Criticism of Mormonism/Websites/MormonThink/Media efforts by MormonThink managing editor Tom Phillips

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Events related to 2014 media coverage about MormonThink managing editor Tom Phillips

A FAIR Analysis of: MormonThink A work by author: Anonymous

Overview

It is obvious that this proposed prosecution attacks the doctrine and beliefs of the Mormon Church.... I am satisfied that the process of the court is being manipulated to provide a high-profile forum to attack the religious beliefs of others. It is an abuse of the process of the court....For the reasons given above, these summonses are withdrawn.
Judge Howard Riddle, Senior District Judge (Chief Magistrate) in the Westminster Magistrate's Court, Thomas Phillips vs. Thomas Monson (20 March 2014) in response to the summonses facilitated by MormonThink Managing Editor Tom Phillips. off-site

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Questions

Question: What is the “Mormon Think fraud lawsuit in the UK?"

FairMormon recently received a query from an individual who wanted to know about what he referred to as the “Mormon Think fraud lawsuit in the UK.” This is a reference to the recent news that the current managing editor of the critical website MormonThink has generated a summons for President Thomas S. Monson to appear in court in the United Kingdom on fraud charges. We thought that we would give our readers a bit of the background on events leading up to this.

Topics

Responses to the seven claims made in the Thomas S. Monson court summons

Summary: A number of items listed in the "Monson fraud" summons are not actually beliefs held by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This article provides responses to each of the items listed.

SteveDensleyJr,"A Yankee Lawyer’s Guide to the “Mormon Apocalypse”", FAIR Blog, (February 17, 2014)

A British man named Tom Philips has filed a fraud action in England against President Thomas Monson and is claiming that it will bring on the “Mormon Apocalypse.” However, rather than inciting fear and panic among the faithful, if they know about the case at all, the most common response is one of bewilderment among Mormons and non-Mormons alike. That is due partly to the fact that it seems quite odd that someone would pursue a case for fraud that is based on faith claims and personal opinions. But, at least for Americans, the odd nature by which the claim has arisen procedurally is equally puzzling.

As an American civil defense lawyer, I think I have been as befuddled by this case as anyone. So I’ve consulted British lawyers and legal sources and come up with the following guide to what Phillips has called, the “Mormon Apocalypse.”

Media efforts by MormonThink managing editor Tom Phillips

The current managing editor of MormonThink is Tom Phillips, who facilitated a court summons for President Thomas S. Monson on behalf of two ex-Mormons, claiming that the Church was coercing its members to pay 10% of their income based upon fraudulent claims. These claims included stating the the Book of Mormon was a translation from ancient gold plates, an ancient historical record and the "most correct book on earth." The claims also require President Monson to prove that he believes that all humanity descended from Adam and Eve in the face of evidence that humans have existed on earth for much longer than 7000 years. Here are links to some of the many articles.

• "An Anti-Mormon Crusade in London," The Wall Street Journal, February 11, 2014.
• Naomi Zeveloff, "Britain Puts Mormonism on Trial," The Daily Beast, February 8, 2014.
• Peggy Fletcher Stack, "Disaffected British Mormon taking LDS prophet to court," The Salt Lake Tribune, February 5, 2014.
• Dennis Wagner, "Mormon president ordered to appear in British court," USA Today, February 4, 2014.
• "Mormon leader Thomas Monson fraud case thrown out", BBC News UK, March 20, 2014
• Michelle L. Price, "British court drops ex-Mormon suit against church", San Jose Mercury News, March 20, 2014.
• Peggy Fletcher Stack, "British judge tosses fraud case against Mormon prophet", Salt Lake Tribune, 22 March 2014.

Tom Phillips and the "Mormon Apocalypse"

"Mormons, your prophet is lame, deaf and mute. Can he get a miracle cure?"
—MormonThink editor David Twede, "No Miracles for the Lame, Deaf and Mute Monson," Mormon Disclosures February 7, 2014.

