For those who felt deceived

[Deborah]

So you don't see any harm if the missionaries present a lopsided presentation of Mormonism, because in the end it is buyer beware, is this your position?

Lopsided is in the eye of the beholder. Really, most people who are converts have been searching for something and so the missionaries are just letting them know what they were searching for. If they find out later more details about the history then they have a choice to make. Many like me choose not to forgo all the wonderful doctrine and spiritual experiences and accept that we don't understand everything. Others choose to discard what they previously found and go another way. The choice is there at some point and everyone's faith will be tested. But I am so glad that the missionaries just gave me the basics so that I could grow and learn and decide at my own pace. There is such a thing as overload and my 14 year old mind would most likely have dismissed anything further anyway as I was mainly interested in the teachings of what God was like and the restoration of Priesthood and authority and the wonderful story of God speaking to others of his children.

[Billy]

Lopsided is in the eye of the beholder.

So you would agree that if the Moonies did the same thing in presenting a lopsided presentation that would be OK?

[talisyn]

Lopsided is in the eye of the beholder. Really, most people who are converts have been searching for something and so the missionaries are just letting them know what they were searching for. If they find out later more details about the history then they have a choice to make. Many like me choose not to forgo all the wonderful doctrine and spiritual experiences and accept that we don't understand everything. Others choose to discard what they previously found and go another way. The choice is there at some point and everyone's faith will be tested. But I am so glad that the missionaries just gave me the basics so that I could grow and learn and decide at my own pace. There is such a thing as overload and my 14 year old mind would most likely have dismissed anything further anyway as I was mainly interested in the teachings of what God was like and the restoration of Priesthood and authority and the wonderful story of God speaking to others of his children.

Deborah, congrats on your 39 pages and counting thread, awesome accomplishment

BTW, I totally agree with you

[beastie]

I suppose the disagreement then is whether it was important to have known these things before you joined the church. I don't consider they were. I joined the church because I believed the doctrine and because of the powerful spiritual confirmation I receive that this is where I belong. If the doctrine is true and my spiritual confirmation were true, then I need to look at events in history as the actions of humans with limited understanding and imperfections, not affecting the reasons I joined the church in the first place.

Yes, I think that is the crux of our disagreement, which is what I tried to direct the discussion toward earlier, with my mention of that Joseph Smithâ??s moral character, to me, is an important factor in evaluating his claims.

At some point, leaders decide what potential converts need to know, or donâ??t need to know. I also believe that they make that decision in regards to active members, as well, which is reflected in the material they choose to emphasize in their instruction manuals. So someone, at some point, decided knowing about how JS practiced polygamy was not important in terms of evaluating his claims. IMO, itâ??s because itâ??s not particularly faith-promoting â?? one of those things that is â??trueâ?? but not â??useful.â?? If it was as faith-promoting as young Joseph refusing alcohol before his leg operation, weâ??d hear about it quite a bit.

IMO, the truth of this issue probably lays somewhere in between the two extremes, which are:

1) The church has always been fully honest about its history, and has never encouraged the suppression of certain issues.

2) The church has always lied about much of its history, and has always actively encouraged the suppression of certain issues.

Frankly, I feel like some of whatâ??s occurred on this thread is a bit coy. We all know that â??these issuesâ? in specific arenâ??t particularly faith-promoting. Life would be easier for LDS if JS hadnâ??t practiced polygamy in the way he did, as one example. If the leaders of the church believe the church is true, and I think the vast majority do, then itâ??s obvious why they donâ??t choose to include this information. And if believers agree with the leadership that the church is true, then they probably wonâ??t have a problem with the leadershipâ??s decision to ignore certain information. Yet this information is increasingly available, and itâ??s inevitable that when people discover the information, and for those specific individuals, when that same information is seen as pertinent to the question of the churchâ??s truth claims, then they will feel deceived.

