MoSto podcast Denver Snuffer: non-polygamist fundamentalist

[Uncle Ted]

This has the makings of something that could really blow up and make for bad press for the church. Snuffer is probably a nut case, but he comes across very humble and sincere and certainly harmless.

Also, with all the qualified men in an area like Sandy, it seems really poor judgement to call the CEO of a questionably ethical MLM company to be a stake president. It seems the church would want to distance itself a little from the Utah MLM's.

And Orin Hatch, who seems to make all these Utah MLMs possible.

Edit: Add Jason Chaffetz, Jon Huntsman, and Mitt Romney to the list...

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/20...short-sellers/



Good hell. I wonder if they got to Harry Reid yet.

Edit 2: LOL...

There's an old joke in the direct-selling business: MLM stands for "Mormons losing money." It's no coincidence that Latter-day Saints have a reputation as having a particular affinity for direct selling. Their missionary work, which requires knocking on doors, spreading a message, and recruiting followers, often in foreign countries, offers perfect training.

[Uncle Ted]

For the record, I suspect that he's probably a nutcase insofar as he claims to have "seen" Jesus ("seen" in square quotes because I think it's far from clear what this means in the LDS tradition). Maybe this point is too obvious to make, but the kinds of arguments we tend to use to dismiss Snuffer are pretty much the same as the ones that non-believers use to dismiss Joseph Smith. That is, as the kids say, awkward.

In fact, it's prima facie just a little bit odd to hold that Snuffer is a nutcase because he claims to have seen Jesus when we all know very well that not even the apostles see him anymore. It's not surprising that Snuffer has garnered himself a following (which, in my view, would be the real problem here, rather than his own idiosyncratic views and personal experiences).

I haven't read any of his books but it seems to me Snuffer is just helping Mormons try to become "christians"...

Although I know of no one who has left the church or “lost their testimony” as a consequence of reading my book, Passing the Heavenly Gift (“PTHG”), there continue to be accusations that this has/does happen. Therefore, again, I want to reaffirm the purpose of PTHG.
[...]
Today there is widespread sharing of anti-Mormon material among other denominations. The best defense is an organized offense. In many areas, Elders (who are easily identified) are followed in order to discover who they are teaching. Then the investigator is contacted by volunteers who distribute anti-Mormon material to prevent conversions. Some years ago there were ministries who bragged they could not only prevent conversions, but they could take it one step further: They could convert the Mormon Elder! That led to a growth in seminars, literature and preaching about ways to “convert Mormon Elders” while they are on their missions.


I do not think there has been any significant success in actually converting active Mormon missionaries. But that isn’t the point. It is the Evangelical perception of that success that has fueled two things: First, it has helped insulate converts, because if the Elders can be converted, then Mormonism must not be true (or so the reasoning goes). Second, it creates more confrontation by anti-Mormon forces aimed directly at our missionaries.


The Evangelicals have realized that the best way to practice this kind of undermining of Mormon missionary efforts is to take the soft-sale approach. Instead of Bible-bashing, just ask questions the Elders can’t answer. Make the Elders do the thinking and work to solve the riddles. When they can’t, then they are filled with doubts that linger.


This is not just happenstance. This is an organized and inter-denominational effort that began decades ago. It now bears so much fruit it is is alarming to Mormons. Returned missionaries are falling away. When I was in charge of missionary work in my stake, I attended regional leadership meetings at which the Mission President and a Seventy advised us of the trends underway. The inactive church members were called “low hanging fruit” who could swell our ranks just by returning to activity. One category of the “low hanging fruit” was the returned missionary population. At that time, (years ago now) it was estimated there were 40,000 returned Elders along the Wasatch Front, from Ogden to Provo, who were so inactive we didn’t have a reliable address for them. The suggestion was to contact the families of the inactive, returned missionaries and locate them that way.
[...]
To be clear:


1. I sustain today’s church leaders as prophets, seers and revelators. The scriptures give them the right to use those titles (D&C 107: 92). They preside, and it is their right to do so. They have our common consent and ought to be upheld by our “confidence, faith and prayers” (D&C 107: 22). I uphold them in this way. They carry heavy burdens and have my sympathy, not my judgment, for any human frailties they display.


