By Jerald and Sandra Tanner
In the Salt Lake City Messenger for September 1988, we noted that a statement by Walter Martin of Christian Research Institute had finally ended a controversy between our ministry and Ed Decker. At the heart of the disagreement was a question regarding the influence of witchcraft and Satanism on the Mormon temple ceremony. We felt that although there were occultic influences in the endowment ritual, Mr. Decker had made some very exaggerated claims in his newsletter. Furthermore, we maintained that a member of his staff, William Schnoebelen, also misrepresented the facts in a booklet he coauthored with James Spencer. This pamphlet is entitled, Mormonism’s Temple of Doom. Ed Decker had called upon his very close personal friend, Walter Martin and CRI, the organization Martin had founded, to settle the dispute, and Decker and Schnoebelen agreed to submit “ourselves and this ministry to them in the matter. We agree to submit to their findings and take whatever action they deem necessary.” Walter Martin and his researchers looked into the matter and finally issued a statement which strongly supported our position. In this report, Walter Martin stated:
Herein is our position pertaining to some of the views advanced in the booklet. . . . we agree . . . that there are similarities and parallels among Mormonism and some forms of modern Witchcraft and Satanism. However, as Utah Lighthouse Ministry and others have correctly pointed out, what similarities there are stem not from Mormonism borrowing directly from Witchcraft or Satanism, but the commonality that all three have in being heavily influenced by Free Masonry . . .
We understand how and why Mr. Schnoebelen arrived at his conclusion . . . We however cannot endorse his premises, nor the overall conclusion as represented in Mormonism’s Temple of Doom. . . . overall we cannot approve the booklet and all of its conclusions.
We obtained this statement directly from the Christian Research Institute, which can be viewed here:
[Click here to see the CRI statement.]
In a letter to us dated September 18, 1988, Ed Decker promised that the booklet would be modified to conform to Walter Martin’s criticism:
This letter is to acknowledge that Christian Research Institute (CRI) has completed its review . . . It is our understanding that they have forwarded a copy of their conclusions to you . . . Our commitment to Dr. Martin was that we would take whatever correction they gave in the matter. To that end, I have met with both Bill Schnoebelen and Jim Spencer with regard to Dr. Martin’s statements about the “Temple of Doom” book. They readily agreed to modify the next printing of the book, which is about due, to report Dr. Martin’s conclusions regarding the historical origins of the temple ritual. Dr. Martin also assured us that CRI would continue to carry the book as soon as that change has been made.
Since Walter Martin and his researchers bluntly stated that they “cannot endorse his [Schnoebelen’s] premises, nor the overall conclusion as represented in Mormonism’s Temple of Doom,” we presumed that the booklet would have to be carefully rewritten to pass muster. We accepted Ed Decker’s promise that they would “modify the next printing of the book.” To our surprise, however, when we obtained the new printing, we could not find any changes regarding the important matters which had been brought to their attention by CRI. It is true that a date has been changed from 1970 to 1971 on page 63, and the word “Roman” has been added before “Catholic” on the next line, but these changes are trivial and do not in any way correct the serious errors in the book. Moreover, there was no answer to the weighty charges we had published in the enlarged edition of The Lucifer God Doctrine. It would appear that the authors did not want to make any changes which would indicate that they were backing down from their extreme conclusions or that could be used by the Mormons to show dishonesty was used in the first edition.
Since Walter Martin has passed away, we will probably never know exactly what transpired between him and the three individuals with whom we disagreed—Decker, Schnoebelen and Spencer. We do know, however, that they completely ignored the criticism found in Martin’s official CRI statement and at least one of the items which Martin had specifically pointed out to them. In a letter dated February 2, 1989, William Schnoebelen acknowledged:
. . . we submitted ourselves to Dr. Walter Martin and CRI . . . He disagrees with one statement in my book, on p. 14 which says that “Ample evidence exists to prove that Joseph Smith stole the temple endowment from Masonry or witchcraft.” He would prefer to say that “Mormonism, Freemasonry, and Wicca are streams of the same Satanic river.”
Since Mr. Schnoebelen admitted that Walter Martin was displeased with this statement, we would expect the booklet to have been altered to conform to Martin’s suggestion. Instead, however, the statement reads exactly the same as in the old edition: “Ample evidence exists to prove that Joseph Smith stole the temple endowment from Masonry or witchcraft . . .” (see p. 14)
While there was a great deal of talk about submitting to CRI, there seems to have been no action to fit the rhetoric. It would appear that these men originally went to Walter Martin because they felt he would come down heavily on their side of the issue and take us to task. When CRI’s final conclusions agreed with ours, they simply ignored the criticism and refused to submit as they had promised.
