Dallin Oaks criticized

Dallin Oaks is your typical authority-touting type. He was a Utah Supreme Court justice which for his fans means he's smart and level headed, but for the rest of us means he's used to being "right" and having the final say on everything. I suppose I wouldn't be too bothered by that if he didn't say such horrible things all the time. I cannot have faith in such a man.

HE'S ALL ABOUT CENSORSHIP:

“Some things that are true are not edifying or appropriate to communicate. Readers of history and biography should ponder that moral reality as part of their effort to understand the significance of what they read.”

HE USES SATAN TO SCARE PEOPLE FROM FACTS:

“Satan can even use truth to promote his purposes. Facts, severed from their context, can convey an erroneous impression.”

HE WANTS US TO BE BLIND FOLLOWERS OF THE BLIND:

"When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan - it is God's Plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give directions, it should mark the end of controversy, God works in no other way. To think otherwise, without immediate repentance, may cost on e his faith, may destroy his testimony, and leave him a stranger to the kingdom of God."

HE HAS NO REGARD FOR OTHER CULTURES. Seriously, who thinks Africa has one unifying culture? It's bad enough we think Mormonism has only one culture, but Africa, the continent? Holy shit.

HE'S A TOTAL HOMOPHOBE. Some of the most horrible things he's had to say recently have to do with homosexuality and the gay rights movement.

AND HE'S A HYPOCRITE. The man runs around yapping about how marriage is between one man and one woman and yet he's got two spiritual wives.

What ever happened to honesty and unconditional love?

Illusions of invulnerability

One problem Mormons face on a regular basis (at least every 6 months) has to do with contemptible instructions handed down from prophets and apostles. What are we to do when our dear leaders screw up or say something awful? Our dear leader Dallin offers this bit of wisdom: 

 But no faithful member should even arrive at the point of criticizing leaders because once the prophet speaks the debate is over. I dare say that most members of the LDS Church never cross the line. Any confusion or frustration caused by the things they hear from our prophets, seers and revelators is put on the back burner, swept under the rug, put on the shelf, etc. In general Mormons readily conform to the thoughts and adopt the talking points laid out to them in General Conference and elsewhere.

This behavior fits nicely into the psycho-social phenomenon known as groupthink. This is where individuals of a given group will defer to leaders to make important decisions regardless of a given leaders competence or of any dissenting opinion an individual might have. Essentially, rational decision-making suffers for the sake of maintaining the status quo.

Irving Janis, the man known for first describing groupthink, created a list of symptoms we can check Mormonism up against. In the category of "Overestimations of the group — its power and morality" we have the first symptom: "illusions of invulnerability create excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking". When I see this I think of the Joseph Smith quote about "no unhallowed hand" being about to stop the Church.

I also think of the LDS Church's quest to dominate the entire world and prepare it for Jesus' millennial rule. How's that for excessive optimism? For a religious tribe that makes up a tiny fraction of the earth's population (about .2% if we're being as generous as we possibly can be) to believe it will save the world and rule it too is nothing short of excessively optimistic.

When it comes to encouraging risk taking the LDS Church is a little hit and miss. In the yes category we have Church teachings on tithing. Members are to take serious financial risks for the sake of paying tithing. On the other hand members are supposed to play it safe by avoiding debt and having food storage on hand. Then again avoiding debt and having food storage only feed the Mormon believe of being invulnerable.

Pluralities

The LDS Church currently does not allow its members to have two living spouses. Anyone in the Church with more than one living spouse is most likely keeping it a secret from member friends and local leaders. Consequently most members take the Church's current position to mean that the Church doesn't practice polygamy and others might not believe its part of Mormon doctrine.

However, the fact is that polygamy, when divinely commanded, is a divine principle according to Mormon scripture, and God could at any moment bring it back.

Not that it's actually gone away completely. Currently apostle Dallin Oaks is expecting to live eternally with at least two women. He married Kristen McCain after his first wife, June Dixon, passed away. He is eternally sealed to both women, who get to share his eternal companionship.

 Eternal companion #1

 EC2

Previous wives don't have to be dead though. Today a Mormon man can be sealed to more than one living woman as long as he is only legally married to one and not cohabitating with the one(s) he had divorced. In other words, a man can be sealed in the temple, divorce that wife, and be sealed to another woman even if the first is still alive.

I'm not sure if the Church puts a cap on how many times a man can divorce and be sealed to a new woman, but I do know that there's a cap on how many times a woman can be sealed in the temple while living. Once. Any marriages following a death or divorce are for time only.

Yes, that's sexist. No, I don't think it's right.

Fiery salamanders and slippery treasures

I heard about the Mark Hofmann forgeries only a few years ago when a sibling mentioned them to me in passing. I didn't look up Hofmann or read anything about the forgeries right away because, as juicy as it all was, I expected nothing less from our modern prophets, seers, and revelators.

Page 1 of the "Salamander Letter"

In a nutshell, Hofmann was an amazing forger who produced a number of documents relating to early LDS Church history. These forged documents compromised the Church's position of authority to such an extent that Gordon Hinckley, who was serving as a councilor to Spencer Kimball, got directly involved in the purchasing and hiding of the Hofmann forgeries. There's plenty of literature out there on topic (like this, this, or this) if you'd like all the nefarious details.

We can all agree that Mark Hofmann did terrible things and hurt a lot of people - killing two - but his story should find its way onto everyone's lists of doubts because of how badly the Church handled him. First off the Church showed zero power of discernment with regards to Hofmann's evil intents. The Church showed zero power of discernment with regard to the content of invented documents. Instead, the Church's behavior indicates that top leaders find the existence of such documents entirely plausible. The Church proved that it was willing to spend hundreds of thousands of (early 1980s) dollars to control compromising documents. And top leadership was more than eager to keep the content of the forgeries a secret from the general Church membership and the world in what can only be described as outright deception.

How could our prophets, seers, and revelators be so naive? How could they be so shady? Why should we trust the Church's whitewashed version of history when it's obvious that they themselves do not? Isn't it cause for concern when our top leaders are so preoccupied with an potential expose of early Mormon insanity? It's frankly incriminating.

Aspirations of empire

Maybe it wasn't until after I had taken a couple of anthropology courses that the Mormon Church's goal of filling "the whole earth" (i.e. taking over the planet) and spreading to "every kindred, tongue, and people" started to bother me.

What good would come of the Church invading countries and teaching them to abandon their traditions only to replace it with the wholesome business aesthetic of white shirts and ties? Why should Asians stop drinking tea and start drinking root beer and Hawaiian Punch? Why should indigenous American peoples consider their ancestors the cursed offspring of Lehi and Sariah? Why would Pacific Islanders really need to be wearing and covering temple garments in their hot climate? Why should Kung men start carrying around little vials of olive oil purchased from Utah? Do we really want to see marriage traditions disappear into the goofy mirrored sealing rooms of the House of the Lord, where everyone (not just Pacific Islanders) must give up local color for white cotton-poly blends? How are we all not cringing at the thought of the Aboriginal Australian singing "Come, Come, Ye Saints" or "If You Could Hie to Kolob" while their children sing "Chose the Right Way"?

The Church has no true appreciation for diversity. The Church doesn't give two shits about different world views. What the Church cares about is what Dallin Oaks calls "Gospel Culture" and snuffing out every other culture that doesn't conform to it. This is the Church taking the offense and being as offensive as possible without physically harming people. If you don't like it, just know that one day every knee shall bend and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ!

The more I thought about it the more I didn't have to doubt any more - I knew with a surety - that I did not believe in the is kind of approach to interacting with people outside of my faith tradition.