"Witnesses" Team Announces a New, Anti-Community of Christ Film Project

[Moksha]

Radio Free Mormon outlined the issues involve in his Apostolic Coup D'Etat podcast, far beyond the apologetic ability to add or detract on that now cold battlefield of the great succession war.

https://radiofreemormon.org/2017/07/rad ... up-d-etat/

[consiglieri]

I think the antecedent for the title may be “Seven Days in May.”

But what I really want to know is who will be cast in the brief but important role of Samuel Smith.

“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.”

[Kishkumen]

Thanks to the Good Doctor for bringing this to our attention. My feeling is that this film on the Apostolic Coup is understandable given the LDS Church’s desperate need to be considered the only branch of the Restoration with legitimate priesthood. Of course, this is completely false, but it does accord with the designs of that lying coward and tyrant, Brigham Young.

The truth of the matter is that the D&C shows that God designated Joseph Smith, not Brigham Young, to be the one person holding all the keys in the last days. Anyone who received their Second Anointing had as much priesthood as Brigham, and Brigham knew damn well he wasn’t the prophet. So, enough said, in my opinion. Brigham had priesthood, as the LDS Church continues to do, but any priesthood that traces back to Joseph Smith is valid in Restoration terms. Anyone who receives the Second Anointing has the right to preside over their descendants in blood or priesthood.

But what kind of options do these filmmakers have? The Succession Crisis does make for a great story, after all. The making of a film is a marketing problem from the beginning. You have to make something someone will want to see, and this is a drama that LDS people revisit time and again as they tell their story.

The problem is that, I predict, they will fumble in the storytelling. Witnesses was just too complicated. This one will sap the life out of the story by repeating folklore fairytales about Brigham Young and putting a churchy glow on everything. The real story here is one of desperation. Sidney Rigdon was in no way qualified to lead, and that made Brigham Young’s job much easier.

And the drama is that the temple cultus and polygamy would have collapsed if Sidney had won. So forwarding Brigham as the Smith fill-in for the time being was absolutely crucial to continue all the secret practices that the average member was in the dark about. How damn lucky was it that Sidney was the only real competition at the time! It’s like hiring a washed up old guy with a glass jaw to take a fall in the ring. Sure Brigham looked like Joseph in comparison!

In any case, William Marks ordained Joseph Smith III prophet, which made the latter more qualified than Brigham, and Brigham knew it. This is because Joseph Smith had had the right to the priesthood by lineage, and that, combined with the keys, was the real formula for leading the church of the Restoration. Now Joseph Smith III had all he needed to lead. We know Brigham knew this and wanted to replicate it, hence his whole program of adoption sealings. The Brethren were sealed to Joseph Smith by adoption to keep the priesthood alive and in order.

But that doesn’t Trump the real thing. So long as the LDS Church had a Smith patriarch and the CoC had a Smith prophet, the foundation of the Restoration was still at least somewhat intact. Now it is like the wild frontier out there. Lots of priesthood everywhere, but the order is fundamentally compromised in key ways.

[Philo Sofee]

Isn't it fascinating that the Lord, who knows all, who makes such a huge deal about the importance of the necessity of prophets and the continuation of the church, His Church, The True Church, forgot to ahead of time, make the succession of the next prophet, obvious, logical, and an easy step? No fore-planning, exact process, or steps to take to insure the next prophet in line?!

Just our luck we got the distracted God with lousy communication skills as the God of this world. Elohim was too busy dealing with his bitches on Kolob during the succession "crisis" and so he left his saints twisting in the wind for a while, not making himself clear, yet again. There was too much fore-play going on up there and not enough fore-planning.

[drumdude]

It is a bit odd that a religion so obsessed with rightful authority and passing of priesthood keys stumbled so early out of the gate.

Just another in a litany of examples which shows the entire idea of priesthood authority and spiritual keys is just as real as a Fischer Price telephone.

Less so, because at least you can *touch* and *see* the toy telephone.

[malkie]

It is a bit odd that a religion so obsessed with rightful authority and passing of priesthood keys stumbled so early out of the gate.

Just another in a litany of examples which shows the entire idea of priesthood authority and spiritual keys is just as real as a Fischer Price telephone.

Less so, because at least you can *touch* and *see* the toy telephone.

It must have been designed as a learning experience by a wise and omniscient god. Just like the priesthood ban.

So, some time in the future, when leaders and members are "ready", the Mormon god may reveal that Joseph Smith III was the rightful successor to his father.

[drumdude]

It is a bit odd that a religion so obsessed with rightful authority and passing of priesthood keys stumbled so early out of the gate.

Just another in a litany of examples which shows the entire idea of priesthood authority and spiritual keys is just as real as a Fischer Price telephone.

Less so, because at least you can *touch* and *see* the toy telephone.

It must have been designed as a learning experience by a wise and omniscient god. Just like the priesthood ban.

So, some time in the future, when leaders and members are "ready", the Mormon god may reveal that Joseph Smith III was the rightful successor to his father.

Or Mormonism is a test of Catholics to make sure they don’t deviate from the original apostolic authority.

How many angels can fit on the head of a pin again?

[Doctor Scratch]

Lots of excellent comments here. I agree that the "transfiguration" of Brigham Young will be crucial to the film's seriousness (or lack thereof). I appreciate Tom's usual punctiliousness: it seems true that elements of this film have been, uh, "lifted" from other sources, which is perfectly in keeping with the "SeN" proprietor's habits. I also agree with Reverend Kishkumen concerning that challenges that the filmmakers face. How are they to make a decent story out of all of this? It *could* make for very dramatic storytelling indeed, but instead, I predict that the movie is going to suck. I mean, they are announcing right out of the gate that this is a Mopologetic endeavor: "If we don’t tell our own stories honestly, untruths and confusion will continue, impacting countless lives." So the point isn't to make a "good" movie, it's this crap about "honesty" and the "impact" on "countless lives." Basically, it's another propaganda effort: plugging the Brighamite version of Mormonism.

The duplicity, chicanery, and political maneuvering of the succession crisis could make for great drama (the HBO show Succession is a hit for a reason), but there is literally no way that the Mopologists can pull this off. To do so, they'd have to make enemies of their orthodoxy seem credible, and they just won't do that. They don't have the ability to see contrarian viewpoints in an empathetic light.

At the end of the day, this is still a very Anti-Community of Christ project, and I say that using the Mopologists' own terminology. Just as anyone who is "against Mormonism" is an "anti-Mormon," so this project is anti-Community of Christ, because it works to undercut the CoC's faith traditions. I mean, Dr. Peterson pretty much admitted that he hopes that this movie will undermine CoC faith, in the hopes that they'll leave that church and join up with the Brighamite faction.

In the meantime, I see that they've been busy celebrating the Russian invasion of Ukraine by chowing down on blue-and-yellow frosted eclairs. Truly, free market capitalism is a great blessing!

[Everybody Wang Chung]

This is clearly a hit piece by DCP on The Community of Christ.

I guess DCP just isn’t content with publicly attacking Calvinism, Judaism, Scientology and Evangelicalism.


ETA: Thankfully, this will be another financial and critical disaster for DCP.

[drumdude]

Brigham's takeover of the Mormon church was just a simple example of might makes right, which we're currently seeing Putin do in Ukraine.


The LDS church created a mythos around Brigham once the takeover was complete, in order to provide post-hoc justification. Just like Putin will do once he has control of Ukraine.

It's quite ironic to see DCP so upset about Putin, when he can't realize Brigham was equally a thug.