Criticism of Mormonism/Books/One Nation Under Gods/Postscript

Claims made in "Chapter 18: Cover-Ups, Conspiracies, and Controversies"

A FAIR Analysis of: Criticism of Mormonism/Books A work by author: Richard Abanes

Claims made in "Appendix A: Abraham's Book?"

Claims made in "Postscript" (paperback only)

[M]ore than a few Mormons, although they had never actually read my book, declared without hesitation that it was rife with errors.
—One Nation Under Gods, p. 438 (paperback edition)

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Page	Claim	Response	Author's sources
437, n2	Quoting Whelan: "[T]here still remains within the Church a limited form of plural marriage. Those husbands who have lost a beloved spouse and are left alone in this world can still be married for time and eternity to another wife....It is clear that all marriages continued in heaven will involve participation in plural marriage."	It is not clear what the author hopes to demonstrate by this claim, or why Shane Whelan's view carries any weight beyond his own opinions.	Shane LeGrand Whelan, More Than One: Plural Marriage—A Sacred Heritage, A Promise for Tomorrow, 208.
438	"[M]ore than a few Mormons, although they had never actually read my book, declared without hesitation that it was rife with errors."	FAIR can assure the author that we have read his book, and can declare without hesitation that both the hardbound and paperback version are rife with errors.	Author's statement.
441, n10	Boyd K. Packer said: "I have a hard time with historians because they idolize the truth."	Use of sources: Boyd K. Packer on the truth	Roger D. Launius, Book Review, Journal of the West, reproduced online at Signature Books.
442, n14	Author's quote: "Some of the harshest criticism I received from Mormons came from those who were irate over my depiction of Brigham Young....then I acquired a new book dealing with the issue—Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows by independent historian and Salt Lake Tribune columnist Will Bagley....This tremendously in-depth volume not only supported my perspective, but greatly expanded on my conclusions..."	See Claims made in "Chapter 11: Bloody Brigham" for a list of claims and responses. Bagley's work has major problems, and the author shares many of them. See reviews of his work here.	Author's statement.
442	Did Will Bagley demonstrate that LDS leaders, and particularly Brigham Young, "probably" planned and executed the Mountain Meadows Massacre?	The author's claim is false: Use of sources: Brigham Young ordered Mountain Meadows Massacre? Reeve and Parshall noted that Bagley's treatment of Brigham Young and the Massacre derived from distorted evidence and misinterpretation (see here).	Author's conclusion based upon Bagley's conclusion.
442	Will Bagley, referring to a statement made by Quinn, said "The decision to do whatever was necessary to build the kingdom 'encouraged Mormons to consider it their religious right to kill antagonistic outsiders, common criminals, LDS apostates, and even faithful Mormons who committed sins worthy of death.'"	19th century crimes alleged to be "worthy of death"	Bagley, 42.
443	Did Will Bagley "prove the charge often dismissed by faithful LDS church members" that Latter-day Saints refused to sell any provisions to the Fancher party?	Use of sources: Orders to Starve Gentiles Mountain Meadows Massacre	Author's opinion.
443	Author's quote: "Blood of the Prophets once and for all dispelled the long-standing Mormon myth that members of the doomed company poisoned an important cattle stream, thereby almost deserving their fate."	Use of sources: Poisoning myth	Author's opinion.
443, 615n15 (PB)	Bagley states "In their desire to exonerate Brigham Young of any guilt, official Mormon accounts of the crime laid the blame on victims and Indians, a tradition that is alive and well today."	Mountain Meadows Massacre Use of sources: Brigham Young ordered Mountain Meadows Massacre? The closest thing to an "official Mormon account" of the massacre is probably an Ensign article: "some 50 to 60 local militiamen in southern Utah, aided by American Indian allies, massacred about 120 emigrants who were traveling by wagon to California. The horrific crime, which spared only 17 children age six and under, occurred in a highland valley called the Mountain Meadows...."[1] A new book coauthored by Turley expresses similar views.[2] See link in previous row which demonstrates that some LDS historians have not 'blamed' the victims.	Bagley, xvii.
443, 615n16-18	Did Brigham Young say: "[W]hen a man is found to be a thief, he will be a thief no longer, cut his throat, & thro' him in the River."	The citations from Alexander deal with blood atonement and the Mormon Reformation. The author does not tell us that Alexander says in both places that "Young's references to blood atonement were probably hyperbole...." The author is repeating himself; these charges have been raised in Chapter 11. Use of sources: Brigham Young on thieves	Instruction to Bishops, quoted in Thomas Bullock diary, December 13, 1846. Cited in D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Signature Books, 1994), 657.; History of the Church, 7:597. Volume 7 link Thomas G. Alexander, Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, a Mormon Prophet, 182. Thomas G. Alexander, "Wilford Woodruff and the Mormon Reformation of 1855-57," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (Summer 1992), vol. 25, no. 2, 27.
444-446, n23-24	Did past LDS leaders hold and expound racist views?	The author is repeating himself. Racist_statements_by_Church_leaders "Curse of Cain": Brigham Young in JD 7:290 ONUG's double standard on race	Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection, 101. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 7:290-291.
446	Author's quote: "Of course, when any religion or denomination is tainted by the stain of racism, it always leaves future members in a very awkward position. And to be fair, Mormonism is not alone in this predicament. A number of Christian denominations (e.g. the Southern Baptists) have had to work very hard at racial reconciliation, often using public declarations to repudiate past racist statements by leaders."	There is, "of course," no hint of this perspective in the chapter branding members of the Church as racists with a "white supremacist" theology. ONUG's double standard on race	N/A
447, 616n31	Did Gordon B. Hinckley "admit" in April 2002 that Latter-day Saints do not believe in the same 'Jesus' as non-LDS Christians?	Mormons worship a different 'Jesus'? This was no "confession"—President Hinckley was bearing testimony of Christ. The Saints believe in the God of the Bible, which is consistent with Joseph Smith's vision. They do not accept the nonbiblical creeds added later. See: President Hinckley believes in the biblical Christ President Hinckley insists he is a Christian Author's distorted "Mormon" Jesus vs. "Traditional" Jesus Latter-day_Saints_aren't_Christians	[needs work]
448, 616n34	Dallin Oaks told Latter-day Saints in 1995 "that so-called Christianity sees God as an entirely different kind of being."	Misrepresentation of source: Elder Oaks nowhere says "so-called Christianity," or uses the phrase "an entirely different kind of being." Use of sources: Dallin H. Oaks on God Corporeality_of_God Godhead_and_the_Trinity Latter-day_Saints_aren't_Christians	Dallin H. Oaks, "Apostasy and Restoration," Ensign, May 1995, 84.

Endnotes

1. [note]  Richard E. Turley, Jr., "The Mountain Meadows Massacre," Ensign (September 2007): 14.off-site
2. [note]  Turley, Walker and Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, 1. This work notes: "One approach [to recounting the massacre] portrays the perpetrators as good people and the victims as evil ones who committed outrages during their travel through central and southern Utah. Some descendants of the perpetrators and several Mormon historians have adopted this approach because it seems, on the surface, to excuse or soften what happened....Readers of our book will find little sympathy for...[this] approach..." (xii-xiii).