I was in California last week and visited my favorite burger place a couple of times. No fancy burgers with pastrami or bacon or feta, just basic burgers and fries made on the spot (you can see them working the potato smasher, can’t get any fresher). It turns out that, in addition to the simple menu displayed above the order stations, there is a secret menu. It isn’t displayed in the store. You have to know a specific item on the secret menu to order it. Maybe you learn this lore from a friend, online discussions, or even a neighborhood teenager who works there. It’s one of the quirky things that sets this burger place apart from the many other burger places vying for your burger dollars.
Secrets have a strange appeal to us all. Sometimes it’s just little things that help you to navigate daily life, like a shortcut to avoid traffic or the place that sells the cheapest gas or an app that gets you a big discount at the pizza place. Some secrets are big ones, say national security secrets that can get you in big trouble if you divulge them. Think of the gleam in a 5-year-old’s eye when they sidle up to your chair at the family reunion and whisper to you, “I’ve got a secret.” So, secrets.
Mormon Secrets
Does the LDS Church have a secret menu? The temple springs to mind, of course, with most everything that goes on inside being fairly secret. Recently, senior leadership has been suggesting that only certain things are truly secret and other things can be discussed discreetly or even rather openly, but it’s never quite clear which items fall into which category so most active Mormons make the reasonable choice to say little or nothing about it. Even “temple preparation” classes do very little to actually prepare prospective initiates for the details of the experience in a way that might constitute informed consent. “You start in this room, then go to that room, then end up in the big, beautiful room” is more or less what is taught. As most of you know, there’s a lot more to it.
But there is a secret even beyond the secret temple menu: the Second Anointing. You might ask, how secret is it if there is a Wikipedia entry for it? Well, as noted in that entry, “Most modern LDS adherents are unaware of the ritual’s existence.” It is referenced in the standard LDS temple presentation, the one most members are familiar with, but only in passing and not with the name “Second Anointing,” so very few temple Mormons ever notice it.
Since there is basically zero discussion of the Second Anointing at church, it’s hard to say what average Mormons think of it. Some, if informed, would then rather naturally want to qualify for this further ordinance. Others would be content with standard temple salvation (itself a step above standard gospel salvation, the kind that is preached and taught to “investigators”). A few might be upset about it. But it doesn’t really bother me that a few hundred of the Mormon elite (most GAs? some Mission Presidents and Temple Presidents? LDS celebrities? LDS software tycoons?) get a Second Anointing. Some Mission Presidents give up great jobs and relocate the family to a third-world country for a few years, certainly a hardship. So sure, go ahead and give them a bonus ordinance, they probably deserve it. Salvation turned up to 11. It’s like double double salvation.
LDS missions are not secret, but the reality of the day-to-day mission experience certainly is. There is something like a church-wide conspiracy of silence about what missions are really like. For the vast majority of eager young missionaries, the first couple of months “in the field” are rather difficult. Lots of rejection. Maybe a comp who is easy to get along with, maybe not. You might will get sick but hopefully recover. You might get robbed or break a leg. Food is hit or miss. Housing is invariably substandard (in some cases, missionaries live almost animal style).
I could add a few other items, but I’ll invite readers to flesh out the list with an item or two they think might fit. For converts, it may be possible to return to the mindset and knowledge one had at conversion, then recall what surprises came up in later years as the convert grew into the standard somewhat informed member. [LDS plural marriage, for example, which is never taught from the pulpit but is accepted and affirmed by most active LDS — but not practiced, we are told, except sort of through posthumous sealings, or if one is divorced and remarried in the temple with the first sealing still in place, which happens fairly regularly, so in fact there are plenty of living Mormons who are sealed to two or more living men/women, so it seems disingenuous if not flat out dishonest to say the Church does not currently practice plural marriage when it considers LDS sealings to be God’s approved and eternal marriage ordinance and the Church does quite happily practice plural sealings of living persons].
For lifers, it is probably more jarring to encounter, somewhere in your twenties or thirties or forties, some relevant aspect of LDS doctrine or history that comes as a big surprise. How many of you found yourself saying at some point in your life, “I’ve been a Mormon for 37 years and no one ever told me Joseph Smith was ordained King?” [See the Council of Fifty, another item on the LDS Secret Menu.]
