From the book: One day I picked up our clicking phone to hear a strange, rasping male voice, "Now here's what I think," said the voice. "I think that people who speak out against the Gospel shouldn't be Church members. They should be dis-membered." The voice paused to let this clever word play have its full effect. "I'd be happy to dismember you," it concluded. There was a click (I presumed that was Strengthening the Membership hanging up) and then an other click (that was the caller bidding adieu)
Even years later, writing this, I can feel the twinges of that old terror. I've read too much about the Danites, seen too many religious fanatics worship at my father's fee, taken too many death vows to think that Mormonism has no dark side. I don't think most people realize how much the Latter-day Saint's history of quietly perpetrated violence still resonates throughout the community, what a powerful agent of social control it still is. Just after deciding to write this book, I confessed my fears to a non-Mormon friend from New York. She thougt it was hilarious that I was scared of the Latter-day Saints. "It's like having a Bambi-phobia," she said. "What are they going to do, kill you?" I felt so braced and grounded by this conversation, so free from paranoia, that I called an other friend, an ex-Mormon from Utah and described what I planned to write. "They'll kill you," she said immediately, without a trace of levity." (Capitalization as in the original)
http://farms.byu.edu/publications/nibleyfamilystatement.php
NIBLEY FAMILY RESPONSE TO MARTHA BECK�S �LEAVING THE SAINTS�
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