In this week’s episode, Bill and RFM take a look at instances in Mormon History where LDS Leadership seem to be giving a stamp of approval to Leaders and Members to be dishonest, to lie, and to deceive. Once we understand the instruction and permissions given to be dishonest we can going forward see their deceptions and dishonesty within greater context.
RESOURCES:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-31-honesty?lang=eng
http://www.mormonthink.com/files/lying-for-lord-ken-clark.pdf
http://www.mormonthink.com/lying.htm
http://packham.n4m.org/lying.htm
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lying%20for%20the%20lord
https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=clarkmemorandum#page=15
http://www.mormonismi.net/pdf/lying_for_the_lord.pdf
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1986/01/truth-and-more?lang=eng
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/issues/V31N03.pdf
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1983/01/the-candle-of-the-lord?lang=eng
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-31-honesty?lang=eng
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Thank you. This is one of your most poignant episodes.
RFM and Bill do you already have a side by side comparison of The Joseph Smith Papers and church history where tomfoolery has been done? This episode certainly shows an interesting procedure for institutional lying. 1. Establish an unquestionable authority behind the lie. 2. Make it a terrorist activity to question the authority even if the story changes. 3. Make sure to turn a profit along the way. Of course, there is more to it than that. A friend had a shirt that said—Beer, it’s not just for breakfast anymore. (Lying, it’s not just for churches anymore.) I have heard of people during the Second World War who were hiding Jewish people in their homes but turned them over when asked by the authorities because they couldn’t lie. That seems to be a case where a lie would be justified. But I don’t know if that’s true about the people being turned over. You get to where you question everything. I’m reminded of Uncle Hub (Robert Duvall) in Second Hand Lions saying, “Just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean you can’t believe it.” And then there’s that Billy Joel song about honesty. “Honesty is such a lonely word, everyone is so untrue, honesty is hardly ever heard, mostly what I need from you.” Thank you both and Maven for your research and entertaining delivery. RFM you were amazingly sharp for 36 hours of no sleep. I would have been slurring my words.
Buyers Remorse is a problem for people who buy something that doesn’t turn out as advertised or turns out to be harmful. I know that’s not a newsflash. Full disclosure is important and drug advertisements often have side effects listed at the end of the ad and possibly at high speed. Contracts may have small print at the end-very small with wiggle room built in. Words like INTEGRITY are frequently launched into the atmosphere by people who have no integrity. I met with a surgeon who spent half an hour with a white board explaining possibly problems with a surgery. There’s a two percent chance of chronic pain for the rest of my life a certain percentage risk of blood clots and other things were listed. I appreciated that. A person can make can be informed and weigh it out. I didn’t know enough on my mission to know I was not giving the whole story. That missionary who only believed was on the right track.
Following my mission in 1982, I stumbled across a master thesis on the 4th floor of BYU’s library written in 1953 by Rodney Turner who would later become a religion teacher there. It was specific to BY’s teachings on Adam God and left zero doubt that he indeed taught it. Of course, this was in the context of Mark E. Petersen’s book, “Adam, Who Is He?”. So, I dropped by Turner’s house to confront him about his master thesis and how he reconciled it with what the Q15 had been saying. Turner’s response was that they must be ignorant of the history.
Later that day I told my dad who taught at BYU about that discussion, he laughed at me. My dad preceded to tell me of a few discussions he had with some well-known religion teachers, including Truman Madsen, and how they confirmed that the Q15 know all the issues. They are not uninformed. My dad then proceeded to teach me about the gospel principle of Lying for the Lord as relayed to him by his contacts who work with Church leadership.
Three decades later I resurrected that discussion to explore the moral blind spots of that principle.