Twas the Month Before Christmas

Hi folks,
The following parody on the oh so familiar Christmas poem was included in our most recent church bulletin and I thought it was the perfect response to the assault on Christmas and the Christian aspect of this most important holiday.

I give you - "Twas the Month Before Christmas"

Twas the month before Christmas, when all through our land, not a Christian was praying, nor taking a stand.

See, why the PC Police had taken away the reason for Christmas - no one could say. The children were told by their schools not to sing about Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things. It might hurt people's feelings the teachers would say, and December 25th is just a "holiday".

Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks, and credit, pushing folks down to the floor just to get it! CD's from Madonna, an X-Box, and I-pod, something was changing, something quite odd! Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa in hopes to sell books by Franken and Fonda.

As Target Stores hung their trees upside down, at Lowe's the word Christmas was nowhere to be found. At K-Mart and Staples and Penney's and Sears, you won't hear the word Christmas - it won't touch your ears.

Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty, are words that were used to intimidate me.

Now Daschle, now Darden, now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzer - on Barack, on Reid, on Boxer, on clinton! At the top of the Senate there arose such a clatter, to eliminate Jesus in all public matter.

And we spoke not a word as they took away our faith, forbidden to speak of salvation and grace. The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded. The Reason for the Season stopped before it had started.

So, as you celebrate "Winter Break" under your "Dream tree", choose your words carefully, choose what you say.

Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS, not Happy Holiday!

Please, all Christians, join together and wish everyone you meet during the holidays a MERRY CHRISTMAS.

CHRIST is the Reason for the Christmas Season!

Attempt to overturn Prop 8 - Tail wagging the dog again?

Hi folks,
I suppose that I'm going to take a lot of heat on this one, but I have to speak my mind. There is a group that is currently trying to gather enough votes to try to overturn Prop 8, the "anti-gay" marriage bill, and they have been told by the California Attorney General, in so many words, that he will do as much as he can to help. This is ridiculous. I know that the gay/lesbian community claims that Prop 8 denies them rights but I just don't see it. Where is the evidence? What are the denied rights, other than the fact that they don't have something called a marriage certificate? I am tired of the attacks on marriage as defined in the Bible as the union between a man and a woman. For that matter, I am tired of the attacks on the Bible and Christianity for its stand on marriage and on alternate lifestyles. The marriage issue has been raised and voted upon multiple times and the result has been the same each time, though it has turned into a closer fight than in the past. Why? Because more people are sympathetic to the gay/lesbian community? I don't think so. Like so many other issues, I believe that those people who have in the past voted in favor of legislation like Prop 8 have tired of the fight to defend traditional marriage, or have perhaps been fooled into thinking that it simply doesn't matter anymore. But it DOES matter, especially when there is the distinct possibility that the gay/lesbian lifestyle will not only be taught in school but also that it will be promoted, as in the case of the children several months ago who were brought to a lesbian wedding.

I can guess that by my writing this blog I will be termed a "homophobe" or some other equally obnoxious term. So be it. I have absolutely nothing against gay or lesbian individuals and have had many as good friends my whole life, but I do have a problem with the relentless attacks against traditional marriage, as well as growing legislation that makes it harder and harder to speak my mind without running the risk of being accused of "hate speech" or bigotry, yet people who oppose my views can seemingly say just about anything they wish either to me or about me and I have no recourse. Not only that, but when the Prop 22 campaign was on, several signs in my front yard were vandalized. Prop 22 was the one before Prop 8. The vandalism was so bad that I finally had to post a sign about 15 feet up in a pine tree and literally cover it with heavy wire so that it couldn't be taken down, and even then someone tried to rip up the sign. So much for "free speech".

If I'm not mistaken, something like 37 states have already voted to endorse traditional marriage, and there is the distinct possibility that that number will increase. What the gay/lesbian community doesn't seem to realize, or maybe care about, are the other, more bizarre groups who are just waiting to get their foot in the door when/if more liberal legislation overturns traditional marriage. Also, it is not right, nor is it legal, for a minority to impose its will upon the majority, and the majority clearly supports traditional marriage and the values that go along with it.

