Kingdom of Nauvoo

The Neil A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship will host a lecture by Benjamin Park on February 28th, 2020.

 

Benjamin Park’s new book, "Kingdom of Nauvoo," excavates the brief, tragic life of a lost Mormon city, demonstrating that the Latter-day Saints are essential to understanding American history writ large. Using newly accessible sources, Park argues that far from being outsiders, the Mormons were representative of their era in their distrust of democracy and their attempt to forge a sovereign society of their own.

In this guest lecture, Park will discuss "the rise and fall of a religious empire on the American frontier."

“When I found what I had said I was surprised”

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

The other night, I read Elder Bruce C. Hafen’s review, in BYU Studies 54/3 of Blaine M. Yorgason, Richard A. Schmutz, and Douglas D. Alder, All That Was Promised: The St. George Temple and the Unfolding of the Restoration (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2013).

At one point, Elder Hafen mentions the early “Dixie” (St. George) settler Charles Pulsipher, who was assigned by the leader of the St. George settlement, Elder Erastus Snow of the Council of the Twelve, to travel throughout the towns of southern and central Utah in order to recruit laborers and to secure provisions for temple construction workers.  One day, Pulsipher was in Ephraim, a town right in the center of Utah, in modern Sanpete County, urging the local Saints to provide a dozen stone masons who could help to construct the temple’s sandstone walls.  He particularly stressed the urgen need, as he saw it, to finish the temple while the great but aging leader Brigham Young was still alive.

As Charles Pulsipher recorded in his journal:

Before I was aware of what I was saying I said, “Come on down and help us build that Temple and we will come up here and help you build one in San Pete,” and when I found what I had said I was surprised for I had never heard of any intention of building [a temple] in San Pete but it was said and I knew it would be done for it wasn’t my premeditated sayings so I went right on and never let on that I had said anything out of the common.

 

At the close of the meeting they gathered around me and said, “So we are going to have a Temple up here in San Pete, are we?”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

“Well, when did President Young tell you about it?”

 

“He never told me.”

 

“And when did you first hear of it?”

“You heard it as soon as I did.”

 

“And do you think it will be so?”

 

“Yes, I not only think but I know it will be fulfilled.”

 

In about four years I sent up two hands to work on the Manti Temple, thus I filled my promise.

After dedicating the St. George Temple in April 1877, Brigham Young stopped off on his way home to dedicate the site for a temple in Manti.  A short time thereafter, President Young dedicated the site for the future Logan Temple.  He passed away in August 1877.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2020/01/when-i-found-what-i-had-said-i-was-surprised.html?fbclid=IwAR1LhlssTfHJsn1j1QcIwVHt1ESTnVwnIPIpBownl8KMZKIzobLvowh5mjY

LDS Inc. - part 21

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

Cody Quirk has kindly drawn my notice to an item by LaVar Webb, whose name will be recognized by many who have paid attention to Utah politics and public policy matters:

“A story about LDS Church finances”

Brother Webb’s experience parallels my own, although I didn’t have any single large expense of the kind that he describes.

I served for several years as the bishop of a ward that met near the south Orem campus of Utah Valley University.  It was a young single adult ward.  It was not, however, a student ward.  Quite a few of its members were, in fact, students at UVU, whether fulltime or part-time.  At any given instant, one or two were students at Brigham Young University.  But many weren’t students at all.

Some of them were working at Walmart or other places in the area.  And there were more than a few who weren’t working at all but were on state disability checks or surviving on some other form of support.  All of the housing in the unit was apartment housing, and the ward was very transient.  At one point, the stake estimated that roughly 95% of the ward turned over each year.  (Keeping it staffed was pretty much a constant challenge.)

Most people in the ward were as healthy as a group of under-35s might be expected to be.  But the ward was quite poor, and there were a surprisingly high number of mental health issues.  Surprisingly high to me, anyway.

On my very first day, before I even knew how to do such things, I was approached by a ward member who needed substantial monetary help.  I raced around the building, finally finding a fellow bishop who could walk me through the steps.

And it never stopped thereafter.  I sent many people to the bishop’s storehouse for food and several people to Deseret Industries for employment, paid rent more times than I could possibly count, enrolled ward members in addiction recovery programs, and arranged for mental health counseling for a number of folks from my congregation.  I developed deep gratitude for the various agencies of the Church that provide job counseling and assistance in finding employment, mental health assistance, and the like.  I was and am grateful for the Church’s resources and for the foresight of Church leaders in creating support systems for me as a bishop and for the members of my ward.

I was very fortunate, too, that my stake president during that time happened to be a licensed professional counselor.  Although he preferred not to commingle his Church counseling and his professional work, he knew where best to go for various needs and knew which individual counselors might be most helpful in a given case, and he was of great assistance to me when I called him with a case that I considered beyond my ecclesiastical pay grade.

I actually worried about the amounts of financial assistance that I was handing out.  I knew that they far exceeded the figures brought in by my own ward’s fast offerings and other donations.  Was I being too free with contributed money?  Was I being a responsible steward?  The stake president reminded me once that the line of first support for needy people should be their families.  However, in many of my cases, the people in need had no family support:  Several had parents in prison.  At least two were literally orphaned. He nodded and we moved on.

My stake president never second-guessed my decisions.  In a couple of cases, I wanted him to make a tough decision for me, but, although he was willing to talk things through with me, he would remind me on such occasions that I was the one with the keys for my ward and that he would support me in whatever I decided.

About a year after my release, I ran into one of the counselors in that stake presidency.  He knew that I had worried a lot about the amount of aid that I was giving out.  I had been replaced as bishop by a previously-serving member of the stake high council who, as it happened, was himself also a licensed professional counselor.  My friend wanted me to know that my successor was giving out assistance at almost precisely the same rate that I had been.

I continue to be grateful that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the wherewithal to help.  That hasn’t happened without careful and deliberate planning.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2020/01/lds-inc-part-21.html?fbclid=IwAR1FJOKBAkcUie2pnv88Rxjb8KwHOn_q_gfFxZbuPdHEwS4xz-0WOdWVLd4

Escaping poverty through tithing?

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

In the wake of the recent Washington Post “exposé” on the finances of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some critics have brought up a speech given by President Russell M. Nelson in Nairobi, Kenya, in April 2018 as an illustration of a despicable, deceitful, greedy “Mormon gangster” seeking to hustle, exploit, and prey upon poor Africans.  (It was in response to assumptions that Church leaders are “greedy” and feathering their own nests that I’ve shared photographs of their relatively modest homes and recounted some stories about them in my recent and possibly-concluded series of “LDS Inc.” blog entries.)

