The Problem That Won't Go Away
First American Jewish Families Used for Posthumous Baptisms
It has been discovered that yet another major Jewish work has been used by the Mormon Church for posthumous baptisms. ...
[Source: "Nu? What's New?"[Online], News About Jewish Genealogy from Avotaynu, Gary Mokotoff, Editor, A chronicle of the Mormon-Jewish controversy; The LDS Agreement: A JewishGen InfoFile, http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/ldsagree.html]
50 years ago today - May 11, 1968
First Presidency counselor Hugh B. Brown ... delivered a BYU commencement address which was a direct attack on Apostle Ezra Taft Benson's sermon there only ten days earlier. "Beware of those who feel obliged to prove their own patriotism by calling into question the loyalty of others," Brown began. Brown clearly indicated that he did not think Benson had "maturity of mind and emotion and a depth of spirit . . . to differ with others on matters of politics without calling into question the integrity of those with whom you differ". As clear response to Benson's quotes to BYU students about African- Americans from the Birch Society magazine, Brown concluded: "At a time when radicals of right or left would inflame race against race, avoid those who preach evil doctrines of racism."
[Source: Campbell and Poll, Hugh B. Brown, 259-60. From D. Michael Quinn, Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992), also in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3.]
[Source: Campbell and Poll, Hugh B. Brown, 259-60. From D. Michael Quinn, Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26:2 (Summer 1992), also in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power Salt Lake City (Signature Books, 1994), Chapter 3.]
105 years ago today - May 11, 1913
Patriarchal Blessing of Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. by Joseph D. Smith
... You have been greatly blessed in your birthright, and you were called and ordained before you came in the flesh, as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, to represent his work in the earth. You are of Israel ...
You have been blessed with ability to comprehend, to analyze, and defend the principles of truth above many of your fellows, and the time will come when the accumulative evidence that you have gathered will stand as a wall of defense against those who are seeking and will seek to destroy the evidence of the divinity of the mission of the Prophet Joseph; and in this defense you will never be confounded, and the light of the spirit will shed its rays upon your heart as gently, as the dews that fall from heaven ...
There is a great work for you to do. Your humble spirit, if you continue, will open up to your mind truths that you have never before thought of, and you will hesitate to make them known. There will always be safety in doing this to your father [President Joseph F. Smith] while he lives, and to those who may succeed him, before you present them in public. ... Your counsels will be considered conservative and wise...
I bless you with wisdom to use the knowledge that God will give you in the furtherance of his work in the earth, and the preserving of your body until you have completed all you have been sent to do. ...
[Source: Patriarchal Blessings]
... You have been greatly blessed in your birthright, and you were called and ordained before you came in the flesh, as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, to represent his work in the earth. You are of Israel ...
You have been blessed with ability to comprehend, to analyze, and defend the principles of truth above many of your fellows, and the time will come when the accumulative evidence that you have gathered will stand as a wall of defense against those who are seeking and will seek to destroy the evidence of the divinity of the mission of the Prophet Joseph; and in this defense you will never be confounded, and the light of the spirit will shed its rays upon your heart as gently, as the dews that fall from heaven ...
There is a great work for you to do. Your humble spirit, if you continue, will open up to your mind truths that you have never before thought of, and you will hesitate to make them known. There will always be safety in doing this to your father [President Joseph F. Smith] while he lives, and to those who may succeed him, before you present them in public. ... Your counsels will be considered conservative and wise...
I bless you with wisdom to use the knowledge that God will give you in the furtherance of his work in the earth, and the preserving of your body until you have completed all you have been sent to do. ...
[Source: Patriarchal Blessings]
150 years ago today - May 11, 1868 (Monday)
The citizens of Salt Lake City commenced an organized warfare against the grasshoppers, which appeared in great numbers.
[Source: Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]
[Source: Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]
160 years ago today - May 11, 1858
Gov. Cumming declares the California trail open and says emigrants can once again "pass through Utah territory without hindrance or molestation."
