Truth Hurts

I was going to write about the appalling remarks by Wendy Watson Nelson, wife of the last post’s subject, Russell Nelson, but really, what can you way about someone who thinks it’s a good thing for gay church members to become desperate enough to pray for God to change their sexual orientation? There’s so much wrong with that, I don’t know where to start. Suffice it to say that it’s been unnerving and a little depressing to see the LDS church take so many steps backwards in the last few months. For an excellent discussion of where things stand (at least for me), see Greg Prince’s blog: The Exclusion Policy and Biology vs. Behavior.

I once knew a woman who would say the nastiest, most personally demeaning things to other people, and when the target of her attacks took offense, she would shrug and say, “I’m sorry the truth offends you. I’m not being mean. I’m just telling it like it is.” Invariably, these personal attacks were part of an effort to play people off each other. In her mind, those who really cared about her and respected her would accept “the truth,” and she could in some weird, twisted way feel she had helped them and bonded with them. The reality was that she caused a lot of hurt and pain, and most of her family and neighbors resented her deeply. A few particularly insecure family members took every criticism to heart and tried in vain to gain her approval. Of course, she never gave it, and the cycle of hurt continued until she died. Come to think of it, I don’t think it ended with her death; family members are still hurting from her nastiness over the years.

Some religious groups follow this same pattern. I knew a man who had been a Jehovah’s Witness, and he told me that, when they went door to door proselytizing, they would sometimes try to get people angry with them, as they felt they would be blessed for being hated and persecuted, as the scriptures say. It seems to be part of the motivation of the Westborough Baptist Church’s “God hates fags” program. Often used as a justification for intentional division is Jesus’ statement in Matthew 10:

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

This theme is expanded in the Book of Mormon in 1 Nephi 16:

And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for itcutteth them to the very center.

As I said, the problem is when the division is intentional and unnecessary, and it usually happens because someone is trying to assert dominance and exclude those who won’t accept their dominance. When called on it, people always say they’re just telling the truth, and it’s not their problem if you find truth offensive.

It’s this weird “I’m only saying this for your own good” attitude that explains, at least for me, the church’s retrograde statements and policy changes in the last few months. Like the woman I knew, there’s an unsubtle message behind the “truth-speaking” going on: you are with us, or you are against us, and you must choose which side you’re on.

I’m sure a lot of people will take issue with what I just said, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me at this point. Witness where the church has gone in the last few months:

Almost exactly one year ago, the LDS church was using the relationship between Tom Christofferson (Apostle Todd Christofferson’s gay brother) and his LDS ward as an example of how gays and the LDS church could find harmony. According to KUTV, Elder Christofferson noted that his brother had “returned to the faith” and he and his partner were “active participants in their neighborhood ward.” In November, we learned that the church now considers Tom Christofferson and his partner to be “apostates,” which would preclude them from any kind of participation in the ward beyond attendance. This month, Apostle Russell Nelson doubled-down by affirming that the policy excluding gays and their children from church blessings was given by revelation from God.

In 2012, the official church web site, mormonsandgays.org, acknowledged that same-sex attraction is not something that people can change but that it was something to be “borne” or “endured” in the hope that it might change in the next life:

We believe that with an eternal perspective, a person’s attraction to the same sex can be addressed and borne as a mortal test. It should not be viewed as a permanent condition. An eternal perspective beyond the immediacy of this life’s challenges offers hope. Though some people, including those resisting same-sex attraction, may not have the opportunity to marry a person of the opposite sex in this life, a just God will provide them with ample opportunity to do so in the next. We can all live life in the full context of who we are, which is much broader than sexual attraction.

Just over a week ago, the church published on the LDS.org web site a talk that suggested that, if gay members would only get “desperate” enough, they could through prayer have their sexual orientation changed:

Gratefully, the Savior has paid the price for every gift of the Spirit we will ever need to help us. It’s up to us to prayerfully discover which gifts we need. We may need the gift of self-discipline or of cheerfulness. Perhaps we need the gift of patience, or the gift to be healed, or the gift to forgive. Perhaps we need the gift to have our sexual feelings be in harmony with eternal laws. Perhaps we realize that we cannot live one more minute without the gift of unshakable faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. When we’re desperate for any gift of the Spirit, that is when we will finally pray with all the energy of heart for that gift. And the great news is that each spiritual gift we receive takes us one more step forward into our true selves. …

I pray that this year you will have some moments of anguishing desperation that will propel you further along the path to becoming the man or woman you were born to be. Your true self is spectacular! Never settle for less.

