It was one of the best decisions I ever made.
Where do I begin? There's a lot to be recounted, so I'll just list the goings-on in chronological order.
PART ONE: BEFORE THE MOVIE
I arrived in the South Towne Expo center and was fortunate enough to locate the venue rather quickly. In front of the screening room was a respectably large display. At the display's left was a large painting of Jesus Christ visiting the people of the Americas, with large earthworks--mounds?--in the background. The display itself consisted of several tables aligned together; upon these were several small stacks of DVDs and books, not all of which were Meldrum's. The book which has received the most attention is Prophecies and Promises, but he's written another one having to do with DNA research; the title escapes me.
What blew me away was the book at the far right of the display--none other than View of the Hebrews by Ethan Smith! Now, this wasn't some Tanner-style facsimile of the original; this was a professionally done reprint, complete with a modernized softback cover, that looked no different than any other book you'd see in your local bookstore today. If you only looked at the front and back covers, you'd never guess that it was originally printed in 1823.
Several other people were browsing, too. After a little while of this, people started streaming out of the screening room. A few moments later, the man of the hour himself walked out! I enthusiastically greeted him with a "Brother Meldrum!" He was kind enough to acknowledge me and shake hands.
My first impressions? Rodney Meldrum is a tall fellow, substantially taller than my 5' 8" stature. It quickly became obvious that he is a friendly, approachable, and personable fellow. There was not a hint of snobbery or elitism anywhere in him.
He was also kind enough to allow me to virtually monopolize his time (of which there wasn't much) until the next screening of the film.
I received his permission to write down his responses. Rather than waste your time recounting my questions, I'll just let you infer them by giving you his answers:
- He's using, or taking advantage of, a feature called "Google Alerts," so he's aware of the Internet buzz surrounding his book. Due to time constraints, he's not able to check it that often, though.
- He doesn't know who the "snitch" is [my word, not his!] or why he/she did it.
- He believes that "no one in higher authority" called Deseret Book. I asked what that meant, and he responded that whoever made the original phone call (or whatever) is not high up in the church heirarchy. He said that it couldn't've come from the First Presidency, since if it had, then the book would still be off the shelves.
- Continuing with the above, he's read the theories about an "Oaks Faction" and a "Packer Faction," but he doesn't believe them--although he was careful to add, "But I don't know."
- He's of the opinion that the "snitch" [once again, that's my word, not his] only contacted the powers-that-be at Deseret Book, not anyone in the church hierarchy. Although he once again added and emphasized, "but I don't know."
- The authorities at Deseret Book told him that the reason it was being pulled is because of complaints about the book being full of "false doctrine." He said (to me, if not the Deseret Book folks), "There's no doctrine in it!" He acknowledges that he/they state their evidences and conclusions in the book, but guesses that whoever was upset about it must've wanted them "to be a little more milquetoast."
- There was going to be a book signing upon the release, but he was given notice about the book being pulled a mere three hours before the event was due to take place! There were people who were coming from all over Utah and even from Idaho, so he showed up to the venue anyway, but had to explain to everyone what had just happened.
- The Deseret Book people told him that they'd have to do a much more thorough review of the book before they'd allow it back on the shelves. Three people on their staff were tasked with this project and given three weeks to do it, but they got back with him only two weeks later and admitted that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the book, so it went back on the shelves.
- The book sold out in one week; the last one was bought up about two weeks before Christmas. Thanks to it being the Christmas season, he commented that the timing of the complaint was pretty suspicious.
Time stops for no man, and he was overdue to start the next screening. He asked me if I was going in, and I responded, "absolutely." I explained that I have a couple more things to ask him, and he said that I could do so afterward, but we might be rushed for time since the convention center people would probably want to kick us out.
PART TWO: THE MOVIE
The film shown was "The Lost Civilization of North America." Before it started, two of the producers, Steve Smoot and Barry McLaren, introduced themselves and talked about it for a short moment. They said that they were going to pitch it to the Discovery Channel.
They said that it was produced in 10 months. That's quite something compared to how long it takes the Maxwell Institute to produce a film, isn't it?
Then the movie began. It was an hour-long show. It was clearly produced for a secular audience, which sort of disappointed me, since I was hoping that Bro. Meldrum would show one of his DVDs on DNA and Book of Mormon geography. Here are some highlights:
- The theme of the show was that the "Hopewell" culture that occupied the heartland of what is now the United States from c. 100 B.C. to 400 A.D. was a thriving, populous, advanced civilization.