In that Kenyan speech, among many other things, President Nelson suggested that faithful tithepaying will end poverty:

We preach tithing to the poor people of the world because the poor people of the world have had cycles of poverty, generation after generation. That same poverty continues from one generation to another, until people pay their tithing.

Another Church leader who has come in for attack is Elder Valeri V. Cordón of the Seventy.  In a speech delivered at the April 2017 General Conference (“The Language of the Gospel”), Elder Cordón, who is a native of Guatemala, told of a powerful lesson about tithing that he learned from his father.  At one point, faced with a personal financial crisis, the senior Brother Cordón chose to pay tithing even when he was unsure how he would feed his family in the near term.  Early the very next morning, an unusual and quite unexpected business event delivered him from the crisis.

The critics summarize the lesson that Elder Cordón was seeking to teach as follows:  The greed of the Church comes first, even if it means that your family starves.  Maybe, they mockingly suggest, starvation can be cured by fasting?

I’ve invited one of the critics of Elder Cordón’s story to supply me with one or two examples of faithful Latter-day Saints whom the Church has knowingly permitted to starve to death.  I’ve yet to hear back from him.

But I now offer a simple story of my own:

I grew up in a part-member family, with a mother who was a rather marginal member of the Church and a non-church-going father who came from a Scandinavian Lutheran background.  I was privileged to baptize him a member of the Restored Church not long before he turned sixty.

One of the matters that concerned him, as he contemplated joining the Church, was the principle of tithing.  He was the owner of a small business, and the thought of shaving ten percent right off the top of his income really worried him.  It was a big chunk.

In later years, however, I heard him more than once express his wonderment at the fact that, even though he faithfully tithed after his baptism (and, for two years, was supporting me on a mission), somehow — for reasons that were opaque to him — his income actually went up after his baptism.  Reflecting upon his own experience, he developed a firm testimony of tithing.

Now, I won’t and wouldn’t promise such a thing to every individual person.  It’s not a cut-and-dried financial principle for every case that you can expect your income to increase if you tithe.  If things were so simple, there would be no faith involved.  No sacrifice.

But I’ve heard more than a few such stories.  Here’s one that I very much like, although it’s not quite as clearly focused on tithing as my Dad’s account is:

A number of years ago, my late friend and colleague Bill Hamblin went with some others (I’m not quite sure with whom) down to Mesoamerica to look at Pre-Columbian ruins there.  At one point, they were staying in a hotel near the site of the ancient Maya city of Copán, in western Honduras.  While there, they noticed that the young man who was serving them in the hotel restaurant was wearing a nametag that identified him as Moroni.

Blessed as they were with powerful deductive skills, they surmised that he might come from a Latter-day Saint background.  So they asked him.

Yes, he was waiting on tables in order to save up money for a mission.  (Over their time in the hotel, accordingly, they gave him exceptionally good tips.)  And he told them something of his family’s backstory.

His father had been the town drunk and wastrel.  His wife had had enough.  He was about to lose his very young children.  (Moroni came a bit later.)  Then he met the missionaries and converted.  Now, he had a solid job.  He was the local Latter-day Saint branch president.  Moroni’s father felt that the Church had saved his life, had given him a life.  It had saved his family.

Finally, there is strong scriptural basis for the (admittedly counterintuitive) idea that a community that lives faithfully, including observance of the principle of the tithe, will, on the whole, prosper.  Here, for example, is very famous passage, commonly quoted among Latter-day Saints, from the third chapter of Malachi.  I quote the translation given in the New King James Version of the Bible:

“Will a man rob God?
Yet you have robbed Me!
But you say,
‘In what way have we robbed You?’
In tithes and offerings.
9 You are cursed with a curse,
For you have robbed Me,
Even this whole nation.
10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.

11 “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
Says the Lord of hosts;
12 “And all nations will call you blessed,
For you will be a delightful land,”
Says the Lord of hosts.

The Book of Mormon itself chronicles numerous economic cycles in which obedience to the commandments leads to prosperity (and, alas, in which prosperity leads to faithless disobedience, followed by a rinse and a repeat).

I’m not surprised that unbelievers regard as ludicrous the idea that tithing might be part of a path to economic flourishing.  They would be hard pressed to justify viewing it otherwise.  However, unbelievers should not be entirely surprised that at least some believers do regard it positively, even in crass financial terms.  Faith is called faith for a reason.

On the Magi, and the Deity of Christ

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

Historians of Christianity have always sought to understand how certain Jews, despite the strict monotheism in which they were raised, came to believe that the man Jesus was divine—“that,” in other words, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

And Christians did indeed pay divine honors to Jesus from quite early times.  For example, Pliny the Younger, governor of Pontus/Bithynia (a region of today’s Turkey) from 111-113 AD, famously reported to his boss, the Emperor Trajan, that the Christians within his jurisdiction “were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.”

Assisted by such New Testament scholarship as that of the so-called “Tubingen school,” which proposed a very late date for the four gospels, some writers argued that Jesus himself never claimed deity.  It was, they said, relatively late Gentile converts, with their notions of demigods like Hercules, who brought such ideas into Christianity, ultimately transforming the simple, humane teachings of a reforming Jewish peasant rabbi into the arcane theology of the Nicene Creed.  And, in fact, Pliny’s Christians may well have been mostly if not entirely Gentiles, rather than Jews.

However, historical facts eventually defeated the “Tubingen school”; many New Testament documents appear to be earlier than liberal German scholarship once thought.  And historical facts seem to be undermining the theory that the divinity of Christ was a relatively late Gentile invention.  There’s simply insufficient time for a long, gradual evolution.

Contemporary New Testament scholars such as Larry Hurtado, James Dunn, and N. T. Wright persuasively argue that the deification of Christ is extremely early in Christianity, and native to it, rather than merely a late foreign innovation.  This change in attitude has come, in part, from a long overdue recognition of the historical significance of the letters of Paul—letters that are indisputably early and clearly datable.

In 1 Corinthians 8:6, for example, which was almost certainly written around A.D. 54, Paul includes Christ in the famous “shema” declaration of Deuteronomy 6:4 (“Hear, O Israel!  The Lord our God is one lord!”)  Moreover, in remarkable texts such as Philippians 2 and Colossians 1, and elsewhere as well, Paul takes Old Testament passages plainly written about Jehovah (or Yahweh)—rendered in the Septuagint Greek translation as “kyrios” or “Lord”—and makes them refer to Jesus.

Moreover, Margaret Barker contends that belief in Christ’s divinity arose precisely out of Jewish soil, because it reflects the very oldest Hebrew beliefs—which, almost but not quite forgotten, were not strictly monotheistic as we’ve long imagined.  The earliest Jewish Christians tapped into the oldest layer of Israelite religion, she says; no late Gentile converts are required to explain Christian belief in Jesus’ deity.