[Source: Linder, Douglas, The Mountain Meadows Massacre Trials, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTRIALS/mountainmeadows/leechrono.html]
[Source: Linder, Douglas, The Mountain Meadows Massacre Trials, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTRIALS/mountainmeadows/leechrono.html]
160 years ago today - May 11, 1858
Pres[iden]t. Y. directed S. W. Richards to bring his family Southward & flour his Wheat & prepare for going into the Mountains. A Letter was read from J[ohn]. D. Lee informing that the Indians N South had been offered money for Mormon scalps &c.
[Source: Minutes, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]
[Source: Minutes, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]
175 years ago today - May 11, 1843
[Marriages]
Joseph to Maria Lawrence, age 19, [*Allegations of sex] and Sarah Lawrence [*Allegations of sex], age 17; Helen Kimball Whitney, Woman's Exponent, 15 Feb. 1886, 138.) [*maid/housekeeper/girl working for Joseph]
"I am also able to testify that Emma Smith, the Prophet's first wife, gave her consent to the marriage of at least four other girls [Emily and Eliza Partridge, Maria and Sarah Lawrence] to her husband, and that she was well aware that he associated with them as wives within the meaning of all the word implies." –Andrew Jenson, Historical Record 6:230.
I do know that at his [Joseph Smith's] Mansion home was living Maria and Sarah Lawrence and one of Cornelius P. Lott's daughters as his plural wives with the full knowledge of his wife, Emma, of their married relations to him."
[Source: Historical Record 6:223; Lucy Walker Smith Kimball, in the Temple Lot case (full transcript, 461, LDS archives;"More Testimony," Letter dated March 9^th, 1904, Deseret Evening News, April 12, 1904; Exploring Mormonism: Polygamy Timeline, http://www.exploringmormonism.com/polygamy-timeline/]
Joseph to Maria Lawrence, age 19, [*Allegations of sex] and Sarah Lawrence [*Allegations of sex], age 17; Helen Kimball Whitney, Woman's Exponent, 15 Feb. 1886, 138.) [*maid/housekeeper/girl working for Joseph]
"I am also able to testify that Emma Smith, the Prophet's first wife, gave her consent to the marriage of at least four other girls [Emily and Eliza Partridge, Maria and Sarah Lawrence] to her husband, and that she was well aware that he associated with them as wives within the meaning of all the word implies." –Andrew Jenson, Historical Record 6:230.
I do know that at his [Joseph Smith's] Mansion home was living Maria and Sarah Lawrence and one of Cornelius P. Lott's daughters as his plural wives with the full knowledge of his wife, Emma, of their married relations to him."
[Source: Historical Record 6:223; Lucy Walker Smith Kimball, in the Temple Lot case (full transcript, 461, LDS archives;"More Testimony," Letter dated March 9^th, 1904, Deseret Evening News, April 12, 1904; Exploring Mormonism: Polygamy Timeline, http://www.exploringmormonism.com/polygamy-timeline/]
175 years ago today - May 11, 1843
Journal of Joseph Smith on 11 May 1843, "6 AM baptized [blank spaces] Sisters Snow, Louisa Bemen, Sarah Alley &c." These rebaptisms could have been associated with plural marriages. Eliza R Snow had become Joseph Smiths plural wife on 29 June 1842, Louisa Beaman on 5 April 1841 and Sarah Alley had been sealed as a plural wife to Joseph B Noble on 5 April 1843. The blank space and &c of this 11 May 1843 entry in Joseph Smith's journal may be explained by the affirmations of Emily and Eliza Partridge that they were sealed to Joseph Smith as plural wives on this date in the presence of his wife Emma.
[Source: Quinn, D. Michael, "The Practice of Rebaptism at Nauvoo," BYU Studies (1978), 18:2:226]
[Source: Quinn, D. Michael, "The Practice of Rebaptism at Nauvoo," BYU Studies (1978), 18:2:226]
175 years ago today - May 11, 1843
Joseph Smith marries Emily and Eliza Partridge, youthful daughters of deceased church bishop Edward Partridge. They have been living in Joseph's house as housekeepers and nannies. This is a second ceremony done with Emma's permission. Emma had given Joseph permission to take plural wives and chose Emily and Eliza without knowing that Joseph had previously married them in secret. It is unclear that Emma knew exactly what was implied by the ceremony since Joseph later had to forcibly and secretly hold the door to Eliza's room shut to keep Emma from finding them together. Emily later remembered that "Emma was present. She gave her free and full consent. She had always up to this time, been very kind to me and my sister . . .but ever after [the ceremony] she was our enemy."
