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MormonLeaks: Former Mormon Mission President Admitting to Inappropriate Interactions with Women


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19 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

No one needs to be perfect!!!  But they need to not use their power to use the very tool that mormonism says is next to murder!

Who are they? Men and women make mistakes. But in the case of the woman and the now 85 year old man, what should be done? Should the man be found guilty without evidence? Should we just go by her word?

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28 minutes ago, ttribe said:

How many chances did the Spirit have with this man? How many leaders were wrong, how many times?  Your angry defense does not serve your purpose well when you ignore the facts.

He has denied the allegations in other situations when she was not the only person present, including 8 years ago when it is likely his memories were intact...as well as ability to lie if he so chose.  She has not apparently been able to provide evidence prior to the tape.  Given his likely (and reported) dementia, it is hard to know what he says is based on reality and what may be reconstructed memories, especially since he was questioned about the accusations before (and therefore his comments where it does not appear she led him could be a result of actual events or triggered by the previous interrogations or a mix).  Dementia can be weird and have a big affect in one area, but have little impact on memories and abilities in another.  A one on one conversation with someone who was jumping around (imo, I don't think she approached it in a coherent, step by step process that would be easier to follow if one had mental issues) results from what I have seen to the individual either fixating on something said early on and not being able to process what is said later or it is the last thing said that gets responded to.  If they do the last, it can be harder to detect where and when they are off as lots of people in full possession of mental abilities converse the same way.  Dementia sufferers can also believe they have done things they haven't or guilt for one thing may be transferred to another (I have a small set of sufferers to base my opinion on, a handful...so it does happen, though it might be rare).   I have read more about how they tend to be paranoid about others such that caregivers and family members may have to deal with accusations of stealing (Grandma accused me of stealing her Christmas lights and temple clothing even after I showed her where they were stored, she was certain she had looked there...though physically she couldn't have), neglect (forgetting visits immediately after they happen doesn't help) or even attempting to harm them physically.  Gaps in memory get filled with all sorts of stuff.

So treating it as if proven that many leaders were lacking in discernment before understanding the depth of any actual molestation seems to me problematic.

I don't know if appropriate, but I wish someone very experienced in elderly mental and emotional disabilities would be able to appraise both the tape and Brother Bishop himself to see if there is significant dementia and how much of Bishop's admissions are likely to be actual memories versus reconstructed.

The other option that might bring the most closure is for other women to come forward, but this first requires there are other women involved...and what details he appears to have admitted involved two? other women in nonassault situations.  It will depend on who is telling the most accurate story, imo.

Edited by Calm
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5 minutes ago, why me said:

Who are they? Men and women make mistakes. But in the case of the woman and the now 85 year old man, what should be done? Should the man be found guilty without evidence? Should we just go by her word?

I don't think it will be just her word...there will be other women..right behind her

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5 minutes ago, Calm said:

He has denied the allegations in other situations when she was not the only person present, including 8 years ago when it is likely his memories were intact...as well as ability to lie if he so chose.  She has not apparently been able to provide evidence prior to the tape.  Given his likely (and reported) dementia, it is hard to know what he says is based on reality and what may be reconstructed memories, especially since he was questioned about the accusations before (and therefore his comments where it does not appear she led him could be a result of actual events or triggered by the previous interrogations or a mix).  Dementia can be weird and have a big affect in one area, but have little impact on memories and abilities in another.

So treating it as if proven that many leaders were lacking in discernment before understanding the depth of any actual molestation seems to me problematic.

Fair enough, but Storm Rider's defense raises none of those issues.  It simply waves the hand of "imperfection" and calls it good.  Of course, we could bring up George P. Lee, here; his lengthy pattern of abuse and "promotion" to loftier callings is eerily similar.

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42 minutes ago, why me said:

It seems that the church acted properly by notifying the police. And no action was taken by the police. And it seemed that it was all settled. It then resurfaced and it now seems to be a stalemate. Who is telling the truth? Who should be beiieved? Why didn't the police take action? I see no wrong doing by the lds church. The man is now 85 years old and he is still denying it.

