My mother doesn't forward religious emails to me very often any more, not since I asked her to cease and desist last year. But on occasion she still does, and today's incensed me like none I've received since ... well, last year:

Subject: Comforting to know

Hint: The original message that was shared is at the bottom. There are a couple of other short exchanges prior to that concerning permission or appropriateness for sharing this.

> Thought you would find this interesting.
> This is pretty comforting. I hope it helps all of
> you feel better about what we are doing in Iraq.

> This is a note from the EQ President in our ward,
> Steve Lund. His father is Gerald Lund of the Quorum
> of the Seventy. Just thought you could all appreciate
> this note...

> > Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 8:55 PM
> >
> > Steve--
> > Elder Packer asked him to share it with us. I'm assuming he did so expecting that we would share it with others.
> > Dad
> > P.S. See you tomorrow.
> >
> > From: Steven E Lund [mailto:LundSE@ldsces.org]
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 7:26 AM
> > Subject: Re: Sharing an Idea
> >
> > Thanks Dad, I appreciate this. Is it something we can pass along or should we keep it to ourselves?
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >
> > Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 18:07:32 -0700
> > Subject: Sharing an Idea
> > Hi kids-
> > Just thought I'd share something that happened on Thursday morning. Elder Tingey, the senior president of the Quorums of Seventy, asked for a minute before the regular presentations were to begin. He then shared the following, which President Packer suggested he share with us.
> > Last Tuesday, which would have been right in the middle of the 48 time limit imposed by President Bush on Saddam Hussein, during the weekly meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder David B. Haight was asked to give the opening prayer. He will be 96 this September, which will make him the oldest living apostle in this dispensation. Anyway, Elder Haight came to the podium and stopped for a minute. Then surprising everyone, before he offered the prayer he said the following: "I feel a great sense of calm about this war, that everything is going to come out all right." President Packer said that it was said in such a way that
it had a tremendous impact on all of the rest of the Twelve. So much so, in fact, that when the meeting finished, President Packer called each of his children and shared it with them. Then he called Elder Tingey and suggested he share it with us.
> > So I in turn decided I wanted to pass it along to you to share with your children. Reading between the lines, I think President Packer is saying that he spoke for the Lord in an important revelatory moment and that was worthy of sharing.
> > Love ya,
> > Dad.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Brother Steven Lund
> > "Happiness is the object and design of our existence!" Joseph Smith Jr.

Uh-huh. Another faith-promoting rumor making the rounds in Mormondom. It might not have bothered me, except that this one strikes me as having dangerous consequences. I tried to explain this to my mother, first in my own terms, then in hers:

Dear Mom:

I'm not sure whether you copied me on this email deliberately or by mistake, but since you went out on a limb and shared something you obviously believe strongly with me, it doesn't seem out of place for me to do the same. And I'll try to do so in a spirit of forthrightness and love.

I do not find this email comforting. Leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether David B. Haight is a prophet, seer, or revelator, and leaving aside even the issue of whether the war with Iraq is legal or just, the email you've forwarded is a *rumor*. It's *gossip*. It's *hearsay*. I don't find it any more comforting than reports that a Mormon missionary conference near the World Trade Center was called off at the last minute on the morning of September 11th (a real rumor that certainly made the rounds and was eventually declared a complete fabrication by the president of the New York mission). It's valueless scuttlebutt.

David B. Haight may very well have said what is attributed to him in this email. I think it's possible, maybe even plausible. But look at the chain of secondhand sources. The farthest we trace back in this email is to a message attributed to the Gerald Lund, who repeats something he heard Elder Tingey say, who in turn was repeating something he heard Elder Packer say, who in turn was repeating something he heard Elder Haight say. That's a lot of links of hearsay in the chain before we even get to something someone bothered to write down -- and we know from the game "Telephone" how details and information can get distorted during transmission from person to person. Moreover, how do we know that the original text message hasn't been altered in the ensuing four or fives forwards it took for it to get from Lund to us?

Now let's look at some of the language in the several layers of the email exchange: "Reading between the lines, I think President Packer is saying..."; "I'm assuming he did so expecting that we would share it with others..." That's a lot of inference, assumption, and interpretation right there. How do we know what Elder Packer was saying, or what he was expecting? How do we know he even said anything in the first place? We don't.

If David B. Haight said something in the temple that the leadership of the church wants to disseminate to its members, don't you think they would do so in an official communication, perhaps a letter read over the pulpit in sacrament meeting? That they haven't, and that these rumors are floating around the Internet, leads me to suspect that either one of two things is going on here:

1) This never really happened, or if it did the church doesn't consider it an official revelation. Or:

2) The church wants to pacify its members and calm their fears but does not dare to risk making a statement like this publicly, lest the war continue to go badly for the U.S. and Haight be proven to have prophesied in error.

When you hear this story in General Conference or read it in the Ensign, then maybe you'll have some license to take comfort from it. Right now, I just don't see it, even for a faithful Mormon.

So, bottom line, does this tenuous, vague, seventh-hand rumor make me feel better about the war in Iraq? Does it make me feel better about the trampling of international law by the United States, about the endangerment of soldiers including my own brother in an unjust cause, about the slaughter of innocent civilians in Iraq, about the likely inflaming of hatred toward Americans in the Middle East and around the world, or about the certain creation of a thousandfold more terrorists who have already demonstrated not only their willingness to attack our country but their ability to kill thousands of people in *my* city at a single stroke?

Not hardly.

To quote from the Book of Mormon, Alma 14:10, 11:

"And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.

"But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day."

If I believed that the Book of Mormon were true, then I would have a hard time reading this scripture and *not* believing that God will one day call down severe judgment upon this country for what it's doing in Iraq (and has done in other places), any alleged David B. Haight speech notwithstanding. If I believed in the Book of Mormon, I'd pay more attention to *its* warnings than to rumors that arrive in email nestled in layer after layer of comforting quotational indentations. And far from being comforted, I'd be quaking.

love,
Bill

No response yet, but I'm quaking...