The gay/lesbian marriage advocates have plead their case multiple times and they have been voted down multiple times. It is time to move on and leave the issue alone, but I doubt that it will be left alone and that is a shame. As I said before, I have absolutely nothing against the gay/lesbian community, but I do have a problem with the attacks on traditional marriage and the heterosexual lifestyle. If I have offended anyone with this post, I'm sorry but I have to speak my mind and I believe that I have done so in a respectful manner. If anyone wishes to take issue with what i have said, they are free to do so, and as long as it is done in a respectful manner, they have my word that their post will not be deleted.

Art

The early church and polygamy

This is a post that is actually from a good exmo friend of mine named Jean. It is her thoughts on the early church and polygamy

Art

Some new thoughts on the early church and polygamy - No I'm not for it;-)Share
Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 11:03am
In the beginning was Sidney (Rigdon) and Sidney had the word and Sidney preached the word. And Satan came into his heart and he was jealous of Alexander Campbell who was the Baptist Minister who was his mentor. He wanted to be successful like him and have his very own church.

Now from early in Sidney's life he had been subject to seizures since being dragged by a horse according to his brother John - a physician. Sidney felt that when he had these seizures he was having a religious experience; rather like those that are entheogen induced or even NDE's. He was known to channel dead prophets. He wanted his own church so badly he could taste it. He knew that he would need more than a few changes to some doctrines to beat out the prominent ministers and great minds of the day; he needed a front man; someone with charisma - a known seer. Unfortunately for poor Sidney the man he chose for the job was a megalomaniac with a huge sexual appetite.

After Sidney and partner in crime Oliver (Cowdery) started to write the new bible (using as a base Solomon Spalding's story, Manuscript Found rather than Gold Plates Found) he realized that it would be necessary to convince people that he was actually an apostle like Paul, called by God himself, while Joseph Smith; the front man began his spellbinding performance as a seer. He used his magic stone to tell people where to dig for buried treasure and they believed him and even paid him. When he was taken to court on trial for being a glass looker or conjuror in Bainbridge, NY in 1826, he and others testified of these facts. This was at a time when he supposedly had already seen God and Jesus and the Gold Plates shown him by the angel Moroni, formerly known as Nephi. Joe's job was to pretend to translate the gold plates while Rigdon and Cowdery were working their own magic writing the manuscript for what was to become The Book of Mormon.

They needed a gullible man with money; enter Martin Harris - a great believer in the power of magic; very erratic and joining at least 8 different religions in his life time. Martin was convinced by Joe to mortgage his farm to pay for the printing of the 'translation of the gold plates'. Joe did his job quite well except he couldn't quite keep his story straight; that is quite difficult when you are lying and telling the story you have been told to tell. Keeping their stories all the same became another problem for them later on. Oh what a tangled web they wove.

And it came to pass (lol) that eventually, the 'translation' went off to the printers and the book was printed. When Joe discovered that they couldn't sell any copies of the book and he needed to pay Martin back his mortgage money as promised by himself, the seer, he tried to sell the copyright to the book in Canada after receiving a revelation from God instructing them to do so. God was obviously confused about how gullible Canadians were because the attempt failed.

Back to Sidney whom you will remember, only wanted his own church; not much to ask is it? Sidney and Oliver helped Joseph with the revelations that he spewed out with regularity, but the voices found by computer experts show that they belonged to Sidney and Oliver - not Joe. They did all the ordaining and such BEFORE the church was organized. Now Joe, the megalomaniac, had position and adoration from the growing group of members of The Church of Christ and Sidney started to pout. The ruse was for Parley (Pratt) to pretend to take the Book of Mormon to the preacher Sidney who had managed to pull away after him over 100 or so members of Alexander Campbell's flock of believers. All of the members of this group followed Sidney into the waters of baptism.
When Joe's great position as a prophet of God started to elevate him instead of Sidney, the power struggle began and continued even after Joe's death. Joe's elevated status created for him a pop star type of reputation and his sexual appetite could not be satisfied with only one woman. So many women and so little time!