In fact, Jesus himself seems to have had an exalted view of his own authority and status.  Thus, when he ascends a hill to deliver his “sermon on the mount,” he may be consciously contrasting himself with Moses, the great founding prophet of Judaism, who ascended a mountain to receive the law from God.  “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time,” he repeatedly declares during that sermon, “but I say unto you” (for examples, see Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28).

The famous observation by C. S. Lewis comes inescapably to mind at this point:

“I am trying here,” Lewis wrote in “Mere Christianity,” “to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/12/on-the-magi-and-the-deity-of-christ.html?fbclid=IwAR2RevCPJiqKzz2H4TFrUDJKAtcuPokg10CH_-GYIPcRbRItYK2DhvYSQwE 

MEGXIT ! How Cultural Marxism is splitting the Royal Family

Beginning at about the 6 minute mark Dr. Turley gives a great breakdown of the "Classic Man" vs. the "Modern Man" and how the Modern Man is becoming lost without religion while the Classic Man still finds meaning in life thanks to religion.

Book Review: The Lost 116 Pages – Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Missing Stories, by Don Bradley

 

https://www.millennialstar.org/book-review-the-lost-116-pages/

For 190 years, Latter-day Saints and others have been enriched by the teachings and stories in the Book of Mormon. Sadly, a large portion of the book is not available, due to the manuscript being stolen from Martin Harris, one of the first scribes to Joseph Smith. Over the years, many have opined not having the lost manuscript, often called the “Book of Lehi” and what additional information it could give us concerning the Nephites, their teachings and history. So important is this loss that several unscrupulous persons have claimed over the years to have found and interpreted it. Having read several of them, I can tell you that they are fraudulent and full of discrepancies.

Not so with “the Lost 116 Pages.” Bradley does not claim to be rewriting the Book of Lehi, nor translating anything from a manuscript. Instead, through more than a decade of research, he has come up with several compelling theories of events and teachings that probably occurred within the lost manuscript.

Two major sections, The Lost Pages and The Missing Stories are broken down into fifteen chapters:

1. The Ark of the New Covenant
2. The Sealed Book
3. Translating the Nephite Record
4. The Manuscript Theft
5. The Long Blue Lost Manuscript
6. Reconstructing the Lost Manuscript
7. A Passover Setting for Lehi’s Exodus
8. Lehi’s Tabernacle in the Wilderness
9. The Seven Tribes of Lehi
10. Nephi’s Conquest
11. Nephi’s Temple
12. The Lost Middle Period
13. God and Aminadi in the Temple
14. The Mosian Reform
15. The Book of Benjamin

The first five chapters go into the details of finding the gold plates, description and use of the Urim and Thummim, the translation process, the loss of the manuscript, and its detailed description.
In the first section, the two most important points for me was, first, the lost manuscript was likely 300 pages long, or 2/3 the size of our current Book of Mormon. Bradley details why there are more than 116 pages, why Joseph Smith called it 116 pages (the same number of pages in the translation of Nephi’s small plates), and the length of time/number of pages per day, in which Martin Harris and 4 other scribes were translating the manuscript. With this understanding, it vastly increases the amount of scripture lost.

Second, from accounts describing the Urim and Thummim, we get a fascinating and detailed theory on how it actually worked. Diagrams depicting the look and use of the Interpreters are very helpful in imagining what they looked like. Interestingly, the two stones are described as diamond-like, one an equilateral triangle and the other a right angled triangle: or the Compass and the Square, important symbols in Latter-day Saint temple theology. Bradley explains that the curtain that separated him from his scribe was not used just to hide the plates from view, but obscured the light so the Interpreters could project more clearly the translation. It also anticipates the veil of the temple, in hiding the most sacred things from the world.

In discussing the probable missing stories from the lost manuscript, Bradley uses clues given by statements made by Martin Harris, Joseph Smith Sr, and others, as well as internal clues within the Book of Mormon, to expand and explain things which not only gives us an idea of what was in the lost pages, but enhances our understanding of the Book of Mormon we have today.

For example, in the Book of Alma, Alma’s missionary companion, Amulek, speaks of his ancestry, which includes Aminadi, who interpreted the writing made on the temple wall by the finger of the Lord. For years, I pondered just what the story behind Aminadi was, as the Book of Mormon does not give any other details about him, even though the prophet Mormon probably told his story in the lost pages. Using similar events in scripture (Belshazzar’s finger of the Lord writing on his palace wall, the Brother of Jared seeing the finger of the Lord, etc), and details within the Book of Mormon itself, Bradley places Aminadi during a period just prior to great Nephite destruction (see Omni), being a warning voice to the people they needed to repent or be destroyed. Later, Bradley expands this story by noting that Mosiah 1 was warned in a dream to take the believers on a new Exodus to Zarahemla, ahead of the great destruction in the Land of Nephi. He then successfully ties the story of Zeniff into this story, as a people returning to the land of original inheritance.

By using available clues, Bradley details the location of the American Mount Sinai, where Mosiah 1 discovers the Interpreters and constructs a mobile temple or Tabernacle. Instead of a bunch of disparate stories from the lost pages, Bradley weaves an intricate tapestry of stories that tie into one another, and into the Old Testament. Nephite prophets are compared with Moses, Abraham, David, Joshua, Jacob and Joseph of old. Events are tied to ancient Israelite festivals. Sacred Nephite artifacts are likened to the sacred items kept in Solomon’s temple.

Bradley notes in his conclusion that it was this complexity that brought him to a point of belief in the Book of Mormon and his return to the Restored Church after many years of separation. For me, this is also a major evidence of the truthfulness of the gospel. Someone as young and ignorant as Joseph Smith could not have designed such a complex book, which ties into Old Testament events and festivals, and weaves its stories together into a tight work.

No, Bradley does not bring back all of the Lost Manuscripts 116 pages. There just aren’t enough quotes and clues available to do such a thing. However, what he has restored to us and the well researched and considered conclusions he draws from the evidence will greatly enhance our understanding and appreciation of what we do have: the Book of Mormon. We do owe Don Bradley much thanks for this, his opus magnum. Because of his tireless research over more than a decade, we now have a fuller understanding of not only the Lost 116 Pages, but of the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

Available at Greg Kofford Books: https://gregkofford.com/products/the-lost-116-pages

Book Review: Gathered in One – How the Bookof Mormon Counters Anti-Semitism in the New Testament, by Bradley J. Kramer

 

https://www.millennialstar.org/book-review-gathered-in-one-by-bradley-j-kramer/

Ever since the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70 AD, Jews have been a hiss and a by-word of the nations.With the temple destroyed and Jews scattered throughout the Empire, there was not much hope for them to recover. In hopes of completely eliminating the Jews from memory, the Romans eventually renamed the city and repopulated it with other peoples.

