I highly recommend the following reading material, as I think it may very well give us a taste of the FARMS feasts to come:
http://www.templestudy.com/2012/08/03...
As folks here will recall, Young Haymond was the one who launched the "Restore FARMS" organization in the wake of the Maxwell Institute shake-up. Some here shook there heads at this: was Mr. Haymond misguided? Was he star-struck by the Mopologists? Did he love their viciousness? I turns out that nothing could have prepared us for the reality:
I have been through quite a range of emotions the last few weeks. I've felt utter despair, grief, and sorrow, as well as bitterness, confusion, and great disappointment. Through it all I've been blessed with comfort from our Heavenly Father beyond measure, and by experiences too sacred to share. It's been a roller coaster of a time with everything that has happened at the Maxwell Institute. I make no bones about it--FARMS had an immense impact on my life, most particularly as it relates to my testimony and faith in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
It seems that a good portion of his emotional and spiritual life have been bound up with things like "Text and Context," "That Old Black Magic," and Midgley's article on the funding of "anti-Mormon" ministries. Indeed, it's hard to look past Haymond's ebullient enthusiasm. Here he is waxing ecstatic over the work of Hugh Nibley:
I devoured that book. Well, let me rephrase that. I placed my pinky toe into the deep end, and did my best to pick it apart. I was excited beyond belief to read about the rituals of the Egyptians, about their coronation rituals, their mummification rituals, their cleansing and purifying rituals, and afterlife rituals. It opened up my understanding of the temple to levels I thought not possible. I still return quite frequently to that book, and glean amazing insights and knowledge from its pages. And I still haven't finished reading it!
Clearly, he's going to make a powerful contribution to "the New FARMS." He continues his rhapsodic praise of Nibley in a later passage:
I love that man. I love him. As deeply as I love my best friends. And I never had the chance to tell him so, I never had it. I bemoan that to this very day. The closest I ever came to him was attending his funeral in the de Jong Concert Hall, with video simulcast from the Provo Tabernacle. With heartfelt and acute emotion, I look forward to the day when I can walk up to Hugh Winder Nibley, shake his hand and give him a hug, and with tears in my eyes thank him for everything he has done, for me,
Later, Haymond lays everything bare as he describes the despair that gripped him in the wake of FARMS's demise:
My emotions have been very close to the surface these last few weeks with everything that happened to the FARMS component of the Maxwell Institute. It ripped me at my core to see this organization dry up and vanish, forcefully so, seemingly in an instant. It shocked me to think that some thought the Church didn't have a need for this kind of scholarship, which had done so much for me, and so many others. Where would I have been without FARMS and Hugh Nibley? I honestly don't know, and I fear just thinking of the vision. There have been several times over the past few weeks when I've honestly wept tears of sorrow over what's happened. A couple of those times, as silly as it might sound, were when I heard a couple songs on the radio, and my emotion spilled over. Go ahead and laugh. I did!
Very well, Brother Haymond! Ha ha ha! Laughter is the tincture that cures us all! Immediately following these comments, Haymond has imbedded a YouTube video of Jason Mraz's song, "I Won't Give Up": apparently, this is the anthem for "The New FARMS."
Finally, he arrives at the real reason for his comments:
And now for the reason you're reading this post in the first place, if I've teased you long enough. Early last week I was approached by William Hamblin (whom I'm friends with) and Daniel Peterson (who I haven't met personally before) early last week. They wanted to do something too. I couldn't have been happier to hear it. Once more, they wanted my help to make it happen. Me. Disbelief. Can I just say that I'm unsure I've ever received a greater honor in my lifetime. These great scholars, who have dedicated the better portion of their lifetimes sustaining and defending the Church and its gospel, and whom I've privately admired from a distance as filling the vacuum and vacancy left by Nibley's passing, were coming to me, looking for my help, to help an organization that I dearly loved and wanted to live on. Words can't express the thoughts and emotions. I was deeply, fundamentally moved, and still am.
They asked for my help to put together a website and the technological solutions for a new journal that would serve much the same purposes that the FARMS Review had in the past, and the Mormon Studies Review in more recent days. And they wanted to do it fast too. Since Br. Peterson had just returned from his trip out of the country and things hadn't been moving forward on any fronts elsewhere, they wanted to see if it could be ready to go by the 2012 FAIR Conference, on August 3rd, if possible. That conference, if my scheduling this blog post goes as planned (since I'm writing this on Wednesday evening, August 1st), is just now coming to an end, and Daniel C. Peterson has just concluded his remarks as the final speaker. At the end of his remarks it was his opportunity, as former editor of the FARMS Review for 23 years, to take the center stage and announce this new venture, as a new age in Mormon apologetics is revealed, and we move forward into the 21st century of technology and scholarship in the Church. How exquisitely humbled I am that I had the opportunity to be a part of this historic occasion.
So, there you have it: this is, Mopologetically speaking, a watershed moment--even if that water is merely Haymond's shedding tears of joy over this momentous occasion. I have to applaud his enthusiasm, and I have to confess that I'm now very, very excited to see how Mormon Interpreter develops. In particular, I will be looking forward to young Mr. Haymond's contributions. It seems that he is all set to help lead the charge as at the forefront of a new, young generation of Mopologists. With Dan Peterson and Bill Hamblin coaching him, I wonder what we can expect?
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