Smith, “The War Against Christianity, History and Geography of Ancient America in the Book of Mormon, 600-51 B.C. ” (reviewed by Kent Ponder)

Review
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Title: The War Against Christianity, History and Geography of Ancient America in the Book of Mormon, 600-51 B.C.
Author: Troy J. Smith
Publisher: Cedar Fort, Inc., Springville, UT
Genre: Book of Mormon–Criticism/Interpretation
Year Published: 2016
Number of Pages: 296
Binding: Softcover
ISBN13: 978-1-4621-1771-0
Price: USA $18.99 CAN $21.99

Reviewed by Kent Ponder for the Association for Mormon Letters

*The War Against Christianity* (WAC), an understatedly brilliant book in its way, is the quite stunning result of a tour de force amount of careful and detailed research. It is simply and intelligently organized. It is sedately, yet engagingly written. Smith’s use of English is humbly elegant and flawless in grammar and usage, precisely correct in vocabulary. The language flows smoothly without hiccups or ambiguities. The pace and tone are confident and competent, yet calm and unassuming.

For those seeking a light and breezy read reminiscent of a guide leading a group of vacationers on a Book of Mormon Lands tour, this book is not it. Part Three, especially, requires the reader’s laser-on attention. Yes, there are glitches and caveats, but we’ll get to those later.

Also, it is better to know at the outset that WAC, despite its myriad geographical details and intertwinings, is in its essence a book of LDS theological faith rather than a book of earth- or life- science, archaeology, etc. Knowing this up front can ease some scientific frustration while working through the massive prose-and-chart data of Part Three.

As per the Introduction of four pages, WAC is laid out in three Parts, the largest of which (Nephite Geography) is the last. The first, of six chapters, treats relationships among Book of Mormon cultures of various times and places: Nephites, People of Zarahemla, Lamanites, Mulekites, Zoramites, Jaredites. These chapters are mainly a straightforward summary of material well known to most LDS who have studied the Book of Mormon, and include an excellent two-page chronological chart as recap.

Part 2 (each part thusly labeled, with the Arabic numeral) presents Smith’s six-chapter Pagan Conspiracy thesis that “Pagan religion was deeply entrenched in both Nephite and Lamanite cultures.” He concatenates and melds this stating that it was all orchestrated from the beginning by Satan.

Much of Part 2 is an intriguing analysis presented as a chess match between Christian Kings and Pagans, as well as fascinatingly complex info and strategy involving two competing hypotheses regarding the Order of the Nehors (one of which is of the much earlier Jaredites), illustrating the impressive layering of character, time, societal and plot detail in the Book of Mormon. I am barely scratching the surface here, believe me.

Part 3, nearly half the book, is an effort to place most Book of Mormon activities of the title’s time frame in Central America and nearly the full upper third of South America. This is where Smith’s elegant Lego construction, reaching through nearly half his book, begins to creak and groan, reminiscent of bridge construction projects where the two ends don’t comfortably join at the middle. It is as once both (a) magnificently detailed and exactingly laid out, and (b) too reminiscent of mapmakers who analyze C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia landmass, or a map of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Frodo’s journey up the dried stream of the Sirannon. (Check Google Images, page one, for twenty interesting variants of each.)

I, for example, having spent decades related to a Central American Costa Rican and working professionally with “things Latino” from Mexico to the lower tip of South America, trying to match Smith’s map with reality on the ground, find it at least implausible that WAC would label Panama’s dense tropical vegetation including the notorious Darien Gap, toucan birds, bananas, etc., as The Land of Desolation.

Though Smith explains, impressively and at length, his various means of calculating distances between cities shown on his several large maps, the resulting precise locations seem too precise, not convincing on the merits, especially following his lists of admitted calculation-hypotheticals.

WAC lacks any and all less-than-LDS-faithful anthropological and archaeological glitches of the kinds that so deeply troubled Elder B. H. Roberts and Thomas J. Ferguson.

But what Smith does offer is all well presented, without hiding or skirting his lists of maybes and ifs and what-ifs that can push to a preconceived conclusion — somewhat like a defense attorney’s final statement to the jury.

An index would have been highly valuable, though there are 1239 numbered endnotes.

Here’s my own totally honest summary statement: Whether or not you are a Book of Mormon true believer, I believe you can’t possibly err in reading/owning this book. Whichever side of the verdict you tend toward, the book is in my opinion somewhat of an understated masterpiece of presentation of the Book of Mormon’s staggeringly skilled, interlaced, labyrinthine complexity. WAC’s many superb charts alone are certainly worth the book’s price.