Dear Editor,
The coming to light of a polygamous paedophiliac cult in Texas has thrown the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints in another one of its multitude of historical controversies. It is therefore good for our intelligent Guyanese public who thirst for truth and knowledge, that the President of the George-town Guyana District, Mr. Wayne W Barrow, representing the public affairs office of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has come out with a public explanation in seeking to distance (his version of) the LDS Church from that Texas version called the Fundamental Latter Day Saints (FLDS) Church, which Barrow and (current) LDS doctrines claim to be a “small polygamous sect”, one of many “splinter groups that broke away from the mainstream church.”
The Mormon Church was started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York in the 1820s. Smith claimed to have been visited by an angel named Moroni who told him not to follow any other church, but to start his own in accordance with revelations he was going to receive. Despite Saint Paul’s admonition in Galatians 1:8, “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed”, this angel Moroni provided Smith with the materials to start his new church. These materials basically were the golden plates – on which were written a record of a remnant of a tribe of Abraham who came to America, and whose present descendants are the native Indians of North, Central and South America; and some magic rocks that would help Smith translate the language written on the plates.
(1) The very existence and authenticity of these plates were to be later denied and disputed by most of the twelve people to whom Smith claimed he had shown them, all of whom eventually left the church. (2)In addition, modern DNA science has disproven by 99.8 percent any genetic relationship between the native Indians of the Americas and the Jewish people. (3) In producing the doctrines called the Book of Mormon, scholars claim that Smith extrapolated heavily from the Bible, mostly from the New Testament, and from the unpublished manuscripts of a novel written by one, Spalding.
The Church’s response to Statement (1) is not to disclose this truth to its membership. To Statement (2), the past president and prophet of the Church, Gordon Hinckley who died recently, when confronted with the evidence, stated that science was wrong. To statement (3), the Church rationalizes that there is only a lot of circumstantial evidence that Smith stole the manuscripts from Spalding, no hard proof.
I really intend to dwell on the issue of polygamy or more appropriately polyandry, but I make the above statements just to give some examples to show the extent to which this church is mired in controversy. There are hundreds more, and I mean hundreds!
In the early days of the church Smith did not believe in polygamy. His early writing condemns polygamy. (See in the Book of Mormon, Jacob 1:15; 2:23,24,27,31; 3:5; Mosiah 11:2,4; Ether 10:5,7.) But something happened. Like any tower of Babel, something happened to dumbfound the builders. You see, God made him reveal his true self in the doctrines. Like all false prophets, Smith began to meddle in the clairvoyance, in violence and in wholesale sex.
He became so power hungry, he held positions as mayor, governor and even candidacy for the presidency of the United States. In his sexual mania Smith became the greatest paedophile and bigamist in the known history of the world, with over fifty wives, half of them under sixteen. Even his wife, Emma personally witnessed Smith in an act of infidelity with 19 year old Fanny Alger, and in many other sexual indiscretions.
Smith became so obsessed with sex he started to concoct elaborate doctrinal justifications (called revelations) for the violation of the monogamous marriage bed. These justifications appear in the later writing in the Doctrines and Covenants and in the Book of Abraham. These justifications which strongly contradict Smith’s earlier teachings are not really seen as contradictions by Mor-mons, but replacement and upgrading of the previous policy.
You see, the greatest boast of this church is that they are the only complete church, having a living prophet and they are constantly upgrading their doctrines through revelations received by their living prophets directly from God. That is why their present Book of Mormon has over one thousand changes from the original book written by Smith. (I have a copy of the original). That is why they have upgraded their policy to now accommodate blacks in the Church. To Mormons, God is constantly changing his mind.
So the present upgraded teachings of the Mormon church (and this includes all the groups – those that broke away and those that didn’t, Mr. Barrows group, and the Texas group) are that God himself is a polygamist, living near a planet called Kolob with countless wives. He was also an adulterer, having had real sex with Mary to produce Jesus (who incidentally is the brother of Satan …) The scriptures teach that all Mormon men, if they faithfully obey the Mormon doctrines, will eventually be made gods and given their own planets to live on with countless wives, just like their God who himself was once a man, but because he was obedient to the doctrines, progressed into a god. And even he, this Mormon God, had a mother and father… (It’s a real nancy story). Until there is a new revelation nullifying the above teachings, they remain current and in force.
Mormon women are only supposed to be baby mac-hines, producing as many spirit-children as possible, the more they did, they more blessed they were.
The only difference between Mr. Barrow’s church and the Texas church is that the church, prior to the FLDS “break-away”, received a sudden revelation to abandon polygamy, a requirement forced on them by the federal government so that Utah could be accepted as a federal state, just like it received a sudden revelation to abandon its apartheid practices in the heyday of Black Power activities in the sixties in the country and on its Brigham Young University campus in Utah.
But here comes the real problem. Polygamy and paedophilia had been so strongly entrenched into the doctrines by Smith that it became the cornerstone of the religion. The whole religion would crumble if this cornerstone were to be removed. Removing these meant removing major, major portions of the scriptures and re-writing the entire religion. Many of the earlier prophets, including Smith’s successor, Brigham Young refused to accept this new revelation. (Young, himself, had three wives.
By the way, he was also responsible for the third largest slaughter of Ameri-cans on American soil – the first was the Civil War, the second, the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal building, and the third, the Mountain Meadows Massacre.) Thus a real dilemma arose – abandon polygamy, abandon the true doctrine and be accepted a state; remain true to the doctrine, remain a polygamist and a paedophile and be outlawed. Now, my fellow intelligent Guyanese, tell me which group is really the break away group?
The LDS church today cannot remove polygamy and paedophilia from its doctrines, nor can they practice it. They therefore choose to stay quiet. But these teachings are there now, today, as plain as the sun and just as current.
Just read and study for yourself. Don’t take my word for it. And while you are re-searching this religion, research the comedy of their Book of Abraham which was translated from classical Egyptian to English by Smith and which turned out to be the biggest fraud and farce of the twentieth century.
Yours faithfully,
Gokarran Sukhdeo
Former LDS member and official church
historian