Okay, let’s hear from the wheat and the tares. What other items are on the LDS secret menu? What surprises did you have as an adult after growing up Mormon and assuming you knew everything about the Church? If you are a convert, what surprises did you have in the first few years of membership? And as a special reward to you for reading this post, I give unto you a link to that other secret menu. Someday you’ll thank me.
Wheat & Tares 
Thanks, Dave. I grew up in California but now live in a different state, prohibitively far from the nearest In-n-Out location, sadly. Every year or so I manage to make a trip back to CA, which includes one or more mandatory visits to In-n-Out; it is glorious and beautiful, and I desire all to have it.
As for their secret menu, it’s pretty much an open secret nowadays, though I remember when growing up pre-internet it was a lot more hush-hush. But ordering off the secret menu unlocks some very tasty options, and there are no restrictions or negative social consequences from sharing it openly. If anything, sharing the In-n-Out secret menu with the uninitiated can significantly raise one’s social capital, since it creates more lifelong fans of the burger chain.
You could consider the temple endowment to be the Church’s “secret menu” since it is not supposed to be talked about freely, but is also pretty much an expectation for all active adult members to be initiated into. But unlike an Animal Style double-double, it’s not particularly delicious or exciting, and some people find the experience strange, or confusing, or unpleasant. Most of all, over time it grows tiresome, especially as one realizes the ordinance shifts one’s focus away from the loving Gospel of Christ that we grew up with, and replaces it with the Church’s actual doctrine of “do as we say, or else!”
Also, despite growing up very active in the Church, I didn’t learn about Joseph Smith’s polygamy until I was a married adult studying beyond the official Church-produced sources, and it was a bit of a shock. BY polygamy was always well known, ostensibly instituted to “take care of the young pioneer widows” or some such nonsense. But with JS, it wasn’t just the fact of his polygamy, but the how and the why of it (done without Emma’s knowledge or consent, coercion/manipulation, marrying teenage girls, other men’s wives, etc.). Despite the existence of a poorly written Gospel Topics Essay confirming it, I still don’t think I’ve ever heard it mentioned out loud once in a formal Church setting.
You visited In-n-Out I presume? You hit the nail on the head with the allure of the secret. Hence the increased construction of temples. “What goes on in there” looms in people’s minds. Those who attend are promised an unlocking of even more secret/sacred knowledge if they just persist. The need to know the hidden and secret keeps people praying, obeying, and paying. The idea of God’s mysteries has a special allure. The idea of the celestial kingdom being this place of unbelievable joy motivates people. People don’t like the idea that maybe the utmost joy to be felt could just be the here and now and that there may actually be no secret knowledge to be unlocked other than what is available through science and scientific inquiry.
Of course Joseph practiced polygamy. Just read the D&C. Angel stood over him with a sword until he agreed with it.
Dave B. You are mistaken that women are ever sealed to another man after the first has died. That privilege is only for men. If that privilege extended equally to women, it would be fine with me. Let everyone work it out after death. But the way it currently stands, it’s unequal
Taco Time sells plain tortilla chips for a dollar but only if you ask. A great cheap snack with free salsa. Now you know.
Mormonism’s big secret is a holy scripture saying that the American natives came on boats from Israel ca 2500 BC. In 2024 there are very few people that would deny that the American natives got here via the Bering land bridge ca 10,000 BC. Non-Hebrew native languages and genetics, and pollen evidence on the submerged land bridge, have effectively falsified the Book of Mormon for non-Mormons. Despite all the evidence, the Israelite boat story is perpetuated because of Smith and his plates. It was all sealed by Brigham Young’s epic migration to Utah. Without that not even the splinter Rigdonite and Reformed LDS branches would have survived.
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I’ve been out for three years so maybe someone here who is still active can answer this for me: Are the Gospel Topics Essays still part of the secret menu? The way I remember it was that you can read them if you find them but if you don’t even know about them you’ll never get that far. Sort of like In-N-Out’s secret menu.
Is it different now? Or are the GTEs still a plausible deniability tool they don’t really want you to see?
