The façade drops…

Jonathan Neville has often insisted that he has no hard feelings or personal animosity towards “M2C intellectuals”* or those who are part of the (entirely imaginary) “M2C citation cartel.” The only issue, he claims, is just about eradicating the supposed censorship of about the real location of the hill Cumorah, as supposedly taught by the prophets.

Typically, after one of his characteristically conspiracy-mongering and slanderous blog posts that speak all sorts of calumnies about employees at Book of Mormon Central, employees of the Church History Department, or volunteers at FairMormon and The Interpreter Foundation, Neville will conclude with something along the lines of, “These are all wonderful, intelligent, sincere people who have just been brainwashed by M2C. Some of them I even consider my friends. I just think they need to stop censoring the words of the prophets.”

Well, his façade of hollow, insincere flatteries has finally dropped.

In his June 13, 2019, blog post “Naval and Church history in the Biblical style,” Neville has this to say about his “friends” at Book of Mormon Central who espouse “M2C”:

If you want to see who rules over you, see who you’re not allowed to criticize. Try criticizing the M2C citation cartel and see what happens. People who are easily outraged tend to be the stupidest and less [sic] educated people on social media. They’re foot soldiers for a mob, and mob mentality rules their behavior. No independent thinking, just blind mob rule. The outrage from the employees of Book of Mormon Central says it all.

Jonathan Neville actually believes that “outraged” Book of Mormon Central employees are “foot soldiers for a mob.” As members of this supposed outrage mob, they “tend to be the stupidest and less educated people on social media.”

And as a cherry on top, he concludes his post with a “fun summary of Church history, written in biblical style” that includes scholars literally “persecut[ing] Joseph and Oliver, and [seeking] to belittle them.”

His words speak volumes.

Shame on you, Brother Neville, for not only lying about your fellow saints, but also for continuing to publicly slander them.

Your insults, duplicity, and insincerity will not refute the significant criticisms of the preposterous Heartland hoax (like this recent review by Stephen Smoot), no matter how often you frantically protest and defame those who disagree with you.

—Captain Hook

* “M2C” is Jonathan Neville’s acronym for the theory that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica and that the hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is not the same hill in New York where Joseph Smith received the plates of Mormon.