Enter Fanny Alger, 16 year old housemaid for Emma, Joe's wife. This is Joe's first known affair and it was very quickly hushed up. Oliver and Sidney had not done all that work of deception only to have Joe ruin it by his sexual encounters, just a year or two after launching the new church. Oliver later called it a dirty, nasty little affair

When Joe pulled the same stunt in 1838 with Lucinda Pendleton (Morgan Harris Smith), Oliver's name was blackened and he was excommunicated from the church; a practice that would continue with anyone who refused to do Joe's bidding. As Joe's ego grew, the power struggle between him and Sidney grew to greater heights. Sidney had done all the work, came up with the revelations and Joe kept screwing around causing members to leave or be excommunicated.

As people began to discover Joe's indiscretions he began to take into his confidence an inner circle of men with whom he shared the 'doctrine' of polygamy. Though at first, as the story goes, they were appalled, they soon began to take new wives and their first wives just had to put up with it. Joe meanwhile went on a rampage of (affairs) 'marriages' coercing young teenaged women and the wives of other men with revelations regarding an angel with a drawn sword threatening to take his life if they did not comply.

It is easy to see what was happening here. Not every man could be asked to live polygamy for three reasons.

1. There were not enough women for that to happen
2. Joe knew that many would leave the church if it became known
3. The elite; those in his inner circle needed to feel special in order for him to maintain their allegiance.

So certain 'righteous' men were 'called' to practice polygamy as a higher law in a little secret group, making them feel superior to the others and giving them all the sex they wanted.

Number 1. problem was solved by Joe in marrying other men's wives. He still got to have free reign with his sexual appetite and his growing narcissism without taking women 'off the market'.

Number 2. Keeping it secret kept members in the church and
Number 3. those who DID know were doing it too so they had to be quiet about it.

Sidney was not into polygamy and when Joe decided to add Sidney's daughter Nancy to his harem and was rebuffed, that was pretty much the end of Sidney's days in the Church.

Joe then decided that 34 wives or so was not enough and asked Jane Law to become his polyandrous wife. Jane was very angry and told her husband who happened to be Joe's counselor; true and faithful and not among those who believed that Joe was practicing polygamy, until his very own wife was propositioned. They were excommunicated over this whole nasty little affair - to use Oliver's words and along with some other disgruntled members he bought a printing press and you know the rest of the story; it led to Joseph and brother Hyrum's deaths, leaving many young women widowed, spoiled and taken on then by Brigham and Heber; becoming part of their harems. So sad for these young women who had been duped into thinking that it was required of them by god.

After the Saints had endured their dangerous trek across the plains their sense of solidarity deepened in their trials. In 1857 Brigham Young the person who had wrested leadership from poor Sidney after the death of Joe, announced the revelation on polygamy to all members. Even going so far as saying that men needed to have more than one wife to inherit the highest degree of glory. This is when polygamy got out of hand and the numbers of men practicing polygamy grew until the government of the United States threatened to take the church's assets and to deny Utah statehood. It was not until long after Brigham's death that the practice actually was called to a real halt by the prophet of the day. It continued until 1906 and some members and general authorities still refused to give it up. Today they are known as Fundamentalist Mormons; a name the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints says they have no right to use; they are not Mormons. What is it about the Fundies behavior that makes them any different from the early Mormons? Why don't they have the right to use the name?

What happened to poor old Sidney? Well, he kept trying to have his own church until the day he died.
RIP Sidney, Solomon Spalding, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, Joe and Hyrum and all those who were used and abused by a man who would be king and another who would lead a church. I'm open for debate or questions about my source material. Some of this is my opinion based on a lot of reading.

