As part of our process of leaving the LDS church officially, we sent a letter of resignation to the Membership Records office, our stake president, and our bishop (we had previously unofficially gotten out after I met with our bishop to tell him we didn't want callings or contact several months earlier). As expected, both of them showed up to our house to talk over some things, including getting the keys to the church back, and getting a missing signature for our son. As part of our conversation, he mentioned that he had read Anne’s blog post about why we left, and corrected us on the statement that he was saddened, not shocked.
And then he bore his testimony to me about the witnesses of the Book of Mormon. Me, not being much of an in-person debater, thought of what I could say about the witnesses and remembered that Oliver Cowdery had called Joseph Smith’s situation with Fanny Alger a “nasty, filthy affair,” to which he asked me if Oliver had been telling the truth when he said that. He also happened to bring up Jeffery R. Holland’s most recent talk from General Conference and how powerful it was.A little while later, through some random comments on Facebook from members of our former ward, Anne was able to piece together that there was to be a special meeting conducted by the stake president. We thought that there was a good chance that it was about us and/or apostasy, so we asked a trusted friend to record it for us just in case. Turns out that we were right. Another friend posted the audio on his YouTube channel and added a few random pictures.
I should also mention that in response to his visit, I sent Mr. Beech a letter in which I stated my case for not believing, and refuting his appeal to the witnesses. In it, I bring up the analogy of a court case on Law and Order, and how sometimes the defense attorney is blindsided by a piece of information that the defendant forgot to disclose. This completely destroys the defense’s argument and is seen as a slam-dunk in court. I related how I felt like that attorney when I was defending the church to my friends in high school, only to find out the “lies” about the church were in fact true. I presume the letter arrived at his house either Friday or Saturday before this special meeting.Since we weren't there to defend ourselves, and add to it the fact that I’m not much of a debater in person, I’m going to take the opportunity to deconstruct his talk. Before I get into it, let me state that I like the man, and enjoyed the meetings and conversations I had with him throughout the years. I’m not going to attack him personally, just the logic and factual information of his statements.
This was a 4th Sunday, usually when the Elders and RS have a “Teachings for Our Times” lesson, which is a rehashing of some general conference talk. But this was a special combined RS/MP/YM/YW meeting to “combat the apostaflu that was going around,” using the words of our inside man. It also happened to be one week after an article in the NY Times told of a former 70 Area Authority who left the church.
Because the talk is almost an hour long, I have carved it up into smaller bytes (Ha! See what I did there?) and will be doing this in 5 parts. There are several spots where the talk is inaudible or muffled, but I have done my best to make an accurate transcription of it. Here is the original audio, but in the rebuttal posts I will provide links to smaller audio files and their accompanying transcripts.
Continue to Part 1
(Authored by Joseph)
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