Mormon Church Strengthening The Members Committee...
by Stumbling Mar 2012
In the recent BBC TV programme 'The Mormon Candidate', Reporter Michael Sweeney gained two senior confirmations of the current existence of this secretive (oops...sacred) sub-organisation within the Mormon Church. The two people directly asked about this secret Committee were Elder Jeffrey Holland and Senior Church PR Manager Michael Purdy.
In both cases, their initial reaction was to deny knowledge of this Committee (known as 'lying'), but when pressed subsequently confirmed that it does exist (known as 'being caught out in a lie').
When asked about it's purpose and modus operandi Michael Purdy (after breaking eye contact, visibly shrinking in his chair and his face turning bright pink) stated that he didn't know anything about what it did.
Elder Holland on the other hand, had to be led to the answer that it's primary purpose was to protect the Saints against Polygamists. Sweeney picked up on that and followed up by asking what it's secondary purposes were. Cue Holland shifting uncomfortably in his seat and waffling for a short while. He then confirmed that it did also observe and monitor other people/members who might be a risk to the faith of the other members but that he didn't sit on the Committee and so didn't know the details of what it did.
So what did we learn for sure about this Committee?
1. It exists and operates today, right now.
2. It monitors members who it perceives as not towing the line to the extent their behaviour may affect others.
3. It is secretive and shadowy.
4. It's activities are such that senior Church leaders are uncomfortable talking about it and would be, initially, prepared to lie about it's existence and purpose.
We can also surmise that:
5. Tithing pays the wages of the people working full time for the Committee.
6. The Committee actively monitors online forums such as this one.
7. People like Grant Palmer and Michael Quinn have been victims of this Committee.
The one true Church of God on the earth today...yeah right...
freeman
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
How far does it reach? Is it just a Utah thing, or are there branches and outposts in every country where there are Mormons?
Makes me wonder whether somebody in the UK is reading my posts and trying to figure out who I am. The church is so small here that everybody is connected within a couple of degrees.
Also makes you wonder what sort of Mormon can actively seek things that might harm faith on the internet, and not have their own faith harmed in the process? I can only assume the paycheques help in this regard.
Stumbling
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
The committee activity will mostly be cyber based (operating out of the COB in Salt Lake City AFAIK) so yes, if you are perceived as a threat to the faith of the members then they will try and find out who you are regardless of where in the world you live.
But, for them to utilise this information is to put themselves in the spotlight - something they go to great lengths to avoid. Were your Bishop to sit you down and say 'listen freeman, I've heard about your online activity and I need to discipline you' you would be able to ask some embarrassing questions about how he came about that information.
More likely they would find a cover excuse - exactly what happened to Palmer, Quinn and Southerton, as a means of ousting and discrediting you.
Not nice people on the widows mite payroll and Christ will have some awkward questions for them when they die!
grubbygert
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
Strengthening the Membership Committee
"The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture, and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy; they are deliberate exercises in DOUBLETHINK."
1984
freeman
+1
It's truly scary how similar TSCC is to 1984. It's almost like they used the novel as a blueprint for how to run a successful cult.
enoughenoch19
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
WELL SAID grubbygert! I now believe that the top GAs (Monson included) and all other profits they've ever had have known from the beginning of their climbing the church ladder days that it was all a sham.Thoses big wigs have NO TESTIMONIES about God and Jesus and the so called Gospel anyway. They worship greed and are EVIL.
As in the Orwell 1984 book, everything concerns itself with opposites. I think that little kids are the ones who have the most sincere testimony in terms TBM testimony. Kids believe in lots of imaginary things. As people get older, they gradually lose their testimonies as they lost the belief in Santa etc - the stronger the testimony was as a child, the longer it takes to go sour, in general terms. By the time the guy is ready for the upper crust of TSCC, they can't possibly have any testimony at all, but have given over to pure greed and that is what fuels them, not God. But they pretend they have a strong testimony because it is all about tricks and opposites, say the opposite of what you believe etc. They have to keep the watchdogs on anyone (like this board) who could do any so called harm to the people somewhere between the non-believer high ups and the TBMs. Before a member can become a higher up non-testimony person, all of the other high ups have to be sure the newbee is sufficiently trustworthy to not tell the real truth, but to continue pretending to have a testimony. I would bet my house on the fact that not one of the 15 has one molecule of testimony abuot TSCC. They are all lying. But, who wants to lose out on such a great deal? The pats on the back continue especially for the rich white ones. Their entire lives are like the characters in 1984, the book. Sometimes I just think to myself "WHAT'S THE POINT?"
enoughenoch19
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
The Strengthening Members COmmittee serves to make the members weaker in the their testimonies. Signed, Orwell
rt
There is a lot of info on this committee
but it dates mostly to the 1990s. This is excellent work by the BBC, getting a confirmation on tape that the committee is still in operation.
I'm going to assemble the material I have for an article on my site - keep you posted.
forbiddencokedrinker
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
They need a more obscure name. I suggest the Council of Fifty.
DNA
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
I wouldn’t at all be surprised if the Church doesn’t have a subscription of some sort from the Palantir professional snooping company. The church has the billions to buy the best of anything it wants. It has the low morals that would allow it to do anything and pass it off as doing something great for the Lord. So what would stop it from using whatever is available?
If writing out a check could secretly get them all the information that could possibly want on anyone, why wouldn’t they do it? I’m not saying why shouldn’t they do it, buy why wouldn’t they do it?
http://www.businessweek.com/printer/magazine/palantir-the-vanguard-of-cy...
Zig
Dan Peterson was/is a SCMC agent
Daniel C. Peterson was/is a member of the SCMC.
