I have discovered in my adult church life that I grew up
misunderstanding the nature of Mormonism. I realized in
adulthood that instead of devotion, I was actually
opposed to many core church values and their
implications for me. The incongruence is so painful to
me now, that for my own well being, I believe it is time
that my membership status should reflect the true
devotions of my heart and mind.
I want my reasons for resignation from the Church of
Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints to be known. Hence,
this Exit Statement seeks to record, summarize,
describe, and illustrate the basis for my decision.
Values presented here are held as truths to me, and the
information provided is factual to the best of my
knowledge.
For myself there was a bi-directional “social contract”
of sorts between me and the church, not just a one-way
commitment from me, given to the church. That contract,
of my own making, requires a reciprocal commitment from
the church to me; of complete honesty, the exercise of
no other power than love, and the protection of
individual freedom above the self-interest of the
church.
While asking me to be honest, loyal, obedient, and to
give time and tithing, church policy is that the only
Mormon history told should be a so-called “faith
promoting” history which conceals controversies and
difficulties of the Mormon past and present. To me the
existence of this policy is in itself, alone, a
violation of my trust. The supremacy of my individual
freedom of choice requires a church policy of complete
honesty, regardless of the implications. My freedom of
choice is never at any time consigned to the church.
Hence, a policy of changing, retelling, or withholding
information, is willful manipulation of my ongoing right
to an informed choice.
Second, regarding freedom of speech and of conscience,
this statement renounces the church’s practice of
excommunicating teachers, historians, writers,
intellectuals, and feminist whose public speaking or
writing differs from the beliefs of church leaders.
These excommunications are unjust in their mean
treatment of church members, and these acts ignore other
elements of church theology celebrating freedom,
intelligence, knowledge and love as the greater values.
I had expected the church to practice what it
preaches.[1] However, the church’s consistent behavior
over the last 28 years confirms to me, beyond any doubt,
that these practices, that I find so offensive, are
truly representative of the church’s core values today.
They are to me unchristlike and unbecoming of a church.
Furthermore, elevation of the lesser act of obedience,
to the level of high principle, begs the question of:
Obedience to what (to a church officer, or to one’s
conscience)? By its ongoing claim that God will never
permit the prophet to lead the church astray[2], and the
constant teaching to “Follow the Brethren,” and the
prohibition against public criticism of its
leadership[3], the church is teaching submission to its
power and authority above individual conscience.
Further buttressing the effort at control, church
authorities claim divine inspiration. All church members
it is said, if worthy, would receive personal revelation
confirming the actions and policies of church
leaders[4]. By implication, a difference of conscience
in the member is a measure of spiritual weakness[5].
And, public expression of difference is grounds for
expulsion.[6] These claims and threats are acts of
spiritual abuse[7]. To the extent that I adopt the code
of public silence, and to the extent that I sacrifice my
moral agency to church demands to “Follow the Brethren,”
then to that extent is my integrity and personhood
devalued and the church’s espoused purpose defeated.
That purpose is development of individual authenticity,
strengthening of the internal conscience, and expression
of the power for good within each individual. Church
influence, power, control, reputation, programs, and
image are lesser priorities.
Further compounding the assault on individual character
is the use of force, through the law of the church, to
silence public expressions of individual conscience. The
ongoing excommunications[8] send a chilling message
demanding conformity to the majority view. Perhaps,
distracted by the particular issues, most church members
are complicit in these acts by their public silence,
seeming not to see the threatening implications to
higher principles, freedom of choice and freedom of
conscience.
Consistently, Mormonism seeks, both within and without,
to eliminate public opposition through sanctions,
excommunications, worthiness interviews, force of law,
and in the past, violence[9]. Thus, in America, the
church works in contradiction to an otherwise free
society that tolerates pluralism and individual freedom
insofar as the exercise of personal liberties does not
violate the freedom and rights of others. However, while
giving lip service to “free agency”, these
constitutional liberties were trammeled by the early
church Presidents, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young in the
name of communal unity. Early church members like John
Correll, and others who sought to advance republican
values of liberty above authoritarianism and who
publicly advocated those principles, were labeled as
apostates, sometimes financially ruined or threatened
with physical harm, and ostracized from the faith
community[10].
I believe the church mission experience is viewed as the
behavioral prototype for the faithful church member. I
was by objective measures a “successful” missionary. We
were warned in the Salt Lake mission home that pressure
would be part of our experience. It was. The most common
motivational technique within the mission was to present
mission programs as divinely inspired. I quietly
dismissed many exaggerated claims to divine inspiration
as the hype they obviously were. I say ‘quietly
dismissed’ because the working missionary is
unquestionably not at liberty to openly challenge or to
critically examine, authentically, any part of the
missionary program. I’ve learned, in this regard, that
such training tends to set a life’s pattern that the
church values highly. However, the problem with
encouraging this behavior is that every act of silence
unavoidably diminishes to some degree personal strength
of character in the returned missionary.
I felt tremendous pressure to meet mission baptism goals
and to achieve the 70-hour workweek standard. More than
most, I did. Obedience and personal worthiness were
always held forth as the deciding factor to achieving
the “inspired” goals. I believe the motivational
practice of connecting worthiness to achievement,
destroyed the mental health of one missionary I knew. As
an adult, I better understand the danger of those
suggestions to my children.
The strongest lesson from my mission experience is a
deep conviction that “pressure” is a form of force to
which I am opposed within the normal adult life of the
church. Synonyms and mechanisms for pressure are
compulsion, force, fear, punishment, discipline,
ostracism, domination, manipulation, and control. All
these forces tempt corruption of the motive for my
actions. The source of these forces should not be the
church. However, to my profound dismay and anguish, I
found the mission experience to be only a more
concentrated introduction to the continued use of these
forces by the church in my adult life.
I have tremendous admiration for the courage of those
educators, historians, writers, intellectuals, and
feminist whom the church seeks to silence through
excommunication. I have been on the fringe of such
discipline. I was released as Elders quorum teacher less
than one hour after, and for the reason that, I
presented both viewpoints (neutrally) on the Equal
Rights Amendment (ERA), rather than the one-sided
anti-ERA position of the church. The continuing use of
excommunication to silence public debate and opposition
to church policy sends to me a clear and personal
message confirming the authoritarian nature of the
church.
A politician once said, “We are all entitled to our own
opinions, but not to our own facts.” In addition to the
above, the following sections document the factual basis
and interpretation from which my decision to resign is
formed:
The Policy of Telling Church
History Dishonestly
Apostle Boyd K. Packer demands that Mormon historians
demonstrate and affirm that “the hand of the Lord [has
been] in every hour and every moment of the church from
its beginning till now.”[11] This demand is preposterous
to those who know Mormon history. Likewise, “Ezra Taft
Benson reported with obvious irritation the fact that
LDS Seminary and Institute teachers ask him, ‘When and
where can we begin to tell them our real story?’ and
Elder Benson observes, ‘Inferred in that question is the
accusation that the Church has not been telling the
truth.”[12] The reality is that “Church leaders,
teachers, and writers have not told the truth they knew
… but have offered to the Saints instead a mixture of
platitudes, half-truths, omissions, and plausible
denials”.[13]
I believe that people and institutions ought to tell the
truth. Deceit for whatever justification, whether to
enhance obedience to their leadership, or to produce one
kind of testimony, or to construct a “public relations”
image supporting the flow of convert baptisms and
tithing, ultimately and unavoidably produces a loss of
trust. It reveals a clear intent to manipulate the faith
of the membership rather than to fully trust the
individual’s right to an informed choice.
Dishonesty in Practice
“Apart from purposeful misrepresentation, there is also
the practice, both past and present of suppressing
historical materials or, if not suppressing them, of
discouraging their discovery .… Every scholar with whom
I am acquainted agrees that there is yet official Church
reticence when it comes to using certain records,
diaries, and other materials in the church’s archives
and in the First Presidency’s possession relating to
polygamy.”[14]
“This ‘reticence’ has manifested itself most publicly in
recent months by the commencement in January 1998 of a
two-year curriculum drawn from Brigham Young’s writings
used jointly by Relief Societies and priesthood quorums
in which only Brigham Young’s first two (and therefore
monogamous) marriages are mentioned, in which the lesson
entitled 'Understanding the New and Everlasting Covenant
of Marriage’ nowhere mentions polygamy, and in which his
own references to ‘wives’ have been edited to ‘[wife]’.
And this, I am saying, is a kind of deception, a skewing
of the Mormon past …”[15]
“Fawn Brodie asked the pointed question, How was it that
the 'overwhelming majority of Mormons’ could ‘so soon
forget the savage persecution of their fathers and
grandfathers’ and ‘ignore the famous marriage law which
was so long a fundamental tenant of their theology …’
She answers her own question by attributing the current
Mormon position to ‘a legacy of unconscious shame.’
Mormons, moreover, like ‘other middle-class Americans …
longed for respectability.’ … Brodie continued, ‘Mormon
historians are now not only anxious to forget the past,
but actively suppress the activities of would-be
researchers in Mormon archives. Thus, the magnificent
immoderation with which Joseph Smith embraced polygamy
has been forgotten’ along with his other ‘human
qualities.’ What remains is a Joseph Smith who is ‘a
kind of deity, a holy figure.’”[16]
Plural marriage did not stop easily after more than 45
years of practicing the ‘principle’ as essential to
celestial exaltation. With a reward for his capture,
polygamous church president, John Taylor, died in hiding
on the Mormon underground. Under federal pressure the
‘manifesto’ of 1890 was issued. However, contrary to
their promise and Official Declaration of the Church
President[17], the highest church leaders continued to
authorize hundreds of post manifesto polygamous
marriages for another 14 years.[18] Apostle John W.
Taylor, Apostle Brigham Young, Jr, Apostle Marriner W.
