Elder Anderson, I don't think you thought through all of your comments about Joseph Smith the other day, so I decided to help you..
You quoted Neil A. Maxwell in your talk: “Studying the Church … through the eyes of its defectors,” Elder Neal A. Maxwell once said, is “like interviewing Judas to understand Jesus. Defectors always tell us more about themselves than about that from which they have departed.”
I would just like to point out to you that whenever you make a statement like that, make sure to follow it all the way through and realize the implications. Joseph Smith was a defector from mainstream Christianity, as was Brigham Young, and many of the current members of the LDS church. So does this mean that we are not supposed to learn about Christianity from Mormons? After all they are defectors or were founded by defectors, so if we follow your advice, we really should not learn about Christianity from them.
Also what about the American revolutionaries? What about Martin Luther? Are all these people supposed to be thrown in the waste basket of "defectors" and ignored?
Often it is the defectors of history that we most admire, because they were able to stand up for truth and honesty when everything and everyone around them told them just to stay with the group. Here are some famous defectors:
Moses defected from his Egyptian family and the ways of the Egyptians and went to Israel.
Jesus Christ defected from the current religious practices of the time.
Martin Luther defected from the Catholicism ("I cannot and will not recant").
George Washington defected from the British crown.
Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin did also. "Give me liberty or give me death!")
Joseph Smith defected from the religious teachings of his time.
In fact every large religious movement was started by a defector. So unless you want to throw out the testimonies of Moses, Martin Luther, Joseph Smith, and even Jesus Christ, you probably should not throw "defectors" under the bus.
regards,
The Mormon Virgin.
