Saturday, November 30, 2002
BY PATTY HENETZ
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A graduate student at the University of Washington says he likely
will be excommunicated next week for articles he has written questioning
the validity of the Book of Mormon.
Thomas W. Murphy, 35, wrote an article in the May 2002 Signature
Books anthology American Apocrypha that used genetic data to discredit
the Book of Mormon claim that American Indians are descendants of
ancient Israel. The conclusion also is the thesis of his doctoral
dissertation.
"We're told to tell the truth, but not if the truth contradicts
church doctrine. I would prefer to tell the truth," Murphy said.
Lavina Fielding Anderson, who in 1993 was excommunicated along with
several other historians, biblical scholars and amateur theologians,
said Murphy is one of at least three scholars similarly threatened with
expulsion or excommunicated in the past three months.
"It's kind of deja vu, a repeat of things we've seen several times
in the past," said Brent Metcalf, who edited the anthology. "This is it
for Tom, I think."
Murphy, chairman of the anthropology department at Edmonds Community
College in Lynnwood, Wash., will face a church disciplinary council Dec.
8. There, he will be allowed to make a statement and council members may
try to change his mind about the Book of Mormon.
He won't, because he has made it his quest to expose racism in the
scriptures, starting with the teaching that American Indians are
descendants of Middle Easterners known as Lamanites, the heathen
antagonists in the Book of Mormon.
Mormons believe the Book of Mormon is a history of the Americas
beginning in 600 B.C. Scripture teaches that a group of Lamanites who
decided to forgo violence and war became Christians -- and white.
"That's racist," Murphy said. "If we present the Book of Mormon as
the history of the Americas, the racist depictions of Lamanites hurt
real people."
He also objects to church teachings that dark skin is a curse from
God. Murphy questioned the lack of minority representation in church
leadership, the church's political campaigns against women's and
homosexual rights and "the policy of excommunicating scholars who
honestly confront problems with church history and doctrines."
In a Tuesday e-mail to Signature Books, Anderson said the two other
scholars under fire were hoping to avoid public exposure. "Such
ecclesiastical actions are deeply distressing," she wrote.
Anderson was excommunicated after she presented a history of
ecclesiastical troubles between church leaders, scholars and feminists
at a Sunstone conference on Mormon scholarship in 1992.
High-profile excommunications waned significantly after current
church President Gordon B. Hinckley was ordained in 1995.
Dale Bills, church spokesman, declined to comment specifically on
Murphy's case.
"Matters of church discipline are handled on a confidential basis
between church members and their local leaders. Local church leaders
determine what, if any, disciplinary action is appropriate," Bills said.
Trent Stevens, a professor of anatomy and embryology at Idaho State
University in Pocatello, met Murphy two years ago when both were
panelists at a Sunstone symposium looking at the Book of Mormon and
science.
He agrees with Murphy's genetics data that virtually all DNA samples
so far analyzed link the genetic markers in the current Indian
population with native Siberians. But he disagrees with what Murphy has
concluded.
The Book of Mormon, Stevens said, makes no claim that every American
Indian descended from the original displaced Israelites.
"Scientific evidence says that's not the case," Stevens said. But
that doesn't mean the Book of Mormon is a fiction.
"The issue is, it was stated by Joseph Smith that the Book of Mormon
is the keystone of our religion," Stevens said. "So when you look at
genetic and anthropological data regarding native Americans, and say the
data prove the book is not of ancient origin, I would say that's grounds
for excommunication."
Murphy, who described himself as active in Mormon intellectual
circles but not a regular churchgoer, said being excommunicated will
hurt his relationship with his southern Idaho family, descendants of the
first Mormon pioneers.
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