Merrill, Apostle Abraham Owen Woodruff, Apostle Matthias
F. Cowley, and others took plural wives after the
manifesto. Yet, Brigham Young, Jr. wrote in Harpers
“that the Woodruff Manifesto was binding on members of
the church everywhere in the world, that the promises
associated with it had been ‘scrupulously kept …”[19]
Joseph Smith’s Dishonesty When
Starting Plural Marriage
I was taught incorrectly in Aaronic Priesthood by an
educated man from North Carolina State College that
Joseph Smith did not “practice” polygamy because of his
wife’s objection. “I have identified thirty-three
well-documented wives of Joseph Smith which some may
regard as an overly conservative numbering … Historians
Fawn Brodie, D. Michael Quinn, and George D. Smith list
forty-eight, forty-six, and forty-three, respectively
.…Assistant Church Historian Andrew Jenson’s 1887 list …
twenty-seven wives based on interviews and affidavits
…”[20] “Towards the end of Smith’s life, knowledge of
his secret marriages began to leak out. William Law,
Smith’s second counselor in the church’s First
Presidency and an ardent polygamy foe, filed suit
against the church leader for living ‘in an open state
of adultery’ with 19 year-old Maria Lawrence. In a
speech a month before his death, Smith responded by
flatly denying polygamy, which was illegal under federal
law. ‘What a thing it is for a man to be accused of
committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can
only find one,’ he said.”[21]
Smiths secrecy was also a deceit of his wife, Emma Hale
Smith. As Nauvoo Relief Society president, “Emma Smith
was a determined opponent of her husband’s secret
extramonogamous unions, and she used the Relief Society
to squelch rumors of polygamy. Evidently she had heard a
report that Agnes [Coolbrith] had married Joseph [she
did], so … she announced that a Clarissa Marvel ‘was
accused of [telling] scandalous falsehoods on the
character of Prest. Joseph Smith … So Sarah Cleveland,
second counselor to Emma, moved that Elizabeth Durfee
and Elizabeth Allred investigate … This action borders
on the comic, since both Cleveland and Durfee were
probably already plural wives of Smith.”[22]
Typically, Smith’s proposals to women would say that the
Lord had commanded him to marry them, that the Lord had
already given them to him, it was sacrilegious to doubt,
and that his proposal must be kept completely secret. It
was the woman’s duty to comply with the fact that she
was already Joseph’s possession.[23] In the example of
Emily Partridge, “Joseph, thirty–seven, married this
frightened, fatherless nineteen-year-old, whom he had
not allowed to consult even her mother or her older
sister .… Four days later Eliza [Partridge] was married
to Joseph .… neither Emily or Eliza knew that the other
had been married or that they now shared a common
husband.”[24] Two months later Joseph convinced Emma to
allow him to take other wives, but she agreed only on
condition that she could select them. He consented and
to his surprise she picked Emily and Eliza. Accordingly,
on May 11, 1943 the Partridge sisters were married to
Joseph a second time, this time with Emma’s knowledge
and consent.
I believe polygamy and women’s spiritual equality are
not reconcilable. I consider to be a crime that Smith,
Mayor of Nauvoo, Lt. General of the Nauvoo Legion, and
church President, placed himself between young women,
and their God. Her total obedience to him becomes her
only hope of true salvation, which consist of her
becoming a priestess and a queen to him, her God.
Surrounding the beginning and ending of polygamy was
wide spread dishonesty by church leaders and members
alike that set a tradition of “lying for God” that I
believe endures today. Yet, however grand the principle
in which the service of mistruth is placed, it becomes
an example to others, including young people. “One of
the sadder aspects of Mormon prevarication during the
period of the anti-polygamy crusade and after was that
children were told to lie to protect the Church and
their parents. This pattern so alarmed Charles W.
Penrose, a future counselor in the First Presidency,
that in 1887 he told President John Taylor that he
feared for Mormonism’s future. ‘The endless subterfuges
and prevarication’s which our present conditions
impose,’ he said, ‘threaten to make our rising
generation a race of deceivers’”. [25] These children
are our Mormon great grandparents. Present practice of
placing the image of the church ahead of honesty seems
to confirm the biblical proverb that the sins of the
parents are visited upon the heads of the children for
seven generations.
Telling the Mountain Meadows
Tragedy Dishonestly
Outside of the Oklahoma City bombing, the greatest
terrorist act of American against American was planned
and directed by the highest Mormon Church officials of
Southern Utah in 1857 in which fifty-five loyal Mormons,
and Indians organized by them, slaughtered 120 men and
women, the only ones spared being young children.
“Mountain Meadows could only be understood by realizing
that it was the culmination of an attitude that had
sponsored many lessor events of violence. The horror of
the massacre effectively stopped further practice of
‘blood atonement’.”[26]
While they admit his part in the affair, family members
of John D. Lee resent that he bore alone the shame that
should be shared by others, and that Mormon history
named him as the only one responsible. John D. Lee was
executed at the tragic site twenty years later in 1877.
“Seven years after the execution of Lee … Charles W.
Penrose wrote the account which came to be the accepted
story of the church, his whole purpose being to clear
the name of Brigham Young from any implications of
guilt.”[27] However, “While Brigham Young and [Apostle]
George A. Smith, the church authorities chiefly
responsible, did not specifically order the massacre,
they did preach sermons and set up the social conditions
which made it possible. … While he did not order the
massacre, and would have prevented it if he could,
Brigham Young was accessory after the fact, in that he
knew what had happened, and how and why it happened.
Evidence of this is abundant and unmistakable, and from
the most impeccable Mormon sources. … Church leaders
decided to sacrifice Lee only when they could see that
it would be impossible to acquit him without assuming
part of the responsibility themselves.”[28]
“Since that time a number of reputable Mormon scholars
have begun research on the subject, only to be turned
away from it … Two of these men have said that they
discontinued because they were ‘counseled’ with such
vigor to leave it alone that they felt sure that to
continue would cost them not only their positions in
church schools, but their membership in the church
itself. As late as 1929 … another Utah writer introduced
the subject of the massacre by paraphrasing the comment
of B. H. Roberts that members of the church ‘have been
slow to admit all the facts of the case and unwilling to
fix the responsibility for the crime upon those
individuals of their own faith who shared in the
participation of the tragedy’ " …[29]
The story that I was taught in the 1950’s and then
myself taught as a missionary in the 1960’s is presented
in Essentials in Church History, by Joseph
Fielding Smith. “In the 1945 edition, Smith devotes one
chapter to the massacre, in which, without mentioning
names, he can hardly find language strong enough or
words vigorous enough to condemn the participants .… it
was the crime of an individual, the crime of a fanatic
of the worst stamp. Yet in the collections of the
historian’s office of the Latter-day Saints church,
records of which he is the custodian, there is ample
evidence that this was definitely not the crime of a
single individual, nor the responsibility of only one
man. Even the most superficial research would show the
utter ridiculousness of such a statement.”[30]
The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1992, continues
the deception by omission, “pertinent information that
could be embarrassing to the church is carefully omitted
- as, for instance … local Southern Utah officials’
involvement in planning the Mountain Meadows Massacre …
”[31]
Church Temple Presidents and their superiors do not
discuss publicly the former temple covenant to avenge
the blood of the prophets that existed at the time of
the massacre. Neither do they discuss publicly the
church Law of Obedience, both of which I think help to
explain how the local Stake President, High Council, and
Bishop (some holding concurrent militia and church
offices) could organize fifty-five otherwise law abiding
church members to go against the Francher wagon train.
Even the church history taught to me a hundred years
afterward still reports the rumor of Missourians,
murders, persecutors of the church[32] as among the
emigrants. However, the “crime of Obedience” at Mountain
Meadows illustrates by extension to the extreme, the
moral emptiness inherent in the church Law of Obedience
that is still promised by devout Mormons.
I believe the lesson of Mountain Meadows most relevant
today is to note that of fifty-five Mormons at the scene
of the Massacre, only one reportedly had the strength of
conscience to leave before the killing began[33]. To me,
John D. Lee’s autobiographical account expresses a
strong sense of conscience telling him that preparations
for the killing were dishonorable and wrong.[34] Yet,
Lee could not act on that conscience. Like in today’s
church, the excesses of Brigham Young and the power of
the priesthood chain of command cannot be publicly
questioned or challenged as a matter of conscience
without threat of excommunication (or worse in those
days[35]). Only obedience is tolerated.
Slaves obey. Only lives conditioned by obedience to
external authority could have disciplined fifty-five
Mormon men to carry out the tragedy at Mountain Meadows.
“The real protection of members lies in their own sense
of empowerment, in an individual sense of duty to God
rather than to the institution, and in the primacy of
individual conscience.”[36] However, to the present
ecclesiastical establishment, the above spiritual truth
is a threatening transfer of power downward from church
leadership to the membership. Instead, the Church
continues to pour energy into the current and quite
successful efforts of indoctrinating the young with
threatening messages to “Follow the Brethren”. These
calls to obedience and claims that “God will never
permit him [the prophet] to lead us astray”[37] are
similar to those in Brigham Young’s time. Mountain
Meadows is a horrific example of mistaken obedience to
priesthood leaders. I believe sacred respect and
deference to the individual conscience, above obedience
to external authority, is the lesson still omitted from
the official church history of Mountain Meadows.
LDS Scriptures
Joseph Smith says of the Book of Abraham, “THE BOOK OF
ABRAHAM TRANSLATED FROM THE PAPYRUS, BY JOSEPH SMITH. A
translation of some ancient Records, that have fallen
into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt. -- The
writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the
Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon
papyrus.”[38]
Remarkably, Joseph Smith’s Papyrus were presented to the
Church by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City,
New York, and announced on November 27, 1967. “The
announcement mentioned … an 1856 certificate of sale
signed by Emma Smith Bidamon, Joseph Smith’s widow.[39]
The papyrus are carefully studied and translated. There
is no argument that the papyrus does not contain ‘The
Book of Abraham.’ “Instead, Joseph Smith used the Book
of Breathings and considered it the writings of Abraham.
The fact is that the papyrus which he used as the source
of the Book of Abraham manuscript characters has nothing
to do with Abraham. It is an Egyptian record which gives
directions for wrapping up the Book of Breathings with
the mummy. The papyrus roll that Joseph Smith used for
his Book of Abraham was written for a man named Hor, a
priest of Amon-Ra, who died about A.D. 60 far from the
time of Abraham.”[40]
Recovery of the papyrus sparked new studies of
fac-simile No 1, No 2, and No 3 from the Book of
Abraham. However, all the new activity over the
facsimile was old news. The facsimile cuts from The
Pearl of Great Price were presented to scholars in
1912 who wrote the same conclusion 60 years earlier:
“To sum up, then, these three facsimiles of Egyptian
documents in the ‘Pearl of Great Price’ depict the most
common objects in the mortuary religion of Egypt. Joseph
Smith’s interpretation of them as part of a unique
revelation through Abraham, therefore, very clearly
demonstrates that he was totally unacquainted with the
significance of these documents and absolutely ignorant
of the simplest facts of Egyptian writing and
civilization. Not to repeat it too often, the point I
wish to make is that Joseph Smith represents as portions
of a unique revelation through Abraham things which were
commonplaces and to be found by many thousands in the
every-day life of the Egyptians. We orientalists could
publish scores of these ‘fac-similes from the book of
Abraham’ taken from other sources.
