Criticism of Mormonism/Books/One Nation Under Gods/Postscript

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Claims made in "Chapter 18: Cover-Ups, Conspiracies, and Controversies"

A FAIR Analysis of: Criticism of Mormonism/Books A work by author: Richard Abanes

Claims made in "Appendix A: Abraham's Book?"

Claims made in "Postscript" (paperback only)

[M]ore than a few Mormons, although they had never actually read my book, declared without hesitation that it was rife with errors.
—One Nation Under Gods, p. 438 (paperback edition)

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Claim

• Quoting Whelan: "[T]here still remains within the Church a limited form of plural marriage. Those husbands who have lost a beloved spouse and are left alone in this world can still be married for time and eternity to another wife....It is clear that all marriages continued in heaven will involve participation in plural marriage."

Author's source(s)

• Shane LeGrand Whelan, More Than One: Plural Marriage—A Sacred Heritage, A Promise for Tomorrow, 208.

Response

• It is not clear what the author hopes to demonstrate by this claim, or why Shane Whelan's view carries any weight beyond his own opinions.

Claim

• "[M]ore than a few Mormons, although they had never actually read my book, declared without hesitation that it was rife with errors."

Author's source(s)

• Author's statement.

Response

• FAIR can assure the author that we have read his book, and can declare without hesitation that both the hardbound and paperback version are rife with errors.

Claim

• Boyd K. Packer said: "I have a hard time with historians because they idolize the truth."

Author's source(s)

• Roger D. Launius, Book Review, Journal of the West, reproduced online at Signature Books.

Response

• Use of sources: Boyd K. Packer on the truth

Claim

•  Author's quote: "Some of the harshest criticism I received from Mormons came from those who were irate over my depiction of Brigham Young....then I acquired a new book dealing with the issue—Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows by independent historian and Salt Lake Tribune columnist Will Bagley....This tremendously in-depth volume not only supported my perspective, but greatly expanded on my conclusions..."

Author's source(s)

• Author's statement.

Response

• See Claims made in "Chapter 11: Bloody Brigham" for a list of claims and responses.
• Bagley's work has major problems, and the author shares many of them. See reviews of his work here.

Claim

• Did Will Bagley demonstrate that LDS leaders, and particularly Brigham Young, "probably" planned and executed the Mountain Meadows Massacre?

Author's source(s)

• Author's conclusion based upon Bagley's conclusion.

Response

•  The author's claim is false: Use of sources: Brigham Young ordered Mountain Meadows Massacre?
• Reeve and Parshall noted that Bagley's treatment of Brigham Young and the Massacre derived from distorted evidence and misinterpretation (see here).

Claim

• Will Bagley, referring to a statement made by Quinn, said "The decision to do whatever was necessary to build the kingdom 'encouraged Mormons to consider it their religious right to kill antagonistic outsiders, common criminals, LDS apostates, and even faithful Mormons who committed sins worthy of death.'"

Author's source(s)

• Bagley, 42.

Response

• Utah/Crime and violence/Crimes critics allege to have been "worthy of death" in the 1800's

Claim

• Did Will Bagley "prove the charge often dismissed by faithful LDS church members" that Latter-day Saints refused to sell any provisions to the Fancher party?

Author's source(s)

• Author's opinion.

Response

• Use of sources: Orders to Starve Gentiles
• Mountain Meadows Massacre

Claim

•  Author's quote: "Blood of the Prophets once and for all dispelled the long-standing Mormon myth that members of the doomed company poisoned an important cattle stream, thereby almost deserving their fate."

Author's source(s)

• Author's opinion.

Response

• Use of sources: Poisoning myth

Claim

• Bagley states "In their desire to exonerate Brigham Young of any guilt, official Mormon accounts of the crime laid the blame on victims and Indians, a tradition that is alive and well today."

Author's source(s)

• Bagley, xvii.

Response

• Mountain Meadows Massacre
• Use of sources: Brigham Young ordered Mountain Meadows Massacre?
• The closest thing to an "official Mormon account" of the massacre is probably an Ensign article: "some 50 to 60 local militiamen in southern Utah, aided by American Indian allies, massacred about 120 emigrants who were traveling by wagon to California. The horrific crime, which spared only 17 children age six and under, occurred in a highland valley called the Mountain Meadows...."^[1]
• A new book coauthored by Turley expresses similar views.^[2]
• See link in previous row which demonstrates that some LDS historians have not 'blamed' the victims.

