More of Tal Bachman's old posts re SP
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 8:58 pm
I thought it would be interesting to reprint more of Tal's old posts about his exit from the Mormon Church and his conversation/s with his SP. These are from RfM, posted on Nov 21/22, 2005.
I have included a few of the replies on this thread as they focus on some of the issues that stand out. Even though this is about two years after the meeting (which I believe was in 2003, the year Tal left) and after Tal's talk at the Exmo Foundation Conference in October 05, you can see the same elements in his account and nothing that contradicts anything he has said before or since, as far as I can see and remember. (I believe someone at FAIR blog, for one, is looking for such discrepancies).
Posted by Tal Bachman on RfM – November 21, 2005 (Sorry - long):
Me and My Stake President (since so many have asked)
I mentioned meeting with the stake president in my talk at the conference. I have since received a number of inquiries about this, so I hope it is okay to post something more expansive for the record here. I can't relate all of what was said, but a few things might suffice.
First, I need to say that I really like my (former) stake president. He used to come up to our little branch and sit in on my gospel doctrine lessons, and he always took the time afterward to compliment me nearly until I blushed (which of course made me like him all the more...:P).
When my dad and stepmother renewed their marriage vows (prior to us all figuring this thing out), he officiated, and again took the time to come up and chat. He is the antithesis of the uptight, mindless, power-tripping stake president. He is an unassuming, well-tempered, soft spoken man, and in all sincerity, I will forever be grateful to him for helping me get rid of that terrible, excruciating nausea I had felt for weeks before meeting with him about the church.
In our meeting, as I mentioned during my talk, he admitted that he knew that some of the foundational events of the church had not occurred. He also mentioned among other things the meeting with Pres. Hinckley (in which he says GBH essentially admitted that church history won't stand up to scrutiny), which really meant a lot to me at the time, since I had come to believe Hinckley was exactly that kind of guy, but kept wondering if I’d gone mad seriously thinking that the prophet didn’t believe in the church the way most members did. Hearing his description of Hinckley’s comments immediately made me feel that maybe I wasn’t insane, or possessed by Satan. I actually blurted out, through my tears, “I knew it!”.
He also said he believed that Joseph had acted selfishly in pursuing his plural marriages (ya think?). He went on to make a number of, to me, shocking comments which I don’t think I ever will disclose as long as he wants to stay on as stake president. I mentioned a few while I was posting anonymously, but since I don't anymore, I should probably not.
After my meeting with him, my nausea disappeared, and for the first time in weeks I felt as though I wasn’t being crushed by a gigantic curelom (sorry), and I started laughing. I actually laughed all the way to the pay phone in Sidney, from where I called my wife and related to her the entire surreal meeting. I didn’t at that time realize how devastating this would all be for Tracy, and so for that whole hour or so on the phone with her I felt as light as a feather, and almost proud of myself for figuring the thing out (this would quickly change into self-reproach and stupidity for having it take so long).
Anyway, back to the SP. A couple of weeks after our meeting (after I’d decided I wanted to be released - he had actually encouraged me to stay in my callings even though I knew it was a fraud, if you can believe it), he asked to meet with Tracy and me again (he had in the meantime also met with Tracy and repeated to her many of the things he said to me). He came up to the island where we lived to do so. In this meeting, he seemed very much to backtrack, and took the opportunity to say that if he hadn’t made it clear before, that he really did believe Joseph Smith was a prophet. Since he had said all kinds of very unorthodox things a very short time earlier, including as I said an admission that Joseph had acted selfishly in pursuing sex and that he knew some of his stories weren't true to both Tracy and me in separate meetings, it was hard for both of us not to think, “I wonder what’s changed in the last two weeks. I wonder if rumours have flown about the meeting”. I’d only told my cousin and my sister, but my sister can talk a lot, so maybe this was it. To this day, I don’t know.