The problem, of course, is that desperation only drives change where change is possible. Say I decided that I am not the man I was born to be because the physical condition I was born with makes it difficult for me to swallow some kinds of food without extreme care. I’ve had many medical procedures to make it easier for me to swallow, but my doctors tell me I’ve progressed as far as I’m going to go. I suppose I could become desperate to change this aspect of my body, enough so that I would pray that God would “heal” me and make me the person I was born to be. After all, I shouldn’t settle for less.

What would be the end result? All the prayer in the world isn’t going to change the fact that I have a narrow part of my esophagus ringed with scar tissue. If I followed Sister Nelson’s counsel, in the near-certain absence of change, my desperation would turn to despair. At some point I would be forced to accept that I can’t change that aspect of my body, or I would give in to despair, which derives from the Latin de esperare–literally “without hope.” Given my history with depression, I have a pretty good idea where things would end.

If the church itself acknowledges that sexual orientation–whatever its roots–isn’t something you can will or pray away, what is the point of Sister Nelson’s wholly inappropriate remarks? Does she–a trained and licensed therapist–really believe gay Mormons can and should follow her counsel to change their “sexual feelings”? I doubt it very much.

What this is about is drawing clear lines between the church and “the world.” If we take her at her word, the problem is not only behavior, but also desire, because, she wants us to believe, both can be changed. Obviously, someone who doesn’t change his or her sexual orientation through prayer and the gifts of the Spirit isn’t desperate enough. And those members who give into despair (and let’s not kid ourselves, there will be more than one) clearly didn’t channel their desperation into righteous avenues. It’s not her fault if lives are destroyed; she’s only telling it like it is.

In the end, however, I don’t believe any of this was meant for the benefit of gay or lesbian members or nonmembers. It was directed at straight members as another distinction that makes for a peculiar people. “You are not like them,” the members need to be told, “and you must not tolerate people like that in the ranks of our people.”

Like the woman I knew, the point is to divide, to pit friends and family against each other, forcing them to put the church first. It’s a destructive and wholly unrighteous game, but that is what is happening.

 

 

Stupid or Inspired?

Much has been written about the LDS church’s new policy that denies church ordinances and membership to the children of gay parents. I couldn’t think of much to say other than to express my total disagreement with the policy, so that’s what I did earlier this week.

An LDS friend and I were discussing the policy, and he said there were only two possible explanations for it: either church leaders were “stupid,” or they were “inspired” (his words). I told him I thought there were any number of possibilities, and he naturally asked for some examples. I had planned to write a thoughtful post about other possibilities, but then the church issued a “clarification” that preempted my response.

To recap, the church policy was as follows:

Children of a Parent Living in a Same-Gender Relationship:

A natural or adopted child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship, whether the couple is married or cohabiting, may not receive a name and a blessing.

A natural or adopted child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship, whether the couple is married or cohabiting, may be baptized and confirmed, ordained, or recommended for missionary service only as follows:

A mission president or a stake president may request approval from the Office of the First Presidency to baptize and confirm, ordain, or recommend missionary service for a child of a parent who has lived or is living in a same-gender relationship when he is satisfied by personal interviews that both of the following requirements are met:

1. The child accepts and is committed to live the teachings and doctrine of the Church, and specifically disavows the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage.
2. The child is of legal age and does not live with a parent who has lived or currently lives in a same-gender cohabitation relationship or marriage.

This is worded such that:

1. No child living with a same-gender couple will receive a name and a blessing in the church.
2. No child living with a parent who “has lived or currently lives in a same-gender cohabitation relationship or marriage” can be baptized, receive the priesthood, or serve a mission until they have turned 18, don’t live with that parent, and disavow the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage.