“For example, any visitor in a modern museum with an Egyptian collection can find for himself plenty of examples of the four jars with animal heads—the jars depicted under the couch in fac-simile number one. It should be noted further that the hieroglyphics in the two fac-similes from the ‘Book of Abraham’ (Nos. 2 and 3), though they belong to a very degenerate and debased age in Egyptian civilization, and have been much corrupted in copying, contain the usual explanatory inscriptions regularly found in such funerary documents.”[41]
JAMES H. BREASTED, Ph. D.,
Haskell Oriental Museum, University of Chicago
“I return herewith, under separate cover, the ‘Pearl of Great Price.’ The ‘Book of Abraham,’ it is hardly necessary to say, is a pure fabrication. Cuts 1 and 3 are inaccurate copies of well known scenes on funeral papyri, and cut 2 is a copy of one of the magical discs which in the late Egyptian period were placed under the heads of mummies. There were about forty of these latter known in museums and they are all very similar in character. Joseph Smith’s interpretation of these cuts is a farrago of nonsense from beginning to end. Egyptian characters can now be read almost as easily as Greek, and five minutes’ study in an Egyptian gallery of any museum should be enough to convince any educated man of the clumsiness of the imposture.”[42]
Dr Arthur C.
Assistant Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York
Department of Egyptian Art.
The recovery of the Joseph Smith papyrus is more momentous than may appear on the surface because for the first time there is a tangible link to the source documents of Mormon scripture. Evidence of Smith’s incompetence and dishonesty has the same implication whether he claims to be “translating” Abraham from papyrus or Nephi from gold plates.
Even though no golden plates are available for
analysis of the Book of Mormon, a tremendous
archeological record is present. Contrary to what I was
led to believe, the archeological record does not
support the Book of Mormon account:
No. 1 – The Plant-Life Test of the Book of Mormon. Wheat
, barley, figs, and grapes are all mentioned in the Book
of Mormon, but no evidence supports the existence of
these plants in Mesoamerica. “The negative score on the
plant-life test should not be treated too lightly. An
abundance of evidence supporting the existence of these
plants has been found in other parts of the world of
antiquity.”[43]
No. 2 – The Animal-Life Test of the Book of Mormon. The
Book of Mormon mentions the ass, bull, calf, cattle,
cow, goat, horse, ox, sheep, sow (swine), and elephant.
“Evidence of the foregoing animals has not appeared in
any form — ceramic representations, bones or skeletal
remains, mural art, sculptured art, or any other form .…
The zero score presents a problem that will not go away
with ignoring of it .… That evidence of the ancient
existence of these animals is not elusive is found in
the fact that proof of their existence in the ancient
old-world is abundant.”[44]
No. 3 – The Metallurgy Test of the Book of Mormon. “…
numerous passages from the Book of Mormon refer to
bellows, brass, breastplates, chains, copper,
engravings, gold, hilts, iron, ore, plowshares, silver,
steel, and swords … Again the score is zero [within Book
of Mormon times]. In view of the magnitude of
metallurgical skills and usage in the Book of Mormon …
plenty of evidence should have turned up by now …”[45]
No. 4 – The Script Test of the Book of Mormon. “This is
a crucial test, since a developed writing system is a
hallmark of civilization .… New World inscriptions ought
to be found in cuneiform (for the Jaredites) and Hebrew
and Egyptian (for the Nephites) .… Scholars today see no
linguistic relationship between any native American
language or script and ‘ancient Egyptian, Sumerian/Akkadian,
or Hebrew languages or writing systems’”[46]
The moral authority of the Book of Mormon can be
examined to see if it is profound. Also, the book can be
examined to see that errant beliefs from early American
Christianity are not justified as virtues within it. The
following three mistakes from early American Christian
fundamentalism are perpetuated in the Book of Mormon.
First, attributing to God, behavior that makes
Him vengeful or murderous. “... the Spirit said unto me
again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into
thy hands; Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring
forth his righteous purposes .… Therefore I did obey the
voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the
head, and I smote off his head with his own sword. (1
Nephi 4:11-18)”
Second, defining people as inherently evil and
unworthy. “For they are carnal and devilish, and the
devil has power over them, yea, even that old serpent
that did beguile our first parents, which was the cause
of their fall; which was the cause of all mankind
becoming carnal, sensual, devilish, … (Mosiah 16:3).”
Third, enthroning tribal intolerance while
justifying racism. The ancestors of native Americans are
described in the Book of Mormon as “white, and
exceedingly fair and delightsome” but so “that they
might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did
cause a skin of blackness to come upon them” so that
they would become “loathsome” to the Nephites. “And
cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their
seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same
cursing …(2 Nephi 5: 21-23)”
In my view, all of the above raises the real possibility
that Book of Mormon origins are from the 19th century.
Furthermore, “Unless an individual has experienced an
unusual and an extensive historical education, he little
realizes that a speculative relationship of the American
Indian to a Hebraic origin is a most time worn thesis
which must have sprung from the imaginations of some of
the theologically inclined soon after 1492.”[47]
Not only is this explanation of the American Indian
Joseph Smith’s thesis in the Book of Mormon, but also
Pastor Ethan Smith’s thesis (no relation). He first
published View of the Hebrews four years before
start of the Book of Mormon “translation”, in 1823 in
Poultney, Vermont adjoining county (on the West) of
Windsor county where the Smith family lived.[48] LDS
General Authority, B. H. Roberts writes, “… did Ethan
Smith’s View of the Hebrews furnish structural
material for Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon? It has been
pointed out in these pages that there are many things in
the former book that might well have suggested many
major things in the other. Not a few things merely, one
or two, or a half dozen, but many; and it is this fact
of many things of similarity and the cumulative force of
them that makes them so serious a menace to Joseph
Smith’s story of the Book of Mormon’s origin.”[49]
For example, from View of the Hebrews (p.150), is
a description of Indian pontifical dress, “In
resemblance of the Urim and Thummim, the American
Archimagus wears a breast plate made of a white
conch-shell, with two holes bored in the middle of it
... in imitation of the precious stones of the Urim[50]”
… “Can there be any doubt, but that the things said in
Ethan Smith’s book, on the matter of the ‘Urim and
Thummim,’ ‘breast plates,’ and curious stones’ and
attchments to breast plates’ – all published from eight
to five years before the Book of Mormon was, are
sufficient to suggest the Urim and Thummim as described
by Joseph Smith?[51]” [See History of the Church, 5:537]
Interestingly, Scott C. Dunn draws a parallel between
the use of the Urim and Thummin stones above, and
“automatic writing” as the very method through which
Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon. “ …
significant… statements by Martin Harris, David Whitmer,
Emma Smith, Joseph Knight, Sr., Elizabeth Ann Whitmer
Cowdrey, Isaac Hale, and others … report that Joseph
dictated the Book of Mormon with his face buried in a
hat looking at a seer stone or, possibly, the
spectacle-like pair of transparent stones known as the
‘interpreters’ or Urim and Thummim. Emma Smith and
Elizabeth Whitmer Cowdery report that the Prophet would
perform this operation for hours on end. Most of these
accounts, some of them by eyewitnesses, indicate that
Joseph was reading words or sentences which he saw in
the sacred instruments. This certainly implies a
relatively effortless or automatic process. Moreover,
this use of a crystal or stone to dictate information is
a well-known method of producing automatic writing
…”[52]
Scott Dunn says, “In addition to clarifying the
translation process, an automatic writing model of the
Book of Mormon helps illuminate certain aspects of this
volume which have never adequately been explained. Such,
for example, is the case with the extensive use of the
Bible in the Book of Mormon. In addition to the lengthy
passages from Isaiah, the Book of Mormon is replete with
allusions, expressions, and quotations from the King
James translation of the Old and New Testaments. Since
many of these quotations occur in settings hundreds of
years before the biblical manuscripts were composed, it
seems highly unlikely that these verbatim extractions
were engraved on the Nephite plates …. Automatic
writing, on the other hand, provides a very simple
explanation of these circumstances. Just as individuals
under hypnosis have been able to quote lengthy passages
in foreign languages which they heard at the age of
three, so have automatic writers produced detailed
information from books which they have read but in some
cases cannot remember reading. Thus, if Joseph Smith’s
scriptural productions borrow material from the Bible he
was known to study, this is certainly consistent with
other cases of automatic writing. This phenomenon of
memory, known as cryptomnesia, may also explain the
presence of writing styles and literary patterns which
are found both in the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
Because such feats of recall often occur in automatic
writing, this phenomenon also helps us understand the
inclusion in the Book of Mormon of so many concepts
which seem to belong to nineteenth-century New England.
A number of Mormon writers, for example, have pointed
out that the Book of Mormon incorporates theological
concepts and addresses religious debates common in
Joseph Smith’s environment. In addition, the book
capitalizes and expands on theories of the origin of the
American Indian which were circulating in that part of
the country in the 1820’s but which have been rejected
by anthropologists and ethnologists today.”[53]
LDS General Authority, B. H. Roberts, poses similar
questions. “Was Joseph Smith possessed of a sufficiently
vivid and creative imagination as to produce such a work
as the Book of Mormon from such common knowledge as was
in the communities where he lived in his boyhood and
young manhood; from the Bible, and more especially from
the View of the Hebrews, by Ethan Smith? That such power
of imagination would have to be of a high order is
conceded; that Joseph Smith possessed such a gift of
mind there can be no question.
The fact of it is first established by the testimony of
the mother who bore him, Lucy Smith .… ‘I presume our
family presented an aspect as singular as any that ever
lived upon the face of the earth – all seated in a
circle, father, mother, sons and daughters, and giving
the most profound attention to a boy, eighteen years of
age, who had never read the Bible through in his life;
he seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books
than any of the rest of our children, but far more given
to meditation and deep study … During our evening
conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of
the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He
would describe the ancient inhabitants of this
continent, their dress, mode of traveling, and the
animals upon which they rode; their cities, their
buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare;
and also their religious worship. This he would do with
as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole
life among them.’ (History of the Prophet, 1901 edition,
Salt Lake City, Utah. Published under the sanction and
direction of the late President Joseph F. Smith.)
It must be remembered that the above took place before
the young prophet had received the plates of the Book of
Mormon .… And yet it must be from that book that he
would get his knowledge of the ancient inhabitants of
America, unless he has caught suggestions from such
common knowledge, or that which was taken for
‘knowledge,’ as existed in the community concerning
ancient American civilization, and built by the
imagination from this and possible contact with Ethan
Smith’s View of the Hebrews his description of the
ancient inhabitants of the land, their life, religion
and customs. A year later he will be helped by the
Josiah Priest’s book, The Wonders of Nature and
Providence, published only twenty miles away, and it
will have much to say about the Hebrew origin of the
American Indian, and his advanced culture and
civilization. Whence comes the young prophet’s ability
to give these descriptions “with as much ease as if he
had spent his whole life” with these ancient inhabitants
of America? Not from the Book of Mormon, which is, as
yet, a sealed book to him … These evening recitals could
come from no other source than the vivid, constructive
imagination of Joseph Smith, a remarkable power which
attended him through all his life. It was as strong and
varied as Shakespeare’s and no more to be accounted for
than the English Bard’s.
