There’s a remarkable story circulating the Net in which a prominent LDS General Authority allegedly lost his faith due to the teachings of Grant Palmer, the controversial ex-Mormon author who was teaching seminary for years while secretly circulating some highly implausible theories of plagiarism of the Book of Mormon. This General Authority has come to Palmer with the statement, “We are here to learn” and continues to learn the ways of anti-Mormon truth in his regular meetings with Palmer as his guide. This General Authority allegedly has said that all of the Apostles and many other leaders know that the Church is not true but just don’t have the courage to do the right thing (like, oh, keeping their Church job for years while sharing anti-Mormon materials with others).

You can read the story in several places such as The Free Republic or on the anonymous blog that first leaked it. Here are some excerpts:

In mid-October 2012, a returned LDS Mission President contacted me to arrange a meeting. Several days later, he called again and said that a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy also wished to attend. He said the General Authority would attend on condition that I not name him or repeat any stories that would identify him. He explained that neither of them, including the GA’s wife, believed the founding claims of the restoration were true. He clarified that they had read my book, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, and had concluded that the LDS Church was not true; was not what it claimed to be…. 

We have at this writing met three times. We first met on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 and again February 14, 2013 at my house. On March 26, 2013 we convened at the GAs house. Upon entering my home for the first meeting the GA said, “We are here to learn.” I recognized him. He has been a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy for a number of years. He has served in several high profile assignments during this period. The following are the more important statements made by the GA during our first three meetings. We now meet monthly…. 

He said that it takes about two to three years before the new apostle discovers that the church is not true. He said it took Dieter F. Uchtdorf a little longer because he was an outsider. He said they privately talk among themselves and know the foundational claims of the restoration are not true, but continue on boldly “because the people need it,” meaning the people need the church. When the Mission President voiced skepticism and named ___ as one who surely did believe, The GA said: “No, he doesn’t.” … 

When I asked the GA how he knew these things, he answered by saying that the Quorum of the Twelve today is more isolated from the Quorums of the Seventies now because there are several of them. When only one Quorum of the Seventy existed, there was more intimacy. During his one on one assignments with an apostle, conversations were more familiar. He said that none of the apostles ever said to him directly that they did not believe; but that it was his opinion based on “my interactions with them.” Also, that none of the Twelve want to discuss “truth issues,” meaning issues regarding the foundational claims of the church.  

The GA stated that my disciplinary action (which would have occurred on the final Sunday of October 2010 had I not resigned), was mandated/ordered/approved by the First Presidency of the Church. I said that if the apostles know the church is not true and yet order a disciplinary hearing for my writing a book that is almost certainly true regarding the foundational claims of the church, then they are corrupt even evil. He replied, “That’s right!” 

The GA said the church is like a weakened dam. At first you don’t see cracks on the face; nevertheless, things are happening behind the scenes. Eventually, small cracks appear, and then the dam will “explode.” When it does, he said, the members are going to be “shocked” and will need scholars/historians like me to educate them regarding the Mormon past. 

The Mission President and the GA both said they attend church every Sunday and feel like “a hypocrite and trapped.” The GA said his ward treats him like a king and when he gives firesides and speaks to LDS congregations they have high expectations of him. He would like to do more in getting the truth out besides raising a few questions when speaking and gifting my book to others when feeling comfortable. Perhaps this is why he has reached out to me. The GA is a man of integrity and very loving. Upon leaving each time, he always gives me a big hug.

Well, he had me until the part about the hug.

OK, a few other parts raise some doubts as well. But first. let me affirm that it’s possible for General Authorities and any other Latter-day Saint to have doubts. Perhaps not as extreme as the doubts revealed when Peter, the Chief Apostle, denied Christ three times, but as long as we’re in mortality, we’ll only have part of the picture and limited knowledge with many rough spots that can become source of irritating questions and doubts. Some leaders have abandoned their membership in the past. We can accept that and should be prepared to occasionally encounter more of it in the future.