I just listened to the recording and what I remember is that she threatened to kill him and that is what was reported to the police.  

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3 minutes ago, Oliblish said:

I just listened to the recording and what I remember is that she threatened to kill him and that is what was reported to the police.  

If i remember right (and maybe i'm not), the police interrogated Bishop for hours.  If all that had been reported was that she had threatened to kill him, that would be a weird thing for the cops to do (though granted, sometimes cops do weird things).

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7 minutes ago, Oliblish said:

I just listened to the recording and what I remember is that she threatened to kill him and that is what was reported to the police.  

That would certainly give her a chance to share why she threatened him with the police.

Or are you saying the Church is trying to spin it as taking the accusation seriously when it was something else that cause it to be reported?

Edited by Calm
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I haven’t read the whole thread, but I finally got around to reading the transcripts the other day.   I did not listen to the audio. Bishop sounds like he has dementia.  He also contradicts himself and frequently gets confused.  Not sure how reliable he is at his age.  He seems prone to suggestion and seems unstable.  At times he is led to confession and next he says he can’t remember doing it.  Reminds me of the Brendan Dassey interviews. I don’t consider this interview to be a reliable factual source.  Not saying whether he is guilty, but the interview is not convincing.

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19 minutes ago, Calm said:

That would certainly give her a chance to share why she threatened him with the police.

Or are you saying the Church is trying to spin it as taking the accusation seriously when it was something else that cause it to be reported?

The evidence doesn't support that interpretation if that's what he's saying.  The church said they also turned the information over to his ecclesiastical leader at the same time that they gave the information to police.

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1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

By the way, his last name is going to confuse a lot of non members reading this story.

 

"When Bishop was serving as a bishop...."

I had a similar problem on my mission with a companion whose last name was Elder.

 

"This is my companion Elder Elder.....

 

I have a whole lot of Elder cousins.

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1 hour ago, JAHS said:

I see how that can happen in some instances with some types of people to one charismatic type of church leader promoting an idea, but generally the total LDS Church government has too many checks and balances to allow any real false doctrine to enter in and destroy the whole church.  What people need to remember is that there should be no deference to authority (singular) to one man, but to have deference to authorities of all the authorities combined, meaning the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. Compare what the one man does and says to what the head church leadership does and says together. 

By what standard would you define "destroy the whole church?"  It seems like every religious tradition continues to survive at some level, regardless for how reasonable their leaders are.  

I don't agree that there are too many check and balances.  I think Joseph envisioned some checks and balances in the early church (common consent, the high counsel, ideas about lower level judges keeping leaders in check,) however in contemporary Mormonism I don't see those mechanisms being put into practice.  They have died out essentially.  

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39 minutes ago, ttribe said:

Fair enough, but Storm Rider's defense raises none of those issues.  It simply waves the hand of "imperfection" and calls it good.  Of course, we could bring up George P. Lee, here; his lengthy pattern of abuse and "promotion" to loftier callings is eerily similar.

I agree it is troubling when one sees (I am talking about knowing by being an eyewitness, having significant enough evidence or a credible confession) a history of an abusive or otherwise unworthy individual being treated over the years as worthy.  Even just one calling of someone one sees as unfit, especially if the why is public (say unethical practices in business) can lead to questioning of just wisdom, let alone spiritual insight.  And when others are deeply damaged enough to lose their faith or they end up living a daily hell for years, I don't think it is possible to come up with what God could be reasoning.  The argument it must be allowed for moral agency sounds hollow to me when these kinds of actions rob the agency of others.  An deeply abused child may grow up into a deeply damaged adult who is incapable of choosing spiritually healthy behaviour, but spends their life trying to find self value in drugs and promiscuity.  If there are multiple victims, why does one person's exercise of agency trump multiple others' free exercise?

