I am a student of security. My family say I am obsessed with it. They listen as I drone on about home security, internet security, personal security, et al, ad nauseam… Yes they are sometimes, understandably, annoyed with me. But, I have seen some of that obsessive behavior pay off. They are more careful, ergo, I continue. Now how the heck is that of any interest to you? I only bring up my “paranoia” to say that I keep track of some pretty obscure data. For instance, I have been (very unofficially) been tracking acts of violence on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints property. I also have been interested in anti-Mormon activities for many years. On my mission I had the mission’s largest collection of anti-Mormon material. I did not spend much time reading it or studying it (heaven knows it’s not very deep) but I was interested in what would make someone be “anti” anything. I learned a lot from that “literature”. So between my crazy anti interest and my security obsession (that’s what happens when you get shot at!) I have had some interesting conclusions.
The following is snip from a NY Times Op-ed piece in 2012 when Mitt Romney was running for President of the United States.
“Why We Fear Mormons” Op-ed in The New York Times
By J. SPENCER FLUHMANJUNE 3, 2012
“When a perceived oddity is backed by Mormon money or growing political clout, the left gets jumpy. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and HBO’s Bill Maher have resorted to caricature, stereotyping and hyperbole in their anti-Mormon attacks. Liberals were outraged by Mormon financing of Proposition 8, the 2008 ban on same-sex marriage in California. They scoff at Mormonism’s all-male priesthood and ask why church leaders have yet to fully repudiate the racist teachings of previous authorities.
For the right, Mormonism figures in even more complicated ways. The Mormon road to respectability has often led, as it did for Mr. Romney, through Harvard Business School; pro-business Republicans have found ready friends among well-placed Mormons. But many rank-and-file evangelical Protestants call Mormonism a cult — as the pastor Robert Jeffress did last fall — or a “non-Christian religion.” Indeed, evangelical hatred has been the driving force behind national anti-Mormonism.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/opinion/anti-mormonism-past-and-present.html
Our religions opponents are generally light-weights. I’ve never put much stock in their rantings and ravings. I have been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints my entire life. There are those who think they are “experts” on our Church and our religion. Studying something for X number of years, does not an expert make. I am a gun instructor. “Experts” in that field abound yet I feel you can always learn, and the term “expert” is very fluid.
In my study of those who study us, I’ve found there is usually an agenda in their interest. There may be some who honestly want to learn about our religion from a scholarly point of view. But most are trying to tear it down and some are even bent on destroying the Church. As I’ve believed for many years if the Church has any enemies, the worst would usually be ex-members. Some of these are even, in my opinion, physical threats to the Church.
Actual acts of violence against the Church are considerably less common in the United States today than they were in the nineteenth century. However, one major event related to the persecution of the Church is the murders of two missionaries in La Paz, Bolivia in May of 1989 by a terrorist organization called the Zarate Willka Liberation Armed Forces. On May 28, 1989, in the streets of La Paz, Bolivia's cemetery district, two Anglo missionaries were cruelly assassinated. For the first time, Guerrillas deliberately stalked and struck at representatives of the Church. This type of violence has increased.
Other events happened in the 1980s. Anti-Mormon protestors stood outside the Denver temple and threw rocks, and a firebombing scare was also reported there. Another Bolivian terrorist group, the Tupac Guerrilla Army, claimed responsibility for two attacks against chapels. The Latauro Youth Movement in Chile conducted twenty seven small-scale bombings against Mormon churches in 1992 as well. It has been reported that a total of one hundred and forty nine individual attacks had been carried out against LDS targets in Latin America since 1983.
There have been 27 acts of violence on Church property in the United States from 1999 until 2018. In 2018 there were 3 separate incidents. I’m not an alarmist but my time in the military taught me to look for trends. This violence is a trend. Now I will be the first to recognize that these acts of violence are not the acts of someone persecuting the Church. Most of them are acts by individuals targeting other individuals.
This is from an article from Bloomberg Businessweek September 25, 2018
Turkey May Target Mormons Next After Case Against U.S. Pastor
By Marc Champion and Cagan Koc
“The indictment, filed in May, ties Brunson to three alleged coup attempts against Erdogan since 2013. Yet the sole evidence for the Brunson-Abney meetings at the center of the prosecution’s conspiracy argument consists of cellphone tower records showing that, on the days the planning allegedly occurred, the two men’s phones were in Alsancak. Given that both men lived there, that would have been true most days of the year. “We never met Brunson” or even knew of his existence until his 2016 arrest, says Abney, now 71 and on a Mormon mission in the U.S. Nor, says Abney, had he conspired in any way against Turkey. “We just wanted to help people,” he says, by bringing wheelchairs to the disabled, pomegranate trees to poor villagers, and computers to schools.