Claim

• Did Brigham Young say: "[W]hen a man is found to be a thief, he will be a thief no longer, cut his throat, & thro' him in the River."

Author's source(s)

• Instruction to Bishops, quoted in Thomas Bullock diary, December 13, 1846. Cited in D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Signature Books, 1994), 657.;
• History of the Church, 7:597. Volume 7 link
• Thomas G. Alexander, Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, a Mormon Prophet, 182.
• Thomas G. Alexander, "Wilford Woodruff and the Mormon Reformation of 1855-57," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (Summer 1992), vol. 25, no. 2, 27.

Response

• The citations from Alexander deal with blood atonement and the Mormon Reformation. The author does not tell us that Alexander says in both places that "Young's references to blood atonement were probably hyperbole...."
• The author is repeating himself; these charges have been raised in Chapter 11.
• Use of sources: Brigham Young on thieves

Claim

• Did past LDS leaders hold and expound racist views?

Author's source(s)

• Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection, 101.
• Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 7:290-291.

Response

• The author is repeating himself.
• Racist statements by Church leaders
• "Curse of Cain": Brigham Young in JD 7:290
• ONUG's double standard on race

Claim
 Author's quote: "Of course, when any religion or denomination is tainted by the stain of racism, it always leaves future members in a very awkward position. And to be fair, Mormonism is not alone in this predicament. A number of Christian denominations (e.g. the Southern Baptists) have had to work very hard at racial reconciliation, often using public declarations to repudiate past racist statements by leaders."

Author's source(s)

• N/A

Response

• There is, "of course," no hint of this perspective in the chapter branding members of the Church as racists with a "white supremacist" theology.
• ONUG's double standard on race

Claim

• Did Gordon B. Hinckley "admit" in April 2002 that Latter-day Saints do not believe in the same 'Jesus' as non-LDS Christians?

Author's source(s)

•  ^{[needs work]}

Response

• Mormons worship a different 'Jesus'?
• This was no "confession"—President Hinckley was bearing testimony of Christ. The Saints believe in the God of the Bible, which is consistent with Joseph Smith's vision. They do not accept the nonbiblical creeds added later. See:
  • President Hinckley believes in the biblical Christ
  • President Hinckley insists he is a Christian
  • Author's distorted "Mormon" Jesus vs. "Traditional" Jesus
• Jesus Christ/Latter-day Saints aren't Christians

Claim

• Dallin Oaks told Latter-day Saints in 1995 "that so-called Christianity sees God as an entirely different kind of being."

Author's source(s)

• Dallin H. Oaks, "Apostasy and Restoration," Ensign, May 1995, 84.

Response

•  Misrepresentation of source: Elder Oaks nowhere says "so-called Christianity," or uses the phrase "an entirely different kind of being."
• Use of sources: Dallin H. Oaks on God
• Nature of God/Corporeality of God
• Nature of God/Trinity/Nicene creed
• Latter-day Saints aren't Christians

== Notes ==

1. [note]  Richard E. Turley, Jr., "The Mountain Meadows Massacre," Ensign (September 2007): 14.off-site
2. [note]  Turley, Walker and Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, 1. This work notes: "One approach [to recounting the massacre] portrays the perpetrators as good people and the victims as evil ones who committed outrages during their travel through central and southern Utah. Some descendants of the perpetrators and several Mormon historians have adopted this approach because it seems, on the surface, to excuse or soften what happened....Readers of our book will find little sympathy for...[this] approach..." (xii-xiii).

