Excerpts of Some Mormons Search the Web and Find Doubt By Laurie Goodstein, New York Times (front page), July 20, 2013.
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Hans Mattsson ... became an "area authority" overseeing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout Europe.
When fellow believers in Sweden first began coming to him with information from the Internet that contradicted the church's history and teachings, he dismissed it as "anti-Mormon propaganda," the whisperings of Lucifer. He asked his superiors for help in responding to the members' doubts, and when they seemed to only sidestep the questions, Mr. Mattsson began his own investigation.
But when he discovered credible evidence that the church's founder, Joseph Smith, was a polygamist and that the Book of Mormon and other scriptures were rife with historical anomalies, Mr. Mattsson said he felt that the foundation on which he had built his life began to crumble.
Around the world and in the United States, where the faith was founded, the Mormon Church is grappling with a wave of doubt and disillusionment among members who encountered information on the Internet that sabotaged what they were taught about their faith, according to interviews with dozens of Mormons and those who study the church.
"Everything I'd been taught, everything I'd been proud to preach about and witness about just crumbled under my feet. It was such a terrible psychological and nearly physical disturbance."
Mr. Mattsson's decision to go public with his disaffection, in a church whose top leaders commonly deliberate in private, is a sign that the church faces serious challenges not just from outside but also from skeptics inside.
Mr. Mattsson and others say the disillusionment is infecting the church's best and brightest. A survey of more than 3,300 Mormon disbelievers, released last year, found that more than half of the men and four in 10 of the women had served in leadership positions in the church.
Many said they had suffered broken relationships with their parents, spouses and children as a result of their disbelief.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, who serves in the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the governing body just below the three-member First Presidency), said in April while addressing the church's semiannual general conference in Salt Lake City: "Please don't hyperventilate if from time to time issues arise that need to be examined, understood and resolved. They do, and they will."
The first doubts filtered up to him from members who had turned to the Internet to research a Sunday school talk.
The questions were things like:
■ Why does the church always portray Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon from golden plates, when witnesses described him looking down into a hat at a "peep stone," a rock that he believed helped him find buried treasure?
■ Why were black men excluded from the priesthood from the mid-1800s until 1978?
■ Why did Smith claim that the Book of Abraham, a core scripture, was a translation of ancient writings from the Hebrew patriarch Abraham, when Egyptologists now identify the papyrus that Smith used in the translation as a common funerary scroll that has nothing to do with Abraham?
■ Is it true that Smith took dozens of wives, some as young as 14 and some already wed to other Mormon leaders, to the great pain of his first wife, Emma?
About that last question, Mr. Mattsson said, "That was kind of shocking."
Mr. Mattsson said he sought the help of the church's highest authorities. He said a senior apostle [L. Tom Perry] came to Sweden at his request and told a meeting of Mormons that he had a manuscript in his briefcase that, once it was published, would prove all the doubters wrong. But Mr. Mattsson said the promised text never appeared, and when he asked the apostle about it, he was told it was impertinent to ask.
That encounter is what really set off Mr. Mattsson's doubts. He began reading everything he could. He listened to the "Mormon Stories" podcasts. And he read "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling," a biography by Richard Lyman Bushman, a historian at Columbia University and a prominent Mormon.
Mr. Bushman said in a telephone interview: "You would be amazed at the number of Mormons who don't think Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. It just wasn't talked about. It was never mentioned in church periodicals. That was policy."
The church has released seven volumes of the papers of Joseph Smith and published an essay on one of the most shameful events in church history, the Mountain Meadows massacre, in which church leaders plotted the slaughter of people in a wagon train in 1857.
But the church has not actively disseminated most of these documents, so when members come across them on Web sites or in books, Mr. Bushman said, "it's just excruciating."
"Sometimes people are furious because they feel they haven't been told the truth growing up," he said. "They feel like they were tricked or betrayed."
Mr. Mattsson said that when he started sharing what he had learned with other Mormons in Sweden, the stake president (who oversees a cluster of congregations) told him not to talk about it to any members, even his wife and children. He did not obey: "I said to them, why are you afraid for the truth?"
He organized a discussion group in Sweden, and more than 600 participated, he said. In 2010, the church sent two of its top historians, Elder Marlin K. Jensen and Richard E. Turley Jr. to allay the Swedes' concerns. They had a remarkably frank and sometimes testy exchange, especially about Smith and polygamy.
The Mattssons have tried other churches, but they are still attached to their Mormon faith.
"I don't want to hurt the church," Mr. Mattsson said. "I just want the truth."
For more on this, see the following:
Hans Mattsson ... became an "area authority" overseeing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout Europe.
When fellow believers in Sweden first began coming to him with information from the Internet that contradicted the church's history and teachings, he dismissed it as "anti-Mormon propaganda," the whisperings of Lucifer. He asked his superiors for help in responding to the members' doubts, and when they seemed to only sidestep the questions, Mr. Mattsson began his own investigation.