But I marvel at the audacity of the claim that all the Apostles soon learn that the Church is bogus. Except poor Dieter, it took him longer because he was an outsider. An analytical German with his brains, free from the cultural blinders and influences of insider Mormon culture, ought to be one of the first to spot problems if it were all a fraud. If Grant Palmer really wrote this, and people are saying that he has confirmed it’s from him, then this allegation reminds me of just how much a stretch it was, in my opinion, when Palmer, in promoting his book, styled himself as a prominent “insider” of Mormonism. 

Who could think that Bruce R. McConkie’s moving final testimony could be delivered, virtually on his deathbed, with such power and conviction by someone who thought it was all bunk and was just going through the motions to hold onto his wealth and fame? When I was 16 years old, I had a brief encounter with Apostle Ezra Taft Benson when I was a youth speaker at our Stake Conference where he was speaking and presiding. I cannot forget the spirit and faith in his heart and eyes when he looked into my soul as he shook my hand and spoke a few words to me. I have no doubt that he truly and passionately believed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As one gets closer to the leaders of the Church, and to those who know them well, it’s hard to miss the depth and power of their personal testimonies. There are obviously plenty of things they don’t know and surely must be areas of uncertainty and doubt, but who can seriously claim that they are willing to discuss “truth issues” (anyone heard Elders Holland or Oaks speak in the past few years?) or suggest that those who rub shoulders with them can see that they all know it’s not true?

The story in question claims that the General Authority, who now looks to Palmer and his book for truth and hope for the rest of the Church, is a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy and was before the other quorums were added. This raises some questions that others have pointed out.  Wikipedia’s list of LDS General Authorities helps us check who is serving in the Quorums of the Seventy and when they were set apart as General Authorities. 

For starters, here is a helpful comment offered on one of my posts where a critic cited Palmer’s story:

Grant Palmer is blowing smoke. He talks about a current member of the First Quorum of Seventy (FQS) who was familiar with how things worked when there was only one quorum of seventy. Number of current members of the FQS who were members when there was only one quorum: 0

Based on Palmer’s memorandum, certainly this mysterious GA would have been a GA before the area seventy quorums were called in April 1995, right? FQS members called before April 1995:

Carlos Amado (based in Central America)

Claudio Costa (based in Brazil)

John Dickson (based in West Africa)

So which of these three GAs, based in far flung corners of the world, is meeting with Palmer on a monthly basis? And that’s before we even get to how on earth this GA would be able to discern it takes 2-3 years for a new apostle to discover the church is not true, but it took DFU a bit longer. It would be hilarious if he wasn’t serious. 

Let’s explore these claims. A good historical resource here is Wikipedia’s article on the LDS concept of the Seventy:

Second Quorum of the Seventy formed 

In 1984, some seventies were appointed to the First Quorum of the Seventy who were not to serve for life, but for terms of several years. In 1989, these limited-term members were separated into a new Second Quorum of the Seventy. At the same time, the general practice was instituted of retiring all members of the First Quorum at the October general conference following their 70th birthdays, or earlier in the case of serious health problems. Some flexibility on the terms of service has emerged in recent years. 

Since 1989, members of the First and Second Quorums have continued as general authorities of the church. Sometimes members are called from the Second Quorum into the First Quorum. 

Since the 1976 merger of First Quorum of the Seventy, seventies are the most usual candidates to become members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Since 1976, three have been called as apostles who did not serve as general authority seventies prior to their call, including Russell M. Nelson, Dallin H. Oaks, and David A. Bednar,^[12]Nelson and Oaks were ordained apostles in 1984 under church president Spencer W. Kimball, and Bednar in 2004 under church president Gordon B. Hinckley.

Area seventies and additional quorums of seventy 

At the April 1995 general conference of the church, church president Gordon B. Hinckley announced the creation of a new leadership position known as the area authority.^[13] The area authorities were to replace the regional representatives who had served as bridge of leadership between the general authorities and the local stakeand mission presidents. In 1997, it was decided that area authorities would be ordained to the office of seventy. As a result, these area authorities were renamed area authority seventies, and the church announced that these new seventies would become members of the newly-created Third, Fourth, and Fifth Quorums of the Seventy.^[14] Later, the title “area authority seventy” was shortened to area seventy, which is the title currently in use. 

