A Mormon Doubts: Hans Mattsson was once a high-ranking
leader for the Mormon church in Europe. He joins others who are experiencing a
crisis of faith and finding few answers from their church
In the small but cohesive Mormon community
where he grew up, Hans Mattsson was a solid believer and a pillar of the
church. He followed his father and grandfather into church leadership and
finally became an “area authority” overseeing the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints throughout Europe.
Hans Mattsson and his wife, Birgitta, in New York last
month. Mr. Mattsson used to oversee the Mormon Church in 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 theBook
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.
“I felt like I had an earthquake under my
feet,” said Mr. Mattsson, now an emeritus area authority. “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.
Greg Prince, a Mormon historian and
businessman in Washington who has held local leadership positions in the
church, shares Mr. Mattsson’s doubts. “Consider a Catholic cardinal suddenly
going to the media and saying about his own church, ‘I don’t buy a lot of this
stuff,’ ” Mr. Prince said. “That’s the level we’re talking about here.”
He said of Mr. Mattsson, “He is, as far as I
know, the highest-ranking church official who has gone public with deep concerns,
who has had a faith crisis and come forward to say he’s going to talk about it
because maybe that will help us all to resolve it.”
Every faith has its skeptics and detractors,
but the Mormon Church’s history creates special challenges. The church was born
in America only 183 years ago, and its founder and prophet, Joseph Smith, and
his disciples left behind reams of papers that still exist, documenting their
work, exposing their warts and sometimes contradicting one another.
“The Roman Catholic Church has had 2,000
years to work through the hiccups in its history,” said Terryl L. Givens, a professor of English,
literature and religion at the University of Richmond and a Mormon believer.
“Mormonism is still an adolescent religion.”
Mr. Givens and his wife, Fiona, recently
presented what they called “Crucible of Doubt” sessions for questioning Mormons
in England, Scotland and Ireland. Hundreds attended each event.
“Sometimes they are just this side of
leaving, and sometimes they are simply faithful members who are looking for
clarity and understanding to add to their faith,” said Mr. Givens, who hosted a
similar discussion in July in Provo, Utah, and has others planned in the United
States. The church is not sponsoring the sessions, Mr. Givens said, but local
bishops give their permission.
Eric Hawkins, a church spokesman, said that
“every church faces this challenge,” adding, “The answer is not to try to
silence critics, but to provide as much information and as much support as
possible to those who may be affected.” Mr. Hawkins also said the Mormon
Church, which counts 14 million members worldwide, added about one million
members every three years.
But 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. The study was conducted by John Dehlin, a Ph.D. student in
psychology at Utah State University and the founder of “Mormon Stories,”
a podcast of interviews with scholars and church members, many critical toward
the church.
Some church leaders are well aware of the
doubters in their midst. 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.”
Mr. Mattsson served as a young missionary in
England; his wife, Birgitta, is a convert. They raised their five children in
the Mormon Church in Sweden, which dates to the 1850s and has about 9,000
members.
He and his twin brother, Leif, both rose
through the ranks of leadership, and in 2000, Hans Mattsson became the first
Swede ever to be named an area authority. (He served until 2005, when he had
heart surgery.) During the week he worked in technology marketing, and on the
weekends he traveled widely throughout Europe, preaching and organizing the
believers.
“I was just in a bubble, and we felt so
happy,” Mr. Mattsson said.
The first doubts filtered up to him from
members who had turned to the Internet to research a Sunday school talk. There
are dozens of Web sites other than the Mormons’ own that present critical views
of the faith.
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 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.
(Mr. Mattsson refused to identify the
apostle, but others said it was Elder L. Tom Perry, a member of the Quorum of
the Twelve Apostles. Elder Perry, now 91, confirmed through a church spokesman
that he did visit a branch in Sweden with skeptical members, but said he
recalled satisfying their questions with a letter written by the church’s
history department.)
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.”
In the last 10 or 15 years, he said, “the
church has come to realize that transparency and candor and historical accuracy
are really the only way to go.” 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. A few weeks ago, they moved to
Spain for health reasons, they said. They left behind some family members who
are unhappy with Mr. Mattsson’s decision to grant interviews to The New York
Times and to the “Mormon Stories” podcast.
“I don’t want to hurt the church,” Mr.
Mattsson said. “I just want the truth.”
sources: newyork times
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Partout dans le monde et aux États-Unis, où la foi a été fondée, l'Église mormone est aux prises avec une vague de doute et de désillusion parmi les membres qui ont rencontré des informations sur l'Internet qui ont saboté ce qu'ils ont appris au sujet de leur foi, d'après les entretiens avec des dizaines des Mormons et ceux qui étudient l'église. «Je sentais que j'avais un tremblement de terre sous mes pieds", a déclaré M. Mattsson, maintenant une autorité de la zone émérite. "Tout ce que je avait appris, tout ce que j'avais été fier de prêcher et témoigner de juste écroulé sous mes pieds. C'était une telle perturbation psychologique et physique presque terrible ».
