|
Utah Lighthouse Ministry
Correspondence between Mark
Ellison and Sandra Tanner re: Chapter 12 of Mormonism:
Shadow or Reality.
Letters 1,
2, 3, 4,
5
Letter
One
| The contents of Letter One, from Mark
Ellison to Sandra Tanner, are contained in her reply in Letter Two. |
Letter Two
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 16:33:49 -0400
From: Sandra Tanner
To: Mark Ellison
>I've recently read ch. 12 of _Mormonism -- Shadow
>or Reality?_ ("The Arm of Flesh") and I have a
>question for you. I'm sure you are busy, but I would
>like to get your response. My question regards
>three apparent oversights in the chapter:
>
>1. On. p. 183, you cite Thomas B. Marsh to the effect
>that the prophet is a "pope," but you do not mention
>that Marsh had apostatized, had been
>excommunicated, had been out of the LDS church
>for eighteen years, and was not a member in full
>fellowship at the time he made this statement. As
>such, he was not really a reliable source from which
>to ascertain the position of the church on its
>president.
We did not say he represented the 'position of the church.' He illustrated
the Mormon mindset. You 'suppressed' the fact that Brigham Young introduced him and that he was speaking before the church.
Also, you failed to mention that after his remarks, Brigham Young called on the members to
vote on whether to receive him back into the church and all voted yes.
But all this aside, what is your objection to the quote? Are you saying
that the early leaders did not so regard the prophet?
>2. On p. 184, you cite Joseph Smith's statement,
>"[God] WILL MAKE ME TO BE GOD TO YOU IN
>HIS STEAD," but you do not mention that these
>words are originally found in Exodus relative to
>Moses' prophetic ministry: "I will be with thy mouth . .
>. and will teach you what ye shall do. And [Aaron]
>shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he
>shall be . . .to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt
>be to him instead of God" (Ex. 4:15-16).
Since Smith refered [sic] to Aaron (which is obviously refering [sic] to the Ex. quote)
we saw no need to mention it.
>3. Also on p. 184, you cite President Joseph F.
>Smith's admission of "no >revelation," as made in
>the Smoot hearings. Your statements here have
>been appended since the addition of D&C 138, but
>Smith's claim to have received a revelation was
>made in General Conference in October 1918, and
>was therefore a matter of public record when you
>wrote the first edition of _MSOR_. Therefore, it is
>once again curious that no mention of the 1918
>claim was made in your original version of this
>chapter.
>
>I am interested in knowing if these were
>unintentional oversights on your part, or deliberate
>omissions. If deliberate, I would be
>interested in knowing why. Please inform.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Mark Ellison markandlauren@ij.net
Since the purported revelation was years after the Smoot hearings it looks
to me as if he is just trying to get his foot out of his mouth after the
Smoot comment. If the conference claim of a revelation was taken so
seriously, why wasn't it cannonized [sic] then? Why wait sixty years?
You failed to mention that the other revelation cannonized [sic] at the same time, by Joseph
Smith, was greatly edited. (read MSR ch.3 new material) Are you
'suppressing' this vital information? Why?
Besides, there are many claimed revelations by LDS leaders that have not
been cannonized [sic]. Can I then quote any revelation by a prophet as having
equal import whether or not it was cannonized [sic]? Like the John Taylor one on
not ending polygamy?
Since you are so concerned with whether or not we have used references correctly, you must be in agony about the way the church has sliced up
Brigham Young's sermons in Teachings of Brigham Young?!? What about Hinkley
waffling on whether or not the church teaches 'as man is, God once was'???
Are you willing to hold your prophets to the same standard you expect of
us? Looks to me like your leaders are the ones dishonestly dealing with the
public.
Sandra Tanner |
Letter Three
Subject: Reply to Sandra
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 17:54:48 -0400
From: "Mark D. Ellison" <markandlauren@ij.net>
To: Sandra Tanner
Sandra,
Thank you for your reply. I have a couple of follow-up comments and
questions (see below), and I invite your response.