Area seventies serve in the various geographic regions of the world called areas in which the church is governed by area presidencies. An international area presidency is typically composed of members of the First and Second Quorums of the Seventy, while areas in the United States and Canada are directed by a member of the Presidency of the Seventy.^[15]In 2004, the Fifth Quorum of the Seventy was divided to create the Sixth Quorum of the Seventy.^[16]

So who is this mysterious General Authority who looks to a better Mormon future thanks to Palmer and his book (or rather, millions of copies of that soon-to-be best seller)? He had to be a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy back in the good ol’ days when life wasn’t so complicated with all those other quorums. 1989 is the key date, for that is when the Second Quorum was formed. So we just have to look at the list of current First Quorum members and eliminate all those who were ordained after roughly 1989, inclusive. Let’s see, that leaves, well, not exactly anybody. Nobody. So that’s looking like a problem. OK, I’m still going to give bonus points for very nice specific dates given for the meetings with the General Authority. That adds a nice granular feel of reality to the story. But the part about the good ol’ days of the First Quorum apparently adds a little too much granularity that can be checked to rule out–sigh–every candidate. That’s a step backward for the credibility of this story that so many are anxious to believe. But don’t give up yet.

Perhaps the wording was off in the story as published or in the words used by the General Authority. Let’s take that statement, “When only one Quorum of the Seventy existed, there was more intimacy” and generously reconstruct it this way: “When only a couple of Quorums of the Seventy existed, before life got so hectic with all those other quorums, there was more intimacy.” Then the critical date is April 1995, and yes, there are actual candidates in the First Quorum who were sustained before then and could conceivably be meeting monthly with guru Grant Palmer.

Here are the candidates:

• John B Dickson, sustained  06 Jun 1992
• Carlos H Amado, sustained  01 Apr 1989
• Claudio R. M. Costa, sustained  02 Apr 1994

One commenter elsewhere suggested that Jay E. Jensen could be a candidate, probably because he had been in the First Quourum of the Seventy and was serving in the Presidency of the Seventy when he was given emeritus status in October 2012. But as Wikipedia’s article on Jay E. Jensen explains, he was was “called to the Second Quorum of the Seventy in 1992 and transferred to the First Quorum of the Seventy in 1995.” That was after the other quorums were added so he would not have been reminiscing about his early intimate days in the First Quorum.

An apparent problem with these candidates is that they have been living and serving far away from Palmer’s territory of Utah. Carlos Amado is from Guatemala and has served and lived in various parts of Latin America. He was assigned as a counselor in the church’s Central America Area in 2011. Not likely to have been meeting with Grant Palmer in Salt Lake, nor to have invited Grant to his home (where, in Guatemala?). Claudio Costa was in the Idaho area for a while, but since 2011 has been assigned to Brazil. Not likely to have been having regular meetings recently with Palmer as his spiritual advisor in 2012.

So that leaves is with John B. Dickinson. I hope it’s not him. If it is, there are some curious details to consider. John is in the First Quorum now, but when he became a General Authority in 1992, he was called to the Second Quorum (same for the other two candidates considered here). It wasn’t until 1995 that he transferred to the First Quorum, and that’s when the other quorums were added, so it really doesn’t fit the story. Plus he’s been assigned to the Africa West Area since 2011. Seems hard to square his facts with the Palmer story.

The story from Palmer seems to imply an old-timer First Quorum member (not Second Quorum member who recently transferred to the First Quorum) who has a home in the Salt Lake City area and spends enough time there to meet several times with Palmer in 2012. Even if we generously reconstruct the story to cushion it with a few extra years after the time when the Second Quorum was added, I really don’t see that anybody in the current First Quorum could fit the very few details provided by Palmer. Even if we had scores of candidates to choose from, there are problems that could cause us to doubt its accuracy, but if we can’t even find a single candidate even with generous interpretations being applied, it would seem to raise legitimate grounds for putting this story on hold as potentially unreliable, pending further clarification. Grant, care to clarify? Give us a few clues? Am I missing something big and simple? Perhaps the next revision will make it more clear.

