This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
| Mark Hofmann was a forger who fooled historical experts with master forgeries of various documents. He was a “closet apostate” of the LDS church who pretended to be a faithful Mormon but actually sought to discredit the church with his fake discoveries. As his forgeries over time became more embarrassing for the church–including a fake letter from Joseph Smith that indicated the RLDS were his true successors rather than Brigham Young–people grew suspicious and applied greater scrutiny. Mark Hofmann turned to murder and bombings to cover his tracks, as he killed two people with bomb explosions and injured a third. He was a cold-blooded killer on a crazy crusade to embarrass and discredit the Mormon church with lies. Did LDS leaders show “lack of discernment” about Hofmann? |
“In the early to mid-1980s, the Church shelled out close to $900,000 in antiquities and cash to Mark Hofmann – a conman and soon-to-be serial killer – to purchase and suppress bizarre and embarrassing documents into the Church vaults that undermined and threatened the Church’s story of its origins.” (CES Letter)
So what? – Indeed, some Mormons were fooled by anti-Mormon Mark Hofmann. I am not sure where CES Letter gets this $900,000 figure from, but it is true several brethren in the church purchased forgeries.
But so what? Church leaders never sought to hide away or suppress anything, which is obvious because of the fact that we are discussing the forged letters today. They talked about the letters from the beginning. The church is very open about history which CES Letter things embarrassing. Otherwise, how would CES Letter know about all of these issues and spend 84 pages going on and on about them?
The Mormon church and church leaders are always purchasing items that relate to church history. Sometimes they turn out to be fake. It happens. Today, there are more anti-Mormons than ever who are pretending to be faithful Mormons in order to attack Mormons from the inside, like Mark Hofmann did. Church leaders are too busy running the church to be concerned with every little acquisition of historical documents. They don’t have doctorates in historical studies, and even the experts were fooled by anti-Mormon Mark Hofmann.
God doesn’t tell prophets that the roof is leaky and needs replaced. If a prophet makes a stupid mistake like trusting someone who turns out to be an anti-Mormon and murderer, then he will receive the consequences of that mistake. After all, the rest of us have to live with our mistakes, why shouldn’t prophets?
No Relics In The Church – Letters by Joseph Smith do not imbue holy qualities that priesthood leaders can magically pick up on. They are just ink on paper. The seer stones which skeptics incorrectly claim Joseph Smith used to translate the gold plates are just rocks. There is no reason why prophets should be able to tell which rocks were used for what or who actually wrote this certain document, because it does nothing to build our faith to have magic rocks or Joseph Smith’s letters. There is no holiness imbued in physical objects that prophets can use to build faith.
We are not a church that deals with relics, like pieces of Noah’s ark or the cup of Jesus Christ. CES Letter sets the narrative that we need to have some kind of physical objects, like the Catholic crusaders who scoured the Holy Land for objects from the bible. Well, the Mormon church does not do this. Superstition is spiritual belief built on a physical premise. Why is there lightning in the sky? Must be a manifestation of the gods! The Mormon path toward truth is physical conclusions based on physical evidence and spiritual conclusions based on spiritual evidence.
Church Leaders Are Skeptical – Everyone was skeptical of Hofmann’s discoveries. Elder Oaks said we should keep an open mind and not reject the letter outright just because they said something we don’t like, and wait until further investigation can be made. But he taught us to be skeptical, and explained six principles for considering history. CES Letter takes a snippet of this excellent speech and leave out important context. In red is the part CES Letter quotes. In blue important parts of context:
“My fellow teachers: In the six months since I accepted this invitation, there has been a flurry of excitement about Church history. New histories and biographies are being published at an unprecedented rate. Heretofore unknown documents bearing the names of early Church leaders are coming forth. Experts are studying their authenticity. Scholars are debating their meaning. In the process, the news media are having a field day.
Controversy makes good copy, especially when it concerns a church with some doctrines that diverge sharply from those of mainstream Christianity. As a fervent and fast-growing group of believers who persistently disdain the comfortable fraternity of ecumenical Christianity, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a subject of abiding fascination for the news media. The resulting publicity has stimulated attacks on the Church by seemingly religious persons… I will not comment on the content of any of the recent Church histories or biographies. Nor will I discuss the important issue of how scholarly history or faithful history should be written. Instead, I have chosen to speak on how Church history should be read, especially the so-called history that comes in bits and pieces in the daily and weekly news media. At the outset, I stress that my remarks are not directed at any particular book or article or at any group of books or articles. I will be suggesting general principles for the guidance of Latter-day Saint readers of Church history and biography.