Parley P. Pratt, one of Joseph Smith’s most gifted
followers, himself a poet, and wonderful preacher …
said: ‘He possessed a noble boldness, and independence
of character; his manner was easy and familiar … his
intelligence universal, and his language abounding in
original eloquence peculiar to himself – not polished –
not studied – not smothered and softened by education
and refined by art; but flowing forth in its own native
simplicity, and profusely abounding in variety of
subject and manner. He interested and edified while, at
the same time, he amused and entertained his audience;
and none listened to him that were ever weary with his
discourse. I have known him to retain a congregation of
willing and anxious listeners for many hours together,
in the midst of cold or sunshine, rain or wind, while
they were laughing at one moment and weeping the next.
Even his most bitter enemies were generally overcome if
he could once get at their ears’ (Autobiography of
Parley P. Pratt, p. 47).” [54]
“In light of this evidence, there can be no doubt as to
the possession of a vividly strong, creative imagination
by Joseph Smith, the Prophet, an imagination, it could
with reason be argued, which, given the suggestions that
are to be found in the ‘common knowledge’ of accepted
American antiquities of the times, supplemented by such
a work as Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews, would make
it possible for him to create a book such as the Book of
Mormon is.” [55]
“If … the view be taken that the Book of Mormon is
merely of human origin; that a person of Joseph Smith’s
limitations in experience and in education, who was … of
the period that produced the book – if it be assumed
that he is the author of it, then it could be said there
is much internal evidence in the book itself to sustain
such a view.
In the first place there is a certain lack of
perspective in the things the book relates as history
that points quite clearly to an undeveloped mind as
their origin. The narrative proceeds in characteristic
disregard of conditions necessary to its reasonableness,
as if it were a tale told by a child, with utter
disregard for consistency.”[56] For example, there is
the excessively rapid rural population growth in the new
world[57], the impracticalities of distance, travel, and
time in the story of “Lehi’s departure from
Jerusalem”[58], “’Liahona’, the wonder compass … which
worked by faith” [59], the transportation of the
Jeradites, their flocks, fowls, honey bees, fish, seeds
of every kind (Ether 2:1-3), water, “and also food for
their flocks and herds”[60] aboard their six small
vessels with glowing stones for light. Adding to the
difficulties of the Jeradite voyage is the duration.
This company of human souls and these animals, flocks,
seeds, provisions, and water were at sea for “three
hundred and forty and four days” (Ether 6:11)! Only
twenty-one days short of a whole year!
“Is it much to be wondered at if intelligent people to
whom the Book of Mormon is presented for consideration,
should ask: Do we have here a great historical document,
or only a wonder tale, told by an undeveloped mind,
living in a period and in an environment where the
miraculous in ‘history’ is accepted without limitations
and is supposed to account for all inconsistencies and
lapses that challenge human credulity in the thought and
in the easy philosophy that all things are possible with
God?”[61]
The above extracts from B. H. Roberts, Studies of the
Book of Mormon, were unpublished for half a century. In
our time, former B.Y.U. teacher of Hebrew, the Hebrew
Bible, and Near Eastern Studies, Dr. David P. Wright,
applied his training in the method of “Historical
Criticism”, to study the historical aspects of the Book
of Mormon – its date and authorship, the historical
veracity of events described in it, and the existence of
ideas and practices in the periods in which they are
claimed to have existed. His published results say,
“…The book also offers descriptions – negative
descriptions – about the personality and character of
supposed Native American ancestors[62]. A critical study
of the Book of Mormon, as I have indicated, shows that
Joseph Smith was its author [italic added], which
carries with it the implication that these perspectives
about Native Americans were his own speculations. We
have the ethical responsibility of examining the
validity of this critical perspective seriously and
carefully lest we hold unfounded notions that create
attitudes that [have been and] are injurious to Native
Americans.[63]”
The fact of Smith’s dishonest claim to have translated
the Book of Abraham from ancient documents tends to
discredit his similar claim to have translated the Book
of Mormon. More seriously, much internal evidence within
the book itself points to a contemporary origin, rather
than to a historic origin.
By its long-term policy of putting its image ahead of
telling of the full and honest truth, the church seeks
to present a picture of archeological support for the
Book of Mormon. However, sustaining those images is
increasingly difficult as early Mormon history is viewed
more closely, and as the prospect of archeological
verification is declining.
Joseph Smith’s claims deserve to be challenged
introspectively and openly by church members and church
employees (academics). The immediate results of this
self-honesty could be deeply unsettling because once
there is suspicion that a religion is myth, its power to
control is gone. What remains instead is a sense of
community, the need to belong, and the power of love
that should not again be superceded by claims to the
authority of “being right.”
Racism
Mormonism adopted many errant beliefs from early
American Christianity into its scriptures and practices.
Prejudice towards African Americans is one such
influence that I believe resulted in the exclusion of
African Americans from the Mormon priesthood.
Consequently, African Americans could not participate in
the government of the church and were denied access to
the highest Temple ceremonies, like Temple marriage.
The priesthood restriction on African American Mormons
(males) was completely removed in 1978. However, the
Mormon Church reversed its policy without acknowledging
that it had made a mistake. Before 1978, the explanation
for excluding worthy African American males from the
priesthood was the idea that God cursed them with a
black skin.[64] The reversal itself, however, is a de
facto acknowledgement that the first policy was a
mistake.
Apostle (later President) Joseph Fielding Smith taught
that God consigns souls who were spiritually inadequate
in the preexistence to be born into the black race. And,
after the 1978 revelation, Apostle Bruce R. McConkie
continued to write in the revised edition of the widely
influential book, Mormon Doctrine: “the race and nation
in which men are born in this world is a direct result
of their pre-existent life.”[65] Thus, even though the
1978 revelation changed church practice, none of the
former underlying theories are disavowed or repudiated.
Likewise, as a missionary in Northern Arizona I did not
tell the few Native American’s we encountered the facts
about the Book of Mormon description of their ancestors
as: “white, and exceeding fair and delightsome” but so
“that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord
God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them” so
that they would become “loathsome” to the Nephites. “And
cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their
seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same
cursing¼.”[66] These racist beliefs are still firmly in
place.
Why did these beliefs ever exist, and why is it so
difficult to change them? The first explanation is that
Joseph Smith entangled these teachings into the church’s
scriptures. Second, church leaders are ever careful at
holding on to the parental power rooted in their
assertion that God will not allow the “prophet to lead
the church astray.” Church members accept this claim
with remarkable acquiescence.
Sexism
Mormon leaders must have noticed the rising independence
of some LDS women, because in 1970 the church presidency
acted to tighten its grip over women by ending the quasi
independence of the women’s Relief Society. All Relief
Society funds were turned over to the male priesthood.
LDS women no longer decided whether to join the Relief
Society, but were automatically enrolled. The Relief
Society was told to stop publishing its own magazine,
and the church Correlation Committee took charge of
women’s educational materials. Finally, Mormon men
control appointment of presidents to the women’s
organization at all levels and have the right to approve
her choice of counselors[67].
Like racism, I believe sexism is another form of
prejudice inherited by Mormonism from early American
Christianity. Unlike African American males, Mormon
women remain excluded from the priesthood and
consequently from an authoritative voice in governing
their church. Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong points
to the source of Mormon prejudice by rejecting the
traditional Bible-based view of women. He asserts: "For
most of the two thousand years of history since the
birth of our Lord, the Christian church has participated
and supported the oppression of women. This oppression
has been both overt and covert, conscious and
unconscious. It has come primarily through the church's
ability in the name of God to define a woman and to make
that definition stick"[68]. He focuses particularly on
the creation of Mary, the mother of Jesus, as the
"ecclesiastical stereotype of the ideal woman against
which all women came to be judged" and against which,
inevitably, they came up short.[69] Bishop Spong
summarizes: "Mary is a male‑created female figure who
embodies the kind of woman dominant males think is ideal
– docile, obedient, powerless."[70]
This … Mary was imposed on believers through an
"all-male hierarchy" that insisted, “These male
definitions of women were divine, unchanging, and
imposed by God .... Any attempts to challenge these
assumptions or to suggest some other possibilities were
immediately condemned as a sin against God, the Bible,
or the divine nature of creation. Any attempt to open
the ecclesiastical hierarchy to women was met by screams
that God's will, expressed through an unbroken, all‑male
sacred tradition, was being violated. The emotional
response betrayed the irrationality of the fears as well
as the weakness of the argument .... Those sexist
attitudes can be challenged only by challenging the
doctrine of God, the meaning of Christ, the definition
of sin, the role of the Savior, and the structure of the
church on which they are based.”[71] He predicts “… the
feminine side of God in some new incarnation will
inevitably arise.”[72]
Similarly, Catholic Theologian and Priest, Father Tissa
Balasuriya, further makes the case for women. He writes
that women need more often to affirm than to efface
themselves, especially among the “poor”.[73] A woman's
“sense of self-worth and a legitimate pride in oneself
are good and necessary. Women's willingness to serve is
often exploited by others, especially by men”.[74] Thus,
the traditional devotion of Catholic women, not unlike
Mormon women, “has a domesticating impact” by not
helping them “to acquire a greater sense of their
dignity, responsibilities and rights in the Church and
in society.”[75]
Fr Balasuriya challenges the creation story from the
perspective of male prejudice rather than from
Evolution, and the implication that Eve caused the Fall:
“The interpretation of the Genesis story given by the
Fathers of the Church, especially after Augustine, was
that woman was the cause of the fall. She was the
temptress, the accomplice of Satan and destroyer of the
human race. The identification of Eve with evil became
so common in Christian thought that the serpent acquired
female features, as in Michelangelo's painting of the
fall in the Sistine Chapel .... Male theologians and
clergy have been responsible for perpetuating this
denigration of women throughout the centuries …
This simplistic and damaging interpretation of the
Genesis story calls into question the Genesis text ...
and of male superiority and prejudice. The doctrine of
original sin was developed in a manner that was
anti-sexual, for human sexual relations brought into
being a person who was a sinner, an enemy of God ....
Since the female was considered more related to the
body, and the male to the spirit and mind, this
denigration of sexuality was closely linked with an
anti-female attitude. This was particularly so among
male clergy who dominated the Church's thinking, its
ministry and administration ....