It becomes an exercise in trust at that point for me.  Do I trust God that he will not allow any unnecessary suffering?  For me, the answer is yes, but I can easily see why others say "no" (the torture of a child, the pain a physically deformed infant with little mental functioning experiences...it is hard to see what could be necessary there) and therefore reason there is no God or at least not one that has the ability to interact with humans.

I also believe that part of God ensuring there is no unnecessary suffering means we as individuals have to work hard at recognizing and then acting to remove suffering where possible.  So I don't have problems with people working to reduce abuse or to hold abusers accountable as long as they do not inflate behaviours in order to draw attention, out of laziness, hate, or a desire for excitement or revenge or other selfish desires.

And any defense against abuse accusations should be based on imo realistic, noninflated evidence just as accusations should be, avoiding as much as possible the emotional appeal (though that is helpful galvanizing people to work together, the emotional appeal is appropriately used in limited ways).

Edited by Calm
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I haven't listened to the recording so can someone else who has comment-

Did the woman fail to tell anyone (who she leaked this too) that her claim had been taken acknowledged by the church in 2010 and that they had turned it over to the police to investigate, and also to his ecclesiastical leaders to see if discipline was necessary?

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1 hour ago, ttribe said:

How many chances did the Spirit have with this man? How many leaders were wrong, how many times?  Your angry defense does not serve your purpose well when you ignore the facts.

Do you ever actually read what people write?  Or do you just throw out tired arguments?  

Angry?  Where in the heck are your reading this?  I would call it PROJECTION.  There is nothing for me to angry about; is anyone else angry? 

Just bizarre.  

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19 hours ago, Maestrophil said:

I do hope LDS leadership takes a good look into this and is not afraid to mete out discipline where it is needed.  

Perhaps already asked, but has this audio been authenticated?  There are some things here that simply do not ring true

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20 minutes ago, SteveO said:

I haven’t read the whole thread, but I finally got around to reading the transcripts the other day.   I did not listen to the audio. Bishop sounds like he has dementia.  He also contradicts himself and frequently gets confused.  Not sure how reliable he is at his age.  He seems prone to suggestion and seems unstable.  At times he is led to confession and next he says he can’t remember doing it.  Reminds me of the Brendan Dassey interviews. I don’t consider this interview to be a reliable factual source.  Not saying whether he is guilty, but the interview is not convincing.

I too, think collaborating evidence is important.

However it would appear that those who want to believe it, anything is sufficient.

Even if it were found out the accusation were false, they would just believe someone else in the church is doing it.

 

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First off, where does it state that Bishop had dementia, Calm? Second, WhyMe he didn't deny the allegations in the recording. Did you listen to it? I didn't know that I have only listened partially to it, I thought I listened to all of it until today where I heard it went for a good 2 1/2 hours.  

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1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

It is not clear to me from this that you support religious freedom at all, but rather that you are very judgmental and narrow in your purview.  You are either in favor of free agency or you are not.  So far, you have opposed freedom to practice polygyny, and appear to take the opposite position on SSM.  That is hypocrisy.  We need to be tolerant of non-traditional marriage practices.

You're wrong about my position, I'm not advocating for laws to outlaw polygyny, I just commented that I believe the Nauvoo practice of it was particularly immoral, and I find it problematic generally, but I've never said I support making it illegal, or would restrict freedom to practice it among consenting adults.  Just because something is legal doesn't mean I shouldn't speak out about the problems of those behaviors, how hurtful the practice is for families and disproportionately harmful to women, and detrimental to society in general.  

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You seem dedicated to the false notion that Mormons have done exactly the same things to Black people that your White southern "Christians" have done.  You seem to want a moral equivalency where there is none.  It is not the Mormons who had segregated churches.  It is not the Mormons who regularly murdered Black people.  It is not very Christian to make such false statements.  Just more lies about those horrible Mormons.

You seem dedicated to straw-man arguments that misrepresent my position intentionally.  I never made a claim that the same things were done by other group exactly.  I never claimed moral equivalency, I said the exact opposite, and I'm beginning to think we have a problem with reading comprehension at this juncture of the discussion.  

