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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mormon America: The Power and the Promise/Index
Index to claims made in Mormon America: The Power and the Promise
This is an index of claims made in this work with links to corresponding responses within the FAIRwiki. An effort has been made to provide the author's original sources where possible.
Introduction: A New World Faith
| Page | Claim | Response | Use of sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| xv | A temple of secret rituals with precincts forbidden to tourists and TV cameras. | Temples |
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| xv | Majority stock in ZCMI held by church. |
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| xviii | The Garden of Eden was literally located around Independence, Missouri. | Garden of Eden in Missouri? |
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| xviii | LDS believe that the Lord will return to Independence, Missouri. |
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| xix | God commissioned his American prophet to revise significant portions of the Bible that Smith taught had been corrupted by Jews and Christians. | Bible corrupted by Jews and Christians? |
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| xix | There is neither a forum for public debate nor a church legislature to set policy. |
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| xxv | They abstain from alcohol and tobacco, as many other groups do, but also from caffeinated beverages | Word of Wisdom/Cola drinks |
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Chapter 1: Sealed with Blood
| Page | Claim | Response | Use of sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | April 11, 1844: Joseph Smith organized the Council of Fifty to plan political future and had them anoint him “King, Priest and Ruler over Israel on Earth" | The Council of Fifty |
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| 3 | Joseph Smith petitioned Congress for authorization to raise and lead a 100000-man army to subdue the western territories from Texas to Oregon, and that anyone who would “attempt to hinder or molest the said Joseph Smith” would be subject to two years’ imprisonment. |
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| 10 | The temple rituals had many similarities to the Masonic rituals that the prophet had just learned | Temple endowment and Freemasonry | |
| 12 | 1842: Disagreement between JS and John C. Bennett was “their competition for nineteen-year-old Nancy Rigdon as plural wife...Smith excommunicated Bennett. | ||
| 13 | On March 11, 1844, Council of Fifty was formed as a theocratic policymaking body “shadow government” (Flanders – RLDS historian) that functioned sporadically in Utah into the 1870’s | The Council of Fifty |
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| 13 | Two of the original 53 members of the Council of Fifty “apparently were known counterfeiters." | The Council of Fifty [needs work] |
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| 13 | Joseph Smith was annointed “King, Priest and Ruler over Israel on Earth." | The Council of Fifty |
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| 14 | There is evidence that at some point Smith propositioned the wives of both William Law and Robert D. Foster. |
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| 15 | The Council of Fifty, "supposedly a civic body," took ecclesiastical action excommunicating Law and Foster. | The Council of Fifty [needs work] |
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| 16 | Quinn re. Expositor: “He could not allow the Expositor to publish the secret international negotiations masterminded by Mormonism’s earthly king.” | Nauvoo Expositor |
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| 16 | “With the backing of his Council, Smith ordered that the new press be smashed and all possible copies of the press run destroyed.” (p16) | Nauvoo Expositor |
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| 17 | Someone slipped a six-shooter into his cell that he later fired into the attacking mob. |
Chapter 2: Beginnings: A Very American Gospel
| Page | Claim | Response | Use of sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21 | Swedenborgianism, with its concepts of eternal marriage and a three-tiered heaven. | Swedenborg and three degrees of glory | |
| 23 | Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches of 1853, “described Joseph Jr.’s youthful fascination with Indians in the years just prior to his translation of the Book of Mormon: ...amusing recitals. | Joseph Smith's "amusing recitals" of ancient American inhabitants | NOTE: There is no mention of the fact that Joseph was receiving this information from Moroni during this period. See Lucy’s history prior to this statement. |
| 25 | Seer stones illegal – 1826 Smith “found guilty” of disorderly conduct for money-digging | Joseph Smith's 1826 glasslooking trial | |
| 25 | Isaac Hale objected to marriage of Emma to Joseph because of “disreputable occupation of looking for treasure with magic stones rather than working the land like a respectable farmer" | Joseph Smith and money digging | |
| 29 | View of the Hebrews...containing considerable material on the subject, as well as a description of ancient Central American Indian ruins | Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews | |
| 31 | Book of Abraham used to justify policy toward blacks | ||
| 31 | JS used seer stone in 1836 to try and find treasure under a house in Salem, Mass. | ||
| 34 | Danites were pledged to “plunder, lie, and even kill if deemed necessary.” |
Chapter 3: The American Exodus
| Page | Claim | Response | Use of sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40 | A warrant was issued to arrest Brigham Young on a charge of sheltering counterfeiters. | ||
| 42 | There is historical evidence that Joseph Smith blessed his son, Joseph III that he would become his successor. | ||
| 52 | Godbeite heresay. | ||
| 52 | No law was made or action carried out without approval of a shadow government operated by the Church. | ||
| 54 | Mountain Meadows massacre. |
Chapter 4: Polygamy Then and Now
| Page | Claim | Response | Use of sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 58 | Joseph started polygamy | Joseph Smith and polygamy | |
| 58 | Brodie’s research was largely substantiated by later scholarship | No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith | |
| 58 | There were at least five cases of women who rejected his polygamous proposals. | ||
| 58 | At least 11 of Joseph's wives married to another man. Mormon apologists have attempted to justify polygamy in part because it sheltered single women beyond marriageable age, the facts show otherwise. The vast majority of plural wives were younger than the first wife, often nubile teenagers. | ||
| 59 | Possibly a few exceptional cases involving his closest associates taking wives who already had husbands. | ||
| 59 | Smith often asked close friends for their wives and daughters. | ||
| 59 | Some of the marriages were the result of pressure or spiritual coercion from the prophet. | ||
| 60 | Smith’s ideas about marriage dates back to 1830. Emmas’s cousin, Hiel Lewis “accused Joseph of improper conduct with women.” | ||
| 60 | Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner wrote that Smith told her he had a vision in which she was the first woman God commanded him to take as a plural wife. Lightner became Smith plural wife at age twenty-four, after she had married another man. | ||
| 60 | Tar and feathered in Kirtland - Smith proposed to 16-year-old Marinda Nancy Johnson. | ||
| 60 | The “comely sixteen-year-old Fanny Alger.” | ||
| 60 | Scriptural resolution in D&C against polygamy Phelps/Cowdery “became a scriptural revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants.” This remained until removed in 1876 and replaced by Section 132 | 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy | |
| 61 | Smith conducted marriage for Newell Knight against law, since the woman was not yet divorced from her non-Mormon husband. Smith said “Gentile law has no power to call me to account for it.” | ||
| 61 | His youngest bride, in some ways typical, was fourteen-year-old Helen Mar Kimball | Joseph Smith and polygamy/Marriages to young women | |
| 66 | Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, Saith the Lord…Hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none" (Jacob 2:24, 27) | ||
| 67 | Swedenborg taught “spiritual wifery” in marriage for eternity. Swedenborg was discussed in Smith’s hometown newspaper | Swedenborg and three degrees of glory [needs work] | |
| 67 | 1842 declaration of monogamy in Times and Seasons was signed by Emma and two of Smith’s wives Eliza Snow and Sarah Cleveland. |
Chapter 10: Families Forever
| Page | Claim | Response | Use of sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 160 | Even God himself is married | ||
| 161 | Couples are "sealed forever" through secret ritual in a Mormon temple |