Sincerely,
Mark Ellison
>>1. On. p. 183, you cite Thomas B. Marsh to the
>>effect that the prophet is a "pope," but you do not
>>mention that Marsh had apostatized, had been
>>excommunicated, had been out of the LDS church
>>for eighteen years, and was not a member in full
>>fellowship at the time he made this statement. As
>>such, he was not really a reliable source from which
>>to ascertain the position of the church on its
>>president.
>We did not say he represented the 'position of the
>church.' He illustrated the Mormon mindset.
Very well. He was not a reliable source from which to ascertain "the Mormon
mindset."
>You 'suppressed' the fact that Brigham Young
>introduced him and that he was speaking before the
>church. Also, you failed to mention that after his
>remarks, Brigham Young called on the members to
>vote on whether to receive him back into the
>church and all voted yes.
"Suppressed?" It's true that I did not mention these facts in my letter to
you. Neither did I mention the fact that after Marsh spoke, Brigham Young
commented on how "very aged and infirm" he was as a result of his having
"left the Gospel of salvation." Again, hardly a compelling authority.
The vote of the church members does not mean they assented to Marsh's words.
The vote merely affirmed their acceptance of Brigham's proposal that Marsh,
in spite of his infirmity, be welcomed back into fellowship. I'm aware of
the entire context, as, apparently, are you.
It's surprising to me, then, that you would so quickly accuse me of having
"suppressed" facts. My letter to you was a brief inquiry, not an exhaustive, critical review.
I didn't write a book. I just pointed out some details that you had either missed or intentionally left out.
I even told you that I did not know if these were "unintentional oversights on your
part, or deliberate omissions." (Thank you for helping me to understand
that this one was deliberate.) Notwithstanding the limited scope and
intent of my letter, you accuse me of having "suppressed" facts, as if I was
writing to the public. And you use quotation marks -- "suppressed" -- as if
I had first accused you of such a thing. Perhaps you are confusing me with
someone else. (You mentioned that you had dozens of other emails to respond
to, along with mine.) Please, let's refocus on my letter to you.
You'll recall that I asked you to provide the reasons for any omissions which might have been intentional.
Since you have intimated that you knew of Marsh's standing but did not explain it to your readers, I must conclude
(in the absence of any further explanation from you) that you deliberately
wanted to give the impression that Marsh somehow spoke for the church (its
"position" or its "mindset"). To be direct: While I didn't accuse you of
"suppressing" important details before, I'm now saying it sure looks like
you did. Feel free to clarify.
Incidentally, even if Marsh had been a consistently faithful member, his
comments alone could not be said to represent "the Mormon mindset."
That Marsh had such an opinion does not mean the Latter-day Saints in general
did. Unless you can demonstrate that other members regularly spoke of their
president as a "pope," you cannot make your case.
>But all this aside, what is your objection to the
>quote?
Precisely what I stated: It does not represent the attitude or vocabulary of
the church. Really, Sandra, you know that Latter-day Saints do not refer to
the prophet as a "pope." Why make use of such a spurious remark, except to
try to shock people? From what you've admitted, that appears to be your
intention. Again, if you want to clarify what your motives were, I would
welcome your comments.
>Are you saying that the early leaders did not so
>regard the prophet?
I am very familiar with the regard that Latter-day Saints, early and modern,
have for their prophet. I am not familiar with any quotations where early
leaders referred to him as a "pope." Are you saying that you can supply
some?
>>2. On p. 184, you cite Joseph Smith's statement,
>>"[God] WILL MAKE ME TO BE GOD TO YOU IN
>>HIS STEAD," but you do not mention that these
>>words are originally found in Exodus relative to
>>Moses' prophetic ministry: "I will be with thy mouth .
>>. . and will teach you what ye shall do. And [Aaron]
>>shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he
>>shall be . . .to thee instead of a mouth, and
>>thou shalt be to him instead of God" (Ex. 4:15-16).
