DCP's First "MI" Article is a Flop

[_moksha]

Just more proof the lazy serial plagiarizer has never had an original thought in his life.

Dr. Peterson could just have been having a low-charity faulty-memory day. It happens.

[_Gadianton]

...and viewed the temple's appearance and setting unfavorably in comparison to "the great cathedrals of the world."

The architects commissioned by Joseph Stalin might have disagreed with that.

[_Tator]

Just more proof the lazy serial plagiarizer has never had an original thought in his life.

Dr. Peterson could just have been having a low-charity faulty-memory day. It happens.

Moksha, it is no secret that you are far more gracious than I am.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Tom:

It seems that at last DCP is beginning to recognize your invaluable service:

Please thank Tom for his industriousness and his passionate devotion to following my every step. Or, if you ARE Tom, please accept my gratitude for your touching willingness to devote so much of your life to mine.

That you were able -- or that Tom was able -- to find a nearly half-century-old article from a student newspaper is impressive. That you or Tom thought it important enough to DO is . . . well, interesting.

Two thoughts: first, no, it's not "impressive." At least it's not "impressive" to anyone who knows how to do actual research, or anyone who's ever heard the term "Inter-Library Loan." If you don't know how to procure an extant public document, then you are not a real researcher.

Second: *this* is the response to complaints about repetitive usage of stories and blog entries?

[_Kishkumen]

I am relieved that there are so few stories about sneering aimed at temples and their presidents that it is necessary to recycle this one repeatedly.

[_Lemmie]

I am relieved that there are so few stories about sneering aimed at temples and their presidents that it is necessary to recycle this one repeatedly.

Or to make them up entirely.....

Peterson fakes a critical source to disparage critics?

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=40464

[_Kishkumen]

Hmmm. As much as I believe it is important to question the sources, I don’t have a difficult time believing that in the minds of some people, the LDS Church can do no right. I have seen this tendency. It may be a small group of cranks that take things so far, but such critics exist. What I question is the value of acknowledging cranks.

[Tom]

Sometime in the Fall of 1974, I read an article in the Georgetown University newspaper about the open house for the newly built Washington D.C. Temple. I particularly remember its mockery of the temple’s new president, a retired Singer Corporation executive whose hand the author had shaken during a press reception. It was a hand, the article sneered, that had undoubtedly demonstrated and sold many sewing machines in its time.

I recall that Dr. Peterson highlighted the same article in an essay published in FARMS Review 12/2 (a revised version of a 1999 FAIR presentation posted here):

"Back when the Washington D.C. Temple was dedicated, the student newspaper at nearby Georgetown University published a lengthy article in which some of its editors responded to their tour of the building during its open house. Their report was not favorable. At one point, they met the president of the new temple, a retired executive (as I recall) from the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Shaking his hand, the writer observed with unconcealed contempt, one could not overlook the fact that it was a hand that must have sold many sewing machines in its day."

The article I assume Dr. Peterson is referring to can be accessed here (pages 18-19 of the PDF). The writer notes that "the temple president describes the church's missionary program in terms of his experience as the manager of a business machine sales company: You don't criticize other religions, but sell your own product on its own merits....We are ushered into the temple offices, where the temple president greets us with a smile that must have sold thousands of business machines." The temple president had worked for Friden/Singer.

It's now been more than 44 years since the publication of the article "God's marble hotel-motel" in the Georgetown student publication titled The Hoya Review (linked above). I must report that the indispensable Dr. Peterson draws attention to it once more in a recycled blog post. (He discussed it in the same terms four years ago here.) With Dr. Peterson's help, Andy Lang's feature may go down as one of the best-known pieces of anti-Mormon writing in the annals of Mopologetics.

Today, Dr. Peterson relates:

A philosophy professor of mine went back for some sort of academic conference at Georgetown University right about the time of the open house for the then new Washington DC Temple and returned with a copy of the Georgetown student newspaper. He gave it to me.

Unfortunately, Dr. Peterson doesn't disclose the name of his professor, nor does he tell us why his professor gave him the article. More importantly, why does Dr. Peterson recall a passage from a student article from the mid-1970s? Did the professor, in granting Dr. Peterson a copy of the newspaper, solemnly charge him to stand as a living witness against said article "at all times and in all things, and in all places that [he] may be in" (Mosiah 18:9), throughout the remainder of his days? Was 1974 Dr. Peterson's birth as a vocal Mopologist? (Dr. Midgley frequently mentions 1980 or thereabouts as the time he placed everything upon the altar and lifted Laban's macuahuitl to defend the Kingdom of Quetzelcoatl God.)

