The Mopologists' War with the Heartlanders is Heating Up

[Guest]

The FAIR Conference usually tends to yield something interesting each year. I fear we haven't gotten that moment yet, and if I'm not mistaken, there's only one day left. We'll have to keep our fingers crossed. Meanwhile, though, there has been an interesting development in the "Comments" of one of the FAIR Conference-related posts on "Sen". A poster called "SReed" is claiming that the LGT theory (i.e., the notion that the events of the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamérica, which is the Mopologists' pet theory) was first posited as a hoax by the RLDS:

Here in this 1924 book by RLDS Louise E Hills: https://babel.hathitrust.or...

It’s a total fraud created by the RLDS Church. Page 131, Hills mentions a Elder HA Stebbins, who was born in 1844, the year Joseph Smith was murdered. This is Stebbins autobiography: http://www.latterdaytruth.o...

See page 194 where Stebbins came up with his Central America theory from John Lloyd Stephens’s book. This was in 1894 or so. Stebbins Book of Mormon lectures are here wherein he mentions his Central America theory: https://babel.hathitrust.or...

Then the RLDS Church created a Committee on American Archaeology about the same year. This is its report: https://babel.hathitrust.or...
And the map from that report, created by a RLDS member residing in Michigan, based on Stebbins’s lectures, is here:
https://www.worthpoint.com/...

Then in the 1920s when the RLDS Church couldn’t afford to purchase the New York Hill Cumorah, RLDS Louise E Hills came up with the original Hill Cumorah in Mexico, noted in his 1924 book, p. 131
https://babel.hathitrust.or...

Thus the fraud, to keep the RLDS legit, since it also believed in The Book of Mormon but didn’t own the Hill.

Dr. John L. Sorenson mentioned RLDS Hills, in his 1991 publication: “The Geography of Book of Mormon Events, A Source Book,” noted in the archive below:

https://archive.bookofmormo...

Thus, Sorenson, Welch, Magleby, Peterson, know the source of the Mesoamerica Two-Cumorah geography theory for The Book of Mormon, is a RLDS fraud, but they promote it anyway.

Wow! Quite a provocative claim! DCP's initial response is intriguing:

SReed: "Thus, Sorenson, Welch, Magleby, Peterson, know the source of the Mesoamerica Two-Cumorah geography theory for The Book of Mormon, is a RLDS fraud, but they promote it anyway."

I don't know whether an RLDS person originated the idea or not, and (as I've said to SReed several times before) I don't especially care.

I care whether the theory fits the facts. And, in my judgment, it does.

Its origin makes no difference to me at all. If I were to find out that the first person to assert that 2+2=4 was a mass-murdering Mesopotamian tyrant, I wouldn't abandon the idea.

So, Sorenson *knows* about this fraudulent RLDS theory at least as far back as 1991, and yet.... They ran with it? So, did they look at this and say, "Well, yes, *they* said it was a hoax. But just because they said that, doesn't mean it's not true!" Is that really the logic that took place? At minimum, a fascinating conspiracy theory is shaping up:

Louis E Hills is mentioned by Alan C Miner in his blog here
https://stepbystep.alancmin...
“1917^ Louis Edward Hills The Geography of Mexico and Central America from 2234

B.C. to 421 A.D. (Independence, Missouri)
A member of the RLDS Church, Louis Edward Hills is credited with being the first to develop a Book of Mormon geography model that was strictly limited to Mexico and Central America (see illustration below).

“For him the hill Cumorah was in central Mexico, the first place ever suggested other than New York.”

The illustration is the yellow map I’m using for my profile.

Alan C. Miner, Dentist, sold his Springville, UT building to Kirk Magleby, which is now the headquarters of “Book of Mormon Central” co-owned by Jack Welch, you’re good friend. This is publicly available on Utah County land records, even for those residing outside of Utah. Should I bore you with the details? Ok. http://www.utahcounty.gov/L...

Whoa! So, the idea is that the Mopologists wanted to steal this "hoax theory" from the RLDS, and then try to take ownership of anything that would trace this back to the RLDS? I would say that this is far-fetched and out of some bizarro-world take on things, but we are dealing with Mopologetics--a world so thick with webs of lying, dishonesty, and fabrication, that anything is possible. Steve Smoot, at least, is troubled by this:

"Alan C. Miner, Dentist, sold his Springville, UT building to Kirk Magleby, which is now the headquarters of “Book of Mormon Central” co-owned by Jack Welch, you’re good friend. This is publicly available on Utah County land records, even for those residing outside of Utah. Should I bore you with the details?"