I hope to be helpful to you as teachers, and through you to your students and to members of the Church generally. Some of these general principles should cause readers and viewers to apply the discount of skepticism to media stories about developments in Church history. Other principles apply to all writings on Church history and biography. These general principles concern (1) scientific uncertainties, (2) lack of context, (3) truths and half-truths, (4) bias, (5) balance, and (6) evaluation…. Some recent news stories about developments in Church history rest on scientific assumptions or assertions, such as the authenticity of a letter. Whether experts or amateurs, most of us have a tendency to be quite dogmatic about so-called scientific facts. Since news writers are not immune from this tendency, news stories based on scientific assumptions should be read or viewed with some skepticism.
…. Most of the news media go to their readers or viewers on a daily or hourly basis, often under great pressure to scoop their competition. As a result, they frequently cannot obtain irrefutable scientific verification of the facts they will report. Furthermore, limitations of time and space mean that they cannot explain their scientific foundations in sufficient detail for the reader or viewer to understand their implications. The contents of most media stories are dictated not by what is necessary to a full understanding of the subject but by what information is currently available and can be communicated within the limitations of time and space. As a result, the news media are particularly susceptible to conveying erroneous information about facts, including historical developments that are based on what I have called scientific uncertainties. This susceptibility obviously applies to newly discovered documents whose authenticity turns on an evaluation of handwriting, paper, ink, and so on. As readers we should be skeptical about the authenticity of such documents, especially when we are unsure where they were found or who had custody of them for 150 years.
Newly found, historically important documents can be extremely valuable, so there is a powerful incentive for those who own them to advocate and support their authenticity… ‘We recognize that our forebears were human. They doubtless made mistakes… But the mistakes were minor, when compared with the marvelous work which they accomplished. To highlight the mistakes and gloss over the greater good is to draw a caricature. Caricatures are amusing, but they are often ugly and dishonest. A man may have a blemish on his cheek and still have a face of beauty and strength, but if the blemish is emphasized unduly in relation to his other features, the portrait is lacking in integrity… ‘I do not fear truth. I welcome it. But I wish all of my facts in their proper context, with emphasis on those elements which explain the great growth and power of this organization.’ (Hickley, Conference Report, Oct. 1983)… Satan can even use truth to promote his purposes. Truth can be used unrighteously. Facts, severed from their context, can convey an erroneous impression… My final category concerns not what actually happened or what an author says about it, but how the reader analyzes and reacts to the report. I call this evaluation. It has two dimensions, intellectual and spiritual. In terms of the intellectual, readers and viewers clearly need to be more sophisticated in evaluating what is communicated to them.
For example, we often hear it said that when two witnesses give two different accounts of the same event, ‘one has to be lying.’ Not so. It is rare for two witnesses to observe the same event from exactly the same point of observation at exactly the same time. This fact accounts for some differences in testimony. But even assuming identity of time and place in observation, different accounts of what happened can be attributable to at least five reasons other than that one witness is lying: (1) both are lying, (2) one perceived incorrectly, (3) both perceived incorrectly, (4) one remembered incorrectly, or (5) both remembered incorrectly. Another source of differences in the accounts of different witnesses is the different meanings that different persons attach to words. We have a vivid illustration of this in the recent media excitement about the word salamander in a letter Martin Harris is supposed to have sent to W. W. Phelps over 150 years ago. All of the scores of media stories on that subject apparently assume that the author of that letter used the word salamander in the modern sense of a ‘tailed amphibian.’ One wonders why so many writers neglected to reveal to their readers that there is another meaning of salamander, which may even have been the primary meaning in this context in the 1820s. That meaning, which is listed second in a current edition of Webster’s New World Dictionary, is ‘a spirit supposed to live in fire’ (2d College ed. 1982, s.v. ‘salamander’). Modern and ancient literature contain many examples of this usage. A spirit that is able to live in fire is a good approximation of the description Joseph Smith gave of the angel Moroni: a personage in the midst of a light, whose countenance was ‘truly like lightning’ and whose overall appearance ‘was glorious beyond description’. As Joseph Smith wrote later, ‘The first sight [of this personage] was as though the house was filled with consuming fire’. Since the letter purports only to be Martin Harris’s interpretation of what he had heard about Joseph’s experience, the use of the words white salamander and old spirit seem understandable. In view of all this, and as a matter of intellectual evaluation, why all the excitement in the media, and why the apparent hand-wringing among those who profess friendship with or membership in the Church? The media should make more complete disclosures, but Latter-day Saint readers should also be more sophisticated in their evaluation of what they read.