After his awkwardly expressed testimony of Joseph Smith’s prophetic status, I said, “Can I ask you a question? What would mean, ‘Joseph wasn’t a prophet’? What would you have to find out to conclude he wasn’t?”. He said, “I don’t know - maybe if he’d killed somebody...”. I said, “Well what about his Nauvoo goon squad, and Porter Rockwell’s attempt on Lilburn Boggs, which, if he didn’t know about beforehand, he seemed to be quite pleased with afterward? Doesn’t that count?” (I didn’t mention the men Joseph killed at Carthage because he did so in self-defence).
At this, he muttered, “Well, I don’t really want to get into this kind of thing...”, so I just let it go.
A little while after that meeting, my dad forwarded on to me an email that the SP had sent to him. In it, he said that he wanted my dad to know that I seemed to have misunderstood some of what he’d said in our initial interview. Actually, no, I hadn’t, in fact I wrote much of it down right after I got home, and neither had my wife, who met with him a few days after I had, and to whom as I said he related pretty much the identical things. No one could have misunderstood what he said that night. As I said, what I think is most likely is that the brief description of the meeting I gave to my sister a couple of days afterward was probably passed on by her, to someone else, and to someone else, and got back to him in altered form. Either that, or one of the many people who emailed me anonymously after I posted a description of my meeting anonymously had emailed him (a few people in private emails asked me what stake I was in), and he'd grown embarrassed. I don't really know.
In any case, I thought I sensed a certain tone in the SP’s email to my dad, one that said, “this could be kind of a problem for me”. I don’t know if I was imagining it, but that’s what I thought. So, feeling a kind of loyalty to him, thinking he was the best guy in the stake to be SP, and figuring he might need some cover, I sent him an email reciting back to him a few things he had said in SUPPORT of his belief in the church (which was also part of the conversation), for example, that he’d had a spiritual experience while working as a golf caddy as a teenager, etc. (As I said, it was a bit of a jumble in the first place). I feel kind of dumb about this now, like I was still protecting a guy in a church which, really, has no reason to be protected, but that's what happened, what can I say (come to think of it, I guess I am still doing this). After sending him this note, I then stayed mum about the whole thing (other than anonymous RFM posts), until I started doing newspaper interviews in Canada a number of months later, obviously, as myself.
One FARMS writer wrote to me once and asked if my SP would consider accurate my description of our meeting. I think definitely if we were in the same room together, he would admit it was. I don’t think he could face me and then deny it. But what he might say when asked by others in private when I’m not there, I don’t know. Truth is, I don’t think he ever had any idea that I might leave the church, or speak on the record about the meeting. I think in his mind, arguing that the truthfulness of foundational church claims is irrelevant since they “make us better husbands and fathers” would be very convincing to me, since that argument had been convincing to him (this in the end was the primary thrust of his remarks - that it was "irrelevant whether this stuff happened or not, since the church helps us").
Needless to say, after some consideration I found this argument unconvincing; and I think if he had known a few things said in our meeting would ever be made public he may not ever have said much of what he did. (Note: He never asked me to keep any of it confidential, and if he had, I think I might just have, no matter what. But he didn't, so here we are.)
I don’t think I had ever heard anything like what I heard from my SP in that first meeting. It seemed to be: “I believe it’s true, but then, I also know that some of this stuff didn't happen - but bottom line is, it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not since it makes me a better person” . He actually said at one point that while Mormonism was “right for (him)”, he admitted that it might not be right for someone else. Obviously, there is no provision for this within Mormon doctrine or scripture: Mormonism is God’s only true way.
But I have since encountered this weird jumble of sentiments a number of times from people still in the church. Usually it comes from males born and raised in the church, who have reached full maturity before realizing that something may be wrong. Honestly, I am now surprised by how prevalent this attitude seems to be. It sometimes seems that all you have to do is scratch ever so slightly against the veneer of chest-thumping, absolute knowledge claims, and all of a sudden you find a kind of broken man underneath saying "well, at least it’s the best thing out there, and we’re happy". Huh?
