from Bruce Porter’s Book, “An Everlasting Decree”
About a year ago, I made a new friend: Bruce H. Porter. He regularly conducts tours in the Holy Land and at LDS Church History sites. Then, when I was researching my novel, The Invitation to the Shining City, I read his book, An Everlasting Decree: Ensuring a Title to Liberty for the Promised Land. I was spell-bound!
He’s a very unassuming man; he was raised on a ranch in northern Arizona without most of the luxuries that we all take for granted today…luxuries like electricity and running water! He told me how, every night in his grandparents’ ranch house, his grandmother read to him out of the scriptures by the light of a kerosene lamp. That became so engraven on his soul that he eventually studied Semitic languages and ancient scriptures at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. As of today, he has written more than a dozen books on ancient scriptures and Biblical history, which can be found on his website at bhporter.net.
When I began reading “An Everlasting Decree,” I became aware of how “truth converges.” I had been studying writings by John Winthrop, the Framers and President Calvin Coolidge (who makes “an appearance” in my book–you can do that in fantasies!). Two of the key messages of my book are statements by both Adams and Coolidge. Many people are familiar with Adams’ pronouncement that “the Constitution was written solely for a religious and moral people . . . and is totally unsuited for anyone else.”
When Coolidge elaborated on that, I was compelled to include this statement he made in 1924 in my book, namely that “. . . government rests on religion…’the claim to the right to freedom, the claim to the right to equality, with the resultant right to self-government–the rule of the people–have no foundation other than the common brotherhood of man derived from the common fatherhood of god. if this faith is set aside, the foundations of our institutions fail, the citizen is deposed from his high estate…society reverts to a system of class and caste, and the government instead of being imposed from reason from within is imposed by force from without. freedom and democracy would give way to despotism and slavery. I do not know of any adequate support for our form of government except that which comes from religion.”
Then I finished Porter’s book and found my Third Witness. The last two sentences of his book proved to me how truth eventually does converge, and in this case, that truth is, why it is essential for people in this country to follow Christ or be swept away!
“There exist a sacred responsibility for the faithful to help maintain the freedom and security of this land. This scriptural responsibility lies within each individual who understands the Book of Mormon to seek the righteous remnant and become a collective voice in the security of our faith, freedom and family.”
I would add, as I view freedom-loving people of faith around the country rallying to the cause of freedom, that this responsibility not only rests with members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but also with all God-fearing people throughout the land. That, I believe, is evidence of the convergence of truth. Read his book: it can be ordered directly from his website at bhporter.net. I highly recommend it.
GM JARRARD
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