I Make A Record Of My Proceedings In My Days

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Back when I was but a wee Mormon boy, I learned all the Primary Songs. I Am A Child Of God, The Chapel Doors, Book of Mormon Stories.

Ah, Book of Mormon Stories. Remember the hand actions to that one? Where you pound your fist in the palm of your hand to the beat of imaginary war drums then put two fingers behind your head like a couple of eagle feathers? Everything about that song, from the rhythm of the bass line to the lyrics and pantomime Indian stereotypes reinforced a single, simple message. That the people talked about in the book, the Lamanites who defeated the Nephites in an epic battle Cecil DeMille would be proud of, are today's American Indians.

That message was echoed in the introduction to the copy of Book of Mormon that my Branch President gave me the day I was baptized. "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians."

That message has become increasingly difficult for the LDS church to stand behind in recent years given the ludicrous amounts of scientific evidence mounted against such a claim. Everything from DNA testing showing actual origins of Native Americans to an archeological picture of the Americas painting an increasingly disparate picture to that painted by the Book of Mormon. So difficult has this claim become that the LDS church has now changed that introductory paragraph to the book to read, "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians."

Now the Lamanites are not the principal ancestors but merely among the ancestors of today's Native Americans. Hmm.

Apologists will claim that the introduction is not scripture per se but simply an interpretation of this otherwise-inspired work. A fine sentiment were it not for nearly two centuries of insistence on that claim by every single church prophet to date. I, and every other Mormon, was taught that the Lamanites were the sole survivors of a great pre-Columbian battle in the Americas and that today's Indians, Pacific Islanders and other indigenous peoples are the remnants of those tribes. The book itself, introduction aside, is exceedingly clear on this point in particular.

As is another canon of Mormon scripture, the Doctrine and Covenants. In sections 28, 32 and 54, the local and regional native people are repeatedly referred to with the blanket term "Lamanite". No argument can be made claiming that these verses are not considered the literal word of God by the church.

So what does this all mean?

It means the LDS church is well on its way to not only claiming that they don't believe that which they once preached but that they will likely claim they never actually taught it in the first place. Just as many Mormon leaders will tell you that Brigham Young never taught that Adam was God and that temple-goers were never subjected to pantomiming their own disembowelment and having their private parts washed by strangers.

It also means that the LDS church has, in part, fessed up to what I've and others have been trying to say for several years, that, in fact, the Book of Mormon is not an accurate historical record at all.

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