Jews faced pogroms in Russia and Poland. We all remember the look on Tevye’s face (played by Topol) in Fiddler on the Roof, as his oldest daughter’s marriage feast is ransacked by Russian soldiers, or when they were forced to leave their village, Anatevka. In reality, this forced pilgrimage occurred in hundreds of villages throughout Russia.

The Spanish Inquisition tortured Jews into converting into Christianity, dying, or fleeing into yet another exile. Hitler blamed Germany’s problems on the Jews, who were treated as chattel and marched into gas chambers by the millions. To this very day, anti-semitism threatens Jews throughout much of the world.

This anti-semitism comes to us, in part, from the New Testament. In his book, “Gathered in One,” Bradley J. Kramer discusses how the New Testament, and especially the Gospels and Acts put full blame on the Jews for the death of Jesus. He doesn’t stop there. He then explains how the Book of Mormon counters that anti-semitism, not by trying to smooth it over, but by addressing it directly.
“Gathered in One” is about 150 pages long, and contains the following chapters:

1. Gathered in One
2. A Book Proceeded Forth
3. A Record to Establish the Truth of the First
4. We Did Observe to Keep the Commandments
5. “Think Not That I Am Come to Destroy the Law”
6. That the Last May Be First, and the First May Be Last
7. I Will Gather Them In

“The Book of Mormon is unique. Simply as literature, it stands alone.”

So begins the first chapter. Throughout the rest of the book, Kramer shows us one important way in which it is such a valued volume. The first chapters discuss the New Testament’s hatred towards Jews, and in a very convincing manner. Kramer quotes various scholars on how they attempt to manage the more difficult passages: from trying to take the Bible as a whole, to totally dismissing those verses and stories as later additions to the story.

For Kramer, the Book of Mormon takes a different approach. It engages anti-semitism “at its New Testament source.”  Nowhere does the Book of Mormon explicitly discuss anti-semitism, but throughout its teachings and stories, it shows a love for the scriptures (Brass Plates), the Law of Moses, and the dispersed of Israel.

While the Book of Mormon never names any specific Jewish holiday, Kramer shows from inferences inside the tome how each major holy day (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot) was instituted by Lehi and the Nephites. Interestingly, he also engages the concept of the Sabbath, explaining that the Jubilee was a year long Sabbath, where even the land rested. This was a time when slaves were freed, debts forgiven, and the people focused on and rejoiced in their God. Then, from the Book of Mormon, he noted that during the period of 4 Nephi, the Nephites enjoyed a “centuries long” Sabbath. This expanded the idea of the holy Sabbath, extending it longer than the Bible does, in anticipation for the millennial Sabbath when the Savior comes again.

Where Paul left the Jews for the Gentiles and the known world, Nephites dealt with “near-Gentiles” or Lamanites. Kramer shows that as Paul and his companions had a big vision that turned them from destroying the Church to being its greatest missionaries, so the Book of Mormon has a similar story. Alma, Ammon and his brethren were also changed through an angelic vision. After preaching among the Nephites to repair their wrong-doings, they went out to the Lamanites to bring them from their pagan beliefs back to Christ. Just as Paul was persecuted, yet had great success, so Ammon and his brethren struggled but gained many converts.

Kramer uses many such analogies to show how the Book of Mormon focuses on bringing people to Christ, that they are not cast off forever. In fact, the Book of Mormon frequently speaks of the return of the Jews, and Kramer carefully covers this area. It isn’t the Gentile Christians who will bring them back (though they will carry them on their shoulders), but the Lord who will prepare them.
The Book of Mormon IS unique. It has the fullness of the gospel. It deftly handles many modern issues of faith within its pages. Bradley J. Kramer shows us another key way in which the book deals with such an important issue. Our modern world has often revolved around hating Jews, frequently based upon their reading of the New Testament. The Book of Mormon teaches us to love the Jews and thank them for providing us the Bible in the first place. Kramer’s book helps us to see the many facets of that respect found within the Book of Mormon.

Available at:
Greg Kofford Books:  https://gregkofford.com/products/gathered-in-one

5 Prophecies About Mary That Will Help You See Her in a New Way

(by Camille Fronk Olson ldsliving.com 12-19-19)

Without question, the primary purposes and main focus of revelation from ancient prophets were related to the coming of a Redeemer who would be the Son of God. The Savior’s coming, however, could not be fully understood or appreciated without knowing about His mother.

Ancient prophets spoke of Mary and of her calling as the mother of the Son of God long before she was born. These prophecies written by Isaiah and Book of Mormon prophets never confused the Savior’s mother with deity: she would be a mortal from among the multitude of God’s people.Notwithstanding, His mother was not just any woman; she was chosen and known by name centuries before her birth. Clearly, God intended us to know about her and her contribution to his plan of salvation.

1. Isaiah

Although he does not call her by name, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah delivered what may be the earliest prophecy of Mary. During a military siege of Jerusalem by the combined armies of Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel (734 B.C.), Isaiah gave King Ahaz of Judah a sign that Jerusalem would be spared. The words that came from “the Lord himself” were “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14; 2 Ne. 17:14).

2. Nephi

While receiving instruction about his father’s dream of the tree of life six hundred years before Jesus’ birth, Nephi saw Mary in vision in “the city of Nazareth.” She was “beautiful and fair above all other virgins” (1 Ne. 11:13, 15). Nephi’s next scene again described Mary as a virgin, but this time she was cradling in her arms her newborn son, who was the Son of God (1 Ne. 11:18–20). As Jesus was represented in Lehi’s dream by the tree of life, so the Father worked through Mary to give life to all His children through her son.

3. King Benjamin

Some four centuries after Nephi’s vision of Mary, an angel revealed to King Benjamin that “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning” (Mosiah 3:8) would “come down from heaven . . . and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay” (Mosiah 3:5). The angel then told King Benjamin that “his mother shall be called Mary” (Mosiah 3:8).

Although the names of others have been specifically revealed in prophecy, such as Hannah’s son, Samuel, and Elisabeth and Zacharias’s son, John, Mary’s is the only woman’s name on the list. Furthermore, Mary’s name was revealed more than one hundred years before her birth and to a prophet in a distant land, whereas John’s and Samuel’s names were revealed to their parents.

4. Alma

The prophet Alma taught the Nephites living in Gideon that Mary was “a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel,” who would give birth to “the Son of God.” He explained that this miracle would occur because she “shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God” (Alma 7:10). Alma spoke of Mary’s giving birth to Jesus “at Jerusalem,” phraseology used by Nephite authors for the environs of a prominent city. Bethlehem was part of greater Jerusalem, being some five miles south of the holy city and it therefore easily fits the description “at Jerusalem.”