In short, taken at face value, the policy applies to the children of anyone who has ever lived in a same-gender cohabitation relationship or marriage, regardless of their current situation. I know a man who, while he was a BYU student, met a guy at the MTC, where they both taught a foreign language. They lived together until they graduated essentially as a couple, being both roommates and lovers. A few years later, this man married a woman and has children. As the handbook is worded, his children would be affected by this policy in the same way as the children of a parent currently living in a same-gender relationship.

One need not be a prophet, seer, or revelator to predict the outrage among church members and non-members alike. My LDS friend said that church leaders must have anticipated the outcry because to suggest otherwise would mean they were (again in his words) “stupid.” He acknowledged that the policy made no sense to him and was troubling, but he suggested that sometimes the Lord inspires His servants to make decisions that don’t make sense to the rest of us, and if we are patient, we’ll see the wisdom in it.

I agreed with my friend that these church leaders would have thought long and hard about the change in policy, and I said they probably considered that the loss of a few members and some temporary bad PR was an acceptable cost of setting a definite boundary. I dismissed rumors that church leaders were caught off-guard by the reaction, especially among members of the church. It seemed likely that they expected “fringe” members to leave the church over this issue, but then such members are not their focus, anyway. Certainly, Elder Todd Christofferson’s  brief video interview gave no indication that the church would reconsider or reverse its decision; basically, he just tried to reassure members that this was done with good intentions and that they should follow the prophet. The policy, then, didn’t seem like a crazy one-off, but a carefully deliberated policy change run through all the normal channels of the church bureaucracy and ecclesiastical hierarchy.

In that spirit, I thought of all the possible reasons for the policy. The obvious one is, as another LDS friend put it, “boundary maintenance and prophylaxis” to prevent creeping acceptance of homosexuality among church members. In a more cynical moment, I thought perhaps this might be a manufactured crisis designed to further the “great sifting” some keep speaking of between the wheat and the tares. In the end, I didn’t think it was either stupid or inspired, but rather a needlessly cruel policy that, intentionally or not, divided families and hurt children.

But today the LDS church’s First Presidency issued a “clarification” of the policy. The important parts are as follows:

The provisions of Handbook 1, Section 16.13, that restrict priesthood ordinances for minors, apply only to those children whose primary residence is with a couple living in a same-gender marriage or similar relationship. As always, local leaders may request further guidance in particular instances when they have questions.

When a child living with such a same-gender couple has already been baptized and is actively participating in the Church, provisions of Section 16.13 do not require that his or her membership activities or priesthood privileges be curtailed or that further ordinances be withheld. Decisions about any future ordinances for such children should be made by local leaders with their prime consideration being the preparation and best interests of the child.

Whatever else I can say about this, it is not a clarification but a clear retreat from the earlier policy.

Again, the policy as originally published covered children of “a parent who has lived or is living in a same-gender relationship.” Now it’s applied only to those children whose “primary residence is with a couple living in a same-gender marriage or similar relationship.” (I’ve already heard from a couple of attorney friends that this wording may cause even more problems in custody arrangements, but I’ll let others discuss that.) The second paragraph allows for some baptized members to be “grandfathered” in as members fully eligible for church ordinances and participation. This is also a clear retreat from the policy as originally published.

Obviously, this policy affects fewer children, but it still restricts the membership and ordinances of children for something they haven’t done. Likewise, it does nothing to change the clear message that same-sex couples and their children are not welcome in the church.

Had the policy been written with these “clarifications” in the first place, there probably would have been some outrage, though probably less among church members (at least that’s my guess). But it took more than a week for these clarifications/changes, and in the first attempt to “clarify,” Elder Christofferson made no clarifications whatsoever. In the meantime, faithful members I know and love have been agonizing over their membership in a church that treats gays and lesbians this way. People I know who were on the margins of the church told me it was the last straw for them, and even some people who wanted to stay in the church left over this. The church has likewise endured a lot of bad press over the new policy.

Looking at the big picture, I realize I was wrong. If, as I believed, church leaders had carefully crafted this policy as they believed they had been inspired from God, there would be no retreat, no walking back in the face of public criticism. What this tells me is that they really hadn’t considered how this would be received and were probably quite shocked at the outcry.