It is possible that some General Authority out there really is having testimony trouble and thinks  Palmer and his book with its salamander-flavored Golden Pot tale offer unique insights into Mormonism that every Mormon should be taught one day. On the other hand, it’s also possible that the account, with no plausible candidate so far, is a tad delusional. A mean-spirited Mormon apologist might see a self-serving aspect to the story, with Palmer playing too grand a role and his questionable book being too powerful and important, all a potential red flag. I’d be more inclined to accept it if the story were promoting some other random book written by another insider to Mormonism such as, say, Conquering Innovation Fatigue. Hey, why not? That could shake a General Authority’s testimony as well as anything. Why, just the depressing chapter alone on Mormon inventor Philo Farnsworth could do the trick. No need to wait until the dam of truth bursts, either. But that’s another story.

Accurate or not, this story apparently from Palmer will increase publicity for his book and its claims. Here are some resources for you to better understand what Palmer has been up to:

• “Asked and Answered: A Response to Grant H. Palmer” by James B. Allen, FARMS Review, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 235-85. This is an excellent review of Palmer and also a good overview of many basic anti-Mormon criticisms of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. Also points out some glaring deficiencies in Palmer’s approach.
• “Prying into Palmer” by Louis Midgley, FARMS Review, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 365-410. Important revelations about Palmer’s early work, and his fascination with the salamander-related documents from Mark Hoffman that were later exposed as forgeries. An interesting study in cognitive dissonance, perhaps, with an amphibian twist.
• “A Summary of Five Reviews of Grant Palmer’s “An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins” (with a Few Comments of My Own)” by George E. Cobabe. Valuable information about Palmer’s (or his publisher’s) claims to being a special insider and good background material to understand what Palmer is doing with his approach.

Dig into those background stories and then do some thinking about this new story and the red flags it raises. Do you really think it’s plausible? I know a lot of people really want to believe it and love to share this kind of salacious stuff, but we may be dealing with something that is not quite as “truthy” as you may wish. We may soon have a clarification regarding some of the trouble spots that could somehow enhance its plausibility (maybe we’ll be told that it’s not actually a member of the current First Quorum after all, but an Emeritus General Authority, for example, which could add some potential candidates).

If Palmer clarifies the story to correct some trouble spots, perhaps he will also clarify my doubts about the Dieter Uchtdorf statement and its chronology. That little statement how Dieter took longer is the kind of cutesy touch that is great for marketing the story (as is the mysterious failure to name the specific non-believing Apostle listed as “_____”, allowing it to apply to whomever we wish), but the more I think about it, the more problematic it seems. This apostate General Authority learned about the loss of faith of the Apostles during the halcyon days of intimate time with the Apostles before all those other Quorums of the Seventy were formed, which should be before 1989 if we take the text as is or should at least be before April 1995 if we generously redact the text, as done above. The problem is that Dieter Uchtdorf became an Apostle (sustained and ordained) in October 2004. And instead of losing his testimony in the usual 2-3 year period, it took “a little longer,” which should mean 4 years or so, right? So knowledge of how Dieter Uchtdorf finally lost his testimony would not have been available for rumors among the Brethren until 2008 or so, well over a decade after the era in which our renegade brother had easy access to the guarded, implicit information from his close association with Apostles that helped him ascertain the reality of Apostles in secret apostasy. How did he gain this information? If Palmer later revises the story to make the General Authority a current Emeritus, former First Quorum member, I would encourage him for enhanced plausibility to consider that there should be at least one Emeritus candidate who was still active in the First Quorum through 2009 before being given Emeritus status. Indeed, a reasonably plausible Emeritus candidate should have been ordained to the First Quorum of the Seventy before April 1989 and remained active in it through late 2008 or 2009 to. You can quickly look for candidates by scanning the neatly organized data for Emeritus General Authorities on the relevant Wikipedia page. Two possibilities arise that I can see: Charles Didier and Yoshihiko Kikuchi. One from France, another from Japan. Does either continue to live in Salt Lake? I don’t know–can any of you tell me? And is either of these men a hugger?

