DCP's vile criticism of Mr, Strang and co.

[_Mike Reed]

I informed my Facebook friends Vickie Speek, John Hamer, and John Hajicek of this article. I will let you know if they respond.

I am getting lots of responses to this article on my Facebook page. DCP, Vickie Speek, Ben Spackman, Chris Smith, and others are posting there. I can't copy/paste the discussion here, but if you are one of my Facebook friends, come join the discussion!

[_zeezrom]

I agree completely. I was a little dense to have not seen what you were really saying.

I don't think you were dense. In my hurried attempts to post on this board, I often don't state things very clearly, or make necessary ideas very obvious. I take after Will Schryver at times: I'm a loose cannon.

What type of scripture does a loose cannon prophet write? A loose canon. We could say Joseph Smith was a loose cannon prophet in the way he loosely translated the Book of Mormon, could we not?

[_Equality]

By 1856, when he himself was murdered, he had several thousand followers, including members of Joseph Smith's family, former apostles and Book of Mormon witnesses.

Yes, the same people who believed Joseph Smith was a Prophet believed James Strang was a Prophet. The same "spirit" that convinced them one con-man was the real deal told them another con-man was the real deal. Hmmmmm....

That some Book of Mormon witnesses credited Strang argues for their sincerity, incidentally: Had they been knowing perpetrators of a fraud with Joseph Smith, they would likely have been far more skeptical of Strang.

Yes, they were sincere. And credulous. Also easily fooled by con-men.

But does the fact that Strang had witnesses like Joseph's mean that, for consistency's sake, modern believers in Mormonism must either accept Strang's claims or reject both Joseph and Strang?

Um, yes, that would be a consistent position. If you point to the "witnesses" as evidence of Smith's divine calling, and some of those same witnesses bore "testimony" in similar terms of the divine calling of Strang, yes, to be consistent you'd have to give both testimonies their due credit. Here's consistency from me: the witnesses were unreliable in both cases. There is no reason to believe their testimony should be considered credible in one instance and not the other.

No. Because the two sets of witnesses and their experiences were very different.

The two sets of inscribed plates that Strang claimed to have found in Wisconsin and Michigan beginning in 1845 almost certainly existed. Milo Quaife's early, standard biography of Strang reflects that, while Strang's angelic visitations "may have had only a subjective existence in the brain of the man who reported them, the metallic plates possessed a very material objective reality."

And they were almost certainly forgeries.

The implication here is that the two experiences were different because Strang's plates actually existed and, what, Smith's golden plates didn't actually exist? Interesting argument. But I think there is another parallel: the Kinderhook plates, which certainly existed, and which Smith said were genuine, and which he translated (like Strang) and which were, of course, forgeries. Not doing so well so far, Danny boy.

[_Mayan Elephant]

i would like to see what hamer has to say about this. If I recall correctly, hamer did an amazing story about the strangites and visited and stayed with them.

[_Equality]

Among the many who saw them was Stephen Post, who reported that they were brass and, indeed, that they resembled the French brass used in familiar kitchen kettles. "With all the faith & confidence that I could exercise," he wrote, "all that I could realize was that Strang made the plates himself, or at least that it was possible that he made them." One source reports that most of the four witnesses to the Rajah Manchou plates ultimately repudiated their testimonies.

So, you are arguing that because some people thought Strang was a fraud at the time and they did not believe his claims because they, admittedly, did not have sufficient faith to believe them, we should not believe in Strang either? Have you tried applying that same logic to Joseph Smith?

Strang's witnesses report seeing the plates, but mention nothing miraculous.

Oh, you mean like the 8 witnesses to the Book of Mormon? So we should reject the testimony of the 8 witnesses, then, right? Ok, I'm with you on that one.

Nor did Strang supply any additional supporting testimony comparable to that of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon.

Oh, you mean like the Three Witnesses who said they saw an angel? So, you'd believe in Strang if three of his witnesses had claimed to see an angel?

One of the witnesses to the "Plates of Laban," Samuel P. Bacon, eventually denied the inspiration of Strang's movement and denounced it as mere "human invention." Another, Samuel Graham, later claimed that he had actually assisted Strang in the creation of the plates.

So, some of the early followers of Strang turned against him and became unbelievers? Joseph Smith's movement never created any apostates who turned against him? You believe the testimony of Strangite apostates, eh? Do you give the same credit to folks like William Law?

Thus, Strang's plates were much less numerous than those of the Book of Mormon, his witnesses saw nothing supernatural and his translation required the better part of a decade rather than a little more than two months. (Quite unlike the semi-literate Joseph Smith, Strang was well-read. He had been an editor and lawyer before his involvement with Mormonism.) Perhaps most strikingly, unlike the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, some (at least) of Strang's witnesses later denied their testimonies.

So Strang's plates were less numerous than Smith's? Yet before you said Strang's were almost certainly real, as opposed to the Smith plates which were conveniently whisked away by an angel. And what does the numerosity of the plates have to do with anything anyway? If Strang had produced plates three times the alleged size of Smith's gold plates, you'd be more inclined to believe in Strang? You say again that Strang's witnesses saw nothing supernatural. Are you saying you'd believe them if they had? On Smith being semi-literate, you know that's a lie. As for the translation taking a long time, how long did Smith have the Egyptian papers before producing the puny Book of Abraham? And where's that Book of Joseph? And didn't Smith get the plates in 1827? The Book of Mormon MS was finished in 1829 and published in 1830. That's way more than two months. Again, though, if Strang had translated the plates in 2 months, you'd be inclined to believe them?

[_Blixa]

Boy that was a terrible article. Thanks for alerting me to it, Mike. Good to see the discussion it's generating on your Facebook page. Facile apologia is no help at all to the Mormon church.

[_Equality]

And another thing:

Comparing Strang to Joseph Smith is really the wrong comparison to make. The proper comparison is to the other claimed successors of Joseph Smith, most notably Sidney Rigdon and Brigham Young. Did Young or Rigdon produce any translations? Did they have visitations from angels, as Strang claimed? Did they produce new revelations to add to the Mormon canon? All the things Professor Kreme says in this article about Strang, in trying to show how different he was from Smith, can be said with greater force with respect to Young and Rigdon. Where are Young's witnesses getting visits from angels? For that matter, where are Monson's witnesses comparable to the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon?

[_gramps]

I think we have to go light on DCP.

What with all the pressing engagements he has in all the far-flung areas of the world, and still with time to do his home teaching, visiting the sick in the hospital, counseling young Mormons on why the Mormon cotton lay is against the law of chastity, it is easy to understand why there may be only a short time for a quick hit piece before the next flight to Timbuktu.

It is understandable. We can't always put our best out there when there is oh sooo much to do. Some of it just has to be done shoddily or not at all.

I, for one, am glad at least he is sometimes satisfied with shoddy. Otherwise, we would never get to read anything of his at all.

And that would be a shame.. ;)

[_Mike Reed]

Boy that was a terrible article. Thanks for alerting me to it, Mike. Good to see the discussion it's generating on your Facebook page. Facile apologia is no help at all to the Mormon church.

My Facebook thread is getting even better. Still waiting for John Hamer, but John Hajicek just joined in. LOL!

[_Blixa]

Boy that was a terrible article. Thanks for alerting me to it, Mike. Good to see the discussion it's generating on your Facebook page. Facile apologia is no help at all to the Mormon church.

My Facebook thread is getting even better. Still waiting for John Hamer, but John Hajicek just joined in. LOL!

I caught John Hajicek's remarks on an email discussion list I'm on. Too right.