Vous connaissez l’arbre par son fruit. Un arbre qui ne donne pas de bon fruit
Par ailleurs, on connait une bonne religion non pas par sa belle philosophie, par son sophisme, son dogme stérile ni de ses fameux discours propagandistes mais dans ses actes sociaux qu’elle s’implique. « Le spirituel et le matériel marchent de paire, l’un ne va sans l’autre ». Celui qui donne l’un et néglige l’autre est un hypocrite, un trompeur, un zombificateur par excellence ; il n’a point d’amour et la charité du Christ en lui. Apaisez le ventre avant d’apaiser l’esprit c’est l’acte d’un humaniste, et vous ferez une bonne évangélisation ou prosélytisme.
Cependant dans le contexte haïtien en est-il le cas ? Connaissant qu’Haïti est l’un des pays les plus pauvres de l’hémisphère où les religions poussent comme des racines d’arbre en vue de prôner un évangile déguisé expressément. Mais en passant, on dirait : si l’évangile était de l’argent on ne le donnerait pas à tout le monde , on chercherait à qui le donner, comme c’en a été le cas du mormonisme qui se trompait de bonne foi en croyant que la religion était de l’argent qu’il l’avait refusée de 1830 à 1978 de la prêcher aux noirs, aux gens de couleurs et aux blancs pauvres, sous prétexte que ces dits gents sont maudits et sont de la race faible juste qu’à ce qu’il se réalise qu’il s’était trompé de bonne foi en errant, en blasphémant, et en mentant audacieusement pendant toutes ces années dans le nom sacré de Dieu. Quelle perversion au mormonisme de prétendre être la seule vraie église de Jésus-Christ rétablie dans notre dispensation pour nous apporter le vrai évangile du Christ ?
En outre, réalisant que l’évangile est chose gratuite, il l’offre aujourd’hui à tous à profusion, juste pour parapher combien qu’il est difficile de partager l’argent à tous sous une forme de gestion imminente, même l’évangile est devenu quelque fois une forme de boutique et de magasin sans étagère pour gagner de l’argent disait toujours mon grand-père et ma grand-mère.
On se tache de faire une esquisse, un panorama impartial, chose qui n’est pas facile quand on est fanatique, zélé et sectariste. Le fanatisme a été pendant beaucoup de temps responsable des bains de sang qui ont inondé toute la planète entière. Il faut se méfier d’un motivateur, d’un zélé, d’un fanatique, puisque quand on en est, on devient aveugle et crédule par excellente, on est prêt à tout faire pour préserver son rang et son camp.
Combien de gens sont assis sous un beau château, une belle église, un temple géant pour louer Dieu, comme si Dieu lui-même est matérialiste ou idolâtre. Chose qui est considérée comme vanité, pendant ce temps, ces dits gens adhérents périssent sous la misère noire, vivent dans la mendicité, dans la crasse. Ne serait ce pas rendu une bonne louange et gloire à Dieu de subvenir aux besoins de ces gens au lieu de construire ces merveilleux châteaux périssables et vaniteux. Comme dit dans l’acte des apôtres « Moi le seigneur Dieu, je ne demeure pas dans des temples construisent avec des mains d’Homme » En ce qui concerne, la religion mormone dite « Eglise de Jésus-Christ des sains des derniers jours(LDS) se plongent depuis la nuit des temps dans la construction de temples géants, très couteux sous prétexte que ce sont la maison du seigneur, la maison de Dieu sur terre et qu’ils y habitent. Quelle folie, quelle aberration, quelle vanité ! Elle ramène et rabaisse Dieu à une espèce d’idolâtrie de temple géant pendant que ses membres dans les pays pauvres surgissent dans la crasse aucune. Elle ferait beaucoup de bien si elle utilisait ces milliards aux œuvres sociales. On est pas sans savoir que la religion mormone(LDS) est fondée sous une loi de consécration, c’est-à-dire sur l’accumulation de la richesse, donc pour atteindre certains postes clefs de cette dite religion, on doit être riche et sa richesse sera consacrée à celle-ci. En statuant cette religion sur cette dite loi de consécration, les autorités de l’église mormone(LDS) se réjouissent toujours à chaque fois qu’une personne riche devienne membre de leur religion, cependant, quand c’est une personne pauvre, ils ne se réjouissent pas. On dirait que c’est une religion bourgeoise fondée sur des avoirs et accumulations de richesse.