In the short term, it was wise to dilute the harshest parts of the policy, but there is one effect that I think may be lasting: a number of people I know had never considered that church leaders could be wrong. They had absolute trust in the wisdom and basic goodness of their leaders, and they never had any reason for fundamental disagreement with them. Until now. A lot of members have realized that their leaders got this completely wrong, and not just in a “mistakes of men” sort of way, but in actively hurting families and children. Probably most members will accept the “clarifications” as given, but I wonder if the brethren have altered the foundational relationship of trust they had with many members. I suppose we’ll find out.

I’m sure many church apologists are now saying this was all just a tempest in a teapot, a misunderstanding. Me, I think I have the answer for my friend.

Stupid.

What Can I Say?

I’ve been mulling over my response to the LDS church’s new policy of denying ordinances and sacraments to children of gay parents, wondering what I could say that hasn’t been said already. Honestly, as shocked and disgusted as I am with the policy, I am more interested in the reactions of individual people I know to it. Most former Mormons and non-Mormons who have an opinion agree with me that this is a misguided and needlessly cruel policy that does nothing but further divide families. On the other hand, I have seen quite a number of Mormons simply accept the policy at face value, some even applauding it as drawing a line between the church and the evils of same-sex marriage. But what has gratified me the most has been the reaction of faithful LDS friends who love the church and believe with all their hearts yet cannot reconcile this terrible policy. To be sure, I don’t enjoy watching them struggle, but it does my heart good to know that I’m not alone in being deeply troubled by all of this.

So, what am I supposed to say? The only thing I can think of is this: When I am asked to choose between conscience and obedience, I choose conscience. When I am asked to choose between love and policy, I choose love.

Arkansas DMV Clerk Stands Up for Religious Freedom

Salt Lick, Arkansas (URP)

Tyson County DMV clerk Jason Durgess is garnering praise from around the country for his principled defense of his religious rights. Durgess, a member of the Apostolic Regeneration Brethren Church, announced Thursday that, in keeping with his religious beliefs, he could no longer in good conscience issue driver’s licenses to female residents.

“The scriptures are clear,” Durgess said today while sitting at his closed clerk’s station. “‘Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.’ I didn’t make that up. Jesus said it, and Reverend Gary says I can’t do anything that undermines the authority of the man, who is ‘the saviour of the body.'”

When applicants complained that Durgess was approving licenses only for men, he had a change of heart. “I knew I needed to be just and fair, and it wasn’t right to single out women.” Accordingly, Durgess decided to refuse to issue licenses to anyone, male or female.

“I just feel like my right to freedom of religion needs to be respected, and I shouldn’t be forced to do things that the Bible says are wrong.”

Supervisors at the DMV tried to accommodate Durgess by assigning him to the vehicle registration department, but he quickly found his conscience wouldn’t allow him to register vehicles that might be driven by women. “This is a life-or-death matter for me. I cannot condone or approve of behavior that goes against the central teachings of the gospel.”

When supervisors told Durgess he had to resume issuing licenses or be fired, he called on the Libertas Counsel, an organization that supports religious freedom for all.

“When Jason called us, I was shocked,” said Cleophas Stemmelbow, lead counsel at Libertas. “It’s appalling that in the 21st century we are threatening people’s livelihoods if they don’t violate their most cherished religious beliefs. This isn’t Nazi Germany or Massachusetts. This is America, and this sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen here!”

Fearing a lawsuit, supervisors agreed to allow Durgess to continue his employment without any responsibilities. “Yeah, he just sits there playing games on his iPhone all day, but what are we supposed to do?”

As lines grew longer, patron tempers grew shorter. “I don’t know what this guy’s problem is,” said an exasperated Tiffany Meadows, who was trying to calm a fussy infant while waiting in line. “I’ve been here almost 2 hours, and that guy’s just sitting there on his butt, doing nothing.”

“Look,” Durgess said, looking up from Angry Birds, “if you are that desperate, go to another clerk or another county, and they’ll fix you up just fine.”