Anyway, the SP sent me a very nice letter some months after our meeting expressing a desire to remain friends. I emailed back to say that would be great; I also asked him, though (since we hadn’t spoken since that last meeting), why he wanted to stay in if the church wasn’t what it claimed. I said something like, “there are women in your stake right now crying themselves to sleep at night because their natures can’t really cope with the demands put on them by the church. Why stay in and facilitate the thing when it imposes these kinds of costs, and it’s not even true?”.
He replied to the effect that despite this, he believed the church did do good, and then said something like, “please understand that I have a desire to continue serving the people of the Victoria stake as the stake president”. I took that to mean, “I don’t want to talk about whether the church is good or bad, true or false, anymore, because I’ve made my decision to stay in and that is the end”. So, I never have mentioned it again to him.
A few days before I left for the Exmo conference, I bumped into him at the Hillside Mall here in Victoria. He was with his wife. She is a very sweet lady - I wonder if maybe he doesn’t want to explore anything further because he feels she’d have a tough time.
We said hi and chatted for a few minutes, all smiles, all pleasant. But I noticed that pretty quickly he started pulling a bit on his wife’s arm and leaning away, as though he seemed to want to leave before something weird happened or whatever.
Anyway, I just wanted to put this out there since a number of people have asked. And to answer the question put to me by the church defender, I very much doubt the stake president will ever publicly take issue with anything Tracy or I report about our meeting, because he knows we’re telling the truth - and possibly because he thinks I might then mention a few of the other things he said that night lol.
Yet, even as I was typing that, I had this vision of him sitting at his desk conducting temple recommend interviews, asking people if they are honest with their fellow men and if they believe Joseph Smith was indeed the prophet of the restoration, at the same time he has made that last question completely irrelevant in his own mind, but still is helping run Joseph’s church just as though he thought it was the most important question in the world, in a way, embodying and living and facilitating a lie. So, I guess I don’t really know what he might say or do.
Anyway, I just wanted to put this out there since it's come up a few times.
Thanks,
T.
Follow up by Tal:
One Thing I’d Like to Know
One thing I'd like to know is this: If my stake president recalled this meeting, and GBH's remarks, accurately, where are the other guys who were there?
My SP said the meeting took place after the Salamander letter had become public but before it was known to be a fraud; he said the meeting was at the Salt Lake temple; he said that all the local bishoprics were invited (he was a counselor at the time); and that GBH presided over the meeting. So, I'm wondering, if GBH really made these remarks, which I have to say seem entirely in character, and not even that far removed from a few comments made by him over the years in more public settings, where are the other guys who were there? Where are their corroborative recollections? Is there any other evidence that this meeting even took place other than my SP saying it did? I'm not saying I doubt the guy - I just want to know if his say-so is all I'm ever going to get.
Maybe the remarks just kind of slipped by everyone else. Maybe my SP misremembered them (kinda doubting that though).
Doesn't anyone know anyone who was serving in a bishopric around the time the Salamander Letter came out, living around the Salt Lake area? Surely there has to be someone else out there who went.
T.
A poster called “Marvelous” responded:
First post:
I only recall his self-deprecating wit. He was remarkably light-hearted (minded?) and I thought this was very cool, as I was never one for excessive solemnity. I don't recall anything in that meeting that suggested he disbelieved.
However, I must add that neither do I recall a stirring affirmation. That's what stands out upon reflection. Hinckley doesn't make bold claims, as one would expect a prophet to do. I noticed this while still a TBM. It wasn't a big thing with me, but it did register.
Second post:
However, I also believe that he feels the good the Church does warrants the deception. He can't do anything about the basis for Mormonism. He's making the best of the situation by emphasizing positive aspects of the Mormon culture. I also think, as you seem to, that he enjoys the spotlight.
Poster “gbox” said:
I'm not familiar with your story (I haven't been around Mo or Exmo stuff for a long time), but the SP seems like the kind of guy who would get so much out of *being* Mormon that walking away would mean giving up all his benefits. I'm not saying that he thinks of it that way, but it might be subconsciously part of his motivation.
