Shedding Light: Some Observations Of A Book Entitled 'Cult Insanity' - Softcover

Liddiard, Thomas J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1463434456 ISBN 13: 9781463434458

Publisher: AuthorHouse Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

A few brief observations written at the request of others to confront and counteract the obvious bias portrayed throughout Mrs. Spencer's book, "Cult Insanity".

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Shedding Light

Some Observations of a Book Entitled 'Cult Insanity'By Thomas J. Liddiard

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Thomas J. Liddiard
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-3445-8

Contents

Prologue..........................................................................................................ixIntroduction......................................................................................................xiPART ONE Errors, Distortions, and Exaggerations..................................................................1A. Carefully Written Disparaging Remarks..........................................................................1B. Giving Due Credit Where It Belongs.............................................................................5C. Getting Baptized...............................................................................................7D. The Case of Brother "Who"?.....................................................................................8E. A Case of Mistaken Identity....................................................................................10F. Distorting the Facts of a Marriage.............................................................................12G. Almost Got It Right, But Not Quite.............................................................................14H. Guilt by Association...........................................................................................18I. The Straw Man..................................................................................................20J. Once Again the Eye Cannot See a Precious Soul, and Degrades an Entire Race....................................25K. There Is Always an Exception (The Moment to Use a Double Standard).............................................28L. A Story of Two Men.............................................................................................34M. An Easy Target.................................................................................................37N. An "Instant Believer" in the "One's" Arrival, While Drinking Cokes............................................42O. Five Daughters.................................................................................................47P. A Process of Elimination, Which of the Young Boys Has the Cash?................................................52Q. He Blew Out Her Candles, So She Left, and She Never Came Back..................................................55R. Hook, Line, and Sinker.........................................................................................57S. According to Mormon Scriptures, There Was No Way a Woman Could Divorce a Man...................................60T. A Mother and Her Three Children................................................................................67U. Which Was It: The L.D.S. Church or Dr. Rulon C. Allred? Eating Your Cake and Having It Too.....................73V. More Quickie Baptisms? Not So!.................................................................................78W. Who Is Duping Whom?............................................................................................82X. Still Vying for His Attention, Even Yet........................................................................86Y. "A New Adventure Called Life!"..............................................................................89PART TWO Use of the Term "Cult"..................................................................................95Opening Old Wounds - Inflicting New Ones..........................................................................95Religious Organizations as Churches, Sects, or Cults..............................................................99PART THREE Which Is It, Embellished or Just Plain Made Up?.......................................................109APPENDIX I Scandalizing and Sensationalizing with Repetitions and Similarities Ad Nauseam........................117A. Degrading Mental Illness.......................................................................................118B. Harping on and Degrading Plural Marriage.......................................................................123C. Degrading Poverty..............................................................................................130D. Smut, Coarse Phrases, Sexual References, and Innuendos.........................................................134E. Degrading the Mexican Men and Women and their Descendants......................................................137APPENDIX II In memory of Joel, Our Beloved Prophet...............................................................139References and Notes..............................................................................................141

Chapter One

PART ONE

ERRORS, DISTORTIONS, AND EXAGGERATIONS

A.

CAREFULLY WRITTEN DISPARAGING REMARKS

The description given by Mrs. Spencer, in her second book, of the first time she met Ervil M. LeBaron was graphically disparaging beyond belief, at least for those of us who knew the LeBarons. She implied stupidity, she played the poverty hand, and she resorted to comparisons to brute animal ignorance of discomfort, and sought for her trump card the sexual innuendos. Moreover, with all that, she actually thinks her readers are all willing to accept the nonsense she writes. She might as well pour water into a sieve for all the good it will do her. There may be some of her readers, her new close friends and obsequious camp followers who will commend her for anything she writes, but such underhanded misstatements as the following can only be accepted as buffoonery in print.

"Back when I first met him in 1953, he looked like a typical country bumpkin, clad in a well-used white going-on-gray shirt with sleeves rolled up to cover that they barely passed his elbows. His Levi's were five inches too short and split in the crotch. It was an embarrassment because he wore no underclothes. Baling wire served as shoelaces. He totally ignored the discomfort that came from wearing no socks, compounded by the holes in his shoes. I'll never forget that scene".

