Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do have leaders and they are united in following them. But they also have personal knowledge and testimonies that come directly from God. Members have a personal relationship with God the Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ, through the witness of the Holy Ghost. So what people unfamiliar with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints call \”blind obedience\” is nothing more than members of the church acting on their personal knowledge that comes to them through the Holy Ghost and through inspired leaders — two independent channels of divine guidance (from the same divine source) to bless us in this troubled world.

It’s clear that TX CPS has a great deal more to sort through concerning the YfZ Ranch and it’s inhabitants. It’s also clear that the US and the membership of the LDS have a great deal more to learn and understand about the history of the LDS/FLDS.

I can understand the pain this causes the LDS community, but in trying to differentiate themselves from the FLDS they must own the fact that Joseph Smith introduced the concept of polygamy to the US. In addition, both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young married women as young as 14 years old and used their religious doctrine to intimidate the young women and/or their fathers to get their consent. They both did it in IN where and when it was specifically illegal. And Joseph Smith ordered the destruction of private property and a newspaper that was making that information public.

Brigham Young ordered his followers, at great personal sacrifice and risk of life, to evacuate to remote territories where they could continue to practice polygamy, a socialist economy and declare war on the United States in support of his autocracy and polygamy.

Ever since, the elite of the LDS have used that authority to declare leaders from their own circle of people with polygamous ancestries. In fact, the LDS has not removed the specific doctrines recorded in their scripture “Doctrines and Covenants” (section 132) that authorize polygamous marriages and continues to seal them for eternity in this modern era.

It’s important that we take neither the similarities or distinctions at face value but examine history to draw conclusions.

I agree with above. I wish people would just relax and learn to love one another. Let God do the judging, and just pray to learn what is right. Child abuse is obviously not right and it is a sad thing.

The LAST thing those children need is to be placed into ANOTHER ‘cult’, which is what the LDS church is, just in a more politically correct way. They practice the same type of mind control as the FLDS.

Sadly, wherever they are placed is going to be traumatic, but hopefully they will be somewhere where the focus is healing, not eternal salvation. The Moms should not be allowed to continue the psychological abuse by continuing to protect the children’s abusers. If Moms stood by while this was happening they are accountable as well, and need mental health evaluations and treatment to reverse the ideology that has them thinking that what is happening to these children is what God wants and therefore okay and the highest form of ‘love’.

The ‘founding’ of the Mormon religion as a true religion is ridiculous. Mormons believe that their religion is the only way to true salvation. Tell that to the billions of people that existed on Earth before Mormonism was ‘discovered’.

Early Mormons were racists and polygamists as this was set out by the doctrine of their prophets. Their prophets are disciples and mouthpieces of God. Later on prophets changed the doctrine to be more palatable. So who was wrong, Joseph Smith or God? I choose the former.

Ultimately any religion when dictated by humans takes on an ugly and vile form. That includes Mormons, Catholics and Muslims.

We are witness to those very examples each and every day.

Media also showed that FLDS uses the Book of Mormon just like the LDS along with early sections of Doctrine & Covenants that written by Joseph Smith on CNN. All is well with FLDS and LDS on its origin, history and doctrine. LDS is in denial just like AA adict.

Alli

First of all, you know nothing about me, so save the psychobabble.

Secondly, THE CHURCH is responsible for the doctrine, the teachings, the lies and the spiritual abuse, and IT is as responsible for the pain and suffering of people affected by it’s teachings as the Catholic church is for looking the other way and protecting abusers under it’s authority.

Thirdly, talk about twisting a comment. Give me a break. The church sends missionaries to third world countries to proselytize to people who have no means of comprehending what they are getting into. They abuse their position as ‘the messengers of God’s word ‘ and they do it in any place they have an advantage. Look up a few speeches by Mormon leaders and Mission Presidents, they freely admit it is exactly what they are doing. The missionaries are constantly pressured to build up the numbers and anyone even slightly acquainted with the LDS church knows it. It is ALL ABOUT THE NUMBERS!