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

Comparing our mistakes to the mistakes of others that might have been more egregious strikes me as not very Christian.  

 

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The Mormon Church is a restoration of the primitive Christian Church, not a continuation of apostate "Christianity."  Mormonism represents the only authentic Church of Jesus Christ.  Traditional "Christianity" is an imposter.

Unfortunately this claim isn't supported by a rigorous review of history.  I recommend the following book for an excellent in-depth discussion of the topic.  

https://www.amazon.com/Standing-Apart-Historical-Consciousness-Apostasy/dp/0199348146/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521585131&sr=8-1&keywords=standing+apart

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

What positive changes do you suggest we make?

Stop closed door interviews with minors.

Stop the discussions of sex with everyone

Start background checking leaders who work with minors

Start getting bishops better training

Start outsourcing to trained professionals more

Put controls in place to protect individuals

Change the culture where people go to Bishops for everything including the kitchen sink and start to emphasize very narrow reasons to go to a bishop for advice on spiritual matters

Make leaders read more of the complicated history of the church before being called to important positions

Complete financial transparency

Call diverse leaders into positions, including women

Get theologians and philosophers into the leadership ranks

Apologize for past harms and acknowledge current problems on race and sex and LGBT issues

Revoke the 2015 LGBT policy as a gross heresy and apologize for the error

Get humble and quit hiding behind a curtain about special insight from deity

I could go on, but we essentially need a reformation in the Mormon religion.

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22 hours ago, cinepro said:

  The interviewer reported it to Church authorities, but was never able to find out if anything happened, and JLB can't recall them ever mentioning it to him. So this would be a pretty huge lapse in responsibility for Church leadership.  Carlos Asay, a seventy, is mentioned as being one of the people who would have known.

 

Really, and you know this... how?

I think this is a fantasy of someone who is very ill.  You are spreading gossip and that is a fact.

Edited by cdowis
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6 minutes ago, SteveO said:

I haven’t read the whole thread, but I finally got around to reading the transcripts the other day.   I did not listen to the audio. Bishop sounds like he has dementia.  He also contradicts himself and frequently gets confused.  Not sure how reliable he is at his age.  He seems prone to suggestion and seems unstable.  At times he is led to confession and next he says he can’t remember doing it.  Reminds me of the Brendan Dassey interviews. I don’t consider this interview to be a reliable factual source.  Not saying whether he is guilty, but the interview is not convincing.

Out of curiosity, have you had much experience with people with dementia?

It would be interesting to measure width and depth of experience with how people are interpreting it.

I am positive I would have been less skeptical of the claims five years ago before the intimate and mostly subtle experiences with my mom, as Grandma was over the top in her paranoia even when capable of living on her own.  I have learned dementia can be hard to spot if you don't have lots of reality checks (other people sharing their experiences with the individual so contradictions show up).  For years I totally bought into Mom's complaints about Dad's neglect of her because the story was a natural extension of his lack of empathy (a very nice and generous man in almost all ways, but he just couldn't see things from others' POV and so found it hard to understand emotional behaviour) until they moved up her and I saw what was happening myself.  She was so frustrated in some of their interactions and uncomfortable with her anger over it, she couldn't see the actual care he was giving her (paying attention to what she was saying while she ignored him and making sure she was comfortable before caring for himself when they were in the dining area of their assisted living center for example).  It was a lesson to me to never judge on hearing one side of a story.  

My sister didn't register a lot of the small signs, so it wasn't until I sat down with my sister-in-law whose mother is way worse and been developing it longer, that I got confirmation what was bothering me was significant and not just my way of justifying my own reactions.  Maybe some day I will be experienced enough I won't feel I have to assume the worse first off (I am the primary caregiver in the family so I am the one putting safety measures in place and I prefer being overly prepared rather than being reactive and having Mom get injured or ripped off) and I will shift back to not so often seeing signs in the elderly, but at this point my caution is seeing more rather than less...one of the few areas I don't work hard to give the benefit of the doubt.