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On December 26, 2012, former MormonThink managing editor David Twede posted a message on the Recovery from Mormonism (RFM) message board. According to Twede, who posted under the name “Jesus Smith”:

My dream and hope and aspiration: Members of the 1stP and the Q12 are walked out of the [Church Office Building] or their homes in handcuffs for tax evasion, racketeering, money-laundering,...Add the gender discrimination and fraud suits that many will pile onto the criminal charges, and I think 2013-14 just might be a banner moment. Maybe I'm dreaming. But some of us are working on it.

Twede’s post was followed up a few days later on January 3, 2013 by an even more intriguing post from MormonThink’s new managing editor, Tom Phillips:

I prophesy, in the honorable name of Jesus Smith, that 2013 will be the beginning of the 'Mormon Apocalypse' . The gig is up.

Phillips regularly offered teasers on ex-Mormon message boards throughout 2013.

On January 17, 2013:

That's why I believe 2013 is the beginning of the 'Mormon Apocalypse' . They have been so inept at dealing with past crises, they haven't a hope of dealing with the big ones that are coming.

On February 10, 2013:

The "pro-truthers" will ultimately overcome the "anti-truthers". The Mormon Apocalypse is coming.

On June 5, 2013:

Yes, now looking forward to the 'Mormon Apocalypse' . With my inert evolutionary given gift of prophesy I hereby prophesy that 2013 will close as 'the beginning of the Mormon Apocalypse'. Not only will TSCC [The So-Called Church] shoot themselves in the foot with the strategy outlined by Jesus Smith [David Twede], there are more damaging events to yet unfold this year. Watch for big news before October Conference.

On June 19, 2013:

I prophesy, in the inspired name of Jesus Smith (my friend David Twede, Exmo of the year 2012), that 2013 will be looked back on as the beginning of the 'Mormon Apocalypse' .

Again on June 23, 2013:

I could only take two minutes of Holland's sickly nonsense. Lying, deceitful, egotistical apostle. The Mormon Apocalypse is coming.

Tom Phillips and the "October Surprise"

[W]hat Tom (primarily) and the MormonThink team (supportive) have done is truly amazing.
—David Twede, “Media Blitzed Monson Summoned to Court on Fraud,” Mormon Disclosures (February 5, 2014)

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Thus began the long and slow progress toward what the ex-Mormon community came to refer to as the “October Surprise.” Phillips stated on the ex-Mormon subreddit on August 1, 2013, this was to be an event which would be so significant that it would affect the way the Church was viewed in the world. According to Phillips:

"[I]f what I am working on actually happens, the consequence will be that anyone who 'chooses' to believe will be considered a brainwashed idiot. As for the apologists, there is no way they will be able to spin this. Their games will be up. End game for the apologists. It will take the big 15 to come up with any 'rescue'. Mormonism will be kicked into the area of Scientology. They will still have adherents, but the rest of the world will no longer give them a pass as 'good people'."

Tom Phillips and the Summons for President Thomas S. Monson to appear in Court in the United Kingdom

Finally, after months of delays, the “October Surprise” came to fruition on February 3, 2014. According to USA Today:

The criminal complaint was lodged by Tom Phillips, a Mormon who said he withdrew from the Church after holding positions in England as bishop, stake president and area executive secretary. He now serves as managing editor of MormonThink, an online publication that critiques the Church's history and doctrine.

The complaint alleges that President Monson does not believe the following seven claims, and that he committed fraud by requiring church members to pay 10% of their income to the Church:

1. The Book of Abraham is a literal translation of Egyptian papyri by Joseph Smith.
2. The Book of Mormon was translated from ancient gold plates by Joseph Smith, is the most correct book on earth, and is an ancient historical record.
3. Native Americans are descended from an Israelite family which left Jerusalem in 600 B.C.
4. Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed as martyrs in 1844 because they would not deny their testimony of the Book of Mormon.
5. The Illinois newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor had to be destroyed because it printed lies about Joseph Smith.
6. There was no death on this planet prior to 6,000 years ago.
7. All humans alive today are descended from just two people who lived approximately 6,000 years ago.

