An article, Lying for the Lord by ex Bishop and ex full-time Church Education System (CES) instructor of twenty-seven years, Ken Clark, now available at MormonThink, lists what is actually a small sample (of over one-hundred and fifty) Mormon lies and deceptions. A downloadable PDF version is also available.
Item 55 in the list: “Loyalty was more important than honesty in the early church, and is still considered more vital than truth”, is confirmed by the many members and historians excommunicated in recent years for exposing lies that the Church has used to suppress the truth for so long. They always term exposing the unwanted and unhelpful truth ‘apostasy’.
Item 138: Former BYU professor David Knowlton, in a television interview that aired August 16, 1992, (KXVS, Channel 4) in Salt Lake, said, “I’m ashamed, frankly, of a church that doesn’t want to tell the truth. I’m ashamed of institutional lying.” “The ‘Strengthening the Members Committee’… spies on members of the church.”
I thoroughly recommend the article. A Mormon catch-phrase is “Truth will Prevail”, yet in reality ‘truth’ does not ‘prevail’ at all in Mormonism; lies do – and demonstrably always have. The Mormon Church has in fact made lying (‘for the Lord’ or ‘for the greater good’) into a cleverly crafted (and entirely reprehensible) art form.
My own response to the countless lies by leaders of the Mormon Church is recorded in ‘The Mormon Delusion’ Vol. 1:225. “If He exists, the Christian God doesn’t hire liars.” It’s that simple.
Jim Whitefield 