Usually, the challenge to such dogmas will come from
those who are adversely affected by them, and not
normally from those who stand to benefit, or do not lose
from such teachings .... It is so profound in its
impact, even today throughout the Christian world, that
it must be revealed for what it is …”[76]
Although writing about Catholics, I think Fr. Balasuriya
explains the Mormon situation by suggesting that church
“authorities think they must preserve the simple
religion of the faithful. The faithful, in turn, have a
sentimental attachment to conventional modes of thinking
and to the pious practices with which they were brought
up, even when these observances domesticate them to
accept many forms of alienation and oppression.”[77]
They internalize their “own subjection to the powerful,
and this internalization acquires its own legitimation
and sacredness.”[78]
“Women need to develop their own strategies for
achieving an appropriate place and power in the church”,
says Balasuriya, but “such changes do not occur merely
because of prayer or theology. Women must develop and
use their women-power.” He hypothesizes that “if for two
weeks, women did not contribute to Church funds unless
women's rights were accepted, there would be an
immediate impact on the power-holders. Or if women
contributed instead to funds which supported women's
emancipation--Mary's pence instead of Peter's
pence--they could have more effective power as
women-Church. These are nonviolent methods that need to
be developed. Woman-power, thus built up, needs to be
linked across the world.”[79]
Such a movement sprouted when Sonya Johnson became
president of “Mormons for ERA” (Equal Rights Amendment)
in 1978. And today (1999), Janice Allred is President of
the feminist organization, “The Mormon Women’s Forum.”
However, the Mormon church has excommunicated both these
insurgent leaders. Rightly or wrongly, I favored the ERA
and I viewed the national public debate as a
responsibility of citizenship properly outside control
of the church. However, the church leadership had
organized to defeat the amendment and had let its
expectations be known to church member-citizens. As
Elders Quorum instructor I determined that intervention
by the church into this matter of State, justified open
discussion of ERA pro’s and con’s in the Elders Quorum
meeting I taught. I felt that the church’s act of
political advocacy crossed the line separating church
and state. Hence, the absence of public debate from
opposing member-citizens seemed to usurp our rights of
citizenship. However, I was released as Elder’s Quorum
teacher immediately after the ERA class discussion.
Likewise, Sonya Johnson was summoned before a church
court and expelled even though her work was in the
political arena, independent of any church office
appointment.
I believe church members working to give Mormon women
equal power are naive to underestimate the forces
opposing them. The organizing leaders of any opposition
will be dealt with forcefully as above. And, as is
standard practice, those with the courage to raise their
hand publicly to “vote” in opposition to the
recommendations of the leadership are interviewed to
determine the merits of their opposing vote. Hardly a
secret ballot.
As with Emma Smith, when the prophet speaks, the consent
of the governed no longer applies. The lingering
theocratic influence first established by Joseph Smith
in Nauvoo and Brigham Young in Utah is a heritage
combining the power of Church and State. This heritage
has values quite different from the pluralistic American
democracy that tolerates peaceful dissent and freedom of
speech. Indeed, because he was a religious leader,
Joseph Smith commonly characterized any criticism of
him, for any reason, by Mormons or non-Mormons as
persecution[80]. When church members at Kirtland or
Nauvoo, like Oliver Cowdery, objected to Smith’s
absolute monarchy, they were condemned and branded
apostates. Brigham Young was no less ruthless. Hence
even today, public criticism of church leaders or church
policy is forbidden on threat of excommunication.
How can this be? Like a democracy, true religious power
is the opposite of top down authoritarian rule in that
power is held at the bottom by the people and within the
heart of the individual. God is part of who we are. God
is in the midst of the people, more than half of whom
are women. The nature of true religious power and human
freedom is best described in the Declaration on
Religious Freedom: Dignitatis Humanae, Pope Paul VI,
1965:
“In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor … is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience … The reason is that the exercise of religion, of its very nature, consist before all else in those internal, voluntary and free acts whereby man sets the course of his life directly toward God. No merely human power can either command or prohibit acts of this kind. The social nature of man, however, itself requires that he should give external expression to his internal acts of religion: that he should share with others in matters religious; that he should profess his religion in community. Injury therefore is done to the human person and to the very order established by God for human life, if the free exercise of religion is denied in society ... A since of the dignity of the human person demand[s] … that men should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making use of a responsible freedom, not driven by coercion but motivated by a sense of duty ... However, men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless he enjoys immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom.”[81]
Thus, I believe the above limitations upon the power of
the church to coerce (none), are even more limited than
the power of the State to maintain civil order. However,
in stark contrast to the above principles of religious
freedom, church leaders have let stand, on appeal, the
excommunication of Janice Allred , the President of the
independent Mormon Women’s Forum. Since women’s power is
an important issue to the church, the treatment of women
opponents like Sonya Johnson and Janice Allred are key
indicators of the church’s ongoing inability to restrain
its use of coercive power, or are an indication the
church believes it need not restrain itself whenever it
thinks it is right.
Church disregard for basic American liberties is a
Mormon tradition illustrated long ago (in a former fight
over women’s rights) when Joseph Smith and the Nauvoo
city council ordered destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor
newspaper. William Law, the editor and first councilor
in the church presidency, spoke the truth (not slander)
when he dared to publicly oppose Joseph Smith’s secret
and unlawful introduction of polygamy into the Mormon
community. The violent destruction of the printing press
remains unrenounced.
State and National laws have the potential to act
forcefully upon the lives of members and non-members
alike through the police power of the State. Former
state religions used the force of law to impose
ecclesiastical will on the citizenship. Hence, the
American governmental system purposely separates
religion from state for this reason. Therefore, when the
Mormon church previously combined church and state
powers, and now is becoming increasingly politically
active again, it poses those same threats to individual
liberty. In so doing, the church is not entitled to
immunity from criticism, opposition, or even opposing
tactics that weaken its influence or bring pressure upon
it. I think the fact of church involvement in the
affairs of State is sufficient for censure. Likewise,
church members, when following their individual moral
conscience and exercising their rights of citizenship,
can appropriately oppose the church as above. For
example, church political activism on issues like
polygamy, civil rights, and the rights of women can
rightfully evoke either strong public support or public
opposition and criticism of the church by church
member-citizens.
The fact that moral issues exist in government is no
justification at all for church involvement in the
affairs of state because moral issues and values are
ultimately present in practically all government law
making. More seriously, the church abuses its
ecclesiastical trust when it uses excommunication to
retaliate against churchwomen who publicly oppose the
church’s national agenda for American women. Likewise,
the church’s threat to liberty is doubly emphasized when
churchwomen like Janice Allred are excommunicated for
the open development of ideas, and the organization of
church women that could lead to reform within the church
itself.
Most of the Mormon faithful have little voice in the
decisions that govern their church. Our leaders have no
accountability to the people and secrecy reins at most
levels of church governance. Democratic and feminist
reformers in the church cannot expect the only powers
exercised towards them to be “gentleness, meekness, and
love unfeigned” because in the reverse direction,
neither can “meekness” be characteristic of the
reformer’s demand for change.
Sex
It's illegal to have sex with a porcupine in Florida, to
have unnatural sex in Arizona, to make love with someone
you're not married to in Utah and to live together
(cohabit) in South Carolina. The maximum prison
sentences for these heinous crimes vary from six months
to 14 years. However, in most states, law reform has
dropped regulation of consensual sex between adults,
whether in response to the “sexual revolution” or to the
realization that it’s a mistake to have laws regulating
the private areas of people’s lives[82].
The Stake presidency came into my Elders quorum meeting
in 1975 asking priesthood members to vote for a
California State proposition repealing legislative law
reform that had decriminalized private consensual acts
between adults. Never mind the principle of free agency,
the Church was trying to use the force of California Law
to impose its morality on the citizenship. The
proposition failed.
“From whence comes the assumption that sex inside
marriage is always holy? Marriage does not make sex
holy, the quality of the relationship does .… Suppose
the manifestations of a committed but unmarried
relationship are love, joy, and peace, while bitterness,
pain, and hurt are the products of a legal marriage. In
what qualities does holiness reside?[83]”
The church applies its most guilt ridden and unloving
controls on its young people, without giving the
slightest indication that the positive and good forces
fueling the changing moral values have been grasped or
understood. Likewise, the church ignores the history of
its own strict sexual codes that rise out of and justify
the famous system of polygamous marriage.
I argue that Mormonism yields to no religion in its
ability to couple sexuality with guilt. Sexual sin is
compared by the church to murder rather than to love,
passion, or to dishonesty. Even for married couples[84],
sex, says the church, is not designed for joy, for love,
or for recreation. “… the prime purpose of sex desire is
to beget children. Sex gratification must be had at that
hazard.”[85]
Homosexuality
Underlying the discussion of Sexism, Racism, Sexuality,
and Homosexuality is the search for true prophetic
leadership. Such leadership is revolutionary in
character. It transcends the easy social norms of the
day. Such leadership is “ahead of its time” in the
struggle for social justice.
However, like “Mormonism and the Negro,” the present
teaching of a divine prejudice against homosexuality
illustrates again that the church is last, not first, to
recognize and to correct past forms of injustice. “Being
Gay and Mormon”[86] illustrates through personal
accounts, the pain and suffering caused by Mormon Church
policies against Gay people.
I believe “the evidence points to the conclusion that
homosexual persons do not choose their sexual
orientation, cannot change it, and constitute a quite
normal but minority expression of human sexuality. It is
clear that heterosexual prejudice against homosexuals
must take its place alongside witchcraft, slavery, and
other ignorant beliefs and oppressive institutions that
we have abandoned.”[87]
“There is and will always be hypocrisy in religion (as
in most institutions), but it is a greater problem for
religion to neglect it .… The nonsense associated with
the “shunning” of divorced individuals, the ridicule and
condemnation of the adolescent’s sexual drives as he or
she emerges into pubescence, and the isolation of the
homosexuals are but a few examples of Christian
hypocrisy, based on fear, that hide behind scriptural
passage and myth.”[88]
Mormon leaders, of course, apply the claim to divine
guidance while continuing in their most unloving
policies toward gay people individually and by force of
law collectively[89]. Excerpts of Edwin B Firmage’s
speech on the steps of the Utah state capital explain:
“There will always be people ignorant enough, sick
enough, or sufficiently mean-spirited … to call others
subhuman, bestial. But … when this process of
dehumanization becomes the policy of an institution –
church or state – massive, dark evil results.
Social justice has been denied by the Utah legislature
in naked attacks on our gay and lesbian brothers and
sisters, and all our school children and young adults.
Hate speech has been indulged in by the state
legislators who thereby invite hate crimes.
And leaders who claim a monopoly of prophetic guidance
have abandoned true prophetic leadership – sensitivity
to the poor and the vulnerable .… Shame on our
legislature for this outrage. Shame on our Governor …
Shame on our senators who have applauded this act in
direct violation of federal law … And perhaps most
serious of all in this situation – shame on the Mormon
leadership for fomenting this spirit of intolerance and
hate. I say ‘worst of all’ because I believe this is the
source, the cause of such irrational, illegal, and
immoral action. In debasing the prophetic role from its
honored position of speaking fearlessly for social
justice, dominant religious leadership has at once
violated the First Amendment and the first and second
commandments: that we love God and one another.”[90]
Scholarship
Dr. David P. Wright states in a letter of self defense
to ecclesiastical charges, “…scholarship is not some
sort of sin, a ‘failing of the flesh,’ which an
individual recognizes to be an error and which that
individual considers to be a blemish to his or her
personal integrity. Scholarship, rather, is a
constructive activity and is one of the purest
expressions of a person’s character. Scholarship
involves a failing of the flesh, paradoxically, only
when one is not forthright with his or her conclusions,
when one holds back evidence, when one dissembles about
his or her views in the face of social – or
ecclesiastical – pressure. To express one’s views,
especially when they fly in the face of tradition, in
other words, is hardly a sin but rather a virtue.