- The reason that this civilization is almost totally unknown to archaeologists is due to a combination of political agendas stemming from "Manifest Destiny" and outright racism.
- "Manifest Destiny" made it politically incorrect to think of Native Americans as anything other than an inferior race, so archaeological finds, earthworks, artifacts, etc. were not preserved and studied the way Mesoamerican artifacts, etc. are.
- The film mentioned that in the various mounds were found metalworks of iron and copper. While showing several examples of this, two of the Kinderhook Plates were displayed!
- The film tangentally mentioned Joseph Smith. It talked about the Golden Plates--the word "discovered" was used--and how the translated material depicted the Native Americans as just as worthwhile and valuable as anyone else, which went against the political grain of "Manifest Destiny."
- Much attention was given to the movers-and-shakers of the anthropological dogma of the early- and mid-Nineteenth Century. As it turns out, the two biggest names in the "suppress all knowledge of an advanced Indian Civilization in North America" were sons of Presbyterian preachers in Palmyra, New York, who were active when the Book of Mormon came out!
- The film discussed examples of ancient North American stone writings and their morphology. The film called the writing "heiroglyphics" and claimed that due to several similar glyphs meaning the same thing in both languages that the writings must be imported from Egypt or adapted from Egyptian. The words "Reformed Egyptian" were used.
- Other writings were shown, and similarities were claimed between it and Phoenician, the mother-tongue of Hebrew. In fact, the film claimed that some experts called the New World writing "Block Hebrew."
- Continuing this theme, some artifacts that had been dug out of burial mounds were shown with this writing on them. The movie claimed that these writings were shown to Rabbis who were able to read them; they turned out to be copies of the Ten Commandments.
- Although this show isn't technically Meldrum's, he was interviewed in it regarding the X haplogroup of MtDNA.
- The show claimed that when excavating for a dam in Eastern Tennessee, workers discovered a man-made structure. Antiquities experts were called in, and they declared it to be an Egyptian-style temple.
- The show referred several times to the idea of Native Americans--or at least the Hopewell culture--being "from" the Middle-East.
After the show ended, the producers and Meldrum stood in front of us for a question-and-answer session. The first question was, "So what do we do with this?" The rest of the questions had to do with getting the word out about this forgotten ancient culture or about finally getting anthropologists to take a new and more objective look at the Hopewell civilization now that it's no longer politically incorrect to do so.
After this, Bro. Meldrum asked if anyone had heard of Keith Merrill. After a short explanation, he asked if we'd like to see a short five-minute clip of an interview they'd done with him. We all agreed to view it.
In the mini-presentation, Mr. Merrill talked about his career as a filmmaker hired to produce films for the church. He stands by his film "Testaments" and says that it doesn't matter where the story was set, it's the story itself that matters. He then said what polygamy-porter has often quoted here about how if he had to film it again, he'd set it in North America. Interestingly, he repeated the phrase, "The buffalo! The buffalo!" He then quoted the part of the Book of Mormon about the people eating animal carcasses as they were driven forth.
After this, Meldrum talked briefly to a few more people. Finally, it was my turn.
PART THREE: AFTER THE MOVIE
In chronological order:
- I told him about the discussion I had last week with the employee at Deseret Book. Before I could get very far, he jumped in and told me that he had a similar conversation with the very same employee! We both recounted the guy's physical appearance, and apparently it was so. The employee, not knowing who Bro. Meldrum was, had used the word "infamous" with him, too. The guy explained to Meldrum that the book had sold out, then took him to a computer workstation to see if any other copies were available in other franchises. Meldrum saw the readout; there were 0s all across the board--EVERY location EVERYWHERE was sold out, and it had only been a week since the re-stock! In fact, there were a few negative numbers where people had preordered and prepaid for copies from the next shipment. [Have any FARMS titles done so well?]
- He has read the post I made titled UPDATE #3 on Rodney Meldrum's new book, 01/02/2010 and mentioned my story of the curmudgeon who stapled a copy of the receipt to the cover of the book.
- I talked about the two competing theories about who the curmudgeon might be, and he admitted that the name "Louis Midgley" first came to his mind, too.