When I walked away from the church, it was *really easy* because what did I have to lose? MISERY. I lost being treated like I was second class because of my breasts, I lost the "privilege" of giving birth to ten children, and the joy of slowly going mad from the mindf*cks that church logic put me through every day...and I was single, so there was no risk of my losing a spouse...
But I look at my brothers and my father and ask myself, "What would they lose by leaving the church?"
Authority granted without qualifications.
The ability to make decisions and give orders without being questioned.
Permission to ignore or avoid disturbing or frightening things (granted, I had this too, but I hated it).
A sense of superiority based on birth (BIC, BWP, and/or BWB).
Justification for their actions (God allows a man of the church to kill someone in cold blood if it's for a good cause, and who decides what God means by a "good cause"? Male leaders.)
An SP would probably have to give up the following by leaving the church:
-Authority that does not require qualifications.
-The blind obedience of hundreds of people.
-Anything they might be gaining dishonestly through their position if they are being dishonest (money skimmed from tithing, free jerk-offs during confessions of sexual misconduct, the opportunity to verbally abuse or harass submissive women, etc.)
-The respect that comes with authority whether or not it is earned. Also, the respect they may have earned honestly that will be thrown away unjustly when other members find out they have left.
-They risk being the center of scorn when they were once the center of attention.
-That feeling that you can bring peace and spiritual happiness to other people because you are chosen by God to do so as an authority figure. You would have to accept that you make dreadful mistakes all the time, misjudge people as much as anyone else does, have probably affected or even ruined people's lives with rash advice, and really have no inbred ability whatsoever to improve people's spiritual lives, though you do have the ability to lie both to them and yourself.
-An SP would have to see all the bad things that happen in a ward and finally admit that they DO happen and their happening in a church does not make them better, okay, or easier to live with. An SP would have to admit that they have not led people to a "better life" by leading them in the church. What a letdown, huh?
-An SP would have to admit that those who put him in authority are not qualified to be authorities themselves. All his mentors, leaders, and those who conferred authority on him become ordinary people, and could even be crooks or crazies...or just plain ordinary guys with no special talents or qualifications.
-The guarantee of a good seat in the Afterlife, and the guarantee of the existence of an afterlife, and probably some insider information about the afterlife not given to "ordinary" members.
-There are probably a lot of other things an SP gets out of being an SP that I don't even know about. Access to swank "members only" back rooms of the temple, maybe? ;-)
-A few SPs (but not all) might also be upset by the sudden realization that their wife is equal to them.
-They would have to accept the possibility that they are on the same level as other people who do the same things as them, and that being an SP does not justify or purify their actions. So if they have any hidden secrets, "wicked" hobbies, or skeletons in the closet, they would have to face the possibility that they are cheaters, or scam artists, or wife-beaters, or tax evaders, or child neglectors, or sexual horndogs who are on the *same level* as Non-Mo or Non-SP cheaters, scam artists, wife-beaters, tax evaders, child neglectors, or sexual horndogs.
Can an SP cope with not being special anymore? Some yes. Some -- hell no!
And so some would rather stay with a false church "because it makes me (look like) a good person" than seek an honest life where they have to admit we're all just bozos on the same bus.
Tal Bachman:
About corroboration...
On the one hand, if ten people all stepped forward and vouched for my stake president's description of GBH's remarks, it probably wouldn't even come close to how devastating his public remarks have been to his own reputation, and to the church he seems to think he's done a great job representing. So whether GBH ever revealed himself to be the Mormon Jeremy Bentham once at a meeting at the SL temple is perhaps kind of inconsequential. All you really need is the guy running around saying the stuff he's said the last ten years to know there is something really, profoundly wrong there.
On the other hand, an admission such as the one my SP described does seem uniquely candid; and that's why I personally would like to hear the recollections of other people who were there.
By the way, Marvelous, was the solemn assembly in the SL Temple? Do you remember any mention of church history problems or the Salamander Letter in it?
