Communist conspiracies

Remember how Ezra Benson was absolutely petrified by the Red Scare? This man, a prophet of God gifted with the privileges of visions, prophesy and discernment, couldn't sort his shit out when it came to world politics.

Shit like this kills me now. I could never quite believe that Communism was Satan's version of the United Order. It always felt like a wishful conclusion on the part of my church leaders and teachers. But I find it extremely problematic that a true prophet of God would get so carried away in McCarthyism and political scare tactics that he couldn't help but marry them to Mormonism. Talk about philosophies of man mingled with scripture!

Though I doubted it for years, I can now comfortably say the Ezra was a product of his time and clown of a prophet.

How the LDS Church is different

While out and about seeking new investigators as a missionary, I often heard the question "How is your church different from mine?" As far as I could tell, it was almost always a sincere question. It's also an excellent question. If Mormonism has nothing exceptional to offer then there's probably not a great reason for joining it.

Hearing the question filled me with a mix of joy and anxiety. On the one hand I was thrilled to be given the open door invitation to talk about how awesome the Church is, but on the other hand I knew my major selling points weren't exactly the most impressive.

1. We have a living prophet like Noah and Moses! He tells us all the useful and relevant things God wants us to know for these very times.

Typical responses to this depending on one's religion went something like this: 1) Cool, we have a guy like that too!, 2) We don't need someone like that because we have a book of scripture that's still perfectly relevant or 3) We don't need that sort of thing because we have the Spirit guiding us at all times. At that point you had to then make the case for how much more impressive the LDS prophet was than their figure head, book or ability to listen and understand the will of God via his Holy Spirit. It was never an easy task. I always sought a fine balance of diplomacy and conviction, hoping and praying that the Spirit would fill my mouth with just the right words.

Inevitably discussions would arrive at the point where I have to explain what the prophet has said recently that was so great and so clearly prophetic. That's where all momentum was lost because no LDS prophet since Joseph Smith has done much of anything at all.

2. We have The Book of Mormon (and other new scripture)!

 This comment usually would of course get some people saying the Bible is all you need, but usually people would ask what it said that was so great. At that point I or my companion would share the wonderful tale of Jews settling parts of the Americas in 600 BCE, how they tried killing each other until the resurrected Jesus stopped by to set them straight, at which point they lived happily for 200 years until they eventually decided that killing each other was better. This only ever impressed uneducated people. Everyone else waited patiently until we left them alone.

3. We have the same power and authority held by Jesus Christ himself during his earthly ministry!

This usually got a response similar to "Oh, we've totally got that!" but would also receive challenges like "Great. Go ahead and tell me about the miracles you've performed." In the first case you had to get into the same type of debate mentioned above in number 1. How do you tell someone who believes they have the power of Jesus available to them that they really don't, at least not to the same degree that you do? And how do you prove it? I hadn't performed any miraculous healings, cast devil spirits into swine, fed thousands of people on scraps or kicked thousands of people out of a house of worship for not being reverent enough. All I had to offer were the miracle stories I had grown up with - stories about Joseph Smith, pioneers and the bishop of the brother of the one guy in my ward who maybe healed the child of a family he home taught - and those, I'm telling you, failed to convince. More often than not my miracle stories were met with other miracle stories that sounded just as awesome if not a little bit more grandiose.

4. We know that families can be together forever!

I could never understand how people weren't more impressed by this claim to Mormon exceptionalism. Most people were absolutely unimpressed by this doctrine we hold so dear. I met people who were sincerely confused that we would think our family mattered once we were in heaven. Weren't we all going to be one gigantic family anyway? Other people were annoyed by the idea that they would be stuck with family in heaven. Why should they be happy spending an eternity with people they don't especially care to see now? What's the point of having our earthly family in heaven? What problem does it solve? Will Mom still have meals to cook and dishes to do? Will Dad have to keep the Pearly Gates oiled and our misbehaving hides tanned?