I do think the church recognizes this is an issue, particularly with the increasing availability of this information, and that is why certain historians have been taking a more open approach with the seeming approval of the brethren. I think the process of inoculation has begun, and will only escalate from now on. So maybe in 20 years, apostates wonâ??t have as much justification in feeling deceived. Yes, I know some of you insist apostates today donâ??t have any justification in feeling deceived, but I think that this is part of the extreme position I noted above that is not entirely correct or fair. So after the process of inoculation has been more widely implemented, I predict that the anger on the part of some apostates will lessen. People will still be able to react to it in different ways â?? is it relevant to the truth claims of the church or not? And really, it should be seen as a good thing for believers, too. If believers think that finding out this information is one way of separating the wheat from the chaff, then itâ??s a win-win situation.

Now, in regards to whether or not this information is important or pertinent in regards to the churchâ??s truth claims, of course that answer can vary according to individual. I noticed long ago that, in response to this issue, LDS often resort to referring to the poor moral character of Biblical prophets to justify their stance that the information is irrelevant. That may be effective against a certain percentage of the theists who are bond to regard the Bible as infallible, Iâ??m sure. But itâ??s not very effective against people like myself, who, long ago, found that the poor moral character of not only Godâ??s representatives in the Bible, but GOD HIMSELF in the Bible, to be a major strike against its own truth claims as well.

My opinion is that if God really is going to choose some â??mouthpieceâ? on the earth, someone to be his representative, someone vested with sharing important, true information that will attain Godâ??s goal of leading his children to accept The Truth and hence Be Saved, then God is likely smart enough to choose someone who will behave in a manner that induces trust and confidence. It is possible to do.

Yes, I know some of you will protest that Joseph did behave in a manner that induces trust and confidence. Being able to view someone who lied, not only to the general public, but to his own followers and wife, about whether or not he was practicing polygamy, told Relief Society sisters to flee from anyone, even a prophet, who made such a proposition and then allowed the church press to libel women who did flee from such a proposition, proposed to other menâ??s wives and sometimes married them, often without the husbandâ??s knowledge, as someone who induces trust and confidence is such a basic difference of opinions and values that there is no way that particularly divide will ever be bridged. So all I ask of believers is, like Dr. Peterson suggested, that they have some understanding and appreciation of why these issues do trouble many believers, even if they, themselves, find a way to morally resolve these issues.

I do think there are believers on this thread who have been able to do that. There have also been some who appear completely incapable of doing that. I think the latter group does more harm to their cause than good.

[talisyn]

So why is one person's mote another person's beam?

[ERayR]

Lopsided is in the eye of the beholder. Really, most people who are converts have been searching for something and so the missionaries are just letting them know what they were searching for. If they find out later more details about the history then they have a choice to make. Many like me choose not to forgo all the wonderful doctrine and spiritual experiences and accept that we don't understand everything. Others choose to discard what they previously found and go another way. The choice is there at some point and everyone's faith will be tested. But I am so glad that the missionaries just gave me the basics so that I could grow and learn and decide at my own pace. There is such a thing as overload and my 14 year old mind would most likely have dismissed anything further anyway as I was mainly interested in the teachings of what God was like and the restoration of Priesthood and authority and the wonderful story of God speaking to others of his children.

Deborah most, like you, do not have a victims mentality and are able to see the good and beautiful of what they have embraced.

I have for days been trying to focus why these "decieved" stories are familiar. It has finally come to me that all of them exhibit a victims mentality. "I am a victim of the vicious mormons" It is their fault. They won't change to suit my whims.

[beastie]

Deborah most, like you, do not have a victims mentality and are able to see the good and beautiful of what they have embraced.

Good and beautiful can be found in many places in this world. There was much that was good and beautiful in the protestant faith in which I was raised. But that didn't stop LDS from trying to convert me to their faith. Why? Because, despite the good and beauty that may have been in my childhood religion, LDS believed there was a "truth" that was important to share - even if sharing that truth sometimes inconvenienced people.

I have for days been trying to focus why these "decieved" stories are familiar. It has finally come to me that all of them exhibit a victims mentality. "I am a victim of the vicious mormons" It is their fault. They won't change to suit my whims.

I think if this is how you interpret all the "deceived stories", then you reading them with an extreme bias that has handicapped your ability to understand what is actually being said.

[beastie]

So why is one person's mote another person's beam?

