Many churches have been vandelized. And our services occasionally get interrupted, so I don't see anything special there. That's why most churches have alarm systems.
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LDS Joseph Smith's Claim of an Apostasy is a Lie
- Thread starter ArmenianJohn
- Start date
Since people are complaining about things not being visible, I'll transcribe my responses one at a time.
**
Response to Ed Decker 1
Darren Blair
Decker, J. Edward. To Moroni With Love. 2nd ed. Seattle: Life Messengers.
*****
[Author’s Notes:
1. The “works cited” page that is to appear at the end will not include the scriptural references from any Mormon works or the LDS edition of the King James Version; instead, I shall post the link to the website where an HTML version can be obtained - <scriptures.lds.org/>. This is done in anticipation of having to make multiple citations.
2. For the most part, those works that will be cited will be works that are not officially sanctioned by the LDS faith; save for two exceptions, they will either be general information sites (such as Wikipedia) or apologetic websites. Consider yourself duly notified.]
*****
I believe that everyone can imagine my surprise when I spotted this item. One of the local Lutheran churches was having a charity rummage sale, and I discovered it in a pile of assorted pamphlets. A few cents later, and I was able to take it home.
Is this going to convert me? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, I have a fairly strong taste for the absurd and the unusual, which probably explains why I can appreciate such authors as Poe and Lovecraft. It is in this context that I approach this pamphlet: yet another absurdity. Even among mainstream Christians, Decker is regarded as someone to be avoided due to the sheer amount of inaccuracies in his work [Historical Figures]. As such, I will openly admit that I go into this with low expectations.
On the first page of this pamphlet, I discovered the following passage in regards to the pamphlet itself:
It is given to you, my Mormon friend, in love and in Christ.
If you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, you may doubt the sincerity of that love, but I assure you that it is real and honest.
Here we see Decker declaring his “love” for everyone who is Mormon and that this pamphlet was done in sincerity. In reality, Decker’s main tactics are harsh invective and willing distortion of the facts [Historical Figures]. At best, Decker is trying to present himself as the hero. At worst, he is lying to his readers. Given this statement on pages 3 and 4 and Decker’s reputation, I’m guessing that Decker is lying:
It is my solemn witness before God that He hold [sic] me accountable for any soul that I might lead from the light of His Son Jesus into the darkness of error and false doctrine.
Decker sincerely wants us to think that he’s on the level, but he blows it again on page 4:
It is the premise of this work that the Mormon and Christian worship at entirely different altars, with doctrines and “gospels” that fully separate the one from the other. It is therefore quite important that we identify the major points of division so that we can work from correct points of reference.
What Decker is not telling the reader is that even within what a person would consider to be Christianity there are a number of divisions, some of them running quite deep. You have the Roman Catholic branch of the family and its divisions, the Eastern Orthodox branch and its divisions, Protestantism and its (many) divisions, and the many forms of the Restorational and Gnostic movements. It is not enough to simply say “Christian” in regards to the doctrine, as that asserts all of Christendom to be one uniform mass; indeed, if Christendom were so uniform then you would not be reading this paper.
It is on page 5 that we get to the meat of the matter. Here, Decker is listing some supposed LDS teachings in regards to the rest of Christianity.
First, it is the basic Mormon belief that God finds the Christian worship of Him unacceptable and even loathsome.
Not true. The actual statement, according to Joseph Smith himself, is as follows:
Joseph Smith - History 1:19
19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”
Take note of what I have underlined. In no way was it stated that all of Christianity was loathsome to Heavenly Father or Jesus. Rather, what the Godhead found so offensive was the corruption within the leadership and the doctrines. This decrying the internal corruption is a far cry from saying that the worship that had been done over the past centuries was for naught.
Let’s look at Decker’s second point:
Second, the Mormon belief that Christianity (as it remains) is lost, irrevocably separates Mormonism and Christianity.
How? In what way? Decker makes an assertion and simply leaves it hanging. In reality, if one were to look they would see Mormons and mainstream Christians attempting to find common ground. One example is How Wide The Divide?, a book in which Craig Blomberg and Stephen E. Robinson sat down and compared notes on their respective faiths [Blomberg]. Another example is the attempt by Fuller Theological Seminary president Richard Mouw to reach out to Mormons, even going so far as to apologize for the way in which evangelical Christians have treated Mormons over the years [Mouw]. Indeed, the gulf between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity is only as wide as the membership would like for it to be.
Decker’s third point is this:
Third, there is no way that both can be right. The claims of Mormonism to being the “Restored” church excludes that possibility forever.
What Decker conveniently fails to state is that pretty much every last other Protestant and Restorationalist denomination exists because they consider themselves to be the “correct” faith; the same can be said for Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Gnosticism. So as we can see, while attempting to make the LDS faith look bad Decker merely made himself out to be a hypocrite.
Decker then goes on to discuss the LDS view of the Godhead over on page 6. He states:
The foregoing description of God’s appearance to Joseph Smith is noteworthy beyond His expressed displeasure with the Christian. Far more critical is his statement that God the Father and Jesus Christ both appeared before him separately, side by side, and in the flesh. Critical because it immediately separates Mormonism and Christianity in regards to the nature of God.
Not really, Ed. The concept of Heavenly Father and Jesus being physically separate is actually Biblical.
Acts 7:55-56 (KJV)
55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Here, Stephen the Martyr is declaring that he not only saw Heavenly Father and Jesus, but that Jesus was on the right hand of God. Not only would this support the LDS concept of the two being physically separate, but it also supports the concepts of Heavenly Father and Jesus having some sort of body and of Jesus being at Heavenly Father’s right hand. Decker has shown us that he is either ignorant of this passage or is hiding it from his readers.
Decker then goes on to cite Bruce R. McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine and the King Follet Discourse in an attempt to tell his readers what we believe in. What Decker is not telling his readers is that neither work was officially accepted into the canon; by citing them instead of actual doctrine, Decker is once again being intellectually dishonest. Decker then goes on to quote some Bible verses which he claims contradict the LDS teachings on this matter. Again, Decker runs into a problem:
John 1:18 (KJV)
18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
This verse is contradicted by a series of verses which speak of people seeing Heavenly Father, including the verse in Acts I just cited. There are too many verses, so for the sake of brevity I shall only list a few verses; even then, it is but the person and the verse or verses.
* Jacob (Genesis 32:30)
* Moses (Exodus 33:11, Deuteronomy 34:10)
* Solomon (1 Kings 11:9)
* Manoah and his wife (Judges 13)
* Isaiah (Isaiah 6:5)
I believe this list is sufficient to show that there are those who have not only seen God but also survived the experience. It should be noted that Doctrine & Covenants 67:11 clarifies this point by stating “For no man has seen God at any time in the flesh, except quickened by the Spirit of God,” meaning that it is possible for a person to see God if that person has been quickened and has temporarily left their physical body behind.
Decker also runs into a snag when he cites the King James Version rendering of John 4:24: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” The snag is that not all versions of the Bible read this way; the Revised Standard Version reads “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” By deleting the definite article “a,” the RSV disagrees with the interpretation that God does not have a body; instead, the verse now simply comments on what God represents. As someone with my background in English (membership in an honors society, among other things), I can tell you that the removal of the definite article here does indeed make a world of difference.
For the sake of brevity, I shall bypass the other verses Decker cites and move on. If requested, I will get to those verses at a later date.
Decker next attempts to discuss the Mormon concept of salvation, which he once again bungles. As before, he chooses to cite a work that is not accepted as a part of the canon; this time, the work is Talmage’s Articles of Faith. Surely, if he had done some actual research he could have discovered a canonical source. Additionally, Decker’s presentation of the LDS concept of salvation is skewed in that he states everyone is to be saved but that our works determine our glory. In reality, salvation comes after all we can do. Despite what Decker is attempting to assert, it takes both faith and works to be saved, something which James asserts:
James 2:14-20 (KJV)
14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
Faith and works are to go hand-in-hand; one simply cannot work their way into Heaven any more than they can just say “I believe!” and expect a free ticket. Rather, we are to do what we as humans can do, with the understanding that God will take over from there.
Decker also fouls up in bringing up the “lake of fire” description of Hell. As I stated earlier, Decker claims to speak for Christianity as a whole but does not; not everyone has the viewpoint that Hell is to be a place of physical torment [Hell]. Decker is also conveniently ignoring Doctrine & Covenants 76, where at the end of the description for those in the Telestial Kingdom we read verse 84: “These are they who are thrust down to hell.” Indeed, the LDS faith can be said to have two Hells: the Telestial Kingdom, where those who fell far short are located, and the Outer Darkness, where the worst of the worst offenders go. Either way, Decker has screwed up again.
In his attempt to define what every single “true” Christian believes in regards to Salvation, Decker goofs yet again. For starters, he cites two translations of 2 Corinthians 5:21; one translation is the KJV and the other is listed as “a modern translation.” His failure to cite the “modern translation” he is using is bad form, as it renders the readers unable to go back and compare the texts for themselves. It also trips Decker himself up, as it leaves open to debate whether or not Decker had familiarity with the RSV, the same translation that tripped him up earlier. Decker has also chosen to declare that all one needs to do is call on Christ’s name to be saved, thereby ignoring James’ statement concerning faith and works going together. Ironically enough, on page 16 the example that Decker uses to demonstrate how works don’t lead to salvation can also be used to demonstrate how merely expressing a person’s faith is likewise insufficient. I believe this counts as yet another “oops” on Decker’s part. The verses Decker has chosen to cite on pages 16 and 17 can likewise be turned against Decker and any other person who has zeal but not knowledge or wisdom.
Decker then attempts to assert that the Bible declares that there is to be no more canon. Although Decker avoids bringing up Revelation 22, he still stumbles over his own citations. All of Decker’s citations (Deuteronomy 4:2, Deuteronomy 12:32, and Proverbs 30:6) come from the Old Testament. By Decker’s own standard, the New Testament has to be false doctrine as it came after Proverbs. Proverbs, in turn, has to be false doctrine as it came after Deutronomy. In other words, if one is to follow Decker’s train of thought then the Biblical canon was to end at the Pentateuch. Oops.
The next section (starting at page 18) contains a series of gross errors compounded upon each other. For starters, Decker declares that we consider all churches “abominations” when it is merely their creeds we disagree with. Decker asserts that Mormons must earn their own salvation when that is (as I have shown before) false. Decker’s assertion that “we can become Gods” is patently false; those who are righteous will be exalted and given their own domain, but will in no way be a rival to Heavenly Father. Decker states that a “loving and caring God” would send a way to test doctrine, yet on the opposite page has stated that he rejects any new doctrine whatsoever. Decker then asks how it is possible for Mormons and Christians to come together, when as I have stated earlier it is already a reality.
Decker’s falsehoods continue. Despite his assertions on page 20, we do not have the original autographs of the Biblical texts. The oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls was not written earlier than 21 BC [Dead Sea Scrolls] and the Codex Vaticanus (one of the oldest surviving manuscripts) only dates to the fourth century [Codex]. In addition, if Decker was truly worried about texts being accurate to the original, then he would have been using an RSV or a New International Version instead of the rather inaccurate KJV.
Still more trickery arises in the next section. In the section where Decker gives warning as to what happens to those who do false doctrine, Decker trips over himself. On page 24, he claims that out of the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses is the truth to be established. He then declares that he has more than doubled that number. Thing is, he hasn’t. If one counts the Pauline epistles as being one single item, then there are only 4 witnesses: Matthew, Mark, Peter, and Paul. The only way to get at the figure Decker is attempting to imply would be to count the entries from the epistles separately. And speaking of the epistles, back on page 22 Decker claims to be stating what Paul preached. However, only the verse immediately following that statement mentions any of Paul’s teaching; Decker’s statement is therefore out of place and confusing. As an aside, pretty much all of Decker’s warnings are the same items those who are LDS use to show that the apostles legitimately feared an apostasy.
Decker then attempts (starting on page 25) to issue some “tests” that are supposed to show whether or not a person is a false prophet. Decker first tries to bring up the differing accounts of the First Vision, while at the same time failing to mention that the accounts focus on different aspects; they are therefore similar in nature to Paul’s differing accounts of how he encountered God [First Vision]. Decker then goes on to discuss some of Joseph Smith’s supposedly false prophecies, but even there he fails. Decker’s allegations concerning prophecy of the Civil War fall flat when one reads Doctrine & Covenants 87 where it is located ( <scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/87>) and discovers that the Section actually states that the Civil War is to be the first of many calamities instead of the one big calamity that Decker tries to assert was prophesied; a student of history will realize that not only did some foreign nations seek to get involved, but that after the Civil War the United States and even the world saw calamity after calamity. Decker’s statement concerning the “Grease Spot” prophecy, in which the government would be destroyed if it didn’t protect the church, also falls flat when one realizes that politician Stephen A. Douglas (the man who Joseph made the prophecy to) and the Whig party (one of the leading parties of the day) were destroyed in the 1850s and 1860s [Prophecy]. Decker’s questions concerning the Second Coming prophecies are deflated when one realizes that the New Testament also has unfulfilled claims about the Second Coming [Jesus]. And how is Oliver Granger being held in remembrance? By people such as Decker who keep asking how he’s being remembered. As for the apostasy not being Biblical, I must ask: if there was no apostasy, then why did Paul tell Timothy that all of Asia had turned from him (2 Timothy 1:15)? Decker tries to claim that the Melchezedek Priesthood isn’t Biblical, yet Hebrews (5:6, 7:17,21) references it. Matthew 16:5-12 is a warning against the Pharisees and Sadducees, yet Decker tries to twist it into a declaration that all of the OT priesthood is done away with; likewise, Matthew 21:23-27 says nothing about John the Baptist’s calling, yet Decker has twisted it to mean that John had no priesthood whatsoever. And despite Decker’s assertion, the 12 was called while Jesus was still alive, with Peter being affirmed the leader in Matthew 18, that same passage Decker quoted on page 36.
I’m making the passage about Joseph’s trial a separate paragraph due to the amount of information that needs to be discussed. In an attempt to discredit Joseph Smith, some of his enemies brought him up on charges of defrauding a Josiah Stowell by claiming to have a “glass” which he could look through in order to find treasure. Yet despite what the anti-Mormons of the world (such as Decker) would have everyone believe, there is actually a very good chance that Joseph was let go. The only document that can be definitively linked to this incident was a document that was stolen from a courthouse by a man known as Wesley Walters. If we are to assume that Walters in no way tampered with this document before being made to return it, then the document appears to be a legal bill in regards to the case. The charge brought against Joseph was a misdemeanor, signified by the fact that the word “misdemeanor” appears by his name; misdemeanor charges were not recorded during that time period, and so if this was a conviction notice then it is unusual. Even more unusual is that a change of nineteen cents appears on the bill to signify that JS was returned to jail for inability to pay bail, yet a charge of twenty-five cents which would have signified his being held over for trial is absent. Even Walters, the man who stole the document, admits that this was most likely a bill from a pre-trial hearing. Yet despite all of this, Decker, Walters, and many others try to cite this as evidence of a conviction [Trial]. Ultimately, the only crime committed was by the anti-Mormon who decided to break the law in an attempt to find material for slander.