T.
(This was the last post on this thread. I assume Marvelous answered elsewhere and I didn't save that thread).
I have included a few of the replies on this thread as they focus on some of the issues that stand out. Even though this is about two years after the meeting (which I believe was in 2003, the year Tal left) and after Tal's talk at the Exmo Foundation Conference in October 05, you can see the same elements in his account and nothing that contradicts anything he has said before or since, as far as I can see and remember. (I believe someone at FAIR blog, for one, is looking for such discrepancies).
Posted by Tal Bachman on RfM – November 21, 2005 (Sorry - long):
Me and My Stake President (since so many have asked)
I mentioned meeting with the stake president in my talk at the conference. I have since received a number of inquiries about this, so I hope it is okay to post something more expansive for the record here. I can't relate all of what was said, but a few things might suffice.
First, I need to say that I really like my (former) stake president. He used to come up to our little branch and sit in on my gospel doctrine lessons, and he always took the time afterward to compliment me nearly until I blushed (which of course made me like him all the more...:P).
When my dad and stepmother renewed their marriage vows (prior to us all figuring this thing out), he officiated, and again took the time to come up and chat. He is the antithesis of the uptight, mindless, power-tripping stake president. He is an unassuming, well-tempered, soft spoken man, and in all sincerity, I will forever be grateful to him for helping me get rid of that terrible, excruciating nausea I had felt for weeks before meeting with him about the church.
In our meeting, as I mentioned during my talk, he admitted that he knew that some of the foundational events of the church had not occurred. He also mentioned among other things the meeting with Pres. Hinckley (in which he says GBH essentially admitted that church history won't stand up to scrutiny), which really meant a lot to me at the time, since I had come to believe Hinckley was exactly that kind of guy, but kept wondering if I’d gone mad seriously thinking that the prophet didn’t believe in the church the way most members did. Hearing his description of Hinckley’s comments immediately made me feel that maybe I wasn’t insane, or possessed by Satan. I actually blurted out, through my tears, “I knew it!”.
He also said he believed that Joseph had acted selfishly in pursuing his plural marriages (ya think?). He went on to make a number of, to me, shocking comments which I don’t think I ever will disclose as long as he wants to stay on as stake president. I mentioned a few while I was posting anonymously, but since I don't anymore, I should probably not.
After my meeting with him, my nausea disappeared, and for the first time in weeks I felt as though I wasn’t being crushed by a gigantic curelom (sorry), and I started laughing. I actually laughed all the way to the pay phone in Sidney, from where I called my wife and related to her the entire surreal meeting. I didn’t at that time realize how devastating this would all be for Tracy, and so for that whole hour or so on the phone with her I felt as light as a feather, and almost proud of myself for figuring the thing out (this would quickly change into self-reproach and stupidity for having it take so long).
Anyway, back to the SP. A couple of weeks after our meeting (after I’d decided I wanted to be released - he had actually encouraged me to stay in my callings even though I knew it was a fraud, if you can believe it), he asked to meet with Tracy and me again (he had in the meantime also met with Tracy and repeated to her many of the things he said to me). He came up to the island where we lived to do so. In this meeting, he seemed very much to backtrack, and took the opportunity to say that if he hadn’t made it clear before, that he really did believe Joseph Smith was a prophet. Since he had said all kinds of very unorthodox things a very short time earlier, including as I said an admission that Joseph had acted selfishly in pursuing sex and that he knew some of his stories weren't true to both Tracy and me in separate meetings, it was hard for both of us not to think, “I wonder what’s changed in the last two weeks. I wonder if rumours have flown about the meeting”. I’d only told my cousin and my sister, but my sister can talk a lot, so maybe this was it. To this day, I don’t know.