180 years ago today - May 11, 1838
[Wilford Woodruff]
I went to the goal in order to have an interview & to comfort Elder Albert P. Rockwood who had been cast into prison by his enemies for debts in order to trouble and distress him....
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
I went to the goal in order to have an interview & to comfort Elder Albert P. Rockwood who had been cast into prison by his enemies for debts in order to trouble and distress him....
[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
70 years ago today - May 10, 1948
State narcotics officer asks church officials to quietly surrender for destruction to "quantity of opium, an opium pipe, and some other trinkets" in the LDS Bureau of Information on Temple Square. Seventy's president Richard L. Evans protests that these materials have been there "since time immemorial." The First Presidency cooperates rather than face a court order.
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
[Source: The Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power by D. Michael Quinn, [New Mormon History database ( http://bit.ly/NMHdatabase )]]
70 years ago today - May 10, 1948
[Frank Evans Diary]
[June 14, 1948: John A. Widtsoe, Letter to Albert R. Lyman]
... the Lord made the earth and in the making He may have done many things not according to my particular opinion, but whatever He did He had a right to do. If He chose to place man-like beings upon the earth before the days of Adam, I really have no right to find fault with that any more than with the placing on the earth of the great variety of life which we know lived there. There is nothing definite in the scriptures or in modern revelation as to the age of the earth. Personally, I take discoveries relative to hat subject at face value, and set aside for later consideration the theories of men. Often there are contradictory theories in men's interpretations of facts.
I have often said, as you say in your letter, that Adam was no doubt upon this earth long before it had reached the condition to permit a Garden of Eden to be planted, for he was one of those, who under God's command, organized the earth. Neither am I upset over the statement that Adam's was the first flesh upon the earth, because it seems from the context and from common sense, for that matter, that that means the first flesh of Adam's kind. There is so much connected with these matter that we do not understand that I am willing to take what little we know of a factual nature without offering any interpretations that may mislead others.
[Source: Frank Evans Diary, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]
[June 14, 1948: John A. Widtsoe, Letter to Albert R. Lyman]
... the Lord made the earth and in the making He may have done many things not according to my particular opinion, but whatever He did He had a right to do. If He chose to place man-like beings upon the earth before the days of Adam, I really have no right to find fault with that any more than with the placing on the earth of the great variety of life which we know lived there. There is nothing definite in the scriptures or in modern revelation as to the age of the earth. Personally, I take discoveries relative to hat subject at face value, and set aside for later consideration the theories of men. Often there are contradictory theories in men's interpretations of facts.
I have often said, as you say in your letter, that Adam was no doubt upon this earth long before it had reached the condition to permit a Garden of Eden to be planted, for he was one of those, who under God's command, organized the earth. Neither am I upset over the statement that Adam's was the first flesh upon the earth, because it seems from the context and from common sense, for that matter, that that means the first flesh of Adam's kind. There is so much connected with these matter that we do not understand that I am willing to take what little we know of a factual nature without offering any interpretations that may mislead others.
[Source: Frank Evans Diary, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]
110 years ago today - May 10, 1908
[Thomas A. Clawson]
"The Insergant (Sic) Republicans were active in sowing discord among the party and used a letter written by bro B.H. Roberts to Richard R. Lyman giving his reasons why Reed Smoot should not be returned back to the Senate. ... This letter was secretely circulated among the people and as D O Redout of Draper (an insurgent) said was the means which elected him to the convention. ... I think that it is full of the spirit of apostasy and makes direct slaps at and criticisms of Prest. Jos. F. Smith and is a very dangerous thing. A man cannot take the stand of B.H. Roberts and write such articles without loosing the spirit of his calling and unless he repents and turns away from such a course he will surely go as did Moses Thatcher, who today is nothing in the Church nor the Democratic Party ..."
