Mormon Heretic

I always got a kick out of the signs in the student body section proclaiming, “The Prophet is a Ute!”  After all, so many Mormons proclaim that BYU is the “Lord’s University”, that it was really nice to point out that President Hinckley is an alum of the University of Utah.  The cool thing is that the signs can stay up, because President Monson is also an alum of the U, (though he did get an MBA from BYU, so I guess both schools can claim him.)  Anyway, I was quite amused to hear on the radio yesterday, that Joseph Smith has officially decided to attend the University of Utah.  You can verify the info right here!  If BYU is the Lord’s University, it seems that Utah is the School of the Prophets!

I came across an article about the Apostle Paul.  After Emporer Nero burned Rome, he blamed the fire on the Christians.  Various apostles were rounded up, and tradition has it that the Apostle Paul was beheaded around 60 AD.  A basilica was built to house parts of his body in about 390 AD.  (Oddly, his complete body is not there, but spread throughout various churches.  Apparently, the Orthodox/Catholic churches felt that bones from dead saints hold some spiritual power, and have often arranged to have bones sent to various churches so that many can share a claim to have various saints bones.)

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Over at Mormon Matters, they’re nominating various blogs or post in the bloggernacle.  They have categories for various topics: best new blog, best group blog, best post, most spiritual post, funniest post, etc.  Anyway, nominations are open to anyone, so if you want to nominate something, please do so over at Mormon Matters.

Ok, comparing these two books might seem a bit odd, but let me explain.  First of all, I’ve already done a few posts on Abraham.  In the first, I compared the Book of Abraham to the Koran, and wondered if Joseph might have translated an Islamic text, because the story found in the Book of Abraham where Abraham destroys his father’s idols is quite similar to a Koranic tale.  Then my second post on Abraham, I learned that this story is also found in the Jewish Midrash, so there is another non-biblical source for this story.

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President Obama swatted and killed a fly on television, and PETA is upset about it.  In case you think I’m making this up, here is the link from MSNBC.  Let me quote:

PETA is sending President Barack Obama a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside.

“We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals,” PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said Wednesday. “We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals.”

I’m all for the ethical treatment of animals, but not insects, and especially flies.  This is truly unbelievable.  I wonder what their position is on mosquitos.  Anybody know?

Thanks to Tara, my recent post announcing my perspective on polygamy has received a recent boost of activity (and is my most commented post ever on this blog, currently with 97 comments.)  We had been discussing some of the more controversial aspects of polygamy:  (1) Was Joseph’s polygamy revelation really a disguise for his real motive as a womanizer (libertine)? (2) What is the true nature of the Fanny Alger relationship?  (3) Was Eliza Snow pushed down the stairs by Emma?  Let’s look at how does Richard Bushman, author of Rough Stone Rolling sees these issues.

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Over the last year, I have come across a few bloggers who are members of the Community of Christ (formerly known as RLDS).  I have always been curious about the Community of Christ, and have often wondered the differences in worship between their services, and LDS services.  I wanted to share some of the stuff I’ve learned.

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The RLDS church was founded in 1860.  Joseph Smith III was the first prophet.  Recently, they have changed their name to the Community of Christ (CoC), and have begun to distance themselves from former beliefs and teachings.  I found the following statement issued by their current prophet, President Stephen M. Veazey, quite startling.  The RLDS church had long held a position that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy.  Many thanks go to FireTag for letting me know about this statement.  I want to quote a small part of the interview here, but the full interview can be found on the CoC website.
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The History Channel has a show called “Digging for the Truth.” In season 1, they did an episode called “The Lost Tribe of Israel”, which highlighted the Lemba Tribe in South Africa, which claims to be a Hebrew people who were displaced around 700 BC, about 100 years before Lehi left Jerusalem.  I couldn’t help but notice many similarities between their story, and the story of Lehi.

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Michael Quinn’s book The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power talks about many incidents which led to the “extermination order” by Missouri Governor Boggs.  These events are often referred to as the Mormon War in Missouri.  While there were some armed struggles, it seems more like vigilante and frontier justice than an all out war.  But with Memorial Day upon us, I wanted to highlight a person that people know a little about, Alexander Doniphan, who was known as one of the first “Jack Mormons.”

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A little more than 10 years ago, I was vacationing in Hawaii with a few friends.  While there, we attended a small branch and became good friends with one of the members there.  The member invited us over for family home evening, and introduced me to the idea that the Book of Mormon happened in South America.  I had never heard of this before, and became quite intrigued.

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I have long avoided talking about polygamy on my blog.  It is a source of tremendous discomfort for me, but it keeps coming up, so I want to give my impressions about this early practice in Mormonism, as well as my beliefs and reconciliations.

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The Faithful Dissident asked a very interesting question in my last post.

Back to Joseph Smith and theocracy, there’s something that puzzles me about Quinn’s claim. If JS truly intended on establishing a theocracy in America, wouldn’t that be in complete contradiction to what his religion proclaimed (i.e. that the US Constitution was a God-inspired document)? I never took American history, so I’m no expert on the Constitution, but how could it have been upheld in a theocracy?

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So, in reading The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, the author D Michael Quinn makes a very interesting claim.  While most people think the publication of polygamy was the reason that Joseph Smith ordered the destruction of the printing press, Quinn makes a more startling reason–that Joseph was attempting alliances with foreign nations, and he didn’t want that to get out.  Quinn almost acts as if the Expositor had only been about polygamy, then Smith would have left it alone.

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I often try to put up a post commemorating holidays.  So, in celebration of Mother’s Day, I just want to let you all know how much I appreciate my mother.  She is the most patient person I know, and she has a way of making me always try to do my best.  She is one of my best friends, and a great listener.  I really can’t think of a better Christian than she is.

So, you’re welcome to tell me about your mother as well.  As I am biased, I know she won’t be better than mine, but I’d love to hear how cool your mom is too!

I was first introduced to the idea of women holding the Melchizedek Priesthood in the book called Sidney Rigdon: Portrait of Religious Excess by Richard Van Wagoner.  Sidney claimed that Emma Smith was the first woman to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood (as I blogged about in Part 5).  The current book I’m reading, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power by Michael Quinn, seems to support this idea, and goes into greater detail.  Apparently, Brigham Young also supports this idea.  I’ve changed some of the formatting, and modernized the spelling below, but according to Quinn on page 36,
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