Decker then brings up the issue of polygamy, attempting to explain it all away in a few small paragraphs. In reality, the issue is far, far more complex than what Decker is letting on. It is my recommendation that anyone seriously wishing to study the subject should spend an evening with “Polygamy, Prophets, and Prevarication: Frequently and Rarely Asked Questions about the Initiation, Practice, and Cessation of Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” by Gregory L. Smith, M.D. I say “evening” because it is quite a lengthy piece. The reader should be advised that this piece, despite its length, only scratches the surface of the issue. Indeed, if anyone is hiding anything on the matter, it is Decker himself.
And now, on to Decker’s final thoughts. Page 44 contains an entire paragraph which is entirely in capital letters; if this had been posted on the internet, it would have been taken to be incredibly rude by all parties who read it. Decker then claims that Joseph Smith has led people back into spiritual bondage, yet as I have shown the real corrupter here is Decker. Points 6 and 7 of Decker’s testimony would serve to show that Christianity itself is false should it ever be applied in such a fashion.
I must ask all of you, my readers who have made it this far, a very simple question. Decker claims that when he left the LDS faith, he found Truth. Yet this pamphlet has been nothing but lie upon lie, and distortion upon distortion. If Decker really did find God by leaving the LDS faith, why is he choosing to live a life of sin and deceit? Surely Heavenly Father must weep whenever Decker puts pen to paper, as it means that one of His children is using His sacred name as an excuse to bear false witness against his brethren. If this is what Decker is inviting me towards - a lifetime of sinning in Heavenly Father’s name - then I believe you can forgive me for wanting no part of it.
Works Cited:
“Historical Figures in the Christian Countercult Movement: J. Edward Decker.” University of Virginia Religous Movements Page. 28 October 2006. <religiousmovements.lib.virgini…>.
“Craig Blomberg.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 October 2006.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Bl…>.
“Richard Mouw.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 October 2006.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_…>.
The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version. Thomas Nelson and sons. New York: Nelson. 1952.
“Hell in Christian Beliefs.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 October 2006.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_in_…>.
“Dead Sea Scrolls.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 October 2006.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea…>.
“Codex Vaticanus.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 October 2006.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Va…>.
“Do The Various Versions of Joseph’s First Vision Contradict Each Other?” JeffLindsay.com. 28 October 2006. <www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_…>.
“The Stephen A. Douglas Prophecy.” JeffLindsay.com. 28 October 2006.
<www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_…>.
“Jesus, Joe, and Christian Hypocrisy.” jcnot4me.com. 28 October 2006.
<www.jcnot4me.com/Items/theolog… seph-Decker_files/Jesus-Joseph-Decker.htm>.
“Wasn’t Joseph Smith Involved In Money Digging?” JeffLindsay.com 28 October 2006.
<www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_…>.
Smith, Gregory L. M.D. Polygamy, Prophets, and Prevarication: Frequently and Rarely Asked Questions about the Initiation, Practice, and Cessation of Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. FAIRLDS.org. 28 October 2006.
<www.fairlds.org/Misc/Polygamy_…>.
**
Response to Ed Decker 1
- by Ironhold, May 5, 2007, 11:01:55 AM
- Literature / Prose / Non-Fiction / Reviews & Guides
Darren Blair
Decker, J. Edward. To Moroni With Love. 2nd ed. Seattle: Life Messengers.
*****
[Author’s Notes:
1. The “works cited” page that is to appear at the end will not include the scriptural references from any Mormon works or the LDS edition of the King James Version; instead, I shall post the link to the website where an HTML version can be obtained - <scriptures.lds.org/>. This is done in anticipation of having to make multiple citations.
2. For the most part, those works that will be cited will be works that are not officially sanctioned by the LDS faith; save for two exceptions, they will either be general information sites (such as Wikipedia) or apologetic websites. Consider yourself duly notified.]
*****
I believe that everyone can imagine my surprise when I spotted this item. One of the local Lutheran churches was having a charity rummage sale, and I discovered it in a pile of assorted pamphlets. A few cents later, and I was able to take it home.
Is this going to convert me? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, I have a fairly strong taste for the absurd and the unusual, which probably explains why I can appreciate such authors as Poe and Lovecraft. It is in this context that I approach this pamphlet: yet another absurdity. Even among mainstream Christians, Decker is regarded as someone to be avoided due to the sheer amount of inaccuracies in his work [Historical Figures]. As such, I will openly admit that I go into this with low expectations.
On the first page of this pamphlet, I discovered the following passage in regards to the pamphlet itself:
It is given to you, my Mormon friend, in love and in Christ.
If you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, you may doubt the sincerity of that love, but I assure you that it is real and honest.
Here we see Decker declaring his “love” for everyone who is Mormon and that this pamphlet was done in sincerity. In reality, Decker’s main tactics are harsh invective and willing distortion of the facts [Historical Figures]. At best, Decker is trying to present himself as the hero. At worst, he is lying to his readers. Given this statement on pages 3 and 4 and Decker’s reputation, I’m guessing that Decker is lying:
It is my solemn witness before God that He hold [sic] me accountable for any soul that I might lead from the light of His Son Jesus into the darkness of error and false doctrine.
Decker sincerely wants us to think that he’s on the level, but he blows it again on page 4:
It is the premise of this work that the Mormon and Christian worship at entirely different altars, with doctrines and “gospels” that fully separate the one from the other. It is therefore quite important that we identify the major points of division so that we can work from correct points of reference.
What Decker is not telling the reader is that even within what a person would consider to be Christianity there are a number of divisions, some of them running quite deep. You have the Roman Catholic branch of the family and its divisions, the Eastern Orthodox branch and its divisions, Protestantism and its (many) divisions, and the many forms of the Restorational and Gnostic movements. It is not enough to simply say “Christian” in regards to the doctrine, as that asserts all of Christendom to be one uniform mass; indeed, if Christendom were so uniform then you would not be reading this paper.
It is on page 5 that we get to the meat of the matter. Here, Decker is listing some supposed LDS teachings in regards to the rest of Christianity.
First, it is the basic Mormon belief that God finds the Christian worship of Him unacceptable and even loathsome.
Not true. The actual statement, according to Joseph Smith himself, is as follows:
Joseph Smith - History 1:19
19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”
Take note of what I have underlined. In no way was it stated that all of Christianity was loathsome to Heavenly Father or Jesus. Rather, what the Godhead found so offensive was the corruption within the leadership and the doctrines. This decrying the internal corruption is a far cry from saying that the worship that had been done over the past centuries was for naught.
Let’s look at Decker’s second point:
Second, the Mormon belief that Christianity (as it remains) is lost, irrevocably separates Mormonism and Christianity.
How? In what way? Decker makes an assertion and simply leaves it hanging. In reality, if one were to look they would see Mormons and mainstream Christians attempting to find common ground. One example is How Wide The Divide?, a book in which Craig Blomberg and Stephen E. Robinson sat down and compared notes on their respective faiths [Blomberg]. Another example is the attempt by Fuller Theological Seminary president Richard Mouw to reach out to Mormons, even going so far as to apologize for the way in which evangelical Christians have treated Mormons over the years [Mouw]. Indeed, the gulf between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity is only as wide as the membership would like for it to be.
Decker’s third point is this:
Third, there is no way that both can be right. The claims of Mormonism to being the “Restored” church excludes that possibility forever.
What Decker conveniently fails to state is that pretty much every last other Protestant and Restorationalist denomination exists because they consider themselves to be the “correct” faith; the same can be said for Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Gnosticism. So as we can see, while attempting to make the LDS faith look bad Decker merely made himself out to be a hypocrite.
Decker then goes on to discuss the LDS view of the Godhead over on page 6. He states:
The foregoing description of God’s appearance to Joseph Smith is noteworthy beyond His expressed displeasure with the Christian. Far more critical is his statement that God the Father and Jesus Christ both appeared before him separately, side by side, and in the flesh. Critical because it immediately separates Mormonism and Christianity in regards to the nature of God.
Not really, Ed. The concept of Heavenly Father and Jesus being physically separate is actually Biblical.
Acts 7:55-56 (KJV)
55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Here, Stephen the Martyr is declaring that he not only saw Heavenly Father and Jesus, but that Jesus was on the right hand of God. Not only would this support the LDS concept of the two being physically separate, but it also supports the concepts of Heavenly Father and Jesus having some sort of body and of Jesus being at Heavenly Father’s right hand. Decker has shown us that he is either ignorant of this passage or is hiding it from his readers.
Decker then goes on to cite Bruce R. McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine and the King Follet Discourse in an attempt to tell his readers what we believe in. What Decker is not telling his readers is that neither work was officially accepted into the canon; by citing them instead of actual doctrine, Decker is once again being intellectually dishonest. Decker then goes on to quote some Bible verses which he claims contradict the LDS teachings on this matter. Again, Decker runs into a problem:
John 1:18 (KJV)
18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
This verse is contradicted by a series of verses which speak of people seeing Heavenly Father, including the verse in Acts I just cited. There are too many verses, so for the sake of brevity I shall only list a few verses; even then, it is but the person and the verse or verses.
* Jacob (Genesis 32:30)
* Moses (Exodus 33:11, Deuteronomy 34:10)
* Solomon (1 Kings 11:9)
* Manoah and his wife (Judges 13)
* Isaiah (Isaiah 6:5)
I believe this list is sufficient to show that there are those who have not only seen God but also survived the experience. It should be noted that Doctrine & Covenants 67:11 clarifies this point by stating “For no man has seen God at any time in the flesh, except quickened by the Spirit of God,” meaning that it is possible for a person to see God if that person has been quickened and has temporarily left their physical body behind.
Decker also runs into a snag when he cites the King James Version rendering of John 4:24: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” The snag is that not all versions of the Bible read this way; the Revised Standard Version reads “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” By deleting the definite article “a,” the RSV disagrees with the interpretation that God does not have a body; instead, the verse now simply comments on what God represents. As someone with my background in English (membership in an honors society, among other things), I can tell you that the removal of the definite article here does indeed make a world of difference.
For the sake of brevity, I shall bypass the other verses Decker cites and move on. If requested, I will get to those verses at a later date.
Decker next attempts to discuss the Mormon concept of salvation, which he once again bungles. As before, he chooses to cite a work that is not accepted as a part of the canon; this time, the work is Talmage’s Articles of Faith. Surely, if he had done some actual research he could have discovered a canonical source. Additionally, Decker’s presentation of the LDS concept of salvation is skewed in that he states everyone is to be saved but that our works determine our glory. In reality, salvation comes after all we can do. Despite what Decker is attempting to assert, it takes both faith and works to be saved, something which James asserts:
James 2:14-20 (KJV)
14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
Faith and works are to go hand-in-hand; one simply cannot work their way into Heaven any more than they can just say “I believe!” and expect a free ticket. Rather, we are to do what we as humans can do, with the understanding that God will take over from there.
Decker also fouls up in bringing up the “lake of fire” description of Hell. As I stated earlier, Decker claims to speak for Christianity as a whole but does not; not everyone has the viewpoint that Hell is to be a place of physical torment [Hell]. Decker is also conveniently ignoring Doctrine & Covenants 76, where at the end of the description for those in the Telestial Kingdom we read verse 84: “These are they who are thrust down to hell.” Indeed, the LDS faith can be said to have two Hells: the Telestial Kingdom, where those who fell far short are located, and the Outer Darkness, where the worst of the worst offenders go. Either way, Decker has screwed up again.
In his attempt to define what every single “true” Christian believes in regards to Salvation, Decker goofs yet again. For starters, he cites two translations of 2 Corinthians 5:21; one translation is the KJV and the other is listed as “a modern translation.” His failure to cite the “modern translation” he is using is bad form, as it renders the readers unable to go back and compare the texts for themselves. It also trips Decker himself up, as it leaves open to debate whether or not Decker had familiarity with the RSV, the same translation that tripped him up earlier. Decker has also chosen to declare that all one needs to do is call on Christ’s name to be saved, thereby ignoring James’ statement concerning faith and works going together. Ironically enough, on page 16 the example that Decker uses to demonstrate how works don’t lead to salvation can also be used to demonstrate how merely expressing a person’s faith is likewise insufficient. I believe this counts as yet another “oops” on Decker’s part. The verses Decker has chosen to cite on pages 16 and 17 can likewise be turned against Decker and any other person who has zeal but not knowledge or wisdom.
Decker then attempts to assert that the Bible declares that there is to be no more canon. Although Decker avoids bringing up Revelation 22, he still stumbles over his own citations. All of Decker’s citations (Deuteronomy 4:2, Deuteronomy 12:32, and Proverbs 30:6) come from the Old Testament. By Decker’s own standard, the New Testament has to be false doctrine as it came after Proverbs. Proverbs, in turn, has to be false doctrine as it came after Deutronomy. In other words, if one is to follow Decker’s train of thought then the Biblical canon was to end at the Pentateuch. Oops.
The next section (starting at page 18) contains a series of gross errors compounded upon each other. For starters, Decker declares that we consider all churches “abominations” when it is merely their creeds we disagree with. Decker asserts that Mormons must earn their own salvation when that is (as I have shown before) false. Decker’s assertion that “we can become Gods” is patently false; those who are righteous will be exalted and given their own domain, but will in no way be a rival to Heavenly Father. Decker states that a “loving and caring God” would send a way to test doctrine, yet on the opposite page has stated that he rejects any new doctrine whatsoever. Decker then asks how it is possible for Mormons and Christians to come together, when as I have stated earlier it is already a reality.
Decker’s falsehoods continue. Despite his assertions on page 20, we do not have the original autographs of the Biblical texts. The oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls was not written earlier than 21 BC [Dead Sea Scrolls] and the Codex Vaticanus (one of the oldest surviving manuscripts) only dates to the fourth century [Codex]. In addition, if Decker was truly worried about texts being accurate to the original, then he would have been using an RSV or a New International Version instead of the rather inaccurate KJV.