Local pastor Robert McDowell approached Durgess’s clerk station while his wife, Barbara McDowell, recorded the conversation on her phone. “Son, you have a legal responsibility to issue me a driver’s license,” said an obviously irritated McDowell. “I and every other taxpayer in this county are paying your salary. You can’t just sit there. Do you really want us to beg you? This is just humiliating!”

Durgess dismissed the complaints. “These are just whiners who are looking for attention. They claim they’re humiliated, but it’s all fake. If they were really humiliated, they wouldn’t have recorded anything and published it. Get real. They’re just some angry losers who want to sin.”

As more people filed past Durgess’s station, he smiled wistfully and said he felt proud to stand up for the values that have made this country great. “I’ve had a few phone calls from Republican presidential candidates, and there’s even talk of a Lifetime movie. Life is good when you trust in the Lord.”

More Stupid Apologist Tricks: The Nahom Maps

I know, I’ve been trying to scale back on Mormon-related posts, but this week I stumbled across something that I couldn’t pass up. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been fascinated by the ongoing discussion between Baylor History Professor Philip Jenkins and retired BYU History Professor William Hamblin on their respective blogs, Anxious Bench and Enigmatic Mirror.

In May of this year (2015), Dr. Jenkins posted a series of articles about the proper use of evidence in historical research, beginning with “I Want to Believe,” which discussed a book called The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Ancient Text that Reveals Jesus’s Marriage to Mary the Magdalene. He posted without much notice from Mormons for a few weeks, and then he made a fateful decision.

On May 17, Jenkins chose to provide a sort of object lesson in how pseudoscience is done in “Mormons and New World History.” He wrote:

I have a lot of sympathy for Mormonism and the LDS tradition, for multiple reasons. So many of their ideas and principles appeal to me, and my personal dealings with Mormons have been overwhelmingly positive. The church’s phenomenal social ministries fill me with awe. As to whether the church was founded by an authentic prophet: with all humility, I say, God knows. On the academic side of things, if you don’t know Mormon history, you are missing a huge amount of American religious history. If a member of my family announced an intention to join the LDS church, I would disagree with their decision, but I would wish them all success.

But here’s the problem. If I look at the Book of Mormon as a historical text, as opposed to a spiritual document, it is simply not factually correct in any particular. In some controversial exchanges, I have been surprised to find how many clearly educated and literate Mormons think that the work can be defended as a work of history and archaeology. It can’t. The reason mainstream historians and scholars do not point out that fact more often is either that they are unaware of the book’s claims, or that they simply see no need to waste time on something so blatantly fictitious. This really is not debatable.

This kind of sweeping assertion would not go unanswered by Mormon apologists, even though Jenkins outlined quite clearly why he believes there is no positive evidence for the Book of Mormon as an ancient American document, at least no evidence that meets the requirements of legitimate scholarship (he’s right, I shouldn’t have to add).

Professor Hamblin responded within a day with “Philip Jenkins on Book of Mormon Historicity,” asserting that Jenkins was “seriously mistaken and uninformed on a number of issues.  (My suspicion is that his LDS informants were of the liberal persuasion.)” OK, the line about liberals made me laugh.

Since then, the two esteemed professors have been engaged in a debate of sorts about Book of Mormon evidence. Although some Mormons have complained about Jenkins’s lighthearted and sometimes sarcastic tone, he has consistently made the same request of Mormon apologists: Provide some solid, compelling evidence:

I offer a question. Can anyone cite any single credible fact, object, site, or inscription from the New World that supports any one story found in the Book of Mormon? One sherd of pottery? One tool of bronze or iron? One carved stone? One piece of genetic data? And by credible, I mean drawn from a reputable scholarly study, an academic book or refereed journal, not some cranky piece of pseudo-science.

Or, to reframe the question. Does the Book of Mormon contain a statement or idea about the New World that Joseph Smith could not have known at the time, but which has subsequently been validated by archaeological or historical research?