Dialogue between Christians and Mormons

Hi folks,
Below is an interesting article on attempts at dialogue between Christians and Mormons. The problem with the article is that it doesn't in any way show how Millet, a Mormon apologist, is misleading Christians in his attempts at dialogue, nor how Dr. Mouw, in meeting with Millet and having "intense debates" with him, is failing to defend Christianity. Millet has absolutely no intentions of ever becoming a Christian, but is rather doing everything he can to mislead people into thinking that he is seeking "common ground" between Christianity and Mormonism, which as far as I am concerned, can never exist, and for obvious reasons. Dr. Mouw is doing much to help Millet accomplish his goals by basically not letting the truth stand in the way of dialogue with his Mormon brothers.

Art


Evangelicals and Mormons in dialogue

By Rosalynde Welch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
November 6, 2009

Civil Religion is an attempt—a successful one, in my short experience—to foster mutual understanding among members of disparate religious (and nonreligious!) traditions. The advantages of the blog format are its convenience and its transparency: readers can easily access posts, participate in the comments, and readily search, recover and distribute the content. These are good things, mostly. But because blogs expose participants to a potentially hostile public gaze, there can be a reluctance on the part of bloggers to engage in the kind of mutually self-disclosing dialogue that leads to real understanding. If one fears that reflective self-criticism will be exploited by bad-faith opportunists, one is less likely to engage in open discussion. I know I’ve felt a bit of that in my short tenure as a participant here, though, happily, that fear has been largely unrealized.

That’s why I was interested to read about an interreligious initiative that has taken a very different form. Christianity Today reports on a series of private meetings between Mormon and Evangelical representatives working toward a shared understanding and relationship of good will:

Not many years ago, evangelicals would have deemed substantive contact with Mormonism … improbable. Yet since 2000, small scholarly teams of Mormons led by Millet and evangelical teams led by Fuller Theological Seminary president Richard Mouw have managed to hold 17 intense, closed-door dialogue sessions.

I would imagine that the intimacy and privacy enjoyed in these conferences allows the discussants to develop genuine trust, which in turn encourages the openness necessary for fruitful interchange on the most difficult topics. The article goes on to describe a variety of other initiatives jointly undertaken by Evangelical and Mormon groups, including an Evangelical revival meeting held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, many of which seem to be fostering a more positive relationship between the two traditions. It makes an interesting read, and I recommend you take a look.

I don’t think that Civil Religion will ever be an entirely safe discursive space; there’s a genuine and inescapable tension between freedom and security, and blogs definitely skew toward freedom. But we’ll do our own good work here in this small corner of the universe, and we’ll learn from the work done in different ways and in different places.

Why there had to be multiple Spalding manuscripts

Hi all,
A non-Mormon theory for the origin of the Book of Mormon that has always been controversial and has been getting increasing attention and credibility is called the Spalding or Spalding-Rigdon theory. In brief, it makes the claim that what we now know as the Book of Mormon was based largely on an unpublished manuscript that was written by Solomon Spalding, a down and out retired preacher toward the end of his life.

Mormons claimed it couldn't possibly be true because according to them, there is only one manuscript, and that D. P. Hurlbut and adherents to the Spalding claims made up a second manuscript called Manuscript Found to keep the Spalding claims alive. What follows is a brief paper on why there had to be more than one manuscript.

REASONS WHY THERE HAD TO HAVE BEEN MORE THAN ONE
SPALDING MANUSCRIPT:

Here are seven reasons why Spalding must have written more
than one manuscript. (Can anyone produce seven equally
credible reasons why he must have written only one?)

(1) Aron Wright to Hurlbut, August 1833: “Spalding had many
other manuscripts.” (ref: Howe, 284)

(1a) Aron Wright, December 31, 1833: “Hurlbut is now at my
store. I have examined the writings which he has obtained from
[said] Spalding’s widowe[.] I recognize them to be the writings
handwriting of [said] Spalding but not the Manuscript I had
reference to in my statement before alluded to as he informed
me he wrote in the first place he wrote for his own amusement
and then altered his plan and commenced writing a history of the
first Settlement of America the particulars you will find in my
testimony dated Sept 18 August 1833 . . . ” (ref: Aron Wright’s
unsigned letter of December 31, 1833)

In order to successfully argue that Spalding produced only one
manuscript, one must first convincingly impeach Judge Aron
Wright’s testimony, yet there is absolutely nothing on record
which would give reason to question either his accuracy or his
honesty or to suggest that he was actively anti-Mormon. Wright’s
testimony is crucial. If one cannot impeach Wright, the argument
that Spalding only had one manuscript fails de facto.