Still more trickery arises in the next section. In the section where Decker gives warning as to what happens to those who do false doctrine, Decker trips over himself. On page 24, he claims that out of the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses is the truth to be established. He then declares that he has more than doubled that number. Thing is, he hasn’t. If one counts the Pauline epistles as being one single item, then there are only 4 witnesses: Matthew, Mark, Peter, and Paul. The only way to get at the figure Decker is attempting to imply would be to count the entries from the epistles separately. And speaking of the epistles, back on page 22 Decker claims to be stating what Paul preached. However, only the verse immediately following that statement mentions any of Paul’s teaching; Decker’s statement is therefore out of place and confusing. As an aside, pretty much all of Decker’s warnings are the same items those who are LDS use to show that the apostles legitimately feared an apostasy.
Decker then attempts (starting on page 25) to issue some “tests” that are supposed to show whether or not a person is a false prophet. Decker first tries to bring up the differing accounts of the First Vision, while at the same time failing to mention that the accounts focus on different aspects; they are therefore similar in nature to Paul’s differing accounts of how he encountered God [First Vision]. Decker then goes on to discuss some of Joseph Smith’s supposedly false prophecies, but even there he fails. Decker’s allegations concerning prophecy of the Civil War fall flat when one reads Doctrine & Covenants 87 where it is located ( <scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/87>) and discovers that the Section actually states that the Civil War is to be the first of many calamities instead of the one big calamity that Decker tries to assert was prophesied; a student of history will realize that not only did some foreign nations seek to get involved, but that after the Civil War the United States and even the world saw calamity after calamity. Decker’s statement concerning the “Grease Spot” prophecy, in which the government would be destroyed if it didn’t protect the church, also falls flat when one realizes that politician Stephen A. Douglas (the man who Joseph made the prophecy to) and the Whig party (one of the leading parties of the day) were destroyed in the 1850s and 1860s [Prophecy]. Decker’s questions concerning the Second Coming prophecies are deflated when one realizes that the New Testament also has unfulfilled claims about the Second Coming [Jesus]. And how is Oliver Granger being held in remembrance? By people such as Decker who keep asking how he’s being remembered. As for the apostasy not being Biblical, I must ask: if there was no apostasy, then why did Paul tell Timothy that all of Asia had turned from him (2 Timothy 1:15)? Decker tries to claim that the Melchezedek Priesthood isn’t Biblical, yet Hebrews (5:6, 7:17,21) references it. Matthew 16:5-12 is a warning against the Pharisees and Sadducees, yet Decker tries to twist it into a declaration that all of the OT priesthood is done away with; likewise, Matthew 21:23-27 says nothing about John the Baptist’s calling, yet Decker has twisted it to mean that John had no priesthood whatsoever. And despite Decker’s assertion, the 12 was called while Jesus was still alive, with Peter being affirmed the leader in Matthew 18, that same passage Decker quoted on page 36.
I’m making the passage about Joseph’s trial a separate paragraph due to the amount of information that needs to be discussed. In an attempt to discredit Joseph Smith, some of his enemies brought him up on charges of defrauding a Josiah Stowell by claiming to have a “glass” which he could look through in order to find treasure. Yet despite what the anti-Mormons of the world (such as Decker) would have everyone believe, there is actually a very good chance that Joseph was let go. The only document that can be definitively linked to this incident was a document that was stolen from a courthouse by a man known as Wesley Walters. If we are to assume that Walters in no way tampered with this document before being made to return it, then the document appears to be a legal bill in regards to the case. The charge brought against Joseph was a misdemeanor, signified by the fact that the word “misdemeanor” appears by his name; misdemeanor charges were not recorded during that time period, and so if this was a conviction notice then it is unusual. Even more unusual is that a change of nineteen cents appears on the bill to signify that JS was returned to jail for inability to pay bail, yet a charge of twenty-five cents which would have signified his being held over for trial is absent. Even Walters, the man who stole the document, admits that this was most likely a bill from a pre-trial hearing. Yet despite all of this, Decker, Walters, and many others try to cite this as evidence of a conviction [Trial]. Ultimately, the only crime committed was by the anti-Mormon who decided to break the law in an attempt to find material for slander.
Decker then brings up the issue of polygamy, attempting to explain it all away in a few small paragraphs. In reality, the issue is far, far more complex than what Decker is letting on. It is my recommendation that anyone seriously wishing to study the subject should spend an evening with “Polygamy, Prophets, and Prevarication: Frequently and Rarely Asked Questions about the Initiation, Practice, and Cessation of Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” by Gregory L. Smith, M.D. I say “evening” because it is quite a lengthy piece. The reader should be advised that this piece, despite its length, only scratches the surface of the issue. Indeed, if anyone is hiding anything on the matter, it is Decker himself.
And now, on to Decker’s final thoughts. Page 44 contains an entire paragraph which is entirely in capital letters; if this had been posted on the internet, it would have been taken to be incredibly rude by all parties who read it. Decker then claims that Joseph Smith has led people back into spiritual bondage, yet as I have shown the real corrupter here is Decker. Points 6 and 7 of Decker’s testimony would serve to show that Christianity itself is false should it ever be applied in such a fashion.
I must ask all of you, my readers who have made it this far, a very simple question. Decker claims that when he left the LDS faith, he found Truth. Yet this pamphlet has been nothing but lie upon lie, and distortion upon distortion. If Decker really did find God by leaving the LDS faith, why is he choosing to live a life of sin and deceit? Surely Heavenly Father must weep whenever Decker puts pen to paper, as it means that one of His children is using His sacred name as an excuse to bear false witness against his brethren. If this is what Decker is inviting me towards - a lifetime of sinning in Heavenly Father’s name - then I believe you can forgive me for wanting no part of it.
Works Cited:
“Historical Figures in the Christian Countercult Movement: J. Edward Decker.” University of Virginia Religous Movements Page. 28 October 2006. <religiousmovements.lib.virgini…>.
“Craig Blomberg.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 October 2006.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Bl…>.
“Richard Mouw.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 October 2006.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_…>.
The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version. Thomas Nelson and sons. New York: Nelson. 1952.
“Hell in Christian Beliefs.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 October 2006.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_in_…>.
“Dead Sea Scrolls.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 October 2006.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea…>.
“Codex Vaticanus.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 October 2006.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Va…>.
“Do The Various Versions of Joseph’s First Vision Contradict Each Other?” JeffLindsay.com. 28 October 2006. <www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_…>.
“The Stephen A. Douglas Prophecy.” JeffLindsay.com. 28 October 2006.
<www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_…>.
“Jesus, Joe, and Christian Hypocrisy.” jcnot4me.com. 28 October 2006.
<www.jcnot4me.com/Items/theolog… seph-Decker_files/Jesus-Joseph-Decker.htm>.
“Wasn’t Joseph Smith Involved In Money Digging?” JeffLindsay.com 28 October 2006.
<www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_…>.
Smith, Gregory L. M.D. Polygamy, Prophets, and Prevarication: Frequently and Rarely Asked Questions about the Initiation, Practice, and Cessation of Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. FAIRLDS.org. 28 October 2006.
<www.fairlds.org/Misc/Polygamy_…>.
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Here in NY the desecration of Catholic churches and Jewish synagogues is sadly periodically in the news.
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Then you were lucky.
They've happened here in Texas, at least.
A congregation one of my brothers attended while in college was among those that got so disrupted. Fortunately, the individuals who saw fit to do so soon realized that they were badly outclassed (the town in question is home to both a college with a recommended criminal justice program and a prison with a death row, meaning that most of the brethren were former or current corrections officials) and so left on their own volition.
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Do you have the news articles or statistics that show that Mormon worship places are more vandelized or is this personal opinion?
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Response to Ed Decker no. 2
*As a rule of thumb, anything which says "we're going to show you what Mormon theology is all about" that doesn't come from a church-sanctioned source needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
*The bit about "Mormonism teaches that there are billions of plants ruled by countless Gods" is hokum. Next to nothing has been handed down concerning this concept.
The only half-way accurate statement is that we do, indeed, believe that a person who is indeed righteous can potentially ascend to a state similar to that of a diety.
*While it is accepted that Heavenly Father likewise was one of those ascended people, nothing more has been said about it. What you see in the film is, at best, speculative and therefore should be ignored.
*I've yet to see anything explicitly stating that Heavenly Father has multiple wives. While LDS belief is that Heavenly Father is married, that's the extent of present teachings.
*The "endless celestial sex" line is so false as to be absurd. Nothing has been handed down as to how spirit children come to be. What you see is speculation on Ed's part, and is IMHO quite tacky.
*Additionally, while the church does believe that we are all spiritual siblings, the concept is being grossly mis-represented.
*While Jesus and Lucifer held positions of high place in the pre-mortal, it is incorrect to say that Lucifer was Heavenly Father's #2 son. There is nothing to support this other than rumor and speculation.
*The War In Heaven is incorrectly portrayed. As a result of his rebellion, Lucifer and his followers were ejected from Heaven and denied the opportunity to go down to Earth and have bodies. The clip neglects the fact that they tried to rebel and were ejected as their punishment, changing the entire context of the doctrine.
*The belief that those who were neutral in the war were turned into blacks has been repudiated. After blacks were given the priesthood in 1978, a massive upheaval followed in regards to doctrine. Even Bruce R. McConkie, a rather maverick apostle, was forced to declare that many (if not all) of the previous conceptions and teachings in regards to blacks was to be jettisoned as they were false. This was current to Decker's little movie, and so he should have known about this.
*Nothing in LDS doctrine states that being born into a Mormon family was the reward for people who were the most valiant in the War In Heaven. The closest thing to this teaching is that each of us agreed to accept whatever family we were born into.
*The phrase "white and delightsome" comes from a passage in one of the books of Nephi. What Ed, like so many other anti-Mormons, does not tell anyone is that "white" was used in the context of "pure." Joseph Smith himself ordered that the word "white" be replaced with "pure," but his death, the forced flight to Utah, the troubles with the US government, and miscommunication between the membership in America and Europe resulted in only one edition containing this change before such time as the 1981 edition of the BoM.
*The "Adam-God" theory is pretty well dead in the water; the only people who take it seriously are critics of the church. Brigham Young did make comments concerning the divinity of Adam, but even he had to state that he would no longer sanction any discussion of the issue as so many people in the church kept botching and mis-interpreting his statements.
*Kolob is described as a "star base" in the movie. I think just about everyone should be able to see how over-the-top Ed is being here.
*While there was speculation as to by what method Mary became pregnant, there was no official doctrine on the issue and it is generally regarded as a prehipherial or even fringe topic. Your average Mormon, even if they have heard of it, will tend to ignore it.
*There's nothing in the official doctrine to state that he [Jesus] was married. While there is circumstancial evidence to suggest that he was married, and may have been married to one (or more) of his female followers, it's largely considered a "dead" issue. Few Mormons actively worry about it.
*There's nothing to state that Jesus ever had kids, nor is there anything to state that Joseph Smith was to have been a descendent of Jesus. This is either a deliberate distortion or a misunderstanding of the belief that Joseph was a descended of the same Joseph who was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers; however, Jesus was a descendent of Judah, one of this Joseph's older brothers. As such, there is no direct familial relationship between Jesus and Joseph Smith.
*The description of the original plates was that they had the "appearance" of being golden. Many critics of the church (and even some members) get tripped up by this. As gold is quite heavy and pure gold is rather malleable, it is more likely that the plates were made of brass or an indigenous alloy such as tumbaga.
*The clip tries to present being a "treasure seeker" and being known for "tall tales" as bad things. In reality, treasure hunting was quite common in JS' region at the time, and may have been tied into the surge of religious fervor going on in that area. The fervor was so high and passions running so hot that the region came to be known as the "Burned-Over District." It was this confusion and tumult that caused a teenage Joseph to kneel down in prayer to know the truth.
*"Coca-Cola" erroneously shows up on the list of banned items. While coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs are banned in Mormon belief, nothing is mentioned about sodas of any type. In fact, my family often keeps a few cans of Coca-Cola in the fridge due to the fact that when it goes flat it does wonders for a person's stomach.
As an aside, there are those who believe that the church owns the Coca-Cola corporation. While individual members may have stock in the company, the church as a whole has no stake in the ownership.
*The shot of "geneology work" shows two people in a graveyard at night reading information off of a headstone. This depiction is highly inaccurate. It's more common for people who do geneology work to try and obtain written records such as family trees, birth and death certificates, church membership rosters, and census documents. Additionally, it would be foolish for someone to go into a cemetary at night to do these things, as it would give the impression of possible illegal activity. If a person did need or want to get names from the local cemetary, it would be easier to do so in broad daylight as many cemetaries are open to the public.
*Joseph Smith doesn't have the power to judge a person per se. The only power he would have would be power given to him by Heavenly Father. As such, this depiction in the movie is misleading.
*Contrary to what the movie says, no one expects to be a polygamous god. If there are any who do so, then they are usually referred to by some derivitive of the term "idiot."
*The claim that Joseph had done more for the world than Jesus is false on multiple levels. First, it wasn't Joseph Smith who made the claim. It was actually John Taylor, a witness to Joseph's murder, writing about the event. Secondly, the actual epitaph says "...has done more for the world, save Jesus, to...". The movie presents a deliberately false notion.
*As a general note, I picked up on the fact that the movie often used sinister music and creepy sound effects. The only possible purpose for this would be to make the view subconsciously think that the church's teachings were evil. Ed could just have easily used "Ode to Joy" or "Rondo A La Turk" as his backgroung music.
Also, the church hasn't tried to ban that film.
However, both the National Council of Christians and Jews and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith have issued statements condemning the film that the cartoon was a part of, stating that it was nothing more than a hit piece and was not created to tell the truth.
- by Ironhold, Sep 15, 2007, 7:05:37 PM
- Literature / Prose / Non-Fiction / Academic Essays
*As a rule of thumb, anything which says "we're going to show you what Mormon theology is all about" that doesn't come from a church-sanctioned source needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
*The bit about "Mormonism teaches that there are billions of plants ruled by countless Gods" is hokum. Next to nothing has been handed down concerning this concept.
The only half-way accurate statement is that we do, indeed, believe that a person who is indeed righteous can potentially ascend to a state similar to that of a diety.
*While it is accepted that Heavenly Father likewise was one of those ascended people, nothing more has been said about it. What you see in the film is, at best, speculative and therefore should be ignored.
*I've yet to see anything explicitly stating that Heavenly Father has multiple wives. While LDS belief is that Heavenly Father is married, that's the extent of present teachings.
*The "endless celestial sex" line is so false as to be absurd. Nothing has been handed down as to how spirit children come to be. What you see is speculation on Ed's part, and is IMHO quite tacky.
*Additionally, while the church does believe that we are all spiritual siblings, the concept is being grossly mis-represented.