5. King Lamoni

The Book of Mormon provides another witness for the birth of Jesus Christ. After being in a comatose state for three days, King Lamoni awoke and exclaimed, “I have seen my Redeemer; and he shall . . . be born of a woman” (Alma 19:13). In learning of his Redeemer, King Lamoni must have been amazed to realize that Christ would be “born of a woman.” In other words, the Savior would be born into this fallen and mortal world like the rest of us. After the Savior’s mortal ministry, the apostle Paul used similar terminology when he spoke of the miraculous birth of Christ: “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4). . . .

We must conclude that Jesus was the son of Mary. He inherited mortal qualities from her that allowed Him to feel hunger, thirst, pain, and even death. These attributes were essential to allow Him to be “filled with mercy” and “know . . . how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12). Through Mary, He became mortal so that He could lay down His life as a sacrifice for sin (Mosiah 15:5–8; Heb. 2:9, 17–18).

http://www.ldsliving.com/5-Times-Prophets-in-the-Scriptures-Mentioned-Mary/s/84057

Fascinating, Little-Known Facts About Mary and Joseph's Engagement

(by S. Kent Brown ldsliving.com 12-11-19)

http://www.ldsliving.com/Fascinating-Little-Known-Facts-About-Mary-and-Joseph-s-Engagement/s/91518

A message from President Nelson

(January 1st, 2020)

 

When I spoke during last October’s general conference, I designated 2020 as a bicentennial period commemorating 200 years since God the Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to Joseph Smith in a vision. That singular event in human history initiated the Restoration of the Lord’s gospel—an unfolding Restoration that continues today.

God loves all of His children and has a vision for e...ach of us. Just as He listened to Joseph’s prayer in 1820, He listens to you and yearns to speak with you through the Spirit. We invite you to be a major part of sharing the message of the ongoing restoration of the Savior’s gospel. We will share more about this soon, but you can start today by acting on the invitations I extended to you at last general conference to immerse yourself in the glorious light of the Restoration.

You may wish to begin your preparation by reading afresh Joseph Smith’s account of the First Vision as recorded in the Pearl of Great Price. Or ponder important questions such as, “How would my life be different if my knowledge gained from the Book of Mormon were suddenly taken away?” or “How have the events that followed the First Vision made a difference for me and my loved ones?”

Select your own questions. Design your own plan. Act on any of these invitations to prepare yourself for sharing the important messages of the ongoing Restoration. It is your personal preparation that will help April’s general conference become for you not only memorable but also unforgettable. The time to act is now. This is a hinge point in the history of the Church, and your part is vital.

“Smithmas,” again

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

We’re just a few days past Thanksgiving, and, already, some critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are rolling out their annual claim that Mormons celebrate “Smithmas,” the birthday of the Prophet Joseph Smith (23 December), with more enthusiasm and vigor than they celebrate the mainstream Christian holiday of Christmas.

For many, I think it’s just a rather bitter and not particularly funny joke.  Some, though, seem to take the claim seriously — or, at least, to want others to take it seriously.

The truth, of course, is that most Latter-day Saints don’t even know that 23 December is the Prophet’s birthday, let alone celebrate it.  The charge that “Smithmas” is our most beloved and revered holy day rests on an obscure blend of ill-humored joking and, perhaps, flat dishonesty.

Just to put the truth on the record, though, for those who might otherwise be innocently taken in by the claim, here are some things that I’ve written about it during previous years:

The image of Joseph Smith’s First Vision shown above will serve as clearly as anything, I suppose, to illustrate the believing Latter-day Saint view of his position.  It is clearly subordinate.  The Father and the Son initiated that visit.  He didn’t.  He was the (surprised and eventually overwhelmed) petitioner.  The Father and the Son are instructing him, not the other way around.  He is kneeling before them.  They are not kneeling before him.

Latter-day Saints have no problem distinguishing a prophet of God from God himself, or telling Joseph Smith apart from the Lord.

Back in the day when my wife and I used to host a little “birthday party” for Joseph Smith on 23 December, we would maybe tell a story or two about the Prophet — or invite somebody else to do so.  (The late and much lamented historian Scott Faulring came one year, for example.)  Maybe we would express some appreciation for him.  Then we would enjoy potluck refreshments and sing Christmas carols.  Note:  Not “Smithmas carols.”  Christmas carols.  It was an excuse to get together with some highly musical friends and sing.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/12/smithmas-again.html

Meet the Magi

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

Bill Hamblin and I published this column in the Deseret News several years ago at Christmas time:

The search for wise men and women is a perpetual quest in every age—alas, often with dubious results.  The search for the wise men in the Christmas narratives in the New Testament is, unfortunately, equally difficult.  All Christians are familiar with the story of the three magi from the east bringing gifts to the infant Jesus, a tale that provided the prototype for giving Christmas gifts in less crassly materialistic times. 

When we dig a bit deeper into the biblical Christmas narratives in search of the wise men, a number of questions arise.  First, only two of the four gospels—Matthew and Luke—contain nativity narratives.  John and Mark begin their gospels at Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of his public ministry.  Many scholars believe that Matthew’s gospel tells the nativity story (Matthew 1:18-2:18) from the perspective of Joseph, whose dreams are recounted in detail.  Luke (2:1-20), on the other hand, presents recollections of Mary, including her vision of the annunciation (1:26-56).    

Only Matthew tells the story of the visit of the wise men (2:1-12).  Although in traditional nativity scenes we usually find the wise men and the shepherds adoring the infant Jesus together, Matthew tells us that the wise men arrived only after Jesus had been born (Matthew 2:1), not on the actual night of his birth.  In other words, the visitation of the angels and shepherds seems to have occurred on the night of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:7-8, 12), while the wise men must have arrived some days—or even months—later.  

Who were these “wise men”?   Unfortunately, the New Testament is rather vague—although this has not prevented later legends and traditions from filling the gaps in Matthew’s account.  The King James Bible calls the visitors “wise men,” which translates the Greek term “magos” (plural “magoi”).  The Latin Bible transliterates this term into the Latin plural “magi,” by which they are also frequently known in English.  The Greek word “magos”/ “magoi” is an interesting one.  Linguistically, it is a transliteration of the Persian term “magush,” referring to the ancient Zoroastrian priestly caste.  In Greek the term “magos” had become a much broader word for a person learned in arcane lore—hence “wise men.”  In the New Testament, “magos” is also used to describe the sorcerers Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-13) and Elymas (Acts 13:6-11).  Our modern term “magician” is simply an anglicization of the Latin “magus”/ “magi.”  The fact that they learned of the birth of Christ by observation of the stars has led many to assume they were astrologers (Matthew 2:2, 9).  

