The title of this blog may perhaps be a bit flip. It’s a book-sized testimony of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by one of its more prominent members, Utah’s senior-citizen senator, Sen. Orrin Hatch. Published by a small bookseller, Cedar Fort Publishing, Hatch acknowledges that it’s a “short primer” designed for investigators, new converts, missionaries, young people and persons interested in learning about his faith’s history.
While it’s likely destined for a longer shelf life at Deseret Industries than Deseret Book, there is a certain sweetness and sincerity in Hatch’s “An American, a Mormon and a Christian — My Basic Beliefs.” (my review copy is titled “… What I Believe“) It’s his testimony of his faith expanded to 50,000-plus words. Hatch is an old man, and I’ve noticed that very old LDS men, if they have strong beliefs and faith, seem compelled to share that faith more than their peers a generation or two younger do. Perhaps it’s the Mormon admonition of “every member a missionary,” coupled with the concern that life is nearing its close and one must spread the Gospel to as many persons as possible. Secularists may chuckle at this obsession, but it is part of being a Mormon. My father, 81, expends energy several times a year explaining LDS doctrine and bearing his testimony as addenda to the family letter that he has regularly written — on a monthly basis – for a quarter century. The testimonies are sent regularly to our family members in the Southern United States who are not LDS; more recently these testimonies are also, I’m sure, hopefully directed to grandchildren who are no longer active in the Mormon faith.
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