Lucifer's Lantern

Click here  for part 1! Following some initial audio/visual difficulties (which drove my professional A/V friend crazy), the Peacemaker Summit finally got underway with some introductory remarks by Marla Gale, the event sponsor, then by Travish Lish and Christian Williams, the co-owners of The Holy Rebellion social media accounts. What followed over the next several hours were eight keynote addresses and a lunch break. Alternatively, skip to the end to see my final thoughts. In summarizing and evaluating each speaker , I'm employing the rubric below (I am a teacher, after all): Does the speaker... have a consistent thesis related to the stated mission of the conference? clearly articulate an application of content creation online? rigorously demonstrate an actionable metric for peacemaking? utilize a high-quality and engaging presentational format? Christian Williams: "The Accusatory Fog & Two Ineffective Responses" @theholyrebellion Christian begins his address the ...

If you're like most people, you didn't even know this was happening; and, like a good sneeze, it was gone by the time you realized it. (Be warned: there's a lot of YouTube and Instagram posts linked in this article.) Who is The Holy Rebellion? If you're not familiar with The Holy Rebellion , they're a pair of LDS business investors and influencers from Utah - Travis Lish and Christian Williams . In an interview with Greg Matsen of The Cwic Show online podcast, the boys at The Holy Rebellion describe how the y came up with their Instagram handle (and I'll highlight some interesting statements): So we, starting at from that point - this was probably four, five, six years ago even - but we just kind of started meeting...and over time, it became clear that the only thing - our biggest mutual interest was the gospel of Jesus Christ ...and we were talking about Paul and how Paul was just unashamed...and we concluded that if we want to be like Paul, we have to find th...

With the recent release of nearly 3.5 million pages of the Epstein files, there have been several connections made regarding Jeffery Epstein paying tuition for several students at BYU. The most notable of which is presented in what is known as the Esther Cohen-Tizer-Epstien Letter.    Some are questioning the authenticity of the letter, but some clues seem to point us to a woman named   Esther Cohen .  Lets look at a few connections. Note that these connections are not an attempt at making any accusations and are simply connections made through publicly available information. I will be updating this page as I find more information. EFTA00129111  Reference to the Seven Bowls School of Nutrition From Esther's website: alchemyofnourishment.com (Update March 04, 2026: The site seems to have been taken down) She began studying nutrition as a teenager: Which also seems to align with her site. Alchemy of Nourishment Along with the claim of residing in Colorado Alc...

Recently , the LDS church announced updated guidance on the "approved" list of Bible translation for use in local congregations, spanning both English and international language versions. You can find the specifics of this guidance in the LDS General Handbook . The Updated Narrative On January 6, 2026, an interview was hosted by BYU to highlight the updated LDS Bible recommendations: Josh Sears, Associate Professor of Ancient Scripture [L]anguage just keeps evolving. That's a natural thing. And that's nothing to be afraid of. That's just how language works. And we see out throughout history that as language gets of the scriptures gets too far removed from what people are speaking, there's always a need to update and modernize ... So, when the announcement came about the handbook updates that were going to be more flexible and allow for a variety of translations to work alongside the King James, it didn't really surprise me because to me this was aligned ...

 An upcoming event called the Peacemaker Summit , organized by The Holy Rebellion , is being promoted as a gathering for faithful LDS creators. The organizing vision for this event is explicitly about displacing critics of the faith by flooding social media platforms with coordinated, high-volume pro-Mormon content. That goal deserves scrutiny. My initial reaction to the original video The Stated Aim: Outnumber the Critics Travis Lish and Christian Williams from The Holy Rebellion have been clear about their motivation. They believe critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dominate online spaces and that faithful voices need to overwhelm that presence. The solution being proposed is to create enough volume to hide criticisms from search results.  ... our goal is 1 billion views per month  collectively  as Latter Day Saint creators. Imagine a world where when you search Mormon or LDS or Joseph Smith  across any platform, what you would see...