(2) John N. Miller to Doctor Philastus Hurlbut, September 1833: “I
was soon introduced to the manuscripts of Spalding and perused
them as often as I had leisure. He had written two or three books
or pamphlets on different subjects; but that which more
particularly drew my attention was one which he called the
Manuscript Found.” (ref: Howe, 282–83)

(3) Mrs. Matilda Spalding-Davison, November, 1833: According to
Howe’s account, the widow Spalding informed Hurlbut that her
husband “had a great variety of manuscripts,” and recalled “that
one was entitled the Manuscript Found. . . .” (ref: Howe, 287-288)

(4) Matilda Spalding McKinstry, April 3, 1880: “My father was in
business there [Conneaut], and I remember his iron foundry and
the men he had at work, but that he remained at home most of
the time and was reading and writing a great deal. He frequently
wrote little stories, which he read to me. . . . In 1816 my father
died at Amity, Pennsylvania, and directly after his death my
mother and myself went to visit at the residence of my mother’s
brother William H. Sabine, at Onondaga Valley, Onondaga County,
New York. Mr. Sabine was a lawyer of distinction and wealth, and
greatly respected. We carried all our personal effects with us,
and one of these was an old trunk, in which my mother had
placed all my father’s writings which had been preserved. I
perfectly remember the appearance of this trunk, and of looking
at its contents. There were sermons and other papers, and I saw
a manuscript about an inch thick, closely written, tied with some
of the other stories my father had written for me, one of which he
called, The Frogs of Wyndham. On the outside of the manuscript
were written the words, Manuscript Found. I did not read it, but
looked through it and had it in my hands many times, and saw
the names I had heard at Conneaut, when my father read it to his
friends . . . The Manuscript Found, she [my mother] said, was a
romance . . . She had no special admiration for it more than other
romances he wrote and read to her.” (ref: Statement given at
Washington, DC, April 3, 1880)

(4a) Matilda Spalding McKinstry, November 2, 1886: “I have
read much of the Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek which you
sent me. I know that it is not the Manuscript Found which
contained the words ‘Nephi, Mormon, Maroni, and Laminites.’ Do
the Mormons expect to deceive the public by leaving off the title
page—Conneaut Creek and calling it Manuscript Found and
Manuscript Story[?]” (ref: McKinstry to Deming, Nov. 2, 1886,
Chicago Hist. Soc.)

(5) Rachel Derby, daughter of John N. Miller, December 9, 1884:
“Father told him [Hurlbut] that the Manuscript Found was not
near all of Spalding’s writings. . . .” (ref: Deming, 1,1, col.7)

(6) L. L. Rice, May 30,1885: “there is no outcome of the quarrel,
as the story is evidently unfinished, and stops abruptly.” (ref:
Rice to James Fairchild, May 30, 1885) This in itself indicates
Manuscript Story cannot have been a copy of the manuscript that
Spalding had prepared for the Pattersons, because that
manuscript was said to have been complete except for a preface
and title page (see chapter 5 of our text).

(7) E. D. Howe to Elder T. W. Smith, July 26, 1881: “The
manuscript you refer to was not marked on the outside or inside
Manuscript Found . . . it was not the original Manuscript Found.”
(ref; Howe to Smith, in Shook, 75-76)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------

FIVE ADDITIONAL POINTS:

(A) Benjamin Winchester’s premise that Hurlbut, motivated by a
desire “to obtain revenge,”(ref: Winchester [1840], 6) concocted
a notorious fabrication around Spalding and then sought to
deceive the world with it, is both illogical and untenable in light
of Hurlbut’s subsequent behavior. If he knew from the very
beginning that the entire story of a Spalding-Book of Mormon
connection was nothing more than the product of his own
vengeful imagination, a creation deliberately designed to
deceive, then it makes no sense whatsoever that Hurlbut would
devote all of his energies over the next several months to
seeking out the very manuscript which, once found and
compared to The Book of Mormon, would not only destroy the
theory he had striven so hard to promote, but would likely wreck
whatever was left of his own reputation in the process. In other
words, the presumption that Hurlbut would actively promote a lie
and then set out on a quest to uncover the one piece of evidence
capable of exposing him as a liar is patently absurd.

