"My Witnesses are Better Than Yours!": DCP Attacks the Strangites
Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2022 5:19 pm
Greetings, Friends and Colleagues! I hope you had an enjoyable holiday weekend. I don't know if you caught it, but a post appeared on "Sic et Non" a couple of days ago with a strange title: "What were the Voree Plates?" Oddly, the blog post has virtually nothing whatsoever to do with the plates, though the Proprietor helpfully posted an image of them along with the following caption:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a poster down in the Comments inquired into the peculiarity of this blog entry:
Whatever the case may be, it appears that FJ's inquiry riled up Dr. Peterson so much that he put FJ into a "shadow ban" status:
Obviously, Dr. Peterson doesn't believe the Strangite version of things--and this flies directly in the face of his pet Witnesses project--so this pretty clearly seems to be a kind of subtle swipe at the Strangites: implying in a sense that they are practicing a "false religion." I mean, imagine if, if response to his Witnesses stuff, someone kept posting items about the problematic veracity of UFO witnesses? Actually, we don't have to do that because we already know: he doesn't like it.An 1845 broadside depicting “The Record of Rajah Manchou of Vorito,” commonly known as the “Voree Plates,” which were allegedly discovered by James J. Strang and used to promote his leadership of the Latter Day Saint movement.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a poster down in the Comments inquired into the peculiarity of this blog entry:
Huh. Very interesting. So, we've got a case where the Strangites have a "witnesses"-type scenario that in many ways mirrors the LDS version. And yet DCP is attacking this? Without citing any sources, no less? Quite problematic, no? In any case, Dr. Peterson responds:FJ wrote:The Strangites have a very culturally rich and interesting history. I’ve recently met two Strangites and they were both very kind, knowledgeable, good and moral people. We share much historical commonalities and scripture with the Strangites.
My hope is that we can discuss their religion while showing their beliefs both honor and respect.
Daniel C. Peterson, I’m not sure if you are aware, but on their Wikipedia page, they are making the below assertion about you. Daniel, do you have a citation for your claim? Are the Strangites mistaken about this?
“Although there is no evidence to support them, several opponents from other Latter Day Saint churches have sought to cast doubt on the witness testimonies by claiming to have heard the witnesses deny their testimonies decades before. LDS Church apologist Daniel C. Peterson claims, without citing a source, that Samuel Graham admitted to helping Strang fabricate the plates.[12] Hearsay testimonies were commonly asserted to discredit the leaders of rival churches, including both James Strang and Joseph Smith.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...
LOL. "The biographies in question are in the Harold B. Lee Library." Yeah, gee: is that the only place where they can be located? Surely one can purchase copies of these books--even if they're out of print. How about telling us the titles, Dr. Peterson? Heck: since you use your blog as a way of "taking notes," maybe this anti-Strangite viciousness can be found in a past blog entry?DCP wrote:FJ: "Daniel C. Peterson, I’m not sure if you are aware, but on their Wikipedia page, they are making the below assertion about you. Daniel, do you have a citation for your claim? Are the Strangites mistaken about this?"
I wasn't aware.
FJ: "“Although there is no evidence to support them, several opponents from other Latter Day Saint churches have sought to cast doubt on the witness testimonies by claiming to have heard the witnesses deny their testimonies decades before. LDS Church apologist Daniel C. Peterson claims, without citing a source, that Samuel Graham admitted to helping Strang fabricate the plates.[12] Hearsay testimonies were commonly asserted to discredit the leaders of rival churches, including both James Strang and Joseph Smith.”
I expect that the reference is to a Deseret News column that I published quite a few years ago. I drew on two or three standard published biographies of J. J. Strang -- but there were no references because, like most newspaper columns, my columns never included footnotes. The biographies in question are in the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU. There's a new one out, though, that I haven't yet seen.
Whatever the case may be, it appears that FJ's inquiry riled up Dr. Peterson so much that he put FJ into a "shadow ban" status:
For the record--Dr. P. denies that he's done anything, but John Perry adds the following:FJ wrote:Daniel,
Have I been shadow banned for some reason?
If I log out, I can’t see my comments. Strange.
Look: if Dr. Peterson is going to be an anti-Strangite, then I think the least he can do is provide the source for his attacks on this faith. Or, he could just acknowledge that, like his own precious "Witnesses," the Strangites also have witnesses that saw miraculous things of their own.John Perry wrote:Here is a link to what is likely some of the references used by biographers regarding possible modern fabrication of the Voree plates:
https://www.fairlatterdaysa...
The main source appears to be Chauncey Lewis, and his claims were reproduced in 1888 in the then-RLDS periodical, The Saints' Herald.
As an aside, I can see FJ's comments when I pull up your blog on my iPad, but not on my laptop computer, which still lists them as "Content unavailable".