This is an interesting question to ponder, and is, in part, one of the reasons I continue to participate on boards such as this one. I still do not completely understand how some people can know that Joseph lied, not only to the general public, but to his own followers and wife, about whether or not he was practicing polygamy, told Relief Society sisters to flee from anyone, even a prophet, who made such a proposition and then allowed the church press to libel women who did flee from such a proposition, proposed to other menâ??s wives and sometimes married them, often without the husbandâ??s knowledge - and not view it as an indictment of his moral character and trustworthiness.

If I still don't understand that reasoning and reaction now, after years of trying, it's likely I never will. I guess it's just one of the mysteries of the power of belief.

[Teancum]

I take it you haven't read very many of beastie's posts. I do agree however, we all would probably be better off not even responding since it causes so much frustration.

Beastie like the rest of us made her choices, but it's a little disingenuous to put it all on the church.

No. I know beastie very well.

As for putting it on the Church? Well if one feels that they made life altering decisions without the organization asking for the huge commitment disclosing information that may be pertinent to that decision, it seems that the organization bears the brunt of the responsibility. I know that is not a popular view. But were it a financial investment that you made and you lost your money due to lack of disclosure so you really knew the risks you may feel similar.

[Tarski]

This is an interesting question to ponder, and is, in part, one of the reasons I continue to participate on boards such as this one. I still do not completely understand how some people can know that Joseph lied, not only to the general public, but to his own followers and wife, about whether or not he was practicing polygamy, told Relief Society sisters to flee from anyone, even a prophet, who made such a proposition and then allowed the church press to libel women who did flee from such a proposition, proposed to other menâ??s wives and sometimes married them, often without the husbandâ??s knowledge - and not view it as an indictment of his moral character and trustworthiness.

If I still don't understand that reasoning and reaction now, after years of trying, it's likely I never will. I guess it's just one of the mysteries of the power of belief.

Well put.

[Teancum]

Let me guess, the missionaries really are versed scholars and so they aren't fully disclosing all they know?

You really believe that?

The missionaries are not to blame. The do as told. But the Leaders are. They could develop a more comprehensive study program for investigators, they could give lessons that in a respectful way explore some of the difficult issues and disclose them. If the missionaries were told to teach this way they would. Rather than hurry the investigator into baptism with little knowledge about the Church pleading that all they need is a some sort of "feeling" to know it is true, take time to teach. Have them attend and show commitment for say six months. Give them a calling, have them pay tithing, have them go through more study before they decide if it is really true and want to alter their lives for the LDS Church.

Why is that wrong. Why teach the bare essentials then say "well you could have researches all this one your own had you not been lazy..."

[Honorentheos]

One of the challenges that we all face when dealing with the issue of "factual" history versus Sunday School history is that the facts are entirely secondary to the matter. Both critics and believers make this point, but to differing effect.

The posts above by believers indicate that the "facts" of history are not the stumbling block that critics make them out to be because they do not controvert the spiritual witness and/or tangible benefits of living the LDS faith. Which I won't disagree with either - for those for whom this is true. For many, the humanizing of the prophets and other leaders of the church actually help them find the gospel to be more real, more livable because these men were just as flawed as the rest of us but were still able to carry out the work of the Lord.

For the critic or those who are not feeling the tangible benefits of living the LDS faith, the "factual" history provides evidence that supports that questioning of the validity of the church as the vehicle to Christ that it is claimed to be. This evidence is challenging to ones testimony precisely because one's testimony has been opened up to being challenged.

Within sociology it is recognized that a person's worldview is incredibly important to their well-being. And because of this, most people hold to the core of it very strongly. The interpretation of the evidence for that world view can become very flexible, but only to preserve the world view itself.

We confabulate explanations to defend our view when shown contradictory evidence- all of us, all the time. It is human nature to defend our psyche. And we embrace any evidence that supports our views with minimal critical evaluation.