>Since Smith refered [sic] to Aaron (which is
>obviously refering [sic] to the Ex. quote) we saw no
>need to mention it.
What, then, was your purpose in using Joseph Smith's statement? Why cite it
at all, if it's so "obviously" a reference to the prophetic definition in
Exodus? Why not just cite Exodus?
Your explanation doesn't make sense, Sandra. As it is now, I must conclude
that you intended to spook and mislead people. You were offended by
Joseph's words, or at least hoped others would be. You cited them with
capital letters to draw attention to the most potentially controversial idea, "[God] WILL MAKE ME TO BE GOD TO YOU IN HIS STEAD."
You either didn't know this idea was in the Bible, or you knew it but hoped your readers
wouldn't. For what is truly obvious here is that if you had made the
connection with Exodus, Joseph Smith's words would have been rendered innocuous, amounting to nothing more than an affirmation that he, like
Moses, was a prophet. And that would not have served your purposes.
If you can demonstrate how I have misrepresented things, please do so.
>>3. Also on p. 184, you cite President Joseph F.
>>Smith's admission of "no revelation," as made in
>>the Smoot hearings. Your statements here have
>>been appended since the addition of D&C 138,
>>but Smith's claim to have received a revelation was
>>made in General Conference in October 1918, and
>>was therefore a matter of public record when you
>>wrote the first edition of _MSOR_. Therefore, it is
>>once again curious that no mention of the 1918
>>claim was made in your original version of this
>>chapter.
>Since the purported revelation was years after the
>Smoot hearings it looks to me as if he is just trying
>to get his foot out of his mouth after the Smoot
>comment.
So you're saying that you did know about his claim to have received a revelation in 1918, but you didn't mention it because you believed it was
something he fabricated to quell backlash from comments he had made in 1903?
Now that's quite a hefty claim. Can you provide any historical evidence of
such backlash? Do you have any record indicating that the Saints were upset
by President Smith's comments? Surely, if the outcry of the membership was
so intense that, 15 years after his remarks, President Smith had to concoct
the elaborate story about the vision of the redemption of the dead, there
must be some record of the outcry. Where is the evidence of so great a
commotion? Where do we read of the deep consternation among church leaders
which would impel President Smith to such a desperate move? Can you produce
anything to substantiate your theory?
Note than even in your hypothesis, Sandra, you discredit the position you
took in chapter 12. There you argued that the church admitted to no
revelation. But now you admit that you knew of the 1918 revelation, but
didn't mention it. Your explanation as given is an admission of deception.
>If the conference claim of a revelation was taken so
>seriously, why wasn't it cannonized [sic] then? Why
>wait sixty years?
I don't know. Why wasn't Peter's revelation in Acts 10 recorded in a timely
manner? Were it not for Luke writing many years later, we would have no
record of it at all. Not all revelations are canonized.
>You failed to mention that the other revelation
>cannonized [sic] at the same time, by Joseph Smith,
>was greatly edited. (read MSR ch.3 new material)
>Are you 'suppressing' this vital information?
No.
>Why?
I did not write to you with questions about chapter 3. I'm sure chapter 3
is fascinating, but I asked you about omissions in chapter 12. Please stay
focused.
>Besides, there are many claimed revelations by
>LDS leaders that have not been cannonized [sic].
Again, I'm surprised that you would admit this, given the claim in chapter
12 that the church has admitted to "No Revelation." I understand that you
don't accept LDS revelations. But in chapter 12 you didn't argue that
purported revelations were false -- you insisted that the church wasn't even
claiming to receive revelation. When the additions to the D&C were made,
you said in your addendum that your claim "still stands." May I now take
the above comment as a retraction?
>Since you are so concerned with whether or not we
>have used references correctly, you must be in
>agony about the way the church has sliced up
>Brigham Young's sermons in Teachings of Brigham
>Young?!? What about Hinkley waffling on whether or
>not the church teaches 'as man is, God once
>was'???