(B) In December of 1833, Hurlbut returned to Conneaut with
Spalding’s “Manuscript Story” in hand and proceeded to show it
to Spalding’s former neighbors, who verified that it was NOT the
manuscript to which they had referred in their various
statements. (ref: Howe, 288; Aron Wright’s unsigned letter of Dec.
31, 1833) In order to refute this, one must claim that Hurlbut
initially manipulated his witnesses, and that the deception stuck
even after they were shown the original manuscript containing
the very same story about which their memories had allegedly
been manipulated in the first place. Isn’t it odd that, upon being
confronted with Spalding’s original, not one of them ever said,
“Why yes, this is the story you were trying to get me to recall,
and it’s nothing like you coached me into saying it was”?

(C) Concerning the existence of more than one Spalding
manuscript, the words of Rev. Robert Patterson, Jr. are worth
repeating (ref: Patterson Jr. to J.H. Fairchild, Sept. 22, 1885):
“When so many hearers of the story in different places concur
in their recollections of names constantly recurring in the story,
and when some of them heard it read again and again, it seems
impossible that, after twenty years, they should confound it with
a story [i.e. Manuscript Story]... in which not one of these familiar
and unique names of persons and places did once occur. The
memory of people who, at that period, read or heard very few
romances, would be all the more tenacious of the few (it might
be the only one) they did hear....

“Moreover, it is unitedly testified by these witnesses that
before Spalding became a bankrupt, and when he wrote only to
while away the hours of his illness, without any thought of
making money by publishing his book, his purpose in the story
they heard him read was to show (seemingly) that our Indians
were descended from the ten lost tribes. He therefore started the
colonists from Jerusalem. This was the raison d’être-- the very
foundation-- of the whole fiction. How is it possible that such a
story in 20 years became confused in the memory of those who
heard it with a story which left the Jews out altogether?”

(D) The very physical appearance of the Oberlin manuscript itself
virtually destroys the Mormon argument that this was the same
work Spalding submitted to the Pattersons for their
consideration.

First of all, Story was never finished. It progresses, howbeit
fitfully, up to the point of a final war, devotes about forty pages
to a description of that war, and then ends abruptly in the middle
of a page just as the two opposing armies appear ready to begin
the final battle.

Secondly, this manuscript cannot possibly have been the one
Spalding took to the Pattersons, for it is hardly fit for publication.
For example, a number of changes in the spellings of proper
names occur throughout the text; Siota becoming Sciota,
Hadokam changing to Hadoram, Bombal to Banbo, Labarmock to
Labamack, Lambon to Lambdon (note the similarity to Lambdin
here-- q.v. Chapt. IV), and Mammoons being later designated as
Mammouths. In one especially confusing passage, two Kentucks
who sneak into the Sciotan camp by night are identified as
Thelford and Hamkien on one page, and as Kelsock and Hamkoo
on the next. Later, even Hamkoo changes to Hamko” Aside from
the fact that the manuscript itself is incomplete, can anyone
imagine that Spalding actually submitted such a work to the
Pattersons for their erudite consideration?

Furthermore, Story begins as a first-person narrative told by
its hero Fabius, and remains thus through chapter four. In
chapters five through eight however, only a few passages are in
the first person; and in all the remaining text (which comprises
more than half the manuscript) everything is written in the thirdperson.
These chapters contain lengthy and often intimate conversations, but provide the reader with no explanation as to how Fabius could have obtained such information. “As Spalding neared the end of his story, he must have realized that he had no plausible way to return to his first-person account,” and that radical changes to his manuscript would be necessary in order to reconcile this difficulty.