*While Jesus and Lucifer held positions of high place in the pre-mortal, it is incorrect to say that Lucifer was Heavenly Father's #2 son. There is nothing to support this other than rumor and speculation.
*The War In Heaven is incorrectly portrayed. As a result of his rebellion, Lucifer and his followers were ejected from Heaven and denied the opportunity to go down to Earth and have bodies. The clip neglects the fact that they tried to rebel and were ejected as their punishment, changing the entire context of the doctrine.
*The belief that those who were neutral in the war were turned into blacks has been repudiated. After blacks were given the priesthood in 1978, a massive upheaval followed in regards to doctrine. Even Bruce R. McConkie, a rather maverick apostle, was forced to declare that many (if not all) of the previous conceptions and teachings in regards to blacks was to be jettisoned as they were false. This was current to Decker's little movie, and so he should have known about this.
*Nothing in LDS doctrine states that being born into a Mormon family was the reward for people who were the most valiant in the War In Heaven. The closest thing to this teaching is that each of us agreed to accept whatever family we were born into.
*The phrase "white and delightsome" comes from a passage in one of the books of Nephi. What Ed, like so many other anti-Mormons, does not tell anyone is that "white" was used in the context of "pure." Joseph Smith himself ordered that the word "white" be replaced with "pure," but his death, the forced flight to Utah, the troubles with the US government, and miscommunication between the membership in America and Europe resulted in only one edition containing this change before such time as the 1981 edition of the BoM.
*The "Adam-God" theory is pretty well dead in the water; the only people who take it seriously are critics of the church. Brigham Young did make comments concerning the divinity of Adam, but even he had to state that he would no longer sanction any discussion of the issue as so many people in the church kept botching and mis-interpreting his statements.
*Kolob is described as a "star base" in the movie. I think just about everyone should be able to see how over-the-top Ed is being here.
*While there was speculation as to by what method Mary became pregnant, there was no official doctrine on the issue and it is generally regarded as a prehipherial or even fringe topic. Your average Mormon, even if they have heard of it, will tend to ignore it.
*There's nothing in the official doctrine to state that he [Jesus] was married. While there is circumstancial evidence to suggest that he was married, and may have been married to one (or more) of his female followers, it's largely considered a "dead" issue. Few Mormons actively worry about it.
*There's nothing to state that Jesus ever had kids, nor is there anything to state that Joseph Smith was to have been a descendent of Jesus. This is either a deliberate distortion or a misunderstanding of the belief that Joseph was a descended of the same Joseph who was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers; however, Jesus was a descendent of Judah, one of this Joseph's older brothers. As such, there is no direct familial relationship between Jesus and Joseph Smith.
*The description of the original plates was that they had the "appearance" of being golden. Many critics of the church (and even some members) get tripped up by this. As gold is quite heavy and pure gold is rather malleable, it is more likely that the plates were made of brass or an indigenous alloy such as tumbaga.
*The clip tries to present being a "treasure seeker" and being known for "tall tales" as bad things. In reality, treasure hunting was quite common in JS' region at the time, and may have been tied into the surge of religious fervor going on in that area. The fervor was so high and passions running so hot that the region came to be known as the "Burned-Over District." It was this confusion and tumult that caused a teenage Joseph to kneel down in prayer to know the truth.
*"Coca-Cola" erroneously shows up on the list of banned items. While coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs are banned in Mormon belief, nothing is mentioned about sodas of any type. In fact, my family often keeps a few cans of Coca-Cola in the fridge due to the fact that when it goes flat it does wonders for a person's stomach.
As an aside, there are those who believe that the church owns the Coca-Cola corporation. While individual members may have stock in the company, the church as a whole has no stake in the ownership.
*The shot of "geneology work" shows two people in a graveyard at night reading information off of a headstone. This depiction is highly inaccurate. It's more common for people who do geneology work to try and obtain written records such as family trees, birth and death certificates, church membership rosters, and census documents. Additionally, it would be foolish for someone to go into a cemetary at night to do these things, as it would give the impression of possible illegal activity. If a person did need or want to get names from the local cemetary, it would be easier to do so in broad daylight as many cemetaries are open to the public.
*Joseph Smith doesn't have the power to judge a person per se. The only power he would have would be power given to him by Heavenly Father. As such, this depiction in the movie is misleading.
*Contrary to what the movie says, no one expects to be a polygamous god. If there are any who do so, then they are usually referred to by some derivitive of the term "idiot."
*The claim that Joseph had done more for the world than Jesus is false on multiple levels. First, it wasn't Joseph Smith who made the claim. It was actually John Taylor, a witness to Joseph's murder, writing about the event. Secondly, the actual epitaph says "...has done more for the world, save Jesus, to...". The movie presents a deliberately false notion.
*As a general note, I picked up on the fact that the movie often used sinister music and creepy sound effects. The only possible purpose for this would be to make the view subconsciously think that the church's teachings were evil. Ed could just have easily used "Ode to Joy" or "Rondo A La Turk" as his backgroung music.
Also, the church hasn't tried to ban that film.
However, both the National Council of Christians and Jews and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith have issued statements condemning the film that the cartoon was a part of, stating that it was nothing more than a hit piece and was not created to tell the truth.
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Response to Chick 1, v2.0
So, folks, here we go. Another Chick Tract wherein a less-than-informed person is saved from a "cult" by an author avatar who spouts off flimsy arguments that anyone even vaguely aware of what's actually being said can see right through and rip to pieces. But because this is a Chick Tract, people are inclined to automatically believe them. And because it's mocking the LDS (Mormon) faith, that makes folks who should already know not to trust Chick want to trust him anyway.
In that sense, let's begin. The tract opens with an elderly woman waiting for some LDS missionaries to pay her a visit. Her niece, an obvious Mary Sue character, recognizes the danger in listening to LDS missionaries and immediately tries to pounce on them using obviously canned arguments. But do those arguments carry any weight? Not a one.
For starters, our "hero" begins by citing James 4:24, which states "God is a Spirit." Chick's argument here is obvious: if God is a spirit according to the Bible, then it should follow that the LDS concept of God having a perfected physical body is wrong, right? What Chick fails to grasp, however, is that the assorted translations of the Bible do not agree on how to render that verse. For example, the Revised Standard Version (of which I have a copy) renders it as "God is Spirit." Now, you might be asking how it is that this is significant. Well, I'll explain: without the article 'a', that passage becomes a metaphor; rather than given a specific, hard-and-fast detail about God, it instead describes an element of his character.
In that same panel, we see Chick referring to a passage from the Journal of Discourses to try and make an argument. The logic here is that if it was said by Brigham Young, the second head of the church, then it must be part of the core theology. Rather, this argument is highly misleading and incorrect. To begin with, the JoD – like The Seer, another work that critics like to cite – is not part of the active canon of the church; there is a process that a work must go through to be regarded as canon, and neither work went through it (the former contains bits and pieces that are obviously personal opinion and / or hypothetical, while the latter is downright heterodox and was controversial even in its day). Citing it like it is, then, is at best a misrepresentation of its importance and at worst dishonest. As far as the theological concept goes, the concept is simply that humans can achieve a higher level of existence, just like God himself once did. As earth-shattering as this may be, though, the focus is on the first half of the statement – that humanity can become better – and not on the second half; the second half, in fact, is largely not discussed outside of theological or scholarly circles unless the members find themselves asked about it.
As a follow up, in that same panel (making it a triple play!) we have the statement that if God was to walk through the aisles no one would recognize him at first. Chick presents this as if it was something to be aghast at, but in reality it isn't. Why? It means that if God was to appear, he'd appear in a fashion that we humans would not have reason to fear or question; rather, he would appear as one of us. This could be compared to Luke 24, wherein Jesus joins two men walking the road to Emmaus but they do not notice him; as he has come to them as a normal man rather than as a divine personage, they have no cause to regard him as anything but a brother or friend. Given this, one shouldn't find it awkward to think that God might show up in a similar fashion.
Chick then drops in a line about how God is supposedly living on a planet near a star known as Kolob along with several wives. To someone who is Mormon, the matter is entirely preposterous and proof that Chick hasn't done as much research as he'd like to make us believe. For starters, Kolob is merely the star which God used as a point of reference during the Creation process; the "days" are based on Kolob's cycle, since our own sun hadn't yet been created. There is nothing in the theology about there being a planet, and in fact the notion is wholly assumed by critics without the least shred of actual doctrinal support (I shant repeat the statement one member of the church offered up when informed that another critic was parroting this same argument due to the use of an obscenity; suffice to say, though, that this argument here was enough for that member to lose all respect for that other critic). Likewise, assuming that God has multiple wives is nothing more than jumping to conclusions on the part of dirty-minded critics who have taken a few disparate concepts (including the one in the next paragraph), stuck them in a blender, and then proceeded to distill the most bizarre leaps of logic they could pull from the mix.
Then we get to the tired and well-worn canard about how Jesus and Satan are brothers. It's such a staple of critical literature that many of your more seasoned Mormons merely yawn when confronted with it, as we know the real story. You see, the actual theology holds that all of humanity is, on the spiritual level, related to one another, with Jesus as our Elder Brother. In that sense, humanity is elevated and Satan's fall is made all the more tragic. But rather than recognize the simple elegance of the theology, Chick – like so many others – employs a grossly twisted and distorted retelling of the matter in an effort to shock his readers. One must wonder if Chick himself knows that he is helping to perpetuate a falsehood. As an aside, the "including Lucifer" blurb he affixed to his citation of 1 Colossians 16-18 is Chick's own invention; he himself inferred it from the text, and so one can argue as to whether or not his inference is valid.
As far as the War in Heaven goes, Chick is already off to a bad start by lobbing around the term "Gods." Both Psalms 82 and John 10:30-36 both use the term "gods" in reference to human beings of high status, both in the religious and secular sense, to make a point; neither passage is referring to these humans as actual deities, but rather denoting the level of respect given to them. In this light, we can see that critics of the church, like Chick, are confusing the two usages into one. Thus, rather than an assemblage of deities together, the Council in Heaven (I do not recall seeing the term "Council of Gods" outside of this tract, despite having read the two works Chick has referenced) consisted of God calling all of his spirit children – including you and I – together in order to determine the best course of action as regards the planet that would become Earth.
This then leads us to Chick conflating both the acceptance of Jesus' plan and his status as the Savior. While it is indeed true that the theology holds Jesus' plan was the one that was ultimately accepted, Jesus attained the status of Savior by actually offering himself up as an Atonement for the sins of humanity. This is basic LDS theology, such that one must wonder if Chick actually talked to anyone who was actively LDS before doing this tract.
Chick then follows that up with the argument about a third of the host of Heaven being neutral and thus being cursed to become black. What Chick isn't telling anyone is that this was simply never an accurate reflection of LDS theology but rather an archaic bit of lore held on to by some members of the church. In fact, note that Chick specifically cites the 1966 edition of McConkie's Mormon Doctrine as his point of reference for this. Why is it important? You see, in 1978 the church – including McConkie himself – repudiated the vast majority of the church's prior lore and teachings in regards to race; not only that, but MD was given a total overhaul in 1979, during which that piece of lore and other non-doctrinal items that McConkie included in the '66 edition were deleted. Chick should have been well aware of this change in the church's theology and mindset, including the alteration of MD. That he instead tries to cite the older edition of the book is dishonest, no matter who you want to blame for providing that information in the first place.
Additionally, Chick is ignoring the fact that blacks have been welcome in the church since day one. Blacks were actually able to meet in mixed congregations with whites, and at least one black – Elijah Abel – was ordained to the priesthood in Joseph Smith's day; this was so completely beyond the pale for other Christian groups of the day that it helped spur the cultural opposition that was behind the Missouri Conflict. Likewise, while Joseph disagreed with the methods used by many self-professed abolitionists, he himself was opposed to slavery and during his 1844 Presidential bid proposed what he regarded as a peaceful means to end the institution (specifically, having the government raise money in order to purchase the freedom of as many slaves as it could).
And in his usual form, Chick over-emphasizes the notion that exalted Mormons will achieve a dominion of their own. To begin with, it is a peripheral doctrine; little attention is given to it inside actual LDS churches. Additionally, it is a reward given to the most righteous; not everyone will have the chance. Likewise, those so honored will never be a direct challenge to God. I actually find it curious that some atheists I have spoken with have been able to grasp the concept – and explain it in full to others – when many Christians cannot.
Another example of Chick confusing culture with theology is the bit about having large families. Many people in the church do, yes, believe that by having children they are partnering with God in the process of creation. But beyond a few odd statements, this is not official. Rather, the reason why Mormon families were so large back in the 1800s and early 1900s is the same reason why non-Mormon families in the US were large as well: the realities of the day. The infant and child mortality rates were so high that having a large number of children was pretty much the only way to ensure that some of them would actually survive to adulthood (a look at Joseph's family, as well as his own children, offers a horrific testimony of this). Additionally, many of your poorer farmers and ranchers opted to have large families simply because they couldn't afford any help above and beyond their own kin; hiring laborers was simply out of the question. On top of that, when the church resettled in the Utah Territory large families became a method of rapidly building up the population base so as to better settle and tame the wilderness in which they lived; those comparing the flight of the church to Moses leading the Israelites were correct in more ways than they know. Nowadays, though, it is no longer an economic or social advantage to have a large family. As such, large families are fast becoming an aberration rather than the norm outside of areas wherein the culture still calls for them. I myself am actually the youngest of three, with my parents deciding to simply stop there.
Yet another bit of lore that Chick tries to pass of as actual theology is the notion that Jesus was married. While many members of the church do believe that to be the case, with a few going so far as to say that he was married to both Mary Magdalene and Martha, it's not a part of the actual theology. Thus, Chick's argument is largely without merit here. As an aside, Chick cites MD but fails to give the actual edition. This is key, as I have a 1979 edition and cannot locate the reference he cites; a best-case scenario is that Chick is once more referring to the obsolete '66 edition, but given all the falsehoods thus far one must wonder if the reference was simply fabricated.
Chick then tries to make hay out of Joseph's family being involved in the "occult" and him having been put on trial, with an extended rant about Freemasonry thrown in for good measure. All of this is, to put it simply, hogwash. For starters, the practice that Chick defines as "occult" is, in fact, nothing more than hunting for treasure. You see, the Burned-Over District wherein the Smith family lived at the time (so-named due to the religious revival of the period having swept through like wildfire) was considerably poor, and as a result stories of hidden treasure abounded; many denizens, including Smith's father, made at least token efforts to try and find some as even one hit could be enough to relieve a person of the daily toil and let them live like a king. Thus, if Chick insists upon condemning the Smith family for that, he'd also have to condemn many people who he would otherwise regard as Christian. And the Jupiter Talisman? Word of the matter comes from one single source (Quinn), who in turn got it from one single source; not exactly a firm foundation for an argument, mind you.
