3- Issues

Here's the meat... let's skip the milk and get right to the heavy stuff- the smoking guns:

Book of Abraham/Book of Mormon Translation: Joseph Smith claimed to translate, using a similar technique to his translation of the Book of Mormon (BOM), some ancient Egyptian texts into what is considered a part of LDS scripture; known as the Book of Abraham (BOA). The only problem is that 100 years later, some of these texts were re-discovered and translated by a team of Egyptologists and their content wasn't found to be at all the same. Despite the errors, the BOA is still a part of the Pearl of Great Price.

My conclusion: if JS lied about translating the BOA, he certainly could have been deceptive about the BOM. If it all stands or falls on the truth of the BOM, then I am of the opinion that this one thing makes the tower fall. Check out the Kinderhook Plates debacle for another example of JS making a mistake. Another item: JS translated the BOM by looking at a rock that he had placed in a hat: a quote from Russell M. Nelson printed in the Ensign in 1993: "Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light...

Links on the BOA: http://www.lds-mormon.com/abraham.shtml Academic analysis, including discussion on the various LDS attempts to legitimize the translation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Abraham Follow the links into some of the scholars that have studied this issue, notably Robert Ritner

Gordon Hinckley lies on national TV: Gordon Barnes Hinckley, president of the LDS church from 1995-2008, was very active in communicating with the media. On several occasions, he gave interviews wherein he either made deceptive statements or remarkable challenges that seem to indicate a pattern of misinformation.

Larry King Live, 12/26/2004 'The Church doesn't become involved in politics. ' I would say that this is an inherently untrue statement, as Hinckley who is honored and revered as an example to all the LDS faithful, had just professed his personal political preference: "Republican' For other examples of the LDS involvement in politics (both local and national, search out Equal Rights Amendment, Same-Gender civil unions (notably 2008's Proposition 8 battle in California), pari-mutual betting, Utah liquor laws and the Utah Legislature.

A major belief of Mormonism is the promise to men that if they are worthy and fulfill all of the necessary requirements in this life, they will be blessed in the afterlife with godhood. They will be able to be gods of their own universes and have multiple spirit wives and spend all their time being godly and breeding billions of spirit children to populate their universes just as God himself has done with this world and universe. In a Time Magazine interview, published in August of 1997, Hinckley denies this doctrine thus: 'I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it. I haven’t heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don’t know. I don’t know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don’t know a lot about it and I don’t know that others know a lot about it.' WHAT??? If men can become gods, doesn't it stand to reason that God was once a man?

San Francisco Chronicle, April 13, 1997 Q: There are some significant differences in your beliefs [from other Christian churches]. For instance, don't Mormons believe that God was once a man?
Hinckley: I wouldn't say that. There was a little couplet coined, "As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become." Now that's more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don't know very much about.

Here's the true church policy, taken straight from the Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young- 1997 p. 29:

"... God the Father was once a man on another planet who 'passed the ordeals we are now passing through...'"

And then we have the big challenge: Hinckley places the entire weight of the church on the First Vision, wherein JS claimed to be visited by angels or something and they gave him the mandate to restore the ancient church or something. In an interview with PBS, 2007:

Q: Our film [features] a very strong statement you made. You are talking about the foundational story of Mormonism and why it must be taken literally, that Joseph Smith had the vision he described and obtained the plates the way he did. You said there is no middle ground. Other churches are approaching their foundational stories and turning them into metaphor at times and going perhaps for the essence of the meaning. But that isn't true for you or for this church. I'm wondering if you can develop that idea: Why can't there be a middle ground in the way those foundational stories are understood?

'Well, it's either true or false. If it's false, we're engaged in a great fraud. If it's true, it's the most important thing in the world. Now, that's the whole picture. It is either right or wrong, true or false, fraudulent or true. And that's exactly where we stand, with a conviction in our hearts that it is true: that Joseph went into the [Sacred] Grove; that he saw the Father and the Son; that he talked with them; that Moroni came; that the Book of Mormon was translated from the plates; that the priesthood was restored by those who held it anciently. That's our claim. That's where we stand, and that's where we fall, if we fall. But we don't. We just stand secure in that faith.'

Which version of the Vision story are we to believe? Does the flexibility of the true story lend flexibility to the black and white rhetoric of Hinckley's statement? Does this make Hinckley dishonest?

What about Polygamy? Hinckley seems to be a bit flexible on the truth of this matter as well: Larry King Live September 8, 1998.

KING: You condemn it [polygamy].
HINCKLEY: I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal.

The last time I checked, D&C 132 was still there, right between 131 and 133, threats to Emma Smith and everything. Read it sometime. this is a fantastic example of spousal mental abuse. (verses 52 and 54 are particularly juicy)

Speaking of polygamy, What about polygamy? D&C 132 was written down and made known in 1843. JS had been practicing plural marriage of some kind or another for at least 12 years at that time. Joseph Smith had somewhere between 24 and 35 wives. The official LDS familysearch.org website lists a number of them. Check out Helen Mar Kimball- do a little math: subtract her birth year from her marriage year. The median age for first marriages in the US in the 1800s was 22 years old for females. JS also married women who were currently married to other men- try to make sense of the Zina Huntington mess- she was married to Henry Jacobs, who was sent on missions by president Smith. While he was gone, JS married Zina. He returned, JS was killed; a couple of years later, Brigham Young wanted her, so he sent Jacobs on another mission and claimed her for his own. Jacobs was neither divorced nor dead, and yet his wife was married to TWO other men. Both Mr Jacobs and Mrs Huntington Jacobs Smith Young died, undivorced, in Salt Lake City.

What is really ironic is that there was 'revealed' in 1835, D&C 101, which was removed from the book in 1876 due to the following language: '...we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again...'

More interesting quotes from GBH:

“Our whole strength rests on the validity of that [First] vision. It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud. If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens. I knew a so-called intellectual who said the Church was trapped by its own history. My response was that without that history we have nothing. The truth of that unique, singular, and remarkable event [The First Vision] is the pivotal substance of our faith.”
- Gordon B. Hinckley, General Conference, October 2002

“I would like to say that this cause is either true or false. Either this is the kingdom of God, or it is a sham and a delusion. Either Joseph Smith talked with the Father and the Son or he did not. If he did not, we are engaged in a blasphemy.”
- Gordon B. Hinckley, Improvement Era, December 1961, p. 907

My impression of President Hinckley is that he didn't believe it. He knew the church wasn't true and not honest in claiming that it is. His statements, over and over, were phrased in a 'we' and a 'they' context, but never in a sense of 'I.' Many of his talks sound like lectures from a humanist philosopher.