After his awkwardly expressed testimony of Joseph Smith’s prophetic status, I said, “Can I ask you a question? What would mean, ‘Joseph wasn’t a prophet’? What would you have to find out to conclude he wasn’t?”. He said, “I don’t know - maybe if he’d killed somebody...”. I said, “Well what about his Nauvoo goon squad, and Porter Rockwell’s attempt on Lilburn Boggs, which, if he didn’t know about beforehand, he seemed to be quite pleased with afterward? Doesn’t that count?” (I didn’t mention the men Joseph killed at Carthage because he did so in self-defence).
At this, he muttered, “Well, I don’t really want to get into this kind of thing...”, so I just let it go.
A little while after that meeting, my dad forwarded on to me an email that the SP had sent to him. In it, he said that he wanted my dad to know that I seemed to have misunderstood some of what he’d said in our initial interview. Actually, no, I hadn’t, in fact I wrote much of it down right after I got home, and neither had my wife, who met with him a few days after I had, and to whom as I said he related pretty much the identical things. No one could have misunderstood what he said that night. As I said, what I think is most likely is that the brief description of the meeting I gave to my sister a couple of days afterward was probably passed on by her, to someone else, and to someone else, and got back to him in altered form. Either that, or one of the many people who emailed me anonymously after I posted a description of my meeting anonymously had emailed him (a few people in private emails asked me what stake I was in), and he'd grown embarrassed. I don't really know.
In any case, I thought I sensed a certain tone in the SP’s email to my dad, one that said, “this could be kind of a problem for me”. I don’t know if I was imagining it, but that’s what I thought. So, feeling a kind of loyalty to him, thinking he was the best guy in the stake to be SP, and figuring he might need some cover, I sent him an email reciting back to him a few things he had said in SUPPORT of his belief in the church (which was also part of the conversation), for example, that he’d had a spiritual experience while working as a golf caddy as a teenager, etc. (As I said, it was a bit of a jumble in the first place). I feel kind of dumb about this now, like I was still protecting a guy in a church which, really, has no reason to be protected, but that's what happened, what can I say (come to think of it, I guess I am still doing this). After sending him this note, I then stayed mum about the whole thing (other than anonymous RFM posts), until I started doing newspaper interviews in Canada a number of months later, obviously, as myself.
One FARMS writer wrote to me once and asked if my SP would consider accurate my description of our meeting. I think definitely if we were in the same room together, he would admit it was. I don’t think he could face me and then deny it. But what he might say when asked by others in private when I’m not there, I don’t know. Truth is, I don’t think he ever had any idea that I might leave the church, or speak on the record about the meeting. I think in his mind, arguing that the truthfulness of foundational church claims is irrelevant since they “make us better husbands and fathers” would be very convincing to me, since that argument had been convincing to him (this in the end was the primary thrust of his remarks - that it was "irrelevant whether this stuff happened or not, since the church helps us").
Needless to say, after some consideration I found this argument unconvincing; and I think if he had known a few things said in our meeting would ever be made public he may not ever have said much of what he did. (Note: He never asked me to keep any of it confidential, and if he had, I think I might just have, no matter what. But he didn't, so here we are.)
I don’t think I had ever heard anything like what I heard from my SP in that first meeting. It seemed to be: “I believe it’s true, but then, I also know that some of this stuff didn't happen - but bottom line is, it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not since it makes me a better person” . He actually said at one point that while Mormonism was “right for (him)”, he admitted that it might not be right for someone else. Obviously, there is no provision for this within Mormon doctrine or scripture: Mormonism is God’s only true way.
But I have since encountered this weird jumble of sentiments a number of times from people still in the church. Usually it comes from males born and raised in the church, who have reached full maturity before realizing that something may be wrong. Honestly, I am now surprised by how prevalent this attitude seems to be. It sometimes seems that all you have to do is scratch ever so slightly against the veneer of chest-thumping, absolute knowledge claims, and all of a sudden you find a kind of broken man underneath saying "well, at least it’s the best thing out there, and we’re happy". Huh?