As for the trial, let us say that there's more we do not know than what we do. All that is indisputable about the 1826 trial is that Joseph was charged with defrauding an elderly gentleman who hired Joseph as a laborer on a treasure hunting team; beyond that, there is a dearth of primary source documentation. A critic of the church named Rev. Wesley Walters changed that when he stole a document relating to the trial from a courthouse archive. He presented the document as a fine, which he regarded as proof of a conviction, but did not allow anyone other than another set of critics to physically analyze the bill; all he released was a photograph. Ca. 2005, however, a series of attempts to analyze the bill were undertaken by members of the church, members who attempted to compare what was presented in the photograph to both known laws and practices of the 1820s and the circumstantial evidence. Each attempt arrived at the same conclusion: it was not a fine, but rather a bill for the pre-trial hearing; most likely, this was the stage at which legal proceedings ended, with Joseph being allowed to go free.
As regarding Chick's allegations concerning the church and Freemasonry, I would refer people to a page maintained by Jeff Lindsay - www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_… - if they wish to research the matter. Lindsay has not only done a fair amount of research on the topic, but also gotten in touch with Mormons who are indeed active Freemasons for more information. Suffice to say that the arguments Chick puts forth about the church's ties, as well as about what goes on in the temple, are bogus.
But as if his last few panels' worth of allegations were not enough, Chick tries to argue that Mormonism is a mixture of Catholicism, Judaism, Babylonian religion, and Freemasonry. To anyone who actually has studied Mormonism, the only way that one could ever come to this conclusion would be if they went at their studies with a hostile intent and failed to cross-check what they read (or else had recently consumed a fair amount of illegal substances). In fact, up until a few decades ago there was a lot of bad blood between the church and Catholicism; asserting that one was directly related to the other would be ludicrous. But in Chick's own little world, Catholicism is seemingly the root of all evil and has its hands in everything Chick thinks to be Satanic. If nothing else, this panel here should discredit anything Chick has had to say.
…and to emphasize the point, we get Chick cherry-picking verses from the Book of Mormon and other sources. For starters, Chick tries to argue that Mormon 9:9-11 preaches that God is unchanging; he tries to use this as an argument against God progressing. However, verses 7 and 8 from the same chapter provide valuable context: God is a god of gifts, and so if God provided gifts in one era he would gladly provide them in another era as people are worthy to possess them ( scriptures.lds.org/en/morm/9 ). Likewise, Alma 11 (scriptures.lds.org/en/alma/11 ) merely reinforces the teaching that no human will ever be a rival for God, but Chick spins this as well to try and make an argument. Chick's own cherry-picking, especially in conjunction with his failure to note the above-mentioned Biblical passages and alternate translations, makes his quip that Mormons don't know Jesus or the Bible all the more galling; in fact, I myself have actually had to teach base Christian concepts, such as how the Bible was compiled, to far too many "good Christian" critics of the church.
Chick then ends the tract by having the two missionaries, dejected at losing, walking off and wondering if this will cause them to be re-assigned. While it might seem like an attempt at humor, it further shows how little Chick knows. You see, once a missionary is assigned to a mission field, they won't be moved from that field under normal circumstances unless the nature of their mission calls for them to split their time between locations; rather, they simply go from town to town every few months. If a missionary has to be reassigned to an entirely different field, it's typically because a situation has arisen to where they cannot stay in the area (such as civil strife making a region dangerous or a missionary developing a medical condition that requires them to be near a hospital). If a missionary is simply found unfit for the field, they get sent home.
The very last panel also shows us where Chick apparently got his information: an organization run by infamous critic J. Edward Decker. By infamous, I mean "even other critics of the church, like the Tanners and Carl Mosser, regard him with disdain and refuse to consider him a valid reference." Why, you ask? To put it simply, Decker has been caught telling so many lies over the years that few people outside of his own groupies actually believe him anymore. And even people who don't normally get involved in such matters, such as the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'Rith and the National Council of Christians and Jews, have called him out for deliberately spreading lies. Also, one could also argue that Chick referring people to Decker is a case of non-familial nepotism: both Chick and Decker have collaborated with a third anti-Mormon (and anti-Catholic!) writer named Bill Schnobelen.
- by Ironhold, Dec 25, 2009, 7:01:50 PM
- Literature / Prose / Non-Fiction / Academic Essays
So, folks, here we go. Another Chick Tract wherein a less-than-informed person is saved from a "cult" by an author avatar who spouts off flimsy arguments that anyone even vaguely aware of what's actually being said can see right through and rip to pieces. But because this is a Chick Tract, people are inclined to automatically believe them. And because it's mocking the LDS (Mormon) faith, that makes folks who should already know not to trust Chick want to trust him anyway.
In that sense, let's begin. The tract opens with an elderly woman waiting for some LDS missionaries to pay her a visit. Her niece, an obvious Mary Sue character, recognizes the danger in listening to LDS missionaries and immediately tries to pounce on them using obviously canned arguments. But do those arguments carry any weight? Not a one.
For starters, our "hero" begins by citing James 4:24, which states "God is a Spirit." Chick's argument here is obvious: if God is a spirit according to the Bible, then it should follow that the LDS concept of God having a perfected physical body is wrong, right? What Chick fails to grasp, however, is that the assorted translations of the Bible do not agree on how to render that verse. For example, the Revised Standard Version (of which I have a copy) renders it as "God is Spirit." Now, you might be asking how it is that this is significant. Well, I'll explain: without the article 'a', that passage becomes a metaphor; rather than given a specific, hard-and-fast detail about God, it instead describes an element of his character.
In that same panel, we see Chick referring to a passage from the Journal of Discourses to try and make an argument. The logic here is that if it was said by Brigham Young, the second head of the church, then it must be part of the core theology. Rather, this argument is highly misleading and incorrect. To begin with, the JoD – like The Seer, another work that critics like to cite – is not part of the active canon of the church; there is a process that a work must go through to be regarded as canon, and neither work went through it (the former contains bits and pieces that are obviously personal opinion and / or hypothetical, while the latter is downright heterodox and was controversial even in its day). Citing it like it is, then, is at best a misrepresentation of its importance and at worst dishonest. As far as the theological concept goes, the concept is simply that humans can achieve a higher level of existence, just like God himself once did. As earth-shattering as this may be, though, the focus is on the first half of the statement – that humanity can become better – and not on the second half; the second half, in fact, is largely not discussed outside of theological or scholarly circles unless the members find themselves asked about it.
As a follow up, in that same panel (making it a triple play!) we have the statement that if God was to walk through the aisles no one would recognize him at first. Chick presents this as if it was something to be aghast at, but in reality it isn't. Why? It means that if God was to appear, he'd appear in a fashion that we humans would not have reason to fear or question; rather, he would appear as one of us. This could be compared to Luke 24, wherein Jesus joins two men walking the road to Emmaus but they do not notice him; as he has come to them as a normal man rather than as a divine personage, they have no cause to regard him as anything but a brother or friend. Given this, one shouldn't find it awkward to think that God might show up in a similar fashion.
Chick then drops in a line about how God is supposedly living on a planet near a star known as Kolob along with several wives. To someone who is Mormon, the matter is entirely preposterous and proof that Chick hasn't done as much research as he'd like to make us believe. For starters, Kolob is merely the star which God used as a point of reference during the Creation process; the "days" are based on Kolob's cycle, since our own sun hadn't yet been created. There is nothing in the theology about there being a planet, and in fact the notion is wholly assumed by critics without the least shred of actual doctrinal support (I shant repeat the statement one member of the church offered up when informed that another critic was parroting this same argument due to the use of an obscenity; suffice to say, though, that this argument here was enough for that member to lose all respect for that other critic). Likewise, assuming that God has multiple wives is nothing more than jumping to conclusions on the part of dirty-minded critics who have taken a few disparate concepts (including the one in the next paragraph), stuck them in a blender, and then proceeded to distill the most bizarre leaps of logic they could pull from the mix.
Then we get to the tired and well-worn canard about how Jesus and Satan are brothers. It's such a staple of critical literature that many of your more seasoned Mormons merely yawn when confronted with it, as we know the real story. You see, the actual theology holds that all of humanity is, on the spiritual level, related to one another, with Jesus as our Elder Brother. In that sense, humanity is elevated and Satan's fall is made all the more tragic. But rather than recognize the simple elegance of the theology, Chick – like so many others – employs a grossly twisted and distorted retelling of the matter in an effort to shock his readers. One must wonder if Chick himself knows that he is helping to perpetuate a falsehood. As an aside, the "including Lucifer" blurb he affixed to his citation of 1 Colossians 16-18 is Chick's own invention; he himself inferred it from the text, and so one can argue as to whether or not his inference is valid.
As far as the War in Heaven goes, Chick is already off to a bad start by lobbing around the term "Gods." Both Psalms 82 and John 10:30-36 both use the term "gods" in reference to human beings of high status, both in the religious and secular sense, to make a point; neither passage is referring to these humans as actual deities, but rather denoting the level of respect given to them. In this light, we can see that critics of the church, like Chick, are confusing the two usages into one. Thus, rather than an assemblage of deities together, the Council in Heaven (I do not recall seeing the term "Council of Gods" outside of this tract, despite having read the two works Chick has referenced) consisted of God calling all of his spirit children – including you and I – together in order to determine the best course of action as regards the planet that would become Earth.
This then leads us to Chick conflating both the acceptance of Jesus' plan and his status as the Savior. While it is indeed true that the theology holds Jesus' plan was the one that was ultimately accepted, Jesus attained the status of Savior by actually offering himself up as an Atonement for the sins of humanity. This is basic LDS theology, such that one must wonder if Chick actually talked to anyone who was actively LDS before doing this tract.
Chick then follows that up with the argument about a third of the host of Heaven being neutral and thus being cursed to become black. What Chick isn't telling anyone is that this was simply never an accurate reflection of LDS theology but rather an archaic bit of lore held on to by some members of the church. In fact, note that Chick specifically cites the 1966 edition of McConkie's Mormon Doctrine as his point of reference for this. Why is it important? You see, in 1978 the church – including McConkie himself – repudiated the vast majority of the church's prior lore and teachings in regards to race; not only that, but MD was given a total overhaul in 1979, during which that piece of lore and other non-doctrinal items that McConkie included in the '66 edition were deleted. Chick should have been well aware of this change in the church's theology and mindset, including the alteration of MD. That he instead tries to cite the older edition of the book is dishonest, no matter who you want to blame for providing that information in the first place.
Additionally, Chick is ignoring the fact that blacks have been welcome in the church since day one. Blacks were actually able to meet in mixed congregations with whites, and at least one black – Elijah Abel – was ordained to the priesthood in Joseph Smith's day; this was so completely beyond the pale for other Christian groups of the day that it helped spur the cultural opposition that was behind the Missouri Conflict. Likewise, while Joseph disagreed with the methods used by many self-professed abolitionists, he himself was opposed to slavery and during his 1844 Presidential bid proposed what he regarded as a peaceful means to end the institution (specifically, having the government raise money in order to purchase the freedom of as many slaves as it could).
And in his usual form, Chick over-emphasizes the notion that exalted Mormons will achieve a dominion of their own. To begin with, it is a peripheral doctrine; little attention is given to it inside actual LDS churches. Additionally, it is a reward given to the most righteous; not everyone will have the chance. Likewise, those so honored will never be a direct challenge to God. I actually find it curious that some atheists I have spoken with have been able to grasp the concept – and explain it in full to others – when many Christians cannot.
Another example of Chick confusing culture with theology is the bit about having large families. Many people in the church do, yes, believe that by having children they are partnering with God in the process of creation. But beyond a few odd statements, this is not official. Rather, the reason why Mormon families were so large back in the 1800s and early 1900s is the same reason why non-Mormon families in the US were large as well: the realities of the day. The infant and child mortality rates were so high that having a large number of children was pretty much the only way to ensure that some of them would actually survive to adulthood (a look at Joseph's family, as well as his own children, offers a horrific testimony of this). Additionally, many of your poorer farmers and ranchers opted to have large families simply because they couldn't afford any help above and beyond their own kin; hiring laborers was simply out of the question. On top of that, when the church resettled in the Utah Territory large families became a method of rapidly building up the population base so as to better settle and tame the wilderness in which they lived; those comparing the flight of the church to Moses leading the Israelites were correct in more ways than they know. Nowadays, though, it is no longer an economic or social advantage to have a large family. As such, large families are fast becoming an aberration rather than the norm outside of areas wherein the culture still calls for them. I myself am actually the youngest of three, with my parents deciding to simply stop there.
Yet another bit of lore that Chick tries to pass of as actual theology is the notion that Jesus was married. While many members of the church do believe that to be the case, with a few going so far as to say that he was married to both Mary Magdalene and Martha, it's not a part of the actual theology. Thus, Chick's argument is largely without merit here. As an aside, Chick cites MD but fails to give the actual edition. This is key, as I have a 1979 edition and cannot locate the reference he cites; a best-case scenario is that Chick is once more referring to the obsolete '66 edition, but given all the falsehoods thus far one must wonder if the reference was simply fabricated.
Chick then tries to make hay out of Joseph's family being involved in the "occult" and him having been put on trial, with an extended rant about Freemasonry thrown in for good measure. All of this is, to put it simply, hogwash. For starters, the practice that Chick defines as "occult" is, in fact, nothing more than hunting for treasure. You see, the Burned-Over District wherein the Smith family lived at the time (so-named due to the religious revival of the period having swept through like wildfire) was considerably poor, and as a result stories of hidden treasure abounded; many denizens, including Smith's father, made at least token efforts to try and find some as even one hit could be enough to relieve a person of the daily toil and let them live like a king. Thus, if Chick insists upon condemning the Smith family for that, he'd also have to condemn many people who he would otherwise regard as Christian. And the Jupiter Talisman? Word of the matter comes from one single source (Quinn), who in turn got it from one single source; not exactly a firm foundation for an argument, mind you.
As for the trial, let us say that there's more we do not know than what we do. All that is indisputable about the 1826 trial is that Joseph was charged with defrauding an elderly gentleman who hired Joseph as a laborer on a treasure hunting team; beyond that, there is a dearth of primary source documentation. A critic of the church named Rev. Wesley Walters changed that when he stole a document relating to the trial from a courthouse archive. He presented the document as a fine, which he regarded as proof of a conviction, but did not allow anyone other than another set of critics to physically analyze the bill; all he released was a photograph. Ca. 2005, however, a series of attempts to analyze the bill were undertaken by members of the church, members who attempted to compare what was presented in the photograph to both known laws and practices of the 1820s and the circumstantial evidence. Each attempt arrived at the same conclusion: it was not a fine, but rather a bill for the pre-trial hearing; most likely, this was the stage at which legal proceedings ended, with Joseph being allowed to go free.