A few thoughts on secrets-
-we belong to a club that is rather insular, regardless of where one lives. Ask Bishop Causse how he rose through the ranks.
-no real further light and knowledge after the death of Joseph Smith
-General Conference talks will be edited (Poelman, Packer, etc)
-Praise to the SEC whistleblowers
-If a new church president wants to enact his agenda, his 2nd wife will accidentally tell us that an unleashing has occurred.
One secret that is mainly known only by the select men who make it into a bishopric or higher is that wards, stakes, areas, and the Church as a whole is run like any other organization or business. The Church would claim that the main difference between it and any other organization is that it is guided by revelation, but for those who have actually seen the sausage being made, it’s pretty clear that it’s men, and not God, running the show for the most part. I think that’s a pretty well-kept secret from many rank and file Church members who really do believe that everything their bishop/stake president/GA/apostle/prophet does or says is directed by God when in reality, pretty much none of it is.
Another secret is that Mormon blessings of healing don’t work. People would be flocking to Utah, or at least the local LDS meetinghouse, for a blessing of healing if these blessings actually did work. An important corollary to this secret is that a priesthood holder’s ability to heal does not increase with their position in the hierarchy. The prophet has the same chance of healing someone as the Sunday School secretary in your local ward, which is again, zero. Many members with terrible illnesses long to receive a healing blessing from an apostle, but my understanding is that apostles don’t generally like to do this these days–and the only explanation I have for that is that apostles know they don’t have special healing powers.
I read a nice email from a starry eyed missionary currently in the MTC this week. This missionary is learning a foreign language and credited her progress in the language to “the gift of tongues”. Of course, I don’t have the heart to tell this nice young woman that her language progress is perfectly in line with the progress of other people exposed to the same amount of language training. In other words, she isn’t learning her foreign language any faster because of “the gift of tongues”. Mormons have seriously downgraded the gift of tongues over the years. In the early days of the Church, speaking in tongues was fairly common, and people were speaking in some sort of heavenly or angelic language that required interpretation by another individual with a spiritual gift of interpretation. Today, Mormons would quickly excommunicate any one who tried pulling a stunt like that in Sunday School. These days, Mormons have downgraded the gift of tongues to the ability of missionaries to learn a foreign language faster than other people, which isn’t true at all. In other words, another Mormon secret is that we profess to believe in the gift of tongues as described in the scriptures, but we actually believe the gift of tongues is just how missionaries learn to speak a foreign language better than other people, but they don’t, so in reality, the gift of tongues isn’t something that Mormons have at all.
Another Church secret that not many people actually have actually seen, are the contents of the Church’s vaults/archives. In fact, most members don’t even know that there are important Mormon historical records in the Church archives that they Church refuses to allow to see the light of day. I’m kind of surprised that there isn’t more outrage concerning this. I can understand, to an extent, the desire to keep records private while people are still living, but once a modest time has passed after the involved individuals have died, it seems like all records should be made public. Mormons like to say they want to “let truth prevail.” Is hiding the past Church records in a vault that no one can access a good way to “let truth prevail”?
Still trying to imagine a burger chain, or any kind of restaurant with a secret menu… boggles the mind
It all feels like playing games with the public. I suppose some people like that. But I have never been a great one for games. The older I get, the less patience I have for that kind of thing.
I feel like that about church too. I am not interested in playing games. I just do not care about winning. Threats, coercion, promises of blessings, all of that leaves me cold at best, irritates me, and at worst is hugely off putting.
For me, the first big secret menu item that I discovered was the Strengthening the Members Committee. My immediate thought was “this sounds like something from Scientology”, surely there’s a mistake here. No, there is no mistake and I still find it egregious. Another big secret item that is now publicly taught was that JS dictated the BoM by looking at a rock in a hat, not translating plates looking through the urim and thummim. What??? I managed to avoid the temple (which I’m now grateful for, but mourned once upon a time), but learning of the early temple (pre 1990) motions of disemboweling oneself if you blabbed the secrets was seriously disturbing. Of course, then I learned that once upon a time tithing was paid on your excess, once you’d paid your bills but was later changed because the church was in financial peril to the current ideology – pay first! The church doesn’t need your money (see Elder Bednar’s comments) but still requires significant sacrifice from many members unnecessarily. I could go on, but that’s also unnecessary. There are all kinds of secrets in the church, but the thing about secrets is rarely do they stay that way and they keep oozing out. I’m sure there are more secret menu items to come.