Anyway, the SP sent me a very nice letter some months after our meeting expressing a desire to remain friends. I emailed back to say that would be great; I also asked him, though (since we hadn’t spoken since that last meeting), why he wanted to stay in if the church wasn’t what it claimed. I said something like, “there are women in your stake right now crying themselves to sleep at night because their natures can’t really cope with the demands put on them by the church. Why stay in and facilitate the thing when it imposes these kinds of costs, and it’s not even true?”.
He replied to the effect that despite this, he believed the church did do good, and then said something like, “please understand that I have a desire to continue serving the people of the Victoria stake as the stake president”. I took that to mean, “I don’t want to talk about whether the church is good or bad, true or false, anymore, because I’ve made my decision to stay in and that is the end”. So, I never have mentioned it again to him.
A few days before I left for the Exmo conference, I bumped into him at the Hillside Mall here in Victoria. He was with his wife. She is a very sweet lady - I wonder if maybe he doesn’t want to explore anything further because he feels she’d have a tough time.
We said hi and chatted for a few minutes, all smiles, all pleasant. But I noticed that pretty quickly he started pulling a bit on his wife’s arm and leaning away, as though he seemed to want to leave before something weird happened or whatever.
Anyway, I just wanted to put this out there since a number of people have asked. And to answer the question put to me by the church defender, I very much doubt the stake president will ever publicly take issue with anything Tracy or I report about our meeting, because he knows we’re telling the truth - and possibly because he thinks I might then mention a few of the other things he said that night lol.
Yet, even as I was typing that, I had this vision of him sitting at his desk conducting temple recommend interviews, asking people if they are honest with their fellow men and if they believe Joseph Smith was indeed the prophet of the restoration, at the same time he has made that last question completely irrelevant in his own mind, but still is helping run Joseph’s church just as though he thought it was the most important question in the world, in a way, embodying and living and facilitating a lie. So, I guess I don’t really know what he might say or do.
Anyway, I just wanted to put this out there since it's come up a few times.
Thanks,
T.
Follow up by Tal:
One Thing I’d Like to Know
One thing I'd like to know is this: If my stake president recalled this meeting, and GBH's remarks, accurately, where are the other guys who were there?
My SP said the meeting took place after the Salamander letter had become public but before it was known to be a fraud; he said the meeting was at the Salt Lake temple; he said that all the local bishoprics were invited (he was a counselor at the time); and that GBH presided over the meeting. So, I'm wondering, if GBH really made these remarks, which I have to say seem entirely in character, and not even that far removed from a few comments made by him over the years in more public settings, where are the other guys who were there? Where are their corroborative recollections? Is there any other evidence that this meeting even took place other than my SP saying it did? I'm not saying I doubt the guy - I just want to know if his say-so is all I'm ever going to get.
Maybe the remarks just kind of slipped by everyone else. Maybe my SP misremembered them (kinda doubting that though).
Doesn't anyone know anyone who was serving in a bishopric around the time the Salamander Letter came out, living around the Salt Lake area? Surely there has to be someone else out there who went.
T.
A poster called “Marvelous” responded:
First post:
I only recall his self-deprecating wit. He was remarkably light-hearted (minded?) and I thought this was very cool, as I was never one for excessive solemnity. I don't recall anything in that meeting that suggested he disbelieved.
However, I must add that neither do I recall a stirring affirmation. That's what stands out upon reflection. Hinckley doesn't make bold claims, as one would expect a prophet to do. I noticed this while still a TBM. It wasn't a big thing with me, but it did register.
Second post:
However, I also believe that he feels the good the Church does warrants the deception. He can't do anything about the basis for Mormonism. He's making the best of the situation by emphasizing positive aspects of the Mormon culture. I also think, as you seem to, that he enjoys the spotlight.
Poster “gbox” said:
I'm not familiar with your story (I haven't been around Mo or Exmo stuff for a long time), but the SP seems like the kind of guy who would get so much out of *being* Mormon that walking away would mean giving up all his benefits. I'm not saying that he thinks of it that way, but it might be subconsciously part of his motivation.