According to Abney, the main witness against Brunson is almost certainly a former LDS member whom the prosecution has code-named “Dua,” a word meaning “prayer,” to protect his identity. Some of the evidence Dua produced comes from the Abneys’ computer, according to Kenneth Abney, who says the laptop was taken for repair by an interpreter who was later expelled by the church for allegedly embezzling $10,000.
Dua makes some spectacular claims—for example, that an umbrella organization for Christian churches that’s led by Mormons but involves the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency controls the deployment of all U.S. Christian missionaries; that they identify each other in the field with a secret handshake, a curl of the middle fingers into the palm; that LDS members sent to infiltrate Turkish military high schools as language teachers all had a finger missing; that Mormons make up 40 percent of the U.S. military stationed overseas; and that evangelicals and Mormons are driven to Turkey by a common desire to bring about the end-of-days prophesies in the Bible’s Book of Revelation, by reuniting the Kurds—the lost 13th tribe of Israel.”
It's not interesting to me that the Church is targeted in Turkey, I think that is pretty typical for these days. I think it will change soon though. What is interesting to me is that an ex-member has fabricated a wild story of conspiracy. Even in Turkey ex-members are the Church’s worst enemy.
For instance the case of Sam Young. I don’t know the man, nor have I ever met him. But I’ve read his ramblings. On one hand he says he wants to be a member of the Church and then he publically rails on his leaders. He seems like a loose cannon to me. I don’t trust him. I believe him to be an enemy of the Church. I would watch him like a hawk.
John Dehlin is similar to Sam Young. John traded fame and “free speech” for his membership but I can say he did it with a lot more class. I don’t think he feels a need to rail against the Church as others who traded something for their membership. I would not consider Dehlin a threat to the Church as I would Young. Young has a buddy in his ridiculous “crusade” by the name of Mike Norton. Mike is just a plain idiot. He said he would pay a cash reward to someone who told him the location of Pres. Oaks so he could physically assault him. Never mind that this would be a young guy beating up on an elderly person, but he doesn’t quite understand the mission of Church security. They would have him on the ground faster than a calf at a rodeo. If he wants a piece of someone I’d oblige him. Unlike most members I’m not opposed to defending myself. I don’t perceive him as a real threat to me though. But this Einstein is a real physical threat to the Church. One of these days he’s going to run into someone who does not take kindly to his empty threats. But I digress.
“The Danites is the common name for the “Daughter of Zion,” an oath-bound military society organized among the Latter-day Saints in Missouri in summer 1838 to defend the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from internal and external opposition.
The official name was apparently derived from a passage in the book of Micah: “Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.”
The society was modeled after the Israelite armies of the Old Testament, with companies of tens and fifties, but it also had officers like those found in state militia organizations.
The society’s constitution vested executive authority in Joseph Smith and his counselors in the First Presidency.
Joseph Smith attended at least one of the society’s meetings and reportedly expressed approval of its aims, but the precise nature of his involvement with the organization is unclear.
The Danites began in connection with the effort to intimidate dissenters into leaving Far West, Missouri.
According to its constitution, the society sought to protect the God-given rights of the Latter-day Saints and to resist oppression.
It also promoted political candidates favored by the First Presidency and attempted to enforce consecration efforts.
Later, in the “Mormon War” of autumn 1838, the term Danites was used interchangeably with armies of Israel to describe Latter-day Saint forces generally.
The popular notion of the Danites as an enduring secret society of Latter-day Saint avengers far outlived the society’s brief existence in summer and autumn 1838.”
From The Joseph Smith papers
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/topic/danites
B.H. Roberts (Church Historian, Presidency of the Seventy)
A Doctor Sampson Avard joined the Church a short time previous to the apostasy of Marsh and Hyde. He was one of those restless, ambitious men who desire to become great, and lord it over their fellow men. Possessing neither the intelligence nor the integrity to rise to positions of honor and trust in The Church by open, fair means, he resolved to become a leader by craft and villainy. He employed the art of flattery in his conversations with the brethren, appointed frequent meetings at his own house which was guarded by one or more of his trusted associates, who would give him a sign if any one approached whom he had not trusted. With an air of mystery he would intimate that he had been appointed by the heads of The Church to accomplish some important work of a secret character, and at last put those whom he had won by his flattery, under an oath of eternal secrecy, not to reveal anything that he should communicate to them.