I have Never understood the appeal of in-n-out burgers. Yuck. Better than gross McDonalds, but still–Yuck. I see the long lines thru the drivethru–but why? Mass Hysteria? Collective delusion? There’s a line, so get in line, imagine it’s good.
It’s a whole lot of Blah burger. Much like the Church. So pretend spice it up. Get in a long line and tell yourself how tasty the blah is.
Maybe burgers and churches have a lot more similarities besides secrets. I like In & Out because of their fresh on the spot making of the burger, their local sourcing, their labor practices like actually checking kids resumes and starting them at a good wage but also teaching them many aspects of the business and rotating what they do on every shift. It also has the In & Out taste and experience. But, I also like 5Guys but it’s a different burger, as is Smashburger, or Blake’s Lotaburger, or Mcdonalds for that matter. Each burger place puts something else in it to make it “theirs.” Red Robin or the burger you might get at a Steak House have a very different appeal.
Churches also have different appeals for different things. Some are short on ceremony, others very long on ceremonies. There’s ordained ministers, called ministers, lay ministers, or even ministers that just take it upon themselves to minister. The COJCOLDS has extra stuff with the temples that are secret yet they say sacred not secret. Others may have special classes to learn in. They all have different ways to participate and serve. Some are in your face high demand religions and others are hands off just expounding the word. Virtually all of them also interact with the world somehow with tax exemptions, business affairs, investments, employees, and payroll each with differing degrees of fidelity, transparency, and accounting to their members.
So why it’s acceptable to like more than one kind of burger, it’s not really acceptable to “belong and worship” at more than one church. I wonder though if we should. There is beauty, depth, and meaning in all the churches with knew ways of looking at life. You could do guilt in one church, forgiveness in another, service in a third, and just plain enjoyment in a fourth church. But like I said, that’s not really acceptable………but maybe it should be.
I never quite fit in at church. The secret is that I am not far enough to the right politically. Unwritten requirement.
One of the secrets of Mormonism, is what outsiders really think of the members.
Yes, we all as TBMs knew there are evangelical types and some other religious zealots who disagree with the church, but we were taught that most non-members love LDS members because of their family values and integrity. If they only get to know us, interact with us, and learn of the church………………
We name drop Donny Osmond,
David Archuleta, Andy Reid, and the LDS guy that plays with the local NBA/NFL franchise.I moved away from Utah 30 years ago and it has been a long slow transition for me to really understand what people outside the Jello belt really truly think. For many years, I was the member giving out pass along cards and church videos so everyone knew about the church and would invite the missionaries over. I eventually learned most people had ZERO interest, as did the missionaries to actually following up with my referrals. Then, I learned to substitute Arizona/Colorado for Utah as my hometown or people would start the polygamy jokes or just remain quiet. Over the past decade as I transitioned from a TBM to an “inactive member” and silent observer, I have overheard countless conversations about Utah and the church.
What an ear full!!
I believe, non-Mormons are not persecuting the church or its’ members, but many have had bad experiences with members, that we as members perceived otherwise or told by the church it is persecution. Like in Cody/Dallas/Heber City/Bakersfield over the tall temple spires or Phoenix zoning. Or in my city where a member lost millions for their investors, which made front page news. Or my client who lives behind an LDS chapel, which rain drainage floods their street frequently because the church did not grade the land correctly. Or the kids who cannot play with the other kids because they are not a member. Or the neighbor who was friendly, but then stopped communication after their non-interest in the church.
Subjectively alone (I could talk about the objective another day) the church is doing poorly with public relations. Yes, the church and a few of its’ members do some very positive works and such, but it is not to the level to scratch the surface in society, outside of Utah.
I have heard “They are really nice, happy, ever smiling people, but they are sure weird”.
“Mormons have nice big houses with lots of money but they do not help with the local charity work”.
“I grew up in East Phoenix Valley and I could not wait to get away from the Mormon clique.”
“Mormons keep to themselves and only do business deals with Mormons.”
