[img]https://www.sermonindex.net/images/forum/2004/may/featured_news.gif[/img]Grant Palmer was raised to believe in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and has spent most of his life in its service.He has gone on a mission, for years attended regular services and worked more than three decades as a church-funded Mormon educator.But about 20 years ago, he began to doubt the way Mormon scripture characterizes certain parts of its early history.After years of study, he finally rolled those doubts together and published a book.Two years and 281 pages later, the gray-haired, balding and bespectacled 64-year-old man faces excommunication from a church he says he still loves. On Sunday, he's scheduled to appear in an apostasy trial judged by church leaders for failing to obey the gospel by publishing a book that questions whether founder Joseph Smith misrepresented his authority as a prophet and revised church scripture to his advantage.Palmer's book, "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins," suggests that Smith didn't actually translate the Book of Mormon, as LDS faithful believe, "by the gift and power of God" from an ancient set of golden plates. Instead, it suggests Smith penned it himself, leaning heavily on the King James Bible, emotional Methodist tent revivals, Masonry and other personal experiences in a highly superstitious era of American history.
_________________SI Moderator - Greg Gordon
What I find intersting about this is the fact that he was digging at the origins of the movement. I think for most cult movements the most effect way to make people realize the falsities they are in is to look at the formation of the movement and the leader himself. These things are not spoken that much and even forbaden in movements such as Jevovah Witnesses, or Mormons, Christian Science, etc.