Heartland site in Palmyra refers people to anti-Mormon website
|
Tags: Brigham Young, Heartland hoax, Hill Cumorah, Historical sources, Oliver Cowdery, Responsible scholarship, Self-awareness
In Palmyra, New York—next door to the Church-owned historic Grandin Building where the first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed—is Latter-day Harvest, a privately-owned bookstore run by members of the Church who also happen to be dedicated Heartlanders.
Jonathan Neville is tight with the owners of Latter-Day Harvest. They promote and sell his books; earlier this year he filmed two vlog entries inside their store (watch here and here).
Latter-day Harvest doubles as a makeshift Book of Mormon “museum.” (The quotation marks are intentional, because a gift shop is normally inside a museum, not the other way around.) The owners have also set up a covered “Oliver Cowdery Memorial” information stand in the Palmyra area that promotes the Heartland views of Book of Mormon geography by focusing on (naturally) Oliver Cowdery and Letter VII.
A plaque on the information stand quotes Brigham Young’s June 17, 1877, remarks on the “cave of plates” that Neville and other Heartlanders insist was a literal, physical experience that’s important to understanding Book of Mormon geography. (See here for previous blog posts about Brigham’s statement.) This quote is also on the free brochure available at the stand and on a photo of the plaque on display in the front window of the Latter-day Harvest store.
Brigham’s remarks are printed on page 38 of Journal of Discourses volume 19. The plaque provides a URL that readers can look up to read Brigham’s discourse online.
There are several online versions of the Journal of Discourses, including the Internet Archive, the BYU Library Digital Collections, and the FairMormon website. But where does the plaque and brochure direct their readers? An anti-Mormon website.
Do the owners of Latter-day Harvest know that MRM.org is the website of Mormonism Research Ministry, the “ministry” founded in 1979 by well-known anti-Mormon Bill McKeever?
Do they know that they’re directing faithful Latter-day Saints and interested non-members to a website owned by one of the most prolific and virulent opponents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
The level of carelessness (and cluelessness) involved here is quite extraordinary.
—Peter Pan
(I’m grateful to my friend, Reed, who visited the Palmyra area recently and shared these photos with me.
Jonathan Neville is tight with the owners of Latter-Day Harvest. They promote and sell his books; earlier this year he filmed two vlog entries inside their store (watch here and here).
Latter-day Harvest doubles as a makeshift Book of Mormon “museum.” (The quotation marks are intentional, because a gift shop is normally inside a museum, not the other way around.) The owners have also set up a covered “Oliver Cowdery Memorial” information stand in the Palmyra area that promotes the Heartland views of Book of Mormon geography by focusing on (naturally) Oliver Cowdery and Letter VII.
There are several online versions of the Journal of Discourses, including the Internet Archive, the BYU Library Digital Collections, and the FairMormon website. But where does the plaque and brochure direct their readers? An anti-Mormon website.
Do they know that they’re directing faithful Latter-day Saints and interested non-members to a website owned by one of the most prolific and virulent opponents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
The level of carelessness (and cluelessness) involved here is quite extraordinary.
—Peter Pan
(I’m grateful to my friend, Reed, who visited the Palmyra area recently and shared these photos with me.
Posts
Well this shows their real alignment and their continued anti-intellectualism. Moronic staying put makes no sense.
ReplyDelete