Because Church disciplinary proceedings treat
scholarship as if it were sinful, and even employ along
the way the polemical myth that sin is what is
responsible for the scholar’s unorthodox views, the
proceedings are an attack on the individual’s
integrity.[91]”
College President, L. Jackson Newell, writes to Dr.
Wright’s Stake President: “For Mormon scholars today,
the more free and brave one is, the more likely he or
she is to feel the iron blows of ecclesiastical
discipline … I hope you will not punish David Wright for
the very scholarly care and courage for which we ought
to honor him. The test is not whether he is right but
whether he is true to the evidence he uncovers and
responsible in the words he writes.
I wouldn’t trade David Wright for all those religion
teachers at BYU who look only for evidence that will fit
their own particular assumptions about history, or match
their superiors’ theology ...
While touting its commitment to families, the Church is
brutally tearing many very good ones apart. David
Wright, his wife and children have already paid a very
heavy price for the Church’s intolerance of scholarship.
We hear general conference sermons about ‘the importance
of the one,’ then watch our leaders sacrifice
individuals’ membership, and families, in the name of
the many. I urge you to make a decision about David
Wright that is worthy of the ideals spoken … by LDS
leaders …”[92]
University of Utah professor Edwin Firmage, Jr. writes,
“… The image that Church trials such as David’s present
to the world and, indeed to many Church members, is of
an institution determined at all costs to silence
dissent, even when offered in a spirit of good will and
fellowship. It is an image of a faceless corporation
that uses its enormous administrative and social power
to bully individuals into submission. It is an image of
corporate officers abusing their authority to pursue
private vendettas against their opponents and refusing
to take responsibility for their actions. It is an image
of misplaced obedience on the part of subordinate
officers in following unjust and mean-spirited orders.
Such trials discredit the institution they profess to
defend and bring shame on its members.”[93]
Episcopal Bishop Spong also squarely faces issues of
historical and intellectual honesty that will sound
familiar to Mormons: “Long ago I decided that I could no
longer sacrifice scholarship and truth to protect the
weak and religiously insecure. I see another audience
that the church seems to ignore. That audience is made
up of brilliantly educated men and women who find in the
church a God too small to be the God of life for them, a
knowledge too restricted to be compelling or a
superstition too obvious to be entertained with
seriousness. My now‑grown daughters are part of that
audience. I want them to find in the Christian church a
gospel that takes seriously the world of their
experience, that does not seek to bind their minds into
pre-modern or ancient forms, that is not afraid to
examine emerging truth from any source, whether from the
world of science or the world of biblical scholarship. I
want the church to proclaim a gospel that has
contemporary power and to worship a God who does not
need to be protected by hiding that God in some
anti‑intellectual pose, for fear that new truth will
obliterate faith and devotion due such a God.”[94]
Freedom of Speech
I admire the courage of David P. Wright, D. Michael
Quinn, Lavina Fielding Anderson, Janice Allred and other
recently excommunicated church members for refusing the
attempt by the Church to restrict their freedom of
speech. As a missionary under President McKay in
1962-64, I taught that “free agency” was a central truth
of the church, guarded and protected by it. I was
inspired by President McKay’s intervention when Sterling
McMurrin was threatened by a Church court. Following
President McKay’s day came a new emphasis on obedience.
Combined with the idea of prophetic infallibility, that
call to conformity seemed to automatically condemn some
of my convictions without public objection. For example,
as a young married man, I found myself opposed to the
position, articulated most trenchantly by Apostle J.
Reuben Clark, that marital sexual intercourse could
occur only at the “hazard” of pregnancy.[95] Also, I
believed the Equal Rights Amendment was a simple,
positive, clarifying statement that would benefit my
daughters. When teaching Elders Quorum or Gospel
Doctrine classes, I often felt the need to balance
classroom discussions by advocating the inherent
benefits of free agency above obedience.
For example, I taught that freedom, love, spontaneity,
and genuine delight, without ulterior motive, are
necessary to moral living. To obey is not enough. Slaves
obey. Purity of motive is essential. Motive is corrupted
by fear, hope of reward, or a burdensome sense of duty.
Thus, the principle of ‘free agency’ takes precedence
over obedience.
I came to believe the church is willfully domineering
from the top. My friends and family insisted that I
incorrectly perceived the intentions of church leaders.
However, I asked if, in their opinion, the policy of the
church is to excommunicate a member who disagrees
vigorously and publicly with the church leadership? The
first point of disagreement is that a church member must
be free from threat of punishment, to knowingly speak
and write publicly, a point of view disagreeing with the
beliefs of church leaders. Otherwise, I am not a “free
agent”.
Finally, all immediate members of my family agreed with
my perception—that indeed, I may be excommunicated were
I to publicly and vigorously advocate the above freedom
of speech. At last, my percept is acknowledged. No more
denial.
The threat is real and destructive as demonstrated by
the excommunication of twelve LDS historians, feminists,
and intellectuals. For me, these unrepudiated actions
are inherently illegitimate. However, I learned that
church history contains many examples from the time of
Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and now to our time, that
establish authoritarian values as the Mormon tradition.
I believe President McKay’s tolerance was an aberration.
On the dome of the Jefferson Memorial are inscribed the
words, “I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal
hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of
man.” Yes, the church does use excommunication, or the
threat of it, to intimidate and control members.
However, difference of ideas in the ‘mind of man’ cannot
be the basis of separation among God’s children.
On the Northwest wall of the Jefferson Memorial is
another of Thomas Jefferson's beliefs: "Almighty God
hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it
by temporal punishments or burthens ... are a departure
from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion ... No
man shall be compelled to frequent or support any
religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer
on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all
men shall be free to profess and by argument to
maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know
but one code of morality for men whether acting singly
or collectively."
Jefferson's words set a national standard of behavior.
Churches should be inherent guardians of freedom because
of freedom's essential function to individual growth. I
believe attempts to dismiss the right of free speech are
acts of' 'unrighteous dominion'. Public renunciation of
these acts and restoration of membership to those who
have suffered from them are needed in order to clearly
remove the implied threat of excommunication from the
minds of all church members.
Obedience
In my experience the emphasis on obedience to the
Prophet came after the passing of Church President David
O. McKay. However, I’ve learned that obedience was also
supremely important in the days of Joseph Smith and
Brigham Young. Clearly, obedience to church authority,
before conscience, is deeply rooted in Mormon history
and scripture. Despite a minimum number of verses to the
contrary, these early leaders were ruthless, even brutal
at times to enforce their will on the membership, in
God’s name. For example, put yourself in Emma Smith’s
place on the issue of Joseph’s polygamy, “And let mine
handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been
given unto my servant Joseph … For I am the Lord thy
God, and ye shall obey my voice … And I command mine
handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my
servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not
abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the
Lord.”[96] These are hardly words of “gentleness and
meekness, and … love unfeigned”[97] Neither are these
brutal words to Emma “without hypocrisy, and without
guile”[98] because Joseph, both before and after the
date of these threats, married other women without her
knowledge.
It was Joseph Smith who organized the Danites, the
Council of fifty, adopted the violent oaths of the
temple, and nurtured the notorious Orin Porter Rockwell
(strong arm for both Smith and Young). The physical
danger to property and to the lives of dissenting church
members, branded apostates, was real.[99]
Brigham Young continued the tradition forcefully in
Utah. First notice of mission calls was sometimes
learned by public announcement at conference. “Refusal
to serve a mission in the 1860s was tantamount to
apostasy. As Heber C. Kimball of the First Presidency
had warned in 1856: ‘When a man is appointed to take a
mission, unless he has a just and honorable reason for
not going, if he does not go he will be severed from the
Church’ (Journal History, 24 Feb. 1856).”[100] Family
assignment to distant settlements was Young’s
prerogative. It was a tyrannical rule. The Journal of
Discourses, confession of John D. Lee, confession of
Bill Hickman, Orin Porter Rockwell Man of God Son of
Thunder, and Justice Baskin’s Reminiscences of Early
Utah are startling disclosures illustrating the
sometimes ruthless nature of life in Utah under Young.
Authoritarian abuse was tamed by the struggle for Utah
statehood, but the religious tradition is still
forcefully present in church government. These values,
however, are not only un-American, they rob the
membership of its authenticity. “Have you ever noticed
this? How little love there is among the Latter-day
Saints? There is obedience, of course, and service.
There is sacrifice and restraint. We are responsible,
clean, conscientious, a little clannish, hard-working
and healthy, righteous and reliable, often sentimental
and sometimes naïve. Many non-Mormons say that we make
good neighbors, but poor friends. Chiefly, we are known
for being nice. Not for being loving.”[101]
If so, then why? Freedom is not only an end in itself,
but a condition that serves the purpose of human
development. Below, I rely on the words and the
Intellect of Erich Fromm and Carl Jung for explanation,
although many other political and religious writers
(including Mormon excerpts) could be used to express
these same beliefs.