Thank you for your concern, but no, I am not in agony. If you would like my
perspectives on the BY manual or President Hinckley, I'll be glad to share
them another time, but I think that you'll be disappointed to find that I
have no misgivings about either, and neither do the great majority of Latter-day Saints.
Judging from your liberal use of punctuation, you appear to be in agony over that.
>Are you willing to hold your prophets to the same
>standard you expect of us?
I am willing to view the LDS apostles and prophets in the same way as the
early Christians viewed the New Testament apostles and prophets, and using
the same standards.
>Looks to me like your leaders are the ones
>dishonestly dealing with the public.
In light of your own admissions, I'd say you were projecting. |
Letter Four
Subject: Sandra and Suppression
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 15:00:54 -0400
From: "Mark D. Ellison" <markandlauren@ij.net>
To: Sandra Tanner
Sandra,
Thank you for your responses to my questions about the three apparent omissions in MSOR ch. 12.
I wrote you a reply, but I'm not sure it was actually sent (another email I sent at the same time was returned with a notice, "delivery failure").
In case you did not receive my reply, I will send it again.
Since my first two emails to you, I have learned of several other important statements from the Reed Smoot hearings which
bear directly on how you used Joseph F. Smith's comments. I would really like you to read what follows (I've underlined the
most relevant statements for your convenience), and then respond to my questions below:
[From the Reed Smoot Hearings, 1:100]:
Mr. Tayler. Undoubtedly, that is correct. Mr. Smith, in what different ways did Joseph Smith Jr., receive revelations?
Mr. Smith. I do not know, sir; I was not there.
Mr. Tayler. Do you place any faith at all in the account of Joseph Smith, Jr., as to how he received these revelations?
Mr. Smith. Yes, sir, I do.
Mr. Tayler. How does he say he got them?
Mr. Smith. He does not say.
Mr. Tayler. He does not?
Mr. Smith. Only by the spirit of God.
Mr. Tayler. Only by the spirit of God?
Mr. Smith. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tayler. Did Joseph Smith ever say that God or an angel appeared to him in fact?
Mr. Smith. He did.
Mr. Tayler. Did Joseph Smith contend that always there were visible appearance of the Almighty or of an angel?
Mr. Smith. No, sir; he did not.
Mr. Tayler. How otherwise did he claim to receive revelation?
Mr. Smith. By the spirit of the
Lord.
Mr. Tayler. And in that way, such revelations as you have received, you have had
them?
Mr. Smith. Yes, sir.
From this exchange two things are clear: (1) In the Smoot hearings, President Smith did, in fact, claim to have received
revelations. They were revelations "by the spirit of the Lord," not necessarily attended by angels, and not necessarily written
down, but by President Smith's own affirmation, Yes, revelations. (2) "Revelation," as used in the discussion you cited in
MSOR, must refer to written revelation (which, as of 1903, he had not received).
Three statements from Francis M. Lyman's testimony in the Smoot hearings give further evidence to these two conclusions.
[From Reed Smoot Hearings 1:454]:
Senator Hoar. I would like to ask one question there.
You say that Mr. Smoot was selected as an apostle by the voice of the Lord to Lorenzo Snow?
Mr. Lyman. Yes, sir.
Senator Hoar. Do you know whether that voice was audible, in the sense of an ordinary sound?
Mr. Lyman. It was, no doubt, audible to him.
Senator Hoar. Audible as a sound rather than a light!
Mr. Lyman. Yes sir.
Senator Hoar. How do you know?
Mr. Lyman. How do I know?
Senator Hoar. Yes.
Mr. Lyman. The Lord revealed it to me.
Senator Hoar. The Lord revealed it to you also?
Mr. Lyman. Yes: by his spirit.
Senator Hoar. How did He reveal it to you?
Mr. Lyman. By the spirit of the Lord.
Senator Hoar. Did He reveal it to you by an audible sound, as you hear the voice of an ordinary person speaking to you?
Mr. Lyman. He spoke to me by his spirit.
Senator Hoar. How?
Mr. Lyman. By his holy spirit.
