



“How should we respond to a sincere inquirer who is concerned about negative comments he or her has heard or read about the prophet Joseph Smith? Of course we always welcome honest and genuine questions.”





Do you really welcome honest and genuine questions?





I challenge Neil L. Andersen to put his money where his mouth is. There are a lot of questions out there that LDS Apostles have not answered. They’ve been there for decades.





So, Mr. Andersen, here’s the challenge—go pick up Fawn Brodie’s “No Man Knows My History” or even the pages on Joseph Smith at Mormonthink.com and show us the half-truths in these documents. Otherwise, your words in the talk claiming to “offer kindness to those who criticize Joseph Smith” are in vain.





From the other side of his mouth, Mr. Andersen also said:

"We are especially saddened when someone who once revered Joseph retreats from his or her conviction and then maligns the prophet. “Studying the church through the eyes of its defectors,” Elder Neil A. Maxwell once said, “is like interviewing Judas to understand Jesus. Defectors always tell us more about themselves than about that which they have departed.” "





In one mouth Andersen offers critics kindness. In the other mouth he is branding “defectors” as betrayers akin to “Judas”—who LDS members recognize as a son of perdition—residing with Satan. This kind of labelling is not kindness, Elder Andersen. This is tantamount to creating a barrier between “defectors” and their active-Mormon family. (We know the LDS church indirectly encourages shunning of apostates in its policies. Andersen just repeats it from the global pulpit.)









Andersen also said:

“We might remind the inquirer that some information about Joseph, while true, may be presented completely out of context to his own day and situation.”

Later:

“The negative commentary about the prophet Joseph Smith will increase as we move toward the second coming of the savior. The half-truths and subtle deceptions will not diminish. There will be family members and friends who need your help.”





On the one hand Andersen wants to excuse Joseph Smith by using the context of his day and situation, so that we don’t scrutinize him by our higher standards on a 37 year old Joseph Smith, the prophet, marrying a 14-15 year old teen girl . On the other hand Andersen, knowing the Internet is revealing the true character of Joseph Smith that they could formerly hide, calls on the idea that immorality increases and is more rampant in the latter days as we move toward the end-times.





Andersen wants Joseph to eat his teen cake and have his slice of latter-day wickedness too.





Sorry, Mr. Andersen, you can’t have it both ways. Either we excuse the unacceptable dalliances by our more modern strict views on pedophilia, or dismiss your view that modern culture is more sexually perverse than Smith was. To cherry-pick your moral codes by era and give Joseph a pass while condemning those who view pedophilia as evil is just plain irrational and backwards. Give credit to critics who decry pedophilia no matter where they see it--whether in Warren Jeffs or in Joseph Smith. Be honest and willing to admit your leader had some sick behaviors.





In that last statement, Andersen decried critics of Joseph Smith as perpetuating half-truths and subtle deceptions while never honestly and fully explaining exactly what he meant. He can bad-mouth all he wants, but he needs to give the data and explain it or it looks completely ad-hominem.









The challenge remains, Mr. Andersen, please step up and answer the honest questions about Joseph Smith’s pedophilia. Once you’ve done that, we have a long list of sincere questions about Smith’s involvement in many other questionable ventures, that seen even through the context lens of Smith's 19th century situation would be troubling. After all, there was a lot of anger towards Joseph Smith by the non-Mormons of his day. Oh, that’s right, you would like members to believe that anger stemmed from his testimony of the Book of Mormon, not his dalliances, his destruction of presses, of bank note fraud and more.









Mr. Andersen, come clean about your own words and tell the complete, honest, sincere answer to the humble questions many members do ask. We challenge you.



I'll be listing some questions here, collected from honest, sincere inquirers.



Of course, we can expect that Neil Andersen will rather attack the questioner than to answer questions he doesn't like. It's practically LDS policy to attack the questioner now.





















Another meme from general conference:



Another meme from general conference:

What will you ask the man?