“You know everyone at that company upper management is Mormon, along with the owner, do not work there!”
I have heard LDS people spoken about in tones equal to views of Scientologist and JW. Ask your typical TBM behind closed doors what they think about those groups. I have had interactions with many Scientologists and JW, and yes, they also are a different breed.
It is only a secret to the members that most the world thinks they are cut from a different cloth, and it is not positive. Admittingly, the current world is a mess! To not be of the world, but in the world does not mean to be so unique self-centered/righteous that outsiders see a group they do not want to associate with. The Mormon moment was a missed opportunity, and now the church is entrenched to stop the internal bleeding. The internal secret is no longer, as more TBMs are exposed to the “real world”. Living the fantasy was nice, until you opened your eyes and ears.
The Granite Mountain Vault. Up one of the Cottonwood Canyons, the Church has built this climate-controlled vault full of family history records. It’s engineered to perfectly preserve all sorts of valuable documents. Or a whole lot of micro-fiche. They would have upgraded it to computer servers at some point. I haven’t heard of the Granite Mountain Vault in years. It must still be around though.
Okay, so Second Anointing is an actual ordinance. What is “having your calling and election made sure”? Is that a visit from the Holy Ghost? Or is the 2nd Anointing the same thing as having your calling and election made sure?
I ask because my father told me he’d had his calling and election made sure, but I’m positive he didn’t get an ordinance to go along with it. By the time he got his calling and election made sure, he’d had to turn in his temple recommend for teaching that RMN killed TSM because RMN was worried he’d die first and he really wanted to be the prophet. I don’t think they’d give the second anointing to someone who didn’t have a temple recommend, right? But you could have your calling and election made sure if the Holy Ghost visited you?
“Housing is invariably substandard (in some cases, missionaries live almost animal style).”
You mean, I assume, that in some housing units the missionaries are served with caramelized onions and melted cheese, yes?
In& Out Burgers is coming to middle TN, so I will have to brush off my 35-year old mission memories to remember what secretly coded burger to order.
I agree with a great number of previously raised LDS secrets: certainly the temple ceremonies and realities of a mission and serving in bishoprics. Maybe another secret not previously mentioned is that GAs are paid a generous stipend and get first-class perks. And sometimes tell bawdy jokes.
But to piggyback on Faith’s comments, another secret kept from most Mormons is that the world doesn’t revolve around the LDS church or it’s members. You wouldn’t know that if your primary news sources were the Desert News, LDS Living, or the Liahona, or other related “news” sources that cluttered up some of my relatives coffee tables (or is that their Post-um tables?) or phones. It always astonishes me when I read something from these sources or from listening to many LDS people speak about world events, that it seems like they always put the LDS church or it’s members at the center of any event. They greatly overplay how important any LDs persons role is in influencing outcomes of an event. There is such an LDS-centric focus in every single story that it is no wonder many Jello-belt Mormons really do think the world revolves around them. But I suppose that evolves naturally from also believing that the LDS church is the only true and living church and that God has chosen RMN to deliver their message to the world.
Secrets come with the territory. There scriptures plainly state that there are many things that cannot be shared or spoken of. In fact, it is incumbent upon the saints to become trustworthy so that more might be revealed to them–things that they must carefully guard in their hearts as did Mary the mother of Jesus.
@Janey, there was quite a bit of discussion about the 2nd anointing and “calling and election made sure” in the comments of this recent post: https://wheatandtares.org/2024/07/10/immunity/.
My understanding from what I was taught growing up and read later on is that having one’s calling and election made sure is a guarantee of exaltation made to someone while they are still living. I’ve heard/read this may happen in at least 3 ways:
1. Just normal Holy Ghost (or “First Comforter”) type of feelings which can obviously be subject to misinterpretation. In other words, some people might claim the Holy Ghost made them feel like they’d had their calling and election made sure when they really hadn’t. I don’t think a lot of orthodox members would agree with this method of having one’s calling and election made sure. It’s not the normal way that I’ve heard or read about it, but I have heard it expressed a few times. After all, all members are supposed to have constant visitations of the Holy Ghost/First Comforters–if they’re worthy enough, that is–so it’s not that special or exclusive.
