Announcing: Saving Faith

Almost three and a half years ago, my book An Introduction to the Book of Abraham was announced by Deseret Book. When it was announced a certain individual or group of individuals launched a campaign to have the book suppressed. This delayed the release of the book a number of months (it was over a year from the announcement of the book to its actual release). To forestall something similar happening I have waited to announce my new book, Saving Faith, until it has actually come off the press.



The book is physically in print. I received a physical copy on March 18, but have delayed the announcement until it was actually released. You can order it here or here. Although the book is scheduled to be officially released May 11, I have heard of people already receiving copies.

The book deals with the narrative that youth are leaving the Church in droves. The data do not support this narrative, but those promoting the narrative sometimes seem to be more interested in telling tall tales than telling truth. A more careful examination of the data shows important information about not only the numbers of those who lose their faith, but how and why they do so.  The data also show what factors are statistically correlated with keeping faith, and that a host of proposed solutions have no data to back them up or worse can be shown to be counter-productive. Readers of this blog will have noticed that I have tackled some of these issues here before. We have probably passed the point where we should be doing apologetics without good data.

Those who know me will not be surprised that I also have provided a few scattered references to history, archaeology, and philology. The book, after all, did have its origin at an international archaeological conference where I was giving a philological paper.