5. We can teach you how to have a direct, personal relationship with God the Father. 

Most religious people we encountered had already heard this from their current religion. Communion with the Divine is an extremely popular and persistent promise of religions across the world. Trying to convince religious people that their previous encounters weren't as personal or frequent or powerful as they were with Mormons was a great way to offend people. Occasionally, however, we would find someone who had been longing to escape the chill of the Universe and make a connection with a loving god they hadn't yet known. These were our moments of elation. They occasionally turned into baptisms. I saw people enthusiastically accept baptism and I LOVED it. It made me feel so good. Unfortunately I saw almost all of those people leave the Church in frustration, the same frustration of others who tried and failed to make the connection as well as those who thought they had succeeded only to find themselves once again cold and alone.

I wondered if God simply didn't have time for his children. I wondered if God was testing how long we could hold our breath underwater. I wondered if God was as good as we say he is. I wondered why God would be so stingy. I wondered why I believed in God at all.

Why believe in this amazing father god if he can't stick with us despite our total loyalty? How is that any better than worshiping an idol? How is my god any better than the those worshiped by people I contacted daily on my mission?

For years I assumed that people couldn't see why Mormonism was so special because they weren't giving it a fair shake. Now I see that Mormonism has nothing different to offer the world. It's the same slop with a different name. I can see no reason why the LDS Church should be considered a "true" church, let alone The One True Church.

Moving up the Mormon ladder - what to expect

During a recent conversation with a current LDS bishop I mentioned how much I disliked the MTC as a young missionary. I explained how difficult it was for me to be surrounded by the kinds of impatient and intolerant kids that make up the missionary force. I heard horribly sexist conversations on a regular basis, endless trash talking of other religions, racist jokes and attitudes, bragging about idiotic things, macho confrontations, materialistic life goals, egotistical ambitions to climb the missionary leadership ladder, etc. It was disheartening for me, a slightly less sexist, less racist, less materialistic, less boastful, but still wholly argumentative and egotistical missionary.

The bishop's response to my complaint came without hesitation: THAT'S WHAT YOU FIND AT EVERY LEVEL. He explained that with every higher position attained the same horrible attitudes can be found and at no point are you likely to reach a level of LDS Church leadership where disgusting and horrible men have been weeded out. The idea of walking with spiritual giants as you climb the hierarchy is a myth.

In other words, the cream doesn't seem to be rising to the top... Should we be worried?

Hiding history

 
The media are reporting a celebration of a new era of LDS Church transparency with the release of The Joseph Smith Papers and, more recently, the printer's copy of The Book of Mormon. I can't disagree that the move to transparency is a good thing in that it's the most honest thing for the Church to do, but in the midst of all the celebrating I feel as though a lot of members are choosing to ignore what's to be celebrated. We're not celebrating new scripture, new revelations or even new propaganda for the missionaries to hand out. We're celebrating an end of the Church's suppression of information in one very specific area - it's early historical documents.
 
The two most infamous examples of previous attempts on behalf of the Church to keep historical information away from members include the Mark Hofmann forgeries and, earlier still, Joseph Fielding Smith's hiding of Joseph Smith’s 1832 version of the First Vision. Joseph Fielding had first discovered it in the First Presidency vault in Joseph Smith's personal letter book, freaked out about it enough to tear it out and hide the pages in his personal safe until he was pressured to release them in 1965. How messed up is that?

I'll admit I can't imagine what incentive he might have to share the first written version of the First Vision (it doesn't match well with the 1838 version), but his behavior is still alarming to me. Sure, it shows Joseph Fielding's lack of integrity, but it also shows just how fearful he was that the LDS house of cards would fall.

Now the Church is announcing via the Ensign and Liahona that Joseph Smith read magically appearing words on a stone in a hat and that that particular stone had nothing to do with an ancient Moroni, but that instead it has everything to do with a young Joseph Smith pretending he could see lost and buried objects (like gold). It's been 180 years and the general membership is only going to hear about it now (if they actually read the Liahona). Avoidance and denial add up to secrecy and deception in my brain.

Boyd Packer criticized

I have to admit, Boyd was committed. He spent 45 years as an apostle of the LDS Church, and don't think that the majority of the other 45 weren't spent serving the Church. He fought hard for the absurd. He probably even believed it.