2. The reception of the “Second Comforter” which would be a personal visitation from Christ. If Christ physically appears to you and tells you that you’re calling and election made sure, then there would be very little room for doubt. John 14 is the chapter most often quoted for this by Mormons.
3. The Second Anointing ordinance of the temple. Many members don’t know about this ordinance (it’s on the secret menu). I suspect that orthodox members who do know about it generally do tend to believe that receiving the Second Anointing ordinance is the same as being guaranteed exaltation in this life. Many of the orthodox members I’ve heard speak about the Second Anointing pretty much assume that the people who had received it had subsequently received the Second Comforter visit from Christ shortly afterwards (or even during the ordinance). I believe this is at least part of the reason that so many orthodox members of the Church are convinced that the Q15 have all seend Christ–after all they’ve all had their Second Anointing. As evidenced by the recent W&T post I linked above, the W&T crowd pretty universally isn’t buying the idea of the Second Anointing guaranteeing exaltation to anyone in this life.
My understanding is that it would be highly, highly unusual for anyone who hasn’t achieved at least the rank of temple president, mission president, or stake president (or maybe presidency) or higher to receive the Second Anointing ordinance in the temple, so unless your father was a fairly high ranking Church leader he probably didn’t receive it. Also, the second anointing can only be received by couples that have been sealed in the temple, so your mother would have had to have received it at the same time as your father (she literally would have had to have laid her hands on your father’s head and given him a priesthood blessing as part of the ordinance). In other words, if your mother wasn’t living, didn’t have a temple recommend, was no longer sealed to your father at the time, or even wasn’t perceived by other Church members as super righteous, that would likely have prevented both your father and mother from receiving the ordinance. Also, there is evidence that Church leaders are hesitant to enforce official Church discipline on people that have received the Second Anointing, so the fact that your father had his temple recommend pulled kind of points to the idea that he may not have received the ordinance.
So, if it’s true that your father didn’t receive the second anointing in the temple and he didn’t receive a personal visitation from Christ, that only leaves the less certain option of feelings from the Holy Ghost making him feel like his calling and election was made sure. I guess only he’s the only one that can really judge the certainty of those feelings.
One of the best kept secrets is the grace of Jesus Christ. We often hear about “atonement” and “forgiveness” but it has been rare in my experience to hear about “grace”. Grace might often be overlooked for punishment, self-loathing, checklists etc. The beauty of universal salvation might be overlooked for fear of exaltation or separated families and sad Heaven.
I intellectually understood the concept of being loved by Heavenly Parents, but didn’t really know what that felt like. Or at least the feelings were rare and highly fleeting. My spiritual practices were very much shaped around religious standards and compliance. Because I fall short, I constantly felt that I was not checking all of the boxes all of the time that were requisite to qualify for God’s love.
After years of praying to better understand who I am to my Heavenly Parents, those prayers were answered through some pretty amazing and sometimes painful experiences. I ended up in place in life I never expected, or frankly wanted to be. I embraced the journey anyways and I can now actually feel loved by the Gods because I belong to Them and not because of any checklist. I experience and feel grace more freely than ever. Grace for me has been a secret menu item that I craved for so long and has been absolutely worth the struggle to experience.
I am grateful for all of the discussions and thoughts shared here. The beautiful people who post on this site are an incredible secret menu of sorts.
I was employed by a California company with an office in the NE US. Occasionally, those executives who traveled between offices, would debate which provided the better burger, In & Out or 5 Guys. My vote was 5 Guys – more options for toppings.
Thanks for the fun discussion.
I don’t consider the Second Anointing to be part of the Church’s “secret menu” because the Church denies the very existence of it, and does not make it available to those who ask for it, nor do they have clearly defined criteria for how to qualify, and the selection process is completely opaque. There is nothing about it in the handbook. I’ll wager that my bishop (an adult convert) probably doesn’t even know about it, so if I approach him this Sunday and ask him for an application form to have my calling and election made sure, he will probably just respond with a confused look on his face, and maybe ask me if I’m feeling well today.
Also, I agree with Faith; for many years I thought the overall U.S. public opinion of Mormons was one of admiration and respect, when in reality everyone else didn’t really give a rip about us at all, or was making fun of us behind our backs all along. These days, I think it’s trending towards the latter as more negative (but factual) stories about the LDS Church make national news.
