There have seen signs of a significant shift in the minds of members of the Church all over the country, and this ‘paradigm change’ has not gone unnoticed by the media. Both LDS and non-LDS people are now officially calling the “Heartland Model” research a “movement” within the membership of the Church!
What a whirlwind the past two months have been! There have seen signs of a significant shift in the minds of members of the Church all over the country, and this ‘paradigm change’ has not gone unnoticed by the media. Both LDS and non-LDS people are now officially calling the “Heartland Model” research a “movement” within the membership of the Church!
With this in mind, you might find the following quotes regarding this ‘movement’ encouraging.
“There is a swelling movement within the Church, though, that prefers to believe that the story took place in Illinois, among other North American locales. …‘Prophecies and Promises: The Book of Mormon and the United States of America’ is the latest salvo in this argument. …When and if such features begin to shift, the impulse discernible in the Heartland Model is only likely to grow stronger.”– Seth Perry – History of Christianity PhD candidate, The Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, University of Chicago Divinity School
Click the Martin Marty Center logo above to read the article! Or click HERE.
The article was picked up by several publications including…
That such a dramatic ‘movement’ or shift is occurring within an organization as large as the Church, and that it has been brought about primarily by the work of only one or two people, is remarkable. How could a couple of individuals, working from their homes, who hold no advanced degrees, are without the aid of any large organization, have received no outside funding or have support from a sympathetic media, have accomplished such a monumental task? That such is the case is especially amazing when one considers the obstacles presented by the widely accepted, long held and heavily promoted belief that Mesoamerica was the setting for the Book of Mormon by many highly educated, respected and influential individuals for well over 60 years.
The influence that they have had on the membership of the Church pertaining to ideas of where this sacred history took place is undeniable. From photographs of Mesoamerican structures embedded within the printed pages of the book itself, Church sponsored research in the area, innumerable Church firesides, artistic depictions of Mesoamerican pyramids, promotion of “Book of Mormon” tours, and hundreds of books, articles, and films portraying this region as the ‘lands of the Book of Mormon.’ Hence came the establishment of several organizations. While their purpose may have been to show forth the evidences of the Book of Mormon, at least to some extent their purpose has increasingly become to indoctrinate this theory in the minds of latter-day saints. That the premise of this well-entrenched, highly organized group is now thought to be seriously challenged after less than three years by a virtually unknown person with no scholarly credentials and armed with only a rather rudimentary DVD presentation of his personal research is astounding.
The overwhelmingly positive response to this refreshing new research on Book of Mormon geography has been truly exciting.