2. It is utterly untrue that I have said the church is apostate. I reject the accusation. If the narrative I suggest in PTHG is true, then the Lord’s post-Nauvoo ire is evidence the Lord is still watching over and intends to further His work with the members of this church. Those whom He loves, He chastens. (Heb. 12: 5-11; Helaman 12: 3; D&C 95: 1.) Mine is not a faithless, but a faith filled history. I’ve reiterated this before and reiterate it again. (See my post: The Traditions of Men, Part 1, April 21, 2010.)


3. I believe the church possesses the right to seal on earth and seal in heaven, and have agreed with President Eyring’s general conference talk on the subject.


4. I believe that all organizations, including the church, tend to characterize their history in a light most favorable to them. They have that right. I take no issue with it and think it should be expected. That does not change the divine origin and mission of the church.


5. The church provides ordinances required to see and enter into the kingdom of heaven, in addition to providing us with the necessary scriptures. Through the church, we receive the foundation of faith, repentance, baptism and enduring to the end. I hope to endure to the end myself and I seek to help others do so.


I am still in the battle to help people find and focus upon Christ. As a faithful Latter-day Saint I owe my knowledge of the Lord to the tools I obtained through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have enjoyed every minute of my association with the church, and I intend to remain a faithful member. The current war we face did not originate with blogs or bloggers. The blogosphere is following the battle, not leading it. It began long ago, and the efforts to deal with it here are because of the many losses we have and are suffering. They are needless losses. We just need to be willing to discuss and recognize there certainly are some tough questions. They don’t go away because we ignore them. They grow.

http://denversnuffer.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2013-08-04T09:44:00-06:00

I have seen what Snuffer describes above happen first hand many times here in Texas. For example, if you walk into a typical "christian" bookstore around here and ask for the LDS section you won't find anything published by Deseret and/or Signature books.

And if Snuffer is a nutcase for claiming to have seen Christ (was that with his actual or "spiritual" eyes?) then Joseph Smith must be a super nutcase for claiming that he saw both the Father and the Son as a 14 year old (or 15 depending on the account but let's just go with "early teenage") boy. Nevermind what it says in the scriptures like Section 67.

[Harry Tic]

"Today there is widespread sharing of anti-Mormon material among other denominations. The best defense is an organized offense. In many areas, Elders (who are easily identified) are followed in order to discover who they are teaching. Then the investigator is contacted by volunteers who distribute anti-Mormon material to prevent conversions. Some years ago there were ministries who bragged they could not only prevent conversions, but they could take it one step further: They could convert the Mormon Elder! That led to a growth in seminars, literature and preaching about ways to “convert Mormon Elders” while they are on their missions."

If nothing else, this illuminates for me the meaning of some previously obscure passages of scripture (from Isaiah, I think):

'For verily in that day that he to whom my word was given esteems it as a thing of naught and lifteth up his heel against me, even then shall I cause him to stumble and yea, his hands shall be as if they were of brick.

But inasmuch as my people rebel not against me and give heed unto my servant, yea, even that Stallion mighty and strong, even then shall I send again messengers who are lanky of stature, and fleet of foot, and yea, verily, their hands shall be as of butter. And they shall take the place of him who has fallen from grace in my sight and the former shall verily be forgotten."

As for Snuffer himself, I'm ready to call BS. It seems to me that once you're chillin' with the big J hisself, you wouldn't give a rat's patootie what your SP or even the boys in SLC think about you. You've arrived.

[Uncle Ted]

"Today there is widespread sharing of anti-Mormon material among other denominations. The best defense is an organized offense. In many areas, Elders (who are easily identified) are followed in order to discover who they are teaching. Then the investigator is contacted by volunteers who distribute anti-Mormon material to prevent conversions. Some years ago there were ministries who bragged they could not only prevent conversions, but they could take it one step further: They could convert the Mormon Elder! That led to a growth in seminars, literature and preaching about ways to “convert Mormon Elders” while they are on their missions."

If nothing else, this illuminates for me the meaning of some previously obscure passages of scripture (from Isaiah, I think):

'For verily in that day that he to whom my word was given esteems it as a thing of naught and lifteth up his heel against me, even then shall I cause him to stumble and yea, his hands shall be as if they were of brick.