I’ll spare you the play-by-play action. Suffice it to say that no such “credible fact, object, site, or inscription from the New World” has been presented. That said, several respondents brought up the “Nahom” inscription, with Pedro Olivarria especially taking Jenkins to task for ignoring the real evidence and creating a strawman.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Book of Mormon, the first book, 1 Nephi, tells of a man named Lehi and his family, who were commanded by God to leave Jerusalem around 600 BC. Lehi is said to have begun his journey “by the borders near the shore of the Red Sea; and he traveled in the wilderness in the borders which are nearer the Red Sea” (1 Nephi 2:5). They continued, “following the same direction, keeping in the most fertile parts of the wilderness, which were in the borders near the Red Sea” (1 Nephi 16:14) until the death of one of their party, Ishmael: “And it came to pass that Ishmael died, and was buried in the place which was called Nahom (1 Nephi 16:34). Nephi then tells us, “And it came to pass that we did again take our journey in the wilderness; and we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth” (1 Nephi 17:1). 

And we did sojourn for the space of many years, yea, even eight years in the wilderness.

And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish. And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum, which, being interpreted, is many waters. (1 Nephi 17:4-5.)

This is important because we have an actual place name. Going by the text of 1 Nephi, we should expect to find a place called Nahom (or some variation of that) near the Red Sea, on the southwest side of the Arabian Peninsula; traveling east, we should then find a spot on the shore of the Arabian Sea where there is “bountiful” fruit and honey.

And, lo and behold, there is such a place. I’ll let the folks at FAIRMormon explain the find:

In one instance, however, Nephi does preserve a local name, that of Nahom, the burial place of Ishmael, his father-in-law. Nephi writes in the passive, “the place which was called Nahom,” clearly indicating that local people had already named the place. That this area lay in southern Arabia has been certified by recent Journal publications that have featured three inscribed limestone altars discovered by a German archaeological team in the ruined temple of Bar’an in Marib, Yemen. Here a person finds the tribal name NHM noted on all three altars, which were donated by a certain “Bicathar, son of Sawâd, son of Nawcân, the Nihmite.” (In Semitic languages, one deals with consonants rather than vowels, in this case NHM.)

Such discoveries demonstrate as firmly as possible by archaeological means the existence of the tribal name NHM in that part of Arabia in the seventh and sixth centuries BC, the general dates assigned to the carving of the altars by the excavators. In the view of one recent commentator, the discovery of the altars amounts to “the first actual archaeological evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon.”

Turning east from Marib, Yemen, one eventually ends up at the fertile seashore of Oman and Yemen, close matches, we are told, for “Bountiful.”

Bullseye.

How could Joseph Smith have known all this information? Only through revelation from God. It’s not as if a name approximating Nahom was on any maps of the Arabian Peninsula that were used in Joseph Smith’s day.

Oh, right, it was. This is from an 1811 map made by one John Cary, published in London.

I had read about this in the past, with apologists talking mostly about French and German maps, but somehow I’d missed James Gee’s 2008 article, “The Nahom Maps.” Gee tells us that the place name “Nehem” appears on 10 different maps published in the years leading up to the publication of the Book of Mormon; 6 of these maps were published in English. Oddly enough, Nehem first appears in a French map in 1751 and then no longer appears after 1814. To most people, the appearance of the name suggests an obvious reliance on contemporary maps. But not to Mormon apologists. Gee concludes:

Of course, not all maps of Arabia between the years 1751 and 1814 recorded the location of Nahom. In fact, it is generally found only on the finest and most expensive maps created by the best cartographers and published by the finest printers. In my searches I found countless maps of Arabia with no reference to Nahom or anything like it. Thus, it is somewhat amazing that the first modern map of the Arabian Peninsula, created by D’Anville in 1751, did record the location of this often ignored or unrecognized district. Furthermore, that same map inspired the Danes to send an expedition to the region to fill in the missing information, and the only survivor was the cartographer, Carsten Niebuhr. Not only did he engrave a place called Nahom on his map but he also gave us more details of the area in his journal. These two maps and the ones that followed all give testimony to Lehi’s epic journey almost two thousand years earlier.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry here.