So if God is no “respecter of persons,” why does the church offer a significant spiritual experience only to social elites? Members may perceive egalitarian notions in scripture, but they know the church social structure is rigidly hierarchical.
@mountainclimber – thank you for that detailed answer. That helps. I’ll go finish reading the Immunity post you linked. I checked in it early in the discussion but didn’t read later comments.
There’s definitely a secret menu when it comes to church history:
Joseph Smith was imprisoned in Carthage Jail because of religious persecution. Secret menu item: he was imprisoned for destroying the printing press that was going to publish about his polygamy.
Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered by the mob because of religious persecution. Secret menu item: this was instigated by the older brother of a teenage girl Joseph had seduced who later became one of his plural wives.
Joseph Smith ran to the Carthage jail window to draw fire away from his friends and heroically sacrifice himself. Secret menu item: he ran to the window to make a distress call using masonic signs in the hopes his connection to masonry would save him.
For reasons unknown, the Lord chose to restrict access to the priesthood for a while. Secret menu item: Brigham Young legalized slavery in UT and said “if you believe the Bible you must believe in slavery” and that black men would never receive the priesthood until all the white men had been offered it.
Early church leaders sent missionaries to the native Americans to preach to them of their Lamanite origins. Secret menu item: Mormon militiamen all but wiped out the Timpanogos tribe who lived where BYU now stands in a heinous massacre in response to a stolen shirt and displayed decapitated heads on pikes outside Fort Utah.
Joseph and Emma, though they went through many trials, had a beautiful romance and rock solid companionship. Secret menu item: Joseph was once so violently ill that he vomited blood and dislocated his jaw and his first instinct was that Emma had poisoned him.
The Book of Mormon is a true history of real peoples living in the Americas. Secret menu item: the church financed the expeditions of archaeologist Thomas Stuart Ferguson to find evidence of BoM historicity and the evidence was so lacking that Ferguson lost his faith.
Brigham Young was transfigured into Joseph’s countenance and voice during the succession crisis. Secret menu item: No records from anywhere close to the time of that event mention any kind of transfiguration even though they include avid journal-keepers like Wilford Woodruff.
Joseph translated the Book of Abraham from Egyptian papyri by the power of God. Secret menu item: the papyri are common funerary texts that have absolutely nothing to do with Joseph’s translation.
The Brethren have always been wise and kindly men, exemplary husbands and fathers, and exceptionally selfless and Christlike individuals who we should celebrate with reverent veneration. Secret menu item: Wilford Woodruff had hundreds of deceased women sealed to him as a birthday present.
Etc.
@Kirkstall, Yowzers! Saving this list. Thanks.
Old Man,
The Lord’s disciples were saddened by the news of the Savior’s impending return to the Father. But the Savior told his disciples that they should be happy for him because, said he, “my Father is greater than I.”
Of course, there are different meanings that might be gleaned from that statement. But one of them is, IMO, that we should rejoice in the blessings that others receive–so much so, in fact, that they become a blessing and a comfort to ourselves. And that’s how I feel about those who receive the second anointing in this life. It is a blessing and a comfort to me, personally, to know that some are receiving the more sure word of prophecy. For me, it means that God is near and that I, too, will one day receive it–whether in this life or the next–if I keep trying.
And to add, I love the fact that many of our leaders have received it. Because, to me at least, that means the church’s leadership is a consecrated people for the most part–and that they will do their level best to follow the Lord’s counsel in guiding the church.
Kirkstall,
The history of the church is complex. It’s like an onion with many layers. And as such–I give it to you as my opinion that there are “secrets” beneath the secrets that you’ve outlined that shed further–more positive–light on many of those events.
Thank you Kirkstall – I was not familiar with “The Ferguson Affair.”
Secret menu: Where is Laban’s sword and the breastplate? I recall JS was being chased by thieves when he went to retrieve the gold plates from Hill Cumorah. How did JS carry the plates, the sword, and the breastplate all at the same time, and escape the thieves? Why didn’t JS use Laban’s sword to dispatch the thieves?