Unfortunately for Boyd and his family, what he will be remembered for is all the bullshit he said. No, I'm not talking about all the times he bore his testimony of Jesus as the Savior or Satan as the Enemy, but we should careful not to give too much credit to that drivel either. What I'm talking about are his tirades against masturbation, homosexuality, feminism, objective history and intellectual pursuits.

The man wanted to suppress sexuality, women, historical facts and knowledge of the real world. What kind of deranged man claims to stand for truth and then discourages anyone from making  hard, honest inquiries into the motivations behind human behavior, ways to advance social justice, gaining a clearer understanding of our past, and trying to better understand how the world works in general?

He was a very loud Mormon voice on the wrong side of just about everything, and neither memory or history is kind to voices like that.

I believe the world is a slightly better place without Boyd K. Packer. I know that's not an especially kind thing to say. I know his family will miss him dearly. But while the vast majority of the world's population won't even realize he's gone, a whole lot of us - believers and non - will be crossing our fingers that the apostle who takes his place will not be so arrogant and dogmatic as Boyd was.

Heavenly messengers!

 "Whoa shit, guardian spirit dude! I wasn't even gonna touch 

your golden treasure, promise!"

As Mormons, we believe that Joseph Smith got his knowledge and authority from the Highest of Authorities, yea, even the Kings of the Most High: God the Father and Jesus the Father (first just the Jesus and then the both of 'em - it doesn't matter...).

"Joseph, they're all self-righteous assholes. 

And BTW, watch your fuckin' language around us."

But let's be honest, does that seem like a sufficient trump card for when others question your authority? Not when you don't even bother telling your family and followers that God the Father has spoken to you face to face. Instead Joseph dropped other names like Nephi/Moroni (he couldn't keep them straight at first), John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John. Only after he exhausted his some of these more recognizables he dropped the Elohim bomb on a few people. After that I'm sure it was easy to throw out that you've had special visits from the likes of Moses, Elijah, Elias, Paul, and just about everyone else worth meeting from the Bible and The Book of Mormon.

 "Touch touch... touch touch touching. Sooo much touching. Never enough touching..."

The early saints eventually got tired of trying to discuss scripture with Joseph. He wasn't even pretending to pray about issues and wait for a revelation, he'd just shut people up with a "Fuck you! How would you know what Paul's trying to say in that verse anyway? Well I've fucking talked with Paul, so screw you!" It was enough to get anyone to stand down.

Hooray for made up Bible folk!

However, now that Joseph's dead and we can all get a word in, let's reflect for a moment on all these heavenly visitations Joseph claimed to have had.

Considering his direct contact with so many heavy hitters, why did it take him so long to figure out so many Gospel principles? What kinds of empty conversations was Joseph having with his heavenly messengers? Why did it take so long for polygamy to get some rules? All these visits and no clarifications that Joseph needed to ask for Emma's permission? Why did the temple endowment show up so late in the game? What's all this "line upon line, here a little there a little" business? When you're enjoying frequent visitations by all these incredibly important individuals, how can we honestly believe that they wouldn't spell things out very carefully and clearly in a short time rather than spread out Restoration through an extremely muddled communication model of prayer and trial and error?

If I listen to my heart I have to say this all sounds like total bullshit, and that is why I must doubt my doubts.

Showing emotion

A recent Infants on Thrones episode got me thinking once again about my internal response to the tears of general authorities in General Conference and other venues. I WOULD CRINGE.

My response had nothing to do with masculine insecurities about crying in public or anything like that; instead, it had everything to do with the seeming lack of authentic emotion in the tears. In other words, IT FELT LIKE THEY WERE FAKING.

Only slightly less convincing than a general authority.

Even if my gut told me I should be suspicious of a leader sharing his tender side, my brain told me I should believe. I blamed myself for not feeling what the speaker was feeling (the Spirit, of course) and buried my skepticism. These men were on a higher plane than me. I needed to trust them. Why would they be faking it anyway? What would these men in high leadership positions, with hundreds, thousands, or millions of people following their every word, possibly have to lose?