For me, the opening up of my worldview to internal critique involved a number of things but the largest was being activated as a reservist to go to Iraq. And in the course of it all, it wasn't so much that the evidence changed, or that I discovered new evidence that absolutely disproved the church. It was that I found myself in a position where my beliefs about the world became so apparently incorrect that I was forced to reevaluate my world view without any prejudice. During the reevaluation I looked at the evidence with new eyes, as they say. And ended up where I am now. Since on the whole I am happy with it, it left me with an appreciation for the challenging experiences that forced me to reevaluate things. That is not to say that my current world view is not just being reinforced with new evidence that I have since read or study. And I am sure I have rejected out of hand counter-evidence that I should have been more critical of as well. It is, after all, part of the human experience to struggle with this.

The Buddha spoke of the mind as being an elephant (our subconscious or emotional selves that operate at a level below the intellect) that is being "controlled" by a human rider (our conscious intellectual selves).

Modern science speaks of the rider as the interpreter modular. Rather than analyzing and processing information in order to form an opinion, the intellect usually is employed to develop reasonable explanations for the gut reactions of the elephant.

Psychologists believe that the ability to say, "I don't know" is a higher brain function (based on various studies and clinical examinations of brain injury patients) and is one of the signs of a healthy mind and intellect. My experience in life indicates that most of us have some areas in life where we can do this readily and others where we would do anything to not have to do so. And the more intangible and subjective the subject, it seems the more likely we are to confabulate and believe a response that would be untenable in another area of our life. Personally, I think this is why one should never discusses politics and religion in polite company. Generally, the only honest answer to most of the discussion should be qualified with an "But I don't know".

One has to be open to the idea one may be wrong before new evidence can be looked at in as close to an objective way as is humanly possible.

But the honest person should be aware of this. I am not certain about my view of the world, but I act with faith that what I believe to be true is in fact so. Hopefully by allowing that I am not certain, it allows me to be more readily able to assess new information with as little initial bias as possible, but I recognize that complete unbias is impossible. That is, unless I am so psychologically damaged that I can not function. the people with the most accurate world views tend to be the clinically depressed.

So I think a little self-delusion is part of life. And faith is necessary for us to do anything (perhaps the greatest general point of philosophy given by Joseph Smith concerns faith and action).

But intelligence requires that a person be able to acknowledge they may be wrong. Until then, a person is emotionally immature and stunted. In my opinion, this is the very definition of being damned. And we inflict it on ourselves.

So, my point is that I disagree with those who say the timing of when a person is exposed to the more difficult aspects of LDS history doesn't matter. The observer is the critical part of the equation that changes, and being in a position that challenges one's worldview will open a person up to asking difficult questions they wouldn't ask otherwise or reading material they would have previously avoided.

[Daniel Peterson]

There is, simply, no practical way for the Church ever to avoid being charged with having deliberately failed to disclose all of the information that each investigator might find pertinent to making a major life-altering decision, because there are virtually infinite numbers of potential "defeaters" out there that one person or another might find lethal to faith.

For this person, it's Joseph Smith and plural marriage.

For that one, it's archaeology and the Book of Mormon.

For the other one, it's multiple accounts of the First Vision.

For someone else, it's changes in the text of the Book of Mormon.

For yet another person, its the Book of Abraham papyri.

For Tom, it's the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

For Bob, it's Proposition 8.

For Bobbi Jo, it's the status of women in the Church.

For Billie Sue, it's the temple.

For Tim, it's the Church's stand against abortion.

For Sally, it's the Church's too permissive attitude toward abortion.

For James, it's the former priesthood-restriction on blacks.

For Jamie, it's the Church's perceived meddling in politics.

I've heard all of these reasons given for rejecting Mormonism, and many dozens more besides.

I can't imagine any missionary program being seriously expected to introduce all of these issues to bewildered investigators.

[ERayR]

Good and beautiful can be found in many places in this world. There was much that was good and beautiful in the protestant faith in which I was raised. But that didn't stop LDS from trying to convert me to their faith. Why? Because, despite the good and beauty that may have been in my childhood religion, LDS believed there was a "truth" that was important to share - even if sharing that truth sometimes inconvenienced people.

I think if this is how you interpret all the "deceived stories", then you reading them with an extreme bias that has handicapped your ability to understand what is actually being said.

Reread Beastie. Nowhere did I say that there was not good and beautiful in the protestant faiths, in the Catholic faith or just in the world itself.

