Faithful follow spiritual path

OREM — If Joseph Allen is right, Brett Richards was killed by modern-day Gadianton robbers near a place once known as the Land of Zarahemla.

But is Allen right? Are the ruins near Guatemalan towns remnants of a civilization described in the Book of Mormon, the canonized cornerstone of the LDS Church?

The answer, to be sure, depends on whom you ask.

For years, thousands of LDS Church faithful have flocked to poverty-stricken areas in Central America to visit what they consider to be sacred ground — the so-called "Lands of the Book of Mormon."

These travelers spend considerable money — and time — participating in a religious pilgrimage designed to reaffirm their faith.

The reality, however, is that there is no way to verify the authenticity of these as the sites described in the Book of Mormon.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe the book was penned by ancient prophets who lived on the American continent more than 2,000 years ago.

LDS tour guides who shepherd groups through Mesoamerica — particularly southern Mexico and Guatemala — admit no one knows for sure if the events described in the Book of Mormon indeed occurred there. This has not deterred LDS tourists, however.

"It's not my right, nor calling, nor stewardship to proclaim any type of a geography statement on the Book of Mormon," says Allen, 69, who runs Book of Mormon Tours, an Orem-based company he founded more than 30 years ago that attracted worldwide attention with news of Richards' death.

"To me, it's purely scientific. We do the best we know how with the evidence," said Allen, whose book "Sacred Sites: Searching for Book of Mormon Lands" includes a map that suggests where Book of Mormon cities and landmarks may have been located.

"You can't afford to be dogmatic in where places are, but you can afford to propose areas and explain the evidence that causes you to make that statement. It's a discovery process as opposed to a dogmatic process."

On Jan. 7, a member of one of Allen's tour groups, 52-year-old Richards, an Ogden architect, was killed during the armed ambush. Nothing like that, Allen says, had ever happened in all the years he has been traveling to Central America.

The attack brought the book's depiction of a nefarious gang to life in a terrifying way. The Gadianton robbers, as they are called in the Book of Mormon, pillaged and plundered as they roamed the land.