The FAIRMormon response isn’t much better. Acknowledging that the library at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, had copies of two of these maps in 1830, FAIR tells us nevertheless that the maps were too far away (320 miles) from Joseph Smith’s location to have been the source. Of course, they assume that the place name was inserted while Joseph was at work “translating” in 1829-30. I’m not sure that’s warranted. It’s well-known that Hyrum Smith attended Moor’s Charity School at Dartmouth college between the ages of 12 and 13, so one possibility is that Hyrum had seen the maps. A more intriguing possibility arises when you realize that Meadville, Pennsylvania, is only 75 miles from Mentor, Ohio, where Sidney Rigdon was leading his Campbellite congregation. I’m just throwing those out there, not making a case.

Suffice it to say that the appearance of a place name in the right place on a single contemporary map, let alone 10 maps, is enough to reach pretty solid conclusions.

The apologetic response is predictable but stunningly silly. I’ll explain with an analogy.

Imagine that I discovered a novel written in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1977, which mentions a place south of San Francisco called “Siliconville,” a growing center of technology development. I could easily (and probably correctly) assume this is a reference to “Silicon Valley,” a phrase coined in 1971 but not widely used until the early 1980s. I could show where Silicon Valley is on the map and why it was called that. There are multiple points of convergence, as it were, between the two similarly named places. The conclusion ought to be pretty straightforward. But then I learn that the author of the novel claims it is a true story that was dictated to her by a time-traveling alien. She tells me that Silicon Valley was not a widely known term in 1977, and she had no access to maps, technology magazines, or any other sources where the term might have been used. That it was used elsewhere starting in 1971 doesn’t suggest she got it from a contemporary source but “gives testimony” that she was right about the existence of Silicon Valley in 1977. No one would accept such ridiculous logic.

Apparently, some people would.

Top Ten Things Overheard When President Obama Met with LDS Leaders

10. What do you mean, was it my mother or father who was “white and delightsome”?

9. We wanted to invite some prominent LDS Democrats to meet with you, but we couldn’t find any.

8. I really appreciate the family tree. I had no idea you could trace my ancestors all the way back to Cain.

7. What were you thinking, building a mall?

6. That’s a tie pin, not an emblem of my power and priesthoods.

5. Which one are you guys, again? Xenu or Moroni?

4. Does that jello have ramen noodles in it?

3. No, I’m not interested in Melaleuca.

2. That’s not the five points of fellowship; it’s just Joe Biden greeting an intern.

1. Why do you keep calling me the “so-called president”?

Cold Read

Among the tricks of faith healers and psychics is the “cold read.” This involves the faith healer or psychic standing in front of a crowd of people and pretending that he or she is receiving psychic information about someone’s specific problem. The healer might say, for example, “I perceive that someone in this audience is suffering from debilitating pain.” In a large audience of people who have come to be healed, chances are good that at least one person is indeed suffering from severe pain. One of such people will invariably stand and say, “Yes, that’s me!” and the healer will hint that he or she knew it all along. And the audience will be amazed. “He knew she needed his help!” they think in wondering awe.

This trick was used to pretty good effect in the MTC. Almost everyone I know who has been to the MTC remembers that at least one meeting, the branch president would announce to the assembled post-pubescent boys that he felt impressed that at least one missionary in the congregation needed to confess a serious sin. A lot of missionaries did have something they hadn’t confessed, and even those of us who didn’t (honest!) wracked our brains to think of something, anything, we might have done that we needed to confess.

A few years ago at a stake priesthood meeting in Texas, the stake president rose to speak, set down his talk, and said, “I had prepared an uplifting talk, but I feel impressed not to give it. The Spirit tells me that someone in this audience is struggling with pornography and masturbation, and I need to talk directly to that person.” The high priests group leader, who was sitting next to me, leaned over and whispered with a laugh, “He’s talking to about half the people here.” Given that the church leadership has been telling us for years that a significant percentage of male church members view pornography (and that usually involves masturbation), the stake president needed no inspiration at all that night. But I could imagine that a whole lot of men and boys in that congregation knew he was talking directly to them.

These cheap parlor tricks are pathetic and would seem funny if people didn’t take them so seriously. People give their life savings to faith healers based on such cold reads. And I’m sure countless LDS men and boys have confessed to their priesthood leaders based on these cold reads.