Dr. Peterson continues:

There was an exceedingly snarky article in it, in which several Georgetown grad students made merry over their visit to the soon-to-be dedicated temple. They must have been permitted to join in a VIP tour. Several passages linger in my memory from the article, but the one that’s relevant here concerns their shaking hands with Edward Drury, the newly-called president of the temple. He had, they said, been an executive with the Singer sewing machine company in his earlier life. With exquisite disdain, they wondered how many sewing machines his hands had made and sold.

Sigh. As documented above, Dr. Peterson doesn't remember Lang's observation correctly. Lang didn't wonder how many sewing machines Drury's hands had made and sold. Rather, Lang wrote: "We are ushered into the temple offices, where the temple president greets us with a smile that must have sold thousands of business machines." And Lang's comment was far from a gratuitous sneer. He related that "the temple president describes the church's missionary program in terms of his experience as the manager of a business machine sales company: You don't criticize other religions, but sell your own product on its own merits."

Lang used some snark (he observed, for example, that a mural inside the temple depicting Jesus standing in a cloud of glowing mist near the DC Temple presumably meant that the Second Coming would begin in Montgomery County, Maryland and commented that a funeral director would feel at home in the celestial room), criticized the church's commercial ethos, and viewed the temple's appearance and setting unfavorably in comparison to "the great cathedrals of the world." At the same time, Lang wrote with some flair, his renditions of church history were largely unobjectionable and neutral (he did say that the "church's president (and prophet) received a convenient revelation from God that plural marriage was no longer His will"), he carefully related the temple leaders' justifications for the pre-1978 temple/priesthood restriction (thereby performing a valuable service for modern historians of Mormonism and race), his discussion of the temple's saving ordinances was insightful, and, perhaps most importantly, he spelled "Latter-day Saints" correctly. Above all, it's not a piece worth citing and flogging nearly 45 years after it was published.

The Relief Society Sister in Parowan, a good friend of mine, recently alerted me to the fact that the Proprietor remains enraged regarding the student article about the D.C. temple published in the Hoya in 1974. On March 29, 2026, he cited it to defend someone named Markwayne Mullin against a joke made by Jimmy Kimmel. (Side note: I believe the Proprietor misunderstands Kimmel’s point.) The Proprietor writes:

In the fall of 1974, a BYU philosophy professor of mine was back on the east coast for a conference or something just prior to the dedication of the Washington DC Temple. While there, he picked up a copy of the student newspaper at Georgetown University that recounted a student-journalist’s visit to the Temple’s public open house, and he shared the article with me. It was, as I recall, deeply contemptuous. Surprised and mightily displeased because the vast temple didn’t feature the enormous cathedral-like interior that the reporter expected but was, rather, divided for the most part into many smaller rooms, the article referred to the Temple as “God’s hotel-motel in suburban Maryland.”

I remember, too, the article’s contemptuous mockery of Edward E. Drury, Jr., who would go on to serve for four years as the Temple’s first president. As I recall, President Drury had retired as an executive with the company that made Singer sewing machines — we don’t have a professional clergy — and the student-journalist from Georgetown found his career in business solid ground to deride him.

I’m guessing that the author had been invited to attend a special day at the beginning of the Temple’s open house for journalists and/or VIPs, because President Drury was there personally to greet the visitors, which was almost certainly a special thing. (The open house drew more than three quarters of a million people.)

Anyway, the Georgetown article mentioned shaking hands with President Drury, remarking that the Temple president’s hand had almost certainly sold lots and lots of sewing machines over the years.

That ill-natured jibe has remained in my memory for all of the decades since. Since Georgetown is a Jesuit school, I wondered if it had ever occurred to the writer of the article that the hands of the apostle Peter — a.k.a., the first pope? — had probably mended a great many fishing nets in his day.

As I’ve pointed out, the Proprietor does not recall the “ill-natured jibe” correctly. The student writer reported: “We are ushered into the temple offices, where the temple president greets us with a smile that must have sold thousands of business machines.” That’s it. In the interest of accuracy, then, permit me to rewrite the Proprietor’s key sentence: “Since Georgetown is a Jesuit school, I wonder if it had ever occurred to the writer of the article that the smile of the apostle — a.k.a., the first pope? — had probably sold a great many fish in his day.”