From Gordon B. Hinckley
“Last year there were approximately 300,000 convert baptisms throughout the Church. This is tremendously significant. This is the equivalent of 120 new stakes of 2,500 members each. Think of that: 120 new stakes in a single year! It is wonderful. But it is not enough. I am not being unrealistic when I say that with concerted effort, with recognition of the duty which falls upon each of us as members of the Church, and with sincere prayer to the Lord for help, we could double that number.”

- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, “Find the Lambs, Feed the Sheep,” Ensign, May 1999, p. 104

Lastly, I won’t be so presumptuous as to assume that you are a church member with no defense against the facts resorting to spouting psychobabble to vent your frustrations, but if the shoe fits…

If you aren’t, then maybe you should take off your judgmental glasses and act like the professional you are trying to come across as and educate yourself to the facts before ‘taking sides’ and tossing around labels, which I might add is an odd way for a professional to behave.

Pablo,

A big HUG to you. I am so sorry that the church has another victim in you.

Just remember, even if Joseph Smith’s version of God does not exist, it does not mean no God does.

You wrote:

“What does this have to do with Polygamy, Warren Jeffs and the LDS Church PR dilemma?
Everything! Polygamy is what tore the LDS Church apart at the seems on two occasions. Is it relevant to the modern LDS church because it is still part of our beliefs. It is relevant to the FLDS. Resolving the question about our ties to the FLDS is about the penultimate LDS question–which Church is true? It has been more than 150 years since Joseph Smith lived and died. Here we have a boiling dispute over these fundamental questions?

Would God condemn a man because he can’t believe that a Prophet of God would take another man’s wife as his own. Would He damn another man/woman who left the Church because he/she didn’t cease the practice of polygamy after being taught for many years to defy the US government and practice polygamy illegally because it was Gods will only to be told that it is Gods will that he submit to the authority of the US Government?

Is it unfair persecution of the Church to discuss these things in an open forum? NO!!!!”

- Posted by Pablo

You are exactly right, and brave to say so. I know what you are going through, I have seen and heard it dozens of times as members finally see that they ARE being lied to by the church.

You have done your homework and sadly, as I said before, sometimes the truth is a very painful thing, but better to have integrity and live in truth, and raise your children in truth, than to back away from it in fear of excommunication or discipline from the very people propagating the lies. But then again. what choice does a good Mormon have when the leaders expect this:

“No true Latter-day Saint will ever take a stand that is in opposition to what the Lord has revealed to those who direct the affairs of his earthly kingdom. No Latter-day Saint who is true and faithful in all things will ever pursue a course, or espouse a cause, or publish an article or book that weakens or destroys faith.”

- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Conference Report, October 1984, p. 104

Statements from Scholars

“Many things have been intentionally ignored and sometimes concealed or have been taken to have religious meanings or implications which, in my opinion, have no religious connections whatsoever. I believe that the Church has intentionally distorted its own history by dealing fast and loose with historical data and imposing theological and religious interpretations on the data that are entirely unwarranted.”

- Sterling McMurrin, Mormon scholar, “7EP Interview: Sterling M. McMurrin,” by Blake Ostler, Seventh East Press, January 11, 1983, p. 1

“Mormon historians are told to write church history as elementarily as possible and as defensively as possible. This is accommodation history for the weakest of the weak Latter-day Saints, for the vilest of the vile anti-Mormons, and for the most impressionable of the world’s sycophants….

“Historians did not create problem areas of the Mormon past, but most of us cannot agree to conceal them, either. We are trying to respond to those problem areas of Mormon experience. Attacking the messenger does not alter the reality of the message.”