Follow the prophet

PROPHETS ARE WONDERFUL! FOLLOW THAT SHIT! WOOT WOOT!

Age of the prophets

I always wondered, even as a very young child, just how the hell the early biblical prophets lives hundreds of years. It wreaked of bullshit even way back when.

How did I justify believing that Adam, Methuselah and Noah lived nearly a millennium each? God only knows.

Ethics of Belief

If you are someone who is waiting for evidence to justify your beliefs in and practicing of Mormonism, take a few minutes with William Clifford's short essay "The Ethics of Belief". His beard is so prophetic!

Christmas confusion: the divine birthday

Current apostle Dave Bednar stated in the April General Conference of this year that the date of Jesus' birth is known by revelation to be April 6. That's the same day James Talmage believed was Jesus' birthday, but is it Jesus' birthday?

It must be - Dave said it was revelation.

But not everyone agrees. In fact it looks like Dave can take his revelation and smoke it because he was dead wrong. Or Joseph Smith was. Or Joseph's scribe was. It's very mysterious.

When the historical facts and the scriptural text are considered, it appears Jesus was probably born in early December. I hope that means that December 5 will now feature a new holiday called Mormon Christmas.

Then again the person reaching this conclusion, one Jeff Chadwick of BYU, isn't a prophet, seer or revelator, so what the hell does he know?

Polygamy - prophetic voice

I've posted before about John Taylor's questionable sanity, but please consider for a moment John Taylor's summation of the evil of monogamy:

"...the one-wife system not only degenerates the human family, both physically and intellectually, but it is entirely incompatible with philosophical notions of immortality; it is a lure to temptation, and has always proved a curse to a people."

Holy shit that's a moronic thing to say!

Now consider that he was not at all alone in departing such stupidity from the pulpit. WTF, folks? There's no way LDS Mormons are supposed to believe any of this, right?

Gone rogue

It's been said (by a prophet and repeated frequently by others) that God will not let his people be lead astray. You can find this in LDS scripture and in the Church's general teachings about the nature of the relationship between God and his prophets.

The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty.

Is this why Joseph Smith was murdered at 44? Was the mob at Carthage somehow sent by God to remove his delusional and fallen prophet? Was Brigham wrong to take up the bizarre cause of polygamy? What if we can't trust the Brighamite branch of Mormonism at all?

If we can't trust Brigham and his followers than we can't trust what Wilford said either, and I totally believe what Wilford said, ergo everything must be fine. Joseph must have been a holy son of a gun and Brigham must have been right to fight for polygamy. The Church is true! Doubt no longer!

The "M" word

I have to admit I get annoyed whenever I see Mormons become defensive over the use of the word "Mormon". You see comments pop up like "That's not the name of the Church!" "Why don't you do your research!" or "It's just a nickname btw!" Getting the name of the Church wrong or referring to its members incorrectly means everything that uninformed individual said is incorrect and probably anti-Mormon. Never mind that latter-day saints do in fact refer to the Church as the "Mormon Church" and don't colloquially refer to members of the Church as saints. They only very rarely refer to members as saints and when they do it's typically heard in the expression "the early saints" which is kind of weird considering that those "early" folks were pretty sure they were all latter-day and shit.

Members of the LDS Church call themselves Mormons, I promise. We can say "Mormon" but everyone else had better mind the "M" word! But I have to admit that as an active member I definitely thought it was a smart move when the LDS Church started insisting more and more that people use its official name. (Although I also thought it would have made more sense had they  emphasized that they had wanted to be called the Church of Jesus Christ, not the LDS Church, but whatever.)

Who cares? What's the big deal? All groups have insider-outsider language, right?

Probably, yes. What I found (and still find) disturbing, however, is the way in which Mormons look for tiny mistakes in the things outsiders say in order to dismiss their arguments while going to great lengths to dismiss or ignore mistakes and inconsistencies made by their leaders. The tradition goes all the way back to Joseph Smith (but I don't believe Tom's had the same kind of slip ups as Gordon).