Love, Union, Integrity
Mankind “is aware of his aloneness and separateness, of
his powerlessness and ignorance, of the accidentalness
of his birth and of his death. He could not face this
state of being for a second if he could not find new
ties with his fellow man … There is only one passion
which satisfies man’s need to unite himself with the
world and to acquire at the same time a sense of
integrity and individuality, and this is love. Love is
union with somebody, or something outside oneself under
the condition of retaining the separateness and
integrity of one’s own self. It is an experience of
sharing, of communion, which permits the full unfolding
of one’s own inner activity .… Love is in the experience
of human solidarity with our fellow creatures, it is in
the erotic love of man and woman, in the love of the
mother for her child, and also in the love for oneself
as a human being; it is in the … experience of union. In
the act of loving, I am one with All, and yet I am
myself, a unique, separate, limited, mortal human
being.”[102]
Adopted
Will
There are alternate ways “ in which this union can be
sought and achieved. Man can attempt to become one with
the world by submission to a person, to a group, to an
institution, to God. In this way he transcends the
separateness of his individual existence by becoming
part of somebody or something bigger than himself and
experiences his identity in connection with the power to
which he has submitted. Another possibility of
overcoming separateness lies in the opposite direction:
man can try to unite himself with the world by having
power over it, by making others a part of himself, and
thus transcending his individual existence by
domination .… Both persons involved have lost their
integrity and freedom … The ultimate result of these
passions is defeat.”[103]
“What is restricted is the free, spontaneous expression
of the infant’s, the child’s, the adolescent’s, and
eventually the adult’s will, their thirst for knowledge
and truth, their wish for affection. The growing person
is forced to give up most of his or her autonomous,
genuine desires and interests, and his or her own will,
and to adopt a will and desires and feelings that are
not autonomous but superimposed by the social patterns
of thought and feeling.”[104] Church, and family “has to
solve a difficult problem: How to break a person’s will
without his being aware of it? Yet by a complicated
process of indoctrination, rewards, punishments, and
fitting ideology, it solves this task by and large so
well that most people believe they are following their
own will and are unaware that their will itself is
conditioned and manipulated.”[105]
“ … but, in so far as society itself is composed of
de-individualized persons … People go on blithely
organizing and believing in the sovereign remedy of mass
action, without the least consciousness of the fact that
the most powerful organizations can be maintained only
by the greatest ruthlessness of their leaders and the
cheapest of slogans. [Follow the Brethren] …
… the very Churches whose care is the salvation of the
individual soul … they too do not appear to have heard
anything of the elementary axiom of mass psychology,
that the individual becomes morally and spiritually
inferior in the mass, and for this reason they do not
burden themselves overmuch with their real task of
helping the individual … It is, unfortunately, only too
clear that if the individual is not truly regenerated in
spirit, society cannot be either, for society is the sum
total of individuals in need of redemption. I can
therefore see it only as a delusion when the Churches
try – as they apparently do – to rope the individual into
a social organization and reduce him to a condition of
diminished responsibility, instead of raising him out of
the torpid, mindless mass and making clear to him that
he is the one important factor and that the salvation of
the world consist in salvation of the individual
soul.”[106]
Escape From
Freedom
Eric Fromm suggests that many people are as eager to
surrender their freedom as their fathers were to fight
for it. He presents authoritarianism as a significant
mechanism for the escape from individual freedom and
responsibility. Authoritarianism, he says, is the
tendency to give up the independence of one’s own
individual self and to fuse one’s self with somebody or
something out-side of oneself in order to acquire the
strength which the individual self is lacking.
By becoming part of a bigger and more powerful whole
which is felt as unshakably strong and eternal, one
participates in its strength and glory. One surrenders
one’s own self to a leader, church, nation, institution,
or God, and renounces all strength and pride connected
with self, one loses one’s integrity as an individual
and surrenders freedom; but one gains a new security and
a new pride in the participation in the power in which
one submerges. One gains also security against the
torture of doubt.
One is saved from making decisions, saved from the final
responsibility for the fate of his self, and saved from
the doubt of what the meaning of his life is or who he
is. These questions are answered by the relationship to
the power to which he has attached himself. The meaning
of his life and the identity of his self are determined
by the greater whole into which the self has submerged.
This authoritarian character is defined by his
conformity and by his suppression of spontaneous
feelings. Yet, at the same time he consciously conceives
of himself as free and subject only to himself. However,
he has consigned his freedom and his individual power to
the leadership in submission to them. This submission is
revealed by the absence of responsibility he feels for
the actions of his leaders. One example of the Mormon
authoritarian character’s escape from freedom (and
associated responsibility) is the total absence of
financial accountability required by the contributing
membership of their church leadership.
Likewise, I believe the submission of devout Mormons to
“worthiness interviews” deprives individuals of their
sense of moral or ethical autonomy. It puts entirely too
much power in the hands of church officers; “it
undermines the individuals sense that they are primarily
responsible for their own moral behavior; it encourages
deceit and petty manipulation. No other church that I
know of exercises this kind of control over its members.
No other church that I know of makes such wanton use of
disciplinary tools like ‘disfellowshipping’ and
‘excommunications.’[107]”
The faithful Mormon authoritarian character will say
that his (or her) individual freedom and autonomy are
fundamental religious precepts[108], yet he is silent
about or supportive of the forceful repression of the
freedom of public expression within the Mormon faith
community. Even among the Mormon Intelligentsia this
culture of public silence is justified as “the Mormon
way.”[109] Because, to publicly question, or to publicly
support the rights of others to public dissent and
advocacy, is to refute his overarching devotion to the
authority that he wants to control the church and to
dominate his life. By his silence he sustains his escape
from freedom through devotion to the authorities of the
“only true church,” that are required to say what is
“right” for all, and to whom he wants to reaffirm his
symbiotic promise of obedience.
However, by this loyalty to authority the development of
character is stunted. Normally, love is based on freedom
and an equality of power. But, in the authoritarian
system, the meaning of love, and self love are
confounded by submission. An attitude of self-denial for
the sake of communal unity, and the surrender of one’s
own rights and power are perceived as examples of “great
love,” duty, and devotion. However, just the opposite is
true in that loyalty and obedience are placed ahead of
self-trust. Because, love, self-love, and self-interest
(rather than self-denial) are the essential affirmations
of one’s own life, happiness, growth, freedom, and
purpose.
Likewise, the teaching of sacrifice as an end in itself,
is a perversion of true sacrifice if the individual self
is in submission to the higher power of an authoritarian
system. Rather, sacrifice has moral authority only when
individuals act freely in the sense of spontaneity,
acknowledging no higher authority or motive than from
within themselves. [110]
Indeed, one of the most obvious losses of individual
self within Mormonism is the submission of “Endowed”
temple goers to the church laws of obedience[111] and
sacrifice[112].
Disobedience, Authenticity, and Courage
By an act of disobedience, Adam and Eve became free and
independent according to Hebrew myth. Likewise, every
individual must have the capacity to be
disobedient—disobedient to authorities who try to muzzle
new thoughts and to the authority of long-established
opinions which declare change to be nonsense.[113] “… I
do not mean to say that all disobedience is a virtue and
all obedience a vice.” … However, “If a man can only obey
and not disobey, he is a slave; if he can only disobey
and not obey, he is a rebel (not a revolutionary); he
acts out of anger, disappointment, yet not in the name
of a conviction or a principle.
However, in order to prevent a confusion of terms an
important qualification must be made. Obedience to a
person, institution or power … is submission; it implies
the abdication of my autonomy and the acceptance of a
foreign will or judgement in place of my own. Obedience
to my own reason or conviction … is not an act of
submission but one of affirmation. My conviction and my
judgement, if authentically mine, are part of me. If I
follow them rather than the judgement of others, I am
being myself … [114]
“Why is man so prone to obey and why is it so difficult
for him to disobey? As long as I am obedient to the
power of the State, the Church, or public opinion, I
feel safe and protected. In fact it makes little
difference what power it is that I am obedient to. It is
always an institution, or men, who use force in one form
or another and who fraudulently claim omniscience and
omnipotence. My obedience makes me part of the power I
worship, and hence I feel strong. I can make no error,
since it decides for me; I cannot be alone, because it
watches over me; I cannot commit a sin, because it does
not let me do so, and even if I do sin, the punishment
is only the way of returning to the almighty power.
In order to disobey, one must have the courage to be
alone, to err and to sin. But courage is not enough. The
capacity for courage depends on a person’s state of
development. Only if a person has emerged from mother’s
lap and father’s commands, only if he has emerged as a
fully developed individual and thus has acquired the
capacity to think and feel for himself, only then can he
have the courage to say ‘no’ to power, to disobey.
A person can become free through acts of disobedience by
learning to say no to power. But not only is the
capacity for disobedience the condition for freedom;
freedom is also the condition for disobedience. If I am
afraid of freedom, I cannot dare to say ‘no’, I cannot
have the courage to be disobedient. Indeed, freedom and
capacity for disobedience are inseparable; hence any
social, political, and religious system which proclaims
freedom, yet stamps out disobedience, cannot speak the
truth.”[115]
Testimony
“The first recorded testimony concerning Joseph Smith’s
supernatural abilities occurred during his 1826
pre-trial examination as a ‘glass looker.’ Josiah
Stowell had heard of young Joseph’s ability to discover
treasure and asked his help in finding a lost Spanish
mine by peeping into a seer stone in a hat. At Joseph’s
pre-trial examination, Stowell ‘declared he [Joseph]
could see things fifty feet below the surface of the
earth, as plain as the witness could see what was on the
Justice’s table.’ The justice then ‘soberly looked at
the witness and in a solemn, dignified voice, said,
‘Deacon Stowell, do I understand you as swearing before
God, under solemn oath you have taken, that you believe
that the prisoner can see by the aid of the stone fifty
feet below the surface of the earth, as plainly as you
can see what is on my table?’ ‘Do I believe it?’ says
Deacon Stowell, ‘do I believe it? No, it is not a matter
of belief. I positively know it to be true.’”[116]
Most Mormon ‘testimonies’ are expected to contain a
similar phrase, “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that
Joseph Smith” and the current president are “Prophets of
God.” However, the essence of honesty is that you do not
pretend to know something that you do not know.[117]
Faith is not a perfect knowledge, but a hope that by
definition includes doubt. Rather than a statement of
faith, the Mormon ‘testimony’ is a loyalty oath of group
belonging that indicates a decision not to doubt and to
submit to church authority.
To me it is sad to see Mormon parents shuttling their
children up to the pulpit to repeat these oaths of
allegiance when the child hardly knows the meaning of
the words. Then, under enormous social pressure, to
watch the internal struggle with personal integrity, as
the adolescent or young adult is expected by family and
congregation to eventually pronounce that he or she now
“knows”.
The young missionary entering training with the courage
and honestly to say he doesn’t really “know” is advised
to bear testimony that he “knows,” anyway. In time, he’s
assured, the virtue in the act of testimony bearing will
produce the “knowing” he seeks. Once the posture of
“knowing” is adopted as one’s own, then membership in
the faith community depends partly upon the successful
defense of that position.
Yet, from beginning to end, the oath of “knowing” lacks
integrity. First, the very existence of a powerful
external expectation for a person to say they “know” is
compulsory in the most delicate areas of personal faith
and choice. Second, the obvious conditioning of
children, missionaries, and members to adopt an external
conscience as their own is manipulative and akin to
brainwashing. Third, in the name of this so called
“knowing,” truth and scholarship are sacrificed.
In my youth, I wondered in Testimony meetings, why the
Church was not more widely accepted in the face of the
evidence presented. However, in adulthood the monthly
Testimony meetings became a torturous affront to my
intellectual honesty. I do not deny the existence of
transcendent experiences. I believe these are common
human experiences shared equally by believers in all
religions. And, as I’ve seen so often in Mormon
testimonies, I’m sure the universal tendency is to use
the religious belief system to add meaning and
interpretation to the experience. A belief in Testimony
(belief in believing) encourages this practice. The most
outrageous rationalizations and interpretations of
life’s experiences are welcomed when they sustain
belief, while honest contrary interpretations or counter
evidence are rejected as heresies or doubts that could
undermine Testimony.