But inasmuch as my people rebel not against me and give heed unto my servant, yea, even that Stallion mighty and strong, even then shall I send again messengers who are lanky of stature, and fleet of foot, and yea, verily, their hands shall be as of butter. And they shall take the place of him who has fallen from grace in my sight and the former shall verily be forgotten."

A friend of mine wrote a program once that generated Isaiah passages. It took the words Isaiah as an input, and using a simple markov chain generator, it would spit out passages that even a religion professor at BYU swore was in the scriptures somewhere. Passing the turing test is simple with dumb religion professors in the context of Isaiah, I guess.

As for Snuffer himself, I'm ready to call BS. It seems to me that once you're chillin' with the big J hisself, you wouldn't give a rat's patootie what your SP or even the boys in SLC think about you. You've arrived.

So are you saying that if someone claims to have seen the face of Christ (spiritually?) then they are BS'ing? Is it time for the LDS church to get rid of scripture like section 67 (or at least rewrite the D&C student manual...).

The scriptures record that many ancient prophets saw God, and the present dispensation was opened by a vision in which God and Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove. But several places in the Doctrine and Covenants, including section 67, teach that this privilege is not reserved for prophets alone but for anyone willing to pay the price required in personal righteousness (see D&C 50:45–46; 88:68–69; 93:1; 130:3).

[Harry Tic]

So are you saying that if someone claims to have seen the face of Christ (spiritually?) then they are BS'ing? Is it time for the LDS church to get rid of scripture like section 67 (or at least rewrite the D&C student manual...).

No, I wouldn't say that they're BSing necessarily. But if you claim to have an experience like that and you continue to care about what the NuSkin CEO thinks of you.... you probably are BSing.

[Uncle Ted]

No, I wouldn't say that they're BSing necessarily. But if you have an experience like that and you continue to care about what the NuSkin CEO thinks of you.... you probably are BSing.

Hmm... it seems that this Denver Snuffer actually doesn't care what the NuSkin CEO thinks given his recent postings on his blog. In the letter from Truman Hunt it states:

3. To cancel your planned speaking tour...

Snuffer not only posts the letter from Hunt but announces that he will be releasing recordings of his up coming talks. I guess he believes that Jesus has his back. Of course, it isn't the first time someone has thought that.

[Katy Lied]

I wonder if its a waste of time for other denominations to try to convert mormons. Most of the time they end up unaffiliated with any church. Even RMs who are inactive-- they rarely go to another church, for tribal reasons. Are there really a lot of Luke Ashworths out there?

[Uncle Ted]

I wonder if its a waste of time for other denominations to try to convert mormons. Most of the time they end up unaffiliated with any church. Even RMs who are inactive-- they rarely go to another church, for tribal reasons. Are there really a lot of Luke Ashworths out there?

Hmm... mormons tend to push their religion on other people (something about the threefold fourfold mission of the Church). It is better, from their perspective, to get a mormon to leave her church and watch football on Sundays than to have her trying to convert others from their fold.

[Harry Tic]

I wonder if its a waste of time for other denominations to try to convert mormons. Most of the time they end up unaffiliated with any church. Even RMs who are inactive-- they rarely go to another church, for tribal reasons. Are there really a lot of Luke Ashworths out there?

I understand someone becoming agnostic but I just don't get it when someone converts to evangelical Christianity. My best guess is that most people that do it are practitioners of what I think of as "therapeutic Christianity." They are less interested in thinking about Biblical hermeneutics and coming to an honest "Biblical" faith than they are in viewing the gospel and Christ as something like a 12-step program, not terribly different from AA, whose primary function it is to save them from their own dysfunctionality.

Of course there is a grain of truth in their view, insofar as the Atonement should change and heal us, but I think that that more and more conservative American Christianity tends to regard Christ as a kind of ersatz therapy for just about everything. Even in the LDS church we're not immune to this totally instrumental and self-centered way of seeing the Atonement.

Sorry for the threadjack.