Jesus warned against this scenario (if you're into Jesus).

Why is this OK? Why do the prophets get a free pass on bad information while everyone else gets hosed for simple and often superficial mistakes?

It's not hero worship, Fiona!

It seems Henry had some words for the Fiona Givens this past Sunday.

Our white knights serving and protecting.

Don’t take lightly the feeling you get of love for the prophet of God. Wherever I go in the Church, whoever the prophet is at the time, members will ask, “When you get back to Church headquarters, will you please tell the prophet how much we love him?” That is far more than hero worship or the feelings we sometimes have of admiring heroic figures. It is a gift from God.

I don't understand what Henry's saying here. I don't. What I think is happening hear is Henry's trying to correct the Church's best selling authors Terryl and Fiona Givens. He doesn't explain at all how he understands hero worship, what he thinks it means, what examples of it might be, whether or not it has a place in the LDS Church, etc., but, as you may know, Fiona is very concerned about the way Mormons revere their leaders. It doesn't seem Henry has any idea what she means by the term "hero worship". But who cares? Since when did prophets and apostles have to understand the lowly member? All they have to understand are the ways of God and all we have to understand is that love for the them is a gift from God (probably because the vast majority of Church members have never met them and never heard them speak outside of the context of the Church and they have no basis for their affection of these leaders), which must be good because God only gives really awesome gifts. 

Tom Monson criticized

The first teachings that come to mind when I reflect on the messages of the current LDS prophet, Thomas Monson, have to do with being present in others' times of need and carefully attending to the duties of service. I don't find much fault in any of that. I think it would be wonderful if we all tried to pay more attention to others and offer whatever assistance we are capable of.

But Tommy's also said plenty of bullshit. Here's an example that fits nicely within the general scope of this blog:

Remember that faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time, for one will dispel the other.

Should doubt knock at your doorway, just say to those skeptical, disturbing, rebellious thoughts: “I propose to stay with my faith, with the faith of my people. I know that happiness and contentment are there, and I forbid you, agnostic, doubting thoughts, to destroy the house of my faith. I acknowledge that I do not understand the processes of creation, but I accept the fact of it. I grant that I cannot explain the miracles of the Bible, and I do not attempt to do so, but I accept God’s word. I wasn’t with Joseph, but I believe him. My faith did not come to me through science, and I will not permit so-called science to destroy it.”

May you ever frame your life with faith.

Did you catch all of that? The appeal to tribalism? The denigration of agnosticism? The plea to stop thinking critically about natural history, scripture and Church history? The encouraged distrust in science? This is God's message to us today? This is what he wants to tell the world? Not a fucking chance.

Take the time to doubt brother Tommy, dear brothers and sisters, if only for a day or two.

Mr. Satan

"The biggest lie Satan can sell you is that he doesn't exist!"

I know you don't have to sit through LDS meetings to hear this frightening warning. No matter where you hear it, the point is clear: you had better not stop believing in Satan. That muthafuckahz the real thing! And he's scary as shit!

The horns are maybe more symbolic than literal, it's true, but let's just take a moment to recognize that many, many people have had visions of a Satan with horns and wings. They're tradition at this point, and Lord knows we Mormons love tradition.

And the folks who love Satan most really prefer this more traditional approach.

Now consider for just a moment how badly Satan wants you for himself.

Terrifying! Of course, Mormons know better than the Church of Satan (those satanist assholes have totally been deceived), they know he doesn't look like a goat or have horns or wings. He looks like us, for he is our spirit brother born of our Heavenly Parents. Some say he looks a bit like Barack Obama. Others think he's white.

More important than what our fallen brother looks like is what he wants. Satan wants you to suffer, brothers and sisters. He wants you to be fucking miserable for all eternity because that's exactly the kind of heartless, bodiless bastard he is (that's right, he was too rebellious to be given a body). He tempts and torments you at all times setting traps and waiting for you to fall into sin. I don't even like to think about his evil ways.

"Taste my happiness, y'all mothafuckahz! We got this!"

