The Book of Mormon

Whilst at my son's I picked up a copy of the Book of Mormon. It is a substantial tome and has perhaps 15 million adherents so it should not be dismissed without argument. I grant that Mormons generally have high moral standards but some of their beliefs are whacky to say the least. And they claim to be the one true church which is somewhat of a challenge to mainstream Christianity. As their president Joseph Fielding Smith declared: "Mormonism, as it is called, must stand or fall on the story of Joseph Smith. He was either a prophet of God, divinely called, properly appointed and commissioned, or he was one of the biggest frauds this world has ever seen". He goes on, of course, to rule out the latter with arguments like "No impostor could have accomplished so great and wonderful a work".

I've heard a similar argument applied to Jesus although in His case I say with more justification.

I'm neither a theologian nor do I claim in-depth knowledge of the Mormon beliefs, but I can make a judgement based on the little I do know, well summarised in this link which seems to me to be a fair criticism. In addition I have bitter experience of being deceived.

I tell my grandchildren stories about Sally-Anne and her adventures with Smokey the dragon. I make them up as I go along. One of my grandchildren has a particularly vivid imagination and will play and talk make-belief for hours at a time. I note that children can handle the conflict of reality versus fiction from an early age. Our ability to imagine is truly amazing. We use it equally to create artefacts like the cell-phone and fantastic worlds like in The Lord of the Rings complete with its fictional history and languages.

Soon after we got married we met a Christian leader whom we recognised back then as having a level of "spiritual" maturity far above our own and who in consequence we then followed like disciples. I use quotes because the term is ill defined. Due, I suppose, to inertia we continued to follow him even after we began to see serious flaws in his character. You will probably know of other strong and charismatic church leaders with strong followings. One we know by repute was Sam Fife on whose teaching the Move of God was conceived. In common in these cases is the ability to "talk the hind leg off a donkey" - they preach for hours at a time with their followers lapping it up, with most of what they say being challenging and credible, but inevitably mixed with error. The listeners ought, of course, to sift all of what they hear, but we thought - how could such a mature Christian leader be in error?  But then how can respected Christian leaders at the same time also secretly be active peadophiles, alcoholics, smokers, adulterers?  The fact that humans are fallible ought not to surprise us, given our own record, but somehow the position we adorn leaders with blinkers our discernment. Similarly I often hear folk using language like "the Lord told me to..." or "I felt led to...", or even claiming to see visions, and I wonder to what extent is this really the voice of Almighty God as opposed to just a fertile imagination coloured by what they think to be true?

Joseph Smith translates while Oliver Cowdery acts as scribe.

And so I do not find it incredulous that the Book of Mormon and the other two major documents he authored came out of Joseph Smith's imagination. Perhaps he was very sincere and with good intentions, but nevertheless deceived. Perhaps he really believed he was the voice of God for the hour. It seems that folk were even more superstitious back then than now-a-days.

The three, and then eight, witnesses of the origin of the Book of Mormon, whose statements are printed in the preface to every edition, were later excommunicated and appear to have been gullible. I too have known folk adopt another's belief against their better judgement, when under strong peer pressure. And the golden plates themselves were returned to the angel Moroni so we have no other means to justify the story apart from the fact of the staggering number of adherents world-wide.

Perhaps the dividing line between reality and fantasy is rather thin in places. After all we are told that God spoke and the world came into existence: perhaps what we call reality is no more (or less) than thoughts in the mind of God.  Which would kind of explain the idea that God is outside of time.

One man ministry

This post was prompted by reading about another doomsday cult exposed. Not all cults or radical Christian groups are that extreme but perhaps they share a theme.

I've commented previously about the huge number of "Christian" denominations. A common pattern is that a naturally charismatic person gets a radical idea which he or she reckons is a divine "revelation", and attracts a number of followers who are already disillusioned with their own faith or lack of it and are looking for meaning in life. Feeling they have been helped by this one person's ministry, after a while they become so blinkered that they fail to take appropriate action when they detect error. At the early stage the group claims that they have revelation beyond any other group. If they are to remain loyal, members are told they must take radical steps like setting up a wilderness community. The group adamantly denies being elitist or being "another denomination" and decries the idea of a "one man ministry" but time proves otherwise. Eventually the main leader is recognised for what he or she is, or is superseded or dies and thereafter the movement's teaching dissipates or gradually declines and resolves into "mainstream Christianity" but we are left with yet another denomination.

Here are some examples:

Methodist (John Wesley),
The Peculiar People (James Banyard),
Quakers (George Fox),
Shakers (Ann Lee),
The Move (Sam Fife),
Mormons (Joseph Smith),
Plymouth Brethren (John Darby).

You might disagree with some of my examples or you might think of others but my point is the common theme.  And we know this theme, because we have been there, done that - under a particular "ministry" but, mercifully, we escaped relatively unharmed. But we hear rumours of those who were physically abused or were forced into debt not of their own making. I do not think in our case that the leading ministry was intentionally manipulative: it was just the way he was, and we weaklings followed as the lamb to the slaughter. One lesson to be learned is to take off the blinkers.