Consider also the circular logic used by Mormon writers when
they criticize supporters of the Spalding Enigma who hold that
there must have been at least one other Spalding manuscript in
existence. The Mormons claim, of course, that Spalding wrote
only one manuscript, the one which Hurlbut found in the trunk,
Manuscript Story-- Conneaut Creek, which, as we have shown, is
obviously unfinished and in no condition to be presented to a
publisher. Yet they do not question that Spalding took a manuscript
to the Patterson brothers for their consideration. If not this
one, then which one?

(E) Another piece of evidence indicating that Manuscript Story
and A Manuscript Found were not one and the same can be found
in the recollections of Redick McKee and Joseph Miller, Sr., both
of whom befriended the Spaldings during their residence at Amity
between 1814 and 1816, and later recorded statements providing
many details about Solomon, his family, and his manuscript.
What is important here is the fact that both individuals recalled a
certain specific detail about Spalding’s A Manuscript Found
which seems to have escaped prior notice.

According to Miller: “...When Mr. Spalding lived in Amity, Pa., I
was well acquainted with him.... He had in his possession some
papers which he said he had written. He used to read select
portions of these papers to amuse us of evenings. These papers
were detached sheets of foolscap. He said he wrote the papers
as a novel. He called it the Manuscript Found, or The Lost
Manuscript Found. He said he wrote it to pass away the time
when he was unwell; and after it was written he thought he
would publish it as a novel, as a means to support his
family.”(ref: Washington, PA, Reporter, April 8, 1869; Creigh,
[1870], 89-93. Miller’s statement is dated March 26, 1869) And,
“...Mr. S. was poor but honest. I endorsed for him twice to borrow
money. His house was a place of common resort especially in the
evening. I was presenting my trade as a carpenter, in the village
and frequented his house. Mr. S. seemed to take delight in
reading from his manuscript written on foolscap for the entertainment
of his frequent visitors, heard him read most if not all of it,
and had frequent conversations with him about it.”(ref:
Pittsburgh Telegraph, Feb. 6, 1879)

According to Redick McKee: “One day when I called he
[Spalding] was writing upon foolscap paper, taken from some old
account book. My curiosity was excited, and I said to him, that if
he was writing letters I could furnish him with more suitable
paper. He replied that he was not writing letters, but... [a] story
he called The Manuscript Found. It purported to give a history of
the ten tribes, their disputes and dissentions... etc.”(ref: McKee
to Deming, Jan. 25, 1886, in Chicago Hist. Soc.)

These memories constitute an extremely important detail
because foolscap was a very special kind of paper with
particularly distinguishing and readily identifiable
characteristics. An examination of the original manuscript of
Spalding’s Manuscript Story, conducted at our request by Roland
M. Baumann, Archivist of Oberlin College’s Mudd Library,
revealed that no foolscap was employed in the creation of that
work.

Now with the research of Craig Criddle and his team from Stanford, the Spalding authorship claims are more valid than ever. Perhaps someday soon Solomon Spalding's family will finally be vindicated and Mormonism exposed for the sham that it is.

Art

The "one true church"?

Hi folks,
Is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints the "one true church"? Here are some statements about it:

13th LDS President Ezra Taft Benson, “This is not just another Church. This is not just one of a family of Christian churches. This is the Church and kingdom of God, the only true Church upon the face of the earth...” (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p.164-165). This church is the only true and living church on the face of the whole earth (D and C 1:30) “There is no salvation outside the church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints (Mormon Doctrine, p.670)

“Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the Church of the Lamb of God and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore who so belongeth not to the church of the lamb of God belongeth to that great church; which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.” (The Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 14:10)

on April 8, 1973, LDS Apostle Mark E. Petersen proclaimed that salvation “comes only through the Church itself as the Lord established it... Therefore it was made clearly manifest that salvation is in the Church, and of the Church, and is obtained only through the Church.”