I wasn't in on it but I think I can safely say that it was not a nefarious plan to go after Beastie regarless of her wishes. My guess is that you showed and interest and indeed was interested so someone shared what was important to them. You saw enough at that timeto embrace it for awhile. Eventually you found things that bothered you and so someone has to accept the blame for you not being satisfied.

[Tarski]

There is, simply, no practical way for the Church ever to avoid being charged with having deliberately failed to disclose all of the information that each investigator might find pertinent to making a major life-altering decision, because there are virtually infinite numbers of potential "

I don't think so Dan. With a good faith effort you can cover what would potentially concern 99.99% of investigators.

Give me a couple hours with an investigator and I would at least make them aware of the main points so that can pick what they want to go research.

We know from experience what the usual and most often brought up complaints are.

Since you can't cover every imaginable scenario, are you going to fail to cover the ones you know darn well are the main ones?

*sigh*

[russianwolfe]

I didn't feel deceived as I am still a member .. I just wanted to say "Hey! I'm the same age as you!!!"

Cool.

Jane

And I got you both beat. I joined when I was 19 in 1970.

"Youth is wasted on the wrong people."

Marvin

[Daniel Peterson]

The missionaries are not to blame. The do as told. But the Leaders are.

Then you must, in order to be consistent, condemn Christ for the sudden conversions that, the New Testament says, he clearly both expected and accepted.

They could develop a more comprehensive study program for investigators, they could give lessons that in a respectful way explore some of the difficult issues and disclose them.

The operative word here is some.

There would always be plenty of room for the disaffected to note that their favorite issues had not been disclosed.

Or that they had not been treated exhaustively enough. (Wasn't it on this very thread that Ray Agostini, responding to my citation of the Arrington biography of Brigham Young as one that plainly didn't shy away from discussing plural marriage, replied that it had not gone into the detail that other books have?)

Should there be long reading lists -- say, several Juanita Brooks volumes, Will Bagley's execrable tome, and the recent Massacre at Mountain Meadows, for example -- on each of a score or two of "the difficult issues"? Would FARMS publications count, at least as expressing one side of the dispute? Or would they be dismissed, in the manner of one poster the other day, as too biased to be worth reading?

If the missionaries were told to teach this way they would. Rather than hurry the investigator into baptism with little knowledge about the Church pleading that all they need is a some sort of "feeling" to know it is true, take time to teach. Have them attend and show commitment for say six months. Give them a calling, have them pay tithing, have them go through more study before they decide if it is really true and want to alter their lives for the LDS Church.

The way Jesus emphatically didn't do?

Look, I'm not opposed to people knowing more than they do. I'm deeply sorry that many members know so little, and that some are blindsided by historical information that they're unprepared to handle. I would like to innoculate them against such problems, and I've tried over the years to do that. But I think suggestions that missionaries effectively conduct seminars on historical difficulties, and so forth, are both unrealistic and unbiblical.

[russianwolfe]

Let's focus, for the moment, on just this one evidence of Sylvia's - her belief JS was the father of her child.

There's no faith required to analyze this statement. Clearly, Sylvia saying that JS was Josephine's father meant that she had Joseph had the type of relationships that could lead to conception of a child. Either she lied about this or told the truth. There is no faith involved in that analysis. She was on her deathbed, and had very little reason to lie to her daughter. In addition, other wives - or family members of those wives - made statements (sought by the LDS church in order to prove to the RLDS that JS did practice polygamy, ironically) that also demonstrate that those particular women had that type of relationship with Joseph. Either they lied or they told the truth.

There is another possibility. That the daughter was sealed to her and Joseph. That doesn't require marital relations. But it also doesn't change the story in any way. Just adds a fact not in evidence any more than your view. In either case, there are facts that are not facts but just speculation and reasoned speculation. Possibilities that bring us no closer to the truth.

As for what the 'witnesses' meant: The church was attempting to prove that Joseph married other women, not that they had sex with him. The purpose of the questions must be part of the context. Or else you will come to the wrong conclusions as you have in this case.