The attempt of Mrs. Spencer to tie the above into the following imagined portrait of Ervil is to thrust upon her readers an unlikely image of a wannabe Cinderella.

"Ervil gloated in his role as a true prophet of God. Now that new converts willingly appropriated monies apart from tithing, he was able for the first time in his life to dress like a professional".

To depict Ervil as going through a radical change from a country bumpkin to a person seeking after fine clothes and new cars is totally missing the point in the change in the relationship between Joel and Ervil. It is difficult for anyone outside a religious society to be familiar with that society's beliefs and doctrinal interpretations of the scriptures. Even some members of the society do not have a full and knowledgeable grasp of these beliefs and doctrines. In the case of Ervil and Joel's differences of opinion, it was basically over intellectual, spiritual and doctrinal interpretations, something quite beyond the grasp of Mrs. Spencer.

Mrs. Spencer was very much aware of the relative refinement of the LeBaron family which she illustrates when she spoke so highly, in her first book, of her future husband Verlan at the time she first met him in Hurricane, Utah. Completely captivated by him she "found a tall, strikingly handsome stranger there already." She said his "hair was blond and his eyes were a brilliant blue". She further admired his "beautiful, broad grin (which) showed his perfect white teeth." All the LeBaron children were well cared for and adequately provided for. The LeBaron children were encouraged by both their parents to pursue a proper education and many of them graduated from the Mormon Juarez Academy, including Irene (1931), Ben (1932), Lucinda (1935), Esther (1939), Joel (1942), and Verlan (1949). The Juarez Academy represented, at that time, the highest level of education available to Mormons and non-Mormons in the area. Alma's name was not included in the above list because he was invited to change from the Juarez Academy to go the Mesa (Arizona) High School where he was the captain of the basketball team and completed high school there. Ervil was just like his other brothers in personal hygiene and dress. No, they didn't wear new clothes all the time. They had their work clothes and their best clothes for special occasions. Like everyone else they lived around, they had to adapt to the circumstances and surely had their limitations. However, they were well clothed, modest, and clean in their persons, as much as one can be living in the Chihuahuan Desert. Although Ervil did attend the Juarez Academy, his name does not appear in the above list of LeBaron family graduates because even while he was a student in the academy, he petitioned the local L.D.S. authorities to allow him to go on a mission for that church, although he was younger than the prescribed age. He wanted to be with his brother Joel, who had just left shortly before to serve on a mission in the area south of Mexico City, towards Puebla. They allowed him to go, and he did become the companion of his older brother Joel. However, he was not able to return and complete his education at the Juarez Academy because of subsequent events.

The photos Mrs. Spencer presents in her latest book depict the LeBaron brothers (including Ervil) as being modest and well dressed from the time Ervil was a young boy, on his mission for the L.D.S Church in 1944, with his young wife Delfina, and all the other later photographs. These pictures are a sharp contrast to the visual picture drawn by Mrs. Spencer as referenced above. Even so, it is very hard to erase from the mind a mental picture written so graphically. That is exactly one of the objectives of the overt sensationalizing of this "Memoir" of Mrs. Spencer.

The failure to understand the feelings of men and women living in a religious and spiritual community was discussed by Richard T. Hughes, a professor of religion at Pepperdine University, at Malibu, California. He indicated that the religious movements in the nineteenth century, were oftentimes stated to be results of an economically repressed group of society, rebelling against the wealthy landowners, and not willing to associate with them in their churches. He felt, however, that such a point of view was oversimplifying the issues and missing the point that many of these religious groups were sincere in their intellectual and spiritual feelings and not spurred on by economic questions alone, or that in some instances it was not even the case. Hughes stated:

"Indeed, the historian who instinctively places social and economic issues front and center will almost inevitably miss the genius of restoration movements in America, for most restorationist movements in America struggled with a profoundly spiritual crisis which simply cannot be explained by social, economic, and military pressures. That spiritual crisis typically resolved around the quest for the true church, for the kingdom of God, or for the sacred in the midst of a profane and fallen world. And that is a quest historians should take seriously in its own right."

