Lucifer's Lantern

Tim Ballard first became widely known through Operation Underground Railroad, the anti-trafficking organization he founded, and later through the portrayal of him in the movie, Sound of Freedom (affiliate link). Human trafficking and child exploitation are real crimes, and nothing about the questions surrounding Ballard's newer claims changes that. His work drew attention to a legitimate problem, even as his methods and conduct later became subjects of controversy. Ballard's recent claims belong to a separate and much more controversial chapter of his public life. They do not make human trafficking less real or automatically invalidate every operation associated with O.U.R. They need to be judged on their own evidence, especially now that Ballard is alleging satanic ritual abuse and a hidden network operating within Mormon circles. In public interviews released in 2025, Ballard began promoting allegations of satanic ritual abuse, or SRA, connected to Latter-day Saint circles. ...

Smith’s description of the Book of Mormon is one of the most familiar statements in Latter-day Saint history. In November 1841, Wilford Woodruff recorded Joseph calling it “the most correct of any book on earth” and saying that a person would “get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” He also called it the “keystone” of the religion. [1] Modern Church life reflects those claims. Missionaries place the Book of Mormon at the center of conversion. Members are encouraged to read it every day. General Conference speakers quote it constantly, and Church lessons often treat a testimony of the book as the surest path toward accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet. Ezra Taft Benson reinforced that emphasis when he called the Book of Mormon the keystone of the Church’s witness of Christ, its doctrine, and individual testimony. [17] That makes a historical question hard to avoid: did Joseph Smith himself use the Book of Mormon the way the modern Church does? The surviving...

If Christianity's central claims are correct, then the universe has a creator who became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, died for the sins of the world, rose bodily from the dead, and continues to offer eternal life to those who trust in him. If these claims are true, they deserve not merely admiration but allegiance. They would represent the defining events of human history. If they are false, however, the implications are equally profound. Christianity has shaped civilizations, inspired art, influenced governments, comforted the dying, motivated charity, justified wars, and guided the lives of billions of people. A religion with that kind of influence should not simply be accepted because it is ancient or widely believed. It should be examined with the same seriousness its claims demand. C. S. Lewis understood this point perhaps better than anyone. Although remembered as one of Christianity's most influential defenders, he famously observed in God in the Dock: Essays on Theol...