When I walked away from the church, it was *really easy* because what did I have to lose? MISERY. I lost being treated like I was second class because of my breasts, I lost the "privilege" of giving birth to ten children, and the joy of slowly going mad from the mindf*cks that church logic put me through every day...and I was single, so there was no risk of my losing a spouse...
But I look at my brothers and my father and ask myself, "What would they lose by leaving the church?"
Authority granted without qualifications.
The ability to make decisions and give orders without being questioned.
Permission to ignore or avoid disturbing or frightening things (granted, I had this too, but I hated it).
A sense of superiority based on birth (BIC, BWP, and/or BWB).
Justification for their actions (God allows a man of the church to kill someone in cold blood if it's for a good cause, and who decides what God means by a "good cause"? Male leaders.)
An SP would probably have to give up the following by leaving the church:
-Authority that does not require qualifications.
-The blind obedience of hundreds of people.
-Anything they might be gaining dishonestly through their position if they are being dishonest (money skimmed from tithing, free jerk-offs during confessions of sexual misconduct, the opportunity to verbally abuse or harass submissive women, etc.)
-The respect that comes with authority whether or not it is earned. Also, the respect they may have earned honestly that will be thrown away unjustly when other members find out they have left.
-They risk being the center of scorn when they were once the center of attention.
-That feeling that you can bring peace and spiritual happiness to other people because you are chosen by God to do so as an authority figure. You would have to accept that you make dreadful mistakes all the time, misjudge people as much as anyone else does, have probably affected or even ruined people's lives with rash advice, and really have no inbred ability whatsoever to improve people's spiritual lives, though you do have the ability to lie both to them and yourself.
-An SP would have to see all the bad things that happen in a ward and finally admit that they DO happen and their happening in a church does not make them better, okay, or easier to live with. An SP would have to admit that they have not led people to a "better life" by leading them in the church. What a letdown, huh?
-An SP would have to admit that those who put him in authority are not qualified to be authorities themselves. All his mentors, leaders, and those who conferred authority on him become ordinary people, and could even be crooks or crazies...or just plain ordinary guys with no special talents or qualifications.
-The guarantee of a good seat in the Afterlife, and the guarantee of the existence of an afterlife, and probably some insider information about the afterlife not given to "ordinary" members.
-There are probably a lot of other things an SP gets out of being an SP that I don't even know about. Access to swank "members only" back rooms of the temple, maybe? ;-)
-A few SPs (but not all) might also be upset by the sudden realization that their wife is equal to them.
-They would have to accept the possibility that they are on the same level as other people who do the same things as them, and that being an SP does not justify or purify their actions. So if they have any hidden secrets, "wicked" hobbies, or skeletons in the closet, they would have to face the possibility that they are cheaters, or scam artists, or wife-beaters, or tax evaders, or child neglectors, or sexual horndogs who are on the *same level* as Non-Mo or Non-SP cheaters, scam artists, wife-beaters, tax evaders, child neglectors, or sexual horndogs.
Can an SP cope with not being special anymore? Some yes. Some -- hell no!
And so some would rather stay with a false church "because it makes me (look like) a good person" than seek an honest life where they have to admit we're all just bozos on the same bus.
Tal Bachman:
About corroboration...
On the one hand, if ten people all stepped forward and vouched for my stake president's description of GBH's remarks, it probably wouldn't even come close to how devastating his public remarks have been to his own reputation, and to the church he seems to think he's done a great job representing. So whether GBH ever revealed himself to be the Mormon Jeremy Bentham once at a meeting at the SL temple is perhaps kind of inconsequential. All you really need is the guy running around saying the stuff he's said the last ten years to know there is something really, profoundly wrong there.
On the other hand, an admission such as the one my SP described does seem uniquely candid; and that's why I personally would like to hear the recollections of other people who were there.
By the way, Marvelous, was the solemn assembly in the SL Temple? Do you remember any mention of church history problems or the Salamander Letter in it?
T.
(This was the last post on this thread. I assume Marvelous answered elsewhere and I didn't save that thread).