Further reading

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{{To learn more box:responses to: 8: The Mormon Proposition}}	To learn more box:responses to: 8: The Mormon Proposition	edit
{{To learn more box:''Under the Banner of Heaven''}}	To learn more about responses to: Under the Banner of Heaven	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Robert Price}}	To learn more about responses to: Robert Price	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Ankerberg and Weldon}}	To learn more about responses to: Ankerberg and Weldon	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Ashamed of Joseph}}	To learn more about responses to: Ashamed of Joseph	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Beckwith and Moser}}	To learn more about responses to: Beckwith and Moser	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Beckwith and Parrish}}	To learn more about responses to: Beckwith and Parrish	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Benjamin Park}}	To learn more about responses to: Benjamin Park	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Bible versus Joseph Smith}}	To learn more about responses to: Bible versus Joseph Smith	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Bible versus Book of Mormon}}	To learn more about responses to: Bible versus Book of Mormon	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: ''Big Love''}}	To learn more about responses to: Big Love	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Brett Metcalfe}}	To learn more about responses to: Brett Metcalfe	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Bill Maher}}	To learn more about responses to: Bill Maher	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Bruce H. Porter}}	To learn more about responses to: Bruce H. Porter	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Carol Wang Shutter}}	To learn more about responses to: Carol Wang Shutter	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: CES Letter}}	To learn more about responses to: CES Letter	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Charles Larson}}	To learn more about responses to: Charles Larson	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Christopher Nemelka}}	To learn more about responses to: Christopher Nemelka	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Colby Townshed}}	To learn more about responses to: Colby Townshed	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Contender Ministries}}	To learn more about responses to: Contender Ministries	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Crane and Crane}}	To learn more about responses to: Crane and Crane	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: D. Michael Quinn}}	To learn more about responses to: D. Michael Quinn	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Dan Vogel}}	To learn more about responses to: Dan Vogel	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: David John Buerger}}	To learn more about responses to: David John Buerger	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: David Persuitte}}	To learn more about responses to: David Persuitte	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Denver Snuffer}}	To learn more about responses to: Denver Snuffer	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Dick Bauer}}	To learn more about responses to: Dick Bauer	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Duwayne R Anderson}}	To learn more about responses to: Duwayne R Anderson	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Earl Wunderli}}	To learn more about responses to: Earl Wunderli	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Ed Decker}}	To learn more about responses to: Ed Decker	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Erikson and Giesler}}	To learn more about responses to: Erikson and Giesler	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Ernest Taves}}	To learn more about responses to: Ernest Taves	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Fawn Brodie}}	To learn more about responses to: Fawn Brodie	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: George D Smith}}	To learn more about responses to: George D Smith	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Grant Palmer}}	To learn more about responses to: Grant Palmer	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Hank Hanegraaff}}	To learn more about responses to: Hank Hanegraaff	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Hurlbut-Howe}}	To learn more about responses to: Hurlbut-Howe	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: James Brooke}}	To learn more about responses to: James Brooke	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: James Spencer}}	To learn more about responses to: James Spencer	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: James White}}	To learn more about responses to: James White	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Jerald and Sandra Tanner}}	To learn more about responses to: Jerald and Sandra Tanner	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Jesus Christ-Joseph Smith or Search for the Truth DVD}}	To learn more about responses to: Jesus Christ-Joseph Smith or Search for the Truth DVD	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: John Dehlin}}	To learn more about responses to: John Dehlin	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Jonathan Neville}}	To learn more about responses to: Jonathan Neville	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Kurt Van Gorden}}	To learn more about responses to: Kurt Van Gorden	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Laura King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery}}	To learn more about responses to: Laura King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery	edit
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{{To learn more box:responses to: Martha Beck}}	To learn more about responses to: Martha Beck	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Mcgregor Ministries}}	To learn more about responses to: Mcgregor Ministries	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: McKeever and Johnson}}	To learn more about responses to: McKeever and Johnson	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: New Approaches}}	To learn more about responses to: New Approaches to the Book of Mormon	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Richard Abanes}}	To learn more about responses to: Richard Abanes	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Richard Van Wagoner}}	To learn more about responses to: Richard Van Wagoner	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Richard and Joan Ostling}}	To learn more about responses to: Richard and Joan Ostling	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Rick Grunger}}	To learn more about responses to: Rick Grunger	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Robert Ritner}}	To learn more about responses to: Robert Ritner	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Rod Meldrum}}	To learn more about responses to: Rod Meldrum	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Roger I Anderson}}	To learn more about responses to: Roger I Anderson	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Ronald V. Huggins}}	To learn more about responses to: Ronald V. Huggins	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Sally Denton}}	To learn more about responses to: Sally Denton	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Simon Southerton}}	To learn more about responses to: Simon Southerton	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Thomas Murphy}}	To learn more about responses to: Thomas Murphy	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Todd Compton}}	To learn more about responses to: Todd Compton	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Vernal Holley}}	To learn more about responses to: Vernal Holley	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Walter Martin}}	To learn more about responses to: Walter Martin	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Wesley Walters}}	To learn more about responses to: Wesley Walters	edit
{{To learn more box:responses to: Will Bagley}}	To learn more about responses to: Will Bagley	edit