Leaders of the Foundation of Apologetic Information and Research were at BYU on Jan. 16 and 17 in an effort to expand their organization.

FAIR is an organization devoted to defending criticism of doctrine, practices and beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

During their visit, President Scott Gordon and Chairman John Lynch, both from California, made plans for an upcoming FAIR convention in Utah Valley this August and met with BYU faculty members.

They also expressed a desire for articles submitted by BYU faculty, graduate and undergraduate students.

"We are officially asking for scholarly work," Gordon said.

The purpose of FAIR is to help members of the LDS Church and investigators who are struggling, Gordon said.

After coming in contact with anti-LDS literature, some people become disturbed, he said. Rather than be a resource for bashing, FAIR hopes to help individuals more effectively, he said.

"FAIR looks to affirm faith, not to destroy detractors," Lynch said. "We want to be a resource for people to find answers."

Much of the material providing answers to anti-LDS literature, however, is often too scholarly for the lay member to easily understand, Lynch said.

FAIR hopes to target this audience of lay members with articles that are less difficult to understand.

"We want to sift through scholarly works to get easily digestible, but still scholarly articles," Lynch said.

"If the average member can read it and then go explain it to their next door neighbor, then we've succeeded."

Gordon said FAIR has had great success. It has more than 1,000 members all over the world; its Web site receives hundreds of thousands of hits each month, he said.

People have been baptized and inactive members reactivated. Even a "rabid" anti-LDS person in England was baptized and became an active member of the church through the influence of FAIR, Gordon said.

"We're not looking for personal attacks, rather well-researched articles that discuss the issues," he said.

Gordon said FAIR does not condone arguing.

"At FAIR, we want to point out advantages of LDS doctrine," said Roger Cook, BYU professor of philosophy and FAIR liaison.

To learn more or to submit an article to FAIR, visit the organization's Web site at www.fair-lds.org, or contact Roger Cook at (801)378-5009.



Copyright Brigham Young University 18 Jan 2001