Besides the unsubtle attempt to dox those who work at Book of Mormon Central (including yours truly), what, precisely, does this information have anything to do with anything?

SReed responds:

To prove an association between Dan Peterson, Jack Welch, Kirk Magleby, Alan C Miner; despite Dr. Peterson’s feigned ignorance, that these gentlemen knew, before you were born, of RLDS Louis E. Hills’ Two-Cumorah Mesoamerica geography theory and that they’ve been promoting it.

Yes, he *has* shown it: Sorenson, and presumably all the other Mopologists around at the time--as minimum, those who edited and "peer reviewed" his work--knew about the hoax. And then, strangely, we've got Magleby and Welch buying up property that is connected to the hoax. The dead give-away that this thing has legs is this post from DCP:

My "feigned ignorance"?

I would respond that I'm quite capable of ACTUAL ignorance; I don't need to fake it.

But such pretense is pointless now. SReed has penetrated our defensive perimeter.

SReed has uncovered our fiendish conspiracy to impose RLDS Louis E. Hills's Two-Cumorah Geography Theory upon the Church and its leaders. Hail Louis E. Hills! All glory to Louis E. Hills! Victory to the thought of Louis E. Hills!

However, SReed is too late. There's nothing he can do now. Our triumph is assured and inescapable.

The whole world must submit to the views of Louis E. Hills!

Bwahahahahaha!

No, actually--I don't think anyone was suggesting "victory" or an attempt to "impose" anything (though that, too, is debatable). Instead, SReed seems to have located the "source" for the LGT, and in that respect, this is reminiscent of the discovery of The Late War and its parallels to the Book of Mormon. Critics for more than a century have accused Joseph Smith of pilfering the text of the Book of Mormon from other sources. How fitting would it be if the Mopologists took that criticism to heart, and decided to "steal" an idea for their own movement? Whatever the case may be, DCP appears to realize the corner he's been painted into:

The origin of true ideas is less important to me than their truth.

Even if those "ideas" originated as a hoax?

Absolutely stunning.

[_Dr. Shades]

A poster called "SReed" is claiming that the Heartland theory was first posited as a hoax by the RLDS:

You mean that the Mesoamerica / Two Cumorah theory was first posited by the RLDS church as a hoax, right?

[_Doctor Scratch]

A poster called "SReed" is claiming that the Heartland theory was first posited as a hoax by the RLDS:

You mean that the Mesoamerica / Two Cumorah theory was first posited by the RLDS church as a hoax, right?

Dr. Shades, you are quite right--everyone needs an editor! I have made the corrections and want to thank you for your very gracious peer review of my work.

I also want to add, in response to this:

The origin of true ideas is less important to me than their truth.

That's not quite accurate, is it? If this was an idea the Mopologists accepted, then they would have no need for the LGT. The Book of Mormon would be perfectly fine as a repository of "ideas." Whether Joseph Smith made it up, or whether it is a history of Latin America, or the American Midwest: none of those "origins" matter: the only thing that matters is whether the Book is "true," however you want to define that. It's funny how, when confronted by the Heartlanders, DCP suddenly turns into a "Mormon Studies" liberal.

[_Gadianton]

Wow, that last quote you have there seems like an endorsement of the Inspired Fiction Theory.

Aside from that, the revelation on the two-Cumorah fraud is mind blowing, and probably even a watershed moment. Notice how many Phds are endorsing SReed. (It looks like long-time friend of SeN Black Jesus Loves You has received his Phd now. I wonder if Professor Lemming was his advisor?)

I get what the apologists are saying, "who cares who first came up with 2+2 = 4 if it's true?" But that's not what's going on here. In the example of 2+2, the answer is readily, independently, verifiable. With the LGT, we're talking about something extraordinarily speculative, a real imaginative la-la land-fest, and the shady origins make quite a difference. please read on to learn why.