Even if the “ill-natured jibe” is not nearly as deeply contemptuous as the Proprietor has recalled for more than fifty years, I trust that he can use it as fuel for righteous indignation for many years to come.

Final note: I wonder if the young Proprietor was equally outraged by the temple presidency members’ justifications for the church’s race-based priesthood and temple ban reported in the article (noted years ago by palerobber) and if memories of the counselors’ comments have remained in his memory for the past fifty years. From the article:

The three [temple presidency] officials show no defensiveness when questioned about the church’s controversial exclusion of blacks from the priesthood. The policy is God’s will, says Second Counselor Byron Dixon. “God is just and metes out no injustice,” he explains in a friendly Idaho drawl. “Some come with more intelligence than others into this world. Some come more beautiful than others in this world.”

Dixon theorizes that the blacks may have committed some sin in their pre-existence before birth. “In the pre-existence, you may have gained an advantage or disadvantage in what you did. The advantages and disadvantages that come to us are chiefly due to our experience in the pre-existence. We say, ‘It’s not fair!’ But we know not because we do not see beyond the pre-existence.” Dixon denies reports that Mormons believe blacks are the descendants of Cain, the Biblical figure who committed the first murder.

“One thing we do believe is that a black can get to the celestial kingdom,” adds First Counselor Wendell Eames, “and that’s as high as you or I are going.”

Posted from Provolone, Utah

[Everybody Wang Chung]

It's now been more than 44 years since the publication of the article "God's marble hotel-motel" in the Georgetown student publication titled The Hoya Review (linked above). I must report that the indispensable Dr. Peterson draws attention to it once more in a recycled blog post. (He discussed it in the same terms four years ago here.) With Dr. Peterson's help, Andy Lang's feature may go down as one of the best-known pieces of anti-Mormon writing in the annals of Mopologetics.

Today, Dr. Peterson relates:
Unfortunately, Dr. Peterson doesn't disclose the name of his professor, nor does he tell us why his professor gave him the article. More importantly, why does Dr. Peterson recall a passage from a student article from the mid-1970s? Did the professor, in granting Dr. Peterson a copy of the newspaper, solemnly charge him to stand as a living witness against said article "at all times and in all things, and in all places that [he] may be in" (Mosiah 18:9), throughout the remainder of his days? Was 1974 Dr. Peterson's birth as a vocal Mopologist? (Dr. Midgley frequently mentions 1980 or thereabouts as the time he placed everything upon the altar and lifted Laban's macuahuitl to defend the Kingdom of Quetzelcoatl God.)

Dr. Peterson continues:
Sigh. As documented above, Dr. Peterson doesn't remember Lang's observation correctly. Lang didn't wonder how many sewing machines Drury's hands had made and sold. Rather, Lang wrote: "We are ushered into the temple offices, where the temple president greets us with a smile that must have sold thousands of business machines." And Lang's comment was far from a gratuitous sneer. He related that "the temple president describes the church's missionary program in terms of his experience as the manager of a business machine sales company: You don't criticize other religions, but sell your own product on its own merits."

Lang used some snark (he observed, for example, that a mural inside the temple depicting Jesus standing in a cloud of glowing mist near the DC Temple presumably meant that the Second Coming would begin in Montgomery County, Maryland and commented that a funeral director would feel at home in the celestial room), criticized the church's commercial ethos, and viewed the temple's appearance and setting unfavorably in comparison to "the great cathedrals of the world." At the same time, Lang wrote with some flair, his renditions of church history were largely unobjectionable and neutral (he did say that the "church's president (and prophet) received a convenient revelation from God that plural marriage was no longer His will"), he carefully related the temple leaders' justifications for the pre-1978 temple/priesthood restriction (thereby performing a valuable service for modern historians of Mormonism and race), his discussion of the temple's saving ordinances was insightful, and, perhaps most importantly, he spelled "Latter-day Saints" correctly. Above all, it's not a piece worth citing and flogging nearly 45 years after it was published.