 Jeffrey R. Holland, who died in December 2025 at age 85, was one of the most prominent and polarizing leaders in modern Latter-day Saint history. Known for his emotional delivery and uncompromising rhetoric, Holland helped shape the public tone of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at a time of growing internal strain. His sermons consistently framed belief as a matter of loyalty and resolve rather than inquiry. Doubt was often described as weakness or spiritual failure,  a posture that resonated with committed believers but alienated members grappling with historical, doctrinal, or personal concerns. One of the most vivid examples of that tone came from an April 2016 devotional address in Tempe, Arizona, often referred to in online communities as the “Stay in the Boat” or “Tempe Rescue” talk. It became infamous for the way Holland framed belief as a test of loyalty and resolve and cast doubt and departure as signs of weakness or betrayal.  View th...

 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has clarified its position on Bible translations. In its official statement, “ Holy Bible Translations and Editions Used by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ,” the Church explains that it values multiple Bible translations because they help people understand scripture “in the language they know best” .  The statement affirms that the King James Version (KJV) remains the preferred English Bible for Church use, while also acknowledging that some readers benefit from more modern language. That group includes youth, new converts, and people learning English. The recommended English Bible translations are as follows: Source: churchofjesuschrist.org Concerns about KJV comprehension have existed for decades. Yet only now does the handbook clearly frame Bible use around reading level and understanding. The update formalizes what many families were already doing.  The challenge is easy to identify. The KJV was trans...

 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced on December 14, 2025 that a temple will be built in Portland, Maine . The announcement came during a regional Christmas devotional and was delivered by Elder Allen D. Haynie, a member of the Church’s Area Presidency, rather than during a General Conference session or directly by the Church president. What makes this announcement stand out is not the location, but the method. For years, temples were almost always announced during the April or October General Conference, usually by the Church president, at the close of a major session watched by a global audience. Under Russell M. Nelson, this practice became especially prominent, with long lists of new temples read out twice a year. These announcements have often been used rhetorically to imply numerical growth, even in regions with small or stagnant membership.  Announcing a temple outside of General Conference reduces the performative aspect of that claim.   T...

 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced fourteen new members of the Young Men General Advisory Council , a group that aids the Young Men General Presidency in council and leadership of boys ages twelve to eighteen. The announcement has cause quite an online stir in Mormon spaces as several of these men already have established online followings. Religious youth retention is slipping and institutional messaging struggles to compete with platforms where teens spend most of their time.  Youth these days have a tendency to put a lot of trust in creators, sometimes even more than official statements. By calling men with YouTube channels, filmmaking schools, and large digital classrooms, the Church gains access to people who already know how to package a message and keep an audience engaged. These are essential skillsets for any organization to have in our online world. Who the New Council Members Are Derral E. Eves helped build The Chosen and spent years sha...

     On September 28, 2025, a man named Thomas Jacob Sanford drove a truck into a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, opened fire, and then set the building on fire.      The FBI described it as “ a targeted act of violence believed to be motivated by the assailant’s anti-religious beliefs against the Mormon religious community .” ( NBC News )      That phrasing—“anti-religious beliefs”—is technically accurate but misses the mark. It’s careful. It’s broad. And it hides the real truth: this was an anti-Mormon attack.      1. The violence targeted a specific faith      Sanford didn’t attack a church because he hated religion in general. He attacked Mormons. Witnesses and online posts show he fixated on the LDS Church, calling its members “the antichrist.” That’s not generic hostility toward religion—it’s directed hatred toward one particular group.      2. “...

       All right. So, for this post today, I’m going to be talking about a pretty sensitive subject. And that’s going to be satanic ritual abuse and potential ties to leadership of the Mormon church.      It should go without saying that this is going to be a little bit more of a sensitive subject. I’ll say up front that I have no intention of diving into specific examples—detailed descriptions of what satanic ritual abuse looks like—outside of broad definitions. My goal is just to give an idea of what makes ritual abuse a little bit different than regular abuse (for lack of a better word). Consider this your heads up that this is going to be a sensitive subject.      I typically wouldn’t really give this type of subject very much attention. I certainly never planned on making a post about it. But I did have an interesting conversation the other day with an LDS content creator that I message with sometimes. I was a little surprised whe...