[Uncle Ted]

Snuffer's latest blog posting gives some detail on why he is being called in...

http://denversnuffer.blogspot.com/2013/08/current-events.html

Third, my former Stake President defended me against complaints from the Strengthening the Members Committee. His last Sunday as Stake President eighteen months ago he called me in and we talked for several hours about the events that began years before his release. He had defended me continually during his presidency, but he explained there was going to be a new Pharaoh in Egypt who would not know Joseph (so to speak) and he couldn't vouch for what was coming. The new Stake President has investigated, delayed, discussed this with me, pushed back against downtown, been called in for "training," and received input from the top leadership in the church. He told me a great deal at the start about what was going on behind the scenes, which matched what the former Stake President had been telling me during his tenure. Those details are unimportant, and I have no intention of making them public. Right now, I don't think President Hunt thinks he has any other choice. He probably doesn't. That is fine. I bear no ill will toward him or any other member of my stake. No one gets ahead in the institution by disregarding instruction from above. Actually, I do the same. However, for me, "above" has little to do with 47 East South Temple and the institution is not where I expect any future. I try to help the church regardless of its opinion of me. I simply have no axe to grind no matter the outcome on September 8th.

Apparently the Strengthening the Members Committee is still very much alive and kicking.

Fifth, I wrote Passing the Heavenly Gift as a reconstruction of the events of this dispensation. The framework was primarily the description in the Book of Mormon of the latter-day Gentile behavior. This includes specifically, the prophecies of Christ in Third Nephi. I also used Joseph Smith's prophecies in the Doctrine and Covenants, his sermons and history. Taking this scriptural framework, (not as an historian but as a believer in the prophetic insight about us) I then tracked through our history. I used a lot of primary sources, including journals and diaries of church leaders. What I found was that the events in our history could be viewed as an exact match for the prophetic warnings given us in scripture (Book of Mormon/D&C). The result was not history, but truth. If the book is true (and I am persuaded it is the most correct account of our dispensation written so far) then we need to awaken to our present peril and repent. If it is not true then we have nothing to worry about. The church is entirely intact, has the fullness, and all is entirely well in Zion. It would be very exciting if Passing the Heavenly Gift is wrong. The trouble is that I don't believe it's wrong. We have very serious issues confronting us, and a great deal of work to complete before we attain unto what the Lord expects of us. Joseph Smith was betrayed and killed as a result of steps taken by church members. True enough it was a mob of Carthage Greys who shot him. But he would not have been in a position to be shot if it had not been for the betrayal by church members. When we (meaning church members) caused or contributed to his death, we offended heaven in a way that required three and four generations to pass before we receive another opportunity from the Lord. With the recent passing of Eldred G. Smith, we have a milestone representing the end of those required generational passings. Now is the first time it is possible for the Lord to recommence the restoration. But it won't commence again without us knowing what we lack. Conceit and arrogance will never redeem us from our fallen state. But contrition and repentance might. Passing the Heavenly Gift is intended to inspire those who are downfallen in their faith, and to help those who are prepared to hear it, that we (all of us, including me) are in a fallen state from which we must awake and arise.

Well that is an interesting theory. Has the church issued an apology for this like they did for the mountain meadows thing?

[Harry Tic]

Apparently the Strengthening the Members Committee is still very much alive and kicking.

I'd like to see Niku on this committee: a church-wide initiative on health and well being. Some cardio, some weight training. Maybe some spinning and yoga. I like it.

[Pheidippides]

I'd like to see Niku on this committee: a church-wide initiative on health and well being. Some cardio, some weight training. Maybe some spinning and yoga. I like it.

A few people currently on it look like they could stand to drop a few pounds. I can help with that.

[Uncle Ted]

I'd like to see Niku on this committee: a church-wide initiative on health and well being. Some cardio, some weight training. Maybe some spinning and yoga. I like it.

I am very much in agreement. In fact, I would sustain Niku as the General Strengthening the Members President.

[Sullyute]

Snuffer's latest blog posting gives some detail on why he is being called in...

When we (meaning church members) caused or contributed to his death, we offended heaven in a way that required three and four generations to pass before we receive another opportunity from the Lord. With the recent passing of Eldred G. Smith, we have a milestone representing the end of those required generational passings.

And this is where I get off the crazy train. So we haven't had new revelation because some dude decides to live for so long?! This kind of vindictive god reminds me more of the Greek Patheon than of a loving Father whose footsteps we see in the sand of our lives.

[jay santos]

And this is where I get off the crazy train. So we haven't had new revelation because some dude decides to live for so long?! This kind of vindictive god reminds me more of the Greek Patheon than of a loving Father whose footsteps we see in the sand of our lives.

Probably a nut case.