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Two new review-essays appeared today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. They are:
“A Truly Remarkable Book,” written by Louis C. Midgley
Review of John Gee, Saving Faith: How Families Protect, Sustain, And Encourage Faith (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2020). 313 pages.
Abstract: Saving Faith is a truly excellent book, designed especially for families concerned about their children. It is also a book appropriate for those getting ready to serve as missionaries, or for newly married couples, young couples about to be married, or even for those about to bring children into this world to undergo their mortal probation.
“A Prophet, a Candidate, and a Just Cause,” written by Derek R. Sainsbury
Review of Spencer W. McBride, Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). 269 pages, $29.95 (hardcover).
Abstract: Spencer McBride’s book is the deepest look yet into Joseph Smith’s 1844 campaign for president of the United States. In smooth-paced and readable detail, McBride’s work expertly demonstrates the unique Latter-day Saint genesis for the campaign and how it fit into the wider American social-political environment. Its message regarding religious liberty is as applicable today as it was nearly two centuries ago.
I spent some time in the swimming pool this afternoon — of course — with a portion of The Progeny. But our major focus for the day was a visit to the justly famous Butchart Gardens. We’ve been to Victoria numerous times, and we’ve never missed them. If there are any places on the planet that seem genuinely Edenic, surely Butchart Gardens are among those places.
And yet, and yet . . . If those reporting near-death experiences are describing real otherworldly locations, Butchart Gardens would appear to be merely a pale foreshadowing of what exists in the world to come. I’ve extracted a few items from my notes that should serve to give an idea of what people recount of their glimpses into what lies before us:
“It was an unearthly kind of light. It had color that is unmatched here on earth.”
“The brilliance of the colors was striking.”
One near-death experiencer speaks of “vibrant,” even “exploding” colors.
Describing the vision she said, “What a beautiful place with all the flowers and music. Don’t you hear it?”
“Human words are not adequate to describe the beauty,” says one witness. “There was a lot of light, a brightness that went beyond just white—kind of a many-colored iridescence. We don’t have the words in our language to describe the beauty.” Another speaks of “a brilliance of light and color impossible to describe.”
“There grows such sweet and pleasant flowers,” says one old poem, “as nowhere else are seen.”
“The place where I was, seemed very desirable to remain in,” remembered Jacob Hamblin, who had fallen from high in a tree in 1858 and had been unconscious for roughly eleven hours after the fall. “It was divided into compartments by walls, from which appeared to grow out vines and flowers, displaying an endless variety of colors.”
“a landscape of such surpassing beauty that words cannot express”
“George Russell wrote of “seeing the world illuminated by ‘an intolerable luster of light’; of finding himself looking at ‘landscapes as lovely as a lost Eden’; of beholding a world where the ‘colors were brighter and purer, and yet made a softer harmony.’”
The Hindu paradise of Uttarakuru is one example. “The land,” says the Ramayana, “is watered by lakes with golden lotuses. There are rivers by thousands, full of leaves of the color of sapphire and lapis lazuli; and the lakes, resplendent like the morning sun, are adorned by golden beds of red lotus. The country all around is covered by jewels and precious stones, with gay beds of blue lotus, golden-petalled. Instead of sand, pearls, gems and gold form the banks of the rivers, which are overhung with trees of fire-bright gold. These trees perpetually bear flowers and fruit, give forth a sweet fragrance and abound with birds.”
In his dialogue Phaedo, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato has his master Socrates speak of an ideal world that exists beyond the material world in which we live: “In this other earth the colors are much purer and much more brilliant than they are down here. . . . The very mountains, the very stones have a richer gloss, a lovelier transparency and intensity of hue. The precious stones of this lower world, our highly prized cornelians, jaspers, emeralds and all the rest, are but the tiny fragments of these stones above. In the other earth there is no stone but is precious and exceeds in beauty every gem of ours.”
Finding herself in a shimmering green meadow adorned with flowers, fragrance, and light . . ., she was met by four robed guides
Bob Helm speaks of “the most beautiful landscape I had ever seen. The colors were outside my experience, vivid beyond my dreams.”
In regard to gardens, said Jedediah M. Grant of the First Presidency, shortly before his (final) death, “I have seen good gardens on this earth, but I never saw any to compare with those that were there. I saw flowers of numerous kinds, and some with from fifty to a hundred different colored flowers growing upon one stalk.”
vividness of colors
“I saw my [dead] mother. She was in the most beautiful place . . . a real bright light . . . flowers and streams. She told me she was very happy.”
People who come back from such experiences often say that their first impression of this world, in the light of what they had seen during their NDEs, is dingy, dreary, faded, and lackluster. From their descriptions, the next life seems to be to the Butchart Gardens as the Butchart Gardens are to a deteriorating, weed-riven asphalt parking lot on a smoggy day in East Los Angeles.
That’s too much good news, though. I close, therefore, with a horrifying report from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™:
“LDS Church makes generous donation to American Red Cross Guam Chapter for storm relief”
Posted from Victoria, British Columbia
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