The idea that the magi were “three kings,” as the traditional hymn declares, derives from later Christian tradition.  The three famous gifts of the magi—gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Matthew 2:11)—may imply there were three givers, though there could have been many more.  Their alleged royalty is nowhere implied in the New Testament, although the fact that Herod and the priests of Jerusalem were willing to meet with them, along with the great value of their gifts, certainly implies some sort of wealthy and aristocratic status.  

The ethnicity of the wise men is also uncertain, a fact that has only served to fuel speculation.  Matthew merely states they are from the “east” (2:1).  A literal reading of the Persian title of “magos”/“magush” might imply that they were Zoroastrian priests, who (according to Zoroastrian scripture) were awaiting the coming of a messiah they called the “saoshyant.”  Zoroastrian scripture prophesied that he would bring about the triumph of righteousness and the resurrection.   On the other hand, it is quite possible that the magi were Jews living in Babylon—then a province of Persia—where many Jews were residing at the time of Christ.  

In medieval Catholic tradition, the three wise men are all saints, and by the sixth century they had been given traditional names and ethnicity:  Melchior, a Persian; Caspar/Gaspar, an Indian; and Balthasar, an Arab.  These extra-biblical traditions are widely accepted in traditional Western Christmas art, literature, song, and decorations.  Syrian Christians, on the other hand, give their names as Larvandad, Gushnasaph, and Hormisdas, while Armenians name them Kagpha, Badadakharida, and Badadilma—which could make for some puzzling Christmas cards. The traditional symbolic meaning of the three gifts dates back to Origen of Alexandria (d. 254 AD): gold for a royal crown, myrrh for anointing at Christ’s burial, and frankincense—burned in the temple of Jerusalem—to honor the Son of God.  
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/12/meet-the-magi.html

Frankincense and Myrrh

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

Notes taken from, and/or inspired by, a reading of Gordon Darnell Newby, A History of the Jews of Arabia: From Ancient Times to Their Eclipse under Islam (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1988), 10-11:

The Arabian Peninsula was and remains a stark and forbidding place.  But it was also, and continues to be, wealthy.  Today, its wealth is petrochemical.  In ancient times, its wealth came in the form of incense — and specifically the two types known as frankincense and myrrh.  These derive from the gums and resins of certain trees and shrubs that are found chiefly in southern Arabia (modern Oman and Yemen), the island of Soqotra (which is located off the Yemeni and Somali coasts at the boundary of the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea, covered by the inset legend in the map above), and, in Africa across the Gulf of Aden, in Somalia.

Ancient Arabia — Sheba (or, in modern Arabic, Saba’) was an ancient South Arabian kingdom — was biblically famous for its production of incense:

The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord.  (Isaiah 60:6)

To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.  (Jeremiah 6:20)

(Sheba — in modern Arabic, Saba’ — was an ancient South Arabian kingdom.)

Frankincense and myrrh were carried by merchants over and up to the great incense-consumers of the Mediterranean Basin.  (Think of the New Testament magi or “wise men” and their gifts.)  Egyptians used frankincense and myrrh in the embalming process.  The Romans burned it at funerals.  According to the first-century Roman historian Pliny the Elder (Natural History, 12.83), the emperor Nero burned more than a year’s output of Arabian incense at the funeral of his second wife, Poppaea Augusta Sabina, in AD 65.  Ancient Christians used it during the celebration of the Mass.
 Perhaps most notably, ancient Jews used incense for rituals in the Temple of Jerusalem, in (for example) the first-fruit offering and the weekly memorial bread offering:
And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the Lord, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears.

And thou shalt put oil upon it, and lay frankincense thereon: it is a meat offering.
And the priest shall burn the memorial of it, part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof: it is an offering made by fire unto the Lord.  (Leviticus 2:14-16)

And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto the Lord.  (Leviticus 24:7)

Since frankincense and myrrh came from such a distance and were needed in the regular sacrificial liturgy of the temple, reserve supplies were kept in the temple’s storehouses:

Some of them also were appointed to oversee the vessels, and all the instruments of the sanctuary, and the fine flour, and the wine, and the oil, and the frankincense, and the spices.  (1 Chronicles 9:29)

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2020/01/frankincense-and-myrrh.html

Notes from “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon” (2)

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

A friend sent to me the following quotation from the prominent conservative economist Thomas Sowell, for whom I have enormous admiration:

“You can’t stop people from saying bad things about you. All you can do is make them liars.” 

I believe that he’s right.

***

John W. Welch, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon: ‘Days [and Hours] Never to Be Forgotten,’” BYU Studies Quarterly 57/4 (2018): 10-50.

As I said in my previous entry on this topic, it’s striking to look at specific Book of Mormon passages while keeping in mind the rapidity of the book’s production — which has Joseph Smith dictating approximately 4,492 words, nearly nine pages in the current standard English edition, per working day, apparently without any notes.  Here are some further examples of cases to consider, drawn from pages 41-43 of Jack’s important article:

 The lineage history of Alma’s genealogy is widely dispersed among passages that were dictated over the span of six weeks, from 11 April 1829 to 22 May 1829.  But the genealogical information is consistent.

The thirty names that are given in the Jaredite genealogy in Ether 1 are given running from Ether himself backwards in time to his ancestor Jared.  Then, that genealogy is effectively repeated in the other direction as the story of those Jaredite rulers, Ether’s ancestors, is given in Ether 2-11 in proper historical order.

The account of the terrible destruction at the time of Christ’s crucifixion that is given in 3 Nephi 8 was dictated on roughly 12 May 1829.  It fulfills the detailed prophecies recorded in 1 Nephi 19, which were dictated a month later, in June 1829.

