Examining the claims of Jonathan Neville and the Heartland movement

Friday, February 21, 2020

Jonathan Neville, the Church, and the dark side of the Force

Jonathan Neville is now using the acronym SITH to refer to the eyewitness accounts of the “stone in the hat” translation of the Book of Mormon.

“Sith,” for the non-nerds in my readership, is a Star Wars reference. The Sith were “an ancient religious order of Force-wielders devoted to the dark side of the Force. Driven by their emotions, including hate, anger, and greed, the Sith were deceptive and obsessed with gaining power no matter the cost.”

Real subtle, there, Brother Neville.

This is, of course, just a part of Neville’s bizarre view that there’s a massive conspiracy operating in the Church to suppress the teaching that Joseph Smith only used the Nephite interpreters (or “Urim and Thummim”) to translate the Book of Mormon. If Neville’s statements are taken at face value, this conspiracy includes teachers at BYU and Church historians, the general authority in charge of the Church History Department, and even President Russell M. Nelson himself.

This supposed conspiracy now runs so deep that Neville believes it’s affecting the public teachings of Church leaders to the members of the Church:
Since 2007, the testimony of Joseph [Smith] and Oliver [Cowdery] about the Urim and Thummim has never been reaffirmed in General Conference.
And so, according to Jonathan Neville, the Church continues its long spiral in apostasy from the truth (as he believes it).

When are you going to declare yourself a prophet and lead your righteous “wheat” out of the “tares” that have infested the Church, Brother Neville?

—Peter Pan

Darth Vader choking Book of Mormon Heartland

1 comment:

  1. "...many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."

    ReplyDelete

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