By these means he continued to enlarge his band, which he named The Danites, claiming of course that it was a very ancient order or society. He gave to them certain secret signs by which members of the band could recognize each other either day or night. He gave them to understand that he had authority from the heads of The Church for what he was about to do. He then proceeded to organize his men into companies of tens and fifties, placing a captain over each. Up to this time Avard had never intimated that anything unlawful or contrary to the spirit of the gospel was to be carried out. But now that he had the companies organized and all under an oath of secrecy, he thought he could with safety let the mask fall. After instructing the men as to what their duties were under their several captains, he took the captains into a secluded place and there told them they would soon be permitted to go among the Gentiles and take their property as spoil, and by robbing and plundering the Gentiles, they were to waste them away and with the property thus confiscated build up the Kingdom of God. If any of the band were recognized by their enemies, "who could harm them?" he asked: "for," said he, "we will stand by each other, and defend one another in all things. If our enemies swear against us, we can swear also." At this point some of the brethren expressed surprise, in fact, astonishment. But Avard continued by saying:
As the Lord liveth I would swear to a lie to clear any of you; and if this would not do, I would put them or him under the sand as Moses did the Egyptian.... And if any of us transgress, we will deal with him amongst ourselves. And if any one of this Danite society reveals any of these things, I will put him where the dogs cannot bite him.
This lecture of the doctor's revealed for the first time the true intent of his designs, and the brethren he had duped suddenly had their eyes opened, and they at once revolted and manfully rejected his teachings. Avard saw that he had played and lost, so he said they had better let the matter drop where it was. As soon as Avard's villainy was brought to the knowledge of the president of The Church he was promptly excommunicated, and was afterwards found making an effort to become friends with the mob, and conspiring against The Church.
This is the history of the Danite band, "which," says the Prophet Joseph, "died almost before it had an existence." (Missouri Persecutions, p.218-220)
Joseph Smith History
And here I would state, that while the evil spirits were raging up and down in the state to raise mobs against the "Mormons," Satan himself was no less busy in striving to stir up mischief in the camp of the Saints: and among the most conspicuous of his willing devotees was one Doctor Sampson Avard, who had been in the Church but a short time, and who, although he had generally behaved with a tolerable degree of external decorum, was secretly aspiring to be the greatest of the great, and become the leader of the people. This was his pride and his folly, but as he had no hopes of accomplishing it by gaining the hearts of the people openly he watched his opportunity with the brethren—at a time when mobs oppressed, robbed, whipped, burned, plundered and slew, till forbearance seemed no longer a virtue, and nothing but the grace of God without measure could support men under such trials—to form a secret combination by which he might rise a mighty conqueror, at the expense and the overthrow of the Church. This he tried to accomplish by his smooth, flattering, and winning speeches, which he frequently made to his associates, while his room was well guarded by some of his followers, ready to give him the signal on the approach of anyone who would not approve of his measures.
In these proceedings he stated that he had the sanction of the heads of the Church for what he was about to do; and by his smiles and flattery, persuaded them to believe it, and proceeded to administer to the few under his control, an oath, binding them to everlasting secrecy to everything which should be communicated to them by himself. Thus Avard initiated members into his band, firmly binding them, by all that was sacred, in the protecting of each other in all things that were lawful; and was careful to picture out a great glory that was then hovering over the Church, and would soon burst upon the Saints as a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, and would soon unveil the slumbering mysteries of heaven, which would gladden the hearts and arouse the stupid spirits of the Saints of the latter-day, and fill their hearts with that love which is unspeakable and full of glory, and arm them with power, that the gates of hell could not prevail against them; and would often affirm to his company that the principal men of the Church had put him forward as a spokesman, and a leader of this band, which he named Danites.
Thus he duped many, which gave him the opportunity of figuring as a person of importance. He held his meetings daily, and carried on his crafty work in great haste, to prevent mature reflection upon the matter by his followers, until he had them bound under the penalties of death to keep the secrets and certain signs of the organization by which they were to know each other by day or night.