He wrote on the FAIR board several years ago:
"[sic] .. was once sent out, a number of years ago, as a kind of "agent" of the Strengthening Church Members Committee. My mission? To try to help a member of the Church whose apostasy was threatening his marriage and causing anguish to his very active wife, children, and parents. (The wife and parents, and his stake president, has asked for help.) The weapons of choice? Talking with him for about four hours in Salt Lake City, in the presence of his wife and stake president, and recommending some readings."
deco
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
Any chance of the BBC clip being uploaded to youtube?
anagrammy
To The Strengthening The Members Committee member reading this
I would like to address this post to the member(s) of the Strengthening the Members Committee who are monitoring this site.
Earlier today I posted something I want to make sure you see. It is a suggestion for a simple axiom upon which to rely to make decisions about the things you involve yourself with.
It makes a difference the kind of work you do, whether for pay or as a volunteer. We all should have Right Livelihood. This may be an unfamiliar phrase to you because it is not part of the Mormon lexicon. It is jargon from Buddhism and it means work that does no harm. I know that you feel you are doing good when you help people who are struggling with their faith, or when you report people who are causing others to struggle with their faith.
Here is a thought for you to consider when evaluation whether your job is a positive contribution to the world.
What if it is necessary for people to struggle with their faith? What if they need to have it tested--and the people around them who are leaving Mormonism are essential tools in the Lord's work?
I honestly believe that each person must individuate in their faith the same way that people grow up and individuate as adults. They sift through what their parents taught them and decide for themselves which values, all values, no values that they were taught by their parents will be adopted in their new life as an adult. In this process they own these values.
You have chosen Mormon values and around you are people at all levels of belief. Some firm, some not firm. There is no need to pretend that everyone is the same. You know that isn't true in your heart, and I think it's probably ok for everyone to be on the path where they are with their testimony.
So your paid job is to influence/threaten those who are posting here and elsewhere. Using punishment of disfellowship or excommunication in a Court of Love is a mockery of Christ's plan in the pre-existence. Did he not die for free agency? Is not the use of force Satan's plan? So why are you using force?
I say you rather than the church because you are free to seek other employment if you are a true believer. I urge you to stop promoting Satan's plan and to seek for integrity in your own life as a number one priority. Be authentically Mormon and follow Christ's plan of non-compulsion.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s play Richelieu opened in London (March 1839). In act 2, Cardinal Richelieu speaks the now famous lines,
True, This!—
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword.
He meant of course that effective leadership depends on persuasion, not on force. In the work of spying on members to see if they are speaking evil against the Lord's anointed, you are attempting to impede the power of such men. Please consider reading this article by Jeffrey S. O’Driscoll and Hal B Gregerson, “‘Persuasion and Love Unfeigned’: The Exercise of Agency, Influence, and Principle,” in Joseph and Hyrum—Leading as One ed. Mark E. Mendenhall, Hal B Gregersen, Jeffrey S. O’Driscoll, Heidi S. Swinton, and Breck England, (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2010), which discusses the ethics involving the use of force:
http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/joseph-and-hyrum-leading-one/persuasion-and-...
Especially this excerpt:
"If we hope to lead souls to Christ, we must work toward pure means of influence—means that honor the agency of others. Indeed, Joseph taught, 'If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.'(38)"
[38] Smith, History of the Church, 5:499.
Thanks for reading my posts. Feel free to email me at anagrammy@gmail.com. I am more than willing to answer your questions confidentially and have helped people in your position in the past (just don't ask me for names) haha!
Anagrammy
Boilermaker
I'm glad the church forced me to resign
That way I can't be strengthened anymore. I was given a choice of resigning or being excommunicated by a church court. I chose to resign because my wife and kids are active members, and I didn't want them to have to go through my excommunication process. All because I joined the Catholic Church. I never told anyone in the local church and my wife didn't either, but I'm guessing somehow they figured out who I was because of comments I made incognito on a Catholic list. It took them about two years after my Catholic baptism to find out since nobody in my family talked about it. Who knows if the strengthening members committee was involved. All I know is their decision to get rid of me has made it even less likely I will ever go back. There have been a few times when going back for social reasons looked inviting, but their decision to toss me out makes it highly unlikely I would ever return.
rutabaga
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
That would be the Council of YTFIF
Glo
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
The Mormon KGB is alive and well.
Your tithes at work.
nonmo_1
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
"The committee activity....so yes, if you are perceived as a threat to the faith of the members then they will try and find out who you are regardless of where in the world you live."
I take this as if you are a WELL-KNOWN mormon...aka high ranking official or a celebrity...then you CAN AFFECT the faith of other members...so by that, this church sanctioned group's job is to shut you up...anyway possible....
CA girl
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
I found this admission to be the scariest part of what was reported covered in the interview. It's one thing to know from hearing stories and reading research that a program like this exists but to hear it from the insiders, that different somehow.
It's crazy that they even think this is OK - that they can't see it for how evil it is.
sayhitokolob4me
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
Someone who knows how (not me) should do a wiki entry on this committee.
Ann
Re: The Strengthening The Members Committee...
Here is the youtube clip. Holland is about 2 minutes into the clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9v2GxDs4To
Phantom Shadow
1980 when church did nefarious stuff to defeat the ERA
I was surprised (and many I shouldn't have been) when in a letter he wrote to me Gordon Hinckley quoted from my recent letter to the editor published in the LA Times. I doubt he read all the newspapers himself, so someone monitored the press and pointed it out to him. At that time it was called a clipping service, but we know now that it went far beyond that.
"Recovery from Mormonism - www.exmormon.org"