“The antithetically parallel words of Alma the Younger as he came out of his three-day coma were translated in Mosiah 27 on about April 13, while his chiastic retelling of that conversion event twenty years later in Alma 36 (which was translated about ten days later on April 24, 1829) reincorporated many of the same distinctive words and phrases.”  (42)

“The seven tribes in the Nephite world (Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites) are listed three times in the Book of Mormon.  The first instance dictated by Joseph comes in a rather inconspicuous spot in 4 Nephi 1:38, translated about May 21, simply conveying a sense of complete inclusivity.  A page later, but coming from a century later historically, the same seven tribes are listed exactly in the same order in Mormon 1:8, now marking their division into two warring camps.  A third occurrence of this precise seven-tribe list comes later in the translation time frame in Jacob 1:13, where the reader now learns that this list had its cultural origins back in the days of Jacob.  Here, this tribally formative ordering serves other purposes, probably being based on Lehi’s final blessings to these seven lineages in 2 Nephi 1:28, 30; 2:1; 3:1 and coming about a month later in the translation, about June 24.”  (42-43)

John Hilton and others have shown that Alma’s teachings to his son Corianton in Alma 39-43 cite specific phraseology from the teachings of Abinadi in Mosiah 12-15 (translated around 10 April 1829)  thirteen times.  (Alma 39-43 is roughly 130 pages further into the standard English edition than Mosiah 12-15, and was translated approximately 26 April 1829).  “Those allusions make particular sense when one allows that Alma the Younger grew up listening to his father speak of the words and doctrines that he had learned from Abinadi himself.”  (43)

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2020/01/notes-from-timing-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon-2.html

The Lehites and Arabia

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

A passage that I’ve extracted from Gordon Darnell Newby, A History of the Jews of Arabia: From Ancient Times to Their Eclipse under Islam (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1988), 8-9:

When we think of Arabia, we imagine natura maligna at its worst.  Even the ancient geographers who called the southern cultivable portion of the peninsula Arabia Felix (Fortunate Arabia) did so with knowledge of the  considerable irony of the name.  Arabia is a land of extremes.  It is a quadrilateral plateau with a spine of mountains on its western side.  These mountains are 5,000 feet in average height, with the highest peak, at 12,336 feet, in Yemen.  The center of the peninsula is hard desert with numerous oases, but not extant permanent water courses.  Around this is a soft, sandy desert that has acted as an effective barrier for the interior. . . .

Little rain falls on Arabia, the greatest amount being in the highlands of Yemen.  The average rainfall is less than three inches a year, which falls in just four or five days.  Temperatures have been recorded over 120 degrees Fahrenheit and below zero and can range from freezing to over 100 in a single day.

Malignant Nature has also been a protection.  For much of its history, Arabia was never successfully occupied by foreign troops.  The desert, the climate, and the sea defended it.  And so Arabia became a land of refuge, of retreat, and of mystery.  But the desert barrier was permeable by tiny bands, and the interior of Arabia was never cut off from contact with the Mediterranean world or with the Far East.  Caravan traffic passed through Arabia to all parts of the world.  Missionaries from the Mediterranean came to Arabia singly and in small groups.  Refugees passed through the desert barriers to settle in the oases and fertile valleys and were always drawn into the culture of the peninsula, becoming like the Arabs among whom they lived.

Reading this passage, I can’t help but think of Lehi and his party, a “tiny band” from “the Mediterranean world” that sought refuge in Arabia when Jerusalem was threatened by Nebuchadnezzar II during the early sixth century BC.  They carefully avoided the area that would eventually be known as Arabia Felix, going due east from Nahom to the Old World area that they called Bountiful, traveling behind the mountains that separate Yemen from inner Arabia.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2020/01/the-lehites-and-arabia.html

Notes from “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon” (1)

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

John W. Welch, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon: ‘Days [and Hours] Never to Be Forgotten,'” BYU Studies Quarterly 57/4 (2018): 10-50.

From Richard Bushman’s jacket endorsement of Opening the Heavens:  Laying open “all the crucial documents . . . for inspection, with enough commentary to put them in context[,]” provides great benefits to Book of Mormon readers: “nothing could be more helpful — and inspiring.” (16)

The Book of Mormon was dictated over the course of, at the very most, about seventy-five working days.  (13)

“with the probable exception of a few pages written before Oliver Cowdery’s arrival on April 5 [1829], the vast majority of the English text of the Book of Mormon came forth, day after day, and hour by hour, beginning April 7 and ending the weekend of June 30, 1829.”  (17)

Experience of Three Witnesses — probably 28-29 June 1829 (29, 32)

Experience of Eight Witnesses — probably 30 June 1829, perhaps 1-2 July 1829 (29, 32)

“Such detail regarding the foundational events of any new religious movement is, as far as I know, unequalled.”  (17)

The maximum allowable time for dictation is 74 days.  (31)
Welch argues for 57-63 actual working days.  (33-34)
“it would appear that not many more than the equivalent of about 60 actual working days would have been available in April, May, and June 1829.”  (34)

“they . . . needed to work continuously, diligently, and largely without interruption.”  (38)

Citing the estimate of Royal Skousen, The Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2001), 35-36:  There were 269,510 words in the earliest text of the Book of Mormon, which is to say in the dictation text.  (22)

Using the figure of sixty dictation days, my calculation:  269,510 words / 60 days = approximately 4,492 words dictated per day.  Nearly nine pages in the current standard English edition of the Book of Mormon daily — 8.85, to be precise.   That’s a remarkable pace.  I write fairly easily and rapidly, and I’ve never come close to it for any significant length of time, if indeed I’ve ever done it at all.

The remarkable dictation speed is impressive in and of itself.  But it’s striking to look at specific passages with that rapidity of writing in mind.  For example:

In Alma 36:22, which was dictated in Harmony, Pennsylvania, most likely around 24 April, the prophet Alma quotes exactly twenty-two words from Lehi as they’re found in 1 Nephi 1:8, a passage that hadn’t been dictated yet.  It would be supplied on roughly 5 June 1829, in Fayette, New York, as replacement material for the famous lost manuscript pages.  That’s nearly 1.5 months later.  Not bad for a “writer” who is said never to have consulted the material already produced before he commenced a new day of dictation.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2020/01/notes-from-timing-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon-1.html

.

 

 

On the Church’s impending death

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

The Church exaggerates its growth.  Most converts drop out.  It is in sharp decline:

The Mormon rulers take great pains to have it believed that their community is continually and rapidly increasing.  This, however, is a very great mistake.  There has always been a curious state of accumulation and loss going on with them, and the loss is at present probably the largest part of the account.  There is no society in the world in which there are so few permanent members, in proportion to the converts originally made.  Many of the newborn Saints very soon lose the soda-water enthusiasm which is first experienced, and fall away; many, who have zeal enough to commence the mighty pilgrimage toward the modern Zion, cool off, and lodge like drift-wood by the way.  Each emigrating body tapers off, something like the army of Peter the Hermit in the first great crusade . . .  [Mormonism is like] a miniature whirlwind upon a dusty plain [which grows rapidly] until it somewhat suddenly subsides . . .  it needs no great degree of prophet-sagacity to foresee its [Mormonism’s] subsidence in like manner.

Benjamin Ferris, Utah and the Mormons (1856), 322.  Ferris had formerly served as Utah territorial secretary.

