Posted by:
Major Bidamon
(
)
Date: November 16, 2011 04:29PM
Nothing wtong with the JoD --- The Ensign article quotes from it all the time ... heavily edited of course. For example, see "Potter and the Clay" in the January 2011 ensign.
http://lds.org/ensign/2011/01/the-potter-and-the-clay?lang=engI was able to cross reference the "Gospel Classics" article (a JoD reprint of an 1854 address by Heber C. Kimball. All I had to do was look at the beginning, the end, and any "..." to see where whitewashing occurred (note: All of these quotes can be found in Volume 2 of the JoD; 2 April 1854).
1. Opening remarks were not reprinted in the Ensign. Why? HCK was praising the remarks of Jedediah Grant (Father of Heber J. Grant and known as "Brigham's Sledgehammer"). You know, where Grant said:
"I look for the Lord to use His whip on the refractory son called "Uncle Sam;" I expect to see him chastised among the first of the nations. I think Uncle Sam is one of the Lord's boys that He will take the rod to first, and make him dance nimbly to his own tune of "Oh! Oh!!" for his transgressions, for his high-mindedness and loftiness, for his evil, for rejecting the Gospel, and causing the earth to drink the blood of the Saints - for this, I say, I expect he will be well switched among the first of the sons."
To this, HCK said, "I have been much interested and edified with the remarks of brother Grant: they are good."
Not exactly patriotic language that modern day LDS would understand.
2. The part where Heber talks about the Ghosts of the wicked coming back to haunt the righteous (I'm not making this up), not surprisingly, did not make the cut either:
"Brother Grant was speaking about the work of God, in the laying waste of nations by sea and by land. I believe it is all the work of God, and it is all right. Will He sweep them from the earth in order to destroy their power and influence? He will. And when kings, and princes, and captains, and great men, according to the greatness of the world, go into the world of spirits, they will not have as much power as they had here upon the earth. We can hear of their spirits trying to peep, and mutter, and mock, and rap, and cause tables to dance, and chairs to move from one place to another, but that is all the power they have. While I am in the flesh, I can take a chair, or a club, and make you feel my power to a still greater extent; I could bruise your flesh, and break your bones, but they cannot do anything but peep, and make tables and chairs dance, and rap, and give uncertain sounds. That is wisdom great enough for the world; it does well enough for them; it is all the revelation they deserve; and a few of this people go to those spirits."
3. The part where all you exmos who made temple covenants will be forced to fulfil your obligations in yonder heavens, even if it takes 10,000 years:
"What you have agreed to do, God will require you to perform, if it should be ten thousand years after this time. And when the servants of God speak to you, and require you to do a thing, the Lord God will fulfil His words, and make you fulfil His words he gave to you through His servants. Inasmuch as you have come into this Church, and made a covenant to forsake the world, and cleave unto the Lord, and keep His commandments, the Lord will compel you to do it, if it should be in ten thousand years from this time. These are my views, and I know it will be so."
4. Two for the price of one: He preaches blind obedience to Brigham Young comparing rebellion against the leaders as rebellion by a wife:
"You Bishops, or Presiding Elder, Teacher, Deacon, Apostle or Prophet, how do you appear when you rebel against your head? You look like the woman who rebels against her husband or Lord."
5. The priesthood should be honored more than your family:
"that I may always honor that Priesthood, magnify it, reverence it, and love it more than I do my life, or my wives and my children."
6. Disobedience leads to depression: "I am never blue when I do brother Brigham's will; but when I do not do it, I begin to grow blue"
7. All property deeded to the church ... nothing should be left to the plural wives or families: "I have said it to my family, and I say it now, when I have finished my course pertaining to the flesh, I am going to deed all my property to the Church; my wives, my children, shall not have it to quarrel about; but I will deed it all to the Church, and the Church shall dictate them from this time henceforth and forever."
There's more ... but it's the same story. Hide the embarrassing parts of Church History. The weird stuff scares people.