"Poison Pen" response
The Scotsman, 12 August 2002
The article "Poison
Pen," which appeared in The Scotsman, Saturday, 3 August 2002,
intrigued us. Yes, forger Mark Hofmann was a Mormon. Was he a good one? No.
Hofmann confessed to killing two innocent people, and the Church, like many
others, was a victim of Hofmann's deceit.
Your reporting of Hofmann's
activities, however, is not what troubles us. It is the casual dismissal of an
entire religious faith and doctrine as "spurious." There is no
legitimate reason for a newspaper to attack or attribute unsubstantiated motives
to its founder. Eleven million members of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints worldwide attest to a different viewpoint.
Another
religious leader was charged with sedition and blasphemy and portrayed as a
drunkard and troublemaker. His name was Jesus Christ. These assertions were no
better founded than your accusations against Joseph Smith.
