon history, the First Vision and the Book of Mormon, can survive the crisis, then the rest of the promenade follows and nothing that happens in it can really detract from the miracle of the whole. If the first steps do not survive, there can be only antiquarian, not fateful or faith-full interest in the rest of the story.”

Whatever complaints there may be out there about women’s roles in the church, same-sex marriage, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, attitudes on racial matters, church finances, the Indian placement program, imperfect leaders, or any number of other topics that tend to distract us—matters on which (please don’t mistake me!) I’m confident that the church and its leaders can be adequately defended—the fundamental claims are really quite few.

But, if those fundamental claims are once granted, other issues largely become mere detail.

If — to borrow Martin Marty’s two “first steps” — Joseph Smith’s account of his First Vision is true and if the Book of Mormon is genuine inspired scripture, many other important conclusions follow. There is, for example, a personal God. Jesus Christ is his atoning Son, who rose from the dead. The Bible is God’s word. Life continues beyond the grave. We are morally accountable. Joseph Smith is a prophet, a credible and reliable witness to divine things. God’s true church, accompanied by divine priesthood authority, has been restored to the earth. And so forth.

The difficulty with the First Vision—and I’m speaking here of standard historical analysis, mind you, and not about a spiritual witness—is that, although sources regarding its surrounding history can be examined to determine, indirectly, whether or not Joseph Smith’s account of the First Vision is plausible, Joseph was alone in the Sacred Grove.  There are no corroborating witnesses.  Nobody else was present.  So the First Vision cannot be confirmed by standard historical means.

The reality of the Book of Mormon plates, though, is attested to by roughly a score of credible witnesses—men and women of different ages, in multiple groups and also alone, on the basis of a variety of differing experiences.  And several of them testify, quite independently of Joseph Smith, to having seen an angel, having heard the voice of God, and having encountered other objects that seem to involve and to entail the divine.  In this case, a strong and rational case can easily be made for the involvement of God in the early events of the Restoration.  And that, as we’ve said, is utterly pivotal and foundational.

But, even then — for some, at least — there remains yet another decision-point that can pose a problem: Suppose that we’ve concluded, yes, that there is a personal God, that Jesus Christ is his atoning Son who rose from the dead, that Joseph Smith was a genuine prophet, that God’s true church, accompanied by divine priesthood authority, was restored to the earth.  That doesn’t necessarily settle all issues.  For the question then arises, Which, of the churches today that claim to possess that priesthood authority and to represent the Restoration that began with Joseph Smith, is the real one?

Were the overwhelming majority of the Saints right to follow the Twelve?  Should they rather have chosen Sidney Rigdon to lead them as the Church’s “guardian”?  Should they have waited until 1860, for the “Reorganization”?  (Should we today, in other words, belong to the Community of Christ, formally known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?)  Should they have followed after James Jesse Strang, as more than a few in fact did?

To put it in the clearest possible terms:  Should a believer in the claims of the Restoration be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?  Does President Russell M. Nelson hold the keys of the restored priesthood?  Are the ordinances performed in the Church, in its temples and elsewhere, being performed by proper priesthood authority?

This is the issue that makes it so crucially important that we revisit the story of the rise of the Twelve to leadership in the years before and then, dramatically, immediately after the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.

I won’t hold you in suspense:  Those of us who are involved in the creation of this new project, “Six Days in August”—which will probably, like its predecessor, involve a dramatic film, followed by a docudrama and short features, accompanied by a substantial website—are committed, active, believing members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We affirm the authority of the Twelve, the proper eventual succession of Brigham Young to the presidency of the Church, and the legitimacy of President Russell M. Nelson’s claim to hold the keys of priesthood authority today.

But, in our telling of the story, we will not be demonizing figures such as Sidney Rigdon or Emma Smith.  (James Jessee Strang will not figure in the dramatic film, because he doesn’t emerge as a contender for leadership until after the close of the story that we’re telling—though he may well be a topic for the docudrama.)  Beyond recounting the history in a way that instructs and, we hope, entertains, we intend, yes, to support the claims of the church to which we belong.  But that emphatically does not mean that intend to produce materials that are antagonistic to our brothers and sisters in the other churches that have grown out of the Restoration of the Gospel that began in 1820.

The bulk of our filming is substantially complete, but much remains to be done.  The difficult and time-consuming work of post-production—editing, sound design, color correction, subtitling, dubbing, and the like—is still before us and, yes, it requires funds.  We would very much welcome your help in bringing this project to full realization.

To find out how you can help with our ‘Six Days in August’ project, CLICK HERE.

(Martin Marty’s comments about the Marquise du Deffand, St. Denis, and the Latter-day Saints appear in Martin E. Marty, “Two Integrities: An Address to the Crisis in Mormon Historiography,” “Journal of Mormon History” 10 [1983]: 3-19.)