This professor of history continues the above thought by making reference to statements made by John D. Lee, in 1841, in Tennessee, during a debate with some preachers of the Church of Christ, over the need for the gifts and offices of the Apostolic Church of Christ in the modern age. After Lee asserted that the existence of six hundred and sixty sects, each claiming to be the one and only true church was a deplorable situation, he asked his opponents why such a condition existed. Professor Hughes continued with the following observation:

"This question, however, seems both quaint and irrelevant to most Americans in the waning years of the twentieth century when tolerance and pluralism have become an accepted way of life. Accordingly, historians, with little sense of the spiritual urgency of that question and schooled in the scientific methods and materialistic presuppositions of modern social history, often find lurking beneath such a question overtones of social and economic deprivation. Such presuppositions not only miss the spiritual core of many restorationist traditions but also tend toward a variety of conclusions unsupported by the evidence."

Mrs. Spencer should be included among such historians. She attempts to write a history wherein the LeBarons are backward, insane and with a sustained economic deprivation. Her desire to demonstrate such brings her to exaggerate simple happenings. It has been observed that to exaggerate is to begin to invent. She wishes Ervil to have no spiritual basis for his teachings and actions. She wishes to make anything he says to be concocted and said in such a manner as to obtain personal wealth and power for him, and nothing more. In an attempt to draw the reader's attention away from any spiritual or intellectual meaning to what he might have truly said, she conveniently puts her words into his mouth, and then claims it is a mentally deranged mind saying them. How easy she finds it to make up conversations for a dead man. This dead man, however, has children and grandchildren who must abide the torrent of social stigma that she so viciously desires to heap upon him, and as a result, upon them. It is easy for a person with little or no intellectual and spiritual capacity to have no insight, nor compassion, toward others that do have such qualities. Furthermore, such a person would be completely unable to understand that those others do have true human feelings. It would be useless to ask Mrs. Spencer to comprehend such a thing, much less to look for an apology. She would not even know what that means.

B.

GIVING DUE CREDIT WHERE IT BELONGS

While we are in the photo section, the caption next to the photo of Mauro Gutiérrez, states "Mauro Gutiérrez was the first male Lamanite to convert to the Church of the Firstborn". This is no small oversight on the part of Mrs. Spencer, which if left uncorrected, would change the history of the Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness of Times, and give Mauro undue credit. It should be stated that Mauro was an outstanding young man, and in fact, he was the first martyr of the church, having been murdered in the early hours of January 1, 1966, in the small town of Las Varas in the mountains of Chihuahua. However, he was not the first male Lamanite to convert to the church, nor was he the second. Mauro was baptized by Alma Dayer LeBaron, Jr., on October 9, 1957. He was the last of four Lamanite men and one Lamanite woman to be baptized that day, all baptized by Alma Dayer LeBaron, Jr. However, it was not the first time Lamanites had been baptized into the church. Two other baptismal services had been held, one on August 4, 1957 (more than two months before Mauro was baptized) and the other August 28, 1957, in which baptismal services, Lamanite men had been baptized. It probably would be correct to indicate those Lamanite men who were baptized in those earlier baptismal services as well as the one in which Mauro was baptized.

In the service held at Galeana Springs on August 4, 1957, the following Lamanite men were baptized and confirmed members of the church:

1. Ezequiel Gonzalez Trejo: (twenty-second member of the church.) 2. Rafael Treviso Bailón: (twenty-third member of the church.)

In the service held at Galeana Springs on August 28, 1957, the following Lamanite men were baptized and confirmed members of the church:

1. Raúl Trevizo Bailón: (twenty-ninth member of the church.) 2. Victor González Enriquez: (thirty-first member of the church.) 3. Moisés González Enriquez: (thirty-second member of the church.) 4. Gerardo González Enriquez (thirty-third member of the church.) 5. Braulio González Enriquez: (thirty-fourth member of the church.) 6. Israél González Enriquez: (thirty-fifth member of the church.)