But now we have an apostle doing the same thing. A month or so ago, a missionary serving in Argentina wrote of a visit from apostle Russell Nelson:

Anyway a few little questions like that were asked and finally he stopped the session and said this, “Ok, enough with those questions. I perceive that someone here has been fasting and praying for two days now that I would answer the question they have. Would you please stand and ask, don’t be shy, I’d love to help you answer it.” There was dead silence, and like a shockwave of the Spirit went through the room. In my mind I thought, HE JUST RECEIVED STRAIGHT REVELATION THAT SOMEONE IS FASTING FOR HIM TO ANSWER THEIR QUESTION!!! Nobody moved…he just stood up there with hands folded and waited. It was one of the most definitive moments in my life; I don’t think I will ever forget it. The Spirit was so strong, finally in the front of the chapel a sweet sister missionary stood up. Elder Nelson smiles, “Ah, there you are.” HOLY SMOKES!!!!!! I’m telling you, I don’t know how to describe how I was feeling in that room. I was with an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the joy I felt was indescribable…spell check that for me…The hermana’s question was that she loves her mission more than anything else, and has no other desire but to serve the short time that is asked of her, but she was born like 30 minutes away in the South mission, and got called to the West mission. So she asked, “The Lord knows I live 30 minutes away, so why did he send me here?”

As the missionary wrote, it would be pretty amazing if an apostle had, by direct revelation, known of such a thing. And he was quite happy to let the missionaries believe it was so. But not long after, another missionary in Chile, on the other side of South America, wrote of another meeting with Elder Nelson:

The conference with Russel M. Nelson was powerful. We got to take a picture with him and all of us got to shake his hand and share a few words. It was awesome. His talk was so powerful and I learned so much. It was pretty crazy though, he got up, starting talking and then stopped. And said that there was a missionary in this room that had been fasting and praying for an answer to his question from one of the 12, so the apostle stopped and gave time for that question to be asked. An elder stood up and said that it was him and that he wanted to know how to show his love and knowledge of the atonement more in his teaching.

So both the sister who wanted to know why she had been called to that particular mission and the elder who wanted to know how to teach the Atonement both came away convinced, as everyone else was, that the apostle had received direct revelation for them. But in reality, it was just a cold read. Peter Popoff would be proud.

Old Friends

I finally caved and got a Facebook account. It’s been fun to reconnect with some old friends and family members. And it’s been funny how many times someone has sent me a message asking, “Are you runtu?”

Last night I found an old friend with whom I worked at the BYU Writing Lab when I was an undergraduate many years ago. He did not look like a typical BYU student: he dressed like a biker, and he had long hair past his shoulders, which he would tuck inside a hat when he was on campus. But he was one of the kindest and most interesting people I have ever met. We were taking a literary theory class together, and I would always come away from Heidegger and Lacan et al. a little intimidated. And then I’d come in to work, and Brian would want to talk about it. At first I thought it wasn’t fair that I had to talk to someone who was so intelligent that he just absorbed philosophy and semiotics, but an odd thing happened. As we talked, Brian would help me see that I had understood what we had read, and he gave me the opportunity to express what I thought about it. I can’t tell you how much our conversations helped me believe in my own intellect.

A few years later I was working at the Church Office Building, and Brian had gone off to Seattle, I think, for graduate school. One of our mutual friends told me in very sad terms that Brian had, in her words, left the LDS church. One thing I had admired about Brian was his practical approach to Mormonism. He knew it didn’t exactly fit him, but he managed to make it work. At the time I was really saddened to hear this, as I fully believed that he was forfeiting a lot of real blessings.

These days I look back and wonder why it took me so long to figure out what Brian and so many others have discovered about Mormonism. I’m a little jealous of people who saw what the church was at an early age. It took me forty years, and I’m still dealing with a lot of the pain my exit has caused me and my family. But I’m happy he has found his own way.

Brian is teaching at the University of Utah, and I hope he’s doing well. It sounds as if he is. At least he doesn’t to hide his hair anymore.