For someone taking pains to protect the anonymity of the apostate General Authority, Palmer gives details which seem difficult to square with any candidate, though perhaps we can loosen the restrictions to get a couple of Emeritus gentlemen in as candidates. But any candidate needs to live in Utah and to have been at Palmer’s Utah home “on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 and again February 14, 2013″ and then at his own house–not an apartment–on March 26, 2013, where Palmer came to visit. These are specific details, even one very recent detail, that friends, family, and neighbors may be able to confirm or falsify for any of our small (vanishingly small?) pool of candidates.  The renegade General Authority, whose identity needs to be protected, also has a non-believing wife who is also a fan of Palmer’s book, and the General Authority has been giving Palmer’s book out as a gift, presumably to more than just the Mission President it helped convert away from Mormonism. These are details that are hard to hide and should make it easy to either pinpoint the General Authority (“hey, thanks, Grant, for protecting my identity so well!”) or, more likely, ask difficult questions for which no answers may come.  No, I am not trying to “out” the General Authority because I suspect there is no one to out. 

Maybe we’ll get a revision that makes the story more plausible, or perhaps another little dam may burst as other aspects of this story buckle under the stress of investigation. But I suspect the story will live on in its current form, regardless of its problems, hugs and all, with many devout nonbelievers scoring it as important evidence for their preconceived notions about the Church. For those looking for truth, though, I hope they might recognize this story as part of a large body of accusations that are often not quite accurate, not quite fair, or sometimes not even close to true.

If, after suitable revisions to this story, it becomes more plausible and it turns out that there really is an apostate General Authority meeting with Palmer, saying unkind things about the Apostles and the Church, and passing out copies of Palmer’s book to mission presidents and others, then I’ll be disappointed. As I said before, there are more interesting books to be giving out.

Update, April 15, 2013: 

One of my readers has observed that one of three specific days mentioned by Palmer is Feb. 14, 2013, Valentine’s Day. He wondered if it makes sense that a married General Authority would go visit Grant Palmer then instead of going on a date. Not a big concern. Perhaps the meeting was just during the day, with plenty of time for a romantic date later. But the decision to mention the specific dates for three meetings with the General Authority raises some questions. Why do this when you are supposedly trying to protect a person’s identity? In business, personal, and religious contexts, I’ve been in the situation of being allowed to share a little information from someone who wanted their identify protected, and know how important it is to consider and preferably get approval for specific details that might be interesting or helpful but could also be used to pinpoint the person. Knowing where an anonymous person was on specific dates can be used to screen possibilities and should be considered sensitive. The specific dates are great for the story, great for a sense of reality, but give away too much. Here, it should be easy for people in the Church to see which General Authorities were in town on those days and which were away on business. Just call a few admins or check with the travel office and find out who was in town on those dates, or see if anybody in a pool of candidates was in town. Those specific dates by themselves probably greatly narrow the list down to very few–or again, perhaps nobody. General Authorities are often outside of Salt Lake and there might not be any member of the First Quorum who was in town all three days.

In spite of these problems, I am inclined to believe that if Grant Palmer really wrote this (I have an independent source claiming that there is good evidence it’s from Grant), then there must be something behind it. Like most critics, the arguments he has raised against the Church in the past all have something behind them, even when it’s really far-fetched like the whole Golden Pot “parallels” to the Book of Mormon. I can’t imagine it just being entirely concocted–that would be too foolish and harmful. So I suppose there must be some person who is talking to Grant who is either a General Authority or very close to a General Authority, or at least looks and sounds a lot like a General Authority. Or maybe it’s Elder Ken Jennings, perhaps the most famous Mormon general authority of all, or rather, a true authority in general, able to score big in almost every category known to Jeopardy. Please don’t tell me he’s the one!

Seriously, though, there may be explanations and fixes for the seemingly problematic details in the story (apart from the really silly notion that all Apostles learn while serving that the Church is bogus). But I can imagine someone passing this bogus information onto Grant. The problems that seem to rule out all or most potential candidates may be because of inaccurate writing, poor memory, typographical errors, exaggeration or even fibs from the person being interviewed, errant assumptions on my part, flaws in the data I’m using, or other missing details that would reveal how I’m misinterpreting or abusing the statement or at least what should be in the statement. So I’m curious. What’s the real scoop? Grant, or friends and supporters of Grant, can you answer any of these questions or give us further information? Perhaps even a clue could help (e.g., “last name rhymes with a Lithuanian dessert”). It looks like there are some real problems, but, as someone once said, “We are here to learn.”