In the service held at Galeana Springs on October 9, 1957, the following Lamanite men were baptized and confirmed members of the church:

1. Hermán Aguilar (Sr.): (thirty sixth member of the church.) 2. Hermán Aguilar (Jr.): (thirty-seventh member of the church.) 3. Pilar Aguilar: (thirty-eighth member of the church.) 4. Mauro Gutiérrez: (fortieth member of the church.)

Therefore, before Mauro was baptized and confirmed a member, two Lamanite men had been baptized and confirmed members of the church on August 4, 1957, six more on August 28, 1957, and three more on October 9, 1957 a head of him. This means that Mauro was the twelfth male Lamanite converted to the Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness of Times, not the first. Those other eleven male Lamanites were and/or are fine men and should be given credit for making their decision to support the work of Joel F. LeBaron at that time. This is not to take anything away from Mauro; it is only to clarify an historical error made by Mrs. Spencer in her book.

Along the same line, she alleges that at the time Anna Mae Stephens became Ervil LeBaron's wife, shortly after Harold and Betty Tippetts had moved down to Colonia LeBaron from Utah (they moved down in January of 1959) that Delfina, Ervil's first wife, was still recovering from an emotional breakdown. She goes on to say that Ervil "preferred not to deal with his two unbelieving Mexican wives." This is another misrepresentation of church history and of the personal life of Delfina Salido Portillo. This fine young Mexican lady was baptized a year and a half earlier by Joel F. LeBaron, on August 4, 1957, at the same time the two Lamanite men indicated above, were baptized, she being the twenty-fourth member of the church baptized. And, for certain, Delfina was the first of any of the Lamanite women to be baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness of Times.

Delfina demonstrated, throughout her entire lifetime, the firmness of her belief in Joel F. LeBaron as her religious leader and it is a shame that Mrs. Spencer chooses to defame this fine woman who left her Catholic traditions behind her from the moment she was baptized by Joel. Yes, she became dismayed, along with many of us, at later events, which were hard to accept. Nevertheless, Delfina never faltered even once, and maintained a close personal friendship with Joel F. LeBaron until the last day he lived, sharing a watermelon snack with him only minutes before his untimely death.

C.

GETTING BAPTIZED

While we are still on the subject of baptisms, it might be well to discuss the baptism of Irene Golda Kunz Allred LeBaron Stubbs Spencer. She plainly states in the Preface to her second book that "My perspective is based on my life among the LeBarons from 1953 to 1986 and with the Church of the Firstborn since its inception in 1955." That seems clear enough. Or is it? Concerning her baptism in the Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness of Times, she writes that when Verlan was baptized he was accompanied only by his third wife Lucy. She asserts, however, that she, Mrs. Spencer, reluctantly accepted baptism the following day "out of sheer jealousy and not wanting Lucy to be favored". That is really quite an admission by Mrs. Spencer, that she would receive a holy ordinance like baptism, done in the name of the Father (God), the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Ghost only because of jealousy with a sister-wife. And this is supposing that at that time she had a full faith in God the Father and Jesus Christ.

However, that is only the emotional side of it. There still are the historical facts to straighten out. When Verlan went to be baptized, he did not go only with Lucy. According to his own account, "With Grant (Cox) and some of my family, I went to the beautiful Galeana Springs and was baptized on June 19, 1957." The "some of my family" was not only Lucy but included Mrs. Spencer also. The three of them were baptized on June 19, 1957 along with Grant Cox, all four of them baptized by Joel F. LeBaron. As it was only a ploy by Mrs. Spencer to maintain a status quo with her husband in relation to a sister-wife, it evidently was not important enough to remember the facts of her own baptism. But, it does make a person question, how many other things are non-factual and non-authentic in her second book?

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Shedding Lightby Thomas J. Liddiard Copyright © 2011 by Thomas J. Liddiard. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: AuthorHouse Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1463434456
• ISBN 13: 9781463434458
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176