Marvin

[russianwolfe]

Do you actually have the audacity to think that all others who have learned these things should react the same way you do and leave the church? Do you not acknowledge the actuality that there are many of us who also have learned these, but don't react the same you do. The testimony and witness from the spirit, manifest in a variety of ways to many on this board, is far greater even the sum total of all we don't understand or comprehend in it's fulness.

I know that JS, with all his faults was a man, and that he was a prophet of God, with all his perfection. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and never have been, in the history of mankind.

You post brings to mind what I thought when I read the Church News about the salamander letter. I have heard of a lot of different reactions, but when I read the letter, my first thought was "Joseph seems a lot more human to me." This is a completely different reaction to others I have read about who left the church over this letters. I wonder where they are now.

Marvin

[Teancum]

Lets look at it a moment.

WE know the doctrines speak of Eternal Life, something greater than we can imagine. We know the doctrine speaks of the Atonement, something beyond our ken to understand, bur reflecting an infinite love. This we know. And we throw it all away because our selfish pride reduces us to thinking about ourselves in the temporal sense rather than the reward that awaits us in the Eternal sense.

At that point we reject God for a false sense of temporal justification.

Now consider that there is no way we can ever "deserve" the Atonement and the corresponding doctrine.

No, one doesn't deserve it if one is so selfish and short sighted as to throw away the greatest gift ever given us.

Judas Iscariot gave it up for self pride and some few pieces of silver.

It is not aggressive to state the obvious.

But the LDS Church asks to commit to much more than what you outline above. One must accept the founding prophet and his revelations. And I think it is only fair that the person have full disclosure before deciding to do so, whether investigator or born LDS. Sure people can get that, especially today, from a variety of sources. But lacking from that list is anything that is officially published and endorsed by the LDS Church.

[Daniel Peterson]

This is an interesting question to ponder, and is, in part, one of the reasons I continue to participate on boards such as this one. I still do not completely understand how some people can know that Joseph lied, not only to the general public, but to his own followers and wife, about whether or not he was practicing polygamy, told Relief Society sisters to flee from anyone, even a prophet, who made such a proposition and then allowed the church press to libel women who did flee from such a proposition, proposed to other menâ??s wives and sometimes married them, often without the husbandâ??s knowledge - and not view it as an indictment of his moral character and trustworthiness.

If I still don't understand that reasoning and reaction now, after years of trying, it's likely I never will. I guess it's just one of the mysteries of the power of belief.

There's another way of looking at it -- not so gratifying, perhaps, in that it doesn't clearly distinguish the believers from the Enlightened -- that I think is considerably more useful:

I hear reports of bad behavior on the part of X.

Suppose this is the first thing I've heard about X. My view of X's character will be significantly impacted, indeed essentially formed, by these reports of bad behavior.

Suppose, by contrast, that I know a great deal about X, the overwhelming majority of it very, very positive. Maybe, in fact, X has been a friend of mine for many years. My view of X's character will be far less impacted by these reports, because, rather than constituting 100% of what I know about X, they constitute, say, 5%, or 0.005%. Perhaps, in fact, I'll be so confident of my previously-formed high opinion of X's character that I'll reserve judgment on these new reports, or insist that they must be distorted, or say that, if I knew all the circumstances, they would be understandable in a good light.

(Suppose you come into a room where a woman is unconscious on a table and a man is just poised to plunge a knife into her abdomen. It's likely going to make a difference if you understand that he's a surgeon.)

My very high opinion of Joseph Smith rests on a large number of things. My confidence in his mission as a prophet is one of them, but it's not the only factor. Here's another: I've spent considerable time with his personal writings -- the Joseph Smith Papers project is going to be wonderful on this score -- and, if I'm any kind of judge of people at all, this was plainly a humble and sincere man. And here's yet another: The judgment of those who knew him best strongly supports the judgment that he was a kind, honest, sincere person, trying to do the right thing. It clashes directly with those who want to portray him as an immoral, exploitative villain and a conscious, deliberate fraud.

[Honorentheos]

There is, simply, no practical way for the Church ever to avoid being charged with having deliberately failed to disclose all of the information that each investigator might find pertinent to making a major life-altering decision, because there are virtually infinite numbers of potential "defeaters" out there that one person or another might find lethal to faith.