- This led to his recounting of a bizarre experience he'd had over two years ago: He and Elder Hartman Rector, Jr. went to part of the FAIR conference--held in the very same building--to listen to DeGroot's presentation (on what, I don't recall. . . DNA, perhaps?). Afterward, as he was leaving, Louis Midgley came up, stuck his finger in Meldrum's face, and said, "Are you that Rod Meldrum guy?" Then Midgley "went off" on him [his words, not mine], eventually getting so worked up that he whacked his own head and spun around a few times(!). Such a display is bound to attract attention, and Meldrum said that eventually 30 to 40 people were standing around, watching Midgley's "gymnastics" [again, his words, not mine]. Once he was done, Midgley stormed off and accosted Elder Rector, going off on him, too. After they had cleared out, Rector's wife told Meldrum that she'd never seen her husband treated with so much disrespect.
- Someone contacted Meldrum's publisher, complaining about there being so many mistakes (or whatever, I can't remember the word he used) in the book. The publisher asked the person to list every mistake (or whatever) in it, and they'd make the necessary corrections. The person was unable to pony up anything specific, so that's where it ended.
- Someone--I can't remember if it was Meldrum himself or someone else--called Midgley and asked him point-blank if he was the one who contacted Deseret Book--or Meldrum's publisher, I forget which--and Midgley denied it.
- Dan Peterson also denied being the one who contacted Deseret Book (or the publisher).
- Now, although I was taking notes furiously, I don't know shorthand, so I could only scribble keywords for further memory-triggering later. Even so, my memory is a little fuzzy on this next part, but here goes: Continuing on the topic of Midgley, Meldrum recounted a story about someone making a presentation about Cleon Skousen's book at BYU--I think Meldrum was in attendance--and Midgley going off on the presenter about how Skousen did poor research and was a disgrace to the church and how Glenn Beck is a disgrace to the church, too. [CORRECTION: Meldrum was NOT in attendance. CLICK HERE for more details.] Brother Meldrum commented that if Midgley goes off on those two as well, then he's in pretty good company.
- He asked me what I thought of the movie. I said that it was interesting, but that it'd be highly controversial to the entrenched anthropologists. (I didn't go into detail, but I was thinking that the "controversial" parts would be the ones about Native Americans being from the Middle-East and the mound artifacts being readable and containing the Ten Commandments.) I next mentioned the Kinderhook Plates being in the show. He responded that he's aware of the consensus regarding them, but said that the producer who put them in the show didn't know the truth about them and they got slipped in. He mentioned that the next version will be corrected and the plates won't be in it.
- I then asked him what he thinks of the FARMS and FAIR types. He says that he doesn't consider them to be an enemy. Referring to the attacks they make on him, he said that he understands why they do what they do, since they've spent years on their theories, then all of a sudden "some nobody" [his words, not mine] shows up and ________ (I can't remember what he said, but you can guess the gist of it from the context).
- Once more, my memory is a little fuzzy on this next part too, but here goes: Continuing with the theme of FAIR types, he brought up the first attacks that FAIR made against him. Seeing this, he magnanimously offered to contact Scott Gordon "mano-a-mano" to hammer things out and come to a mutual understanding. Although Meldrum thought that the details had been settled upon, when they finally made contact, Meldrum discovered that Scott Gordon was on the line with the FAIR board of directors. So instead of being one-on-one, Meldrum was shocked to see that it was nine-on-one. Meldrum was in California at the time and away from his notes, research, etc., so he was at a distinct disadvantage. They agreed that they'd talk again when he got back home to Utah, but by the time he arrived, FAIR's major attack piece was already online--their plan of action was already decided before they even made contact. So the next "meeting" didn't happen. (Again, I might be mistaken on some of the aforementioned details.)
- Continuing on the topic of Scott Gordon, Bro. Meldrum referred to his buying up domain names and making a spoof of the Tanners' website. He talked about how FAIR got sued and garnered some pro-bono work, but even though they won the suit, "it shouldn't have happened in the first place." He talked about how some Latter-day Saints really ought to act the part better. He clarified that FAIR doesn't have a corner on the market of cantankerousness, that lots of anti-Mormons can be as bad if not worse.
After this, I helped him carry some of his audio-visual equipment to his van, whereupon we shook hands and parted company.
I already told you my first impression of Brother Meldrum; here's my second impression: Throughout both of our conversations I perceived that he is sincere, genuine, and without guile or hidden agenda. My impression is that he's not out to "cut down" FARMS or anyone else; he's just doing what he thinks is right and other competing theories simply aren't on his radar.
Of course, when it comes to this sort of thing--quoting someone else--accuracy is paramount, so I offered to send him the URL of this post so that he can review it and offer corrections and clarifications where necessary. Therefore, by the time you read this, hopefully it'll be as accurate as humanly possible.
And there you have it.
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