As regarding Chick's allegations concerning the church and Freemasonry, I would refer people to a page maintained by Jeff Lindsay - www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_… - if they wish to research the matter. Lindsay has not only done a fair amount of research on the topic, but also gotten in touch with Mormons who are indeed active Freemasons for more information. Suffice to say that the arguments Chick puts forth about the church's ties, as well as about what goes on in the temple, are bogus.
But as if his last few panels' worth of allegations were not enough, Chick tries to argue that Mormonism is a mixture of Catholicism, Judaism, Babylonian religion, and Freemasonry. To anyone who actually has studied Mormonism, the only way that one could ever come to this conclusion would be if they went at their studies with a hostile intent and failed to cross-check what they read (or else had recently consumed a fair amount of illegal substances). In fact, up until a few decades ago there was a lot of bad blood between the church and Catholicism; asserting that one was directly related to the other would be ludicrous. But in Chick's own little world, Catholicism is seemingly the root of all evil and has its hands in everything Chick thinks to be Satanic. If nothing else, this panel here should discredit anything Chick has had to say.
…and to emphasize the point, we get Chick cherry-picking verses from the Book of Mormon and other sources. For starters, Chick tries to argue that Mormon 9:9-11 preaches that God is unchanging; he tries to use this as an argument against God progressing. However, verses 7 and 8 from the same chapter provide valuable context: God is a god of gifts, and so if God provided gifts in one era he would gladly provide them in another era as people are worthy to possess them ( scriptures.lds.org/en/morm/9 ). Likewise, Alma 11 (scriptures.lds.org/en/alma/11 ) merely reinforces the teaching that no human will ever be a rival for God, but Chick spins this as well to try and make an argument. Chick's own cherry-picking, especially in conjunction with his failure to note the above-mentioned Biblical passages and alternate translations, makes his quip that Mormons don't know Jesus or the Bible all the more galling; in fact, I myself have actually had to teach base Christian concepts, such as how the Bible was compiled, to far too many "good Christian" critics of the church.
Chick then ends the tract by having the two missionaries, dejected at losing, walking off and wondering if this will cause them to be re-assigned. While it might seem like an attempt at humor, it further shows how little Chick knows. You see, once a missionary is assigned to a mission field, they won't be moved from that field under normal circumstances unless the nature of their mission calls for them to split their time between locations; rather, they simply go from town to town every few months. If a missionary has to be reassigned to an entirely different field, it's typically because a situation has arisen to where they cannot stay in the area (such as civil strife making a region dangerous or a missionary developing a medical condition that requires them to be near a hospital). If a missionary is simply found unfit for the field, they get sent home.
The very last panel also shows us where Chick apparently got his information: an organization run by infamous critic J. Edward Decker. By infamous, I mean "even other critics of the church, like the Tanners and Carl Mosser, regard him with disdain and refuse to consider him a valid reference." Why, you ask? To put it simply, Decker has been caught telling so many lies over the years that few people outside of his own groupies actually believe him anymore. And even people who don't normally get involved in such matters, such as the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'Rith and the National Council of Christians and Jews, have called him out for deliberately spreading lies. Also, one could also argue that Chick referring people to Decker is a case of non-familial nepotism: both Chick and Decker have collaborated with a third anti-Mormon (and anti-Catholic!) writer named Bill Schnobelen.
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Response to Chick 2
“There Go The Dinosaurs!”
www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1…
Oh gee, it looks like there’s a brand new Chick Tract in the world. This time, Chick is taking it upon himself to discuss things related to dinosaurs and how they met their fate. But as usual, he instead produces another piece of inaccurate kitsch.
The tract starts by having some primitive people, most likely people from the Middle Ages, locating, hunting, and killing a dinosaur; they call it a dragon. The dinosaur thought that it’d be safe so long as it made it up to the clouds, but only her head was in the clouds and so she was killed; I find this quite ironic, as Chick himself often seems to have his head in the clouds. Note that one of the people has the exaggerated facial features and attire ascribed to the stereotypical Middle Easterner, yet the scenery appears to be a mountain near a forest. Also, when discussing all the meat that they got, the phrase “36 trips” is Italicized; while this was most likely to emphasize the number of trips they would need to make, simply putting an exclamation mark at the end would have sufficed as the use of Italics there makes it look like he was trying to suggest something.
It then cuts to a shot of a professor in a museum telling several children about dinosaurs. Chick has the professor present the “giant comet hitting the earth” theory as if it were *the* theory behind what happened, when in actuality there are several competing theories. For example, Wikipedia’s article on “Dinosaurs” mentions alternate theories such as multiple smaller impacts and volcanic gasses that caused massive global warming. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur
Chick then alleges that the extinction of the dinosaurs is a “story told by people who don’t trust God.” Chick would do well to check his facts, as the debate between Creationism and Evolution is no longer as black and white as he would have people think. A new middle ground has emerged over the past few years known as Old-Earth Creationism. Old-Earth Creationism holds that while God created the universe, he used methods such as evolution to make it happen; this allows Christians who are aware of science to reconcile their beliefs with their knowledge.
Chick then goes off on a brief retelling of the first parts of Genesis. Adam and Eve were put in the Garden of Eden, but chose to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and so were kicked out. Their son Cain got jealous and killed their other son Abel. Within a few generations, people began to worship idols instead of God. Finally, God chose to cleanse the world and Noah was the only one to listen.
This is where we run into a number of issues. For starters, Chick asserts that dragons were renamed dinosaurs in 1841. This is incorrect. The taxon “Dinosauria” was actually established in 1842; this may seem small, but is evidence of Chick’s sloppy research. But before that, however, people were indeed taking the bones of creatures that were once considered “dragons” and describing them academically. In 1677, a bone was recovered from a limestone quarry, a bone that would later be identified as a Megalosaurus bone; this was the first bone to be formally described. In 1822, geologist Gideon Mantell identified the Iguanodon after noting similarities between the bones in his fossils and modern iguanas. And then in 1824, Reverend (yes – a Reverend!) William Buckland, who taught geology at Oxford, came upon more Megalosaurus bones and described them in a scientific journal, the first such journal publication.
Chick then goes on to assert that some dinosaurs were taken aboard the Ark, and that those who were not were killed in the flood. He also asserts that the flood caused the different world-wide layers of rocks and sediment. However, there is much debate, even within Christian circles, as to how Noah could have fit so many animals in so small a boat; this is without contemplating dinosaurs, mind you, and so they’d only make matters that much worse. Likewise, any first-year geology student could tell you that the evidence points against a single world-wide flood. While Chick can have his faith if he so desires, he must remember that science says otherwise.
Chick also goes on to argue that the plants which were destroyed deprived the world of much of its oxygen; he asserts that without this oxygen, the dinosaurs couldn’t get enough air and so became much slower and easier to catch. There is a very large problem with this theory, as if there was insufficient oxygen to keep the dinosaurs going at full power, humanity would have been affected as well. If one is so inclined, I’d suggest reading H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds, a tale of Martians invading Earth, for a similar principle. When the Martian ships do crash-land on Earth, people think that as Earth’s gravity is much stronger than the perceived gravity on Mars, the Martians will not be able to climb out of the craters they made. What people forgot about was the fact that the Earth’s atmosphere contained a higher percentage of oxygen, which is what they breathed; their invigoration from the extra oxygen allowed them to overcome the extra gravity.
Chick then switches tone here. He has one of the human characters stating that he wanted to see what Earth was like before the flood, to which another human character explains that it was the price of sin. That’s right – Chick actually argues that dinosaurs died out because of the sins of humans! And what’s more, Chick isn’t done. He then changes gears without a clutch and goes right into talking about how as water destroyed the world the first time, fire will destroy it again. He then goes on to briefly discuss the Second Coming and final judgment of humanity, states that Noah’s Ark teaches that God punishes sin but also provides a way out, talks about Jesus’ life and death, how Jesus’ resurrection provides the means for all men to be saved (including a man who is literally saved merely by calling Jesus’ name, something that some Christians find odious as it implies that once a person calls on Jesus they’re saved no matter what else they do in life), then finally discusses faith. One would think that either Chick ran out of dinosaur comments or had issues with his attention span….
…that is, until you get to the third panel from the end, where he says that the fate of the dinosaurs is unimportant. Why? In the final two panels, he says that what is really important is where people will go when they die. If that’s the case, then why did Chick even write this tract? He could have saved the time and effort, as most of his other tracts carry the “where will you go when you die?” message and so repeating it here is redundant. And since he thought the dinosaurs to ultimately be unimportant, then one must question why he even bothered to discuss them in the first place.
- by Ironhold, Sep 12, 2007, 9:02:26 AM
- Literature / Prose / Non-Fiction / Academic Essays
“There Go The Dinosaurs!”
www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1…
Oh gee, it looks like there’s a brand new Chick Tract in the world. This time, Chick is taking it upon himself to discuss things related to dinosaurs and how they met their fate. But as usual, he instead produces another piece of inaccurate kitsch.
The tract starts by having some primitive people, most likely people from the Middle Ages, locating, hunting, and killing a dinosaur; they call it a dragon. The dinosaur thought that it’d be safe so long as it made it up to the clouds, but only her head was in the clouds and so she was killed; I find this quite ironic, as Chick himself often seems to have his head in the clouds. Note that one of the people has the exaggerated facial features and attire ascribed to the stereotypical Middle Easterner, yet the scenery appears to be a mountain near a forest. Also, when discussing all the meat that they got, the phrase “36 trips” is Italicized; while this was most likely to emphasize the number of trips they would need to make, simply putting an exclamation mark at the end would have sufficed as the use of Italics there makes it look like he was trying to suggest something.
It then cuts to a shot of a professor in a museum telling several children about dinosaurs. Chick has the professor present the “giant comet hitting the earth” theory as if it were *the* theory behind what happened, when in actuality there are several competing theories. For example, Wikipedia’s article on “Dinosaurs” mentions alternate theories such as multiple smaller impacts and volcanic gasses that caused massive global warming. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur
Chick then alleges that the extinction of the dinosaurs is a “story told by people who don’t trust God.” Chick would do well to check his facts, as the debate between Creationism and Evolution is no longer as black and white as he would have people think. A new middle ground has emerged over the past few years known as Old-Earth Creationism. Old-Earth Creationism holds that while God created the universe, he used methods such as evolution to make it happen; this allows Christians who are aware of science to reconcile their beliefs with their knowledge.
Chick then goes off on a brief retelling of the first parts of Genesis. Adam and Eve were put in the Garden of Eden, but chose to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and so were kicked out. Their son Cain got jealous and killed their other son Abel. Within a few generations, people began to worship idols instead of God. Finally, God chose to cleanse the world and Noah was the only one to listen.
This is where we run into a number of issues. For starters, Chick asserts that dragons were renamed dinosaurs in 1841. This is incorrect. The taxon “Dinosauria” was actually established in 1842; this may seem small, but is evidence of Chick’s sloppy research. But before that, however, people were indeed taking the bones of creatures that were once considered “dragons” and describing them academically. In 1677, a bone was recovered from a limestone quarry, a bone that would later be identified as a Megalosaurus bone; this was the first bone to be formally described. In 1822, geologist Gideon Mantell identified the Iguanodon after noting similarities between the bones in his fossils and modern iguanas. And then in 1824, Reverend (yes – a Reverend!) William Buckland, who taught geology at Oxford, came upon more Megalosaurus bones and described them in a scientific journal, the first such journal publication.
Chick then goes on to assert that some dinosaurs were taken aboard the Ark, and that those who were not were killed in the flood. He also asserts that the flood caused the different world-wide layers of rocks and sediment. However, there is much debate, even within Christian circles, as to how Noah could have fit so many animals in so small a boat; this is without contemplating dinosaurs, mind you, and so they’d only make matters that much worse. Likewise, any first-year geology student could tell you that the evidence points against a single world-wide flood. While Chick can have his faith if he so desires, he must remember that science says otherwise.
Chick also goes on to argue that the plants which were destroyed deprived the world of much of its oxygen; he asserts that without this oxygen, the dinosaurs couldn’t get enough air and so became much slower and easier to catch. There is a very large problem with this theory, as if there was insufficient oxygen to keep the dinosaurs going at full power, humanity would have been affected as well. If one is so inclined, I’d suggest reading H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds, a tale of Martians invading Earth, for a similar principle. When the Martian ships do crash-land on Earth, people think that as Earth’s gravity is much stronger than the perceived gravity on Mars, the Martians will not be able to climb out of the craters they made. What people forgot about was the fact that the Earth’s atmosphere contained a higher percentage of oxygen, which is what they breathed; their invigoration from the extra oxygen allowed them to overcome the extra gravity.
Chick then switches tone here. He has one of the human characters stating that he wanted to see what Earth was like before the flood, to which another human character explains that it was the price of sin. That’s right – Chick actually argues that dinosaurs died out because of the sins of humans! And what’s more, Chick isn’t done. He then changes gears without a clutch and goes right into talking about how as water destroyed the world the first time, fire will destroy it again. He then goes on to briefly discuss the Second Coming and final judgment of humanity, states that Noah’s Ark teaches that God punishes sin but also provides a way out, talks about Jesus’ life and death, how Jesus’ resurrection provides the means for all men to be saved (including a man who is literally saved merely by calling Jesus’ name, something that some Christians find odious as it implies that once a person calls on Jesus they’re saved no matter what else they do in life), then finally discusses faith. One would think that either Chick ran out of dinosaur comments or had issues with his attention span….
…that is, until you get to the third panel from the end, where he says that the fate of the dinosaurs is unimportant. Why? In the final two panels, he says that what is really important is where people will go when they die. If that’s the case, then why did Chick even write this tract? He could have saved the time and effort, as most of his other tracts carry the “where will you go when you die?” message and so repeating it here is redundant. And since he thought the dinosaurs to ultimately be unimportant, then one must question why he even bothered to discuss them in the first place.
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tickingclocker
Well-Known Member
[/QUOTE]
Their "creeds are abominable"? The nature of salvation IS part of that "abominable creed" JS called "apostate". Yet Smith builds upon that "abominable apostate" foundation?? HUH??
You still haven't answered why he did this. Announcing that he built on something that he considered "apostate abominable" means he rejects it ALL. Apostate is apostate, abominable is abominable. You cannot say Christianity was "semi" apostate or "semi" abominable because it kept this faith plus works bit, just like you cannot claim someone is "semi-pregnant". It's one or the other, not only the half he chose to keep and everything else gets tossed under the bus.