The Relief Society Sister in Parowan, a good friend of mine, recently alerted me to the fact that the Proprietor remains enraged regarding the student article about the D.C. temple published in the Hoya in 1974. On March 29, 2026, he cited it to defend someone named Markwayne Mullin against a joke made by Jimmy Kimmel. (Side note: I believe the Proprietor misunderstands Kimmel’s point.) The Proprietor writes:

In the fall of 1974, a BYU philosophy professor of mine was back on the east coast for a conference or something just prior to the dedication of the Washington DC Temple. While there, he picked up a copy of the student newspaper at Georgetown University that recounted a student-journalist’s visit to the Temple’s public open house, and he shared the article with me. It was, as I recall, deeply contemptuous. Surprised and mightily displeased because the vast temple didn’t feature the enormous cathedral-like interior that the reporter expected but was, rather, divided for the most part into many smaller rooms, the article referred to the Temple as “God’s hotel-motel in suburban Maryland.”

I remember, too, the article’s contemptuous mockery of Edward E. Drury, Jr., who would go on to serve for four years as the Temple’s first president. As I recall, President Drury had retired as an executive with the company that made Singer sewing machines — we don’t have a professional clergy — and the student-journalist from Georgetown found his career in business solid ground to deride him.

I’m guessing that the author had been invited to attend a special day at the beginning of the Temple’s open house for journalists and/or VIPs, because President Drury was there personally to greet the visitors, which was almost certainly a special thing. (The open house drew more than three quarters of a million people.)

Anyway, the Georgetown article mentioned shaking hands with President Drury, remarking that the Temple president’s hand had almost certainly sold lots and lots of sewing machines over the years.

That ill-natured jibe has remained in my memory for all of the decades since. Since Georgetown is a Jesuit school, I wondered if it had ever occurred to the writer of the article that the hands of the apostle Peter — a.k.a., the first pope? — had probably mended a great many fishing nets in his day.

As I’ve pointed out, the Proprietor does not recall the “ill-natured jibe” correctly. The student writer reported: “We are ushered into the temple offices, where the temple president greets us with a smile that must have sold thousands of business machines.” That’s it. In the interest of accuracy, then, permit me to rewrite the Proprietor’s key sentence: “Since Georgetown is a Jesuit school, I wonder if it had ever occurred to the writer of the article that the smile of the apostle — a.k.a., the first pope? — had probably sold a great many fish in his day.”

Even if the “ill-natured jibe” is not nearly as deeply contemptuous as the Proprietor has recalled for more than fifty years, I trust that he can use it as fuel for righteous indignation for many years to come.

Final note: I wonder if the young Proprietor was equally outraged by the temple presidency members’ justifications for the church’s race-based priesthood and temple ban reported in the article (noted years ago by palerobber) and if memories of the counselors’ comments have remained in his memory for the past fifty years. From the article:

The three [temple presidency] officials show no defensiveness when questioned about the church’s controversial exclusion of blacks from the priesthood. The policy is God’s will, says Second Counselor Byron Dixon. “God is just and metes out no injustice,” he explains in a friendly Idaho drawl. “Some come with more intelligence than others into this world. Some come more beautiful than others in this world.”

Dixon theorizes that the blacks may have committed some sin in their pre-existence before birth. “In the pre-existence, you may have gained an advantage or disadvantage in what you did. The advantages and disadvantages that come to us are chiefly due to our experience in the pre-existence. We say, ‘It’s not fair!’ But we know not because we do not see beyond the pre-existence.” Dixon denies reports that Mormons believe blacks are the descendants of Cain, the Biblical figure who committed the first murder.

“One thing we do believe is that a black can get to the celestial kingdom,” adds First Counselor Wendell Eames, “and that’s as high as you or I are going.”

Posted from Provolone, Utah

Excellent research, Tom! It does beg the ultimate question, though, has the Afore become so practiced in the art of the pious lie that he’s lost the literal capacity for the truth?

Posted from Bear Dance, Utah

[Kishkumen]

Thank you for your work on this, Tom. I am happy to find that the article was not as derisive toward the temple president as we were led to believe. I have been reflecting on our elite culture in the USA, as of late, because I am reading about the elite culture of the Late Roman Empire. Our elites are business men. Salesmen. They dress as such and present themselves as such. Our president fits right in. The LDS prophet, though many times more virtuous and intelligent than the president, can hardly be told apart from him at first glance. An idiot with a smooth tongue can go on tv dressed in the culturally appropriate fashion and fool millions of people at once. And our civilization, such that it is, is imploding as a result. I guess that is why a sensible Pope from Chicago is looking more like a savior-leader all the time. At the very least his way is a haven in a catastrophic deluge of insanity.