For Latter-day Saints, evaluation also has a spiritual dimension. This is because of our belief in Moroni’s declaration that ‘by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things’. That promise assures spiritually sensitive readers a power of discernment that will help them evaluate the meaning of what they learn… I have reviewed various general principles that should guide readers and viewers of stories and articles about Church history and biography. I have spoken of scientific uncertainties, lack of context, truths and half-truths, bias, balance, and evaluation. I have also spoken of the spiritual powers of discernment available through the gift of the Holy Ghost, which Latter-day Saints should use in their efforts to understand these subjects… Our individual, personal testimonies are based on the witness of the Spirit, not on any combination or accumulation of historical facts. If we are so grounded, no alteration of historical facts can shake our testimonies. Our Heavenly Father gave us powers of reason, and we are expected to use them to the fullest. But he also gave us the Comforter, who he said would lead us into truth and by whose power we may know the truth of all things. That is the ultimate guide for Latter-day Saints who are worthy and willing to rely on it. By the same token, we know that we are not saved by our own powers or by any earthly force or favor. Salvation and exaltation come by the precious blood of Christ, by the mercy of God, by the plan he has prescribed, and by the priesthood he has restored. May we have the faith necessary to lay hold on that atonement and work out our exaltation under that plan, as preached by this, his only true Church, is my humble prayer, which I offer as I bear testimony to you of the reality of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and of the restoration of the fulness of his gospel in these latter days. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
CES Letter ignores the entire purpose of this speech, how to discern fake news in the media. CES Letter ignores the section about ‘truths and half-truths’ and says “Oaks defended and rationalized a completely fake and made up document that Mark Hofmann created while telling ‘Latter-day Saint readers’ to be ‘more sophisticated in their evaluation of what they read.’”
Um, no, that’s not what just happened. He said that along with considering the truthful authenticity, the scientific certainties, the context, the bias, and the balance of documents that we hear about in the media, we should also be open-minded in our evaluation of those documents’ meanings. Don’t be like anti-Mormons who cherry-pick and push issues into a tightly constricted context. Elder Oaks gave some very sage advice that anti-Mormons desperately need to listen to.
Consider how the mainstream media and populistic atheist “intellectuals” treat human evolution. Plenty of bones have been found to support the scientific model of human evolution but there is no smoking gun; there are missing pieces of the puzzle, and it has not been reproduced in a laboratory or demonstrated in real life. It is still just a scientific model for what could have happened. The same goes for Book of Mormon archaeology. So many physical pieces of the puzzle have been found, but there are always going to be missing pieces, because we are talking about an ancient civilization that got wiped out. Anti-Mormons can always fall back on the missing puzzle pieces and claim “no archaeological evidence exists.” In their evaluation of the archaeology, they always constrict the context into an unreasonable binary: either thousands of bones and swords need to be found on ‘Hill Cumorah’ in New York, or the Book of Mormon never happened.
Satan tempts followers of Christ by placing the burden on “church authorities” to answer every little question in life instead of you finding out answers for yourself and to be supermen who are immune from anti-Mormon attacks. CES Letter‘s logic reflect the simplistic idealism that we see in the Plan of Satan, where everyone is taken care of, and people do not have the freedom to oppose the church or make wrong decisions. This idealistic standard for “correctness” makes people bitter that God allows tragedies to happen in their lives. It makes them skeptical of any opinion that doesn’t fit their narrow preconceived view of perfection. It thus sets a narrative that destroys Mormons’ testimonies and promotes Satan’s agenda.
Blaming The Victim – It is unbelievable that CES Letter accuses church leaders of “dishonesty” over this. So now, being taken advantage of makes you dishonest? Does being cheated on makes you a cheater? Does being murdered make you a murderer? Anti-Mormons are going to take a case of an anti-Mormon infiltrating the church and planting fake documents and they are going to make it look like the church did something wrong? This is the kind of victim blaming that we also saw with Joseph Smith’s martyrdom. Anti-Mormons twist the victimization of Mormons by anti-Mormons as validation for anti-Mormons. It is sick and wrong.