Pete, that's keeping the form, but denying the power. A classic example if ever there was one. You know it. I know it.
Salvation or which camp it stems from has never been the key issue here. The issue will remain smack on subject target whether you don't like it or even choose to avoid it. JS's apostasy claim is a lie he made up to profit financially off it while feeding his enormous ego, promoting his mormonism as the "new, improved" Christianity. Which it can never be, because it is a lie.
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tickingclocker
Well-Known Member
You just answered a question I have been studying and praying about for nigh on 2 months about the priesthood issue. I've asked and studied to no avail. In fact, I just put up the question tonight in Christian theology in Verses in being frustrated with so many vague answers. Amazing, and yet so typical of how the Lord seems to work in my life. Just when you think all is lost.... BAM!
Thank You, Lord, for working through this person, and for Your unwavering faithfulness!
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(Note: At the time I wrote this, I was still doing my undergrad work.)
Response to Chick 3
By Darren Blair
www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0…
For decades now, people have been linking Halloween to the occult and Satanism. Parents cringe in fear and forbid their kids from going outside lest those kids wind up hurt or dead. Hell houses abound showing people highly distorted images of whatever groups the people operating them hate. All in all, Halloween has gotten a bad rep.
This tract here may well be a large part of the reason for it. Although first published in 1986, well after the Halloween hype had been going on, the proliferation of Chick Tracts has helped keep the issue in the spotlight.
The tract begins with a group of occult types (Satanists?) declaring that as Halloween is coming, they need to step up their efforts to seduce children into worshipping and serving Satan, as well as to procure human sacrifices. Chick spends an entire eight panels just showing them getting their poisoned and trapped Halloween treats ready, and another six showing innocent kids getting the treats and suffering (with one kid even dying). But just how accurate is this presentation?
Snopes.com, a website dedicated to urban legends, actually has two articles on this topic. To begin with, I shall discuss their article on candy being poisoned. This article may be read here: www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/… . The authors at Snopes not only note a few specific cases where children came into contact with poisoned Halloween candy, but also note a trend: nowhere was the occult involved. According to them, the most famous Halloween poisoning – the 1974 death of Mark O’Bryan – was actually a deliberate murder. The young boy’s father put arsenic in some Pixie Stix candies that he gave to the boy; he hoped to cash in on the boy’s life insurance policy, and gave a few poisoned candies to the boy’s friends in order to conceal his deed as the work of a random murderer. The second most famous incident they mention – the 1970 death of Kevin Totson – wasn’t even a murder. Young Kevin had discovered his uncle’s stash of a drug known as heroin, consumed some of it, and died; in order to protect the uncle, heroin was sprinkled over the boy’s candy. The authors at Snopes even include an excerpt from a 1989 article written by sociology professor Joel Best, who notes that in the 30 years from 1958 to 1988, he and his assistants had found only 78 cases of poisoning, in addition to the two previously mentioned deaths. Of those 78, the vast majority were pranks; the excerpt makes no mention whatsoever of poisonings performed by people for occult purposes.
As far as pins, razors, and needles in candy? According to the article on it - www.snopes.com/horrors/mayhem/… - there have indeed been a few cases, enough for the writers at Snopes to label this “true.” However, they once again refer to Best, who states that of the 80 reported cases he had identified between 1959 and the time of his article, the majority of them were hoaxes; only 10 cases were legit, and they only caused minor injuries. And guess what? Pranks gone wrong. The authors at Snopes were only able to find one single case that was deliberate: in 2000, a 49-year-old man in Minnesota named James Joseph Smith put needles in some chocolate bars he had been handing out. So yes, while the risk of getting a pin or a needle in candy is real, you don’t need to run your kids’ candy through an x-ray or an MRI scanner. If you’re really worried, just cut things apart before your kids eat it; Snopes author Barbara Mikkleson actually raised the example of how her mother would take any apples Barbara brought home from trick-or-treating, cut them up, and bake them into pies.
Chick then has a supposed ex-witch reveal the “true” origin of Halloween. As you can imagine, it’s full of horror stories about how the druids used to sacrifice humans. Chick even argues that the practice of going door-to-door started out as a way to collect children and/or virgins for sacrifice.
But once again, Chick is incredibly far off the mark. A quick Google search turned up this article, written (and copyrighted) by Alexi Kondratiev - www.imbas.org/articles/samhain… - which discusses the origin of the Samhain holiday at length. Samhain started out as a simple end-of-harvest festival, and was one of two festivals that cut their year in half. As the sun would grow dimmer and dimmer and darkness would become more prominent after that point, Samhain also became a festival honoring and celebrating the deceased; it was hoped that if the ties of kinship to the deceased were retained, then the deceased would help direct the creative forces of the earth into the next year’s crop yield. Indeed, the festival exists due to the Celtic beliefs in the cycles of both life and death, and light and darkness. Does this automatically make it occult? No; festivals and special dates to honor the dead exist in other cultures, such as The Day of the Dead down in Mexico.
So then – how did trick or treating start? As part of the tradition, a certain amount of food at each family’s feast would be set apart for their deceased kinfolk; the food could not be eaten by a living family member until after the ritual was over, and the taboo was so strong that a person who violated it faced the equivalent of excommunication. In addition, the poor of the community would be allowed to assume the identity of the village’s collective deceased, and then go door-to-door among the wealthy in the community and demand part of the food set aside for the dead; the poor wore masks to help break down the social roles they and the wealthy had during the rest of the year. A person who refused to give food to these poor villagers invited misfortune upon themselves and their household; as such, trick-or-treating actually represented a form of morality.
As far as the bit about human sacrifices? Bogus. The only sacrifices were of cattle; Samhain was the time of year that cattle which would not be kept alive through the winter would be killed off and their blood would be offered up. If one considers this to be offensive, then one must also consider the Mosaic Law and its requirement of animal sacrifice repugnant as well.
Here I wish to stop and look at something. One of Chick’s sources for information concerning Halloween is William Schnobelen, a man who claims that he was once a Wiccan (and a Mormon, and a Catholic, and a Freemason, and a Satanist, and…). Thing is, every time a timeline of Schnobelen’s activities is given, either by himself or by his allies, the dates never match up. This becomes problematic, as if one considers the timelines then Schnobelen may have been a member of two or even more religions at once. IE, he may have been obtaining a master’s degree in theological studies from a pastoral college while he was a Mormon (the Mormon faith uses a lay ministry), and may have been both a Wiccan and a “saved” Christian at the same time. These fouled timelines, coupled with some of Schnobelen’s recent business “ventures,” strongly suggest that Schnobelen may either be a confused individual (to put it nicely) or a fraud (to put it bluntly). You can read the evidence here - www.masonicinfo.com/schnoebele… - and decide for yourself.
The tract then turns to the kids who survived being poisoned. Before the whole rant about how evil Halloween was, it was revealed that two of them were beginning to become rebellious and didn’t want to go to Sunday School. Now that he’s finished his rant, Chick tries to argue that the kids are being controlled by Satan by way of the incantations placed on them; whether or not the poisoned candy was a vector for this control is not explained.
In his rush to show just how powerful the occult and Satan can be, Chick has failed to consider that in real life there are other possible explanations for the kids’ behaviour. The most simple, most realistic explanation is that the children have suffered psychological trauma due to the incident (their being injured and one of their friends dying). They may feel lost and disoriented. They may feel guilty about having survived while a friend didn’t. They may be questioning why God would allow something like what happened to take place. Either way, these children are extremely damaged and in desperate need of a trained counselor or psychiatrist.
But not in Chick’s little world. No, Chick thinks that the kids need to be exorcised. He has the mothers of the children and the ex-witch pray that the children will have the “demonic power and influence” driven away from them, a prayer which is done while the children are present. To someone like me, who actually has a background in psychology (one of my associates degrees is in Social Sciences, with the degree being a catch-all that has given me rudimentary training in the most common fields), this is astounding in its ignorance and stupidity. Such a thing in reality would only risk traumatizing the children even more, and according to Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorcism… – there have actually been more deaths due to exorcisms gone wrong than to poisoned Halloween candy! While I do not discount the possibility of demonic possession and the possible need for an exorcism, in this instance the only demons that the kids were suffering from were mental in nature. Chick’s treatment here is therefore unforgivable.
In conclusion? Between the ignorance spouted off by Chick and the astounding decision to exorcise children who are already mentally damaged, I’d have to say that Chick is far more dangerous than Halloween, which is merely a modernized end-of-harvest and respect-for-the-dead festival.
Response to Chick 3
- by Ironhold, Oct 18, 2007, 10:23:49 PM
- Literature / Prose / Non-Fiction / Academic Essays
By Darren Blair
www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0…
For decades now, people have been linking Halloween to the occult and Satanism. Parents cringe in fear and forbid their kids from going outside lest those kids wind up hurt or dead. Hell houses abound showing people highly distorted images of whatever groups the people operating them hate. All in all, Halloween has gotten a bad rep.
This tract here may well be a large part of the reason for it. Although first published in 1986, well after the Halloween hype had been going on, the proliferation of Chick Tracts has helped keep the issue in the spotlight.
The tract begins with a group of occult types (Satanists?) declaring that as Halloween is coming, they need to step up their efforts to seduce children into worshipping and serving Satan, as well as to procure human sacrifices. Chick spends an entire eight panels just showing them getting their poisoned and trapped Halloween treats ready, and another six showing innocent kids getting the treats and suffering (with one kid even dying). But just how accurate is this presentation?
Snopes.com, a website dedicated to urban legends, actually has two articles on this topic. To begin with, I shall discuss their article on candy being poisoned. This article may be read here: www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/… . The authors at Snopes not only note a few specific cases where children came into contact with poisoned Halloween candy, but also note a trend: nowhere was the occult involved. According to them, the most famous Halloween poisoning – the 1974 death of Mark O’Bryan – was actually a deliberate murder. The young boy’s father put arsenic in some Pixie Stix candies that he gave to the boy; he hoped to cash in on the boy’s life insurance policy, and gave a few poisoned candies to the boy’s friends in order to conceal his deed as the work of a random murderer. The second most famous incident they mention – the 1970 death of Kevin Totson – wasn’t even a murder. Young Kevin had discovered his uncle’s stash of a drug known as heroin, consumed some of it, and died; in order to protect the uncle, heroin was sprinkled over the boy’s candy. The authors at Snopes even include an excerpt from a 1989 article written by sociology professor Joel Best, who notes that in the 30 years from 1958 to 1988, he and his assistants had found only 78 cases of poisoning, in addition to the two previously mentioned deaths. Of those 78, the vast majority were pranks; the excerpt makes no mention whatsoever of poisonings performed by people for occult purposes.
As far as pins, razors, and needles in candy? According to the article on it - www.snopes.com/horrors/mayhem/… - there have indeed been a few cases, enough for the writers at Snopes to label this “true.” However, they once again refer to Best, who states that of the 80 reported cases he had identified between 1959 and the time of his article, the majority of them were hoaxes; only 10 cases were legit, and they only caused minor injuries. And guess what? Pranks gone wrong. The authors at Snopes were only able to find one single case that was deliberate: in 2000, a 49-year-old man in Minnesota named James Joseph Smith put needles in some chocolate bars he had been handing out. So yes, while the risk of getting a pin or a needle in candy is real, you don’t need to run your kids’ candy through an x-ray or an MRI scanner. If you’re really worried, just cut things apart before your kids eat it; Snopes author Barbara Mikkleson actually raised the example of how her mother would take any apples Barbara brought home from trick-or-treating, cut them up, and bake them into pies.
Chick then has a supposed ex-witch reveal the “true” origin of Halloween. As you can imagine, it’s full of horror stories about how the druids used to sacrifice humans. Chick even argues that the practice of going door-to-door started out as a way to collect children and/or virgins for sacrifice.
But once again, Chick is incredibly far off the mark. A quick Google search turned up this article, written (and copyrighted) by Alexi Kondratiev - www.imbas.org/articles/samhain… - which discusses the origin of the Samhain holiday at length. Samhain started out as a simple end-of-harvest festival, and was one of two festivals that cut their year in half. As the sun would grow dimmer and dimmer and darkness would become more prominent after that point, Samhain also became a festival honoring and celebrating the deceased; it was hoped that if the ties of kinship to the deceased were retained, then the deceased would help direct the creative forces of the earth into the next year’s crop yield. Indeed, the festival exists due to the Celtic beliefs in the cycles of both life and death, and light and darkness. Does this automatically make it occult? No; festivals and special dates to honor the dead exist in other cultures, such as The Day of the Dead down in Mexico.
So then – how did trick or treating start? As part of the tradition, a certain amount of food at each family’s feast would be set apart for their deceased kinfolk; the food could not be eaten by a living family member until after the ritual was over, and the taboo was so strong that a person who violated it faced the equivalent of excommunication. In addition, the poor of the community would be allowed to assume the identity of the village’s collective deceased, and then go door-to-door among the wealthy in the community and demand part of the food set aside for the dead; the poor wore masks to help break down the social roles they and the wealthy had during the rest of the year. A person who refused to give food to these poor villagers invited misfortune upon themselves and their household; as such, trick-or-treating actually represented a form of morality.
As far as the bit about human sacrifices? Bogus. The only sacrifices were of cattle; Samhain was the time of year that cattle which would not be kept alive through the winter would be killed off and their blood would be offered up. If one considers this to be offensive, then one must also consider the Mosaic Law and its requirement of animal sacrifice repugnant as well.
Here I wish to stop and look at something. One of Chick’s sources for information concerning Halloween is William Schnobelen, a man who claims that he was once a Wiccan (and a Mormon, and a Catholic, and a Freemason, and a Satanist, and…). Thing is, every time a timeline of Schnobelen’s activities is given, either by himself or by his allies, the dates never match up. This becomes problematic, as if one considers the timelines then Schnobelen may have been a member of two or even more religions at once. IE, he may have been obtaining a master’s degree in theological studies from a pastoral college while he was a Mormon (the Mormon faith uses a lay ministry), and may have been both a Wiccan and a “saved” Christian at the same time. These fouled timelines, coupled with some of Schnobelen’s recent business “ventures,” strongly suggest that Schnobelen may either be a confused individual (to put it nicely) or a fraud (to put it bluntly). You can read the evidence here - www.masonicinfo.com/schnoebele… - and decide for yourself.
The tract then turns to the kids who survived being poisoned. Before the whole rant about how evil Halloween was, it was revealed that two of them were beginning to become rebellious and didn’t want to go to Sunday School. Now that he’s finished his rant, Chick tries to argue that the kids are being controlled by Satan by way of the incantations placed on them; whether or not the poisoned candy was a vector for this control is not explained.