At any rate, although we have remained silent in our newsletter concerning this issue since November 1988, those who have opposed our attempt to stop the dissemination of inaccurate information on the Mormon temple ritual have become increasingly vocal. James Spencer, for example, wrote an article entitled, “THE VINDICATION OF TEMPLE OF DOOM” (see Through the Maze, Issue No. 23). On May 14, 1990, Ed Decker appeared on the radio program, The Bible Answer Man, and made these comments:
“Well, we don’t agree on some particular items regarding the Mormon temple ritual . . . The Tanners, Jerald in particular, feels that I’m a little too harsh on that and that I’ve drawn conclusions that shouldn’t be drawn . . . I think that we’ve been vindicated.”
Those who are still supporting Mormonism’s Temple of Doom are circulating what William Schnoebelen claims is a copy of a “recent letter from Dr. Martin.” As strange as it may seem, this letter appears to give support to the very booklet Walter Martin had previously disapproved. While it is possible that Martin could have prepared such a statement, reason would tell us that the use of the endorsement would have to be contingent upon the authors modifying the booklet “to report Dr. Martin’s conclusions regarding the historical origins of the temple ritual” (Letter from Ed Decker, September 18, 1988).
Since there was absolutely no attempt to correct the false information in the booklet, it is obvious that such an endorsement would be of no value. A member of the staff at CRI, in fact, told us that it was his understanding that Mormonism’s Temple of Doom would be revised and he was later shocked to learn that it was not corrected to conform with the truth. He felt that Walter Martin had put his full trust in these men and had no idea that they would not keep their word.
However this may be, a photocopy of the letter which Mr. Schnoebelen mailed on February 2, 1989, contained these words at the end of the letter: “(Signed) Dr. Walter Martin[,] Author, The Kingdom of the Cults,” That the word “Signed,” appeared in parentheses, clearly shows that it is not an actual photocopy of the original letter. The original letter, of course, should have Walter Martin’s handwritten signature on it. It is obvious, therefore, that what Schnoebelen sent was a copy of the letter which had been completely retyped. One would think that it would be simpler for Mr. Schnoebelen to make a photocopy of the original. In addition, it would appear more authoritative with Walter Martin’s own handwritten signature on it. Although there may be some other explanation, we suspect that there is some reason that the original letter has to be suppressed. It could be that the original contained additional information which might be embarrassing to the authors of the booklet. For example, Walter Martin could have detailed how the booklet would have to be revised before they could use the statement. Whatever the case may be, we would like to see the original letter in its entirety or at least a good photocopy of it. A retyped copy of this controversial document is certainly not sufficient.
One would think that after the devastating evidence we printed in The Lucifer-God Doctrine, Ed Decker would be more careful in his public statements concerning Mormonism. Instead, however, he seems to have thrown caution to the wind. On the radio program, The Bible Answer Man, May 15, 1990, Mr. Decker gave a revealing demonstration of his ability to fabricate evidence to support his own opinions. He spoke concerning the film, The God Makers, claiming that he was the moving force behind the production of that film. Mr. Decker apparently felt that he had to impress the listening audience with the effect the film had on slowing down the growth of the Mormon Church. He, therefore, made this fantastic statement regarding a speech given by Mormon Apostle M. Russell Ballard at Brigham Young University on November 14, 1989:
Well, Elder Ballard spoke at BYU . . . and he said that in evaluating the 1980s and the 1990s, he said that the church had planned and expected 10,000,000 people in the church at the end of the 1980s and I remember in the early 1980s that that was spoken of a lot more than it was in the end of the 1980s. . . . he said that the church had only 7,000,000 members and while that’s an outstanding number of people who are in the church today, he said that’s 3,000,000 short of the plan, and that instead of seeing 20,000,000 people—doubling again in the next decade—they could only see like about 14,000,000 people if the trend continued at the pace the church was going today. And he said the reason that the church had not grow[n] was primarily at the foot of the former Mormons and specifically the “God maker” film, and so I feel like that’s what we accomplished.
We were immediately suspicious of Mr. Decker’s statements concerning Apostle Ballard’s speech. The Mormon leaders are always very careful not to say anything that would give comfort to their critics. To make such an admission at a BYU Devotional would be like giving gun powder to the enemy. At any rate, H. Michael Marquardt has provided us with an audio tape of the speech and we checked it out carefully to see if it contained the comments Ed Decker attributed to Apostle Ballard. Unfortunately for Mr. Decker’s credibility, we were unable to find anything concerning The God Makers causing a loss of membership in Ballard’s speech or even anything concerning the church losing 3,000,000 prospective converts. Instead, Apostle Ballard boasted that: “Worldwide church membership has now increased to more than 7,000,000. . . . The day of 50 to 60 thousand full-time missionaries is not far off.”