For this person, it's ...

clip

I've heard all of these reasons given for rejecting Mormonism, and many dozens more besides.

I can't imagine any missionary program being seriously expected to introduce all of these issues to bewildered investigators.

I agree with this. And I really do not fault the missionary program for what it is about. In many cases people are tangibly benefited by the gospel teaching within the LDS church.

My experience saw much of what beastie described, though - a strong emphasis on baptisms over people, we had numbers we had to report and what some called a first discussion blew my mind, and I was just as guilty of just trying to get a BoM into someone's hands with the belief that there was some prophetic promise in our mission that every book given out would eventually lead to a baptism someday. So I am sure a few BoM's I gave out ended up in the recycle bin or at the used book store because the interest really wasn't there.

We taught and baptized am elderly lady who had been investigating the church for three years. When she finally committed to baptism it was because of friends in the church more than anything. I sat in on the interview with the AP (zone leader companionship at the time) and she openly admitted she wasn't sure that the BoM was true. She was very believing in God and faithful, so she was very honest about her feelings. We talked about it with her and between us on the way back and both the AP and I felt that it was better for her to be baptized and gain a testimony of the BoM than to postpone the baptism.

I don't know if we were wrong or right in doing this. She was active as an investigator and came to church every Sunday for the entire 10 months I was in the branch, she went to the temple a year after the baptism, and from what I heard a number of years later she died active.

But I also talked with her my last week in the mission field (about one month after her endowments were taken out) at a stake conference and she still told me she wasn't sure about the BoM or JS.

But beyond missionary lessons I think we know that we are talking about multiple different things here. It is self-deceptive to think there is also no conscious decision making at the level of the correlation committee that purposefully omits difficult subjects from general lesson manuals. And every institution does it. Sometimes I think we (critics) would like to think that the church should be held to a different standard than other institutions are held to.

But that would mean it was something extraordinary.

So - overall good values, generally beneficial to many people, but not unique or right (or wrong for that matter) on every subject.

So the church whitewashes it lessons. Just like 7th grade history classes are whitewashed. Not just omitting details, but omitting things that are too complex for the audience, or distractive from the more core message of the lesson.

And by making these decisions, it holds institutional responsibility for the base-line education of its members. If some become star students and expand beyond this, great. But the core curriculum is in the control of the church.

And for adult standard block classes to not have standard discussions when they fit within the four year cycle on multiple first vision accounts, JS polygamy, or the nature of the revelations that led to the BoA and Book of Moses tells us something about how the church views its responsibility.

Again, I don't know why we argue over this - the church whitewashes its lessons. It's not a big deal - for an earthly institution.

[Daniel Peterson]

I reject the term whitewash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewash_(censorship)

But the LDS Church asks to commit to much more than what you outline above. One must accept the founding prophet and his revelations. And I think it is only fair that the person have full disclosure before deciding to do so, whether investigator or born LDS. Sure people can get that, especially today, from a variety of sources. But lacking from that list is anything that is officially published and endorsed by the LDS Church.

I really don't see, in a world where most people reject the message of the Church and most cultural and intellectual factors are arrayed against it, where the Church has any obligation to make a case against itself.

Do I think Joseph Smith's plural marriages relevant to the question of whether the Book of Mormon is true or not?

No. I actually don't. Not in any direct way. And scarcely in any indirect way.

[Honorentheos]

I reject the term whitewash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewash_(censorship)

As in, "I tore this page out of my dictionary"? or that it doesn't apply to the church's curriculum?

I believe that the "glossing over" of facts adequately describes the omission of BY's plural marriages in the lesson manual we discussed last night. Does it state specifically that he was a monogamist? No. I believe that the original posting complained that it suggest he was a monogimist, not that it taught he was. I could agree with that in reading through it last night.

If one had no other reason to believe otherwise the manual would not correct one's misunderstanding on the marriage and family relationships of the prophet BY. Someone made that choice.

Anyway, if "whitewash" is too charged, then they selectively edit the lesson manuals.

[Daniel Peterson]

But the LDS Church asks to commit to much more than what you outline above.

Most of our converts won't be murdered for their faith. Unlike those apostles who accepted Jesus' command to "come, follow me."