“The Roman Catholic, Greek, and Protestant church, is the great corrupt, ecclesiastical power, represented by great Babylon....” (Orson Pratt, Writings of an Apostle, “Divine Authenticity,” no.6, p.84).

the LDS church is, “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased ...” Brigham Young (Mormonism's Second President)

“Our message is so imperative, when you stop to think that the salvation, the eternal salvation of the world, rests upon the shoulders of this Church. When all is said and done, if the world is going to be saved, we have to do it “ (“Church Is Really Doing Well,” Church News (a bi-weekly publication by the Mormon church), July 3 1999, 3)

The FLDS, Raymond Jessup, and others

Hi all,
Well, Raymond Jessup will soon stand trial for "marrying" a teenager. It has been called abuse and a number of other things. What gives Jessup and others the right to commit such crimes, or as they try to claim, their "holy duty" as authentic Mormons. What about their compound in Eldorado, Texas, which some have described as a bunker as much as a church or "temple".

Here is an article that y'all might find interesting.

October 26, 2009 8:00 AM
Raymond Jessop, First FLDS Polygamist to Stand Trial for Sexual Assault on Child Bride
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(AP/Texas Dept. of Public Safety)Photo: Raymond Merrill Jessop.

ELDORADO, Texas (CBS/AP) America will get another look inside the secretive polygamist sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), as one of its patriarchs, Raymond Jessop, is about to face a jury for allegedly sexually assaulting a child – his own wife.

Jessop, 38, the first of a dozen polygamist sect members charged with abuse of women, is set to stand trial Monday, 18 months after agents raided the group's remote ranch and carted off more than 400 children in the largest child custody case in American history.

Jessop faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of sexual assault of a child, a charge stemming from his alleged marriage to an underage girl in the FLDS.

He will be tried later on a separate count of bigamy related to a second alleged underage bride.

In all, 12 sect members have been charged with crimes ranging from failure to report child abuse to sexual assault and bigamy.

Attorneys must cull from a pool of 300 people to try to seat 12 jurors and two alternates. Seating an impartial jury in this community of fewer than 1,900 voters may prove difficult, because most residents know one another and the April 2008 raid on the Yearning For Zion Ranch drew intense media coverage. Images of sect girls in pigtails and women in prairie-style dresses dominated the cable news networks for weeks after the raid.


(CBS/EARLY SHOW)Photo: FLDS women wear traditional dress outside a Texas courtroom in April of 2009 as they battle for custody of their children.

If lawyers can't come up with a jury from the initial pool, the trial could be moved to an adjoining county.

Jessop's trial is expected to last two weeks, said Assistant state Attorney General Eric Nichols, who is prosecuting the case. The prosecution's witness list has 59 people, including law enforcement and child welfare officials, two of Jessop's alleged wives and former FLDS members.

Authorities have said little about the allegations against Jessop, but documents seized from the ranch indicate the assault charge stems from his alleged marriage to an underage girl. The girl later became pregnant and was in labor for several days in August 2005. But after Jessop consulted with sect leader Warren Jeffs, the girl wasn't taken to the hospital, allegedly out of fear that hospital authorities would discover her age and turn in Jessop.

"I knew that the girl being 16 years old, if she went to the hospital, they could put Raymond Jessop in jeopardy of prosecution as the government is looking for any reason to come against us there," Jeffs wrote in a journal seized from the ranch.

Jeffs was arrested in 2006 and later convicted as an accomplice to rape in Utah for arranging an underage marriage there. He faces similar charges in Arizona and is charged with bigamy and sexual assault of a child in Texas.


(AP)Photo: Warren Jeffs in a Las Vegas court Aug. 31, 2006.

One of Jeffs' daughters allegedly married Jessop the day after she turned 15. The bigamy charge against Jessop pertains to that alleged marriage.

Under Texas law, generally, no one under 17 can consent to sex with an adult. But that law was changed after the sect arrived in the state.

Sect members, who believe polygamy brings glorification in heaven, historically have lived around the Arizona-Utah line, but the sect bought a ranch on the outskirts of Eldorado about six years ago. Hundreds of FLDS members, including many of the 439 children initially taken by child welfare authorities, have returned to the log cabin-style homes there.

The sect is a breakaway of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.