The speech does have one brief mention of The God Makers, but it is only a passing reference to the fact that the church has always had enemies. Mr. Marquardt has transcribed this part of the tape and we have verified its accuracy: “In recent years the church has been attacked openly by producers of the film The Godmakers. A concerted effort by a band of enemies of the church is underway at this very hour.”
The speech gives no indication that either The God Makers or the work of any of the church’s critics has had any effect on the growth of the church. Moreover, Apostle Ballard never mentioned anything about the plan to have 10,000,000 members by 1990, nor did he refer to the church’s plan to have 20,000,000 members by the turn of the century.
It was pointed out to us that this erroneous information concerning Apostle Ballard’s speech was also printed in Ed Decker’s Saints Alive in Jesus Newsletter in January 1990. In this issue we find the following:
Elder M. Russell Ballard spoke at BYU according to The Provo Herald of 11/14/89. He announced that the Church had . . . “more than 7 million members . . .” Viewers of THE GOD MAKERS will recall an LDS graph in the early part of the film which predicted that the church would hit 10 million by 1990. Ballard lamented that the church did not meet that membership goal[.] He laid the blame for the failure at the feet of the opposition and specifically blamed the film, THE GOD MAKERS. . . . In this decade, the church grew from 4.4 million to 7.0 million. However we praise God that those figures reflect a 3 million member shortfall. We have been led to believe that the spiritual offensive spearheaded by THE GOD MAKERS has cut their planned gains by more than 50%!
The reader will notice that Ed Decker attributed this information to the November 14, 1989, issue of The Provo Herald. This newspaper, like the tape of the address, has absolutely nothing in it that supports the claim that “Ballard lamented that the church did not meet that membership goal,” and raises still another problem. The reader is referred to “an LDS graph in the early part of the film [The God Makers] which predicted that the church would hit 10 million by 1990.” When we examined a video of The God Makers, we found a graph, but it did not have the projected church growth for 1990. It was pointed out to us, however, that it was possible that when the film was transferred to the video that the right side of this graph had been accidentally cut off. A check with a ministry that had a copy of the film revealed that this was the case. The graph did have a projected growth for 1990 as Ed Decker had claimed. This graph, however, did not support Mr. Decker’s conclusion. Instead of 10,000,000 members, the church’s graph predicted a growth of only 6,491,200 by 1990. Since the church’s magazine, Ensign, listed 7,300,000 members for the last day of 1989, it would appear that church growth had actually exceeded the projection by 808,800.
In addition, it is clear from the graph in The God Makers that the projection applies to the end of 1990 not to the end of 1989 as Mr. Decker had assumed. We must, therefore, take into consideration the increase which will take place during this year. In 1989, the church membership increased by 580,000. Since it will probably increase by at least that amount if not more in 1990, we have to add these members to the 808,800. This would give a total of 1,388,800 more members than had been projected for 1990. Since Mr. Decker had claimed that the church had fallen 3,000,000 short of the goal, this would mean that his figures were off by well over 4,000,000!
Now, while we do not doubt that The God Makers had some effect on the growth of the Mormon Church, the church stepped up its missionary program and actually gained more members than it had predicted. There is just no way that we can believe that Mr. Decker’s work, or that of all of the ministries to the Mormons combined, caused “a 3 million member shortfall” in the membership of the church. Ed Decker went even further in his interview on The Bible Answer Man program. As we have shown, he claimed that Apostle Ballard also lamented that because of the damage which had been done, the church would now only have 14,000,000 members by the turn of the century and thus there would be a shortfall of 6,000,000!
It seems only fair to expect any ministry that criticizes the misrepresentations in LDS history and doctrine to be equally concerned about accuracy in its own statements and literature. When we dealt with the changes in Joseph Smith’s story of the First Vision, we were forced to the conclusion that he either deliberately changed his story to fit his evolving theology or he was living in a fantasy world and could not separate the truth from fiction. What can we say with regard to Ed Decker’s report of Apostle Ballard’s speech? Using exactly the same standard as we have used in our study of Mormonism, we feel that the situation looks very grave.
Although we do not know what was going on in Mr. Decker’s mind, it is obvious that the truth has been completely distorted. Moreover, some ministries have reprinted this false information and have compounded the problem. They, no doubt, did not have any intention of misleading anyone. Mr. Decker was taken at his word. After all, it is very hard for many people to believe that those engaged in ministries would attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of their readers in this manner. Nevertheless, we simply have to face the truth about the matter.
