I used to believe that anti-Mormon meant lies about the Church. I have now learned that the term anti-Mormon means truth that can hurt the Church.
I find it almost comically ironic how the Church in their online Gospel Topics is now publishing their admission to the truth of claims that Fawn Brodie as well as an abounding number of other authors have written about that subsequently earned them the title of "Anti-Mormon" and caused them to be excommunicated. To be clear, I understand the Church's definition of apostasy and how it wasn't necessarily the topics that they wrote about so much as the influence of their publications on everyone else's faith that caused their excommunications.
However; because of the Church's teachings, for my entire life I have believed that Joseph Smith translated (in the traditional sense of the word) the Book of Mormon from behind a curtain by the miraculous means of gazing at the characters on the golden plates, page after page, through a sacredly mysterious Urim and Thummim, which caused the English words to appear in the crystal eye-piece and subsequently be dictated to a scribe on the other side of the curtain. (Today I can hardly fathom that I even believed THAT.) Now that the Church is admitting that they have been deceiving me in that that was NOT how it was done, is this not going to be a detriment to my testimony? (I find that their new description is absolutely, unbelievably preposterous.) Could their admission perhaps cause my faith to falter and wouldn't the Church therefore, by its own definition, be required to excommunicate itself? My question is... Because the Church is causing me to lose my faith, doesn't this make the Church itself guilty of committing apostasy?
They are now doing what they have disciplined members for doing in the past. Until the last few years, I have spent my life obediently heeding my church leader's advice by refraining from reading the "Anti-Mormon lies" and now the Prophet is telling me that the lies are true. Now I'm thoroughly confused and it makes me want to gag.
It's amazing..! Apparently the Church is anti-Mormon..!
When I eventually leave the Church, I guess I can always claim that it was the Church who excommunicated itself from me!!
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Dear Mormon Church,
As a result of the disciplinary council consisting of "Critics Yearning For Truth" that has been held over the past number of years, I am sadly compelled to inform you of the Council's decision. We find that because of your use of smoke and mirrors, vacillating changes in your claims of absolute truth, as well as other acts of deceit that are unbecoming of a faith-solid, unwavering, true believing architect of eternal, celestial ideals and goals, that you be excommunicated from yourself.
Sincerely,
Your Ex-bishopric Member