Good thing other people have thought about it for me. Take Bible scholars for example. These dudes have looked very carefully at the use of the Hebrew word satan (שָּׂטָן), which means "adversary", to understand where Satan comes from. As it turns out satan is a term that describes a variety of human and celestial beings who in some way create opposition for someone else. The Devil (meaning  "slanderer"), Great Lucifer the Fallen, the Father of All Lies, doesn't come onto the scene until hundreds of years later on in the tradition of satans when the Hebrew tradition was able to absorb more of the dualism from surrounding religious traditions, at which point Satan, Yahweh's mortal enemy, was born into the world. Here's a brief explanation in video form:

So where does this leave us with regards to a scary bogeyman named Satan? Do we trust Joseph Smith's tweaking of the Christian tradition or do we recognize the tradition has untenable origins and that we've been caught up in one of the longest running ghost stories on earth today?

Pay attention to how frequently our prophets, seers and revelators use the "because Satan" argument. Why should we find that argument convincing?

"Mindguards"

 
The last of Irving Janis' symptoms of groupthink is the existence of "self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information". In other words, people either hiding or spinning the information that's out there. 

The LDS Church has both self-appointed mindguards and officially appointed mindguards. On a very low level, consider all of the parents, bishops, and stake presidents who purposefully neglect they youth of a clear understanding of what goes on in the temple. On the opposite end of control, consider the documents hidden in the First Presidency vault. Why are are members kept from these things (and everything in between)? 

In the semi-self-appointed category we have the apologists produced and employed by BYU. In a way they're endorsed by the Church. They're paid by the Church and their work has been crucial for the writing of the recent "difficult issues" topics on the Church website. And yet the Church can turn its back on these people and their work whenever convenient. 

On the side of officially appointed mindguards we have the Church historians and the Public Relations department. 

How can the general membership be expected to have its own thoughts and opinions about Church history, doctrine, and policy when certain information is kept from them?

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.

Crucible of Doubt

A kind and well-intentioned couple, Terry and Fiona Givens, both scholars and both active, believing members of the LDS Church, has written a book for me. It comes several years too late, but I'm still a little bit interested. Mormonism is so completely shattered, in my opinion, that when I hear a claim that I can once again fit all the pieces together again my morbid curiosity is piqued. Additionally I've heard enough positive things about the Givens that I felt it only polite to listen to their 3 hour and 15 minute sales pitch.

Unfortunately I couldn't buy the Givens' arguments and won't be buying the book, which was the result of a recent fireside tour, which was the result of reasonable success from a previous book they had written.

After having listened to the entire Mormon Stories interview my main questions are:

1. If prophets are just like the rest of us then why should we look to them for answers concerning God's will? (I love how they insist on ignoring John Dehlin's question about whether or not it's okay to criticize our upper management.)

2. How do we have any trust in the Gospel text as being valid Jesus material? If we're going to undermine the spoken and written words of imperfect prophets what are we to do with the teachings of Mr. Perfect? Do we take them with a grain of salt because they were written by a bunch of assholes and corrupted over time? Do we only accept the teachings and events described by at least two of the Gospel writers (you know, that whole "by the mouth of two or three witnesses" thing)?

3. In all Fiona's admonishing against hero worship she fails to mention even once our worship of a heroic character named Jesus. How is she so sure that we haven't overblown the case for Jesus the same way we have for our various prophets, especially in light of the fact that our basis for turning Jesus into a mighty hero worthy of our worship are the less than reliable words of prophets, who are pretty much just like us?

4. Why should anyone take the Givens' approach seriously when it directly contradicts our Mormon canon?

5. Terryl Givens bases his entire argument on some kind of bizarre dichotomy between "the heart" and "the intellect". How is anyone supposed to take that seriously? We are not divided up between this mysterious heart and a non-mysterious, logical brain. "The heart" works for Terry the same way the sky worked for early belief in God. It's the only place to hide (as long as you continue to ignore science).

So the book comes out soon. Maybe it has answers to all of these questions, but admittedly I have my doubts.