By Sandra Tanner
While Mormonism can be challenged on its theology, its historical claims are equally vulnerable. Joseph Smith’s visions were supposedly the result of certain historical events. As President Hinckley said, “It [Smith’s first vision] either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud.”1
These issues were brought to the attention of certain LDS members in Germany with the effect of causing a number of prominent members to leave the church. A recent article in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought stated:
Then, in 1996, a member of the [Bremen] ward encountered a couple of disturbing articles about the early history of the church from the Utah Lighthouse Ministry, a conservative Protestant organization with an anti-Mormon mission. Attempting to come to terms with these, he asked friends in the ward for help and, in so doing, unintentionally started a wave of apostasy. Another brother translated parts of these articles into German and distributed them to members. In the fall discussion circles formed and letters were written to local and regional church authorities, questioning the official version of church history. The issues at stake were, first, the different versions of the First Vision as evidence of a developing concept of God rather than an initially clear and complete picture through revelation; second, differences between the Book of Commandments and the Doctrine and Covenants as evidence of changed (or possibly forged) revelations; and, finally, controversy over whether the Book of Mormon was a fiction or a genuinely ancient record. The members were especially upset because these papers had been written twenty years earlier (when most of them had just begun their membership in the church), but evidently no church response or explanation had ever been made available.
In February 1997 the mission president tried to solve the problem in one stroke by inviting everyone to a question-and-answer evening. During that meeting tension became acute between the group questioning the church’s truthfulness regarding its history and members affirming their testimonies and high esteem for the Book of Mormon and the First Vision. The mission president did not answer the questions specifically, but called for a spiritual approach when hard historical facts were placed in question. When he defined truth as “whatever the prophet says, if he is not mistaken,” some members decided to leave the ward. Two former bishops and a former branch president were among those who left. All together thirty people left, most of them long active in responsible church positions such as branch and district presidencies, district and stake high councils. The wards, of course, were left in an uproar and are still trying to regain composure. The Delmonhorst Branch was subsequently dissolved. The remaining dwarf units continue to struggle.
(“One Hundred Eighteen Years of Attitude: The History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Free and Hanseatic City of Bremen,” by Jorg Dittberner, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 36, no. 1, Spring 2003, p. 68)
Problems with Smith’s first vision are clearly laid out in Inventing Mormonism by H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters, and in our book, Mormonism—Shadow or Reality?
We believe early Mormon historical material shows that Joseph Smith was the inventor, not revelator, of LDS scripture.
Even LDS authors have dealt with many of these historical issues. Grant Palmer, a retired LDS educator, has written a well-researched book, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, dealing with some of the major historical problems facing Mormonism. Another valuable book from an LDS general authority and scholar is Studies of the Book of Mormon, by B. H. Roberts.
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