I know that a lot of the 'early church leaders' around JS left for one reason or another, but do you think it'd happen today?

Imagine if one of the Top 15 were to suddenly call a press conference, come clean, and spill the beans about it all.

Can you imagine the fallout?

I know, highly unlikely given that they all have a financial/power interest in maintaining the façade, but it'd be nice to have happen nonetheless.

What do you think the fallout would be (other than the YouTube videos, online articles, general gloating, etc)? Do you think Mormons would sit up and take notice? I mean imagine the book and online sales that a Top Dog could rake in if they were to come clean! Wouldn't it more than make up for the lost revenue they get as a GA?

None of the defectors in Joseph's time were carefully vetted and none had signed the requisite non-disclosure agreements.

None of the gutless GAs today are likely to publicly defect but we can only hope.

The current crop are also vetted for integrity. If they have any, they don't get the job.

^^^THAT^^^

If that ever happened, it'll be quite a fun show to watch!!

I would love for one of them to ignore the TelePrompTer at a general conference and disclose as much about the cult as possible before the plug got pulled. Get a nice big audience to hear it. A solid majority of the TBMs would stay in he cult anyway, and just claim he was led astray by Satan.

Now, that would be a general conference worth seeing, at least until the mic was turned off and the individual gets escorted off the stage. They would then say that he was led astray by Satan, and most of the members would buy that explanation.

Unlikely to happen at a GC. First, with a teleprompter someone has a copy of the script and would notice immediately. Second, not all GAs get to give a talk and you can be assured that if those controlling the conference had even the slightest inking, such a GA would not be giving any talk. Only two of the three in the FP could try it (Monson not capable).

Holland. Guaranteed. Unless he dies first.

That's why his superiors are slowly working him to death.

I wish...

That would take someone who has integrity. So... NO!

I asked a senior couple who had to sit in on my lessons with the sisters the same question.

They answered enpmhatically NO!

It was about the only thing the said to me in two months that I believed.

I speculate that there is the possibility of multiple control measures in place for the GA's. First, they ALL have large TBM families who would be hurt socially and professionally if their corresponding GA left. Second, it is likely there are possible legal documents that are signed by them listing consequences for falling away. Most of them are silent board members of large church-owned corporations so it would make sense there would be contracts and the like to sign upon assuming office. Finally, there is the money. They would have to say "no" to a significant income that could be helping their TBM family. Think about it...money may not mean as much to them as they are already rich by the time they are GA's BUT it also means a lot more for their large extended families. Education for the great-grandkids and the like.

In order to apostatize the GA would need to mitigate all of the above measures. That would be a steep hill to climb.

Maybe the death oaths still apply to them and they know about a secret danite organization that still exists.

It may not only be financial loss they are concerned about. Maybe knowing it is false also comes with knowing about their secret military arm too.

Why would they defect when they get all their perks thru the corporation-church?

None of them have any integrity.

It's like waiting for a godfather to fess up all of his crimes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2015 04:01PM by messygoop.

It has been said that upon becoming a general authority, a man is given a one million dollar loan to eliminate all his other debts, take care of his family, and remove all his worries about paying for his current expenses so that he can focus all his attentions on the work. The loan never has to be paid back. Except for one little exception. If the general authority ever falls away from the church or misbehaves severely, then the entire one million dollars must be paid back. By that point, much of the money would have been spent. It would be financial ruin. No general authority could afford to step out of line.

By that line of reasoning, a GA could come clean on his deathbed, when financial ruin isn't a problem. They would have be widowers, and have children that were financially independent too. It's all a fantasy, but it would be fantastic to see it happen. I don't think that the damage to the church would be all that severe anyway, unless they had some hard, incriminating evidence or something to go along with it.

The church is fully expecting a complete split prior to the Lord's Second Coming.

I read this back in 1976, prior to its public offer in book form.

Thomas G. Truitt handed the loose papers to me hot off the Xerox machine of the Historical Library. I was a researcher there at the time. He was a finder of quotes, stories and inspirational but obscure gems from early Mormon materials.

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Talk-Found-Conference-Discourse/dp/B003YHJ5U2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1439499602&sr=1-1&refinements=p_27%3AThomas+G.+Truitt

About once a month he would pass me an item that blew me away.

Didn't the GA from Sweden exit the church recently?

He was an Area Authority (AA), not a General Authority (GA).

General Authorities are in the 1st and 2nd Quorums of the Seventy, they lead over the entire church (and do it as a full time job).

Area Authorities are in the 3rd to 8th Quorums of the Seventy, they lead over a specific area (they have to have other jobs to fund themselves during this calling, unless they're really rich).

However, I'm sure 10 years ago we would've said we'd never see an Area Authority leave the church, yet it's now happened. I don't think we can rule out a General Authority leaving the church. It happened in the early church days, I'm sure it'll happen again one day.

However, I think if a GA left the church there wouldn't be a huge fallout. An AA left the church and not many seemed to care. Most GAs aren't very well-known. An Apostle leaving the church would cause a huge commotion, but a non-Apostle GA wouldn't imo.

The early apostates were converts and had been in the Church
just a few years when they had their eyes opened.

The current GAs have been, almost to a man, BIC and have proven
themselves 100% Church broke before they were chosen.

The last GA to apostatize was George P. Lee. He was
excommunicated because he went overboard on the side of belief.
He believed the Book of Mormon meant what it said about the
Lamanites.

Thank you for pointing out George P. Lee. I believe he was the one I was thinking of, but I really didn't want to have to look anything up :-) Was he Native American? Navajo?

George P. Lee left the church under mysterious circumstances. It is said that he followed in the footsteps of Joseph Smith by sexually molesting a teenage girl. Some people think that one thing lead to the other. Like he sinned and then apostatized. Or alternately, that he apostatized and then was framed so that it would look like he was leaving the church because he was a pedophile, not because he had valid concerns about doctrine. I think that conspiracy theory is a bit far-fetched, but still interesting.

Hans Mattsson (served in 3rd Quorum of the Seventy) is the most recent high-ranking leader to go public with his doubts.

We need a lot more like him to speak out.

If any one of them were the kind of people who were capable

of feeling bad enough about fooling people, to actually

apologize, they would never have taken the money and accepted

the position of fooling people in the first place.

They don't all of a sudden come to the realization that they

have been doing they wrong thing, they knew it all along.

It was a career move for them. Get it?

How do you know that though? Hans Mattsson could have feasibly ended up a GA. He was an Area Seventy and he believed the whole time. Do you reckon the church tells all the GAs it's a fraud when they're called?

I doubt they tell them. I do think they know it's a matter of time that they hear from other people/sources about the fraud.

Many in LDS executive management will scurry, distance, and denounce LDS Inc shortly after the IRS and SEC raid the COB.

The prosecution will convince some of them to be state witnessii and we will hear the inside dirt.

I wonder if apostasy at their level would result in financial ruin? Like, maybe all the perks are actually calculated and should you defect, you are legally obligated to pay it back.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2015 02:05AM by seekyr.

It's like Eric Clapton playing "Layla" for the zillionth time in concert. He's thoroughly sick of it, but it's what the fans expect. So he changes it up a bit, and just gets through it. Because after all is said and done, he still gets the mansion, the private jets, the adulation, and the whole rock star lifestyle.

That's how it is with the GA's and the big 15. If they are sick of it, then they just give the fans what they expect and go back to living the sweet life.

Even if the prophet publicly left the church it wouldn't make one difference to over all membership. He would be demonized by the other leaders, he would be painted as having a mental illness, and quietly swept away.