After those performances, he held meetings to organize his men into companies of tens and fifties, appointing a captain over each company. After completing this organization, he went on to teach the members of it their duty under the orders of their captains; he then called his captains together and taught them in a secluded place, as follows :
My brethren, as you have been chosen to be our leading men, our captains to rule over this last kingdom of Jesus Christ—and you have been organized after the ancient order—I have called upon you here today to teach you, and instruct you in the things that pertain to your duty, and to show you what your privileges are, and what they soon will be. Know ye not, brethren, that it soon will be your privilege to take your respective companies and go out on a scout on the borders of the settlements, and take to yourselves spoils of the goods of the ungodly Gentiles? for it is written, the riches of the Gentiles shall be consecrated to my people, the house of Israel; and thus you will waste away the Gentiles by robbing and plundering them of their property; and in this way we will build up the kingdom of God, and roll forth the little stone that Daniel saw cut out of the mountain without hands, and roll forth until it filled the whole earth. For this is the very way that God destines to build up His kingdom in the last days. If any of us should be recognized, who can harm us? for we will stand by each other and defend one another in all things. If our enemies swear against us, we can swear also. [The captains were confounded at this, but Avard continued]. Why do you startle at this, brethren? As the Lord liveth, I would swear to a lie to clear any of you; and if this would not do, I would put them or him under the sand as Moses did the Egyptian; and in this way we will consecrate much unto the Lord, and build up His Kingdom; and who can stand against us? And if any of us transgress, we will deal with him amongst ourselves. And if any one of this Danite society reveals any of these things, I will put him where the dogs cannot bite him.
At this lecture all of the officers revolted, and said it would not do, they would not go into any such measures, and it would not do to name any such thing; "such proceedings would be in open violation of the laws of our country, would be robbing our fellow citizens of their rights, and are not according to the language and doctrine of Christ, or of the Church of Latter-day Saints."
Avard replied, and said there was no laws that were executed in justice, and he cared not for them, this being a different dispensation, a dispensation of the fullness of times; in this dispensation he learned from the Scriptures that the kingdom of God was to put down all other kingdoms, and the Lord Himself was to reign, and His laws alone were the laws that would exist.
Avard's teachings were still manfully rejected by all. Avard then said that they had better drop the subject, although he had received his authority from Sidney Rigdon the evening before. The meeting then broke up; the eyes of those present were opened, Avard's craft was no longer in the dark, and but very little confidence was placed in him, even by the warmest of the members of his Danite scheme.
When a knowledge of Avard's rascality came to the Presidency of the Church, he was cut off from the Church, and every means proper used to destroy his influence, at which he was highly incensed and went about whispering his evil insinuations, but finding every effort unavailing, he again turned conspirator, and sought to make friends with the mob.
And here let it be distinctly understood, that these companies of tens and fifties got up by Avard, were altogether separate and distinct from those companies of tens and fifties organized by the brethren for self defense, in case of an attack from the mob. This latter organization was called into existence more particularly that in this time of alarm no family or person might be neglected; therefore, one company would be engaged in drawing wood, another in cutting it, another in gathering corn, another in grinding, another in butchering, another in distributing meat, etc., etc., so that all should be employed in turn, and no one lack the necessaries of life. Therefore, let no one hereafter, by mistake or design, confound this organization of the Church for good and righteous purposes, with the organization of the "Danites," of the apostate Avard, which died almost before it had existed. (History of the Church, 3:178-182)
These are a few writings on the Danites. I believe the Danites should exist again. Not in secret, and not by secret oaths. Those are evil and will spiral those who pursue them to their undoing. But the Danite organization for protecting the Church from persecution. In many ways, the Church legal department and the Church Security department are those organizations. Eventually it may come to others being organized to secure and uphold the Church. Just as many members sleep peacefully in their beds while rough men stand to do violence in their behalf, we should remember that we as members have a responsibility to defend this Church. I will admit that we are not even close to the point the Church was in while in Missouri. I think that will change and get worse. It actually is supposed to in the last days. This is why I advocate getting trained in defense. We will need it one day and we should have these skills already. I know that some will not agree with me. Some think that violence only begets violence. They would be correct. Always follow the Spirit when it comes to this. Be careful to not get caught up in the evil that can and does exist when it comes to using violence. The secret oaths still are out there and it’s a short step from defense to secret combinations. Like Moroni we should not be “men of blood” but not afraid to defend “…our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.” (Alma 46:12)
We must be vigilant.
Semper Paratus
Check 6
Burn
No comments:
Post a Comment