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Is it possible to not worship Jesus and still be moral?

Over this past week the Salt Lake Tribune ran several articles related to the LDS Church, blacks, and the now-defunct priesthood ban. One special report covered the story of Vanna Cox and her sisters. They grew up in the LDS Church very aware of their minority status. The Tribune reports,

“When [Vanna] and her sisters discovered the history of blacks in the LDS Church, they felt pride in black pioneers such as Jane Manning James and Elijah Abel and horror that Green Flake, a slave, was given as tithing to Brigham Young. They didn’t understand the ban on blacks in the priesthood or the racist beliefs of LDS leaders they admired.

“‘We had to learn that the church is not all butterflies and cupcakes,’ she says.”

Coming face to face with lesser-known aspects of Mormon history and doctrine can be a real shock to Latter-day Saints who have lived in a protected LDS bubble all their lives. The Church is definitely not all butterflies and cupcakes; there are skeletons in the closet and sometimes those bones set to rattling.

Beyond the issue of racism in the Church, a short list of additional things Latter-day Saints might find troubling could include:

• The extent of Joseph Smith’s practice of plural marriage, including his marriages for time and eternity to women who were–and remained–married to other men.
• That Joseph Smith did not go “as a lamb to the slaughter” when he died, but, according to an LDS source, he shot three and killed two men during the violent struggle at Carthage Jail.
• That Brigham Young clearly taught Adam is our Father and our God, and intended it to be understood as true doctrine.
• The Mountain Meadows Massacre and the unquestioning obedience to Mormon leaders coupled with spiritual confirmation that precipitated the slaughter.
• That the Lorenzo Snow couplet is Church doctrine and means what it says (God the Father was once a human being who progressed to Godhood; man is the same: a human being that can and may progress to Godhood)
• The teaching by LDS leaders that “there is nothing figurative” about Christ’s paternity; God the Father impregnated Mary via “normal and natural” physical contact to provide a human body for Jesus Christ.

An ex-LDS friend of mine felt the ground give way as a Mormon when she came across a statement made by Joseph Smith. She read,

“If they want a beardless boy to whip all the world, I will get on the top of the mountain and crow like a rooster. I shall always beat them…. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him, but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet” (History of the Church 6:408-9).

When my friend read that quote she thought enemies of the Church had made it up. “Surely Joseph Smith never said such a thing,” she thought. “A true prophet of God would never say something like that.” When she found Joseph’s bold claim in History of the Church, and found other equally troubling statements he had made, she realized Joseph Smith indeed was not a true prophet of God. She and her family left the Prophet and the church he founded; now they live for Christ.

Friends, the LDS Church is not all butterflies and cupcakes. Be encouraged to take a careful tour of the kitchen before indulging in the proffered sweets.

It is a snare to say rashly, “It is holy,”
and to reflect only after making vows.
-Proverbs 20:25-

The dispute over where the events in the Book of Mormon took place continues in a recent Deseret News/Mormon Times article titled, “Raiders of the Lost Book of Mormon Geography.” In the second installment of a two-part article “former CEO of a manufacturing company turned researcher” Rod Meldrum sets his theory against the limited geography model widely held among Mormons today.

The limited geography model promoted by LDS scholars places Book of Mormon events in Mesoamerica, a small area in Central America. Mr. Meldrum, on the other hand, believes DNA and other evidence points to Book of Mormon events taking place in the Great Lakes region of North America.

Mr. Meldrum is not willing to say that the limited geography theory is “completely false” or even “partially false,” but he takes issue with it. He says,

“So what we are saying here, by trying to limit the geography of the Book of Mormon to this little area, is that these [Book of Mormon] people that just came from the other side of the earth to get here, got here, and they never strayed less than one-third of the distance that Joseph Smith and those brethren (walked) in two months [with Zion's camp], and that they stayed there for over a thousand years.”

In support of the Great Lakes region theory, Mr. Meldrum believes the Great Lakes are the seas mentioned in the Book of Mormon, the weather described in the Book of Mormon is more consistent with that of North America, the migrating animals in the Book of Mormon sound like plains buffalo, and the description of timber mentioned in the Book of Mormon conforms more closely to slow-growing North American timber than to Central American rainforest timber. He says, “take a look at how it matches what Joseph Smith said and what the scriptures say, it’s a better match.”

Mr. Meldrum is not alone in his opinion of the limited geography model. While an Apostle, tenth LDS Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith wrote,

“Within recent years there has arisen among certain students of the Book of Mormon a theory to the effect that within the period covered by the Book of Mormon, the Nephites and Lamanites were confined almost entirely within the boarders of the territory comprising Central America and the southern portion of Mexico… In the face of this evidence coming from the Prophet Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer, we cannot say that the Nephites and Lamanites did not possess the territory of the United States and that the Hill Cumorah is in Central America. Neither can we say that the great struggle which resulted in the destruction of the Nephites took place in Central America…from all the evidence in the Book of Mormon augmented by the testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, these final battles took place in the territory known as the United States and in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes and hills of Western New York” (Doctrines of Salvation, 3:232, 240-241).

Mr. Smith was the LDS Church historian for forty-nine years. It was his understanding that those placing the location of the Hill Cumorah and other Book of Mormon spots in Central America did so “notwithstanding the teachings of the Church to the contrary for upwards of 100 years” (ibid., 233).

Who is a Mormon to believe? LDS scholars who are struggling to provide a credible real world setting for Book of Mormon events? Or past LDS leaders who laid claim to inspired authority? It would be helpful for “members of the Church [who] have become confused and greatly disturbed in their faith in the Book of Mormon” (ibid.) if the LDS Church would take an official position on the question.

Mr. Meldrum decided to take this matter into his own hands. He started with a foundational presupposition:

“‘Because I already knew the Book of Mormon is true, I knew there was going to be physical evidence for the Book of Mormon if we are looking for it in the right place,’ Meldrum said. ‘I don’t believe that God specifically hides stuff from his children. I think his children sometimes don’t listen to the prophets and they get in the wrong places.’”

After searching unsuccessfully for Book of Mormon artifacts for more than half a century, it would appear that nobody is listening — or that there is nothing to be found.

Mormon blogger David Knowlton voices his disagreement with LDS spokesman Mark Tuttle over whether racial teachings were never put forth as doctrine