But when he discovered credible evidence that the church's founder, Joseph Smith, was a polygamist and that the Book of Mormon and other scriptures were rife with historical anomalies, Mr. Mattsson said he felt that the foundation on which he had built his life began to crumble.
Around the world and in the United States, where the faith was founded, the Mormon Church is grappling with a wave of doubt and disillusionment among members who encountered information on the Internet that sabotaged what they were taught about their faith, according to interviews with dozens of Mormons and those who study the church.
"Everything I'd been taught, everything I'd been proud to preach about and witness about just crumbled under my feet. It was such a terrible psychological and nearly physical disturbance."
Mr. Mattsson's decision to go public with his disaffection, in a church whose top leaders commonly deliberate in private, is a sign that the church faces serious challenges not just from outside but also from skeptics inside.
Mr. Mattsson and others say the disillusionment is infecting the church's best and brightest. A survey of more than 3,300 Mormon disbelievers, released last year, found that more than half of the men and four in 10 of the women had served in leadership positions in the church.
Many said they had suffered broken relationships with their parents, spouses and children as a result of their disbelief.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, who serves in the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the governing body just below the three-member First Presidency), said in April while addressing the church's semiannual general conference in Salt Lake City: "Please don't hyperventilate if from time to time issues arise that need to be examined, understood and resolved. They do, and they will."
The first doubts filtered up to him from members who had turned to the Internet to research a Sunday school talk.
The questions were things like:
■ Why does the church always portray Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon from golden plates, when witnesses described him looking down into a hat at a "peep stone," a rock that he believed helped him find buried treasure?
■ Why were black men excluded from the priesthood from the mid-1800s until 1978?
■ Why did Smith claim that the Book of Abraham, a core scripture, was a translation of ancient writings from the Hebrew patriarch Abraham, when Egyptologists now identify the papyrus that Smith used in the translation as a common funerary scroll that has nothing to do with Abraham?
■ Is it true that Smith took dozens of wives, some as young as 14 and some already wed to other Mormon leaders, to the great pain of his first wife, Emma?
About that last question, Mr. Mattsson said, "That was kind of shocking."
Mr. Mattsson said he sought the help of the church's highest authorities. He said a senior apostle [L. Tom Perry] came to Sweden at his request and told a meeting of Mormons that he had a manuscript in his briefcase that, once it was published, would prove all the doubters wrong. But Mr. Mattsson said the promised text never appeared, and when he asked the apostle about it, he was told it was impertinent to ask.
That encounter is what really set off Mr. Mattsson's doubts. He began reading everything he could. He listened to the "Mormon Stories" podcasts. And he read "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling," a biography by Richard Lyman Bushman, a historian at Columbia University and a prominent Mormon.
Mr. Bushman said in a telephone interview: "You would be amazed at the number of Mormons who don't think Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. It just wasn't talked about. It was never mentioned in church periodicals. That was policy."
The church has released seven volumes of the papers of Joseph Smith and published an essay on one of the most shameful events in church history, the Mountain Meadows massacre, in which church leaders plotted the slaughter of people in a wagon train in 1857.
But the church has not actively disseminated most of these documents, so when members come across them on Web sites or in books, Mr. Bushman said, "it's just excruciating."
"Sometimes people are furious because they feel they haven't been told the truth growing up," he said. "They feel like they were tricked or betrayed."
Mr. Mattsson said that when he started sharing what he had learned with other Mormons in Sweden, the stake president (who oversees a cluster of congregations) told him not to talk about it to any members, even his wife and children. He did not obey: "I said to them, why are you afraid for the truth?"
He organized a discussion group in Sweden, and more than 600 participated, he said. In 2010, the church sent two of its top historians, Elder Marlin K. Jensen and Richard E. Turley Jr. to allay the Swedes' concerns. They had a remarkably frank and sometimes testy exchange, especially about Smith and polygamy.
The Mattssons have tried other churches, but they are still attached to their Mormon faith.
"I don't want to hurt the church," Mr. Mattsson said. "I just want the truth."
For more on this, see the following:
- Mormon Stories interview of Elder Mattsson
- New York Times video interview Elder Mattsson
- Q&A session about historical issues with Swedish Saints and the Church Historian
- Radio West interview of New York Times writer, plus analysis from scholars
- MormonThink analysis and commentary
- Meridian Magazine editorial
- BYU Studies list of resources to study
- New Age of Mormon Doubt (with a response to the Meridian Magazine article)
- David Knowlton's thoughts (see also Maxine Hanks in the comments)
- Deseret News: Faith and Doubt in the digital age
- Greg Prince on inoculation at Juvenile Instructor