Senator Hoar. How?
Mr. Lyman. To my soul.
Senator Hoar. How?
Mr. Lyman. And heart.
Senator Hoar. How?
Mr. Lyman. By the spirit of the Lord.
Senator Hoar. I understood Mr. Smith to testify that he had never had a revelation since he has been president of the church.
Mr. Lyman. Yes.
Senator Hoar. You have had some?
Mr. Lyman. What President Smith does as the president of this church he does by the direction of the spirit of the Lord, not a written
revelation.
Two of the apostles were chosen, and revelation was written when George Teasdale was chosen, and Heber J. Grant but--
Senator Hoar. Have you always obeyed those revelations in your actions about the selection of apostles?
[From Reed Smoot Hearings 1:459]:
Mr. Tayler. Mr. Smith testified respecting the subject of revelations and said that there had been no revelation since 1882 except that which is referred to in the manifesto of 1890?
Mr. Lyman. Yes
Mr. Tayler. The 1882 revelation to which he referred was this one appointing these two apostles, was it?
Mr. Lyman. Yes sir; that was one of them.
Mr. Tayler. Now, I do not think I misunderstood Mr. Smith in assuming that he meant by that, not that he himself had not received revelations for his own personal guidance, but that he had received no revelation for the general guidance of the church since
1882.
Mr. Lyman. None that was
written.
Mr. Tayler. None that was written.
Mr. Lyman. Not a written revelation; no.
Mr. Tayler. But that he is in receipt of revelations from time to time from God that are not written.
Is that right?
Mr. Lyman. Yes.
[From Reed Smoot Hearings 1:471]:
Senator Dillingham. I understood President Smith to say that since he assumed the office of the first presidency he never had received a revelation in the sense in which the word "revelation" is used in the books.
Mr. Lyman. Yes; a written
revelation.
Senator Dillingham. I understand you to say that in the selection of officers for the church the matter is revealed to you by the spirit of the Lord.
Mr. Lyman. Yes.
Senator Dillingham. That is, it comes in some way to your consciousness that such a man is the one for that position?
Mr. Lyman. Yes.
Senator Dillingham. I understand you also to have used that expression synonymously with the word "revelation." Now,
do you make any distinction between a revelation such as is named in the books and the inspiration which comes to you by the Holy
Spirit?
Mr. Lyman. Yes. President Smith no doubt referred to written
revelations, such as the prophet Joseph received and such as President Taylor received.
I think that was the last one before President Joseph was chosen.
In that sense he has not received a revelation - a written revelation that will be placed in the Doctrine and
Covenants, but through the inspiration of the Lord.
It is indicated to him as the head of the church the men who are to fill positions and places in the church.
Now, Sandra, I would like your answers to the following questions:
1. When you wrote ch. 12 of MSOR, did you or did you not know about these qualifying statements?
2. If you did not know about them, will you now admit that your conclusions as presented in ch. 12 were wrong?
That your claim that President Smith had admitted to no revelation was misleading?
3. Though my first letter to you merely inquired and did not accuse you of anything, your reply abruptly accused me of having
"suppressed" facts. Yet it is now evident that you have made some fatal omissions which, unless they were made in complete
ignorance, constitute evidence of blatant suppression. What do you have to say?
Sincerely,
Mark Ellison
markandlauren@ij.net |
Letter Five
Subject: [lds_apologetics] Fw: Sandra's reply
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 19:05:09 -0400
From: "Mark D. Ellison" <markandlauren@ij.net>
To: "LDS Apologetics" <lds_apologetics@ONElist.com>
From: "Mark D. Ellison" <markandlauren@ij.net>
Some of you will recall that a few weeks back I confronted Sandra Tanner
with damning evidence that she deceptively omitted material in MSOR.
Today, at long last, she replied, returning my message with this comment:
>Sorry, don't have time to continue with this.
>Sandra
Sigh. I suppose the poor lady is too busy dealing with lawsuits.
Stan, post our correspondence.
Mark |
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