It would appear that what happened was that Ed Decker received a copy of The Provo Herald and saw that Apostle Ballard had mentioned The God Makers. This, of course, is some type of an achievement because the Mormon leaders hardly ever refer to the works of their adversaries. Mr. Decker must have been extremely impressed by this article and either deliberately set out to deceive or else allowed his imagination to run wild. In any case, he remembered seeing some sort of graph indicating that the church would grow to 10,000,000 members. He felt that it was the graph he used in The God Makers. As we have shown, however, this graph actually projected that by 1990 the church would have only 6,491,200 members. Although we do not know for certain, it may be that Mr. Decker was actually thinking of a graph he saw in the Salt Lake City Messenger or in our book, The Case Against Mormonism, vol. 3, page 164. In the book, two graphs which we prepared are shown. The graphs themselves could not have been the source, but just above the graphs we reported that the Mormons predicted “that if they continue to grow at the same rate they will have 10,000,000 members by 2000 A. D. (Deseret News, Church Section, October 21, 1967, page 1).” If this was the source, Mr. Decker’s memory failed him to some extent. Although the statement concerning “10,000,000 members” fits Decker’s comments, it really referred to the year 2000, not 1990.
With this incorrect information in his mind, Ed Decker reasoned that if the Mormons only had 7,000,000 members by 1990, this would be a “3 million member shortfall.” Since he was convinced that The God Makers had a very significant effect on the Mormon Church, he just knew that this “shortfall” must mainly stem from his work with regard to that film. The next step, of course, was to put all this information into the mouth of a Mormon leader—i.e., Apostle Ballard. This, of course, is the same type of thing that Mark Hofmann did when he forged documents. We are not saying that Ed Decker created any actual document other than his newsletter or even that he did this deliberately. Nevertheless, the facts speak for themselves; a fabricated story has been created by Mr. Decker and it has been widely circulated throughout the land.
Now that Ed Decker’s ability to make up stories has been clearly demonstrated, it raises serious questions concerning many of his sensational claims. On The Bible Answer Man program, May 15, 1990, Ed Decker was asked: “Have you experienced someone actually trying to kill you or is this just sensationalism?” In response to that question, Decker replied that it had nothing to do with sensationalism but, in fact, really occurred:
“. . . it comes with the territory and not very often or highly successful, thank God . . . we just take it with a grain of salt . . . I was poisoned in Scotland . . . it comes with the territory and [is] something you have to learn to live with.”
In the Saints Alive in Jesus Newsletter, September 1986, Mr. Decker wrote: “Pray for my health, which has deteriorated badly. The day after Capstone, I came down with Legionnaires’ Disease. . . . my body still had not recovered from the Scotland poisoning and the flesh was (and is) weak.” Although Decker was supposed to have been given a dose of arsenic poison which was several times stronger than that required to kill a person, he claimed that God had healed him.
A man who was with Ed Decker at the time of the alleged poisoning has called us from Scotland and expressed his disbelief in Decker’s story. Another man has been seriously investigating this matter and claims to have evidence that the whole story was hatched up. The charge that Mr. Decker has been making up sensational stories to achieve both notoriety and contributions is very serious indeed. If the “Scotland poisoning” really did occur, there should be some witnesses available or evidence in hospital or police records which would verify the story. If Mr. Decker has any evidence to that effect, we would be willing to print it in our next newsletter. If, however, he was not actually tested for arsenic poisoning, then there is no reason to believe the story.
Ed Decker has created a great deal of fear in the hearts of many people with his stories. Many Christians are afraid to come to Utah for fear they might lose their lives. We recently received a very strange call from Mr. Decker in which he claimed he had received an anonymous call from a man who told him he was part of an assassination team that received directions from a member of the First Presidency in the Mormon Church. According to Decker, the man said that three people had been marked for death. One of the authors (Jerald Tanner) was among that number and was to be killed with a bomb. Ed Decker indicated that the individual involved in the conspiracy later felt very bad about the matter and had decided to expose the plot.
We felt that it was very strange that this man—if he really existed—would call Ed Decker because Decker’s name was not even on the hit list. It seemed far more reasonable that he would have contacted the individuals whose lives were in danger. Mr. Decker claimed that the informant told him that his name was not on the list because he had become such a well-known public figure that they did not dare assassinate him for fear of the bad publicity. In any case, we found it very interesting that the Mormon leader who was supposed to oversee the assassination team was the very same man Decker himself had been strongly attacking in his newsletter. Although we can not prove it, we strongly suspect that this entire story, like the story concerning Apostle Ballard, was a figment of Ed Decker’s fertile imagination.
In the book, The Lucifer-God Doctrine, we present a great deal of evidence to show the unreliability of the work on the Mormon temple ceremony which has been published by Ed Decker, William Schnoebelen and James Spencer. Until the objections we have raised in this book have been specifically answered, no one should be deceived into believing that their work has been vindicated. The Lucifer-God Doctrine is available from Utah Lighthouse Ministry.
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