Whereas the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints once had effective and charismatic leaders, those days are past, and it is in sharp decline:

Though it would be rash to assume that Mormonism is dead, it would be equally rash to believe it can survive, for any extended period, the death of its great leader.
Indianapolis Sentinel, following the death of Brigham Young, 1877

The Mormon church was stronger at four o’clock Sunday afternoon than it ever will again become; the remarkable will and organizing force of the dead leader departed with him, and have been transmitted to none other in his church; and we may now watch with complacency, if not with joy, the gradual disintegration of the whole Mormon fabric.
Salt Lake Tribune, following the death of Brigham Young, 1877

Mormonism did alright in isolation but, as Latter-day Saints come into contact with the wider world and with alternative worldviews (e.g., via the Internet), their provincial ignorance will give way to broader perspectives and the Church will decline sharply:

The click of the telegraph and the roll of the Overland stage are its [Mormonism’s] death rattle now.  The first whistle of the locomotive will sound its requiem; and the pickaxe of the miner will dig its grave.
Samuel Bowles, editor of the Hartford Times

By encouraging the influx of Gentile population . . . in the course of a decade, the Mormon ascendency would be destroyed . . . and the great octopus, shorn of its political power, would be obliged to assume its proper station among the ranting sects which come and go and are forgotten.
George Seibel, The Mormon Problem (1899)

Anyway, it needs to go:

I think Mormonism is doomed, sooner or later — the sooner the better . . . this foul blot upon our civilization [that is, Mormonism] shall be known only as a horrid night mare of the past — this “hideous she monster” shall retire to the black caverns of hell from which she came.  God grant it may be so!

Reverend Edgar Estes Folk, The Mormon Monster (1900)

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/12/on-the-churchs-impending-death.html

LDS Inc. - part 20

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

Surely, you’re saying to yourself, this series will eventually find an end!  And, in fact, that’s what I’ve been thinking for quite some time.  But interesting material continues to appear, so I press on.  This may well be the last installment, of course.  But I’ve thought so before . . .

Anyway, the impetus for this current entry comes from a new comment from Peter J Reilly, a thoroughly non-Latter-day Saint contributor to Forbes who is a specialist in tax questions, especially as they relate to religious organizations.

“I have been a CPA for over 30 years focusing on taxation,” he writes.  “I have extensive experience with partnerships, real estate and high net worth individuals. My ideology can be summarized at least metaphorically by this quote [from the Irish poet and writer Brendan Behan (1923-1964)]: ‘I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.'”

He has written a piece — another one; this is not his first — on the recent controversy about the finances of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that was stirred up by an “exposé” in the Washington Post:

“Mormons And The Tax Law”

“Most of what I know about Mormonism,” Reilly says, “comes from research for tax stories.”

You can review his reasoning for yourself.  I’ll give you his bottom line:

“The main source of outrage is that they seem to have saved up too much money. I think this qualifies as a unique problem for a church. Frankly, I don’t have a dog in the fight, but I think the outrage, which is compounded by lack of transparency is a little overblown.
“Remember that Mormons were severely persecuted in the 19th Century. Church years are the opposite of dog years. 150 years ago is not that long ago in the history of a church. So adopting a policy of paying for everything out of current funds and putting aside some every year in case something really, really, really bad happens is reasonable. . . .

“If that really bothers you, you might not really want to be a Mormon. If that’s the case and you still want to go to church, you will have no problem finding a church where things are hand to mouth.
“I came out pretty early that I don’t think there is really anything here for the IRS to look at.”

And, plainly, he still holds to that view.  Which will be a great disappointment to certain critics, who have really hoped that this, finally, at last, would be a weapon with which to give the Church a sound beating.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2020/01/lds-inc-part-20.html

LDS Inc. - part 19

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

The intensity surrounding this recent scandal du jour seems to have largely subsided.  Those — including myself — who trusted and revered the Church’s leaders prior to the Washington Post‘s exposé still trust and revere them.  Such folks faithfully paid their tithes to the Church, and they still do. Those who despised the Church before the Post article appeared continue to despise the Church.  They withheld their tithes, and they still do.

But I’ve recalled a little experience that is, today, almost precisely one year old.  It’s relevant to this subject.

Over Christmas vacation last year, I accompanied a tour group to Egypt that had been organized by the Cruise Lady company.  As the time arrived to return from Egypt to the United States, however, our flight out of Cairo was suddenly cancelled.  My wife and I and our son and another couple were obliged to find a different way home.  When the dust had settled and we had worked out our return flights, we found ourselves obliged to spend a night in Paris.  (Quelle horreur!)

I posted a note about that night on my blog (“Midnight in Paris”).

Anyway, the time finally came for us to catch our plane for the flight from Paris to Salt Lake City.  As we waited to board, we noticed that Gérald Caussé, the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was also waiting there with his wife and several members of his family.  (The Caussés are French, and they were home for the holidays.)

The husband in the couple with whom we were traveling is extremely prominent in Utah economic circles — that’s perhaps an understatement — and he knows Bishop Caussé, who is the principal person responsible for the economic and financial affairs of the Church.  I also know Bishop Caussé, though not nearly as well.  We chatted while waiting for the plane to board.

Here’s the small takeaway:  When we finally took our seats on the plane, Bishop Caussé and his family were seated about six or eight rows ahead of us.  They weren’t on a private jet.  They weren’t even flying business class.  They were in economy class — in what I like to call “peasant class” or “sardine class” — like us.  Center section.  No window seats.

This is the man charged with directing the Church’s temporal affairs.  The General Authority most directly connected with the alleged $100 billion nest egg that triggered the recent controversy.  (See “”Church presiding bishop details how tithing and donations are used: ‘It’s about building a reserve of the church, and ultimately, all of those funds will be used for church purposes,’ Bishop Gérald Caussé says.”)  If Bishop Caussé was profiting from that purported $100,000,000,000.00 reserve fund on that flight, I certainly could see no sign of it.

And, while we’re at it, here are a couple of significant links regarding the financial controversy that you may or may not have seen.  The first comes from Nate Oman, one of the very best students I’ve ever had at BYU:

“‘Mormon Land’: Law prof discusses history of church finances, why it stopped reporting them, and why it should start disclosing them again.”

The second comes from Kathleen Flake:

“Kathleen Flake: ‘Mormonism and its Money’ is a power struggle we’ve seen before”

The fuller version of her argument occurs here:

“Mormonism and its Money: This is a power struggle, not a moral or even fiscal conundrum, and one that we’ve seen before.”

Since I’ve just returned from spending a fair amount of time in Virginia, it seems apt to me that both live there.  Nate is the Rollins Professor of Law at William & Mary Law School, in Williamsburg.  Kathleen is the Richard Lyman Bushman Professor of Mormon Studies at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/12/lds-inc-part-19.html