I was always under the impression that here was Sorenson, studying the pages of the Book of Mormon and studiously taking notes. He stops to drum his pencil against his desktop, and then he scratches at his chin. It doesn't quite add up. The walking distances, and this and that, and then the light bulb comes on -- like Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree, an apple falls and strikes the crown of his head. Aha!

But no, it wasn't like that. Here's this theory already circulating in the quasi-Mormon political underground that was fabricated by an RLDS scholar in a flight of madness; a bid to re-image the faith in order to avoid losing the artifacts of their holy lands. Some young intellectuals find it hip and throw in, adopting it as such.

Oh sure, none of that proves that it's false, but here's a more accurate analogy than the 2+2 example. Imagine if Mark Hoffman produced a bunch of documents and never got caught. Suppose that the documents found their way into the hands of the apologists who try and make sense out of them and begin to find all kinds of justifications for the documents and substantially build their body of scholarship based on them. Now suppose it's found out that they are "fraudulent". But hold up: just because Hoffman was pulling all this out of his backside doesn't mean it's not true. Maybe he had some kind of brilliant insight and didn't know his own strength, as it were. Maybe the Lord had a "mysterious way" of getting the information available. Whatever the case may be, here are tapirs and battle boars and "ideas being passed among the elite" and bee-keeping; this all doesn't just go away, and it all seems to work out for the < 10 hard-core LGTers.

Sure, it isn't automatically invalidated, but it's a far cry from 2+2. It's more like an idea from a imaginative hoax that went viral for a while than real plodding research. No wonder the theory pretty much died in 2011, with no young researchers carrying the torch. (Smoot etc. aren't carrying the torch by believing it; carrying the torch requires real published research to build up the theory)

[_I have a question]

The origin of true ideas is less important to me than their truth.

Particularly when he’s quoting those true ideas...

[_SteelHead]

How accurate do ancient descriptions of geography tend to be? On the one hand you'd think they wouldn't be wildly off, if people were describing real places that they and everyone for whom they were writing would have known. On the other hand people do sometimes exaggerate things they know.

From Dava Sobel's book Longitude I learned that Galileo's discovery of the moons of Jupiter let people measure longitude accurately for the first time, by using those moons as a clock against which local solar time on Earth could be compared. Sobel quoted something to the effect that one French king complained that he was losing more territory to his own astronomers than he was to his enemies, because once they finally started producing really accurate maps, they found that traditional distances had all been exaggerated. The size of his kingdom kept getting revised downward with every longitude fix.

How crazy would it be for Nephites to be real ancient people but lousy geographers?

(I ask hoping that one of our local historians will be able to tell me. Apropos of the recent thread about people who insist you read everything before you can criticize them, my own current prime example of the kind of here-you-go best shot that real disciplines can give is Kishkumen informing me about the Res Gestae Divi Augustus, the text by Augustus that has survived until now carved in stone. So my questions about ancient history aren't rhetorical. I figure there's a decent chance that someone here actually knows.)

Google search Kish's "Limited Stature Theory". It has the Book of Mormon geography down to the size of a sandbox.

[_Servant]

In a provocative new post entitled "Some controversial topics," Sic et Non has announced a new level of warfare being directed at Rodney Meldrum ands fellow "Heartlanders." The Editor in Chief writes:

[SNIP!]

Ok, then--lesson learned. Next time, FIRM just needs to refer to the Mopologists as a "schismatic cult." Problem solved!

Since the Book of Mormon is fictional, it is an exponential waste of energy to argue as to where the myth took place. It might as well be Timbuktu! How can people believe such nonsense.

[_Gadianton]

Finally, Kiwi57 admits that Dr. Shades was right all along.

SReed and his/her splinter group routinely accuse those outside it of "throwing the prophets under the bus."

[_Doctor Scratch]

Finally, Kiwi57 admits that Dr. Shades was right all along.

SReed and his/her splinter group routinely accuse those outside it of "throwing the prophets under the bus."