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4 minutes ago, cdowis said:

 

Perhaps already asked, but has this audio been authenticated?  There are some things here that simply do not ring true

The Church release speaks of it happening in December, so I suspect it has been confirmed as valid by those who can recognize Bishop's voice or he is capable of confirming it himself (I don't see him as that far gone).

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23 minutes ago, SteveO said:

I haven’t read the whole thread, but I finally got around to reading the transcripts the other day.   I did not listen to the audio. Bishop sounds like he has dementia.  He also contradicts himself and frequently gets confused.  Not sure how reliable he is at his age.  He seems prone to suggestion and seems unstable.  At times he is led to confession and next he says he can’t remember doing it.  Reminds me of the Brendan Dassey interviews. I don’t consider this interview to be a reliable factual source.  Not saying whether he is guilty, but the interview is not convincing.

SteveO, I have not listened to the audio or read the report.  Whether this man is guilty of the claims is irrelevant to me.  I am certain, though ignorant of any, that there has been abuse of various kinds by some leaders.  It would not surprise me to learn that other leaders learn of it and nothing happened.  I think this is far more likely in the past than in recent history.  

Simply because we are human does not excuse us of our sins or the need to be responsible for our actions.  More importantly, it does not obviate the responsibility of leaders to take action when discovered.  If leaders have looked the other way for anyone then they, in my opinion, should be released of their calling.  One of great functions of the Church is the perfection of the saints and that begins with repentance.  Looking the other way obstructs repentance and I have no understanding of such actions.  It makes such actions all the more egregious.

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20 minutes ago, Calm said:

I agree it is troubling when one sees (I am talking about knowing by being an eyewitness, having significant enough evidence or a credible confession) a history of an abusive or otherwise unworthy individual being treated over the years as worthy.  Even just one calling of someone one sees as unfit, especially if the why is public (say unethical practices in business) can lead to questioning of just wisdom, let alone spiritual insight.  And when others are deeply damaged enough to lose their faith or they end up living a daily hell for years, I don't think it is possible to come up with what God could be reasoning.  The argument it must be allowed for moral agency sounds hollow to me when these kinds of actions rob the agency of others.  An deeply abused child may grow up into a deeply damaged adult who is incapable of choosing spiritually healthy behaviour, but spends their life trying to find self value in drugs and promiscuity.  If there are multiple victims, why does one person's exercise of agency trump multiple others' free exercise?

It becomes an exercise in trust at that point for me.  Do I trust God that he will not allow any unnecessary suffering?  For me, the answer is yes, but I can easily see why others say "no" (the torture of a child, the pain a physically deformed infant with little mental functioning experiences...it is hard to see what could be necessary there) and therefore reason there is no God or at least not one that has the ability to interact with humans.

I also believe that part of God ensuring there is no unnecessary suffering means we as individuals have to work hard at recognizing and then acting to remove suffering where possible.  So I don't have problems with people working to reduce abuse or to hold abusers accountable as long as they do not inflate behaviours in order to draw attention, out of laziness, hate, or a desire for excitement or revenge or other selfish desires.

And any defense against abuse accusations should be based on imo realistic, noninflated evidence just as accusations should be, avoiding as much as possible the emotional appeal (though that is helpful galvanizing people to work together, the emotional appeal is appropriately used in limited ways).

For the record, I don't think she helped her case with the way she handled herself in many instances (a death threat, for example).  In reading the transcript, I also found myself concerned with what could be perceived as rather leading and aggressive behavior on her part.

 

8 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

Do you ever actually read what people write?  Or do you just throw out tired arguments?  

Angry?  Where in the heck are your reading this?  I would call it PROJECTION.  There is nothing for me to angry about; is anyone else angry? 

Just bizarre.  

I'm quite sure that I read.  Typically, when fills his/her defense with numerous ALL CAPS words and exclamation points !!!!!, they tend to send the message of angriness.

Nevertheless, can you address my comment about balancing the notion of imperfection with that of a likely series of gaffs by different leaders over a period of many years?

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