Apparently, the purpose of the court action is to prove that President Monson doesn't actually believe each of the above claims, despite the face that a number of the claims listed do not represent the beliefs of many Church members.

Responses to the seven claims made in the Thomas S. Monson court summons

Summary: A number of items listed in the summons are not actually beliefs held by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This article provides responses to each of the items listed.

Press reaction to the Monson summons

The USA Today article notes the reaction of Neil Addison, a “former crown prosecutor and author on religious freedom,” who states:

I think the British courts will recoil in horror. This is just using the law to make a show, an anti-Mormon point. And I'm frankly shocked that a magistrate has issued it.

Other news outlets quickly picked up the story. The Associated Press notes that “Church spokesman Eric Hawkins said officials occasionally receive documents like these that seek to ‘draw attention to an individual's personal grievances or to embarrass Church leaders.’” Hawkins said in a statement that “These bizarre allegations fit into that category.”

Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune quotes Phillips as claiming: "If President Monson is acquitted, it will be a great surprise….but probably because he has very good lawyers who tricked a jury."

Naomi Zeveloff of The Daily Beast notes,

The court order is the result of complaints filed by Tom Phillips, a disaffected Mormon living in Portugal, on behalf of two men he says were induced to pay an annual tithing to the Church based on “untrue or misleading” claims. These claims include seven central LDS tenets, such as the belief that the Book of Mormon was translated from ancient gold plates by Joseph Smith and “is the most correct book on earth and is an ancient historical record.”

Zeveloff concludes,

But it’s unlikely that the suit will do much to shake the standing of the LDS church in the U.K. Mormonism’s reputation in the U.K. changed for the better in the 1940s, after the church donated food and supplies to war-torn European countries. In the 1950s, the first two temples were erected in Europe, one in London and one in Switzerland. Today, Holt said, second and third generation Mormons experience little religious discrimination from other British civilians. “I meet people and they tend to know one other member of the church. That breaks down myths.” Still, he said, “It’s not like living in Utah, where it seems every other person is a member of the church.”

Many observers of the Phillips case have compared it to another recent religious freedom debacle in Britain. In December, a 25-year-old woman succeeded in her five-year-long legal battle to be married in the Church of Scientology chapel in London. The case, which was decided by Britain’s Supreme Court, overturned a 158-year-old precedent defining the worship of god as central to state-recognized religions.

But Holt disagrees with the comparison; he can’t envision the British courts legislating Mormon doctrine. “There is a question about whether the Church of Scientology is a religion or not,” he said. “Whereas, I don’t think Mormons have that question hanging over them.

Charles C. W. Cooke of National Review Online offers this perspective:

Well, in my many years of cataloging British free speech outrages this has to be the most absurd case I’ve come across. ....Just take a moment and chew that over a moment: A court has issued a summons to a religious leader on the grounds that his supernatural, scientific, and historical claims may not be true and that he may thus be guilty of fraudulently extracting money from his religion’s adherents. What a precedent that could be!

The principle aside for a moment, I’d be utterly fascinated to learn why Mormonism has been singled out. After all, the part of London in which this court has jurisdiction plays hosts to a wide range of religions, all of which collect money and make unfalsifiable promises. Why not target Christianity, or Hinduism, or Islam? In the eyes of the law, is the Book of Mormon particularly less believable than, say, Hinduism’s contention that all matter was shaped from the mangled limbs of a vast supernatural man named Purusha? How about the Book of Revelation: could that be proven to be a reliable prediction in a court? Or the Quran’s claim that Allah “created for you (the sense of) hearing (ears), sight (eyes), and hearts (understanding)”? Do we just take that one as read?

Notes