The Mopologists are really doubling down on a new tactic--i.e., trying to find ways to make it seem as if the GAs are formally endorsing the LGT over the Heartland Model. So, you have already heard--and doubtless will continue to hear--a lot of crowing about how GAs spoke at the FAIR Conference, but not at the Heartlanders' conferences/events. Or, if the Heartlanders *do* have somebody, the Mopologists will pull rank and claim that whoever came to *their* event is of higher status within the hierarchy. The Brethren have maintained a kind of remote neutrality on this issue, which of course has only added fuel to the fire between these two "splinter groups." The Mopologists really have been exceptionally bold and aggressive this year. That Peter Pan blog hearkens back to the days of SHIELDS--stooping to the same kind of aggressive rhetoric and trash-talk that was a staple on Stan Barker's website. Even two years or so ago, I think that DCP would have been very reluctant to endorse a blog like "Neville-Neville Land," but something behind the scenes must have shifted. Something must have happened that convinced the Mopologists that these tactics are "okay" again.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Check this out:

The concluding speaker of the morning was Elder Craig C. Christensen of the First Quorum of the Seventy, whose chosen topic, approached thoughtfully and devotionally, was “Foundations of Our Faith.” He offered very supportive comments right from the start about the private efforts of ordinary members of the Church to defend the Restoration. “You,” he said, “can do what we can’t do.” Just yesterday, he related, he was in a meeting with “senior leadership of the Church” in which they spoke appreciatively of such efforts.

Elder Christensen’s very presence here is significant. Not, of course, that it in any way represents a blanket endorsement of every specific thing that FairMormon — let alone Book of Mormon Central or Interpreter — has done, is doing, or will do. But I think it plainly indicates that, in the eyes of the leadership of the Church, the general outlines of what we’re doing are legitimate and, in fact, valued and appreciated.

Wow, there's a lot to unpack here. "You...can do what we can't do?" What is *that* supposed to mean? They "can't" shape doctrine? Or make pronouncements on Church theology, history, and doctrine? That they "can't" go after people, attack-dog-style? I have to admit that it's funny how starved DCP et al. for any nugget of approval: "See! See! He said that senior leadership of the Church said SOMETHING NICE!!!" Who knows what they said? This is hearsay/gossip. And that last paragraph I quoted is side-splittingly funny. I hope that Elder Christensen realizes that this is going to be milked endlessly by the Mopologists in their war with the Heartlanders. The implication is fairly ugly--i.e., that the Brethren are calculating their losses. Will it be worse to go after and excommunicate the leaders of the Heartlanders? Or to "deal" with the Mopologists? To be honest, I think it would be easier to pull the plug on the Mopologists: to pull the plug on Interpreter, say. But something is going on, regardless.

This was also noteworthy:

Two points briefly mentioned in Elder Christensen’s remarks:

1. Simply in passing, he said that, although many millennials have questions, it isn’t true that millennials are leaving the Church in large numbers. We’ve all heard anecdotes suggesting otherwise, of course, and most if not all of us know of formerly strong members who have walked away. Now, every apostasy is tragic, and I don’t want to minimize our losses or to dismiss them as unimportant. Nonetheless, I’ve heard Elder Christensen himself and others say this before, in very small meetings, not addressing the public. I have no reason to doubt them, and I assume that he and they have access to data supporting what they say.

2. He laughed about standing under the FairMormon banner while speaking (see my photograph above), given President Nelson’s powerfully- and publicly-stated concerns about the term Mormon. But, he said, you’re not the Church. You’re independent. I’ve been told, incidentally, that certain Church leaders have advised that FairMormon not panic about its name. We’re still ourselves working out how to change, they’ve said. So take your time. (The question was easier for the Interpreter Foundation; our name never included the term Mormon, and we had no problem at all changing the title of our principal publication from Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture to Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.)

LOL! "I assume that he and they have access to data..." Oh, yeah? And Marlin Jensen *didn't*? Hey, I'm more than happy to wait for actual evidence. The proof is in the pudding, no? And talk about disingenuous: "Now, every apostasy is tragic, and I don’t want to minimize our losses or to dismiss them as unimportant." DCP has been personally involved in helping to have people--e.g., John Dehlin--get ex'ed, and right now he's pushing for the same thing to happen to the Heartlanders.

And the final tidbit--item 2, as it were--is a real howler. "Ooooh! We get special privileges! Everyone else has to change their name, but *we* get to take our time!"

Make no mistake: the clock is ticking, and we are eventually going to see and eruption of massive proportions. Something big is coming down the tubes. I can't say if we will see it this year or next, but mark my words: some big event is on the horizon.