Just finished reading a short bio of Brigham Young's son, John Willard Young.

According to the article, Brigham Young "privately ordained" his son, John Willard, as an APOSTLE. . . at age 11.
(what a fine son he must have had!)

John was RE-confirmed 9 years later along with his brothers. But since there were already 12 apostles they boys weren't actually in the Quorum of the 12. (Kind of like an Adjunct Apostle?)

John Willard Young moved away to live in New York and engaged in various business ventures, and did VERY badly at it and racked up a lot of debt. The church leadership really didn't approve of him (probably because he was a bad businessman and wasn't in a position to give money to the church).

Now AT THAT TIME, whoever was an APOSTLE the longest would be next in line as president of the church. And John Willard, having been an apostle since he was 11, was next in line after the death of Lorenzo Snow. The church leadership, however, CHANGED the rules just before that could happen, so that one had to actually be in THE QUORUM OF THE TWELVE the longest to become the next president.

So when John Willard showed up in Salt Lake after Lorenzo Snow died, he found out he was out of luck.

John Willard returned to New York where it says he became an ELEVATOR OPERATOR. That's one way to move up!

BTW - John Willard's son, another upstanding citizen, was convicted of a murder and got a life sentence in Sing Sing.

Looks like most of this information came from a book by Todd Compton, but I was reading it in Wikipedia.

I was just reading this same subject, stuff I hadn't heard about before. I found this out by listening to Bushman on the POD cast. http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1572842,1572974#msg-1572974

When my shelf broke, I was totally anti-B.Y. I figured Joseph might have been a real prophet because I was finding all these things on Brigham (Blacks and priesthood, getting rid of the council of 50, trash talking Emma, leaving widows/women to fend for themselves, etc...) So I almost joined CoC. Then I discovered what Joseph said and did (all of this was before CES letter, etc...)

Now I'm not sure who was Lucifer and who was Belzeebub? Brigham definitely was just as much of liar, thief, egotist as J.S.; yet he had changed all of the order, structure, purpose of the Church Joseph Smith had set up. It's like asking who was worse Hitler or Stalin? Smith or Young?

To me that question is irrelevant. JS and BY were both very evil men who used their ability to attract followers to meet their own needs for power and influence. The world would have been a better place if they had never been born.

D. Michael Quinn's excellent 'Mormon Hierarchy - Extensions of Power' has a detailed discussion and charts of the direct family connections of the Mormon GA's. Several GA's complained when Joseph F. Smith was appointing all his direct relatives to high positions. Joseph and Brigham, of course, had done the same before him.

As an aside, when my high school buddy and I decided to leave the CULT after the papyri were re-discovered and translated, I jokingly told him with his last name being "Young" he should stick with it as he had a potential future. I pointed out my last name had never appeared in one of the chosen lines so there was no reason for me to stay.

Nepotism is alive and well in the CULT - and always has been.

As a follow up, in my younger naive days, I once asked a knowledgeable person why so many family members are appointed and was told in all seriousness that "superior spirits are born to gods leaders so it only follows that they would be appointed."

Mormonism always seems to have an answer to everything!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2015 02:31PM by Templar.

Templar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a follow up, in my younger naive days, I once
> asked a knowledgeable person why so many family
> members are appointed and was told in all
> seriousness that "superior spirits are born to
> gods leaders so it only follows that they would be
> appointed."

That's how it had worked in monarchies, and Mormonism is the Kingdom of God, right?

The "Family" insider (nepotism) always bothered me too. Although I have Morm cred all the way back to Palmyra, it's all through my Mom's side; so my Surname is not a high ranking name because my dad was a convert.

Anyway, this lead me down a totally different rabbit hole and that was the Preaching, Usage and Loss of the Patriarchal Priesthood. This "Priesthood" was the basis of Joseph Smith III to be the next prophet, because of lineage. It also was the priesthood for sealings and eternal marriage. It is hereditary only; yet the corp started justifying it away as absorbed into the Melchezidik priesthood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchal_priesthood

The thing is, when I was a kid IN the church, I was taught that it was the REFORMED church that wanted to rule by nepotism, and of course that was not GOD'S way. The LORD would choose who would run his church.

So now I find out that Brigham Young was ALL ABOUT nepotism himself, and so that whole explanation was just plastic surgery.

The kid was too young to even be ordained a deacon.

It was the "Will of Heavenly Father." He can change the rules whenever He wants through His anointed prophet.

Brigham Young Hijacked and took over the MORmON religion when Joseph Smith was killed. Young ended up with the largest splinter segment of MORmON faithFOOL when the fracture of MORmONISM due to Smith's death occurred. Brigham Young wanted to create a personal dynasty and he did. He also wanted to create a family legacy based on being in control of the MORmON flock that Brigham had managed to take over. That did not go as well. "THE" Church's assets and Brigham Young's assets were completely intertwined at the time of Brigham Young's death. Getting the church's assets away from Brigham Young's estate and back to THE church was a huge endeavor / struggle for the remaining MORmON leadership breathUrine. The Church has been very leery of BY's descendants ever since. Young's descendants feel slighted because there has not been more them called to the highest leadership positions in "THE" (Brighamite) church. If they had their way, the quorum of the 12 would be littered with Youngs, and Several, if not ALL of the succeeding LD$ Inc presidents/ PRofits would have been Youngs. Many of the Young's are irritated that control of the MORmON religion (BUSINESS EMPIRE) has slipped out of their control. They were very irritated that Larry Miller ended up with prime money generating venues like the local professional basketball team, instead of them.

I don't know when it's an appropriate time to bring this up, Smirkorama, I enjoy the things you write, but when you consistently do the "LD$", "MORmON", and "ASSpostHOLE" thing, it takes away from the quality of what you're writing about.

Just saying. You can do whatever you want, it's just food for thought.

+1

I'll second that. It makes it harder to read. However, I do agree that Mormon shorted is moron perhaps for a reason. Maybe Joe chose the word on purpose.

A conjunction on Mormon and moron and Moroni all in one.

Butt really