- D. Michael Quinn, see Mormon Mavericks: Essays on Dissenters, p. 339

“Three apostles gave orders for my stake president to confiscate my temple recommend. Six years earlier, I had formally notified the First Presidency and the Managing Director of the Church Historical Department about my research on post-Manifesto polygamy and my intention to publish it. Now I was told that three apostles believed I was guilty of ‘speaking evil of the Lord’s anointed.’ The stake president was also instructed ‘to take further action’ against me if this did not ‘remedy the situation’ of my writing controversial Mormon history.
“James M. Paramore, the area president who relayed these orders, instructed my stake presidency to tell me that this was a local decision and reflected their own judgment of the state of my church membership. My stake president replied that he was not going to tell me something which was untrue. Instead, the stake president informed me how this order came about and how they had resisted the area president for more than two hours. Unlike the area president, my stake president and one of his counselors had already read the Dialogue article. My stake presidency saw nothing in it to justify what they were being required by church headquarters to do to me.
“I told my stake president that I would not tell colleagues or friends about this because I did not want to be the center of more publicity. However, I told the stake president that this was an obvious effort to intimidate me from doing history that might ‘offend the Brethren’ (to use Ezra Taft Benson’s phrase). I didn’t feel I should be punished for describing Mormon events which the current general authorities wished I had never occurred. I said it was wrong-headed for them to confiscate my temple recommend, and that ‘I won’t be intimidated by anybody.’”

- D. Michael Quinn, “On Being a Mormon Historian,” pp. 91-92

“Revelations have been revised whenever necessary. That is the nice thing about revelation – it is strictly open-ended.”

- Hugh Nibley, LDS scholar, letter to Morris L. Reynolds, May 12, 1966, quoted in Tanner, Case Against Mormonism, 1967, v. 1, p. 132

THE LDS PROPHETS/LEADERS:

“[Joseph said] ‘God does not care if we have a good time, if only other people do not know it’…. If any woman, like me, opposed his wishes, he used to say: ‘Be silent, or I shall ruin your character.’”

- Sarah Pratt, in Wyl, Mormon Portraits, p. 62

“My boy, you always keep your eye on the President of the Church, and if he tells you to do something wrong, and you do it, the Lord will bless you for it.”

- Prophet Heber J. Grant, as quoted by Apostle Marion G. Romney in “The Covenant of the Priesthood,” Ensign, July 1972, p. 98

“He [Joseph Smith, Jr.] was sealed there [in Kirtland] secretly to Fanny Alger. Emma was furious, and drove the girl, who was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet, out of her house.”

- Chauncey Webb, Ann Eliza’s father, see In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, by Todd Compton, pp. 34-35

“Again I told her [Emma] I heard that one night she missed Joseph and Fanny Alger. She went to the barn and saw him and Fanny in the barn together alone. She looked through a crack and saw the transaction!! She told me this story too was verily true.”

- William McLellin, 1872 letter to Joseph Smith III, see In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, by Todd Compton, p. 35

“If I had forty wives in the United States, they did not know it, and could not substantiate it, neither did I ask any lawyer, judge, or magistrate for them. I live above the law, and so do this people.”

- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 1, p. 361

“April 17.- This day the Twelve blessed and drank a bottle of wine at Penworthan, made by Mother Moon forty years before.”

- Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church, v. 4, p. 120, Friday, April 17, 1840

“Joseph Smith tried the faith of the Saints many times by his peculiarities. At one time, he had preached a powerful sermon on the Word of Wisdom, and immediately thereafter, he rode through the streets of Nauvoo smoking a cigar. Some of the brethren were as tried as Abraham of old.”

- Joseph Smith as an Administer, BYU Masters Thesis, May 1969, p. 161

( members wonder why there is an image problem?)

“Q. What does the Lord require of the people of the United States?
A. He requires them to repent of all their sins and embrace the message of salvation, contained in the Book of Mormon, and be baptized into THIS church, and prepare themselves for the coming of the Lord.
Q. What will be the consequence if they do not embrace the Book of Mormon as a divine revelation?
A.They will be DESTROYED from the land and SENT DOWN TO HELL, like all other generations who have rejected a divine message!”

- Apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, Washington, D.C., 1854, p. 215

“SAINTS ARE THE BEST PEOPLE…. and in many ways superior to any other people.”

- Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1954, v. 1, p. 236

“Our message is so imperative, when you stop to think about the salvation, the eternal salvation of the world, rests upon the shoulders of this Church. When all is said and done, if the world is going to be saved, we have to do it. There is no escaping from that. No other people in the history of the world have received the kind of mandate that we have received. We are responsible for all who have lived upon the earth, and that involves our missionary work. And we are going to be responsible for all who will yet live upon the earth.”

- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, Church News, July 3, 1999, p. 3

Is this arrogance and superiority a figment of the ‘anti-Mormon’ imagination? No, no more than the 30 plus wives of Joseph Smith were.

You can shoot the messenger, but the message remains. The number of members leaving the church and the compulsion of T. Monson to beg (guilt?) them to come back is no coincidence. The word is out and moving faster than a swarm of Mormon crickets and is just as unstoppable.

Both members of the FLDS and the LDS have been deceived by the same ‘prophet’ and let down by the same church and the legacy belongs to the leaders of the church as it is now. To ‘disown’ those women and children (and men who were faithful but not abusive) is unconscionable. But alas, all the LDS church cares about is it’s image and making sure the world knows they are not ‘THOSE’ Mormons.

The only ‘good’ that can come from all of this is that maybe those who need help to get out of the trap will get it, and maybe all of the publicity will teach members of the LDS church that it is time they owned their history. Also, if one post like Pablo’s (or mine) prompts one person to look into the church before being led blindly into it, or one already in the church and sick of the lies to get out of it, then it will have been worth the time it took to try to reason with anyone here.

Pablo, my very best wishes to you, you have a long road ahead but there are many others you can talk to out there, reach out to them, they are there to help. I hope you will find peace and comfort and safe place for your faith.

I am through here. This is about the connection between the FLDS and the LDS and their mutual history and the effects of that history is undeniable. There are volumes more to say, but this isn’t the place to say it, I have said what I wanted to say.

Ciao

To keep it short, I must say, Laurel, your comment that the Church “destroyed” your family is enough for me to understand that you are one of those people who can take no responsibility for your own actions. I see many people in my line of work (psychology) who spout excuse after excuse, naming big corporations and countless innocent people for their own demise, pain and dischord in their lives. I’m sure that the LDS Church, the one situated in Salt Lake City took the time to destroy your family…just like it’s Governor Schwarzenegger is personally killing my lawn because he imposed limits on water usage, right? Riiiiiiight. Also, about your first comment (or may I call it a bitter rant?) I especially enjoyed the part where you say the Church baptizes people in third world countries who don’t know what they’re doing. Oh that’s right, because everyone outside of the U.S. has a low IQ? To be completely honest, you’re exhibiting signs of a sociopath, in it’s clinical definition. Take a breather.

My favorite parts of Laurel’s hysterical (in more ways than one!) comments were the ones talking about swanky limos, million-dollar condos, and fancy suits. Hilarious. These people (church leaders) DON’T GET PAID!!! The few men who serve for life such as the apostles and the First Presidency receive a small living allowance and the president has a modest 3 bedroom condo adjacent to Temple Square (mostly for safety reasons). I am in a unique position to laugh out loud at the idea that the leaders of the Mormon church are rich schemers with bank accounts in the Caymans. They work hard until they die! At what point, may I ask, was Gordon B. Hinckley going to retire and live the high life on his misbegotten nest egg? He was still working 10 hours a day, 7 days a week at 97 YEARS OLD! Guess it’s a little late to pull out the suntan lotion, huh. I am still laughing over this hilarious assertion. This ridiculous claim also takes any credibility Laurel may have had with me and sends it down the drain.

Can we get to the bigger issue? The issue is that these poor children were forcibly removed from their mothers without any proof that they were in harms way. THis could easily happen in the instance of a ward or branch. Say someone abuses a child in a certain ward, do all the members of that ward lose custody of their children? WHo will stand up for these rights of these poor innocent mothers and children? Would this happen in a Muslim area? How about Catholic? Have their children been molested? What about homosexuals? If one of their children are molested, should all homosexual parents lose their children? DO you think that would happen? NO! It only happens to the FLDS children.
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak.
(Pastor Martin Niemoller)