Einstein was divorced and married his cousin. Martin Luther King Jr. was a serial adulterer. Marie Curie’s affair with Paul Langevin ended his marriage. Thomas Jefferson fathered children with a woman that he owned. Mother Theresa called AIDS “a just retribution for improper sexual conduct.” Winston Churchill was racist. Gandhi slept naked with teenage girls. George Washington kept an outrageous expense account while President, including $6,000 for liquor. Martin Luther, the reformer, hated Jews. Pope Alexander VI held orgies in the Vatican. Adolf Hitler was an animal rights advocate. Jimmy Swaggart was a philandering adulterer. Leonardo Da Vinci preached against war but designed brutal weapons. Joseph Smith married a fourteen-year-old girl. William Shakespeare couldn’t even spell his own name. Saddam Hussein donated nearly half a million dollars to a Christian church in Michigan. Christopher Columbus murdered thousands of Arawak Indians. Al Capone opened soup kitchens and supplied milk to Chicago school children. Charlemagne regularly murdered those who did not agree with his “Christian” beliefs.
If we condemn the hero for the bad they have done, shall we not also praise the despot for the good? Do you see yourself?
Image credit: Valerie Hegarty. George Washington Melted 4, 2011; canvas, stretcher, paper, acrylic paint, and gel medium; 40 x 30 in. Courtesy of the Artist and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York.
Daniel Lewis
Daniel is a Sunday School President who enjoys punk rock and skateboarding.
All posts by Daniel Lewis
This is a great post in response to the anti-Trump post yesterday by your colleague.
Really liked this post. Looking back in history we can all see and acknowledge these people’s good and bad actions or opinions without societal repercussions but not yet for Joseph Smith. We can’t call him out for his bad stuff yet. It’s not allowed. Guess we have to keep waiting.
I agree with Kathy’s comment about how within the church we can not call out Joseph for the bad stuff he did – nor just about any other leader. Even bringing up something we feel a bishop or an Elder’s Quorum president is almost always (at least in my experience) not only is substance of the issue usually ignored, the person bringing up the issue is shamed due to “speaking ill of the Lord’s anointed.” The only thing from a semi-official perspective that has ever come from the church is the essay on the blacks and the temple and priesthood ban where it is said that Brigham Young was a racist like everyone else in his time. Fine – that does not excuse those 100 years later from not seeing it for what it was.
I have actually come to be OK (on one level) with Joseph and that despite his imperfections he could still be a prophet for the same reason Daniel nicely enumerated. After all, only Christ was perfect. I can’t hold others to a higher standard than I am able to achieve.
But instead of just “giving Joseph Smith a break”, isn’t it time we “give true history a break” and be able to talk about it a bit? It seems to me that until we do, more people are going to fall away when they hit the brick wall of truth after a life being propelled quickly forward by a story that does not match up to the brick wall.
Amen
No, I am not going to praise Adolf Hitler. Small-minded me.
The horrific actions of Hitler and his compatriots may justifiably preclude him from praise, but does that mean that the grand sacrifices of others should preclude them from any criticism?
This makes me feel like you can’t ever expect good from people. And like I never want my.kids to do great things cause then they will also have great sins. Sigh.
Wait… so if you do something great than you can sin and it’s ok? No problem?