Most of us believe in order to feel secure. However, to
the extent that strength of Testimony is certainty of
knowing, of “being right”, then the believer opens his
mind to truth only on condition that it fits in with his
preconceived beliefs and wishes. Faith, on the other
hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth,
whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no
preconceptions: it is a plunge into the unknown. It is
the opposite of Testimony in that uncertainty is the
virtue. Belief clings to the old rocks and absolutes,
but faith lets go[118].
I think God is not so vain as to care about belief in
him. His (or her) concern is only for good. Rather, it
is the leaders of the believers who throughout history
teach the necessity of belief in God and belief in the
leaders (as God’s representative) as necessary to
membership and thus as essential to one’s future well
being.
Infallibility
Of course, the Church professes not to have the Doctrine
of Infallibility. However, we do have our own Mormon
version of this doctrine in the widely held belief that
the Lord will not permit the prophet to lead the Church
astray.
Control is the “hidden agenda” [119] of church leaders
who seek to declare one orthodox set of beliefs, and who
declare one set of commandments by which all people are
to live and be judged. Public discourse, church talks,
class discussions, manuals and materials are to be of
approved content and dominated by the orthodox notion of
truth. Critical thinking is acceptable only when it
supports the orthodox view, and we should share our
experiences in searching for truth only if we have
arrived at the orthodox conclusion.
“If orthodoxy is defined by authority, then compulsion
of beliefs will arise. In every case where a church
tries a member for heresy, the fundamental issue is
always obedience to authority, not the truth of any
particular doctrine. Although the authorities may
attempt to persuade the heretic to believe the orthodox
view, they never open themselves to his view. So the
point of all trials for heresy is that members must
submit to authority, if they want to remain in the
church, because the authorities get to decide what is
doctrine and what isn’t. Heretics must then decide
whether to be excommunicated or to lie [to themselves].
Because belief cannot be compelled, people cannot just
decide to believe what they really do not believe. So if
they choose to submit to authority, they are compelled
to lie about their beliefs. This analysis of what it
means to define a church by a set of beliefs should make
it clear that orthodoxy [authoritarianism] is an
inherently divisive and oppressive principle.”[120]
Today Galileo is universally recognized as a father of
modern science, and his trial the cause celebre of the
conflict of obedience versus individual freedom.[121] In
his time Galileo realized at last that the authorities
were not interested in truth, but only in their
authority. Mormonism has similar affairs one of them
“beginning in 1853 and continuing some twenty-four
years” when “Brigham Young taught publicly that God …
had come to earth as Adam to physically father his
spiritual offspring. Apostle Orson Pratt did not share
Young’s views, instead teaching the omniscience of God
and worshipping the attributes of God, not his
personhood.” Said Pratt, “I hope that you will grant me
as an individual the privilege of believing my present
views … I am willing to take President Young as a guide
in most things but not in all .… I am not going to crawl
to Brigham and act the Hypocrite.’ Young’s response,
supported by Pratt’s colleagues [Apostles], was
predictable: Pratt was teaching a ‘lie’ that was as
‘fals as Hell.’
The problem surfaced repeatedly over two decades, with
Pratt speaking his mind, then eventually confessing,
repenting, and capitulating. ‘If the Prophet of the
living God, who is my standard, lays down a … principle
of philosophy … or science … We must bow. … We must
yield.’ Years later he restated to Young in a letter, ‘I
have greatly sinned against you … and … God, in
foolishly trying to justify myself in advocating ideas,
opposed to these which have been introduced by the
highest authorities of the Church. … I humbly ask you …
to forgive me.’
Where their conflict began as a difference of opinion,
Pratt had authority of the scriptures behind him, so
Young shifted the debate to submission to authority and
demanded that Pratt recognize his right as prophet of
the church to declare doctrine. Time has been kind to
Pratt … teaching Adam-God today could result in
excommunication. … This struggle … touched on the
question of honoring the office or its holder, the
person or the virtues taught. … In our lifetime church
leaders have continued to vacillate on this point, while
being absolute in their opposing positions.”[122] …
“While Orson Pratt surrendered his individual integrity
to Brigham Young, we understand that excommunication
might have left him no life.”[123] Never-the-less, to
his detriment Orson Pratt’s trust in his inner
conscience is weakened, development of his personal
integrity is fouled, and his God given freedom of
expression in his search for truth are ruthlessly
usurped in the name of Young’s prophetic authority.
Yet, even in the face of numerous counter examples,
church authorities continue their claim today that “The
Lord will never Permit the Living Prophet to Lead the
Church Astray”[124] and at the same time threatening
excommunication for public disagreement. Bishop Spong
articulates the situation most clearly, “Ecclesiastical
claims to possess infallibility in any formulated
version of scripture and creed or in the articulations
of any council, synod, or hierarchical figure are to me
manifestations of idolatry. Such claims do not serve the
truth. They serve only the power and control needs of
the ecclesiastical institutions.”[125]
Conclusion
The only question before the church in regard to its
dishonesty and its abuse of power “should be how abject
the apology to its former members will be, and to all
those whose pursuit of truth was hindered by their fear
of ecclesiastical reprisal, and how honest the
confession of the church will be regarding its own
incompetence and ignorance of the above and similar
issues”[126]. Such actions are not to be expected,
however from a body in which truth is regularly
prohibited in order to preserve its claims to prophetic
infallibility.
Historian D. Michael Quinn was excommunicated for
refusing to meet with his stake president, which the
stake president and high council defined as “conduct
contrary to the laws and order of the Church.”[127]
Church leaders should understand that their actions are
rightfully damaging to the reputation and moral
authority of the church. That disciplined members and
all those who feel threatened by those actions have
become an important and energetic minority. These
purposeful individuals are active in publications such
as Dialogue, Sunstone, and Case Reports of the Mormon
Alliance.
Our views and beliefs vary, but we are united in
opposition to the intolerant fundamentalism manifest in
the church today. “We hope to leave the world a better
place because of what we have done—to give more than we
have taken. Our ‘priesthood lineage’ includes Galileo
and other men and women who have championed independent
thought. Many of the attributes and virtues of Jesus
contribute to our ideals. There are those of us who wish
to leave undefined the degree of our belief in the
supernatural. We … enjoy pluralistic views and opinions,
but we wish to diminish literal beliefs and to oppose
narrow acts of discipline that threaten us and cause our
friends pain.”[128]
It seems to me, the programs, welfare, and image of the
church are considered “more important than the interests
or needs of the people or of consequences to them.”[129]
I acknowledge there are quite normally conflicts of
interest between any organization and the best interest
of its individual members. Therefore, why not tell the
members to be on guard, never to give away personal
autonomy or to consign individual free agency to the
church? Emphasize the necessity of these precautions
because the tendency of the institution is to represent
its own self-interest, first. High loyalty to the
institution is naturally among the traits of men
selected for church leadership. Further advise the
individual member that no man or institution should ever
stand between oneself and God. Such advice will weaken
church control and empower the member. Belief in a
personal and authoritative direct connection to the God
within, can be seen ultimately to bypass church claims
to power by way of baptism, priesthood, temple, and
patriarchy.
My experience and belief is that the authoritarian
nature of the church works inherently to defeat the
inner development of the fully empowered individual.
Reflection upon this assertion gives me pause, since I
know good people in the church whose interpretation is
different, I am sure. However, that the great majority
of church members are publicly silent or give passive
support to the recent church excommunications, is also
telling. Freedom can be frightening; Authoritarianism
can be tempting; I believe an Escape from Freedom[130]
accounts for submission to the church policy of silent
dissent (public silence)[131].
I remember the precise moment when I first admitted to
myself that my beliefs about the far-reaching
implications of freedom and individual responsibility
were irreconcilable with the church policies and
practices described herein. On leaving the bishops
office that morning I knew the conflict came from my
refusal to accept that times had changed, that I was
actually the one who was naïvely clinging to a
misunderstanding from my youth. The times of tolerance,
respect for diversity, open-mindedness, and personal
autonomy taught by men like President David O. McKay,
Hugh B. Brown[132], and Marion D. Hanks were gone. The
Presidencies of Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee,
and Spencer W. Kimball reestablished the authoritarian
Mormon tradition[133]. I’d spent years teaching Gospel
Doctrine and Elders Quorum classes earnestly redirecting
the tone of the newly correlated[134] lesson materials
to emphasize instead the principle of free agency above
the practice of obedience. However, those stressful
years were, in hindsight, hopeless opposition to a top
down retrenchment back to conservative Mormon
fundamentalism that I had never known.
LDS church meetings are as painful to me as the
dentist’s chair. I chose not to attend. The freedom that
I have experienced is exhilarating. The process of
building a personal ethical system from the ground up is
a challenge. However, in some ways I have discovered
that I will always be a Mormon. For example, I prefer to
abstain from alcohol and tobacco.
“Belonging” to a church seems unnecessary. Yet, I find
wisdom, new truth (to me), and vitality in a
non-denominational church my family is attending.
Interestingly, the pastor is a woman.
— Francis Nelson
Henderson
francish@pacbell.net
[1] Sterling M. McMurrin, “Recent Excommunications
Damaged the LDS Church” Salt Lake Tribune, 19 July 1995,
A-8
[2] Prepared by the Church Educational System, Teachings
of the Living Prophets, “Student Manual Religion 333”,
1982, Chapter 3 & 4, Section 3-7, 15, Section 4-6,21
[3] George Q. Cannon, Published for the use of College
Students in the Church Educational System, Living
Prophets for a Living Church, 81
[4] a.) Teachings of the Living Prophets, “The Living
Prophet and Scripture”, Chapter 4, 17 – 22. b.)Nicolas
Shumway, “Ambiguity and the Language of Authority,”
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 16, No.2
Summer 1983, 55.
[5] Teachings of the Living Prophets, Section 4-6, 21
[6] Ibid, 81
[7] David Johnson & Jeff VanVonderen, Chapter 5 -
Identifying the Abusive System, The Subtle Power of
Spiritual Abuse, 1991, 63 - 71
[8] Lavina Fielding Anderson and Janice Merrill Allred,
Case Reports of the Mormon Alliance: Volume 2, 1996,
xiv, 118 - 120
[9] a.) R.N. Baskin (Former Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of Utah), Reminiscences of Early Utah, 1914 b.)Harold Schindler, Orrin Porter Rockwell: Man of God
Son of Thunder, 1983
[10] Roger D. Launius and Linda Thatcher, “Introduction:
Mormonism and the Dynamics of Dissent”, Differing
Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History,1994, 9 -10
[11] Boyd K. Packer, “The Mantle is Far, Far Greater
Than the Intellect,” presented on 22 August 1981 to
Seminary, Institute, and Brigham Young University
religion instructors, and published in Brigham Young
University Studies, 21
[12] Ezra Taft Benson, The Gospel Teacher and His
Message (Salt Lake City: The Church Educational Sy