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Mark Hofmann’s Role in Mormon History (Part 4 of 5)

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John Larsen of the Sunstone and I discussed some critics of Mormonism. The most notorious is probably Mark Hofmann, who is a murderer and forger of Mormon documents.  We discussed some of Rick’s past interviews and knowledge Rick has learned in talking to people who knew or prosecuted Mark Hofmann.

John:  I mean, Hofmann is a murderer, and a criminal. But geez, that man was brilliant.

Rick:  He was brilliant.  He’s got horrible handwriting, too.

John:  We still don’t know because, you can push back, because the church wanted it to go away. So the church got involved. There’s a lot of people who’ve accused this. I’m not the one making this up. The church got involved. They wanted to cut a deal. They cut a deal with Hofmann, that if he pled guilty, he wouldn’t get the death penalty. He got a blanket pass that he wouldn’t have to talk to anybody else. So he didn’t have to answer…

Rick:  Well, that’s not exactly true. There was a deal cut and if you want to get into all the details, watch my George Throckmorton interview, because we talked about that. Also, Sandra was very angry that a deal was made because she’s like, “I think we could have got the death penalty on him.” I don’t know if people know this, but he tried to put out a hit on the Director of the Board of Pardons.

John:  Oh, I didn’t know that.

Rick:  Yeah, while he was in jail, because he should be out of jail by now. He will never leave jail.

…

Rick:  But yeah, so Mark was supposed to spill the beans and he never did, due to–anyway. George talks about it. There were some mistakes done in the prosecution, and they should have had him tell the stuff before they’d cut the deal and they didn’t. So then he had no incentive to talk after that. A lot of the stuff that he was supposed to tell he never told.

John:  I would invite everybody go out there and read one of the true crime books. The one I liked was one by Sillitoe.

Rick:  Yeah, that’s the best–that’s one of the best ones.

John:  I think it’s called Salamander.

We will talk about other details of the Hofmann saga, and discuss other Mormon critics.  Check out our conversation….

Mark Hofmann killed 2 people and is serving a life sentence.

Don’t miss our previous conversations!

415:  Learning from Mormon Cousins

414:  LDS Leaders and Historical Issues

413:  Intro to Gospel Tangents

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Learning from Mormon Cousins (Part 3 of 5)

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While the LDS Church is the largest Mormon group, there are lots of other churches tracing their founding to Joseph Smith.  John Larsen of the Sunstone Podcast sat down with Rick Bennett to discuss some of these groups who aren’t well-known. Rick refers to them as “our Mormon cousins.”

Rick: I was back in Independence earlier this summer. I wanted to go to the Temple Lot of church. I talked to that guy, probably for six or seven hours. It was amazing. I wish I could have gotten than one recorded. I asked and he said, “No.”  I went to the Cutlerite Church, and I talked to that lady for probably two hours. I got a tour of the church. I even got a quote in Sunstone because it’s something I learned from her. So listen to Mel Johnson’s Sunstone presentation if you want to hear that. I tried to talk to the Remnant Church because I got some friends there and their building was closed. I went to the Community of Christ temple, and then I just would drive around and I would see something that looked–I’m trying to remember what it said. It was like the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ. I said, “That’s got to be one of our churches.”  So, sure enough, it was this guy, he was missing a bunch of teeth. He was out fixing a fence on their church property. I talked to him for probably an hour and I felt bad because he was trying to fix this fence, and I’m stopping him. He’s telling me about angels. He showed me this picture.  He goes, Do you see this white area here? That’s like an angel.”  It was just so interesting to listen to him. I think he was surprised because I listened without judgment, like that’s not an angel. I was like, “Wow, what a story.” The guy named Randy Sheldon at the Temple Lot Church. I found out that they still do speaking in tongues.

We talk about several other groups.  Check out our conversation….

Rick talks about interactions with several other Restoration groups. (Sign in front of Cutlerite Church.)

Don’t miss our previous conversations!

414:  LDS Leaders and Historical Issues

413:  Intro to Gospel Tangents

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LDS Leaders & Historical Issues (Part 2 of 5)

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Let’s face it.  Many members have an incomplete knowledge of Church history and problematic historical issues.  Is it the leaders’ fault?  John Larsen of the Sunstone Podcast debates Rick Bennett as to where the blame should lie with regards to teaching Church history.

John:  There’s still stuff that gets me annoyed. For me, the higher they are up on the pecking order. I’ve said many times that they have a hard job, they have an impossible job, the brethren, but it’s their own doing, they’ve backed themselves into a corner. But the higher up you are in the organization, the less empathy I have for you, because you know what you’re doing at this point. There’s plenty of Bishops and Stake Presidents just trying to do their best. But if you’re in the Q15, you get no pass. You get no quarter from me.

Rick:  Wow.

John:  Is that too harsh?

Rick:  I know it is for some people. Some of my subscribers–in fact, one of them recently posted one of my podcasts on Mormon Stories. For one thing, I was grateful for kind of the publicity or whatever, but he was pretty harsh on Elder Snow and I was just like, “Wow, do you not give anybody the benefit of any doubt?” One of my things is I try to talk about this from kind of a non-polemical point of view, kind of an academic point of view. I don’t put up with a lot of anger. I know in Mormon Stories, at least from my experience, and, I’m sure people will disagree with me, but, it’s a very angry group. I know there’s a stereotype of bitter ex-Mormons, and I feel like that applies in that group, because there are so many angry people that won’t give anybody of faith, any benefit of the doubt. That bothers me. I mean, not that I agreed with everything Elder Snow said.  One of the one of the things that Elder Snow said that I knew was going to cause a lot of pushback, was when I said, “So was there anything that bothers you about church history?” And he said, “No, I think it’s inspiring.” I was just like, “Wow, there’s going to be a lot of people that will disagree with that.” And I was right. There were people that disagreed with that.

John:  That goes to my point.  Somebody who is a professional clergy, he doesn’t have a day job, like bishops and stake presidents do. He’s got access to stuff that you and I don’t have access to. For them, just to pretend that they don’t know what’s going–for him to say that, he loses empathy with me, because we only have two points. He’s either willfully ignorant, which he has no excuse at his age, or he’s lying. Tell me, is there another possibility? Please tell me, Rick, what am I missing? I have been struggling with that question since the day I left.

Rick:  Well, and I know that–I mean, I guess I would kind of fit in there. Not that I agree with Elder Snow. There are lots of things about church history that bothers me. So I would have never answered the question that way. I don’t want people to accuse me of being willfully ignorant, which I think I’ve demonstrated, I am not willfully ignorant. I’m very cognizant of all the major issues and try to talk about that.

John:  But you’re not calling the shots.

Rick:  Well, that’s true. I’m not calling the shots. But I think Elder Snow has been a wonderful advocate for the Church History Department.  One of the things he said later on in the interview, was that he’s trying to be transparent. He’s trying to get stuff [out.]  We’ve got the Gospel Topics Essays that came out under his tenure. It started under Elder Jensen, but he was the one that shepherded it through and he just felt like if we can get all this stuff out, we won’t be accused of hiding anything, and it’s going to be better for the church, which I agree with.

John Larsen, host of Sunstone Podcast, and I discuss role of LDS Church leaders in disseminating accurate Church history.

What do you think?  Check out our conversation….

Don’t miss our previous conversation!

Intro to Gospel Tangents

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