Anti-Mormon Claims
Anti-Mormon Claimshonestypolygamyessays

“Lying for the Lord”

Does the Church teach people to lie?

Bible

They quote this

Bible · Exodus 20:16

KJV + NRSVUE

Thou shalt not bear false witness. We agree. Denying a cartoon is not a lie.

King James Version

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

NRSVUE

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

How we read it

Thou shalt not bear false witness. We agree. Denying a cartoon of our doctrine is not a lie. Article of Faith 13: we believe in being honest. If a source will not quote the Joseph Smith Papers, it is not interested in truth. It is interested in the feeling of being lied to.

Book of Mormon

Also restored

Articles of Faith 1:13

We believe in being honest. If a source will not quote the Joseph Smith Papers, it is not interested in honesty.

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men.

Faithful answers

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Manifesto and the end of plural marriage

Gospel Topics Essays

After the Manifesto, some leaders authorized additional plural marriages and used language that was not plain. The essay says so. That is confession, not a manual for lying. Today’s Church publishes the hard essays, names race folklore as disavowed, and tells Joseph’s seer-stone story in the same Gospel Library as the Bible. 'Lying for the Lord' is an anti-Mormon slogan, not a temple recommend question.

The current Church is not hiding the nineteenth century. It is documenting it.

  • Honesty is canonized in the Articles of Faith.
  • Plural-marriage transition involved real failures of candor.
  • Gospel Topics Essays are the opposite of a cover-up strategy.
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Further reading

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