CES Letter provides zero evidence that the church covered up any documents or meetings. The church was straightforward, from everything I could find about it–and even if they hadn’t been, why does the church have to publicize every little purchase or meeting that ever goes on? The church never tried to destroy anything, hide anything, or spin anything. CES Letter, on the other hand, fails to mention Mark Hofmann’s motive for his crimes.
It is essentially jumping on the bandwagon that God and prophets deserve to be “tested.” This is a dangerous, dangerous road to go down because one day it is stealing Joseph Smith’s 116 pages to see if he can reproduce them, and the next day it is putting him in Carthage Jail at the mercy of the mobs to see if he can escape. Mark Hofmann likely justified his illegally forgeries because ‘the true church ought to know better,’ and before he knew it he was blowing up innocent people with bombs. Today, there are many infiltrators like Mark Hofmann who pretend to be faithful Mormons so they can get close to the church and expose its secrets, plant false information, and whatever else they need to in order to tear down the church.
This kind of victimization and victim-blaming is a symptom of a psychological phenomenon called just world hypothesis. This is where a person becomes so judgemental that they rationalize crime that leads to a person getting what they think they deserve. Psychologists say it is a safety mechanism that puts the victim in an out-group, like religious extremists who say victims of a terrorist attack had it coming because of wickedness. In the case of Mark Hofmann, he took upon it himself to be the bringer of punishment for those evil Mormons.
CES Letter Logical Fallacies
| Falsehoods | CES Letter claims the church “shelled” out “cash to Mark Hofmann,” but I find no evidence that they paid him in cash for anything. The use of the word “shell” insinuates that the church considered the cost excessive, which I also don’t find any evidence of. CES Letter claims there were “speeches by Dallin H. Oaks and Gordon B. Hinckley offering apologetic explanations for troubling documents,” but I find no evidence of this. Elder Oaks’ speech was not apologetic. CES Letter claims, “Oaks evidently thought” the Salamandar letter “was real and legitimate at the time.” If you read the entire speech, that is clearly false. |
| Circular Logic | CES Letter calls Elder Oaks’ and Hickley’s “talks” about the Salamander Letter “apologetic,” but that is the entire premise that they are trying to prove. |
| Shifting Goalposts | CES Letter previously attacked the Mormon church for not addressing church history. “I desperately searched for answers to all of the problems.” But now, CES Letter attacks the church for acquiring historical documents that all the experts told them were authentic. So what do you want? Are we supposed to address church history or not? |
| Non Sequitur | CES Letter attacks the church for not discerning that the documents they were acquiring were “a grave threat to the Church.” Well, if they turned out to be forgeries wouldn’t that make them not a grave threat? CES Letter is just assuming out of thin air that the church wanted to hid the documents, and facts indicate otherwise. |
| Repetition | CES Letter takes almost two entire pages repeating the same things over and over within this argument. They repeat over and over the premise of their argument that church leaders showed “lack of discernment,” “defended and rationalized,” were “duped,” were “conned.” CES Letter throws in redundant synonyms like “bizarre and embarrassing,” “fakes and forgeries,” “real and legitimate,” “defended and rationalized,” “duped and conned.” |
| Strawman Fallacy | The priesthood does not give people the power to read minds and tell if a piece of paper is a forgery. Physical historical items do not verify or pose a “grave threat” to the church, as faith is not built on relics. Elder Oaks even says in the speech which CES Letter references (they snippet out this part): “We recognize that our forebears were human. They doubtless made mistakes” |
| Guilt By Association | CES Letter associates the church with a murderer and conman but fail to mention that he was an anti-Mormon. Instead, CES Letter repeats his crimes over and over in close proximity to phrases about the church and allegations of immoral behavior about the church. This unconsciously associates Hofmann and his crimes with the church, while the honest truth is that Hofmann was part of the anti-Mormon community: “the Church… conman and soon-to-be serial killer… suppress bizarre and embarrassing documents… the Church… undermined and threatend the Church’s… proven to be forgeries… Lack of discernment by the Brethren… grave threat… the Church…” Even if the audience does not believe CES Letter‘s allegations, they still come away associating Mark Hofmann and his crimes with the church and their alleged dishonesty. |
| Argument From Ignorance | CES Letter snips out of context Oaks’ challenge to be “more sophisticated in their evaluation.” He actually went on to say we should also be critical of historical legitimacy. How many of Hofmann’s forgeries weren’t uncovered? This is why I am always skeptical of hoaky quaotes that anti-Mormons dig up to attack the church, when I can’t find the original document, when it shows up many decades after it was supposedly produced, etc. Yet, anti-Mormons have no problem grabbing damning quotes that they read on some website somewhere and using them against the church. Isn’t this just a tad hypocritical? Where is CES Letter‘s discernment about quotes that they read somewhere and blindly copy? |
Dehumanizing Mormons – CES Letter uses a lot of repetition and phony inuendo in this argument to build a case for why a certain religious group is dishonest and stupid. Gee, where else have we seen this done before? Who in history used lots of repetition, innuendo, and victim blaming to attack a religious group as dishonest and stupid? CES Letter even ridicules the church for not recognizing the anti-Mormon con:
“While these ‘prophets, seers, and revelators’ were being duped and conned by Mark Hofmann’s forgeries, the Tanners – considered some of the biggest enemies of the Church – actually came out and said that the Salamander Letter was a fake… While the Tanners publicly rejected the Salamander Letter, the Church continued buying fakes from Hofmann and Elder Oaks continued telling Latter-day Saints to be more sophisticated.”