[Source: Diary Excerpts of Thomas A. Clawson, Signature Books Library, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
"The Insergant (Sic) Republicans were active in sowing discord among the party and used a letter written by bro B.H. Roberts to Richard R. Lyman giving his reasons why Reed Smoot should not be returned back to the Senate. ... This letter was secretely circulated among the people and as D O Redout of Draper (an insurgent) said was the means which elected him to the convention. ... I think that it is full of the spirit of apostasy and makes direct slaps at and criticisms of Prest. Jos. F. Smith and is a very dangerous thing. A man cannot take the stand of B.H. Roberts and write such articles without loosing the spirit of his calling and unless he repents and turns away from such a course he will surely go as did Moses Thatcher, who today is nothing in the Church nor the Democratic Party ..."
[Source: Diary Excerpts of Thomas A. Clawson, Signature Books Library, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
120 years ago today - May 10, 1898
Joseph H. Dean, former president of the Samoan Mission, is married polygamously to Amanda Petterson, his third wife, in Mexico by Anthony W. Ivins after presenting a "recommend" for a plural marriage written by First Presidency Counselor George Q. Cannon. Ivins later becomes an Apostle and then First Counselor to President Heber J. Grant.
120 years ago today - May 10, 1898
[Brigham Young Jr.]
... went to the Temple saw Pres[ident] Snow Winder talked and presented idea which came to me with much force this morning, to substitute a spray for people to stand under to be washed instead of so many being washed in the same water, So many people come there very dirty in their persons in spite of all the instructions given to the contrary.
[Source: Diary of Apostle Brigham Young Jr., http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
... went to the Temple saw Pres[ident] Snow Winder talked and presented idea which came to me with much force this morning, to substitute a spray for people to stand under to be washed instead of so many being washed in the same water, So many people come there very dirty in their persons in spite of all the instructions given to the contrary.
[Source: Diary of Apostle Brigham Young Jr., http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
125 years ago today - May 10, 1893
Francis M. Lyman writes, "This is the most difficult mission bro. Heber has ever undertaken, now that financial affairs are tumbling in all directions." The church was $500,000 in debt with no prospect of paying in time. Heber J. Grant had left for New York to see if the loans could be extended. He was successful.
[Source: On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]
[Source: On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]
180 years ago today - May 10, 1838
Nancy Marinda Hyde, wife of Orson Hyde, is given a priesthood blessing (probably by Joseph Smith Sr.) which states: "The time shall come when thou shalt be left by thy husband, for he must go to foreign lands and preach the gospel, he will be great in the hands of the Lord having a great work to do among the nations of the earth. Thou will have afflictions and sorrow for thy husband-but thou will give him up to his calling and trust in God, thou shall be blest. In the absence of thy companion the angels of heaven shall minister to thee-they will give thee instructions and comfort thy heart." Four years later while her husband Orson is on a mission to Jerusalem, Joseph Smith takes her as a plural wife.
[Source: On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]
[Source: On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]
15 years ago today - May 09, 2003
[U.S. Religious History]
The National Association of Evangelicals, a group of evangelical Christians, condemned Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jerry Vines, Pat Robertson and other evangelical leaders for their many anti-Islamic statements.
[Source: Cline, Austin, History of American Religion: Timeline]
The National Association of Evangelicals, a group of evangelical Christians, condemned Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jerry Vines, Pat Robertson and other evangelical leaders for their many anti-Islamic statements.
[Source: Cline, Austin, History of American Religion: Timeline]
40 years ago today - May 9, 1978
The HARVARD CRIMSON prints a story of a visit to an LDS visitor's center titled "Mannequins And Mormons." The author, Cliff Sloan, tells of being asked to sign the guest book so "'we can always keep in touch with you.' Visions of Mormon missionaries gripped me. For all I knew, they'd be coming by my room night and day, proselytizing, smashing bottles of booze. I decided to give a pseudonym, but was somehow unable to think up one on the spur of the moment. For a few minutes, I stood in front of the guest book, drumming my pen, trying to think of a fake name, smiling weakly at Sister Wood. Finally, feeling more foolish than ever, I put down my first and middle names 'Cliff Myer.'"
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