Foreword
The author Dr. David Brighton Timmins is a fifth generation Latter-day Saint with a strong testimony of the Gospel, who is fully aware of the unconventionality of some of the thinking expressed in this series of essays collected from a lifetime of thinking, teaching, and writing about the Church and its doctrines. His paternal great-great-grandfather was one of the earliest missionaries in Scotland (where the author himself performed his mission and where, as District President -- the Scottish District at that time including all of mainland Scotland, the Shetland Islands and Hebrides -- he was instrumental in acquiring the first two Church-owned chapels in that land). His maternal great-great- grandfather was the first President of the Airdrie Branch, one of the first branches of the Church in Scotland.
The author wrote his first article on Church doctrine (Reflections on the Symbolism of Baptism ) in 1951 for the Millenial Star , the oldest continuously published Church magazine in existence. He has since published in Sunstone and Dialogue . Secularly, he has placed half a hundred articles on Economics and Politics in a variety of Journals including the Washington Post, Revista del Banco Central de Guatemala, The International Herald Tribune, the Southwestern Journal of Economics, the Foreign Service Journal, the Oquirrh Review, and Encyclia.
At age nineteen, before leaving on his first mission, he served in the Elders Quorum Presidency of the North Twenty-First Ward in Salt Lake City. After nine months in the field, he was called to be President of the Scottish District by Stayner Richards, then President of the British Mission and later a General Authority. Upon his return, he served in the Emigration Stake YMMIA Board while completing his undergraduate education. As a graduate student he served a part-time mission in New England and was called to be a High Councilman and ordained a High Priest by Apostle Harold B. Lee when the Boston Stake was first organized..
Dr. Timmins earned his joint PhD degree in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University where he also read broadly in History, Philosophy, Religion, and LDS Church doctrine in the Weidner library (which has an outstanding collection of Mormonabilia ), having absorbed the entire Journal of Discourses and a bushel of First Presidency records of notable excommunication hearings in the Salt Lake library while still in high school. Later, while working as a research analyst at the Utah State Capitol, he ploughed his way during lunch breaks through United States vs. Reynolds , the Temple Lot case , The Smoot Hearings , and recording secretary accounts of early discussions regarding the Utah State Constitution and Utah's unconventional laws on marriage and inheritance found in the State Supreme Court law library.
Dr. Timmins entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1955, serving abroad in the U.S. diplomatic corps in a succession of increasingly responsible embassy positions in European, North African, and Latin American countries until his retirement in 1982. During Washington assignments he served over the years as Senior Economist, Deputy Office Director, or Acting Director in three of the largest and most important Bureaus in the Department of State.
Because of his exceptional background and experience, Dr. Timmins was recalled to service while living in retirement and teaching at the Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico. He and his wife later worked at the American Embassy in Beijing and the Embassy in Bucharest, Romania.
The Timmins children are a bright bunch, usually decribed by their teachers in French schools as premier (or premiere) dans la classe . All were National Merit Scholar Finalists and all won four year scholarships to university: two are Phi Beta Kappas. This collection of articles was written as a series of enclosures to letters to the Timmins children away from home (usually Paris, Rabat, Mexico, or Beijing) for high school or university: Some of them were written during the childrens' missions (France, Italy, Belgium), to help them over the bumps as difficult questions regarding Church doctrines or practices arose while trying to fit Gospel understanding to school teachings or worldly events. They were always labeled "your father's best provisional understanding , subject to revision when more information becomes available." A couple of letters written at the time of Melvin Dumar's Howard Hughes' will forgery and Hoffman's historic document forgery have regrettably turned up missing, though their basic thinking is reflected in other papers (see especially The Mystery of Conversion and Rethinking Repentance ).
These thoughts helped some particularly sensible and astute youngsters turn childhood belief in the Good Jesus into sturdy adult testimonies of the Restoration. The author has been encouraged by friends who have read some of these short essays to share them with a wider audience; it is hoped this collection of ponderings will be similarly testimony-strenthening to anyone who finds his way into these pages. The author would be disappointed if anyone encounters anything doctrinally troubling or out of harmony with established teachings in these pages. The whole point of the exercise is to uplift and broaden horizons and bring fresh perspective to people seeking deeper understanding of conventional Gospel themes.
Since retirement Dr. Timmins has taught economics and politics at universities in Mexico, Guatemala, France, and the United States.
In Church life, he has served in three bishoprics, five stake high councils, a stake presidency, and a mission presidency.
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