South Park mocked Mormons in much the same way in their episode about the 116 pages being illegally stolen from Joseph Smith. They even made a song about it. “Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum…” Look at you dumb stupid Mormons believe this stuff, being stolen from and made to look like fools!
This is the kind of argument that a bully uses on someone he beats up. “If you are so smart, nerd, why can’t you do anything about it?” This is a lot like what Hitler said about the Jews.
CES Letter builds a narrative where Mormons are supposed to magically read minds and know if fellow anti-Mormons infiltrated their church and are ripping them off. We Mormons are dishonest and stupid if the anti-Mormon gets away with it and sends bombs to our buildings. But wait–aren’t we also hateful and intolerant if we refuse to listen to anti-Mormon conmen and give no credence to “history?” So it is a no-win situation. If the church had not shown interest in the purported historical documents which sounded a little embarrassing, then Mark Hofmann would not have escalated the embarrassment in later documents and aroused suspicion and probably never had been found out, and CES Letter would be complaining right now that the Mormon church is ignorant of history. Either way, CES Letter would be complaining about the church.
So what do you want us to do? Please, CES Letter give us some kind of method or scientific explanation that we could possibly give to make us anything but scum for what fellow anti-Mormon Mark Hofmann did to us? Should we investigate and verify, like we did, or should we ignore?
Do You Want Evidence Or Relics? – Again, what skeptics of the church seem to want is a relic, a holy physical object imbued with magical powers to confirm belief. They want a display of golden plates or Nephi’s sword, or perhaps a seer stone that will cure deafness or blindness. Well, the world does not work that way. Faith does not work that way. The church is not a Dungeons & Dragons game.
Big Lie Tactic – One important factor in the success of human beings as a species is the ability to adapt. When new circumstances come up, we use our brains to figure out a solution to survive and succeed. The Big Lie in this section of CES Letter is that any adaptation to new circumstances by Mormons, any change of policy, in the church is a contradiction and immoral act. When the church adopted a racial policy for priesthood leadership because they were being hunted down for their opposition to slavery, it is easy for anti-Mormons today to complain about ‘racist Mormons.’ It is easy to cherry pick quotes or events and misconstrue them in a modern context. In this argument about Mark Hofmann, the narrative is that Mormons were supposed to discern him as a con but instead tried to cover up his discoveries.
CES Letter can get away with this Big Lie because it takes so long to actually investigate the evidence. They even have the gall to link to Elder Oaks’ entire speech and yet misportray what he said. People are too lazy to actually look through all the historical documents. Even mainstream church apologists are beaten down by all of the accusations and have give way to the big lie. They are too tired defending against it. Even if you don’t believe the allegations, just the rhetoric, with the appeal to association, repetition, and redundancy, leaves you with the impression of some kind of corruption. It is easy to just repeat claims over and over, and not give any evidence.
Use Opponent As Authority Tactic – This is a popular Marxist tactic that anti-Mormons use. They use Mormonism’s own authorities to discredit the faith, such as an alleged Mormon scholar. CES Letter claims that the “Church now confirms” blood atonement was taught. What makes this argument powerful is:
- Deceptively discredits the vast libraries of study on Book of Abraham by LDS professionals.
- Gives more focus to a phony frame that attacks the Mormon church.
- Divides the ranks of the church.
- Establishes a frame that demands a clear, modern explanation in the Book of Abraham for every religious issue in existence, and that it be exactly corroborated by every other Mormon source.