In his rush to show just how powerful the occult and Satan can be, Chick has failed to consider that in real life there are other possible explanations for the kids’ behaviour. The most simple, most realistic explanation is that the children have suffered psychological trauma due to the incident (their being injured and one of their friends dying). They may feel lost and disoriented. They may feel guilty about having survived while a friend didn’t. They may be questioning why God would allow something like what happened to take place. Either way, these children are extremely damaged and in desperate need of a trained counselor or psychiatrist.
But not in Chick’s little world. No, Chick thinks that the kids need to be exorcised. He has the mothers of the children and the ex-witch pray that the children will have the “demonic power and influence” driven away from them, a prayer which is done while the children are present. To someone like me, who actually has a background in psychology (one of my associates degrees is in Social Sciences, with the degree being a catch-all that has given me rudimentary training in the most common fields), this is astounding in its ignorance and stupidity. Such a thing in reality would only risk traumatizing the children even more, and according to Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorcism… – there have actually been more deaths due to exorcisms gone wrong than to poisoned Halloween candy! While I do not discount the possibility of demonic possession and the possible need for an exorcism, in this instance the only demons that the kids were suffering from were mental in nature. Chick’s treatment here is therefore unforgivable.
In conclusion? Between the ignorance spouted off by Chick and the astounding decision to exorcise children who are already mentally damaged, I’d have to say that Chick is far more dangerous than Halloween, which is merely a modernized end-of-harvest and respect-for-the-dead festival.
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(Note: I was also still doing my undergrad when I did this one.)
response to Chick 4
By Darren Blair
www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0…
[Author’s note: this response was done on 4 March 2008, shortly after I heard the news about Gary Gygax’ death. This response is in his honor.]
To begin with, a little background. I’ve been doing role-playing games off and on since about 1990 when my parents spotted the Battletech core set at the Fort Hood Post Exchange and decided that my two older brothers might like it. I’ve gamed with at least a dozen or so people face-to-face, and courtesy of the internet I’ve met scores more. It should also be obvious by now that I’m an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, better known as the Mormons; in fact, I was actually a Sunday School teacher for a few months. This right here, coupled with my own personal experiences with my fellow gamers, should be more than enough to disprove of this particular tract, but sadly it is not. And hence, the full review.
Chick starts his usual fumbling in short order here: the second panel. Here we have a girl going into a major hissy fit because her character just died; one of the fellow gamers in her group casually tells her to leave because she doesn’t exist anymore. In reality, PC (player character) death is a somewhat common occurrence among gamers; I myself was once in a group where a player actually lost two characters in a single session. Generally speaking, the worst that could happen to a player is that they may wind up sitting the rest of the session out; it takes time to crank out a new character (especially in more complex character creation systems like Battletech’s Mechwarrior 3rd edition), time that the person running the game may not have right then and there. This can be frustrating for all involved in the party, especially if the PC was someone that had been with the group for a while. As such, if a person is to be kicked out of a group due to the death of a character, it’s probably due to something that they as a person did which angered the others in the group.
As an aside, the character death was due to the girl running the game matter-of-factly stating that the character failed to detect a trap and died instantly. This is actually a violation of the basic game mechanics behind Dungeons and Dragons. The player running the deceased PC should have been given a chance to make two dice rolls: the first to see if the PC spotted the trap (as a thief class, the PC should have had a much easier time than the others in the group) and the second to see if the thief survived being poisoned. It’s considered bad form for someone running a campaign to make such an arbitrary decision without some sort of justification, and no experienced player would stand for it. At the least, the girl running the game would get challenged by the other players; at the most, she’d find herself getting kicked out of the group, perhaps even literally.
The plot then leaps from that moment in the game to some time after the game is over. The girl running the game then states that it’s time to introduce another player to real magic; Chick then states that Dungeons and Dragons prepared the player to join a witch’s coven. In reality, this is a total non sequitur. How so? Chick is trying to make the argument that D&D and Wiccanism (et al) is somehow intrinsically related. Thing is, in real life you have players from all sorts of religious backgrounds and faith traditions. As such, while one might find the occasional Wiccan who games, one can also expect to find Christian gamers as well; they may not be Chick’s brand of Christian, but they’re Christian none-the-less.
By the way, the player notes that her first spell was a spell to change her father’s mind about her playing; said spell resulted in her father going from opposing the game to actually buying her $200’ worth of gaming supplies. This is supposed to show just how powerful the spells can actually be, but in real life a sufficiently persuasive kid could get it out of their parents without any sort of “spell” to help them, especially if the stuff is supposed to be a birthday or Christmas gift of some sort.
Then Chick cuts to the girl whose character died; it turns out that in her grief she went and hung herself. Most likely, this is based on the excess hype over the incident with James Dallas Egbert III - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Da… . Egbert, a child prodigy, was under intense academic pressure from his parents, pressure which was unrealistic even for him. Egbert’s prodigy status, in addition to his being a closet homosexual, made it difficult for him to make friends and added even more pressure to his life. As such, Egbert made the decision to attempt suicide; this attempt failed, but a third attempt would eventually succeed. Initial reports on his first attempt focused on his being a member of a Dungeons and Dragons group, reports that would not be challenged until after Egbert’s death when a private investigator hired to locate Egbert after the first incident revealed the truth behind Egbert’s actions; of note is that the investigator’s book came out the same year (1984) as this tract. Given what I mentioned earlier about PC deaths being a fact of life for gamers, it would take someone mentally and/or emotionally unhinged to commit suicide over a PC death.
The player who got introduced to Wiccanism then starts to fall apart over the death. The girl running the game informs her that there are more important things, and tries to get her to let her character take charge of things. This is pure fiction; only an idiot would tell a person to let their PC dictate how they act in real life. If matters were being handled realistically instead of through Chick, it’d have been painfully obvious that the girl running the game, regardless of her religion or her status as a gamer, also wasn’t right in the head. But it seems that with Chick, any sort of mental illness must be the result of Satan, witchcraft, or something else of a similar nature. Something’s wrong with the world when ignorant people like Chick get to enjoy fame and fortune from spreading their ignorance while folks like yours truly – people who actually have a degree in the relevant field and/or relevant experience*– are making bupkiss refuting things.
In typical Chick fashion, some “good Christian” comes out of nowhere, preaches a little sermon, and sets the afflicted person on the right path. In this case, a sermon at church followed by a nice lovely bonfire in which her D&D stuff gets torched. Chick thus creates a false dilemma by trying to reinforce his argument that a person cannot be a gamer and be a Christian at the same time in a rather (melo-) dramatic fashion. As noted earlier, one does not have to choose between one’s faith and gaming; rather, a normal, healthy person can simply compartmentalize the different aspects of their life. It only seems impossible because Chick has chosen to fixate on three fictitious players, two of which (and possibly the third) were clearly disturbed and therefore aberrations.
And so, folks, let’s all help to “blue lightning” the falsehoods in this tract out of existence, eh?
*I have two associate’s degrees: an Associate of Arts in Business Administration, and an Associate of Arts in Social Sciences. The latter required me to take introductory courses in psychology, sociology, and anthropology. As I pursue the former to the Bachelor’s level, I’m finding myself having to lean on my Social Sciences degree to a surprising extent owing to the fact that some of the material is resurfacing in various fashions.
response to Chick 4
- by Ironhold, Mar 4, 2008, 8:17:57 PM
- Literature / Prose / Non-Fiction / Academic Essays
By Darren Blair
www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0…
[Author’s note: this response was done on 4 March 2008, shortly after I heard the news about Gary Gygax’ death. This response is in his honor.]
To begin with, a little background. I’ve been doing role-playing games off and on since about 1990 when my parents spotted the Battletech core set at the Fort Hood Post Exchange and decided that my two older brothers might like it. I’ve gamed with at least a dozen or so people face-to-face, and courtesy of the internet I’ve met scores more. It should also be obvious by now that I’m an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, better known as the Mormons; in fact, I was actually a Sunday School teacher for a few months. This right here, coupled with my own personal experiences with my fellow gamers, should be more than enough to disprove of this particular tract, but sadly it is not. And hence, the full review.
Chick starts his usual fumbling in short order here: the second panel. Here we have a girl going into a major hissy fit because her character just died; one of the fellow gamers in her group casually tells her to leave because she doesn’t exist anymore. In reality, PC (player character) death is a somewhat common occurrence among gamers; I myself was once in a group where a player actually lost two characters in a single session. Generally speaking, the worst that could happen to a player is that they may wind up sitting the rest of the session out; it takes time to crank out a new character (especially in more complex character creation systems like Battletech’s Mechwarrior 3rd edition), time that the person running the game may not have right then and there. This can be frustrating for all involved in the party, especially if the PC was someone that had been with the group for a while. As such, if a person is to be kicked out of a group due to the death of a character, it’s probably due to something that they as a person did which angered the others in the group.
As an aside, the character death was due to the girl running the game matter-of-factly stating that the character failed to detect a trap and died instantly. This is actually a violation of the basic game mechanics behind Dungeons and Dragons. The player running the deceased PC should have been given a chance to make two dice rolls: the first to see if the PC spotted the trap (as a thief class, the PC should have had a much easier time than the others in the group) and the second to see if the thief survived being poisoned. It’s considered bad form for someone running a campaign to make such an arbitrary decision without some sort of justification, and no experienced player would stand for it. At the least, the girl running the game would get challenged by the other players; at the most, she’d find herself getting kicked out of the group, perhaps even literally.
The plot then leaps from that moment in the game to some time after the game is over. The girl running the game then states that it’s time to introduce another player to real magic; Chick then states that Dungeons and Dragons prepared the player to join a witch’s coven. In reality, this is a total non sequitur. How so? Chick is trying to make the argument that D&D and Wiccanism (et al) is somehow intrinsically related. Thing is, in real life you have players from all sorts of religious backgrounds and faith traditions. As such, while one might find the occasional Wiccan who games, one can also expect to find Christian gamers as well; they may not be Chick’s brand of Christian, but they’re Christian none-the-less.
By the way, the player notes that her first spell was a spell to change her father’s mind about her playing; said spell resulted in her father going from opposing the game to actually buying her $200’ worth of gaming supplies. This is supposed to show just how powerful the spells can actually be, but in real life a sufficiently persuasive kid could get it out of their parents without any sort of “spell” to help them, especially if the stuff is supposed to be a birthday or Christmas gift of some sort.
Then Chick cuts to the girl whose character died; it turns out that in her grief she went and hung herself. Most likely, this is based on the excess hype over the incident with James Dallas Egbert III - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Da… . Egbert, a child prodigy, was under intense academic pressure from his parents, pressure which was unrealistic even for him. Egbert’s prodigy status, in addition to his being a closet homosexual, made it difficult for him to make friends and added even more pressure to his life. As such, Egbert made the decision to attempt suicide; this attempt failed, but a third attempt would eventually succeed. Initial reports on his first attempt focused on his being a member of a Dungeons and Dragons group, reports that would not be challenged until after Egbert’s death when a private investigator hired to locate Egbert after the first incident revealed the truth behind Egbert’s actions; of note is that the investigator’s book came out the same year (1984) as this tract. Given what I mentioned earlier about PC deaths being a fact of life for gamers, it would take someone mentally and/or emotionally unhinged to commit suicide over a PC death.
The player who got introduced to Wiccanism then starts to fall apart over the death. The girl running the game informs her that there are more important things, and tries to get her to let her character take charge of things. This is pure fiction; only an idiot would tell a person to let their PC dictate how they act in real life. If matters were being handled realistically instead of through Chick, it’d have been painfully obvious that the girl running the game, regardless of her religion or her status as a gamer, also wasn’t right in the head. But it seems that with Chick, any sort of mental illness must be the result of Satan, witchcraft, or something else of a similar nature. Something’s wrong with the world when ignorant people like Chick get to enjoy fame and fortune from spreading their ignorance while folks like yours truly – people who actually have a degree in the relevant field and/or relevant experience*– are making bupkiss refuting things.
In typical Chick fashion, some “good Christian” comes out of nowhere, preaches a little sermon, and sets the afflicted person on the right path. In this case, a sermon at church followed by a nice lovely bonfire in which her D&D stuff gets torched. Chick thus creates a false dilemma by trying to reinforce his argument that a person cannot be a gamer and be a Christian at the same time in a rather (melo-) dramatic fashion. As noted earlier, one does not have to choose between one’s faith and gaming; rather, a normal, healthy person can simply compartmentalize the different aspects of their life. It only seems impossible because Chick has chosen to fixate on three fictitious players, two of which (and possibly the third) were clearly disturbed and therefore aberrations.
And so, folks, let’s all help to “blue lightning” the falsehoods in this tract out of existence, eh?
*I have two associate’s degrees: an Associate of Arts in Business Administration, and an Associate of Arts in Social Sciences. The latter required me to take introductory courses in psychology, sociology, and anthropology. As I pursue the former to the Bachelor’s level, I’m finding myself having to lean on my Social Sciences degree to a surprising extent owing to the fact that some of the material is resurfacing in various fashions.
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I see nothing in there that proves he is a liar, or even suggests it. There is criticism of him that he is wrong or that his tactics are wrong in the eyes of some others, but that doesn't make him a liar. Dissent and disagreement do not make someone a liar. Being offensive is a far cry from persecuting anyone. It seems he may be offensive but I see nothing in there about him persecuting anyone.
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The first one you say is correct, so that's not a lie. The second one you call a lie but all you show is that he says something you think is wrong. For it to be a lie you need to prove that he is intentionally speaking a falsehood to deceive. If he is saying what he sincerely believes he may still be wrong but not a liar.
So how do you determine that he is lying and can you provide proof for that? So far you absolutely have not.
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The Apostles who established the Armenian Apostolic Church are Sts. Jude (Thaddeus) and Bartholomew. We have a chain of succession from them to our current Catholicos. There are no Apostles other than the original Apostles. "Apostle" was an office. The office of Apostle was to lay the foundation of the Church. Once the foundation was laid there is no need to continue laying a foundation - the superstructure is then built. Watch how they build a house one day - they will build the foundation and then build the rest of the house on top of that. They will not keep expanding the foundation and never build the house. The Church is presented by the example of a building where the foundation is the Apostles and Christ is the Chief Cornerstone. After the original 12 (+1 for Paul) Apostles there were no other Apostles. There were also no further prophets.
So, there are no "living Apostles". That is a misunderstanding of the office of Apostle that the Bible teaches about. What the Church today has is the divinely inspired words of the Apostles in one Canon that is the Word of God. The Bible is sufficient - there is absolutely no need for any further revelation because the Word of God is sufficient for all things.
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